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Maxwell shook his head. “I’m not.”
Garrett snorted. “Yeah, I’m not really sorry either.” Garrett idly wrapped Maxwell’s long hair around one of his fingers. “That day in the cockpit, did you really think I could touch you without it meaning anything to me?”
“I don’t really know, to be honest.” Maxwell ran his fingers down Garrett’s collarbone to his chest, tracing the muscles. “I just knew I wanted you, and I knew you were safe. I think I knew that even if it did mean something to you, you wouldn’t hold me to it.”
Garrett hummed and nuzzled into Maxwell’s hair. “I don’t hold you to anything, Maxwell.” He captured Maxwell’s hand from over his chest and brought it to his lips. “Even this.”
“This?” Maxwell repeated with a frown.
“This…” Garrett paused before settling on a word. “Encounter. That you love me. I don’t assume you owe me anything because of it. Or that you’ve promised me anything.”
“Garrett, what are you talking about?” Maxwell forced himself up to sit, confused by Garrett’s tone and words, and winced when Garrett’s softened cock slipped out of him.
Garrett sighed and reached around behind his chair again to pull a rag out of the same drawer he’d pulled the lube from. “You haven’t said that you’ll stay.”
Maxwell’s buoyant feelings fell. In the storm of emotions and sensations, he’d forgotten the larger reality for a moment. He was outed. Who he had been was gone, and he couldn’t get it back. He had only ever assumed one way forward in that situation. The alternative—to live the way Sebastian lived—had always seemed incomprehensibly terrible.
“Yeah.” Garrett smiled a sad half smile, and then reached between Maxwell’s legs to clean him off. “It’s okay. Like I said, I don’t hold you to anything.”
“But I do love you, Garrett.” Maxwell caught Garrett’s wrist before he could start wiping off their chests to make him look at Maxwell. “You believe me, right?”
“I do, baby.” Garrett cupped Maxwell’s cheek and smiled a better smile at him. “I do.”
Maxwell let go of Garrett’s wrist with a heavy heart and a heavier mind. Everything was heavy. Sore. Lethargic. As though he had run a marathon while analyzing bacterial cultures.
“Let’s go to bed.” Garrett kissed Maxwell’s forehead and gathered him up into his arms.
“I literally just got out of bed,” Maxwell protested but didn’t fight when Garrett cradled him in his arms and stood off the chair.
“You also literally were just controlling the entirety of the largest uranium mine in the sector with your mind.” Garrett pushed open the door to Maxwell’s bedroom with his foot and then dipped his head to nip Maxwell’s ear and whisper into it. “And then got a very thorough fucking, if I do say so myself.”
Maxwell laughed as Garrett deposited him on the bed. “Those are both true statements.” When Garrett stepped back from the bed, Maxwell rolled onto his side and reached for him. “Stay with me?”
“There’s not much room.” Garrett raised an eyebrow but pulled back the covers and climbed into the bed anyway.
“We don’t need much room.” Maxwell rolled onto Garrett as soon as the bigger man lay down and draped himself over his chest. “You’re so warm.”
Garrett laughed and wrapped an arm around Maxwell’s back, playing with his hair. “And you’re so cold now.”
“Am I?” Maxwell started to pull back, but Garrett just pulled him closer.
“Just a little. Honestly, Carta’s so fucking hot, it’s kind of nice.”
Maxwell hummed in contentment and settled back down, tangling one of his legs with Garrett’s. “Good.”
More comfortable and relaxed than Maxwell could remember being in his entire life, he had started to drift off when Garrett pressed his lips to the side of his head. “I love you, Maxwell.”
Maxwell smiled sleepily into the hollow of Garrett’s throat and managed to reply before settling into oblivion. “I love you too, Garrett.”
* * *
Garrett felt Maxwell leave the bed.
The mattress lifting as Maxwell’s weight left it woke him, and he kept himself perfectly still as Maxwell paused.
No sunlight hit Garrett’s eyelids, and only the faintest rustle of fabrics and murmur of the sea outside met his ears. The middle of the night. Or at least, the very early morning. Garrett urged Maxwell to come back to bed in his mind, but he forced himself not to open his eyes and beg. Maxwell had to make his own decisions, and Garrett refused to interfere.
But when he heard the soft sounds of Maxwell’s footsteps fading away and the creak of the door opening and then closing, his heart broke in his chest. He opened his eyes to stare up at the ceiling and swallowed down the sob in his throat. He had known this would happen. Even as he’d held Maxwell as they fell asleep, he’d been preparing himself for this reality.
