Ooh baby, when you cry.

     "So what are you doin' after this?"

The question seemed casual enough . . . I couldn't hear any hidden intentions in his voice. Maybe he was really just asking.

     "You going straight home?"

That sounded like an offer. Maybe . . . maybe not? I had actually been planning on heading home, but a night with him seemed like a much better idea.

     We curled up, wrapped in a wool blanket; his head on my shoulder. Every once in a while he'd gaze up at me with his dry hazel eyes and just look for a moment. The liquor on his breath was warm, almost sweet . . . familiar. It mixed with his personal smell and sent me spinning back into my memories.

     He looked up at me again; his tired eyes searched mine, and they betrayed everything I was trying to hide tonight. And we kissed . . . we kissed passionately and lovingly as though we hadn't kissed in years.

     Naked in every sense, he pulled me closer to him and turned me to face away.

     "What's this?" I grinned, expecting some kind of game. But when he answered, his voice was sincere.

     "You're beautiful."

He said it softly, in a whisper that sent chills down my spine. The words he spoke made my eyes glisten in the stillness and my lungs stop dead. I had never heard him say it that way. I had never heard him mean it so much. It went through me like fire.

     We laid together for a while. He slid his fingertips across my legs and stomach, he kissed me silently in and out of dosing, and he spoke softly to me:

     "I still keep that picture of you in my room . . . I was looking at it the other day, thinking about you . . . Thinking being with you would make me feel better."

     "The past few days I've had this insatiable desire to fuck something up. To break something. I don't feel like that right now . . . I love you."

     I love you.