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Josh pulls out and rolls off of Tyler onto his back, breathing heavily and staring at the ceiling. As his heart slows down and the post-orgasm fog clears, he hears Tyler’s uneven panting to his left, feels Tyler’s sweat and other things mixed with his own sticking to his skin and realizes. I just fucked my best friend. We just. That just happened.
“Shit,” Josh mumbles. He shrugs off the covers and grabs one of the fresh folded towels on the bedside table, cleaning himself off as fast as he can. He feels warm fingers on his shoulder but leans away from them and gets out of the bed, not looking behind him.
“Josh, wait…”
Josh scrambles into his underwear, keeping his back to the bed. He reaches for his shirt but can’t find it in the heap of his and Tyler’s clothes across the floor. When he lifts his head to look around for it, he notices that Tyler is just sitting there watching him, still naked but with the covers pulled up around his waist.
“Don’t,” he says softly, twisting his hands into fists in the sheets. Josh had been reaching for his shirt hanging off the end of the bed, but he drops his hand awkwardly. Despite everything they’d just done he feels too exposed standing there in just his underwear, yet Tyler looks more vulnerable and small, alone in the bed and hunched over his knees.
“Please just,” Tyler cuts himself off and swallows, staring at a spot on the wall above Josh’s shoulder with bright eyes. His lips barely part and no sound comes out, but Josh can see his mouth form the word “stay”.
“Tyler,” Josh says, and it comes out hoarse, so Josh coughs, using it as an excuse to cover his face with his hand for a few seconds while he tries to think. When it comes down to it, though, he doesn’t have to think about it. Before tonight, any other night, if Tyler had whispered “stay with me” like he had more times than Josh could count, he would have climbed into bed and talked with his best friend until he fell asleep.
So Josh moves, one foot forward, and then it’s an easy three quick steps to the bed and Tyler lifts the covers for him and moves over a little to give him more space. He leans back against the headboard, and before he can even begin to feel awkward Tyler is curling up at his side and resting his head on Josh’s exposed stomach, right between his ribcage.
Maybe it’s to avoid looking Josh in the eyes when says, “Can I tell you something?” He pauses for a measure, then says, “I’ve loved you since the first night we stayed up talking about what we wanted and who we wanted to be.”
Josh wants to say “I know”, or “me too”, but it feels like there’s something in his throat, so he just breathes evenly for a minute until the feeling passes. Then he says, “I’ve been in love with you since the first time I saw you play.”
He waits, but Tyler just hums quietly, and the vibration across his skin tickles.
“It’s different, isn’t it?” Josh finally says. “Of course we love each other. But being in love with someone is different.”
“Being in love and having sex are also different,” Tyler remarks without moving his head. “They’re not always mutually inclusive.”
Josh rolls his eyes and Tyler laughs against his stomach, short sharp bursts of warm breath ghosting across his skin, even though there’s no way he could have seen Josh’s reaction to Tyler using more complicated words than necessary. Josh grins suddenly, too, because it’s like nothing is ruined at all. But when Josh reaches out a hand and cards his fingers through Tyler’s hair, he knows it’s not the same. He also knows from the way his chest is aching and the way that Tyler’s body is carefully curved around his that it could be something else.
“Do you want it to be?” he asks. “Mutually inclusive, I mean.”
Tyler doesn’t say anything. The side of his cheek and his hair brush across Josh’s stomach as he nods. Josh tilts his head back and closes his eyes.
He feels Tyler move and then the lights go out, and soft lips brush his before Tyler resettles on Josh, pulling the cover up over Josh’s other side.