“When did you start fucking McKenzi without me?” Kyle asked.

My semen was still drying on his chest as we lay together on the bed in my apartment. My brow furrowed in mock confusion.

“Is it a problem?” I said.

“No,” he said, but I could hear the hesitation in him. “It’s just I didn’t know that you were. Like it’s a secret or something.”

“You and I have this,” I said, trying to keep the defensive tone out of my voice and veering away from the dangerous word ‘secret.’

Ever since he’d seen us together that day in the sand, I had known this question was coming. I’d been thinking about what to say.

“Why are you so defensive?” he said. “I’m not mad.”

“I know,” I said quickly. “But still.”

“I know,” he said. “Do you love her?”

The suddenness of the question took me aback. And then the fact that I didn’t have an answer threw me. McKenzi and I had a shared secret, a closeness. She was more than a friend.

“She’s your girlfriend,” I said.

“I think she’s our girlfriend at this point,” Kyle grinned and I knew he wasn’t angry.

“That’s true.”

Did I love her? I hadn’t thought about it. I looked at Kyle and shrugged. He smiled knowingly, and a different answer came to me.

Kyle nodded and lapsed into silence, head back against the pillow.

And then I thought about it more. This had been our secret from Mack. And for what? All it had done was drive her into her own hidden liaisons. All so I could pretend this wasn’t happening.

I let my fingers trace the curves of Kyle’s body, taking pleasure in the heat of his presence. Almost without noticing, I had come to realize that Kyle was an attractive man and, more than that, that I was attracted to him. When whatever this was had started, he’d been something like the only port in a storm. We’d been drunk, lonely, and far from home when I closed my mouth around his cock for the first time, and I thought that was all.

“I’m not gay,” I still remember insisting.

I know I meant it then. Sex with Kyle had been something like mutual masturbation for me. Then, it had been a pathway to fucking his girlfriend. Now that he was coming over to mine for sex on an almost weekly basis, leaving Mack behind, I was losing that argument.

I’d fully lost it the first time he’d visited me, when I told him I loved him for the first time. I hadn’t said it since. I had never said it to Mack and, now that I had confessed it to Kyle, I wasn’t sure I believed it.

I passed my hand over him, touching the dip of his belly by his ribs, the little crest of hair between his soft pecks, the boxy line of his jaw. I cupped his face in my hand and, as though just to see how it would feel, placed a gentle kiss on his lips. I felt them curl into a little smile. I kissed him again.

“Mm,” he breathed, “what was that for?”

My voice was weak.

“I don’t think I love her like I love you,” I said, letting it all tumble out in a rush.

Kyle’s eyes were blank. Then he grinned.

“Now you’re starting to sound like I’m your boyfriend,” he said.

“At this point,” I echoed, “I guess I am.”

I rolled on top of him and locked eyes with him. I thought I could see something more than desire for sex staring up at me. He drew me into him and our lips locked together. His hands moved along my naked back, probing. I could feel his cock growing hard between my thighs.

We lay like that for a long time, tongues exploring, fingers reaching. Out of all of the things we had done together, it was the first time we had really made out. The taste of his tongue, the feel of his sweat and the scrape of his stubble against mine—it all felt so intimate. And right.

“Justin,” he said, breaking away. “I love you.”

My heart soared as he gripped me again, pulling my lips into him and filling my mouth with his tongue.

I let him roll over me and press his knees into the mattress. And then he kissed my neck, my chest. My hair stood up at his touch and my dick came erect.

“Fuck me,” I breathed.

Instead, Kyle rocked back and forth against me, letting our cocks slide together. He kissed me harder and I wrapped my arms around his neck.

The tease of his cock against mine drove me into him, our legs tangling. I was so hard for wanting him.

“Come on,” I breathed.

“You want me to fuck you, Just?”

He slid down to my waist and slipped me into his mouth, letting saliva trickle down between my legs. First, he let his little finger into me. Then his tongue. Then more fingers.

When I thought I couldn’t take it anymore, he was inside of me.

He had been in me before, but there was nothing like this feeling. He kissed me and entered me. I wrapped my legs around his waist and for the first time gave myself to him completely. His mouth hungered against mine and I let his tongue wash mine.

When he came, he sprayed across my belly and collapsed into me, panting against my neck. Breathing hard, I kissed the top of his head and laughed.

As we lay there quietly together, I expected my sudden outpouring of love for him to fade, to retreat back into my straight shell where I could convince myself this was nothing more than masturbation between friends or exploration amongst co-boyfriends—whatever we had been. But it didn’t. The same well I’d tapped with women in the past had opened up. I loved and was loved by Kyle.

Looking down at him, I tilted up his chin to kiss him again, feeling his lips on mine. He greeted mine with eyes closed. I felt him slipping away to sleep.

“Kyle,” I said.

He only grunted.

“You know,” I said, “my lease is up in a month.”

“You want to move in with me?” he murmured, as though he hadn’t even paused to think.

I smiled.

“Yeah.”

“Us, I mean,” Kyle said, his voice still fading into sleep.

“Right,” I said, realizing I hadn’t thought about Mack, but also that I wasn’t displeased.

“We’re gonna need a bigger bed.”

I grinned into his sweaty hair and kissed it again.

I realized it was one of thing things I loved about him: how casual it was for him, how confident he could be about what he wanted. Before any of this started, I’d never known him to be with another man, but when he realized he wanted me, he adjusted. When he found out he had feelings for Mack, he adjusted. Then me, and he adjusted again. What had taken me pretense and secrets, he could just accept. I knew it could never be me, but I wanted it from him.

I wondered how he would adjust when he found out Mack was cheating.