The Rebuilding Year by Kaje Harper Page A

flat. He’d always liked kissing. He’d never been one to fuck a woman’s body like the rest of her didn’t exist. But he’d also never had a first kiss work like that. Like someone poured liquid heat between his lips and took over his breath and his heart and his groin, until all he could think about was getting more.
    John had obviously put it behind him. Ryan had started out being really careful. He’d avoided being around John for anything too comfortable, too emotional. At the same time, he’d tried to act like nothing had changed.
    Thanksgiving dinner had been weird. By some unspoken mutual consent they’d bought all the fixings, chicken and stuffing and pie, and shared it at the small polished table. But no cooking together, no wine, nothing that put them side by side in the kitchen. The meal had been pretty silent.
    John seemed a little depressed. He’d made one or two comments, but seemed to drift off into staring in space again and again. Ryan figured he had to be thinking about how different this was from family holidays in the past. He’d have had his wife, his kids, maybe some relatives or in-laws. Old traditions, old arguments, who knew?
    Ryan had dug around on the remains of the chicken for a few more morsels and then worked the wishbone free. He sucked it clean and laughed. “At least you only had two kids. Four of us at home and one wishbone made for epic arguments. One year Mom made two turkeys, just so there would be two wishbones. We ate leftover turkey for a month.”
    John seemed to come back from wherever his thoughts had been. He gave a crooked smile and then reached out to take one end of the wishbone. Ryan shifted his grip to the other end. For a second they eyed each other. John’s hazel eyes were shaded to grey, giving nothing away. He glanced down for a second, and then wrenched on the small bone. It snapped cleanly, with the bigger half in Ryan’s hand.
    John’s smile became warmer. “Yours. Don’t tell me what you wished for or it won’t come true.”
    Ryan looked blankly at the stub of bone in his hand. Somehow, he’d forgotten to make a wish. Did it still count if he made it now? He could wish for things to go back the way they were. He could ask for this new uncomfortable awareness of John to disappear. Hell, he could wish for his leg to be healed while he was at it, if he wanted to pretend it was that magic. I wish I knew what I wanted.
    Two weeks later and he still didn’t know. Because he missed the easy way they had been together before… before he kissed me. Except that was unfair, because even if John had made the first move, Ryan could still feel the slip of the man’s silky hair in his fingers, the press of his hard body against Ryan’s. And the way Ryan had responded. The way he’d kissed John back .
    And he thought that if someone offered to turn back the clock and give him a do-over he would probably take it. Except…except he’d never felt as alive as he had the past two weeks. Sounds were louder, lights were brighter. It wasn’t just the girls, and the guys, that he was noticing more. He saw the lace of frost on a window in the morning, the way the curls of ice spread in fractal patterns across the glass. He heard the drum of a woodpecker on the dead tree down the street, in syncopated time. Coffee…God, coffee tasted like heaven.
    It was like someone turned the amplifier on his life up a notch. The smell of a bakery as they passed filled his mind with donuts. The smell of formaldehyde was sharp in his nose. He could identify his lab partner at ten feet by her floral perfume, and other women in the class even farther from the hit of their heavy chosen scents, as they walked past with perfume set on stun. He could smell John’s shampoo and clean skin down the hall in the evening, after the man showered.
    Ryan shook his head and stepped out the door of Bradford Hall, into the clean cold outdoors. The air promised snow. A hint of smoke hovered, like a