Pinto, 9 <3

suedescripture:

9: A First Kiss

The thing was, it was a hair too long.

And whatever, good friends could kiss each other goodbye, they could embrace and do the whole bro-hug back-pound love-ya-see-you-soon thing, they could tip together in the middle of it for a whole weird quasi-cheek-kiss thing and accidentally get confused as to whose face goes where and hit almost square on the soft, warm, just slightly chapped lips. And there wasn’t a reason to apologize or get weird about it, they’d seen each other in locker rooms and dressing rooms practically naked for fuck’s sake. There was no good reason for Zach to be lying in his bed hours after the fact stewing over this, when Chis had probably already landed and eaten and probably crashed out on his couch.

It’s just, an accidental kiss doesn’t ever last that long. You kind of go, whoops, shit, my bad and back off. Which Zach would have done had Chris hand not had a grip on the back of his neck. And that wasn’t weird either, anyway, because that was a thing Chris did a lot, he was all about the whole neck-grab-squeeze variety of friendly affection. It was all very bro-ish. Deep bros. What did it matter if it had never happened before? There was a first time for everything. There was a last time for everything too, and more than likely, the event of an accidental smooch with one’s bro was one of these singular instances. It didn’t even matter that they’d spent this week kind of opening up and sharing more personal stuff than usual, deep intense stuff that Zach rarely shared with anyone, and same for Chris, probably. That was a thing really great friends did.

Except there was that warm huff he’d done, that puff of air through his nostrils against Zach’s upper lip, almost a sigh, combined with just a hint of a noise from his throat, and come on, shit like that was involuntary reaction of surprise, right? And if Zach had gasped a little, then that was the same thing, it was just an oops, we kind of fucked that up, but it’s fine, because we’re buddies and we’re secure in our respective varieties of manhood and the state of our relationship and it seriously didn’t mean anything. At all.

His phone hummed where it lay on his end table, glowing up at the ceiling before it faded. Could be anybody. Zach had lots and lots and lots of friends who texted him at all hours. No reason to answer it immediately. He took a deep breath and looked at it.

Are you home?

Zach typed back, yeah, r u?

Dunno

Frowning, Zach sat up and quickly sent, are you ok? where r u

I’m at your apartment.

What the hell, Chris left six hours ago, he should have flown across the country by now.

Buzz me in, I messed up.

He lurched up, jogging out to hit the buzzer, then ran back to find some pants to quickly pull on. Why hadn’t Chris caught his flight? Was it delayed? Why didn’t he call earlier?

Pulling open his door, the elevator down the hall dinged open, Chris stepping out with the carry-on bag over his shoulder. He seemed to hesitate upon seeing Zach standing in his open door in the middle of the night, but then his stride took on a determined speed down the hallway.

“Chris, what happened? Is everything okay? Did you miss your fl-hmgh…”

Lips. Soft, warm, that little rough spot smoothed with a faint cherry flavor, and this time the little huff was longer, this time the little throat sound was louder, this time Chris’ hand gripped his neck and the wide span of his fingers raked up into the back of Zach’s hair, a thump as the bag fell to their feet and the other hand joined its partner. Wet, a tongue, tasting of coffee and sugar sweet seeked entrance, and this time, Zach gasped open, granting it.

This time when Chris pulled their mouths part, he didn’t say, later, man. He said, “Better.”