maiya 🌷

The slam of car doors has barely faded when Elio backs him up against the smooth plaster of their bedroom wall, and Oliver’s heart gets lodged in his throat as impatient fingers fumble with the knot of his shorts. Outside, a sultry voice drifts from the stereo of Issac and Mounier’s flashy convertible - something vaguely familiar from Sunday afternoons at his bubbe’s house - but Oliver doesn’t have the wherewithal to place it over the pounding throb at his temple.

He’s still not used to it, is the thing. The crumbled ruins of pretence that now lie underfoot. The carefully constructed barriers that fell like a house of cards the moment he let his heart overrule his head. Never believed it was even possible when familial obligation had him burying his urges beneath a suffocating veil of expectation. But Elio’s love makes him tall as Olympus and strong as a god, and Oliver will be damned five times over if he spends the rest of his life in hiding.

“This is real,” Elio assured him just two days ago in the garden. “Questo è possibile. We’re in this together.”

But it’s daunting nonetheless, and the fact he can hold him - kiss him - let his body respond at will, causes him to swallow thickly when warm lips scatter a mosaic of open-mouthed kisses to the hinge of his jaw.

Late Winter Light