e didn’t remember much as came before falling asleep.
Don’t look back, he remembered thinking, soupy-tired. He’d led the way, as if he’d never led it before, as if they’d not done many a thing in that same bed in that same room; felt like a different room now, a different house, a different hand wrapped in Aremu’s. Don’t look back, something told him, don’t look back, don’t look back, or he’ll go.
He remembered his hands being almost too tired to take off his trousers, to unbuckle his belt and push them off. He couldn’t remember letting go the imbala’s hand; he remembered the empty-head quiet afterward, when he thought maybe the soft creaking weight on the bed behind him was a dream, when he thought maybe it was a ghost and he was already gone.
He remembered, Yes, echoed through his head, and the hundred scratching little paws it’d woke up. Yes, what? What’d he asked of Aremu? Oes, he’d thought, climbing into bed, stripped of his clothes. Oes, he’d thought, I’m a man – I could, one last, maybe, if…
He’d found a warm body instead with his hands, and curled himself round it like the body of a lover. He’d felt the softness of Aremu’s hair against the prickle of his beard; he’d buried his lips in it, breathed in the scent of him, and shut his eyes.
He remembered dreams.
He couldn’t separate his waking in the night from the dreams; he couldn’t’ve said which was which, or if he’d dreamt, or if he’d ever woke.
Once, he’d snorted so hard he’d woke himself up, and he’d heard the breathing beside him hitch and then smooth out. Once, he’d woke to the numb prickle of one of his arms underneath Aremu, and he’d grunted and shifted and thought he’d heard a noise from the other man, except neither of them spoke, and he found a better way to sleep. Once, he’d woke to the gentle tug of a blanket, and relaxed his fist in the wool where he’d tugged back in his sleep.
Once, he’d woke to the shift of a lover on the mattress, and empty space where there’d been a man. “Aremu,” he’d whispered to the dark, reaching, “Aremu,” and the noise’d melted the emptiness away, and he’d woke to find neither of them’d moved, only he was holding the imbala a little closer.
Once, he’d woke – he thought – to an empty bed, smooth, as if nobody’d lain there at all. He’d woke to a rapping at the window, tap tap tap bang bang, and a familiar voice, and thought, You know where the key is; I took your key back, but we left the spare where it’s always been –
And the rapping had stopped. That was the last time; he’d felt a knot of sadness, but sleep had dragged him back under, or maybe more dreams.
When he woke, it was to the prickle of drying sweat on his shoulders, and the light slanting in. His eyelids felt stuck; when he blinked them open, the light and the ceiling and the drifting motes might’ve rippled and spun, or maybe it was his head, feeling like a cup of water tilted and spilling, slowly.
He shut his eyes. One of his arms was warm, pressed up against bare skin underneath a blanket. His chest was bare, and one leg, and the blanket rumpled where he must’ve kicked it off him.
He shifted, pushing himself up just enough to see the light catch on the muscles of Aremu’s back, traced with a few pale, familiar scars. His eyes came into focus – never so much the shape of him wasn’t blurry, blurrier than the dark doorway to the kitchen behind, or the burnt sticks of incense and the half-empty bottle of whisky on the bedside table. But he came into focus, and Tom could hear the soft deep whoosh of his breath, in and out, and watch him rise and fall with it.
He settled back down, the thick tangle of his hair cushioning his head, and wrapped an arm round the other man.
Only then’d he realized, and something like shame tugged in his stomach. Had Aremu meant to stay ‘til the morning? Had he someplace to be?
“Dove,” he murmured, easing away gentle-like; he ran a hand over his shoulder, and didn’t dare to kiss the back of his neck, for all he wanted to.