Cully smiled softly, probably remembering that Christmas too. Remembering the moment when he’d come privately to thank Dante, even though the whole gang’s name had been on the big box under the Christmas tree. Remembering the way he’d been as happy as a child, jumping on his toes, until Dante had put his hands solidly on Cully’s slender shoulders and held him in place, still vibrating with glee.
Remembering the tender moment between them, when Cully had raised his face to be kissed and Dante had responded, and how easy and familiar their mouths had felt fused together, because they’d been kissing a lot since that first night in the dorms. They’d practiced it, gotten good at it, gotten bolder and more erotic with their touches.
No no no… that’s not how it had happened.
Cully had simply hugged him, that was all. That was all he remembered that day in the kitchen.
“What would you rather do?” Cully had asked that day. The day in the kitchen. When they were roommates and hadn’t kissed, hadn’t made love at all.
“I don’t know,” Dante replied with a shrug. “I mean, this is good. I do like having people read my stuff. I don’t know what I’d do otherwise. But I want to find a thing. Like Jordan’s bugs or Alex’s bike riding. It doesn’t have to make me money, you know, but it’s like the ocean. I love being at the ocean. It gets me out of bed every morning when we visit. Not that I want to live there or leave all my friends. I want to find a thing I can do when I’m not there.”
Cully leaned forward, a plump little moue on his mouth in sympathy. “I… I want you to have a reason to get out of bed too,” he said, and then his eyes crinkled at the corners and his mouth twisted, as though he’d realized how inappropriate that sounded between two friends who had never kissed at all.
Except they had. Dante remembered his taste, the silk of his skin under Dante’s rough palms, the little gasps he made when Dante sucked on his neck.
“I mean,” Dante said, swallowing, mesmerized as he always was by Cully’s exotic smell, by his eyes, by the plumpness of his lower lip. “I do have a reason to get up in the morning,” he confessed nakedly. “You know that.” He gave a shy smile and peered up at Cully through his lashes, hoping Cully would understand what he meant.
“Of course I do,” Cully whispered. “It’s the same reason I have to get up in the morning. It’s the perfect reason. It’s you.”
Dante’s mouth parted, and he and Cully drew in like they were on magnets, except the pull was deeper, stronger, than any magnet. They belonged together, had kissed many times. Their day would not be complete, the birds would not sing in the trees, the light would not illuminate the sky if their lips did not touch, and then their hands, and then their souls. Cully’s lips brushed his, and he gasped, greedy, wanting more. Who cared if he was working here? Who cared if they’d made love the night before? He gripped Cully’s biceps, and Cully moaned, melting against him, their chests heaving as they plundered each other’s mouths, slid their hands under each other’s clothes, fell into desire as they’d fallen again and again and again….
And never.
They’d never kissed like that. They didn’t this morning, a few months after they’d moved in, either. Dante had paused and licked his lips and Cully did the same, and Dante had—instead of kissing him, as he’d longed to do for years—told him the truth, which was something else he’d done for years.
“You work so hard,” he said gruffly. “You labor over your designs, you agonize over your stitches—when you’re not sewing, you’re knitting, and when you’re not knitting, you’re watching period dramas and taking notes.”
Cully gave a modest shrug. “Sometimes I knit and watch period dramas and take notes.”
“I’m in awe of you, Thomas Cully Cromwell. I want something with your passion, that’s all.”
Cully nodded and gave him a weak pat on his arm, and judging by the sheepish expression on his face, he knew it was weak and sad too.
That kiss they hadn’t had—it had been real. They were supposed to be making love on the kitchen floor right now. But they weren’t, and the wrongness of that set Dante’s teeth on edge. With a yank he pulled his attention from Cully, from the disappointment that was swallowing him whole, and focused back on his day job, which he at least understood.
NOW, in the present, Dante stared at his screen, alone in the kitchen, his brain a big foggy swirl. He could swear they’d kissed then. They’d kissed in that moment like they’d kissed all the moments before. Except they hadn’t kissed in that moment, and they’d never kissed, and Cully had never wanted him like Dante had wanted Cully.
Except he did. They had. They must have!
Goddammit, Dante was so confused.
“Cully!” he cried into the confines of their little house. “Cully, are you here?”
As an answer he got the whirring of Cully’s sewing machine. Okay. Cully was here. Dante was going to talk to him. They were going to have that conversation they were supposed to have the morning after the miscast spell. They were going to have the conversation they should have had in the dorm room, or on Jordan’s parents’ deck, or in their own damned kitchen, not once but a thousand thousand times.
They were going to talk about why they weren’t making love, and then, oh by God, they were going to make love! Dante couldn’t understand how he could have lived this long with this tearing ache in his stomach and the elixir of health in the bedroom next to his, and not to have asked, not once, if he might sip from the glass decanter.
He stood up and took a step toward Cully’s room, then glanced out the window and screamed.
“Dante, are you okay?” Cully’s voice came faintly from his room.
“Oh my God. Cully, have you seen the fuckin’ owls outside? There’s, like, three of them, and they keep flying toward the window and looking at us! And ravens. Oh my God, it’s fuckin’ wild kingdom out here!”
“The squirrels are doing something hinky out my window,” Cully said. “But I don’t see any owls.”
A part of Dante was really alarmed, but a part of him was so relieved at the sound of Cully’s voice. It was like he hadn’t heard him for weeks, but that was silly, right? In spite of the weird vertigo and the frequent trips down memory lane, it had only been, what? A day since they’d awakened on Alex and Barty’s couch? But it felt like longer.
How long could it be? The guys would have come in to check on them, right?
Almost to answer his question, there was a knock on the door, and Kate came in almost immediately, a box of groceries in her arms.
She saw him standing at the table and gave a little squeak, but recovered quickly. Dante thought she must have had her mind on something else because the relieved smile on her heart-shaped face was beautiful and pure Kate.
“Hey, Dante,” she said. “How’re you guys doing?”
“Good,” he said, then frowned. “Were those outside?”
“I intercepted the delivery guy,” she said. “And tipped him.”
Dante grunted. He was usually the guy who had the groceries delivered. He must have this time as well, but he didn’t remember doing it. “Well, here,” he said. He reached his arms out for them, but she shook her head.