by Emilia Loft
“Oh. Rain cheque, maybe?” Michael murmurs against Devin’s mouth. Winds arms around his neck, loose, in forgiveness. So Devin did remember, but everything’s closed now anyway, and they’ve just missed the last round of movie showings at the theatre.
Devin laughs, a deep, genuine rumble. “Absolutely. I did get you a gift, though.”
When Michael blinks, Devin takes advantage of his momentary daze to buss him on the cheek. “A gift? What is it?”
Devin reaches into his pocket for a small box, square and velvet and black, like the kind people use for jewelry. But there’s no way this is—this couldn’t be—
It’s a key.
Not ornate, like those brass keys he’s seen for Victorian-era mansions, or even engraved. Just a simple key lying in a felt-lined box that Devin scrounged from god knows where. It’s possibly the smallest thing Devin has ever given him; other years, he’s gotten Michael a water gun, baseball cards, a book he’s wanted forever. And in more recent years, a new trowel, even mini greenhouses for his plants. So Michael’s not sure what to make of this.
“Oh. A key!” says Michael, trying to sound enthusiastic. He wonders if he should tell Devin he’s not a kid anymore. That he doesn’t need a plastic treasure chest full of books and toys unlocked by a mysterious key. But Devin’s beaming at him so brightly that Michael can’t bring himself to say the words. “What does it open?” he asks instead.
“It’s a surprise,” Devin says, pulling out a necktie from his jacket pocket. He ties it around Michael’s eyes, snug. Hums as he takes Michael’s hand and guides him outside.
Michael’s got the feeling that Devin’s just leading him around the building to throw him off; even with his eyes covered, he can tell they’ve walked a lopsided figure-eight outside. At some point he’ll have to tell Devin that his subterfuge needs work, but Michael suspects that now is not the time.
“Where are we going?” Michael says, still genuinely curious. A scavenger hunt in the night, perhaps? Is the key a clue to another in a series?
“Mmhn, careful now,” Devin says. He’s being evasive as hell, but sounds positively giddy as he leads Michael up a set of stairs. Guides his hand to a keyhole, and after the creak of a door opening, leads him over the threshold, one arm settling cozily above Michael’s hip. “All right, you can take the blindfold off now,” Devin says, fumbling at the wall for a switch, before light floods the room, warm and bright and inviting.
Michael tugs the necktie from around his eyes, eager. Finds that they’ve walked into a fully furnished little flat, with a kitchen, a cozy couch in front of a television, and a small dining table. There’s a hall too, one that probably leads to a bedroom.
It’s a moment more before Michael realizes that it’s their television. Their couch. Their table. Along with the collection of hideous potted shrubs that he’s rescued over the years, sitting on the mantel. The old oil painting of roses his mother did, with the words ♥ home is where the heart is
emblazoned along the edges of the canvas, hanging above the kitchen sink.
“Devin?” he says in wonder. “Is this what I think it is?” It’s the flat above the flower shop, if he’s got this right. For all of Devin’s attempts at subterfuge, it isn’t hard to guess where they are; he can even see the bus stop in front of the flower shop when he turns around.
“I bought it, yeah. Fixed the flat up a little,” Devin says proudly, in the way he means I fixed it up a lot. “Got some friends to do the wiring and plumbing. And they helped move all our stuff here.” Most of their belongings had been left in boxes since their last move, anyway.
“Oh,” says Michael, quiet. And suddenly, all those missed dinners and movie nights start to make sense, because Devin’s been here, doing all this for him. For them.
“I know it’s not much,” Devin says, seeming to take Michael’s silence as disappointment, “but it’s ours.” His hand at Michael’s waist twitches, maybe from nervousness.
“It’s everything,” Michael insists, and he’s so happy it hurts, his chest tight with all the love and affection he can’t contain. “It’s amazing, it’s…” He buries his face into Devin’s shirt, because there’s too much he wants to say but doesn’t know how to.
Devin chuckles and leans in, his breath warm in Michael’s ear. “Now you won’t have to keep your voice down when we— ”
“Devin!” Michael splutters, heat rushing to his cheeks and the tips of his ears.
“There’s something else,” Devin says, quiet, when he’s stopped laughing and Michael’s stopped blushing. “I wanted to tell you that I—well.”
“What is it?” Michael asks. He takes Devin’s hands in his, warming them in the cool night air.
“I’ve quit the construction company. To work with you. We’ve got enough set aside, and—” Devin takes a shaky breath. “I can manage our expenses and the day-to-day things. Like run the till and clean, and tidy the shop so you can focus on making the arrangements and growing the flowers. That is, if…if you’ll have me. Will you?” he asks, with a twitch of a smile, hopeful.
Devin’s confession makes Michael ache a little inside, like he’s got to list all the ways he can be useful before Michael will accept him, because he doesn’t have to; Michael would want him there even if he didn’t do a thing, because it means Devin can stay. He won’t have to dash off after a secret visit now. Won’t have to leave at all.
“Of course I’ll have you,” laughs Michael, but even as Devin grins wide and genuine, he can’t help the niggling feeling that Devin’s asking something else, beneath all that.
“Well?” Devin says, after Michael’s finished pressing short, happy kisses to his cheeks and mouth. He herds Michael inside, closes the door, and waggles his eyebrows. “That table and couch and bed aren’t going to christen themselves.” He nuzzles into Michael’s neck and purrs, “Or the shower.”
Michael laughs, so happy that he could kiss Devin again and again, so he does just that, and in the privacy of their first real home together, more.
* * *
“Did you get the flowers I left for you by your breakfast?” Michael asks, as he empties out a bucket of petal clippings he’s saved from the shop. He watches them fall, thoughtful, wondering if he can do something with them. Perhaps preserve them in water, and lay them beneath water gems as a base.
“The daisies?” Devin nods, beaming. “Yeah, they were pretty.”
Michael frowns. “Those were windflowers.” He’d left a small cluster of white ones by Devin’s breakfast, meant to be a symbol of love, because he thought red roses were too overt. Clearly though, overt is what Devin needs.
“Sorry, windflowers,” Devin says, sheepish. He winds his arms around Michael’s waist from behind, letting his head rest against Michael’s shoulder in apology.
With a sigh, Michael turns into his embrace. Smiles in spite of himself, at the way the roughness of Devin’s stubble tickles his shoulder. As long as Devin likes the flowers, he doesn’t have to know the meaning of them, Michael supposes.
When Devin goes downstairs to get the shop ready, Michael heads to the greenhouse, inspecting the flowers in the corner he’s been cultivating for a special arrangement. There are the few petite red roses he’s been saving for the centerpiece, a cluster of white primrose flowers as the border, and two pots of salvia that he plans to use to crown the arrangement as a whole.
He can’t match Devin’s birthday gift to him from a month ago, but this is his way of saying Thank you and I love you in the way Michael knows how.
He starts the arrangement off by dropping a collection of dark blue water gems, the color of Devin’s eyes, into the bottom of a crystal vase. A quick glance through the glass door tells him that him’s got being the front face of the shop down pat, leaving Michael more time to focus on his greenhouse plants. Michael hums, content to continue styling and shaping the flowers for the arrangement, making sure to complement the pattern of leaves and vines on the vase’s frosted surface.
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We’ll go through the flowers together, Michael decides, smiling to himself. He’ll explain the meaning of each one present in the arrangement when he presents it to Devin. There’s the added bonus that it’ll familiarize Devin with the flowers they sell, because him still occasionally tries to sell carnations to customers asking for roses, by accident.
He sets the finished arrangement at the back of their floral display cooler when Devin’s back is turned, hiding it behind some tall, fluted rose vases.
“Michael? Everything all right?”
Michael startles, closing the door to the display a little too loudly, rattling the front-most vases.
“More than all right,” he says, turning, trying to smile disarmingly.
“Oh, good,” says Devin. He brushes a wisp of a kiss against Michael’s cheek. Michael nudges Devin’s hip in retaliation, fond.
“Well,” Devin grins, “if you have that much energy to be physical, give me a hand with arranging the front of the shop.” They need to fill the spaces where bouquets and arrangements have been bought with new ones. To Michael’s relief, Devin doesn’t turn to the cooler display to the side; nor does he see the arrangement Michael has just set in there.
“If I help, will there be time to get more physical later?” Michael asks, innocent.
Devin huffs a laugh this time, and ruffles Michael’s hair. “Maybe.”
* * *
“So?” Michael asks, as they get ready to close the shop that evening. “Where do you want to go for your birthday?”
It’s been a good day, the two of them having sold several major arrangements and a couple of the smaller rosebuds in fishbowl vases.
Devin shrugs, like he’s about to say Anywhere’s fine, so Michael squeezes him around the waist and adds, “It’s your birthday, you have to choose.”
“Fine,” Devin laughs, giving in. “How about the local burger joint?”
Michael thinks of the juicy, greasy burgers at Sam’s Burger House, and their thick ice cream-based shakes. The food’s good, but it’s not exactly birthday fare. “It’s all right if you want to eat something else, you know,” he says. “We…we can afford it, can’t we?”
Devin gestures with his hands in the air in front of him. “It’s not about the money. It’s…”
Oh, Michael realizes. He curls gentle fingers around Devin’s. “It’s the memories, isn’t it?”
Sam’s isn’t fancy, and doesn’t have a themed décor; it doesn’t even have the trappings of a proper diner, with its tangerine-red walls, vintage ceiling lamps and milk-white chairs arranged around yellow tables in little honeycomb clusters. In fact, the whole place looks like it’s been furnished with mismatched pieces and paint swiped from someone’s garage sale.
But it’s comfort and warmth and good food, a place they used to go for celebratory dinners, when their parents were still alive. Back when there were still things to celebrate as a family.
Devin’s fingers close around Michael’s as he nods. “The memories.”
They end up filling up on strawberry-peach milkshakes and the House Special burgers, buns stuffed with onions, beef patties, cheddar cheese, and a fried egg each. Michael lets his toes nudge against Devin’s under the table as they eat, playful. Devin leans in and knocks their knees together from across the cramped table, grinning as he does so, his mouth full of burger.
“Ugh, I didn’t want to see your food,” Michael says, lip curling as he tries to shield his eyes.
“That’s too bad. I guess if you wanted gourmet seafood, you should’ve gotten me the salmon burger,” Devin replies, without missing a beat.
Michael groans at the pun, but laughs anyway. Stays in this giddy mood the whole way home.
There’s a full moon overhead, and its lovely, rippling reflection on the river they’re driving along, but Michael just looks at Devin while he drives. Watches the way the moonlight makes Devin’s hair glow like the fireflies they’d used to chase on summer nights. It makes Devin look so much younger than he is, before he had to shoulder the burden of looking after his kid brother, holding a job, and making sure they had enough to make ends meet even when the shop wasn’t doing well in their early years.
“Devin,” he says, quiet. Lays his hand, gentle, on top of him’s on the stick shift.
“What is it?” asks Devin. They’ve stopped now, Devin finished with easing the truck into its space behind the shop. Michael can’t remember life without this old Chevy, solid and dependable with its sturdy, sky-blue frame. Comforting, with its soft, worn-out seats.
“I,” Michael tries. He doesn’t think ‘butterflies in the stomach’ is enough to describe this feeling, this weird nervousness; it’s more akin to butterflies struggling to free themselves from their cocoons, a useless beat of wings against an ironclad barrier. The feeling fills the whole of his chest, an aching kind of fullness that’s close to overflowing, and he needs to say it, needs to tell Devin how much he—
Devin nods encouragingly, but when no words are forthcoming, he cups the back of Michael’s neck with his palm. Leans in to press a soft, off-center kiss to his mouth.
Michael kisses back harder, hungrier, grateful for this out that Devin’s given him, because it’s easier to show how he feels this way, this raw, physical manner. It’s easier not to have to say the words, to find the ways to tell Devin how much he means to Michael, right now. Even if he knows it’s going to come back and bite him in the ass later. That easier isn’t the way to do things.
He’s too preoccupied with slipping his hands under Devin’s shirt, to trace the muscles of his stomach, his chest. To rake nails along Devin’s back, searching for warmth and skin and heat. His fingers slide down to the waist of Devin’s pants, fumbling at the belt buckle, tugging at the zipper—
“Michael,” Devin gasps between bruisingly hard kisses, “get—get inside the flat. We are not doing this in the back of the truck again.”
Michael’s fingers give pause in their frantic work, a vague part of him recalling how his backside had ached for days when Devin last took him in the back of the truck. It’s not an experiment he wants to repeat. “Inside,” he nods. “Hurry.”
Devin leads him up the stairs, fumbling the key into the lock as Michael kisses his neck, his jaw, his mouth, hot and filthy kisses that leave Devin breathless, even as he tries to return them with those of his own. “Michael,” he groans, as the door falls inward.
They shed their clothes in a wild trail of shoes, socks, jeans and shirts that leads to the bedroom, and Devin presses him into the sheets, kissing Michael as if he’s trying to reach every part of him at once, hard and hot and hungry.
“More,” begs Michael, looping his arms around Devin’s neck. He grinds his half-hard cock against the front of Devin’s boxers, pleased to find Devin’s answering hardness against his own.
Devin leans in for another bruising kiss, tasting like the sweet tartness of strawberries, his hands clawed tight around Michael’s shoulders. Bullies Michael’s knees apart with his own, to settle more firmly against him, and presses his burgeoning erection hard against Michael’s. The friction from his grinding slide is so good, but there’s too much in the way, too much fabric between him and Devin.
“Off—too much—just you—” Michael manages, and somehow Devin deciphers his broken panting correctly, or he’s had the same thought, because he shucks his own boxers off. Mouths teasingly at Michael’s cock through the thin cotton of his before urging his hips up and out to slide them off.
The moment he’s tugged Michael’s boxers off and flung them to the floor, Devin’s on him again, hands hooked over the jut of his hips as he presses kisses to Michael’s thighs and knees. He hikes himself higher just for a moment to nose at Michael’s navel, before leaning in and blowing a noisy raspberry, teasing, like he did when Michael was little.
“Devin,” Michael groans through a restrained giggle. “I’m not—I’m not a kid anymore, cut that out. That’s for babies.”
“I�
�ll stop doing it when you stop giggling like a schoolgirl,” Devin laughs, and Michael barely manages to bite down on a moan, when Devin kisses the tip of his cock.
“More, like that,” Michael says, shifting his hips upward, hopeful.
Devin obliges, with feather-light touches of lips to the head, the side of Michael’s cock, then broad, pleasurable licks, laving his tongue from base to tip. He touches his tongue to the slit, grinning at Michael’s low moan. Considers it permission to take Michael’s cock between his lips, and close his mouth over it entirely, his hands pinning Michael to the bed by the hips and keeping him steady, even as Michael bucks and arches against the bed.
“Good, like that—yes,” Michael says, panting, and he mashes a hand into him’s hair, relishing the softness that slides through the spaces between his fingers.
Then Devin hums with his mouth around Michael, and Michael nearly hurts himself arching off the bed, but for Devin’s hands pinning him down. He still manages to bring one hip up, but it’s because Devin’s let go of one hip, to—to—
“Ah,” is all Michael can say, even though he means, That hurts, and Did you even use lube, because Devin’s pressed a finger, no, two inside him, stroking, searching for his prostate. “Boro— Devin, please, ah—”
“Easy, Michael,” Devin says. He’s let his mouth slip off Michael’s cock, to lay a trail of small, comforting kisses to his belly. Strokes Michael’s prick with his other hand to distract him from the pain. “Better now?”
It is, and Michael nods. He’s just gotten comfortable with the fingers pressed deep inside him, when Devin crooks them suddenly, and oh, he’s found it, that spot that makes Michael see white, and Michael pants through the burn of it, the pleasure, bucking his hips into Devin’s hand to get him to press there again.
He whines in protest, when instead of more and again, Devin withdraws his fingers and swirls them in the precome that’s gathered on Michael’s stomach. Frowns, as if it’s not enough to ease the way, and reaches for the bottle of lube they keep in Devin’s night table, uncapping it to pour it into his palm.
