#42bakery

The air in the room is heavy, humid, stale with the smell of pot. Enea flickers the blunt between his fingers – the filter soggy. He can feel the smoke getting to his head, making him feel all floaty, head light and heavy at the same time.  

He stretches his naked legs out on the couch. Eyelids heavy, he looks, almost transfixed, at the point where they start tangling with Manzi’s. It’s weird, funny even, the way they look. Skin against skin, hair on hair, mixing in one, giant legs monster. The heel of one of his feet is rubbing against Manzi’s thigh. 

He starts digging it in the flesh, staring at the way the skin creases under the pressure. Does it hurt? he wonders, but he doesn’t really care about the answer. He kind of wishes their roles were inverted and it was Manzi pressing hard against his thigh instead. 

A hand grabs his foot, hard, forcing him to stop. The contact makes Enea shiver, electricity going through his body from one extremity to the other. He looks up, at Manzi, at the long locks of hair curling on his forehead, in front of his eyes, and he can feel his heart missing a beat. He can feel it beating high in his throat, in his mouth, and he hates it for doing so. It shouldn’t, and he knows it, and it knows it, but it doesn’t seem to care. 

“Stop,” he says, all serious, and Enea wants to giggle, or hide his face in a pillow and scream, “and pass me the blunt.” Enea giggles for real this time around, and he doesn’t really know why. He feels on another plane of existence, and he want to go back to before, when their legs were melting together and he could dig his heel in Manzi’s thigh and just be, and pretend nothing was happening. 

“Bro, come on –” 

And here Enea thinks. He doesn’t know if it’s the smoke, or what else, but he thinks, and what if he could –  

It’s stupid. And desperate, and pathetic, but desperate and stupid and pathetic is all his brain has, to be fair, and all his stupid heart that keeps missing beats wants. 

He shakes his head.  

“Nuh-uh, that’s mine. But if you want,” he starts, and he can feel his heart beating hard and fast in his ears, drowning everything else, “we can shotgun it. I smoke, you smoke, win-win.” 

Manzi lets go the hold on his foot, and from the corner of his eye Enea can see him slowly nodding. 

They untangle their legs, slowly, and Manzi moves up the couch, to get closer. Enea wants to throw his head back and scream, and not even the weed is being able to keep the ugly bundle of feelings gnawing at the inside of his stomach. He awkwardly lifts the blunt to his lips, inhaling deeply, keeping the sour taste inside his mouth. 

Manzi gets closer, their noses touching, and Enea thinks it should be funny, but it isn’t. He counts to three, one, two – and closes the space between them.  

He parts his lips, slowly exhaling, eyes closed. To pretend. Stefano’s lips are soft, and Enea can feel himself trembling. He stays there as long as he can, until Manzi pulls back, turning his head to cough.  

Enea presses his lips together, tight, before taking another shaky hit from the blunt. He closes his eyes, and goes back to the kiss, and pretends it was truly a kiss and not something way more stupid, to not waste some shitty weed.