ud83dudd25 Bonus Chapter: “The Door Between”

Next Door to Trouble u2014 Exclusive Bonus Content
by Jace Wilder

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The Door Between

Riley

The contractor left at 4:17 p.m.

I know the exact time because Micah noted it in his phone u2014 of course he did, of course Micah Lawson logged the completion timestamp of a residential construction project the way a normal person might note, say, the score of a basketball game or the name of a song they liked. He typed it into his calendar app with his thumbs and said u201cproject complete, 4:17 p.m.u201d under his breath and I loved him so much in that moment that my chest physically hurt.

The door was simple. Wood. No lock. It stood in the center of what used to be the shared wall between 7A and 7B u2014 the wall that had been a noise complaint and a boundary and a bridge and a metaphor for every barrier weu2019d ever built between ourselves and the terrifying possibility of being known.

Now it was a door. Our door. Open.

I stood on my side u2014 7A, the chaos side, the paint-stained floor and the disaster corner and the couch that had survived a wine stain and a love story u2014 and looked through the doorway into Micahu2019s apartment. His side. The clean counters and the organized fridge and the desk by the window with the good light.

Two apartments. One space. Connected.

Micah was standing on his side, looking back at me through the same doorway. Heu2019d changed out of the clothes heu2019d worn during the construction u2014 the old T-shirt, the joggers that got dusty from the plaster. He was wearing the green henley now. The one from the first doorway argument. The one that matched his eyes and sat across his shoulders in a way that made my brain go offline.

Heu2019d put it on deliberately. I could tell by the way he was looking at me u2014 steady, certain, the particular expression he wore when heu2019d made a decision and intended to see it through.

u201cWe should christen it,u201d I said.

u201cThe door.u201d

u201cThe door. The doorframe. The wall around the door. The general vicinity.u201d

u201cThatu2019s a lot of christening.u201d

u201cIu2019m ambitious.u201d

Micah walked through the doorway. Into my apartment. The act was mundane u2014 a man walking through a door, the kind of thing that happened a billion times a day in buildings all over the world u2014 but it wasnu2019t mundane. It was the first time. The first time someone walked from his space into mine without going through the hallway, without knocking, without the mediation of a corridor and two separate doors and the particular geography of separateness.

He crossed the threshold and stood in front of me and his eyes were bright and his mouth was soft and his bare feet were on my paint-stained floor and I thought: This is what we built. Not the door. The willingness to walk through it.

u201cHi,u201d he said.

u201cHi.u201d

u201cIu2019m in your apartment.u201d

u201cYouu2019re in our apartment.u201d

His jaw worked. The tell u2014 the tightening that meant the feeling was bigger than his face could hold. Then he kissed me.

Not softly. Not the tender, post-crisis, weu2019re-healing-together kisses of the last few weeks. This was the henley kiss. The first-doorway-argument energy u2014 the friction, the heat, the six weeks of pretending that the most disruptive thing about the other person was the noise. Except now there was no pretending. Now there was a door where the wall used to be and Micahu2019s mouth was on mine and his hands were on my waist and the henley was coming off because I was pulling it over his head before my brain had consulted my hands about the decision.

u201cWe havenu2019t even had dinner,u201d Micah said, his voice muffled by the fabric.

u201cDinner can wait.u201d

u201cI was going to make risotto.u201d

u201cMicah. I love your risotto. I love you. But if you mention Arborio rice right now I will lose my mind.u201d

The henley hit the floor. His chest was bare and warm and my hands were on it immediately u2014 palms flat against his sternum, fingers spread, feeling his heartbeat, which was fast and strong and completely at odds with the controlled expression he was trying very hard to maintain.

u201cThe doorframe,u201d I said.

u201cWhat about it?u201d

u201cI want you against the doorframe.u201d

His pupils blew. The gray-green irises narrowed to thin rings around darkness and his breathing changed u2014 from controlled to responsive, from measured to hungry u2014 and I watched the composure crack the way Iu2019d watched it crack a dozen times before and it never got less devastating.

u201cThe doorframe,u201d he repeated.

u201cOur doorframe. The one that didnu2019t exist yesterday. The one that exists because you made a cost-benefit analysis and presented it to Frank with contractor bids and structural assessments.u201d

u201cThe structural assessments were necessary.u201d

u201cThe structural assessments were foreplay and you know it.u201d

I pushed him backward. Gently, firmly u2014 both hands on his chest, walking him toward the door, toward the threshold, toward the new wood frame that smelled like sawdust and possibility. His back hit the doorframe and the sound it made u2014 the solid thud of a manu2019s body against a structure heu2019d built for them u2014 sent a bolt of heat through me so intense I had to close my eyes for a second.

When I opened them, Micah was looking at me from the doorframe with an expression Iu2019d only seen a handful of times. Not the controlled composure. Not the careful, measured attention. Something under all of it. Raw. Hungry. The first draft.

u201cTake your shirt off,u201d he said.

I took my shirt off.

u201cCome here.u201d

I came. Stepped into the doorway, into the threshold, into the space between his apartment and mine that was now just space u2014 not a boundary, not a gap, just air and wood and the narrow, charged distance between two men who wanted each other.

His hands found my hips. Pulled me against him. The full-body contact u2014 chest to chest, hip to hip, the particular electricity of bare skin against bare skin in a doorway that was hours old and already the most important piece of architecture in the building u2014 made us both exhale. A shared breath. A single sound from two throats.

u201cI built this for you,u201d Micah said. His voice was low. Rough. The underneath voice u2014 the one that only came out in the dark, in the bed, in the moments where his control dissolved. Except it was 4:30 in the afternoon and the light was golden and he was saying it with his eyes open. u201cThe proposal. The assessments. The contractor. I built this door because I never want a wall between us again. Not this wall. Not any wall.u201d

u201cMicahu2014u201d

u201cAnd I want to christen it with you. Thoroughly. With the methodology.u201d

I laughed u2014 the shaky one, the real one. u201cThe methodology.u201d

u201cYou like the methodology.u201d

u201cI love the methodology.u201d

He kissed me. Hard. His hands slid from my hips to my ass and gripped and the sound I made was not dignified and I did not care. He pulled me tighter against him and I could feel him u2014 hard, ready, pressing against my hip through two layers of fabric that were suddenly the most offensive pieces of clothing in the history of textiles.

u201cOff,u201d I said against his mouth. u201cEverything off.u201d

Everything came off. Fast, graceless, the fumbling urgency of two people who had spent months learning each otheru2019s bodies and still couldnu2019t undress fast enough when the want hit this hard. Micahu2019s joggers. My jeans. The boxers that got caught on my ankle because my coordination ceased to exist when Micahu2019s hands were on me.

And then we were bare. In the doorway. Afternoon sun from his window on one side, the amber glow of my floor lamp on the other. Standing in the threshold between two lives that were now one life, and the light from both sides fell on us simultaneously, warm and golden, and Micah looked at me with his editoru2019s eyes and said: u201cYouu2019re the most beautiful thing in either apartment. And I include the structural integrity of the building.u201d

The callback hit me in the sternum. The 2 a.m. zine conversation. The first real thing. Where it all started.

u201cI love you,u201d I said, because it was true and because Iu2019d never stop saying it and because heu2019d asked me to say it until the words wore a groove in the air between us and the plaster knew them.

u201cI love you too,u201d he said. u201cNow turn around.u201d

I turned around.

Faced the doorway. My hands on the new wood frame u2014 smooth, sanded, still smelling like sawdust. Micahu2019s body behind me, warm and solid, his chest against my back, his mouth at my ear.

u201cThis doorframe,u201d he murmured, u201cis rated to support approximately 400 pounds of distributed load.u201d

u201cAre you giving me engineering specs right now?u201d

u201cIu2019m telling you it can hold us.u201d

u201cProve it.u201d

He proved it.

What followed was u2014 there wasnu2019t a word. Iu2019d used all the words. Every superlative, every metaphor, every breathless attempt to capture what it felt like when Micah Lawson turned the full force of his attention to taking me apart. But this was different from every other time. This was in the doorway. In the threshold. In the exact point where his world met mine and the meeting was physical and architectural and spiritual simultaneously.

His hands were everywhere. My chest, my stomach, my hips, the inside of my thighs. He touched me with the focused attention of a man editing the most important manuscript of his career u2014 finding what worked, doing it again, cataloging every response with the precision of someone who believed that attention was the highest form of devotion.

His mouth was on my neck. The spot. The spot u2014 below my ear, the one that produced the 40% stronger response, the one heu2019d discovered during the week and had been weaponizing ever since. His lips and tongue and the scrape of teeth and I was making sounds I couldnu2019t control, my hands gripping the doorframe, the wood smooth and solid under my palms.

u201cGood,u201d Micah whispered against my skin. u201cYouu2019re so good, Riley.u201d

The praise kink. The one weu2019d discovered in the first week, the one that lived in Micahu2019s need to hear it and Rileyu2019s need to give it. Except now it was Micah giving it. Telling me I was good, in his calm, precise, editorial voice, while his hands did things that were the opposite of calm and his body pressed against mine with an urgency that said the editor was offline and the man was fully, completely present.

u201cSay it again,u201d I breathed.

u201cYouu2019re good. Youu2019re perfect. Youu2019re the most extraordinaryu2014u201d

u201cMicah.u201d

His hand wrapped around me. Firm. Sure. The grip of a man who knew exactly what he was holding and intended to hold it with the same care and precision he brought to everything u2014 manuscripts, kitchens, pour-over coffee, the life of the person he loved. He stroked slowly. Deliberately. The same maddening, agonizing, devastatingly controlled pace that he used every time, the pace that said Iu2019m not rushing because youu2019re worth the time.

I pressed my forehead against the doorframe. The wood was cool against my skin. Behind me, Micah was warm. Two temperatures. Two textures. The solid, structural permanence of something built and the living, breathing heat of someone chosen.

u201cFaster,u201d I said.

u201cNo.u201d

u201cMicah, pleaseu2014u201d

u201cIu2019m savoring. This is the christening. You donu2019t rush a christening.u201d

u201cYou are the most infuriatingu2014u201d

He twisted his wrist. Changed the angle. Found the exact rhythm my body was begging for and delivered it with the unerring accuracy of a man who had been studying me for months and had accumulated enough data to write a peer-reviewed paper on what made Riley Sharp fall apart.

I fell apart.

Not quietly. Not with restraint. With a moan that came from somewhere deeper than my throat and a grip on the doorframe so tight the wood creaked and Micahu2019s name on my lips like a prayer or a curse or both, because with him it was always both, the sacred and the profane occupying the same space the way we occupied the same doorway.

He held me through it. One arm around my waist, the other still moving, drawing it out, extending the aftershocks until my knees buckled and he was the only thing holding me up u2014 Micah and the doorframe, the two most structurally sound things in my life.

u201cYour turn,u201d I said, when my brain came back online. u201cTurn around.u201d

u201cRileyu2014u201d

u201cTurn. Around.u201d

He turned around. Hands on the doorframe. The position that had been mine ten seconds ago was now his, and the mirror of it u2014 the symmetry, the exchange, the equal and opposite nature of two people who took turns holding each other up u2014 was the most erotic thing Iu2019d ever seen.

I pressed myself against his back. Kissed the nape of his neck. Found the spot between his shoulder blades that made him shiver and the spot on his hip that made his breath catch and the trail of dark hair below his navel that I followed with my fingers while his hands white-knuckled the doorframe.

u201cYouu2019re good,u201d I whispered against his skin. The words heu2019d needed to hear since he was fourteen. The words that reached past every wall and every system and every carefully maintained schedule. u201cYouu2019re so good, Micah. You built this. You built us. Youu2019re the steadiest, bravest, most extraordinary man Iu2019ve ever known.u201d

He made the sound. The one from the first night u2014 the eyes-open night, the vulnerability night. The sound that came from the place where control ended and trust began. Low, shaking, the sound of a man who was letting go of everything heu2019d been holding since he was a boy in a kitchen with a sponge.

My hand found him. Wrapped around him. Gave him the same deliberate, focused attention heu2019d given me u2014 slow at first, then building, reading his body the way Iu2019d learned to read it over months of study and devotion and the particular, obsessive attention of a man in love.

u201cRiley,u201d he breathed. u201cRiley, Iu2019mu2014u201d

u201cI know. Let go.u201d

u201cI canu2019tu2014u201d

u201cYou can. Iu2019ve got you. The structure holds. Let go.u201d

He let go.

The sound he made was my name. Just my name. Five letters. One syllable. Said with the full, unedited, first-draft honesty of a man who had stopped controlling the narrative and let the story write itself.

We slid down the doorframe. Both of us. A graceless, boneless descent that ended with us sitting on the floor, tangled together, straddling the threshold u2014 half in his apartment, half in mine. Breathing. Laughing. Holding on.

u201cThe doorframe held,u201d Micah said.

u201cThe doorframe held.u201d

u201cI told you. 400 pounds of distributed load.u201d

u201cYouu2019re quoting engineering specs while naked on the floor.u201d

u201cThe engineering is relevant.u201d

u201cThe engineering is foreplay.u201d

u201cApparently.u201d

I pressed my face against his shoulder. Breathed him in. Cedar and soap and sawdust from the construction and the warm, specific scent that was just Micah u2014 the scent Iu2019d first smelled through a wall and now smelled everywhere, in every room, because every room was our room now.

u201cI love you,u201d I said into his shoulder.

u201cI love you too.u201d

u201cThe risotto can wait?u201d

u201cThe risotto can wait.u201d

u201cGood. Because I have plans for the kitchen counter.u201d

u201cThe kitchen counter is a food preparation surface.u201d

u201cNot tonight it isnu2019t.u201d

Micah looked at me. On the floor. In the doorway. Naked and flushed and smiling the real smile u2014 the one Iu2019d built from a ghost into a permanent thing.

u201cThe kitchen counter,u201d he said. u201cThe couch. The desk. The disaster corner. Weu2019re christening everything.u201d

u201cEverything?u201d

u201cEvery surface in both apartments. Itu2019s a large project. It may take all night.u201d

u201cMicah Lawson. You just project-managed our sex life.u201d

u201cI optimized our sex life. Thereu2019s a difference.u201d

I kissed him. In the doorway. On the floor. In the space between two apartments that were now one home, built by a man who understood structure and a man who understood chaos and the door between them that proved you didnu2019t have to choose.

You just had to knock.

And someone had to open.

And then you walked through together.

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