I slide open the door and drop my gym bag on the counter, forgetting for a second that Justin’s sleeping.

Holy.

Fuck.

Slowly bend over to untie my shoes, my fingers shaking just the slightest as I pull at the knot. I finally give up and kick them off, not caring about scuffing the heels. Struggle with my jacket, yanking the sleeves off one at a time. Put one foot in front of the other enough times to make it to the refrigerator. Get out a bottle of water and drink it back, fumbling in the cupboard for a couple Extra-Strength Tylenols.

Jesus Christ.

Swipe at the sweat forming on my forehead again. Pull off my shirt. Unbuckle my jeans. Kick them off.

Shower. Now.

Step in under the spray, and hot water streams down my back, my face, into my hair. Washes away the sheets of perspiration, pushes on my muscles, my bones, my body. I stand under the pounding pins of water for minutes, longer, trying to get my breath back, trying to focus on stilling my heart. Trying to stop my fucking fingers from shaking. Quivering. My knees almost worse, giving a twinge every now and then, as though they’ll collapse.

But the worst is my stomach, my groin, where the scar is, where they cut into me to rip out my ball. Hurts. Slicing pain. Like it’s tearing open again. I run my fingers across the mottled scar to make sure it’s still holding everything in, knowing that if it doesn’t come spilling out of me that way, I’ll probably puke it up in about ten minutes anyway.

I feel worse than after the fucking radiation.

And all I did was 60 minutes on a bike.

How the *fuck* am I gonna do 322 miles?

If all those fuckers hadn’t told me I *couldn’t* do it, then I wouldn’t be trying. But I guess I can’t blame them for my ego. Well, not really.

I just don’t want to be told that there’s something I can’t do. Even if I know that if I hadn’t gotten cancer, and was still in the great fucking shape I was in before I got sick, I definitely wouldn’t be doing this shit.

I’m starting to think that sometimes I’m my own worst enemy.

Lean against the wall of the shower for moments more, breathing in the steam. I think I feel okay now. The shakes have stopped, the nausea has passed, my knees are stable.

I can do this. I have to do this. I can’t let this beat me.

I climb out of the shower and wrap up in one of the towels, drying off. Look for my moisturizer that Justin keeps stealing – why does he need the expensive shit that’s supposed to make you look 21, when he’s only 20… just tell me that?

Find it, half gone. Smear some across my face, and lean in close to the mirror. Real close.

And just look.

Same eyes, same nose, same mouth. Same skin, just not as tanned as I usually am. A little paler. Need to go to the tanning bed, that’s all.

A line here. A line there. Maybe they were always there, don’t know. Fuck who am I kidding? I do know. They weren’t always there.

I put a dab of cream on my fingers and smooth it across the lines under my eyes, around my mouth.

They’re still there.

Drop the cream and turn away. Don’t need to look at myself right now. I know who I am. Know what I am. What I can do.

What I’m capable of.

Everything.

Put the towel back on the rack and flick off the light in the bathroom, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness for a moment. I look out over the loft, seeing shadows of all my stuff. Stuff I bought and lost and bought again… an unending turnstile of conspicuous consumption. Furniture and kitchen appliances and clothes and electronics and strewn in-between is this growing pile of Justin’s shit. Portfolio cases and sketchpads and pencils and books, fucking books, everywhere. CDs and DVDs and jackets and shoes and… just stuff. More stuff every week.

And the question isn’t really there anymore whether or not he’s going to spend the night. Because nights here have turned into weeks here. And weeks here are turning into...

Well, he’s just here now.

Justin.

Turn around and look at him, sleeping. In my bed, as if it were his own, which it really is. Always has been. Rarely did anyone else spend the night in it before he came along. And definitely never twice.

Now the bed is empty when he’s not in it.

I climb in beside him, lifting the duvet as little as possible to slip between the sheets. He’s facing me, lying on his side, sheets bunched up in his fist. Lips parted, eyes closed, hair pushed up a little on the side. Light from the street plays down across his face, highlighting half of him, the rest in shadow.

See the curve of muscle in his arm, getting more defined now. It started when he was hanging out with that Cody asshole, then he followed me to the gym after that… and now he’s riding for 90 minutes a day in spin class. He’s always been lean, but now he’s getting hard. Muscles toning where he was always soft, pliant.

I like it. Like him being more forceful, more confident. Like him climbing up on my chest and riding my cock. Like watching the muscles in his stomach and thighs rippling as he slides up and down, taking more and more of me inside him. Like the way he presses his hands to my chest, holding me to the bed. Like the way he pushes back against me. Hard. Strong. Like *him* being strong and confident and powerful. Like he should be.

He sighs a little, then shifts over, his knee coming up to connect with my thigh. Eyes flutter, but he doesn’t open them.

“Brian?” he slides his arm around my side, and pulls me closer to him.

“Go back to sleep,” I whisper, leaning into him, letting him hold me close.

“You’re hot,” he says, opening his eyes a crack.

“Just showered. Sleep,” I kiss his forehead and brush my fingers up into his hair, running back and forth across his scalp.

“Hmmm, that feels nice,” he mumbles. “Babylon good?”

I nod a little. Don’t really want to lie, but I can go through the movements.

“You gonna come to spin tomorrow?” he asks.

“Maybe,” I press my lips to his temple and breathe in the smell of his skin, all warmed from sleep.

He drapes his leg over mine. “You don’t have to do this,” his voice is soft and he presses his nose into my cheek, his eyelashes fluttering across my skin, breath on my face.

“I always do what I want, you know that,” I say it quietly then laugh a little, closing my eyes. His fingers run up my sides, and I shift closer to him, biting my lips against the grunt that wants to push out of my throat. Christ, I’m getting sore already. Tomorrow is going to be a fucking nightmare.

“I know,” he murmurs, taking a deep breath. His fingers wander over to my cock, and he strokes me lightly. “I’m…” he starts to say something, then trails away, pushing his head under my chin. His hand stops moving on my cock, and he presses his palm into my skin, his thumb running across my pubes, close to the scar.

I put my hand on the side of his face and twist his head up to look at me. “What?”

He shakes his head and closes his eyes. Bites his lips a little, and starts stroking me again, taking my dick in his grip and moving faster. “It’s ridiculous and you’ll laugh at me,” he smiles, but there’s no emotion behind it. “Forget it.”

I take his hand in mine and pull him away from my cock, twisting my fingers up in his. “Tell me,” I kiss his forehead softly, pressing my nose into his hair.

He sucks in a breath then lets it out slowly, the air pushing out across my skin. He feels heavier somehow.

“I’m worried about you,” his voice barely comes out, just this cracked little whisper, as though the softer he says it, the less weight the words will have. “I don’t want anything to happen.”

I shake my head quickly. “Nothing’s going to happen,” I say, trying to push down this feeling of guilt that somehow seems to be creeping up. Guilt. Christ. When the fuck did I start caring what other people thought I should and shouldn’t do?

He slides up and presses his forehead against mine, squeezing my fingers together in his grip. His eyes are open and he’s staring at me, but avoiding my gaze. Just letting his eyes flick back and forth across my mouth. “You don’t know that,” he says, still not looking at me.

And there’s nothing more I can say. Because he’s right. I don’t know that I won’t push myself too far, that I won’t be in fucking agony with every push of the pedal. That it won’t somehow make the cancer come back. Somehow. Some crazy way. I don’t know all those things because I don’t know how I got sick in the first place. Just one of those things. Statistics. Odds. Chances.

I take lots of chances in my life. And the odds were good that I was going to lose one of these days.

But I can’t let it stop me from taking chances.

I can’t.

So I don’t say anything else and just kiss his nose and kiss his cheeks and pull him towards me tightly, wrapping my arms around his chest and sliding my leg between his and twisting our bodies all up into one. Feel him breathing in my arms. Feel the warmth from his skin on mine, the smell of his hair filling my nose, the tight grip of his fingers around my side, holding me impossibly close to him.

And though my back gets sore and my leg is definitely cramped, and Jesus Christ could I use another Tylenol…

I don’t move. Just let him hold me because I know he has to. Hold him because I have to. And just push away thoughts of being sick and getting sick and what the doctor said… that it could come back in a month or a year. A month or a year. A lifetime of wondering.

I didn’t tell Justin that. Just nodded and told him the doctor said my results came back fine. Which they did. Today.

But I don’t know about next month. Or next year.

I need to do this, and do it for me. Not those fuckers who said I couldn’t do it. And I have to do it, despite Justin’s worries, his hidden fears, the truth that lies behind his jokes about me getting old and looking after myself. Have to do it for me. And I know he understands that.

So we lie here and breathe and close our eyes and take comfort in each other, because maybe sometimes, no matter how badly the odds are against you, no matter how many people tell it couldn’t possibly succeed, despite baseball bats and violin players and cancer... sometimes some things actually work out right.