I spent the majority of the morning ensuring that my house was as impeccably clean as possible. When half-past noon approached, my gaze shifted towards the vase of orange flowers. The buds of the roses had opened wider than the previous day, resulting in quite the impressive bouquet. As much as I told myself that it would be a bad idea, I still took a picture of the flowers and gryphon. I thought I had learned my lesson about taking pictures attached to certain memories. Yet, there I was breaking that silent promise.

As I pressed the thumbnail on the phone and glanced at the photo, my thoughts drifted to the time I went to my phone provider to change my number and start from scratch. They asked me if I wanted to save any of the data and pictures, but I told them to go ahead and wipe the chip. Too many memories were latched on to those pictures, both good and bad.

The doorbell dissipated such glum thoughts. A part of me was relieved to see Liam’s face on the monitor, as opposed to anyone else. I opened the door to let him in and was pleased to note that, once again, Liam’s clothes were similar to mine. He wore jean shorts this time, along with a pale green tank. He held two cloth bags in either hand.

“‘Afternoon,” He greeted with a childlike grin. “Where can I place these?”

Apparently, he hadn’t been joking when he said he’d bring board games. “Just set them on the dining room table.” I suggested as I closed and locked the door behind him.

I had already set out a variety of snacks for the both of us. One was a tray with a variety of small vegetables and fruits like baby carrots, grape tomatoes, and orange slices. Another tray had a variety of chips including blue chips, baked potato chips, and even kale chips. Lastly, there was a bowl with a variety of diced cheeses.

For lunch, I made a white clam flatbread with herbs. I cooked and crumbled bacon on Liam’s half and simply added more mushrooms to mine. I used a pizza cutter to slice the flatbread into smaller pieces and loaded the servings onto our plates.

“That smells good,” Liam mused as he walked up to me.

After grabbing each of us a bottle of water, I handed him his plate and the two of us sat across each other at the dining room table on the opposite end of the board games.

“Bon appétit,” I stated as I took a bite of one of my flatbread pieces. As I chewed, I wondered if Liam’s half was as flavorful as mine.

“Is bacon on the whole thing?” Liam asked incredulously.

“Just on your half,” I clarified with an amused smile. “You’re really quite the stalker to take such note of my eating habits.”

“It’s just, you’re always so adamant about any meat that isn’t seafood…remember when you swapped the last BLT for my Tuna sandwich after one of the staff meetings?” He pointed out.

“Oh. Not a stalker then, you just have a very good memory. I had forgotten all about that,” I admitted, blushing slightly.

“Well, thanks for the effort of tossing bacon on mine.” Liam continued. “You needn’t have, I’d have been fine with the clams alone. And I’m no enemy of mushrooms.”

“Good to know.” I responded. For the next few minutes, we focused more on eating and drinking water. Once again, the silence was quite peaceful. We seemed to be rather used to eating lunch together.

“That was really good,” Liam declared as he gently rubbed his stomach. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.” I responded with a genuine smile, pleased that he didn’t dislike the food I made.

After I cleared up the table and set our dishes in the dishwasher, I turned around to see that Liam had already set up a Jenga tower on the table. I let out a snort, but my competitiveness was sparked up half-way into the game when neither of us caused the tower to fall just yet.

The two of us barely breathed in nervousness when we had to place another block on top of the teetering tower. At first, we ribbed each other on our block choices. But, the tension ran high the higher that the dangerously skeletal tower became. It was down to mere chance at that point.

“Whoever wins this round gets to ask the other person a personal question that they have to answer,” Liam suggested after he placed his block on top and the tower gave a small sway.

“You’re saying this now when it’s so close to falling?” I complained as I carefully tapped the blocks with the tip of my finger, searching for a loose one without forcing the tower over. I let out a sigh of relief when I found one and carefully placed it on top. I held my breath as the tower gently swayed. “Your turn.”

“It’s just that, it’s such a close game. It’s anyone’s loss.” Liam explained. “What do you say?” He asked as he felt for a loose block himself.

I let out a sigh. “Fine.” I stated as I steeled myself for whatever question Liam had in mind. To my surprise, the tower fell just as Liam gave his block a final tug. I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Ok, a deal’s a deal.” Liam spoke up. “Ask me anything.”

A small smirk formed on my face as I placed my right elbow on the table and dropped my chin onto my cupped hand. “What kind of underwear do you have on?” I teased.

It was a pleasure to see Liam blushing slightly, for once. “They’re, uh, silver satin boxers.” He confessed sheepishly.

“Satin? Sounds soft.” I practically purred, relishing the reversal while I could. Laughter nearly escaped me when I saw his Adam’s apple rise and fall after a hard gulp. But, I figured I should spare him any further embarrassment. “I think it’s time to play one of my favorites now.”

“Which one?” The auburn-haired man asked.

I reached over to pick up a small box of cards labeled Uno and showed it to him.

“You’re on!” He challenged.

We continued to play games for three hours, asking personal questions whenever the game came to an end and there was a solid victor. No questions were asked whenever the game ended in a tie. I ended up telling Liam that I was wearing boxers with emoticons on them, that my favorite candy was dark chocolate, that I was ticklish on the back of my thighs, and that my first kiss was with a high school basketball player. Liam told me in turn that his first time masturbating was when he was twelve, that he never dated a girl, that he bottomed on occasion, and that the carpet did indeed match the drapes.

Somewhere down the line, we had eaten half of the snacks, as well. When we both felt we played enough games, I invited Liam over to the living room to watch a movie. I had a rather large collection of many genres. He held up a random Bollywood movie titled Ram-Leela. When I explained that it was an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, he decided on watching it.

The running time was about two and a half hours, which wasn’t bad in comparison to a favorite Bollywood movie of mine that had a running time of nearly four hours. During the lulls and some of the longer dance numbers, Liam took hold of my hand. Sometimes, he’d just thread our fingers together. Other times, he would trace my palm. What caused me to feel restless the most was when he rubbed alongside the top of my fingers with his own and ran his thumb against the back of my hand. I found myself squirming in place beside him during one of those moments and he turned to look at me.  

“Sorry, do you want me to stop?” He asked quietly.

“No,” I responded honestly. “I…kind of like it, actually.”

I caught the mischievous glint in his eyes just before he lifted the back of my hands to his lips. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

“Damn it,” I hissed under my breath. As I clambered over him and straddled him, I vaguely heard the chorus of the song Lahu Munh Lag Gaya playing.

Liam had the sense to quickly find the pause button on the remote and pressed it before my lips captured his in a kiss.

I once again marveled at the fullness of his lips. He didn’t open them for me this time, so I gave him a few more closed-mouthed kisses before flicking his upper lip with the tip of my tongue. A part of me wondered why he wouldn’t allow me more, but then I felt the hardness beneath me and blushed.

“I’ve barely done anything that warrants this kind of a reaction.” I whispered as I scooted back.

Liam let out a strangled noise before taking a deep breath. “Seth,” He replied in a husky voice. “You’re seated on my lap. Believe me, it’s plenty.”

“Yeah?” I responded as I tried not to press my own hardness against him. “Well, most of mine is from your blasted hand stroking.” I frowned slightly. “Has it just been that long for the both of us? I mean, damn.”

The man beneath me burst out laughing. The laughter was contagious and, shortly after, both our bodies managed to settle down a bit.  

Then, Liam lifted his hand to the side of my face. I looked down at him in a questioning manner. But, he took hold of the back of my head and tugged me into another kiss.

He was met with no resistance as his tongue made its way into my mouth. Desire began to flood my body with every stroke of his tongue against mine. This time, I was quite relieved to feel him hardening against me. It was proof that the kiss affected him just as badly as it was affecting me. When I felt his hands slide beneath my shirt and settle just between my waist and my hips, I pulled away. The pupils in his eyes were as wide as mine surely were. He rubbed his thumbs in circles against my skin and I swore I felt as if the damn digits were stroking something else entirely.

“Are you ok?” He asked softly.

I squirmed a bit, but nodded. Other than obvious parts of my body, I was perfectly fine.

“Do you want to stop?”

“No.” I responded, feeling rather surprised about my own answer.

“Then, can I have one more kiss?” Liam pleaded.

I couldn’t deny him. Not, when he practically begged like that. I smiled and leaned down to kiss him again. It was a soft and tender kiss that built and built until we were all but devouring each other. My fingers dug into Liam’s scalp as his hands slid up and down my back. I felt as if fire was coursing through my very veins.

When we finally pulled away again, it was only due to weakened jaws and aching lips.

“Fuck,” I hissed, feeling disoriented. “What were we doing before this?”

The wide grin on Liam’s face was preferable to him laughing at me. But, my train of thought was interrupted by the ring tone of my cell phone. The tune was of the card march song in Alice and Wonderland, which meant that it was an unknown number.

With a sigh, I clambered off of Liam and reached for the phone on the side table. I was a bit out of breath by the time I answered it. “Hello?”

The voice on the other end made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

“Seth, I want to see you.”

“I don’t want to see you,” I growled in response. “How the hell did you get my number?”

Liam immediately reacted to the aggression in my tone of voice, a frown forming on his face as he scooted closer and strained to listen.

“Beth is still a mutual friend of ours,” Kris answered. “If you didn’t want her to give it to me, you would have surely told her not to…which means that you do want to see me, at least on a subconscious level.”

“That couldn’t be further from the truth. Go fuck yourself, Kris.” I responded coldly as I hung up the phone and then shut it down. I felt tense all over. The warmth and heat that I felt before with Liam was gone, leaving me all but shivering in cold.

“You can block his personal number…” Liam suggested after a moment of silence.

I shook my head. “He’ll just call from other phones incessantly.”

“There is a way you can set the phone to block any unknown incoming calls.” He added.

“But, then it would also block any return calls from doctor appointments. I’ve gone through all of this already.” I sighed dejectedly.

He wrapped his arms around me and I found myself wrapping my own arms around his midsection. I closed my eyes and soaked up his warmth for a moment.

“I changed my phone,” I confessed. “I changed the locks, and added the security system on the house….” I drew in a shuddering breath. “Just when I had thought he was gone for good.”

“Come sleep over at my apartment today and tomorrow.” Liam suddenly suggested. “Just for this weekend. I promise it’s not for anything nefarious.”

As much as I wanted to doubt him, I didn’t. If it were under any other circumstance, I’d say he was trying to get laid. But, Liam truly didn’t seem like the type to use such a twisted situation just to bed someone.

“…alright,” I conceded. As strange as it was to admit, I felt safer around Liam. And if I wasn’t going to get any sleep tomorrow, I might as well not be alone.

My response must have shocked Liam to silence because he didn’t respond for a while.

“Liam?”

The man shook his head as if to clear his thoughts. “A-also, didn’t you say that your younger brother studied at a nearby university? What if he stays with you for the time being?”

Liam was clearly worried about me. The thought caused strange feelings to bubble up inside me. “I hadn’t thought about asking Michael to stay over for a while.” I replied. “I think I will.”

The relief on Liam’s face was priceless.

I couldn’t help but press a kiss to his cheek in gratitude.

“Thank you, Liam.”