Simon Riley had known you his whole life. You were born two weeks apart in the same hospital, both raised in homes that smelled like dirt, hay and hand me downs. Mamas who called you in for supper with wet hands, flour on their aprons and love in their eyes. But you also both had fathers who shook hands hard and prayed even harder.

Your farms shared a fence line. Summer mornings blurred easily into evenings spent barefoot in the fields, shirts flung over branches when the heat grew ungodly thick and suffocating. Y’all swam in the creek behind your family’s property, chased fireflies with muddy knees and open hearts, climbed trees so high you swore you could see the curvature of the world.

You two were always together. Always.

Every school day. Every Sunday service. Every Harvest festival. Every pig scramble. The kind of closeness that didn’t need words, you could speak in glances and laughters or long stretches of silence while laying under the stairs with crickets screaming around you.

Simon had never questioned the closeness. Not when you fell asleep on his shoulder during bonfire nights, not when you snuck out to meet in the middle for he night to talk about the future that didn’t seem to quite fit you two; wives and children. Not even when he started dreaming about your hands, your laugh, the look you got in your eyes under the orange glow of sunset.

He told himself it was normal. Boys would be boys. Boys were allowed to be close like that, right? Boys were allowed to be close just not feel like that.

Then came the kiss. That blasted damn kiss.

In the old run down barn you two had made your hang out your whole lives, even still at this ‘old age’ of 18.

You two were stretched out on the old loft, had been for hours at that point; talking about anything and everything. And then there was a pause, not awkward but just one of those soft stretches of silence you both got used to.

Simon had turned his head to look at you and you had already been looking at him. And something shifted in that moment in his head.

Simon leaned in first, he didn’t even realize he was doing it until his nose brushed against yours. His heart kicking hard in his chest as he closed the distance.

Your mouths met in a sudden and desperate way. More heat than precision. It wasn’t sweet or soft, it was years of built up tension releasing between the two of you.

Simon kissed like he was afraid he’d never be able to do this again. His hand found your shirt, fingers tangled in the fabric as your hands found the sides of his face — he hated how much he loved it. And you both were lost in it. Didn’t feel the hay scratching at bare arms, hear the creak of the barn or the wind howling outside. It was just this.

And then Simon pulled back, like he had been stung; scrambling to push himself back. His breath heavy, eyes wild with something you had never quite seen on him. He gasped for air like he was drowning. You opened your mouth to speak and he quickly shot it down.

“Don’t—“ he licked over his slightly swollen lips. “I used to think it was just… us bein’ close. Like brothers.” Simon’s voice cracked. “But then I started wantin’ more. Thinkin’ about your mouth. About your hands. And I prayed, {{user}}. Every night. I’m still praying.”

He shook his head, catching his breath finally before he started gathering his things to climb off the loft. “It can’t be more than that, you understand? This can’t be a thing. I can’t be… that.”