Raphael /BoyxBoy/

||Ten||

Day one.

I found him at the back by the garbage cans, leaning there like he did the first time we met, with his head bent down over another rolled up cigarette stick.

"Still at it?"

He glanced up. "Business is business. You miss one meeting and risk the whole thing falling through."

"Really?"

"No I just made that up to sound clever," he said, standing up and brushing his hands over his apron. "Why are you here?"

"Nice to see you, too."

He had to walk towards me to get to the back door, and I stepped in his way before he could reach out and grasp the door handle. "Are we going to pretend last night didn't happen?"

His eyes met mine sharply. "Isn't that what you want?"

I let go of his arm. "I never said that."

He fished out a cig. "All right. What do you want?"

I watched him light his cigarette, something fluttering in my stomach that I had to push down before it traveled up to my head and down to tingle my toes. "Last night again."

"We kissed," he stated.

"I'm aware. I was there, too you know."

It wasn't just kisses we shared. The food arrived and we camped out at the back of the store surrounded by battered pieces of large furniture and the smell of old wood and dust. We ate in silence but our knees brushed every few times and I would hold my breath every time it happened and forget that I was supposed to be eating. He would notice, point it out and I would have to come up with different excuses just to avoid the truth. And then we tucked the food away in one corner and he reclined against one of the sofas with one arm dangling. Stretched out that arm to run his fingers through my hair. I asked him of his art but he didn't reply, just smiled and told me he'd been wanting to kiss me from the moment I approached him. So I told him to kiss me now and he gripped my hair a little tighter, tilting my head and bending his own so his lips could reach far enough to touch mine.

He pulled me up against him eventually, tongues locking and tasting like the beer he'd ordered along with our food, and we tangled our bodies over the couch until he had to leave. I locked up the store on my own as I watched him disappear into the dark.

"I know," his eyes skimmed over me and felt that residual feeling over my skin like I was suddenly standing there naked.

He hadn't seen me naked yet and the idea of it, the image of it, tickled something in the back of my mind and revived the bubbling feeling in my stomach.

"Look," I said, trying to get away from his scorching eyes and whatever thoughts running through his head. And my own thoughts, really. They were a knotted mess too difficult to decipher on the spot. "I got you this."

He took the hand cream that I dug out of my pocket. "Is that an indirect insult?"

"No, I just." I took a deep breath. "I just thought it would come in handy."

"Great pun."

I wanted to laugh and smack the hand cream back all at the same time, but I went on talking. "'Cause you clean dishes and the soap can be kinda harsh. At least from when I used to wash dishes. I mean, I still do..."

"I use gloves."

"Oh."

He pocketed the hand cream. "But thanks."

I ran my fingers through my hair. "Yeah, sure."

He stepped on his cigarette and seemed to linger, casting his eyes to the sky overhead before allowing them to fall over me again.

Then he kissed me, holding me by my neck with one hand before tilting his head to the side and pressing his mouth to my mouth. And I kissed him back because his lips were soft and the clouds that hung heavy seemed this close to breaking and I liked the way the sun almost hid behind their gloomy shields, casting a shadow over us but light just a few meters off.

He pulled back. "Thanks," he said again.

His hand fell away but I held it before he could go inside. "Are you busy tonight?"

"Shouldn't you be?"

"Fuck school," and I said it as the first drop of rain fell onto the pavement and ignored it to stare at him intently.

"Okay, yeah," he said. "You should swing by."

I pressed him against the brick wall and kissed him for a little longer, closing my eyes at the feeling of his lips sliding against my own and his warm breath fanning against my mouth as the air turned cold and he shivered. He shivered the longer we stayed outside and let the rain dampen our hair and our clothes and our skin.

Slippery sliding skin that I ran my fingers over, untucking the ends of his shirt just to feel his skin breakout in goosebumps. Then his fingers were grasping at my wet hair and pulling me closer, harder. It was a mess of fingers and rain and the smell of his shampoo. I was addicted to it.

Someone whistled from the side, and Raphael gently pushed me away. "I'll see you later."

He glared at man who smirked by the doorway.

"Break's over, boys."

I watched them disappear inside, uncomfortably unsatisfied but buzzing with the prospect of kissing him again in just a few hours.

I know, I know. Super, super, suuuper short but I just bleh. I have a plan. Sort of. It's something, at least. Lol.

Also, I'm supposed to be working on a project but I hate group projects and I hate my group members so yeah :)))))))))

trying to pretend it's not a thing that needs to be done by like...tonight...

Thanks for reading! <3