“I’m so exhausted,” he mumbled.
“We don’t have to do anything,” Dalton said from his corner of the sofa. “Do you want to just go to bed?”
Tierney blinked at him heavily. “Last time you were here, you came and slept with me.”
Dalton sat up, straightening his spine. “I was worried about you.”
Tierney fidgeted, but wearily, like he couldn’t work up to the full expression of his nerves, simply tapping his fingers on the arm of the couch. “You don’t have to tonight.”
“You don’t want me to?” Dalton asked before he could stop himself.
Tierney squinted at him, like he thought maybe Dalton was crazy. “Of course I want you to.”
“But?”
“But.” Tierney ran a hand over his head, messing his hair up even more, a few brown strands shining reddish in the lamplight. “I don’t want you to think . . . you know.”
“I won’t,” Dalton whispered. Wondered if he’d put up with this neediness from anyone else. Probably not, given his past and his attempts to guard against his personal weaknesses, but unlike most people who exhibited the trait, Tierney didn’t want to be needy.
Unless I’m fooling myself.
No. He stood. “Lie down,” he ordered.
Tierney stared at him blankly, until Dalton started making “get horizontal” hand motions. The confused expression didn’t change, but Tierney stretched out on the cushions. Dalton reached across to turn off the lamp next to the couch, leaving the one near the television on. The rest of the condo was dark, so they had a little cave of low-lit tranquility in the room. At least, that was the effect Dalton was going for.
Now the difficult-ish part. He lay down next to Tierney, not too close. Not touching everywhere, although there was no place for Tierney to put his hand other than Dalton’s waist, and their sock-clad feet got tangled together.
It was all in the name of stress relief, though. Perfectly acceptable. Nudging a throw pillow under their heads, Dalton sighed and let his body settle, chest centimeters from Tierney’s and his forehead level with Tierney’s mouth, bangs shifting with the man’s breath.
“What are we doing?” Tierney whispered after a few seconds.
“We’re cuddling,” Dalton whispered back.
Tierney’s fingers dug into Dalton’s side. “Isn’t that, like, a romantic thing?”
“This is friend cuddling.” If there wasn’t such a thing already, they were pioneering it tonight. “For stress relief.”
Tierney didn’t say any more, and slowly Dalton felt the tension drain out of him. The fish tank gurgle provided the perfect white noise, and body heat and proximity were enough to keep them warm.
Once Tierney’s breathing had evened out, Dalton rested his lax fingers on Tierney’s cheek. He tensed.
“Human touch is good for you,” Dalton said, and Tierney’s muscles loosened again. “When my skin touches yours, your body releases a hormone that encourages feelings of well-being.”
“I think it releases a couple other hormones too,” Tierney said, but it was barely a murmur.
“When it’s just friend cuddling, we don’t listen to those hormones, ’kay?”
“’Kay,” Tierney whispered, then his lips grazed Dalton’s hair. “I like this,” he said so softly Dalton almost couldn’t hear him over his own heartbeat.
“Me too.”
Tierney fell asleep quickly after that. Dalton had thought he would, since most people underestimated how exhausting emotional stress could be.
Underestimating was going around because, in spite of thinking he wasn’t tired, next thing Dalton knew, Tierney jerking awake roused him too, nearly knocking him on the floor.
“Sorry,” Tierney said. “Fell asleep. God, I keep doing that to you.”
“Only the second time,” Dalton said, trying to blink himself more conscious.
“It’s only the second time you’ve been here.” Tierney sat up, maneuvering over him to sit at Dalton’s feet and rest his face in his hands. “Such a dork, falling asleep in your lap like that,” he said quietly. “Last time.”
“It was kind of sweet.”
They stared at each other, and Dalton knew they were both thinking about what happened afterward.
“We should go to my bedroom.” Tierney stood. “We’ll both sleep better there.”
“Okay.” He took Tierney’s hand when it was offered, grabbed his pack from off the floor, and followed the man down the hall.
The alarm on Dalton’s phone went off at six. He’d set it to the “crickets” tone, because that should be less jarring than “car alarm” or whatever, but it never was. Crickets woke him up just as abruptly. He cracked one eyelid and aimed for the glowing red circle, poking at it until the insects shut up.
Even only half-awake, he wasn’t disoriented. He knew immediately that the faint warmth at his back was Tierney, and the door he could just make out in the wall across from him led into Tierney’s bathroom, where he’d brushed his teeth and given himself a stern “just friends” talking to last night.
He closed his eyes again, tucking his hands under his head, and imagined this was real. That Tierney slept so close to him in such a huge bed because he wanted to be near Dalton, not because that was his habitual spot. That Dalton could turn over and kiss Tierney awake, maybe get them naked and they could rock against each other until they both gave it up.
Groan. Why had he let his mind go there? They’d successfully negotiated sleeping together all night without introducing sex, and he couldn’t ruin that now. He rolled over carefully, trying not to jostle the bed too much. Tierney looked rough. Dark circles under his eyes, hair sticking up like crazy, mouth slack, whiskers growing in.
Yummers.
“Are you leaving?” Tierney asked, blinking. His voice was low and raspy and had a way of worming into Dalton’s ear.
He nodded. “I have to get ready for work.”
“Yeah.” Tierney reached for Dalton, taking his hand and holding it loosely. “Sorry about last night.”
“Nothing to be sorry for.” He tried to imagine lying in bed with Sam or one of his other friends—even one of the friends with benefits he’d had in college—talking like this in the predawn light, inches apart. Holding hands. It wouldn’t happen. One of them—if not both—would read it as an invitation for sex, but with Tierney it was simply intimate in some undefined way. Unformed. Things could become anything between them. “I offered to come over.”