The bathroom door creaked open, and steam rolled out like fog off the Seine. Carlos stood in the doorway, backlit by the soft yellow glow of the vanity light, his body a study in contrasts—pale skin flushed pink from the shower, water sliding down his chest in slow rivulets, curls damp and wild. The towel wrapped low on his hips clung like it had its own agenda, teasing at the sharp lines of his waist and the faint trail that disappeared beneath it.

Angelo looked up from where he sat at the edge of the bed, his cigarette burning quietly between his fingers. He didn’t bother pretending not to stare. Carlos had always made it impossible. That same beauty mark still graced his cheek like a painter’s finishing touch. His cheeks were flushed, still boyish in that maddening way, but his eyes—those were something else entirely now. Still soft, still sharp. Still capable of undoing Angelo with a glance.

“You still take forever in the shower,” Angelo said, voice low and scratchy, like the smoke he hadn’t yet inhaled.

Carlos smirked. “You still act like it kills you to wait.”

Angelo’s lips twitched. “It does.”

Carlos crossed the room with slow, measured steps. The kind that said he knew exactly what he looked like and exactly who he was walking toward. When he stopped, he was standing between Angelo’s knees, damp thighs brushing against expensive slacks Angelo hadn’t bothered to take off. The heat of him radiated like a hearth.

“And you still watch,” Carlos said, tilting his head, curls dripping. “Like it’s your last night on earth.”

“Maybe it is.”

Carlos bent slightly, both palms resting against Angelo’s chest. “You always did like melodrama.”

Angelo dropped the cigarette into the half-empty glass on the nightstand with a hiss. “You always knew how to make a mess of me.”

He reached up, brushing a curl from Carlos’ face, his fingers lingering at the shell of his ear before trailing along his cheek. He ran his thumb across the beauty mark with reverence, as if it had been carved into stone.

“You don’t know what it’s like,” Angelo murmured. “Seeing you like this again. After all these years, after all the bullshit. You were the envy of every girl at Saint-Joseph’s—and half the boys too. But it was me who knew what your laugh sounded like when you were tired. Me who kissed you under the stairs during lights-out. Me who buried our pearls under the greenhouse floorboards.”

Carlos’s breath hitched, but he didn’t pull away. “You buried more than that.”

Angelo looked up at him, something tender and wrecked behind his eyes. “I know.”

Carlos leaned down, their foreheads touching, breath mingling between them. “I never left, you know.”

Angelo’s hands settled on Carlos’ hips. “I did.”

Their lips met, slow and bruised with memory. The kiss didn’t ask for permission—it claimed. It was the kind of kiss that didn’t belong to the present but to everything they’d ever stolen together. Heat bloomed between them, familiar and dangerous, the kind that couldn’t be extinguished with time or distance or even guilt.

Carlos slid onto his lap, towel loosening, skin pressed to shirt. Angelo held him like he was trying to memorize every inch all over again. No words passed between them for a long while. Only hands. Only breath.

Finally, Carlos whispered, lips at his throat, “What happens now?”

Angelo closed his eyes. “We make another mistake.”

Carlos nodded, voice a ghost: “Just don’t vanish this time.”

Angelo didn’t promise. He never had. But his grip tightened, and for the first time in years, he didn’t feel like running.