II

Rain pattered against the windowpane, the gaslamps below reflected in the streaks of water running down the glass. Ansel had the window open the barest amount, just enough to let smoke waft out from his cigarette and to keep the paltry amount of heat in. The radiators serving the cluster of rooms above Marvelous’s establishment had never worked right, and even in the South’s dismal winter the upstairs became an icebox once the heat generated from the crowd below had dissipated. The rooms weren’t meant for long-term arrangements, but Ansel hadn’t been looking for long-term when he’d drifted into Hayes four months prior.

He hadn’t planned on falling in love.

“You were tossing and turning. I didn’t know if I should wake you.” Behind him, a light winked on, casting the room in a pale yellow glow. Shaking his head, Ansel turned and gave a dismissive wave to Sly with his free hand. “Didn’t mean to bother you,” he said.

“You didn’t.”

Fully facing him now, desire gnawed at Ansel’s heart like a trapped animal. With the bedsheets gathered loosely around his waist, Sly looked like a siren on a reef, beckoning him back to bed. It was a temptation he strongly considered as he ran his fingers over the glass bottle which stood guard with him at the windowsill. The rum had been his second attempt to soothe his jangled nerves when the cigarette hadn’t done the job. Neither ever worked.

Ansel resisted his charms and stayed at the window, flicking ash into the chilly night and letting the lingering remnants of his nightmare out with the smoke. The dream had ended in its usual place, with fire burning all around him and his screams choked out by ash and dust. They’d become less frequent in his time spent in Hayes, but the fire had buried itself too deep in his chest to ever truly be extinguished, and flare-ups were just another scar tethering the past to the present.

Sly wiggled out of bed to join him, wrapping slender arms around Ansel’s chest and pressing his warm body against the burn scar which bloomed across his back. It was ugly, but it could be covered up; he considered himself far more fortunate than the poor bastards who had to wear the war on their faces or else in the empty spaces left behind in Europe. He let himself lean back into Sly’s slight frame, sagging from the weight of exhaustion and the headache which still hammered at his temples.

“I’ll worry about you,” Sly said, wiping at Ansel’s brow.

“I—” he paused, reconsidering his thoughts, and instead swallowed down a mouthful of rum from the bottle. “Come with me,” he said, before he could stop himself. “I really want you to.”

Sly tensed against him and buried his face in his shoulder. “I can’t,” he said, muffled. 

“I know. Your momma. But we could send her money.”

“Bluey,” Sly whispered now, thick with despair.

“She’ll be looked after,” he continued, twisting the knife. “We could even send for her—”

Hands pushed against his back, forcing space between the two of them. “I can’t,” Sly repeated with finality. “I can’t start over in every no-name town from here to the Pacific like you can. It doesn’t work like that for me. You get that, right?”

Ansel locked eyes with Sly, his attention fully ensnared by his words but hopelessly lost to their deeper meaning. Bewildered, he searched Sly’s face for a hint of what he was missing, what remained obscured between them by smoke and booze and exhaustion. When he muttered, “They got clubs out west,” whatever conversation Sly had been stoking with him was snuffed out. 

“Come back to bed, Bluey,” he said, breaking eye contact and shuffling back across the floor. 

Ansel flicked the stub of his cigarette out into the night and dutifully followed. He slipped under the sheets, resting a hand between Sly’s knees and kissed his brow. “I’m sorry,” he said, but the words hung in the air between them, weightless.

Sly covered Ansel’s mouth with his own to silence him, to soothe him, to chase away anything that existed outside of the room. Kissing him back with a desperate kind of hunger, Ansel’s hand roved Sly’s legs and massaged his upper thigh. His fingers groped higher still, callused palm meeting smooth skin, and cupped him as he pressed his own body as close as possible. Sly moved eagerly in response and buried his face against Ansel’s neck, sending a wave of pleasure radiating through him.

Mouth still on his neck, Sly hooked a leg over Ansel to straddle him, the heat of his body chasing the chill of the room away. Ansel’s pelvis raised up to meet Sly’s as his hands searched along the small of his back, the curve of his backside, down to the tensed muscles of his thighs. Sly met his eyes and with a mischievous smile thrust his hips against him, sending a fresh wave of heat through Ansel’s belly. 

“Do you want me again?” Sly asked, fingers tracing through Ansel’s chest hair.

“Always.”

Ansel shifted his hips and his hand snaked between them, gripping Sly and himself, their erections braced against one another. In response, Sly again kissed him with raw desire, his mouth roving over his face and his neck, breath hot and yearning. With a strength he seldom used with his lovers, Ansel held Sly’s legs and raised off the bed, flipping him over onto his back, Sly’s arms wrapped around his neck for stability. He was reluctant to let go and they lay there intertwined until he at last allowed Ansel to pull himself free from the embrace.

Savoring every inch of Sly, Ansel kissed his way from his neck, down his chest, to his belly and the dip of his pelvis. One hand clasped Sly’s waist as he used his other to guide him into his mouth, teasing at him eagerly with his curled tongue. Deeply inhaling the faint scent of their prior lovemaking and letting it heighten his own anticipation, he moved both head and hand along the shaft in slow tandem. Sly’s fingers reached for Ansel, fingernails running along his scalp in trembling delight and his hips twitched every time his head dipped further down.

The only pause in activity was when Sly reached for a rubber. Once it was in place and slicked, he coaxed at Ansel’s shoulder, willing him to lay his chest, and warm hands ran along his back. He kneeled and Sly’s fingers probed at him, massaging him, making him dizzy with desire before he slid his erection against him. The pressure of the head was almost unbearable and he eased his hips back against it, willing Sly to enter him with a trembling breath.

With this invitation, Sly’s hands gripped at Ansel’s waist and he pushed forward, easing himself in. Ansel’s arm buckled and his torso dropped to the bed, his slick forehead buried into the pillow.

“You alright?” Sly asked, holding position.

Ansel’s response was a distracted moan and Sly chuckled to himself before fully pressing their hips together. He curled over Ansel, his warm chest on his back, his cheek turned against his shoulder, and his arms wrapped around him. Ansel at last let out the breath he’d been holding in a slow shudder. “Nobody ever fucked me like you,” he gasped, resting his head against his forearms.

“I find that hard to believe,” Sly murmured and pinched at Ansel’s backside. “Weren’t you bragging about your beau in the infantry?”

The image of a tall, pale soldier with a dark crop of hair came to the forefront of Ansel’s mind and for a moment he was transported back to a secluded section of camp. They were tangled together, arms and legs intertwined, Ansel’s mouth latched onto his throat and his hand disappeared up to the wrist in a tight pair of trousers. The other man gripped at his shoulder with his right hand while his teeth dug into the knuckles of his left in a desperate bid to stifle any sound. Their trysts had been taken with a secrecy which rivaled that of any other covert wartime act; the penalty for their discovery too heavy a weight on their mind to ever speak of outloud. 

“We fooled around,” Ansel said, returning to the then and there. “Nothin’ more’n that.” Sly made a thoughtful noise at that as his hands wandered downwards, fingers snaking from Ansel’s belly to his pelvis. “I’ll bet you broke his heart,” he said and he gripped Ansel with a force that had once surprised him for how delicate his fingers were.

“He broke mine,” he replied. There was a brief silence and Sly was motionless against him, stayed by the admission. Ansel glanced over his shoulder and offered a lopsided smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “It was a long time ago,” he said. It doesn’t matter, he implied, even if his tone of voice carried with it lingering regret and unfinished business. 

Just when he felt the moment was stretching out too long and that he ought to say more on the subject, Sly thrust against him. The silence of the room was then broken only by wordless sounds of passion, and all opportunity for discussion was lost.

Some time later, Ansel watched the grey light of dawn filter through the gossamer curtains as Hayes shook itself out of a slumber he never managed to achieve. He sensed Sly was awake long before the man’s arm draped over his chest, drawing him closer to sigh into his ear. At least there had been no nightmare to disturb his partner on this final sleep. Ansel’s fingers found his and they wove together, a latticework to be undone too soon.

“You know Wolcott’s crazy, right?” Sly said. “Like, actually crazy?”

Stalling for time, Ansel reached out for his pack of cigarettes and had one perched between his lips before answering. “He’s crazier than a shithouse rat,” he conceded, flicking his lighter. “Plan seems solid enough.”

“Until Baptiste skins you both alive,” he said, pulling away from Ansel and propping himself up on an elbow.

The locals carried a sort of superstitious respect for Baptiste that Ansel had never appreciated. He was only a man, but they treated him like a shadow in the dark and the pall he cast stretched over both Hayes and Odette. An impressive presence for a man who — near as Ansel could tell — existed only in secondhand description and the cat’s paws he sent around the parish.

Ansel snorted, a plume of smoke escaping his nose. “He’s gotta catch me first. By the time he knows what hit him, I’m gonna be halfway to California, an’ that old bat’s reach ain’t so far as that.” He was aware of Sly’s dark brown eyes searching his face for some better answer than that, but he ignored it and ashed his cigarette into a tray on the nightstand. 

“I’ll think of you when you’re gator food,” Sly said, reaching across for Ansel’s cigarette. 

That got a genuine smile from Ansel and he sat up; it was the closest he’d ever come to hearing a declaration of love. Grabbing the rum bottle from the table beside him, he drained what was left and shuddered as the heat chased away the gloom that had settled around them.

Sly passed the cigarette back and gestured at the bottle with his eyes. “That stuff’s going to be the death of you.” With a tone like a preacher, Ansel clasped his hand to his breast and raised the cigarette aloft. “God willing,” he declared with mock solemnity.

For whatever reason, this struck Sly as hilarious. He snorted in surprise and doubled over in a fit of laughter, his dulcet tones wrapping around Ansel and pulling at his heartstrings. He discarded the cigarette into the tray and pressed himself against Sly as if he might take some of his voice away with him.