Page 93 of One Adult, Please

"I want you to take off your pants."

"You could take them off."

"I could. But I'll probably fumble the belt buckle like I did with Joel's and then we'll be here all night and I have plans for tonight that don't involve struggling with men's accessories."

The words are out before I realize what I've said. Joel's name. While I'm naked and we're about to do something that I've also done with Joel. I don't know what the etiquette is. I don't know if mentioning one man while naked with another man is a violation of some code I haven't learned yet.

"It's okay," Beck says. His voice is soft in a way I haven't heard before. "Grace. It's okay."

"I didn't mean to..."

"I know." He closes the distance between us. His hands find my waist. "I know what this is. I know what you have with Joel. I'm not trying to replace it. I'm trying to be something additional. A different chair at the table."

"Beck."

"I spent years with one chair. I'm good at being the only thing in the room. But I don't want to be the only thing anymore. I want to be part of something. Even if the something includes other people." His forehead touches mine. "Even if those people are Joel and Grant and Kevin the chaos goat."

"Kevin's part of this?"

"Kevin's part of everything. Kevin transcends category."

I laugh. It comes out wet, closer to a sob than it should be, and Beck kisses the corner of my mouth where the laugh-sob lives.

"I want to be a chair," he says. "At your table."

"That's the weirdest romantic thing anyone's ever said to me."

"You named a viewing tunnel a fish tube. You're not allowed to judge weird."

He's right. I've never felt more understood in my entire life.

"Take off your pants," I say. "Chair."

He takes off his pants. Beck naked is a lot. He's thick and hard and beautiful.

I close the distance between us and his arms wrap around me and our bodies press together, and my brain finally shuts up long enough for my body to take over.

He reaches into a box on the shelf by the desk and pulls out a condom.

I look at it. Then him.

"Band-aid house," he says. "Turns out the rude little building had useful party favors."

"That's a terrible name for condoms."

"I'm workshopping under pressure."

"Workshop faster."

He grins, tears the wrapper open, and rolls it on. Then he walks us backward to the bench. Beck sits. I stand between his knees, looking down at him. The perspective is different, and I like it.

"Come here," he says again, and his hands find my hips, guiding me forward.

I climb onto his lap. My knees bracket his thighs. The position puts us face to face. I can see everything in his expression: the want and the fear and the hope that he's not used to feeling and doesn't know how to hide.

I kiss him. He kisses back. His hands are on my hips, gripping hard, and I feel him between my thighs, hot and insistent. My body is doing things without consulting my brain, rocking forward, seeking friction, finding it.

"Grace." My name is a groan. His palms are warm and rough against the bare skin of my hips.