Rough Heat

by Marina Vivancos

“Wow,” Leo joked, “place mats. Didn’t know you guys were so fancy.” “Good thing we didn’t pull out our white tablecloth and china plates, huh?” Josh replied. “Oh, well, now I’m just insulted. Not worth the good stuff, huh?” “We reserve that for royalty like Beyoncé. Or Prince.” “So, I have some bad news about Prince…” “This is a ghost-friendly house.”

“Wow, comfy bed. Thousand-count sheets?” Josh snorted. “These sheets are as old as time. I think it’s just the constant washing that makes them soft.” “God, I’m in bed with a couple of peasants,” Leo joked, smiling wide when Damon snorted loudly.

Leo ignored the pull in his chest as Damon washed him carefully, massaging his scalp as he shampooed his hair. In the billowing steam, they looked at each other, lips inches away, and Leo felt like he was drowning.

Leo smiled, butterflies gnawing at his stomach lining with their evil little butterfly mouths.

It all of a sudden became too much, head spinning. “Wait,” he said, and for the first time in his life, that word made the people he was with stop what they were doing immediately.

Most days, he felt spread thin, like people were taking bits of him and not giving anything back. For now, though, he could pretend he was whole, and that he could give it all to whomever he wanted.

His job was fine. He was fine. Everything was fine.

“You think I can’t find my mates during rut?” Everything went very, very quiet except for Leo’s heart, which started pounding loudly in his ears. Mates. Not mate, singular. Mates.

He picked up all the pieces of himself that had fallen out, pressed them into a place where it hurt, and opened the bathroom door.

Leo could do this—he could pretend his heart wasn’t full and aching with Damon and Josh. He’d survived worse.

ouch ouch ouch ouch

There was nothing to think about. It’d been a normal day, and he was fine.

Nothing had happened. It just felt like someone had scooped out all his insides and replaced them with something rotting and heavy and gross.

couldn’t sleep, and he didn’t want to eat, and he didn’t want to be touched, and he didn’t want to be called a whore and a slut, and he didn’t want people to look at him like they owned him, like they could do anything to him and it wouldn’t matter.

Leo smiled and felt the happiness wash through him.

All his memory had truly captured was Leo standing at the foot of trees that seemed to go on forever, up, up, up into the sky and into space and further, and feeling blown away that such a thing could exist. That Leo could be so small, and so alive, and so young, and be beside this great old thing filled with some foreign power he would never know. It wasn’t an eloquent train of thought at the time, but he could still call back the feeling of being taken over by an emotion bigger than him, the way nature could humble and awe you at the same time.

Josh draped over Leo, kissing his face all over, and Damon did the same to his shoulders and neck until Leo was drowning happily in love.

Leo laughed. “Did you guys just…propose to me?” “I mean…” Josh’s eyes were glowing. So was Leo’s heart.