Thank you for caring for my brother." He took his sunglasses off. And looked at her with total adoration.

Her perfume or soap or whatever it was reminded him of sandalwood and something else. Oh, right...orgasms.

Butch put his hand on his roommate's nape and murmured, "I'll do the saving until you get your head back, how about that? I'll keep you safe.

i am... absolutely destroyed at the loss. (--manny)

In the oh-my-God-this-has-to-be-Christmas silence that followed, he struggled to reorder the last six months, to catch up with this reality they'd somehow missed. He wanted her. She wanted him. Was it true?

You are the male I might have been. You are the potential I had and lost. You are the honor and the strength and the kindness she needs. You'll take care of her. I want you to take care of her.

And as he held his first true lover against him, feeling that familiar difference in their heights and smelling that wonderful cologne, part of him wanted to debate this break up until they both gave in and kept trying. But that wasn’t fair.