After the Last Bus

The last bus was at 12:40. We watched it go. He said, “Oops,” without meaning it. I was twenty-four, he was twenty-six, skinny as a rumor, jacket hanging off him like he had borrowed a life one size up.

The walk was twenty minutes if you did not stop. We stopped. Under a scaffold he kissed me because the street was empty enough to allow it. His mouth was cold. His hands were not.

At my building he hesitated on the step. “If I come up, I am not doing the polite twenty minutes and a glass of water.”

“Good,” I said.

Upstairs he dropped the jacket and I saw again how little there was of him — thin chest, a stomach you could almost span, beauty with no padding. I wanted that specifically. I said so. He went pink and pleased.

We undressed like we were late for something. He asked me how I wanted it. I told him I wanted him in me, and the sentence landed between us like a key. He took his time opening me, talking when I tensed, laughing once when I swore at him for being too gentle. Then he gave me the rest.

It was quiet sex, the kind you have when the building is asleep and you are trying not to become a story for the neighbors. I came first, shaking. He followed, forehead to mine, the jacket still on the floor like a witness.

In the morning he missed another bus on purpose. I made coffee. He stole my socks. Missing things, it turned out, was a skill we shared.