Heaven on Earth

By J. Night

WARNING!!! This story contains scenes featuring homosexual intercourse, some language, and a touch of violence. It is intended for mature individuals only.

Also! While this story does contain religious themes, it is in no way meant to be a commentary on (or shot at) Christianity or any other religion.

If you have an aversion to any of the aforementioned items, or are under the age of eighteen, it might be in your best interests to find some other source of entertainment. To everyone else: Thank you for giving Heaven on Earth a chance, and I hope you enjoy it.

Part I: Second Chances

Chapter 1

The inside of the club seemed to Isaac like a cramped closet filled with people instead of jeans and Christmas sweaters. The smells of sweat and a dozen different brands of deodorant and perfume wafted around his head like an errant cloud as he made his way toward the dark back recesses of the room. The crowd was like a living heart, beating, pulsing. Gyrating, bumping bodies rubbed against his as he fought through, the air becoming thicker and heavier with every “excuse me” and “oh, I’m sorry.” Neon and strobe lights flickered like ghosts in the corners of his eyes. He found an empty table and sat in the still-warm seat beside it, his fingertips sliding across the sticky, water-ringed surface. His friend, a girl of twenty-one with a heart-shaped face, slid in across from him.

“Why are we here, again?” Isaac shouted. Erica made a tiny face at him, and he repeated himself.

“Oh!” she replied. “I want you to hear the band that’s going to be here tonight.”

“What kind of music do they play?”

The redhead shrugged, her bony shoulders reminding him of fragile bird’s wings. “Rock, I guess,” she said. “They’re really good.”

Isaac sat back, the music pulsing through him like a second heartbeat. He felt it in his bones, in his intestines, in his veins. Erica crossed her legs and let one high-heeled foot dance back and forth to the bass. When the song merged into another one, she leaned over and said she was going to get a drink. Isaac nodded.

“Want anything?” she asked.

“Nah,” he said.

Erica slid away, her tiny form quickly enveloped by the dancers. Isaac watched her go, unworried. Erica was small but tough. She was never hurt or taken advantage of. They’d been friends for a couple of years, ever since their shared art class at the university. It was a casual friendship, one where days or even weeks could go by without a word, but then a phone call asking if the other would like to go see a movie or try some new restaurant would come, and they would be rejoined for a while.

The lights and music went out, and for just one moment Isaac blinked unseeingly. Then the lights came back, all but the ones over and around the small stage in the corner of the room, though now they were bright white rather than swirling, dancing neon. An unseen host announced that the show would start in five minutes.

Erica returned, emerging from the crowd less dramatically than she’d disappeared now that everyone had scattered without music to keep them going, her hands filled with two brightly blue drinks, each flourished with a small red bendy straw and a strawberry. She sat one before Isaac.

“But I told you--” Isaac began.

Erica gave her head one tiny shake. “You have to try this,” she insisted. “It’s indescribable.”

Isaac smiled. “Well, if it’s that good.” The drink was sweet and thick with blended ice. It slid down his throat smoothly, chilling and then warming.

“’S not bad,” he said. Erica had already inhaled a good third of hers, and nodded in his direction.

“So what’s the name of this band I’m going to see?” Isaac asked.

“Errr… something sciencey… General Relativity? No…” Erica bit her bottom lip. “Planck’s Constant? That’s not it…”

The unseen voice returned, deep and low and slightly seductive. A good voice for radio, Isaac thought randomly.

“Club Neon is proud to be tonight’s host for local band Rayleigh Scattering!”

“That’s it!” Erica chimed. The lights faded until there was only a dim ghost of illumination and an unseen guitar began a forlorn cry.

“What the hell’s that?” Isaac asked of the band’s name.

“It’s what makes the sky blue,” Erica said. She twisted her upper body so she could see the stage. Neon bars were starting to glow along the back wall, outlining the figures of four people--two guitarists, presumably one of which was bass, a drummer, and a lone figure curled around the microphone stand as if it were a lover. The music started quietly, with the guitar playing alone for a few bars, swirling into one’s mind melodious pictures of a twisting, turning multiverse. The little hairs along Isaac’s arms stood on end, summoned to attention by the rising, ebbing, falling music. The singer began low, slowly rising, climaxing with the introduction of the bass and drums to give it a dramatic effect. White lights illuminated the figures of the band and a few fans who had crowded to the front gave supportive yells.

Isaac’s eyes passed over the singer, who was attractive but nothing special, the bass player, the drummer, and came to rest on the guitar player. He was beautiful but downplayed, smudged eyeliner hiding rather than accentuating, his black hair a carefully constructed chaos. Several necklaces glittered from flush against his neck. His shirt was black but faded from dozens of washes, his jean jacket ragged and torn but purposely so. A few buttons of varying size and color gleamed dully on his collar. His jeans were snug and torn at the knees. Isaac couldn’t see anything below that over the crowd.

“You like?”

Isaac blinked and looked over at Erica. He’d almost forgotten all about her.

“Hm? Oh, yeah,” he said. “They’re really good.”

“I told you,” she replied, smiling. “I have my physics class with the singer. That’s how I found out about them.”

“Ah,” Isaac grunted, not really caring. The singer wasn’t important to him, but there was something about that guitarist… Something familiar. Looking at him was… almost… like déjà vu. He imagined he could almost hear the echoed whispers of long-past conversations, the faded memory of laughter like an old black and white photograph, touches like the fleeting recollection of the feel of butterfly wings against the skin, the taste of tears like licking sea salt from the lips a day after bathing in its warmth. And yet he couldn’t remember when or how he might have met that boy before; didn’t know if he had maybe taken a class with him, or stood beside him in an elevator, or just passed him on the street. But he wanted to know him now. Of that much he was sure.

The set ended twenty minutes later, the short-haired, eye-lined singer raising a splayed hand high in the air as the last note reverberated through the room. Everyone clapped, and a good number of people cheered or whistled. The lights over the stage faded, hiding the band in darkness.

“Want to go say hi?” Isaac asked. Erica turned and looked at him, head quirking at the desperation in his voice.

“To?”

“That guy,” Isaac said, motioning toward the stage. “The singer. The one in your physics class.”

“Lee?” she replied. “I mean, it’s not like we’re friends or anything. We shared answers one time and he just told me I should check his band out--”

“It’d be rude not to say hi,” Isaac insisted. He stood up and pulled Erica after him. “I’m sure he won’t mind.”

“I’m sure he won’t, but jeez, Isaac!” Erica jerked her hand away. “Calm down. They’re taking their stuff down now. It’ll be a minute before they have time to talk. They’ll come in here for drinks when they’re done. Just be patient.”

- - -

Something like two hours had passed; he could not be quite sure. Isaac breathed deeply, smelling the detergent in his pillow, smelling sweat and just the faintest wisp of alcohol. Had he really done what he knew he had done? Of course he had. He knew he had. Was glad he had. He reached up with one hand and traced the outline of a collarbone that was not his own, heard a sleep-scrambled phrase murmured from lips that were not his. He’d been right, somehow. He could have sworn he’d tasted those lips before, had tasted them a thousand times. But where? When? He’d only ever been with a few other people, and never with someone as a one-night, casual thing. Impossible, then, for it to be that. And he’d never forgotten the boys he’d loved, or thought he’d loved, or wanted to love. This boy was new. This boy was unique. He’d never in his life seen him before. And yet here he was, and he was like an old friend who knew Isaac’s every secret, even the dirtiest, darkest ones he would never again tell.

Erica had been right--about fifteen minutes after the show, the band came slinking in through a back door. He’d all but dragged her over to them, and Lee, who had turned out to be quite charming and amiable, had introduced them both to the other members of Raleigh Scattering: Todd the kickass bassist; Sammy the drummer who’d been playing since he was seven; and last but not least, little Jamison the guitarist with the wicked fingers. Each had smiled and given a small greeting, but Jamison faltered on his turn. He blinked fiercely, his mouth seeming unsure and suddenly at odds with the words they had known for most of his life.

“Yeah, hi,” he finally managed, his eyes darting to the floor as his face colored high on his cheeks. He cleared his throat and gnawed on his lower lip while his black-nailed hands sought each other out and began to fidget.

You know me too, Isaac had thought, knowing at the same time that that was ridiculous of him to assume. He’d never met this boy, this Jamison, had never heard his laughter nor tasted his tears.

“Want to get a drink?” Isaac asked, nodding his head in the direction of the bar. Jamison’s dark eyes had flicked back and forth from Isaac’s light blue ones to the neon-pulsing bar.

“Ah, sure,” he replied. Isaac walked away, not touching or pulling Jamison and yet holding him captive all the same. Jamison followed, wondering at the way he kept stumbling over every word and why it was that this former stranger, this newly-met Isaac, should seem so familiar.

Isaac ordered another of the frighteningly blue drinks Erica had introduced him to. Jamison ordered something that came out pink and topped with two cherries. Isaac looked at the drinks side by side and thought they were the gayest beverages he’d ever seen.

“Have I met you before?” Jamison asked, and Isaac felt momentarily dizzy. It’s not just me, his mind wondered. How can we both feel that way?

“I don’t… think so,” Isaac replied. “I mean, I guess it’s possible. Do you go to the university here?”

“Yeah,” Jamison replied. “Maybe that’s it.”

“Maybe,” Isaac agreed. But of course neither of them really thought so.

Isaac looked back over his shoulder and saw Erica dancing with Lee. They were both thin, pale, pretty but not quite beautiful. They seemed to fit, like jigsaw pieces. They seemed to match.

“You’re great on guitar,” Isaac said, looking back to Jamison. The black-haired boy smiled.

“Thanks. It’s really fun. I mean, I’ve been doing it for years now. It’s great.”

God, you sound like such an idiot, he thought viciously. He cleared his throat and averted his eyes. One hand began absently playing with the lowermost button on his jacket. Isaac kept noticing the way Jamison’s skin seemed to have something of its own glow, even in the darkness. He kept noticing the way it looked so soft, the way it seemed to beckon for his lips each time Jamison’s face was caught by a roaming ray of light.

And somehow they’d kissed. Isaac couldn’t remember the exact events leading up to it, only that it had happened, only that somewhere in the middle of a sentence Jamison had suddenly leaned forward and pressed their mouths together, killing that presumption of the shy boy Isaac had assumed him to be. It was so natural, so right, the way Jamison’s lips relaxed and began to part, the way he emitted the tiniest of sighs from his nose, the way his body had begun to lean in to Isaac’s. Then he had pulled away, seeming to gasp, his eyes wide.

“I’m sorry,” he’d murmured. “I really, I mean, I’m not normally such a jerk, I… I…”

“No,” Isaac said. He shook his head, his blonde hair swaying and falling more into his face than it already had. It was shoulder-length, wavy, layered. Perfect hair to run your fingers through or to grab and pull for just the perfect amount of pain, the kind of gentle hurt that felt so right. Jamison blushed again, thankful for the darkness that hid him.

“It’s okay,” Isaac continued. Jamison blinked.

“Huh?”

“No, really, I didn’t mind. Do you want to go for a walk? Get some air?”

“Sure, yeah,” Jamison stammered. He didn’t mind, he thought. He grabbed his drink from the bar, drank down what he hadn’t finished, ate both cherries at once, and then chewed nervously on the stems. Isaac smiled, and the smile was the kind that you’d see a person give to someone they had known for a long, long time. A family member. A lifelong friend. A lover.

They walked outside, the air hitting them like a spray of cold anger, cutting into their cheeks and fingers. Jamison pulled the jean jacket closer to him, his skin becoming tense and all goosebumps beneath his thin shirt. The wind wound into the torn knees of his jeans and sank its teeth into his skin.

“Jesus,” he murmured. Isaac stood close, his arm brushing against Jamison’s. The black-haired boy looked over and felt slightly unnerved. Isaac stared at him as if there were something about him he was trying to figure out, something particularly tricky and evasive. When his face relaxed, he looked nervous, perhaps even frightened.

“Your favorite color,” Isaac said. “It’s pink, isn’t it? Not like baby ‘It’s a Girl!’ pink… Bright pink. The kind you only see at sunset.”

“I… I’ve never… told anyone that,” Jamison said. His voice was shaky, maybe from the cold, and maybe not. “Everyone thinks it’s black.”

“I’m sorry,” Isaac said, lowering his eyes as if he’d just said something incredibly offensive without meaning to.

“No, I mean… That’s okay,” Jamison said. “It’s just… who are you?”

“I don’t… I don’t know.”

They stared at each other in silence for a moment, then stared elsewhere. Isaac shifted from one foot to the other, both becoming increasingly cold. His fingers were getting sore.

“Hey, um, I don’t live far from here, if you’d want to, you know,” Isaac stammered. He seemed to realize something and then added, “I mean, it’s cold. That’s all. Not… I mean. It’s cold.”

“Yeah,” Jamison said. “It’s cold.”

The walk did not last long; Isaac’s apartment was only two blocks away. They hurried into the dimly lit building and Isaac’s numb hands fumbled around in his pockets for the key. He found it, failed to fit it into the lock twice, and then finally managed to get the door open.

Jamison walked inside, his eyes taking in the threadbare couch, the television, the coffee table covered in magazines and a single framed picture of Isaac as a graduating high school senior in cap and gown with his arm around an older woman whom Jamison assumed was his mother. There was a small wicker basket filled with fake flowers on a side table shoved in the corner. Mother’s touch, Jamison thought. An Xbox sat in front of the TV, its wires and controls a tangled mess topped with unclosed video game cases. A small excuse of a bookcase was beside all of that, its top two and a half shelves filled mostly with DVDs, although there were a few errant paperback books scattered here and there. The bottom shelf and a half were empty.

“--something to drink?”

Jamison blinked. “Hm?”

“You want anything to drink?” Isaac repeated. “Coffee, Coke, anything?”

“I’m fine,” he replied. He shrugged off his jacket, pretending not to notice Isaac as he tried not to be noticed staring at the way Jamison’s shirt fit against his body. Snug but not tight, with folds in the fabric crisscrossing the abdomen, splaying outward from the armpits, the crooks of the elbows. The hem didn’t quite reach the waistband of the jeans, and just the tiniest sliver of bone white skin shone from between the gap.

“Where should I put this?” Jamison asked, shrugging the arm that held his jacket.

“Ah, anywhere,” Isaac said, his eyes meeting Jamison’s only through great effort. He watched Jamison’s every move and nuance as he took the few steps to the couch, observed the way his clothes wrinkled and relaxed with his every movement. He dropped the jacket over the arm of the couch and then turned back around.

You’re not going to sleep with him, are you?, some inner conscience asked. You only just met him.

It’s true, another voice piped. There’s no telling how many people he’s slept with. Girls, guys, how do you have any way of knowing just how many? Think of the STDs he could have.

He’s fine, his own voice claimed decisively. Look at him. He’s practically glowing. Nothing unclean can look like that.

“So what’s your favorite color?”

Isaac’s eyebrows quirked, his head tilting just slightly. “Huh?”

“Your favorite color,” Jamison repeated. He smiled. “You know mine. Isn’t it only fair to tell me yours?”

“Oh,” Isaac replied. “Blue.”

“ ‘It’s a Boy!’ blue?” Jamison asked teasingly.

“Any blue,” Isaac said. “All shades.”

Jamison laughed a tiny laugh. There was something so easy about talking to Isaac, something so natural. He imagined a thousand late-night conversations that they had never had. He imagined lying next to him in bed and feeling the warmth of Isaac’s breath against his neck. God, when was the last time he had felt so suddenly attracted to someone like this?

You wanna fuck or should I apologize?, he thought, and he had to clear his throat to keep from laughing. Lee had said that once, in regard to some gorgeous blonde girl who had wanted him so badly it had seemed you could smell the pheromones seeping from her pores. It had stuck with him ever since, creeping up from what Freud would have called his preconscious any time a boy had pulled him aside to tell him what a great musician he was, or offered to buy him a drink, or looked at him in that way that even the purest of virgins would have known was nothing but sex.

And somehow, someway--Jamison tried to remember later on and could not, in much the same way Isaac could not remember that first tiny kiss--Jamison found that they were suddenly very close, not quite touching but just barely so. He imagined he could feel their molecules reacting, could feel a flow and exchange of electrons.

Just touch me, he thought, softly, vaguely. Just fucking touch me.

The kiss was simple, soft, delicate, almost as if Isaac were afraid that a heavier touch might break Jamison into a thousand tiny pieces. Isaac’s hands rose, skating up Jamison’s sides, nudging his shirt upward just enough to reveal another inch of skin. His fingers sank into the black haired boy’s hair, twisting and pulling against the wax that had shaped it, sending little tingling zigzags across Jamison’s skull and down his neck, over his shoulders and down his arms. He inhaled against Isaac’s lips, his own hands resting on the blonde’s shoulders. His hips had tilted forward of their own accord, had pressed their pelvises snug against one another. He felt something hot and wanting beginning to uncoil low in his belly. The tiniest of whines escaped his throat: a small sound of need, of desire.

Isaac’s cold fingertips pressed against the strip of exposed skin, feeling the shiver as it tightened into goosebumps. His hands explored further, pushing their way beneath the old worn fabric, feeling the peaks of the hipbones, one thumb pausing just for a moment to follow the oval of the belly button. He kissed Jamison, parted the other boy’s mouth with a touch of his tongue, licked the remaining traces of Jamison’s sugary drink from just inside his lips. Jamison bit down on Isaac’s lower lip as fingers teased his nipples. Isaac responded by wrapping his hands around the black-haired boy’s hips and yanking the two of them closer, melding their bodies together, rubbing their growing erections against one another. Jamison’s fingernails ran from Isaac’s hairline down his neck, leaving in their wake brutal red lines. He was whining again, that sound of a desperate animal. He had never been so aware of the constrictions of clothing as he was at that moment. So close and yet still separated by layers of thick, worthless clothes.

His arms wound around Isaac’s neck. He leaned forward and clamped his teeth around the soft flesh of the blonde’s earlobe hard enough to make him gasp. Jamison kissed it afterward, his tongue caressing the small grooves he had made, tasting the inner cup of Isaac’s ear.

“Please,” Jamison whispered, so softly that Isaac almost thought he’d said nothing at all, that the word had been only a small impression rising from his subconscious.

A short, stumbling trip took them to the bedroom, a playful shove tipped the black-haired boy onto the bed. Jamison sprawled against the white sheets, his shirt hiking up so that the hem bisected the shadowy recess of his belly button, his jeans having fallen low enough to expose the hollows below his hips and just the smallest wisps of ebony pubic hair. Then Isaac was on top of him, one leg to either side of the boy’s abdomen. Their lips met and attacked, velvet-soft tongues probing, caressing. Teeth bit and teased, hands searched and explored, fingernails scratched and dug. Jamison put one leg over Isaac’s waist, forcing their hips into more maddening contact.

Isaac yanked Jamison’s shirt up and over his head and tossed it into a corner. The black-haired boy undid his own jeans with a quick snap and tug and lifted his hips so Isaac could pull them down.

Nothing underneath there, the blonde noticed with satisfaction, smiling to himself.

Jamison kicked off his shoes and then the jeans were gone and he wore nothing but the necklaces around his throat and a number of glittering silver earrings. Isaac felt himself grow harder, felt his nervous system singing and squirming anxiously. Jamison tugged at his shirt. Isaac had it off in one upward shrug and then let Jamison help him yank his jeans off. He wondered at his feeling of nervousness, of secrecy. There was a strange sensation, a sort of fearful exhilaration, as if he were breaking rules, as if he were afraid of being caught. But who’s rules? And who would “catch” them? No one lived in the apartment but Isaac, and even if they had, just then he wouldn’t have cared who might have seen them. He would have grinned, a perfect little boy expression of Look what I have and you don’t.

He wasn’t allowed any time for consideration. Jamison’s leg was back around his waist, his fingers making small red tattoos across his skin. He was biting his own lip again, not out of nervousness this time, Isaac thought, but rather out of impatience. Isaac imagined him making sigh after sharp little sigh, checking and rechecking a watch, tapping his foot in hurried jagged rhythm.

So give him what he wants. Ah, that little voice in the back of his skull, the one that whispered in his own, sure voice. How it always knew just what he should do.

Isaac’s hand reached in the dark for the handle on his nightstand, yanked the drawer open when he finally found it. He fumbled around in it for a moment, seeking out a condom and a small, mostly full tube of lubricant. It wasn’t that self-heating crap that one of his former lovers had always wanted to use. He liked the cold stuff, liked the sharp gasp it always caused when it touched the fevered skin, liked the job of warming it himself.

Jamison snatched the condom away and ripped it open with his teeth, his hands diving to slide it over Isaac’s penis.

“Turn over,” the blonde said, his voice hoarse and low. Jamison seemed about to protest but did not. He shifted onto his stomach, stretched, wrapped his arms around the pillow. Isaac’s hands were on him then, first just tracing the tiny mountain range of his spine and then traveling down, touching and caressing and spreading a cold wetness. Jamison’s inhale was a hiss through his teeth, his body arching, squirming, until Isaac’s hands warmed him. And then Isaac was on in, in him, filling him. Jamison groaned and buried his face in the pillow, his hands becoming claws that scratched and tore. He could feel his body contracting against the feel of something alien inside of him, could feel something deep in his belly seeming to boil and loosen. He was achingly hard. Never in his life could he remember being so frantically aroused, so blindly lustful.

Isaac’s thrusts began slow, deep, pulling to within an inch of withdrawal and then pushing back until Jamison gasped and twitched. He became faster as it went on. He wound an arm around Jamison’s hips, wrapped a hand around his throbbing erection, moved his hand in time with his thrusts until the black-haired boy screamed and came, his entire body tensing, arching, writhing. The contractions of his orgasm sent Isaac into one of his own, and he felt some small sorrow at knowing that all of his seed had been wasted on the inside of a condom rather than spreading to fill Jamison’s every crevice. The boy collapsed against the sheet, too tired to care that he lay in a bed soaked with his own sweat and semen. Isaac lay flush against him, his lips gently kissing the sweat from Jamison’s shoulder.

“Here,” he whispered finally, pulling Jamison up so that he could push the covers to the floor. They reassembled their bodies side by side on the clean bed sheet, their limbs seeming to intertwine and fit together perfectly. Again that strange feeling of familiarity, that sense of coming home after such a long, long absence, refilling the dead, empty hallways with life and laughter. Isaac listened to Jamison’s breathing, first ragged and then growing softer, shallower, until it was the slow rhythm of sleep.

He stirred now only to mumble in sleep-language, one hand rising limply to swipe at an invisible something in front of his face. He muttered about a cat and then his head fell to one side and he was again as a perfect doll, so still and beautifully crafted. Isaac watched him sleep, not even noticing as his eyes began blinking more and more slowly, each lasting longer than the one before until finally they did not reopen.

- - -

Isaac awoke alone, and for one frantic moment his hand seized the sheet where before Jamison had lain, his mind whirring with a dozen unfinished thoughts. Then he heard the sound of the shower, heard the soft singing. There were no words, only a low humming of melodies and rhythms. He got up and made his way to the bathroom. It was just barely open, with wispy tendrils of stream drifting out and then fading away in the cold air. Isaac pushed the door open and stepped inside, his eyes immediately taken with the blurred image beyond the pebbled-glass shower door. He stood for a moment, watching, listening. Then the humming stopped.

“Well?” a voice inquired. “Are you getting in, or are you just going to stare?”

Isaac smiled. He stepped to the shower and slid the door open. A thick waft of steam hit him, soaking him before any water even had the chance to touch him. He pushed the door to and then they were close, trapped together in a glass box. Jamison’s arms wrapped around Isaac’s waist, pulling them together but not clinging. He rested his head against Isaac’s shoulder. His hair was slicked against his skull and clung to his face. It gave him a wholly different look from the fluffed, twisted hair he wore for the shows. Now he looked gentler, susceptible to hurt. He wasn’t some badass in a band now; he was just a boy, no older than twenty, his heart and soul still young and frail.

“I don’t understand,” Jamison whispered. His voice was nearly lost amid the falling water. “I’ve known you for less than twenty-four hours, but I feel more for you than I’ve felt for guys I’ve dated for months. Why is that?”

Isaac pressed a kiss to Jamison’s temple.

“I don’t know,” he replied.

Jamison sighed. He pulled away just enough to reach for the bottles resting on a ledge to his left. Isaac took the shampoo away from him, opened it, soaped Jamison’s hair as the black-haired boy smiled in an adorably embarrassed way. When all the foamy bubbles were washed away, he leaned forward and kissed Isaac. It was a simple kiss, barely open-mouthed and with no tongue, but somehow still more passionate and loving than any other kiss Isaac could remember. Then Jamison slid out of the shower stall. He pulled a towel from a rack hanging on the wall, wrapped it around his waist, and stepped back into the bedroom. Perfect, somehow, the way everything had played out thus far. More perfect in reality than the fantasies Isaac had made up on the days he had spent sitting alone on the playground, imaging what his life would be like when he was grown up.

Isaac felt frightened to feel so much so soon, but also elated. He wondered if maybe the romance novelists he had often mocked might know what they’re talking about, at least some of the time. He wondered if this was all building up to some bitter end. What did he know about Jamison, after all? That he played guitar, his favorite color was pink, he liked cherry-flavored drinks?

You’ll get out of the bathroom and he’ll be gone with everything worth more than twenty dollars, some cynic whispered. But he couldn’t find it in himself to believe it, couldn’t find it in himself to doubt what he knew he already trusted and cherished.

Sap. Yeah. He was.

---

Author's Note: You may be wondering how this relates to the summary. If so, stick with it for another couple of chapters, and things will begin to make more sense.