Breath, hot, battered breath curled against Matt's neck.

Don't touch.

He fastened his hands to the seams of the leather cushions, watching the ceiling of the barn through the slits of his eyes. The light of the TV crashed against the rafters, the video game music still whispering through the TV speakers. Bailey moved against his hips with a sudden vigor and Matt fisted the leather.

Don't touch.

He hadn't expected it to feel this good. He thought it'd feel a lot like sex with girls—warmth and full, slick and easy. It wasn't like that at all. It gripped and consumed, choked the breath out of him. It was the way Bailey moved—hips and spine and stomach, slowly, suddenly, gently sometimes, roughly others. Then he sat up, leaned back, hands gripping the top of Matt's thighs. His hair cast dark webs over his face, his bare chest smooth in the TV light.

Matt couldn't stand it anymore.

"Can I touch you?" he asked in a hard breath, his flesh hot, his ears flaring.

Bailey considered him, and for the first time since they'd started, Matt saw his face clearly. A warm glaze on his skin—a slight tuck in his brow. He took Matt by the wrists, guided his hands to the curves of his waist. Matt felt the hot skin beneath his fingers, pulled Bailey's hips into a hungry rhythm. Down suddenly, up again, down suddenly, up again. The hound clutched at Matt by the biceps, his jaw dropping as Matt pushed up into the pleasant weight of him. Another push and Bailey choked out a sound, dug his nails into the muscle.

What am I doing?

Matt's breath shook, a strange thread connecting him at the eyes. He couldn't take away from Bailey's gaze, glazed with pot and ecstasy. When his pace quickened, it tore something beautiful open in him. Sparked a flame he hadn't felt before. He sat up and curled an arm around Bailey's waist—the hound fitting slim in the crook of his elbow.

What am I doing?

He shifted forward onto his knees, dropped Bailey back against the leather. The startled look in his eyes pierced Matt, black sheening hair splayed out against the couch, curled over his neck, stuck to the wet of his hard-kissed lips. Matt found the tattooed scar on his shoulder, then his eyes once again. "Is this alright?"

Bailey swallowed, a hard lump bobbing at the throat.

"If it's not alright—"

"It's fine," Bailey said. His fingers curled into the back of Matt's hair and he pulled him down against his mouth. The tasteless taste of him, the slick language of his tongue—it woke something strange in Matt. Suddenly, he'd done this a hundred times before. Suddenly, he recalled every porn video he'd ever watched with Jaylin—muscled men tearing into one another with hard-gripping hands and sweaty skin. He hadn't been interestedat the time, but not disgusted either. Now he tried to recall the way they moved—what they did with their hands, with their mouths, with their grunts and their whispers.

He pinned one of Bailey's legs, hand gripping hard beneath the knee. And when Matt pushed in, it must've felt different. Maybe it hurt a little more because Bailey groaned—sure and broken, fingers fisting tight in his hair. Matt thrust, and again, the sound he made thrilled the blood in Matt's veins. Maybe it was because for once, Bailey seemed human—or maybe because it was the first time in a long time Matt felt it. They were both human, in the dark of a battered old shed, in the light of a television screen.

For a long time, he moved like that, hands pinning him under the knees, lips against his jaw, breathing in the scent of his skin and the sounds of his tangled moaning breath. And he wouldn't have moved an inch faster, had Bailey not slid those rough fingers down his back, captured his cheeks in the bite of his hands. Had he not kneaded the flesh, pulled Matt's hips toward toward him in a silent plea.

He did move faster—a high in his blood that made him release Bailey's legs and rise onto his fists. Made him pump his hips forward in a way he'd never moved before, not with anyone. It burned the muscles in his stomach, but when Bailey dropped his jaw, white teeth glinting in the dark, hands reaching blindly for anything to take in his fist, Matt couldn't stop. Their bodies met with a definite sound, and it was like a bell of praise, how the force bumped the very breath from Bailey. How he had gnashed his teeth and reached between them to touch himself—to keep touching, until his face flushed with heat and his chest rose and shook and he pushed his head back against the cushion with a struggled sound. A focused furrow in his brow. "Fuck, Cowboy."

It put a chill down his sweat-slick back. Cowboy. He wanted to hear that name again, so Matt moved harder and Bailey's hand moved faster—until his chest was rising and his breath stuttering. After three deep drags of air, he came. It was the sight of it that shoved Matt from the ledge he clung to. Buried in Bailey's neck, head wrapped in fog and ecstasy, every feeling pooling in the deep, cluttered core of him exploded. It was fire and moths, drugs and ecstasy—it was the relief of knowing he wasn't a broken man. He wasn't broken.

They sat beside one another after that, covered only by the old wolf blanket Matt got for a camping expedition when he was ten. Bailey passed him his joint, but Matt didn't bring it to his lips. He held it in his fingers and watched the cherry burn.

Jess. It hit him like a tidal wave. Jess. Jess.

A sick, cold feeling prickled at his face, and he must've gone pale because Bailey reached over and took the joint back before he could drop it on the blanket and set the wool on fire.

"And there it is," he said.

Matt dropped his head into his hands. "Fuck. Fuck I just—What did I just do?"

"Is that a rhetorical question?"

"I have a girlfriend."

"One you don't want."

"But I still have a girlfriend," Matt said. "I cheated—I've never cheated. I don't do that. I don't cheat."

Bailey took a drag, slouched over the arm of the sofa. He looked to something in the loft corner—or maybe just away from Matt. "Calm down. This isn't the first time I've fucked a straight boy."

"What?"

"I won't tell anyone," Bailey said. Then softer. "I know better than to tell anyone."

It didn't alleviate the sheer guilt in Matt. He didn't love Jess and he knew it, but this was wrong. He should've told her before. He should've ended everything before. "I have to go," he said gathering his jeans from the floor, his shirt from the backrest of the couch. "Jesus Christ, I fucked up." And when he heard himself say it, Matt paused and looked to Bailey, who was nodding slow and slight, like it was a song he'd heard a million times before. Something he expected no differently from Matt.

"Wait, Bailey. I didn't mean..." The hound was staring away, eyes somewhere in the dark. If there was one thing that could make him feel more terrible than he already felt, it was that—the way Bailey wouldn't look at him. "I'm sorry, I—"

"It's fine," Bailey said, words full of smoke. "I have that effect on people."

Stop talking, hero, Raven whispered. For the love of God, stop talking.

So Matt did. "Sorry," was all he said. He gathered the last of his clothes in his arms and shoved on his boots. "I'll text you tomorrow—about the den I mean."

Again, Bailey nodded.

Matt started down the steps, cracked open the door of the barn. But something urged him to look back, and when he did, Bailey clutched his head in his hand, loose black hair threaded through the gaps of his fingers. Joint turning to ashes on the loft floor. Matt waited to see if he'd look up—to know the expression on his face, know that everything was fine. But Bailey didn't look up. So Matt left.

When Jess kissed him good morning the next day, it tasted of harsh chapstick and morning coffee.

By noon, he had the wrangler parked at the guest house, filled with water bottles and a cooler full of food. He texted Bailey and waited against the hatch for nearly twenty minutes. When finally Bailey emerged from the barn, it was with the small blond—the one who usually only came at night. He whispered something in Bailey's ear and Matt caught the slow hand that slid down his chest before the blond parted ways, gone down the gravel driveway.

You're lookin' green sweetheart, whispered Raven.

Matt ignored him, climbing into the driver seat. He waited until Bailey had heaved himself into the Wrangler, then he started the engine. But the way the blond kid had touched his chest and spoken into his ear nagged at Matt.

Not jealous, annoyed.

"You some kinda nympho?" Matt asked.

"Nope," replied Bailey. "Just a regular old slut."

At the very least, Matt was relieved he seemed himself again—and that whatever was still in the air between them hadn't turned bad after a night together. Matt put the Wrangler in reverse and rolled backward over the gravel path. "You okay?" he asked, twisted around to look through the back window. "I mean, after all that—"

"After all the gay anal sex, you mean?"

"Can you shut the hell up?" asked Matt, twisting the wheel as they rolled back onto the road. He shifted the car into drive and the sheer speed sucked him back into his seat.

Bailey was gripping the oh-shit-handle and laughing into the wind from the open window. "Are you afraid someone will hear?" He pushed his seatbelt strap behind him and shoved his head out, screaming at fields of wheat and corn, "GAY ANAL SEX!"

Matt nearly veered into the opposite lane. "Are you high?"

Bailey slid back down in his seat. "Nah, pot messes with the senses. Where is this place, anyway?"

"Industrial district in Seattle. An old equipment warehouse."

Any shred of amusement still on Bailey's face faded then.

"What?" Matt asked, looking from Bailey to the road and back again. "What's wrong?"

"You're talking about Blackhole. That den belongs to Ricco."

The name clashed against his ears. Settled bitter in the air. "Oh."

Bailey didn't laugh after that. He opened his sketchbook and turned to one of those bizarre, abstract images Matt could never pick apart. Blurry shapes and smears of shadows.

It was two by the time they arrived at the address—an old, neglected building, surrounded by wire fence and empty parking lots. The door had been chain-locked, but Matt had come prepared with a heavy clipping sheers. This time, Bailey did go in with him.

"Place already smells like me," he said.

The warehouse was smoky with the scent of old cigarettes, stale liquor and wooden furniture. A leather couch sat in the center—tears on both arms, a blanket still slung in the middle. Several kinds of liquor had been stored on the back wall, behind an island that Matt assumed was used as a bar. The rest was beanbags, bar stools, stained loveseats and posters of naked women. Bailey moved through the warehouse like a cat through the rubble of a dystopia, knowing this world but never acknowledging the rubble for more than a moment. He led Matt beyond a sheet of black curtains, where several rooms stood behind heavy metal doors, handles rusted and refusing Matt's shoves and jimmies.

"You have to pull this one," Bailey said, taking the handle from him. He jerked the door toward him and shoved it open. There was nothing inside but a mattress, tucked in the corner of the room. A spatter of orange stain on the cement ground that looked a lot like blood or vomit. A few empty beer cans, toppled in the corner.

"Was this your room?" Matt asked.

"No," said Bailey. "This was a party den. Most of the time these rooms weren't for living in."

Matt was afraid to ask what they were for. He started to take a step forward and Bailey ripped him back by the hand. A wooden board folded out from above the door, several long, wicked screws stuck out at the end, stopping inches from Matt eyes.

"Jesus Christ," he said, heart hammering. "What the fuck?"

"Ricco likes traps," Bailey said. "Go get the gas. I'll disarm these."

Matt realized he was still gripping his hand. He let it go and wiped the sweat from his palms on the knees of his jeans.

Bailey picked up a broom from the edge of the hall and as he batted around with the bristles, Matt retrieved the gasoline. They started in the rooms with the mattresses, sprinkling gas over every wood and fabric thing they could find. Then Matt made a line of it toward the door and they stood at the threshold as he tossed a match. The flames ignited and raced along the fuel line, leaping atop the leather couch and the wooden island and the dartboards and posters inside.

They didn't stay to watch the fire this time. They climbed into the Wrangler and left through a complicated route of slender alleyways until the Seattle streets found them again. Bailey was quiet, sketchbook disposed to the floor of the Jeep. He stared through the window instead, rubbing that dented rib of his. A motorcyclist peeled past, veering between cars to escape the city traffic.

"You shouldn't be doing this," Bailey said beneath the sound of a mattress commercial, playing on the crackling radio.

"What're you talkin' about?" Matt asked. "These bastards deserve it." Bailey was too quiet now, it was starting to edge under Matt's skin. "Bailey?"

"Whatever happens after this," he said, the city lights strobing over him, "don't go to a den alone."

"Why would I?" Matt asked. "That's why you're here. Right?" Again Bailey went quiet. The strange silence turned Matt's nerves raw. The cold skin of his arms prickled. "Bailey? Right?"

"Yeah," Bailey said. He was gonna bruise his rib, rubbing like that. "You remember that trail I showed you?"

"What about it?" asked Matt.

"Need to shake my demons."

It was hard not to touch. Bailey was a strange taste, newly acquired. Matt didn't know what he felt—if there were feelings behind it or if it was just a fuck. Just a thing people did when they shared a mutual hatred for themselves.

They trekked the dark trail that let to Bailey's bluff, and every time Matt saw him rubbing that rib, he had to fist his shirt in his hands to keep from reachin' over—ripping his wrist away. Don't think about it, he wanted to say. Why did you come inside that den? You shouldn't have done that to yourself.

Bailey undressed in front of the city lights, baring those hollow ribs, the fine muscles, the deep curve of his spine and the cinch of his waist. And Matt wondered why suddenly he admired the elegant shape of him.

Because you felt it, he reminded himself. Because you held it in your hands. Because it was like nothing else you've ever felt before.

Because it was taboo.

When Bailey burst into a wolf, blood carried off in the wind, Matt tried not to trace the shape of him still in his mind.

Bailey disappeared into the forest and Matt sat on that ledge, the hound's clothes bundled in his lap. He stared at the face of his phone for a long, agonizing minute. Then he dialed Jess's number. She answered the way she always did, with a Hello? Like she wasn't sure who was calling. Matt's heart ached.

"Are you at your place?" he asked.

"Yea, 'course," she said. "Sarah's over, it's drinkin' night."

"Jess." Her name came out in a tired, searing breath. "Can you come over tomorrow? We need to talk."

She agreed, though obviously nervous, and Matt hung up with a dreadful sick in his stomach. The city sparkled below him with promises of anew. He'd start over after this. He'd die alone if it meant never leading anyone on again. He was probably dyin' alone anyway.

It was twenty minutes before Bailey crept from the forest edge, naked and wet and stuck with leaves and pine needles. "There were some assholes at the lake," he said. "Had to wash off in a fucking duck pond. Probably covered in swan shit." Matt stood to deliver his clothes and when Bailey saw the look on his face, he tilted his head in that slight, inquisitive way. "What?"

Matt watched him, water dipping from his wet, cleaving hair. Glinting from his collarbones and the rounds of his tattooed shoulder. And God, how badly Matt wanted to take him by that slender neck and kiss him again. If just to remind himself that he can feel. That there was never going to be a future with Jess. That kissing her didn't feel like this and it should've.

Kissing someone he loved shoulda felt like this.

The thought turned his fingers to ice.

"Nothing," Matt said, passing him his clothes. "Let's go home."