arrow of carnations

Leo comes with a sharp cry and a moan that lingers somewhere low in his chest. It breaks over him like waves on the beach, the undertow that pulls him deeper and the gasping when he spills out the other side. Finn follows with his nose buried in the crease of Leo’s hip, wet mouth open and panting against his skin. Aftershocks spark hot and fast; he sucks a mark there, and a second. Licks at Leo’s inner thighs and the shivering mess of his lower belly, still jumping with each lave of his tongue. The hair on his thighs is soft under Finn’s hands, nearly invisible in its blondness. It’s coarser on his calves where they wrap around him while Leo tries (and fails) to catch his breath. The bedroom fan hums. Finn digs his fingertips into the thick, sun-flecked flesh joining the angles of Leo’s waist to the pert roundness of his ass. The tan line there that wraps around Leo, so fucking low, teases him—he licks that, too.

Finn loses himself in kissing his way up the rest of Leo’s body until it’s just them, in the memory of the pounding heat outside, tangled up in the kind of decadence he’s still getting used to. The drumming song in his head is only pleasure; it leaves his mouth slack when he nudges into the salt of Leo’s chest and lays all his weight down. His lips are numb. His jaw screams. Leo brings him closer when Finn gets at his throat with a touch of teeth and a puppylike snarl, and laughs, and all thought of soreness flees.

His phone pings with an all-too-familiar text tone. Leo’s fingertips press into his bare back. His knee hitches around Finn to keep him there, even as Finn raises his head to brush their noses together. Leo’s mouth is soft under his fingertips, and his eyes, blown black-blue. Finn makes himself look away to leave a kiss at his collarbone. “Your Lo’s calling.”

He feels Leo inhale, all sweet pleasure with the arch of his body against him. Finn would swear in front of any judge that that blush tastes like raspberries when he kisses each of Leo's cheeks. His brain sparks and fizzes at the thought of getting hard again this soon. It would hurt. He doesn’t care. Leo guides him up by the back of his hair until they’re eye-level again and—Finn never stood a chance—draws his thumb over the corner of Finn’s lips. “You gonna tell me what he wants?”

For one wild moment, Finn considers ignoring the text. They could go another round. Logan’s patient.

Hm. No, he’s not.

“As you wish,” Finn promises. That smile. Fucking Christ Almighty and the rest of them, too. He nestles himself between Leo’s thighs again (his hips this time, instead of his shoulders) and reaches blindly for their nightstand while grazing a few more pecks across the slight arc of his clavicle. He makes sure to mouth at Leo’s sensitive ears and the place one meets his neck, if only to keep him laughing like that. Once he’s sure Leo will survive a few seconds without being kissed, he props himself on his elbows with a groan and squints down at the screen. Leo’s clever hands slip down to hold his waist. The base part of his brain tells him those big paws could reach the whole way around. Sometimes, he thinks they should give it a shot.

"One new message from Logan Tob-oh-gan Trebamalay," he reads aloud, carding through the side of Leo’s sweaty hair where it halos him against blue cotton in the safe bracket of Finn’s forearms. “Forgot my keys. Outside.”

Leo snorts, covering his eyes with one hand. “God, Lo.”

A knock sounds at the front door. They lose themselves in giggling.

--

Logan is getting impatient.

They’re home. He checked their location twenty minutes ago, when he realized his house key was still in the bowl, and fifty-five seconds ago, when peering through the peephole gave him absolutely no clues.

The door swings open. Logan loses every thought skipping through his head like a seventy-car pileup.

“Well, hello,” Finn says, leaning his forearm on the doorway beside them. “No solicitors, please. Didn’t you see the sign?”

His hip is cocked, his bicep flexed, his abs right there for Logan to touch (he wouldn’t even have to reach far), but it’s none of that that draws Logan’s entire focus to a single pinpoint. It’s his mouth. Grinning and sharp-toothed and red. Red, red, and wet as a cherry when the thin skin first pops and leaves Finn to slurp the juice off his hand. It looks like it hurts. He could slip two fingers into the heat of Finn’s mouth and never feel a moment of friction.

Belatedly, Logan realizes Finn’s wearing Leo’s underwear. The hand not drumming along their doorframe with faux exasperation bunches the cotton and elastic over the jut of his hip.

Finn’s still sweaty. Fucking fuck.

Logan only catches a glimpse of the red hair trailing down below Finn’s navel when that hand twists in the front of his shirt and yanks him inside. His back slams the door shut behind them, and then it’s mouth and tongue and lips and mouth, hungry, nibbling at Logan between breaths hotter than the sidewalk outside. Finn licks past his teeth before Logan can beat him to it: salt, himself, and Leo. Logan’s head spins and spins. His dick throbs. He shoves both hands down the front of Finn’s—Leo’s—boxers and groans at the sticky dampness still clinging to him, swallowing down Finn’s hiss when he closes a hand around the mostly-soft length of him.

“Harzy…”

Finn’s shiver ricochets off Logan’s clinging hands. Logan can’t blame him. Leo’s demands are clear and precise even in just one word, and he nudges his nose to Finn’s cheek to kiss the corner of his smile before taking him by the hand to pull him down the hall.

The sight that greets him is—

“Fuck.”

It’s—yeah. Fuck. Logan’s brain supplies nothing else. Leo smiles up at him sweetly. The utter wreck of their bed hugs him close where he lounges, debauched, flushed from head to toe in pretty patterns with one hand propping his chin up from the pillows.

“Hi, Lo,” he says softly.

Logan hears himself make a suffering sort of noise. He looks at Finn, and with a wave of his hand only manages, “without me?”

The boxers slump dangerously low. Finn scratches the side of his nose. He still hasn’t looked away from Leo, and Logan can’t blame him. “Yeah, this was…” Finn blows out a breath. “Entirely my fault.”

“Without me?”

“We can go again,” Leo volunteers, always such a team player even when he’s looking at Finn like a goddamn lynx. Logan kind of wants those teeth to sink into his jugular, next. He has to press the heel of his palm against himself when Leo rolls languidly onto his back and flexes his ankles all the way to the end of the bed. All. The way. “Right, Harz?”

“Yeah,” Finn says immediately. “Yeah, please. Yes.”

Logan can’t think. Leo had come—on himself, he realizes, though most of the mess is gone. Finn had still been sticky, and Leo was still catching his breath, if the fading color on his face and chest said anything at all. Leo had come, and it was recent.

He doesn’t bother asking when. His pants hit the floor in a heap; he kicks his ankle free, already reaching for Leo across the short expanse of ruined sheets. Logan hears Finn curse behind him at the same time Leo cups his face in his palms and pulls him down for a deep, pleased kiss. Logan feels his chest hum and goes lax. His weight makes Leo smile, and an arm comes around his shoulders to flip them over.

“Off,” Leo requests, pushing his hands up under Logan’s shirt.

Logan’s eyes flutter shut when cool bedroom air bathes his chest. Leo’s hands are quick to follow, and his thigh slots between Logan’s so smoothly he’s already kissing the hiss from Logan’s mouth by the time it slips out. Logan grinds up against him, feeling the mattress dip when Finn joins them. He knots one hand in Leo’s mussed curls and flails the other out in Finn’s general direction. The backs of his fingers slap against skin and he hears Finn laugh, even through Leo’s low noise when he gives his hair a tug. There, there, there—

“Pull harder,” Leo mumbles into his mouth.

It quakes through Logan whip-fast. Leo’s not giving him much, but it’s everything and more. Logan can feel his quad flex and release in the smallest motions to help him along, to ease the way, to meet him where he’s at because Leo knows better than anyone how hard it is to rock against someone when you’re pinned down tight by a strong body and a loving mouth.

That thought alone gets Logan over the cusp of the first one. His hips buck; the glide smooths, and so does Leo’s grin.

“Fuck,” he grates out. “Merde, Le.”

“Keep going.” Breath, hot between them. What Finn must have done to him to keep Leo’s lips unswollen…Logan feels himself twitch, thighs clenching around Leo’s own.

He pulls back to catch his breath, though it does little when every bit of motion steals it anew. Finn’s already looking back when Logan finds him, idly splayed over the other half of the mattress like a lord or a prince of their tiny castle. Humor quirks his mouth. “Hot out there, huh?”

Logan whines.

“Pretty hot in here, too.” Finn thumbs over his cheekbone when the fireworks of Leo’s teeth on his neck make Logan groan. “Poor thing. You didn’t even get a warning.”

He’s going to come again. He can feel it, low in his belly, tingling up his legs. “What’d you—” Logan breaks to land a few desperate kisses over Leo’s mouth. “What’d you do? Tell me.”

Finn wets his lips, though he hardly needs to. Logan’s seen him like that before. It used to scour his insides with fervent envy, made worse by the rumors that dogged Finn’s reputation through their last years because he knew they were true. He’d seen half the girls, and knew about the rest. Logan had always been proud that his own name was never mentioned far behind.

Leo’s the lucky one, tonight and forever. As his second orgasm hits like a landslide, Logan’s never been less jealous in his life.

Finn pets his hair off his forehead and helps him through it with his mouth on Logan’s shoulder, his chest, the brush of a nipple, heightening the rush of Leo’s thigh pressed flush against him and his body covering Logan from top to bottom. A sigh whispers across the sweat just beading over Logan’s neck. Leo nuzzles up to the hinge of his jaw in unabashed contentment.

“He put my knees all the way up here.”

Logan shuts his eyes. The butter-thick accent is a cruelty and a blessing.

Leo sighs again, as if the memory is too good to trim down. “Didn’t get ‘em back for ages. Kept me spread open like a damn book.”

“So good…” Finn says into the crown of his head.

And isn’t that a picture.

Leo’s index finger trails across Logan’s collarbones; left, then right. Down his sternum, over his tattoo, tracing his v-line, all while avoiding his cock with tantalizing intention. Logan feels a little like he’s going to pass out if they don’t fucking do something soon—

Finn wasn’t sure he’d ever been so sweaty.

“Thank you, yeah, that looks great.”

Or tired. Jesus, he was so fucking tired.

“The keys are—? Okay, perfect, sounds good.”

Thank god for Logan, because his brain could hardly string together a sentence in English, let alone attempt anything else.

“I’m so sorry, I don’t…oui, yeah, he’s—”

So when they pulled up to the front desk (tired, hot, admittedly grimy), Finn gave himself a little grace.

“I’m sorry?”

“Are you supposed to be here?”

“Yes,” Finn said slowly. The front desk person flipped her hair over her shoulder and clicked her mouse a few more times. Her nametag read CAMILLE above the name of the hotel he was absolutely, 1000% sure they had a room in.

Though at this point, he’d believe just about anything.

“I don’t see,” Camille said with a bored shrug. “Sorry. Tremblay? With a T?”

“Oui,” Logan answered.

Finn could hear the edge in his voice. That I’m tired, and you are standing between me and my bed annoyance that felt like a spitting kitten when directed at himself but was never taken well by strangers. He pressed the pad of his thumb to the pulsing dent on his nose left by his glasses. “Um. Can we try a different name?”

Camille shrugged again. “Sure.”

“O’Hara. First name Finn.”

They’d booked this so long ago. Any of them could have called it in. God, Finn had never even thought about this part of polyamory. Maybe he should write a book. Two Lovers? No Problem: Solutions for Everyday Mix-Ups in the Modern World, by F.C. O’Hara. Edited by L. Knut and L. Tremblay. Hmm. Logan would be irked if he was listed last. Maybe it was time to get a joint last name. Two hyphens wouldn’t simplify things at all, though, and they’d never agree on one. Or would they?

Another chapter for the book.

“O’Hara…” Camille pursed her vivid red lips. “Multiple O’s?”

Finn stared. “No, just—just the one.”

“Okay.” Oh-kaye. Almost like Logan’s, but not quite. He’d always been put off at how different Logan sounded compared to the average Frenchman. Faint surprise darted over Camille’s face. “Ah! We have a room, yes. Finn?”

“Yes. F-i-n-n.”

“Large room, one king bed. Do you need us to bring a cot?”

It would be unbelievably funny to accept if it was literally any other day. “No.”

She remained impassive. He probably would have started crying if she was mean about it, at this point. “Parfait. Three keys, breakfast is in the room down the hall and to the left from seven o’clock until ten, you have a parking spot in the garage, please call the front desk if you have any needs, linens are changed every other day, you get a discount—ten percent—at the restaurant in the lobby, thank you joining us for your stay in Paris and bon nuit.”

“Merci.”

She winced. Finn took the keys from the desk and headed for the elevator, and prayed to a god he didn’t believe in that his boys hadn’t fallen asleep in the nine thousand years that had passed since they dragged their carcasses through the revolving door.

The elevator door shut with a cheerful ping.

“O’Horo.”

“Ooooooo’Hara.”

Finn closed his eyes to the sound of manic giggling. “I can’t,” he groaned, and kicked petulantly at the wheels of his suitcase. “I can’t do it.”

Leo hummed. “Would it be Oooh’Hara or Ooooo’Hara?”

“Ooooo,” Logan decided. “Like a ghost. Ooo.”

“I confirmed with them yesterday!”

“I feel like there’s some merit to O’Horo, though,” Leo continued.

Logan tsked. “Non, I like the ghost.”

“They have my phone number!” The door slid open, with a much lower chime. Apparently, getting to their rooms was serious business. Finn didn’t care. He was in the hall before the stupid little noise was even done. He turned a plaintive look on Leo as they headed down the hall. “They have both our names on the reservation, Le. Both! I checked! Yesterday!”

Leo reached out and passed a hand through his hair. “You poor thing, you’re red all through your freckles.”

“I am,” Finn said hotly. The click of the room door was the trumpets of heaven. He made straight for the end of the bed and flopped down face first.

“Thank fuck,” Logan sighed. Finn turned his head to the side once breathing got too hard—just in time to watch Logan strip off his shirt and begin unbuttoning his pants in the same breath, leaving both haphazard on the floor in his wake. “I’m taking my shower, come bother me.”

“I…” Leo’s bemusement was not enough to stop him from visibly raking his eyes down Logan’s (delicious) back before it vanished behind the bathroom door. Nor did it stop him from catching Logan’s boxers when they were thrown out by a disembodied hand two seconds later.

He looked at Finn. Finn did his best Camille impression, and shrugged. “Hot.”

“Hotter than he can handle.”

“’S why he has us.” Finn put his face back in the sheets and let all the air out of his body through one long, warbling groan.

Leo laughed at him; plastic wheels creaked. The shower kicked on. Now that he had a millisecond to think about it, that didn’t sound so bad. A nice rinse, even though he probably needed to really suds up. Logan could wash his hair. He sort of did it like he was washing a large retriever, all big scrubs and heavy affection. It wasn’t how he washed his own. Finn sort of loved it. A lot.

Weight fell down beside him, all the way down to the end of the mattress. If a thousand bodies did the same, Finn thought, he’d be able to pick Leo out every time. There was that tiny noise—a stretch. He’d be flexing his feet up and down. In a few seconds, he’d probably—

Indeed. But when Leo finished cracking his knuckles, he didn’t move on to splaying all his limbs out. He didn’t even shuffle into Finn’s side. Instead, he slung his weight upright again, and a leg fell over Finn’s butt before the rest of him followed.

“Did you take your pants off?” Finn mumbled. He was too tired to turn and see.

“Yeah.”

Cool air hit his back in waves with each new inch of skin revealed. Leo pushed his shirt up the last couple inches, then spread his palms across Finn’s shoulder blades and pressed down with most of his weight.

“Good?”

“You’re amazing.” He hoped Leo could hear him through fabric and foam.

“Hmm.” He could. He was smiling. Good. “Thanks again for driving today.”

Finn managed something like no problem. His eyelids were heavy. Oh, no, they were closed. The sound of Logan splashing around was basically white noise. And Leo was heavy, all warm across his back and thighs, kneading the ache out of his back even though Finn was probably disgusting. Leo would like the balcony, here. He could be up by seven, pop down to the continental breakfast for coffee and pastries, and bring some back before the two of them woke so they could eat outside.

Or, even better—he could find a corner bakery. Enough charades and apologetic smiles could get him something good, times three. Not that people in Paris didn’t speak English, but Finn hated the thought of being rudely American.

A kiss brushed his ear. “You’re quiet.”

“Sleepy.”

“Long day.” A gentle pass of palms, up either side of his spine. Leo blew lightly across his back. “Still too hot?”

“Nah.”

“We’ll get you some sunscreen tomorrow. Oh, and sunglasses, mine broke in my bag.”

“Aw, really?’

“Yeah, forgot the case at home.” There was a sound like Leo had patted for his pockets, only to meet skin instead. Finn laughed into the bedspread and felt Leo squeeze his hips between his thighs. “Hey, you only get to laugh if you’ve got a pen hiding in there somewhere.”

“Sorry, not me.” One pale knee greeted him, and a thigh stretching up and out of sight beyond. Finn rubbed his cheek on the duvet cover and let his eyes close again. “You gonna go bother the wet beast?”

“Maybe, just to tell him you called him that.”

“It’s true. Say vray.”

Leo’s elbow worked at the knot beneath his shoulder blade. “Don’t go anywhere in this country without us, honey, your mouth was made for other things.”

“Remember Italy?”

Finn finished chasing a drip of vibrant orange down the side of his popsicle and nodded. “Which part?”

“The park.” Leo hadn’t even looked up from his book.

Of course Finn remembered the park. Rambling green within the confines of towering castle walls that dated back to the 15th century; enough shade to escape the lunchtime heat, but enough warmth that Leo could bask in the soft grass between bites of cheese and salami. Logan’s radiant delight when they turned the corner and uncovered his eyes, his pleased smile when they crossed the drawbridge over a dry moat, the lounge of his body while he surveyed the land around them like his own personal kingdom. Finn had barely been able to keep the old fortress secret for those morning hours.

“Loved that place, yeah.”

Leo turned a page, uncrossed his legs, and crossed them again in the opposite direction. “We should go back.”

“Missing the sun?”

There—a teasing dart of blue eyes over the edge of his sunglasses. Finn stretched out with a laugh and let the French heat beat down on his knees, etching more freckles over his pasty skin. A beachside sprawl of towels and half-broken umbrellas marked their territory. A dozen yards out, a volleyball went scampering off toward the water to a chorus of groans.

“I’m missing the—”

“Maman!”

“—cheese.” Leo held the edge of his page down at the next gust of wind. “And the—”

“MAMAN!”

“—architecture. Reg wants to go with us next time.”

“As long as he gets his own place.”

Leo chucked a shell at him, which Finn caught, laughing. “You like him.”

“I do, I do.” Another bit of popsicle attempted escape. Finn savored it, the sharp tang of fresh orange juice straight out of the freezer against this summer boil, and felt his toes pop as he worked them into the sand. “But,” he added. “I refuse to keep my hands to myself for the sake of his delicate sensibilities.”

“Control yourself, O’Hara.”

“Around you in your teeny-tiny, itty-bitty vacation shorts?” It was Finn’s turn to peer at him over his glasses. “Not a chance, Butter. Not a chance.”

More shouting from below; a squabble, loud gestures, something about the imaginary offsides line that left Sydney stomping back to her position with a vicious scowl. Twenty feet to his right, Finn watched Iva raise her wineglass at her children in acknowledgement and return to her shell-sorting.

“He’s thinking of bringing Harper.”

“He should.” Finn slurped a bit of juice off his hand and caught the glance of Leo’s eyes. “Better than staying in a hotel alone.”

“Finn…”

“I joke, I kid.”

“First Luke, now Reg…” Leo clicked his tongue. “Somebody doesn’t like to share.”

He did not. But Finn wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of defining his very specific sharing parameters. He gave Leo a firm pat on his thigh, tilted into the light to collect sun-gold as a souvenir. Gold beside him, bronze ahead. Lots of bronze, actually—his own personal statue slapped the volleyball back over their net to immediate protests.

“What’s she saying?”

“Hmm? Oh.” Leo’s face scrunched slightly, listening. “Aubrey’s calling him a filthy cheater and sore loser. And—”

“MAMAN!”

“—uh, they wanted Iva to play ref, earlier. Which is obviously going super well.”

“Lo?”

“He just told Aubrey he was gonna kill her with a rock.”

“So he’s happy,” Finn finished, pushing his glasses up into his hair. He laid back with a sigh. “Perfect.”

Leo’s laugh made him smile. His hand was hot and sandy on Finn’s jaw in a quick scuff, thumb pushing at his dimple. “Hmm,” Leo sighed happily. “You’re scruffy.”

“Was thinking of shaving tonight, before dinner.”

“MENTEUSE! MENTEUSE! MENTEUSE!”

Leo’s fingertips trailed over his cheek. “Aw, but I like it.”

“I can keep it,” Finn offered, squinting up at him in the sun.

Leo examined him for a moment. “Tomorrow,” he decided. “Keep it for tonight.”

“You got plans, Knut?”

“Hush.”

Finn grinned at the blush on his cheeks. “Be-have.”

“I’m—” Leo smacked his glasses back down over his eyes. “Watch your show.”

“Who, Lo?”

“Yes.”

“My show,” Finn muttered, smiling. He wasn’t wrong. Well—Leo was rarely wrong. And he was also watching Logan, as evidenced by the extensive lifespan of page 117 and his fixed gaze that Finn could see through the side of his sunglasses.

He snuck a hand up under the leg of Leo’s swim shorts and gently pinched the underside of his thigh. Leo jumped with a yelping sort of sound, and whacked at him with his paperback. “Finn.”

“Back muscles.”

“I’m finishing this before you and spoiling it all.”

“Nah. You won’t.” Finn bit his lip at the softness of the back of Leo’s knee. Muscle and joints twitched under his touch. “Gonna give me subtitles?”

“I’m reading.”

As if. Even with his book fully spread open in front of his face, Finn saw him peeking. That was fine. Beach volleyball looked good on the Tremblays. The half-inflated ball and a torn net from their grandmother’s shed brought the whole thing together, a picture-perfect window into the last twenty-odd years of these visits. He was more than happy to watch Logan, season-strong, solstice-bronzed, lope around with three of his most favorite people in his most favorite place.

“D’you think Alex would let me use his espresso machine?”

Leo looked down at him, straw in his mouth. “Huh? Probably.”

“Like, could I borrow it?”

“Unlikely.”

“Really?” Finn frowned, and folded his hands behind his head. “Maybe we could grab it next time we visit.”

“Or we could just buy one,” Leo laughed.

“It doesn’t taste the same.”

Leo shook his head, setting his lemonade down in the sand. “You and Lo. Impossible. Ohhh, it’s not the same, ohhh, theirs is so much better, ohhhh, we can just borrow it real quick when we visit.”

“Older sibling seasoning is real,” Finn insisted.

“If my cousins ever stole half the shit you two have taken from your siblings, I would have fed them to a gator.”

Finn tsked. “They love us. And I miss good espresso. Italy spoiled me.”

Leo took another sip. His book was fully abandoned, resting beside him while he watched Aubrey and Noelle race the tide for the ball, shrieking as the water pulled back. Logan stood with his arms crossed by the side of the net and one hip tilted. Statue, indeed. “I think,” Leo said slowly. “That if you just told Alex he makes good coffee, he’d make you some when we visit.”

Finn waved his hand in the air. “He’d do that anyway.”

“Still.”

It was 3 o’clock in the morning, and Finn was awake.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen that hour tick over. College, maybe. He almost hadn’t believed it when he checked his phone.

His heart still pounded, low in his stomach, low enough that he could feel it when he ran a hand from his sternum to his navel and back again. God. Fuck. He could feel it in his throat, too, clenching and releasing. He didn’t want to move; Logan was cuddly tonight, curled so tight to the side of Finn’s body that there was no way to get up and walk this clinging thing off without waking him. No way at all.

Finn laid his head back on the pillow and tried to breathe it out. Leo, at least, was asleep. He could hear it in the slow inhales from the other side of the bed. Logan’s arm was a concrete bar over Finn’s stomach, his thigh weighing both of Finn’s legs down. His lips were slightly parted. Soft hair tickled Finn’s nose where Logan had burrowed into him.

“Lo.”

The smallest, slightest hitch of breath.

Finn lowered his voice and trailed his knuckles up the ridges of Logan’s bare back. “Lo.”

Logan mumbled something, lashes fluttering. His nose nudged under Finn’s jaw. A long exhale cooled Finn’s skin, still damp with sweat.

“Logan,” he whispered, and bent to kiss Logan’s forehead. Warm as always. Their little radiator. “Lo, hey. Hey.”

Logan was awake between one breath and the next. Sleepy green eyes blinked up at him; his brow furrowed, cheeks pink at the top. He’d been deep under. Finn would feel bad about it later, but he waited patiently for Logan to look down at their tangled bodies and back over his shoulder at Leo. Could Logan feel his heart skittering away? He hoped not.

He hoped so.

“Too hot?” Logan asked, already starting to unwind his arm from Finn’s torso. He was still disoriented enough to drop the ‘h’. Something inside Finn heaved at the familiarity. A kiss bumped against his cheek, though it was more of a fond nuzzle than anything more. “Sorry, baby.”

“Hey, wait.”

Logan sat up on one elbow.

Finn didn’t know. He just didn’t know. He tugged at the drawstring of Logan’s shorts. “Can we…?”

The sleepy blur was gone. Logan glanced down. “Now?”

“No, no, I…” Finn shook his head. He didn’t know. “Not that. Can we go outside?”

Logan looked toward the window, then back at him. “Outside?”

Finn fought down a small shiver and tucked his feet deeper under the blankets. “Yeah. Just—just for a minute?”

That look. He’d died for that look, once. The closeness, the focus. He’d felt it burn right through him from every angle of every room they entered.

“Okay,” Logan said slowly, quietly. He cast one more glance at Leo’s slumbering shape. “It’s early.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re awake.”

Finn didn’t have to answer. Logan wasn’t looking for one—his face said plenty. He knew. Finn twisted the drawstring around his first two fingers and pulled. Logan’s mouth fell into a gentle frown, but he helped Finn ease the covers back and slipped out of bed behind him.

It was cooler in the living room. Finn poured himself a glass of water, though he didn’t really want it. The coldness on his palms helped. He could feel Logan behind him, lingering in the space between the kitchen and the sofa. He downed the water in two gulps, then refilled the glass, bracing both hands on the sink in the meantime. He just had to get a fucking grip.

A hand found the small of his back and Finn’s throat tightened. He looked away, to the side, to the safety of the key bowl by the front door and their haphazard shoe pile. He’d organize that in the morning. Maybe tonight, if he couldn’t make his mouth work.

“Fish?”

“Yeah,” he managed, rough. Logan’s thumb, rubbing tiny circles over his skin, stopped. Finn nodded. “Yeah, c’mon.”

Logan followed. His shadow, even in the dark.

The city was still up. Cars and people, lights in the distance. Finn abandoned his water on the tiny mosaic table by the balcony doors and let Logan close it behind them. The railing bit into his forearms. It was still mild, for June. Someone had pinned a pride flag to the complex across the street already. A siren wailed down Main, ten blocks down. If they were in New York, he would’ve taken them out onto the fire escape outside his bedroom window. His bedroom. Not Logan’s.

Tentative hands on his hips lost their hesitation when Finn didn’t flinch away, wrapping around him from behind. Comfortable weight against his back; a head resting between his shoulders. “You’re hot.”

“Thanks.”

Logan’s little puff of disapproval made him smile despite himself. He ran a hand over Logan’s forearm, though his palms were probably cold. Maybe Logan would like it. He didn’t know. He hoped so. Logan liked the cold, even when it bit and howled and threatened to pull them both under.

“Is it bad news?”

Finn shook his head. “Just needed some air.”

He didn’t want to be standing anymore. If they went back to bed, he’d just lie there, blisteringly awake, and if he didn’t sleep then Logan wouldn’t sleep, and he really shouldn’t have brought Logan out here at all. He should’ve closed his eyes and let it go.

He was selfish. For lots of things, he figured, but especially for Logan. Years of hunger and then more more more.

“Sorry for waking you up.”

He felt Logan shake his head. “Don’t be.”

“Well, I am.”

“I want to be there.” Logan shifted. His chin rested where his cheek had been. “Here, I mean. For you.”

“Can we sit?”

But that wasn’t enough, either, and Finn realized it the second he folded his legs under himself and cool stone seeped through his pajama pants. It wasn’t enough, until his feet were stretched out toward the far railing and his head was on Logan’s chest, and Logan’s, on his shoulder, laying the opposite direction. Finn was so tired he could cry. The stars above turned hazy through his eyelashes. Logan’s heart thudded along.

“I need to know,” he whispered. His chest hurt like he’d been kicked. He rubbed the heel of his hand over it, back and forth, pushing the tightness away from the soft center. “I gotta know, Logan, I can’t—it was so bad. I know you love me—”

Logan’s breath caught.

“—I really do, I promise and I believe you and it’s so, sogood.” Finn cursed under his breath and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry. Jesus, it’s so good now, I know you hate talking about it, I’m just having these fucking—dreams, and it’s us, in that fucking water, and it’s killing me, Lo, it’s killing me. I gotta know.”

To anyone else, he wouldn’t be making any sense. He was sweating again. He could feel it prickling his face and underarms. Leo could parse through his rambling, but he always asked questions, even just one to confirm that he understood. Finn loved that, he loved him, he loved how Leo always made sure people felt seen and heard and that he had got it all right. He was so kind. Finn felt—with Leo, he felt so real.

“I loved you.” His eyes burned. He should let Logan speak, but he couldn’t stop his trembling mouth. “God, Logan, I loved you so much it tore me to fucking pieces. And you knew.”

A firefly bloomed out of their potted violet. “I did,” Logan said quietly.

“I wanted—” Finn stopped himself. It would be easier to list the things he didn’t want, in those heartsick, aching days. “I wanted us. Every bit of it. Was it like that for you?”

It was, it was, he’d read it all over Logan and tasted it from his manic mouth in their stolen kisses. It had certainly felt like theft. Every kiss Finn got was one taken from someone else, someone Logan didn’t like half as much as he liked Finn. He didn’t have to ask. He’d seen those pleading green eyes and felt the way Logan’s whole body tilted toward him when he walked into a room.

“It was the end of the world.”

Finn closed his eyes.

Logan breathed out into the night air. “I was…out of control. This—pressure, in my head. I wanted you so bad.”

“I’m sorry,” Finn rasped.

“Non, it was everything to me.” Logan’s chest rose and fell, bringing his head with it. “I didn’t want it to be different.”

Wet warmth slid down to the shell of Finn’s ear.

“That was hard,” Logan added.

Hard. Understatement of the century. Flayed, more like, every nerve exposed. Finn pressed his lips together.

After a moment, he felt Logan’s fingertips come up to toy with the hair above his ear. “I didn’t know if I could tell anyone,” he said haltingly. “My sisters…Noelle guessed. Because of Nice, and the draft. I think they knew before. I think I wanted them to. I didn’t want to carry it by myself and—I don’t know. I think I wanted everyone to know. It was very confusing.”

I’m sorry, Finn’s mouth tried to say. He dug his teeth into the inside of his cheek.

“Not you, though. You never confused me.” Almost an afterthought, but Logan didn’t do those. He thought, fully and completely, even if he rarely said it all. Goosebumps flew down Finn’s arms despite the heat. “I wanted you to,” Logan continued. “To confuse me. You were so loud. Friendly, and so fun, and you made people laugh, you liked to read, you did all these things that I don’t. It made no sense. If you were confusing, I could let it go.”

Silence again. Finn couldn’t help it. “And?”

“And I loved you.” Simple. They’d never had simple in the way he wanted. “I loved you the whole time. I didn’t even ask questions about it.”

“You should have.”

“Yes.”

“You—” He should be angry, he really should. “Fuck, Lo, I asked.”

In his hair, Logan’s hand slowed. “You did.”

“You lied.”

“Non.”

Finn couldn’t do another cycle of this, he couldn’t, he wouldn’t. He pushed the heels of his hands to his forehead as hard as he could, then folded them back on his stomach.

“I…” Another firefly. They’d come up in the park, soon. Logan sighed. “I thought I was going to ruin your life.”

“You couldn’t.” Ignoring the fact that he very nearly did, of course.

“You would never have seen the draft if we were out.” Finn caught a glimpse of his face when he turned, the unhappy set of his mouth. “You deserved the first round. Anything less would be an insult. My fault. You’re so brilliant.” It came out a whisper. Logan dragged a hand down his face with a small sound. “Finn, you’re…extraordinary. They would have been blind and stupid to draft you any lower than they did. But they would have. Because of me.”

“We could’ve been quiet.”

“I would never hide you,” Logan said immediately. “You deserved more.”

Finn sighed through his nose. Back to square one. “You’re saying a lot about what you think I deserve.”

“I know you.”

Finn’s lower lip shook in spite of him. He bit back a curse and pressed his thumb to the heat of his inner eye, where the wetness still hadn’t dried. “Yeah.”

“I know you,” Logan insisted, pulling him open all over again. “I’ve loved you for so long I don’t remember what it felt like to not. And back then—at school—in the water. Telling you didn’t mean anything when I couldn’t show you.”

“It meant something to me,” Finn said thickly.

“I know.” Despair. Finn knew the feeling. “I know, I’m sorry.”

“It meant something. Everything you fucking did meant something to me, Logan.” Finn pressed his hands to his thighs until it hurt. “I felt like—it’s been so long. I’ve had nightmares about drowning for eight fucking years.”

“I’m so sorry.”

He could hear the tears in Logan’s whispers. Finally, they could be in the same boat. Finn looked up to the starless sky and laid his palm flat on the balcony floor; the other, he wrapped around Logan’s wrist behind him. He took an unsteady breath. “I’m not angry.”

“You can be.”

“I was. I was so angry with you. God, Logan, it ate me up.” The softest skin, right above his pulse. That had always made sense to Finn. His hard-shelled, soft-hearted boy. The admission felt too big for this place. “I get it, of course I do, I’m…I can’t love you quiet. Everyone can see it all over me.”

“I did,” Logan said miserably.

“Good.” Finn squeezed his wrist. “I wanted you to.”

Logan let it lie for a moment, then swore softly and pushed a hand through his hair, nearly black in the night. “I need to—I need to say something. I need you to let me say it.”

“Okay.”

But he didn’t speak, just breathed like each one took more effort than the last. “I love you.” A fast kiss found the side of Finn’s head. “Je t’aime, I love you, I always did.”

“I love you, too.” Finn waited, but when nothing else came, he tipped his head back on Logan’s shoulder. “Is that it?”

“Non.” Logan’s palm cupped his face, upside down and backwards, the warmest shelter from a mild night. Something stammered in his chest. His expression crumpled; he made a quiet sound, wordless and agonized, and kissed Finn’s forehead only to let his lips linger. “I’d do it again,” he murmured against Finn’s too-hot skin. “If I had to, for this. Never to hurt you, never that. But I’d do it.”

He would have loved Logan better than anyone. Logan would have loved him back. And none of it mattered, not even a little, because that choice was about as real as the leaves of their table’s mosaic tree. Finn covered his eyes and let Logan’s collarbone take the weight of his pounding head.

“It’s not fair.” He sounded like a child. He tried to choke it down, be an adult, be better than the worst of himself at age eighteen, but it just made the clogging, soggy thing in his throat even thicker. “I just wanted to love you, and it was just a fuckin’ massacre.”

Logan took him as he broke, like the waves had taken him until he gasped awake to a world only slightly kinder. Concrete sat hard and brutal under Finn’s shoulder when he turned on his side; it was quickly replaced by the give of Logan’s chest as he pulled him over in an awkward gathering of Finn’s puddle-body. He wasn’t much help, but he held tight to Logan, and something told him that was plenty.

“I loved you.” Finn’s voice cracked. It wasn’t even funny. “I love him.”

Something sob-like and snotty rattled Logan’s body.

“I love you.”

The sea, the wind—his dreams even gave him the gulls, the only audience to the worst day of Finn’s life. They never spoke in that in-between place. Logan’s eyes. Logan, pulling away, until the water took him under and tore salt through his body. The sun burned him, sometimes. Other nights, it blinded him, too far still for Finn to reach. Sometimes, it was a nightmare. Sometimes it felt like mercy.

Logan was saying it back, in the cool-warm-busy air of this dry night. Finn could hear himself trying to gulp down a breath, and beneath it, a resonance he’d never forget. Iron-clad Logan clutching him to his chest and the raw things beneath, his mouth to Finn’s temple and his body shielding him from the balcony’s unforgiving floor.

I’d do it again. For this.

No draft. No Gryffindor. No team, no Cup, no Cap, no flock of Dumaises. No Kasey Winter, Chekov’s fucking goalie for Finn to stumble upon. They would have watched Sirius and Remus kiss on the ice from a TV screen—or not at all. A lower league, if they were lucky. Different teams, certainly. He would have kept Logan for a few more years, and then, inevitably, they would lose each other. Or one of them would give up the game to stay together, and they’d lose each other in a whole new way too terrible to imagine.

Finn was avoiding the last and greatest loss. Ten, thirty, sixty years without Leo was not a life at all. His unwavering devotion, and a temper that could match Logan’s like wildfire hitting stone. Are you going to kiss me?, sly eyes still sweet and eager, already reaching for Finn. His kisses took Finn out of the hurricane of his own head and set both his feet on the ground. Here, they said. You’re staying here with me. Yes, you, in all you are.

Hurt and hurt and pain and Logan. As much as it was misery, it was Logan, and that had been worth it. Still was.

“You have to tell me,” Finn sobbed. “You have to tell me.”

“I loved you every day.” It tore from him, trembling. Logan took a sticky-sounding breath. “Every minute. Crisse, Finn, it drove me out of my mind. I would think about you when I was doing my fucking laundry, just—wishing you were there with me. Can you believe that?”

He could. He did. He’d lived it and it haunted him and Finn had begged on his knees for some karmic force to take it away from him without ever meaning a single word.

“I would wake up afraid,” Logan continued, shivering under him, quick and shallow. “Sometimes…sometimes I still don’t know how to love you without being afraid. But I do. I’m so sorry. I loved you at Harvard, and here. At home, and New York, in New Orleans, and—the way he loves you, Fish, I wish you could see it like I do.”

Finn couldn’t have left Logan’s hold if he tried. Finally. At last.

“It’s like looking into the sun.” Logan’s hand vanished from his shoulder for only a second. Finn heard him wipe his nose. “Merde. Fuck. Do you remember the solstice?”

Finn huddled into the caving space of his chest. Sweat and sleep and home. “Which one?”

“New Orleans.”

New Orleans, Louisiana, on the longest day of the year. Finn remembered.

It had been him and Leo in the hammock, giggling into each others’ faces and half a hundred kisses from the uncoordinated struggle into their sticky-hot shelter. Leo’s hands were still callused. His smiling mouth, sweet and bitter from tea. Finn had wanted to lick up every drop of it.

“I could hear you laughing from ten feet away.”

I love having you here. Leo’s hand on his jaw, gentle-firm, shaking back and forth with a flash of his teeth. God, Finn, I love it so much.

“I don’t know if I ever made you laugh like that at school,” Logan said in a small voice. His fingers slipped through Finn’s hair to cradle the back of his head. “I would dream about it, though. I’m…I still don’t know which ones were real. I wanted to make you laugh like that. A lover. Not like a friend.”

“You did,” Finn whispered. So many times. His whole body had hurt from it.

“Are we—oh.”

Finn blinked the salt-crust from his eyes and peered out into the dark. It fizzed and blurred into the vague shapes of buildings; a smear of color here, wind buffeting their flowers there. Inside, the kitchen light was on. Finn put his sleeve to his dripping nose, but didn’t try to speak. Logan held out an arm.

Knees, folding into the bent backs of his own. A forearm on the concrete above his head, on the other side of Logan’s body. At his back, warmth, broad and safe. Finn shuddered his way through a breath. Exhaustion. Collapse. An arm slid beneath his own to wrap around him; a palm rubbed over his heart.

“Hi, Fish,” Leo murmured, pressed to Finn from his ankles to the top of his head. A wall against the dark. A ledge above the void, holding firm.

The words tangled, tying his tongue to paralysis. He shook his head. Leo traced a bumpy path between his collarbones.

“Nightmare.” His throat clicked when he swallowed. “Sorry.”

Leo made a sympathetic sound and shuffled closer. “Want to talk about it?”

“We are,” Logan said softly. Finn saw his hand pass by. “Hi, Peanut.”

Finn heard a sound like a kiss. Logan’s hum vibrated. “Want me to go back to bed?” Leo offered.

“No,” they said at the same time. Something in Finn’s chest released. A knot, pulled in just the right place.

Leo’s knees gave a tiny pulse behind his own. “Okay. Are you doing your quiet time thing?”

It took Finn’s tired ears a moment to clock back in. Quiet time. Was he ever quiet? “Huh?”

“Your quiet time,” Leo repeated, like it was obvious. He was holding Logan’s hand, thumb running across his knuckles. “You know. When you get all sad about college and sit really quietly together for a while to think about it. It’s, like, a meditation thing, right?”

Finn stared at him. “Non,” Logan answered.

“Oh.” Leo sat up a little on his elbow with a frown. “Did you know you do that?”

“No,” Finn croaked.

One of Leo’s pale brows twitched upwards before he got ahold of it again. He shrugged, releasing Logan’s hand to dry Finn’s cheek with the side of his hand. “It’s not a bad thing. Giving yourself space to think about it, I mean. Seems like there was a lot to…you know. Get through.”

“You’re awake,” Finn realized belatedly. “Were we loud?”

Leo kissed his burning cheek. “No. I was cold. And thirsty. Is that your water up there?”

“Yeah.”

“Want me to get it?”

“No,” Finn mumbled. Leo snuggled closer, clearly satisfied.

Quiet time. Fucking hell.

Finn lifted his hand and whacked the back of it against Logan’s chest. “I was really fucking mad at you.” He wanted to leave it at that, but Logan was blinking at him like an owl and he had always been so beautiful at night, the moon to Finn’s stars and—

Finn whacked him again. Gentler, but still gratifying in the dull slap of skin on skin. It didn’t even leave a mark. “So fucking mad. You jackass. How could you do that to me? We should’ve just made out on the front porch. It would have ruined everything.” He groaned, burying his face in the softness of Logan’s belly. “You’re right. You’re so smart and right about everything. God fucking dammit, Logan, you and your goddamn eyes. I would have dropped out of college for you, but you wouldn’t even let me. I had to make it to the NH-motherfucking-L playoffs before you’d tell me you loved me. Is that it? You have a kink for pro hockey players? I was standing there like an idiot in the middle of the ocean, crying my eyes out, and you were still so goddamn perfect. I’m going to love you forever. You can’t stop me. Me and you and Knutty are gonna die within ten seconds of each other.”

That was a fact. The universe was crueler than he thought if it planned for anything else. Coarse hair scratched Finn’s cheek, and he raised his head to glare as best he could. Logan’s lower lip had disappeared between his teeth; bracing for impact, if he was smart, or stifling a laugh, if Finn knew him at all. “Fuck off,” Finn grumbled, and delighted in Logan’s visible alarm. “Hold me.”

Logan’s gaze darted to Leo for the briefest second. “And I.”

“What?”

“You and Knutty and I.”

Finn bit the nearest roll of his abs. “I said fucking hold me, Logan.”

Logan made a small noise, smiled a small smile, wrapped them both up in his arms until Leo was laughing into the crook of Finn’s shoulder. “You’re fucking crazy,” Finn felt Logan whisper into the top of his head. “I love it so much.”

“You’re welcome,” Finn groused.

Logan’s sigh pushed Leo’s weight harder into him. Finn counted three beauty marks on the underside of his chin, and one hickey in the perfect shape of Leo’s mouth. “I love when you say my name.”