Page 89 of Hard Check
Leo drove with one hand on the wheel and the other resting on Dawson's thigh, not gripping, just there — like it belonged. Leo's palm was warm through the denim, and Dawson's whole body had narrowed to that one point of contact.
For the first time all night, he relaxes. He let his head fall back against the seat and breathed in the smell of the car. The scent of sweat and Leo’s expensive cologne had a soothing effect on him, like his body finally knew everything was going to be okay.
Leo's thumb started moving on his thigh, a slow circle he probably didn't know he was tracing. Dawson turned to the window so his face wouldn't give him away. He'd wanted this so long, and so quietly, that having it felt almost dangerous.
Dawson covered Leo’s hand with his own. Leo’s fingers curled between his.
Leo’s phone buzzed in the cupholder. He glanced at it, then back at the road.
“Cole,” he said. “Ford’s letting him crash at his place tonight.”
Dawson looked at Leo’s profile in the dashboard light: the wet hair drying against his collar, the faint smile he was trying to hold back. Leo’s mouth twitched.
“I didn’t ask him to. Ford just offered.” Leo squeezed Dawson’s leg. “He doesn’t say much, but he notices everything. Always looking out for people.”
Dawson let out a breath that was almost a laugh. The headlights caught a deer-crossing sign, reflective yellow in the dark, and then it was gone. The fields stretched out flat on both sides and Leo’s thumb traced a slow line across Dawson’s knuckle.
Port Haven’s streetlights appeared around the last curve. Leo turned onto Main Street, drove past the hardware store, past The Penalty Box with its warm light bleeding through the front window, past the bank and the gas station and the Methodist church. Dawson watched it all slide by and thought about how many nights he’d driven this stretch alone with a book on the passenger seat and the radio off.
Leo pulled into the lot behind his building and parked, killing the engine. The heater cut out and the car went cold and quiet, and neither of them moved.
They sat there. The parking lot light threw a yellow wash across the hood. Dawson could hear the tick of the engine cooling and Leo breathing beside him, and he needed to say the thing before they went upstairs because once they were inside, he was going to touch Leo and stop talking, so the talking had to come first.
“I’m sorry.” Dawson’s words came out rough, stripped bare. “For what I did that night. For shoving you out of my bed like you were something I had to get rid of.” He stared at the parking lot light on the hood. “You were the first person I ever wanted inthat house. The first person I’ve ever had in my bed. And when Ethan came home, I panicked and I hurt you, and I have to live with that.”
Leo was quiet for a long time. His thumb ran across the back of Dawson’s knuckles on the console between them.
“It felt like you were ashamed of me,” Leo said. “Like the worst thing that could happen to you wasn’t losing me, it was someone seeing us together.”
“I can see how you’d feel that way,” Dawson said. “If anything, I was the one I was ashamed of. I spent so many years convincing myself that I couldn’t be honest, but the longer I hid, the harder it got to tell the truth. And then you were there, offering me everything I thought I’d never have, and I panicked.”
He turned to face Leo. “But it will never happen again. I told Ethan. I’m going to tell Wyatt, my mom, all of them. And when we’re in a room together, and someone walks in, I’m not going to pull away from you. I don’t care who it is.”
Leo’s eyes went bright. He blinked, and the tears spilled over onto his cheek, and he didn’t wipe them away.
“You don’t have to do it all at once,” Leo said. “You’ll tell them when you’re ready. I only ask that you don’t try to shove me back in the closet. I can’t do that, Dawson. Not even for you.”
“I know I said it’ll never happen again, but if you feel like I even might be, you call me out on my bullshit. I’m not going to risk this again. I can’t.”
Leo leaned across the console and kissed him. His hand came up to the back of Dawson’s neck and pulled him in. The angle was wrong, the gearshift between them, Leo’s seatbelt catching, andDawson didn’t care. Leo’s mouth was warm and his fingers were cold on Dawson’s neck, and Dawson kissed him back as three weeks of silence broke apart between them.
Leo pulled back, resting his forehead against Dawson’s. “Come upstairs.”
Leo took the stairs two at a time. Dawson followed, close enough to touch, heart hammering, and by the time Leo got the key in the lock, Dawson’s hands were on his hips. Leo was laughing, low and breathless, fumbling the door open.
The apartment was warm. Leo shrugged off his jacket and turned around, and Dawson was already there, hands on his waist, pulling him in. Leo’s palms came up to his chest.
Leo pulled him down and kissed him. Deeper this time, unhurried, Leo’s hands sliding up under the hoodie and finding skin. Dawson’s breath left him. He got his hands under the Henley and felt the warmth of Leo’s back, the ridge of his ribs, and Leo’s hips pressed forward. Dawson pulled him closer and stopped thinking.
They moved down the hallway, Leo walking backward, pulling Dawson by the front of his shirt. Dawson reached back and pulled the hoodie over his head. Leo caught the T-shirt underneath and stripped that off too. His eyes tracked down Dawson’s chest and back up with a hunger that made Dawson’s skin burn.
Leo pulled his shirt off. Reached back, grabbed the collar, one motion. Dawson watched the shift of muscle in his shoulders, the flat plane of his stomach, the mark on his ribs that was already darkening from a hit he’d taken.
Dawson touched it. Two fingers, light. “This hurt?”
Leo looked down at Dawson’s fingers on his ribs. “Honestly? I didn’t even notice it until you touched it. All just part of the game.”
Leo stepped in and got his hands on Dawson’s belt. He worked the buckle open, the button, the zipper, and shoved Dawson’s jeans down his hips with a focus that was closer to need than finesse. Dawson kicked them off and reached for Leo’s, and they stripped down to briefs. Leo pulled him onto the bed.
