text: This was not something he could fix. Cooper put the bag of trash he was taking out on the ground and stared up at the ripped-up mess of his window AC from the alley below. The bottom of the unit was hanging down, as if it had caught on something and been yanked out of place, revealing the dark interior.
  
  Cooper would put his money on raccoons, though he'd seen squirrels accomplish some wildly destructive feats in his life when they were determined enough. Why any creature, raccoon, squirrel or otherwise, would be determined to sabotage Cooper's health and happiness with heat stroke was unclear. It was all secondary to the fact that repairing the damn thing was way out of his wheelhouse. Hell, what wasn't? Cooper's wheelhouse was feeling increasingly small and sparse today.
  
  There was no way he was going to be able to get someone in to fix the AC tonight, or even before they left for North Carolina, at this rate. He was glad Ava had agreed to take Boogie over to her apartment for the week. She was dependable and nearly always up for quality time with Boogie. Who was going to cat sit for him if he was living across town?
  
  Cooper frowned, shoving the thought away. If he said he didn't want to move because he'd need a new cat sitter, Park really would believe he was just making up excuses in order to get out of living together. And that wasn't true. It wasn't.
  
  He backed down the alley trying to get a better look at the damaged AC. There was a rustling from behind the dumpster. Cooper spun and his hand automatically went to his waist, finding nothing but the waistband of his gym shorts. Of course he wasn't armed, standing outside his own window at nine o'clock at night. He didn't even have reason to draw a weapon yet. Because a sound had spooked him?
  
  The lights of the apartment windows created dramatically dark shadows where the dumpsters loomed, and Cooper had to squint to see. "Hello?"
  
  There was no answer. But Cooper was sure there was someone there. He felt the familiar prickle tighten his skin as an awareness of being watched lit up his hindbrain. "I know you're there."
  
  Nothing.
  
  Cooper took a determined step forward and another panicked rustle preceded the appearance and prompt disappearance of a squirrel leaping out of the dumpster and down the alley, back into inky shadows. He exhaled a little shakily. Besides his thundering heartbeat, the alley was especially quiet.
  
  He readjusted his grip on the trash bag and walked hesitantly up to the dumpster. The darkness seemed to hold its breath. Tensing, Cooper inched forward and peered inside.
  
  Just trash. Cooper rolled his eyes at himself and tossed the bag in. Ridiculous.
  
  On his way back through the lobby, he grabbed his mail and absently flicked through it, walking upstairs and into the apartment. How did the entire world suddenly know he was looking to move? Menus, real estate flyers, coupons, real estate flyers, some kind of campaign literature for a small local election, real esta—a neat little postcard nearly slipped out of his hand. Cooper flipped it over. Typed on the back in the center was a short missive: Can't wait to see you!
  
  To the right was his address, apartment number, but no name. Nothing personal at all. Where his name would be just said Resident of. It looked like more junk mail, some kind of advertisement. Come on down to Bob's, we can't wait to see you!
  
  An advertisement for what, exactly, was unclear, Cooper thought, examining the image on the front more closely. It was a brick building with large arches and a terracotta roof. In front of it was a cement semicircular bench and a bronze sculpture of...something. A long, shapeless sort of thing. It looked vaguely familiar, but Cooper couldn't quite place it.
  
  He walked back into his apartment, tossing the rest of the mail onto the counter, and held the card up closer to his face. Squinting, he could see the sculpture was some sort of animal with a long, pointed nose and on the brick building were black letters: Small Mammal House.
  
  Cooper abruptly recognized the zoo here in DC. He hadn't been since he was a teenager. Were they that desperate for visitors they were sending out ads? He studied the back of the postcard again.
  
  Can't wait to see you!
  
  "Oh, hi, Mr. Dayton."
  
  Cooper looked up slowly, confused, and blinked at Ava standing in his bedroom doorway, arms full of a floppy and blissfully content Boogie, who looked nothing like the anguished animal that had spent the last thirty minutes furious at being separated from her fascinating friend and yowling her list of betrayals not to be forgotten nor forgiven.
  
  "Ava?" Cooper said, brain catching up to what he was seeing. "What are you... Did you just get here?" Alarmed, he looked over her shoulder into the bedroom for Park. How was he supposed to explain an enormous wolf in his bedroom? Do you have a two-for-one pet-sitting discount?
  
  "Yes." She followed the path of his gaze. "The door was open, so I thought you were home. But then I heard a bunch of, like, books or something falling in the bedroom. I was worried Boogie was in there and knocked over your bad bookshelf again and hurt herself."
  
  "Oh." Cooper swallowed, and his suddenly dry throat clicked. "And? Did you see anything...weird?"
  
  Ava gave him an odd look. "There was nothing on the floor. Then Mr. Park said he was having a bath and I could just take Boogie."
  
  "Oliver said that? With his voice?" Cooper said, then felt absurd.
  
  "Um—" She shifted her weight, clearly growing increasingly weirded out by Cooper's behavior. "Well, he said I could take the cat, but yeah...?"
  
  "Right. Of course you can take Boogie. I appreciate it. As always."
  
  Ava visibly relaxed and Cooper steeled himself from looking in the direction of the bedroom again as he helped her gather up Boogie's essentials and carry them back to her apartment down the hall, which was a much more colorful and homey replica of Cooper's. He pulled out Ava's usual weekly fee in cash out of his wallet and then, after a moment's consideration, added two more twenties. "Thanks again for this. I'll text you when we're heading back."
  
  Ava took the money, observing the extra bills. "I really didn't see anything in your bedroom, Mr. Dayton," she said seriously.
  
  Cooper laughed, startled. "I know. I just—" Felt financially impotent today? Already missed having a neighbor like Ava who loved his cat as much as he did? He'd grown fond of her, but without the cat-sitting to connect them, he could hardly stay in touch with a child.
  
  Cooper felt that familiar flutter of panic and shoved it away. "I know it's more of a hassle, having Boogs here than at my place. Text me if she can't handle the change and I'll see if I can get the AC repaired."
  
  "Miss Boot Scoot is not a wuss, Mr. Dayton," Ava said indignantly. "She's not gonna freak out over a little change."
  
  Well, whoopee for Boogie, Cooper thought. After saying goodbye, he returned to his own apartment and headed straight through the bedroom. The bathroom door was left partially open, and Cooper knocked and waited for Park's okay.
  
  Park was reclining in the tub with his eyes closed, as submerged in water as he could get, which wasn't very. His muscular legs were propped almost all the way up the wall and his broad shoulders were awkwardly crammed against the ledge on the other end.
  
  "If we lived in that palace we saw this afternoon, it would have taken me ten minutes to find you," Cooper said cautiously, examining him, hyperalert for a sign, any sign, that would tell him whether or not Park wanted to talk about what had happened before.
  
  Park didn't open his eyes. "If we lived in that palace I wouldn't have to bleach hundred-year-old bloodstains out of the grout before taking a bath."
  
  "Hey," Cooper said, walking into the bathroom and sitting on the closed toilet. "I was building a case with those bloodstains."
  
  "The case to condemn the building? I think you already have plenty to go to trial. Point one, the center of the sun is not a residential zone."
  
  Cooper bit his tongue. He'd made fun of this shitty apartment for years. He didn't know why now all of a sudden he was so determined to defend it. The bathroom was old and gross.
  
  And seeing Park's relaxed, beautiful body in it made him want to lock them both in here together to stay until the building itself came down around them.
  
  He changed the subject. "Sorry about Ava. I'm assuming from the lack of panicking, she didn't come in here when you were...alternately formed." Cooper dipped his fingers into the tub and found the water predictably cold. "Were you really in the bath?"
  
  Park managed to raise an eyebrow while keeping his eyes closed. "Do I look like the sort of man who goes around lying to little girls? Just what kind of Grimms' Fairy Tales wolf do you take me for?"
  
  "The one with soap in his hair."
  
  Park leaned forward, turned the tap on and dunked his head under, scrubbing at the shampoo. When he turned it off and lay back down, a couple suds still clung to his ear. Cooper stared, transfixed by that spot. Suddenly, somehow, he felt even more flushed with heat and a prickle of sweat broke out at his hairline. He swiped at it distractedly.
  
  "The AC is wrecked. Looks like something ripped into it."
  
  Park grunted. "Thank god for that fresh mountain air."
  
  Cooper opened his mouth. Closed it. Considered. "When I was in the alley taking the trash out, I thought someone was watching me. But it was a squirrel." He rolled his eyes at himself and immediately regretted mentioning it. He forced a laugh. "Who says your conversations take a turn for the boring when you move in together? Not us, baby!"
  
  Park's eyes had slid open. Warm amaretto looking at him with familiar focused attentiveness. "Do you want me to go downstairs and check it out?"
  
  "No, of course not."
  
  "Do you want to report it?"
  
  "To who? Wildlife Control?"
  
  "To whom," Park murmured, automatically.
  
  "I asked you first," Cooper said, and flicked a little water toward Park's chest. It felt nice and cool on his fingers, and he kept his hand submerged, letting it drift, bumping against Park's thigh. "No, I don't want to report it. It was nothing. I'm just telling you now so that when we sleep with all the windows open and I'm murdered in the night, my last words can be I told you so."
  
  Park grinned, closed his eyes and stretched lazily in the water. "Good ol' Dayton. He died as he lived. A complete prick."
  
  Cooper took the opportunity to stare at Park's body unobserved. His thick arms and firmly muscled torso and myriad of faded scars looked intimidating, dangerous. His sleepy face and soft cock looked oddly defenseless and vulnerable in the water. His hair standing up from the half-assed tap rinse and remaining suds looked...well, another thing entirely. There was something very silly about seeing a big, powerful man squeezed into a tub, head spotted in bubbles. And by silly Cooper meant punched-in-the-gut sexy.
  
  But that was Park. The strongest, toughest softie he knew. Made up of these seeming contradictions that all worked together to make Cooper's heart hammer in its cage, demanding to be let out to call a lawyer. It was unfair, unjust and uncalled for, how much Park made him love him.
  
  Cooper pulled his hand up Park's leg, to his calf, scratching through the hairs there, and Park sighed happily. He did not understand how this body could transform itself into the one that had cowered from him before. But then, he did not understand how some people's bodies could grow entire other humans or why eye colors looked different depending on what color shirt the person was wearing or why a man like this looked to him as some kind of leader. Though at the rate that was going, Cooper would understand perfectly when Park changed his mind there.
  
  "Have you ever been to North Carolina?" Park asked, startling Cooper out of his grim thoughts.
  
  "What? No. You?"
  
  "Too far south of our territory border." Park stilled, as if realizing what he'd said, then shifted, grabbing a bottle off the tub's edge, and the water sloshed.
  
  "You've met the alpha of one of the directors, though? Paul Claymont?"
  
  "Once. Years ago, when we were young. I was accompanying my uncle on a check-in trip." Park's voice was relaxed and supremely casual, but he was focused just a little too intently on pouring out a small amount of conditioner for Cooper to buy it. "Marcus often had me come with him, in case of trouble. There wasn't any, that time." He started working the conditioner into his hair a little too aggressively, pulling at the strands a little too hard.
  
  Cooper stood up and repositioned himself sitting on the flat ledge of the tub near Park's head. Gently, he pulled Park's hands away. "May I?" he asked.
  
  Park looked up at him, wide-eyed, and then gave a jerky nod.
  
  Cooper ran his fingers soothingly through Park's wet, soapy hair and felt him immediately relax into the touch. "If Claymont and Kreuger were both from northern packs around the same time, is it possible they knew each other? That Claymont recognized Kreuger? They could have had history."
  
  "I suppose it's possible, though they weren't from the same state. We're not the largest community." Park's expression turned thoughtful. "From what I know, Becca runs an excellent pack. I wonder why Claymont decided to leave it."
  
  "People move," Cooper said a little more sharply than he'd intended. "I thought wolves were free to leave packs when they wished."
  
  "Mmm," Park said with less adamant agreement than Cooper was hoping for. "I mean, sure, we can—unless you're in a rebel pack which is much more complicated—but it's not a particularly pleasant experience. There's usually a definite reason that makes the...bad feelings worth it."
  
  "So like ending any serious relationship, then," Cooper said, trying not to let the creeping anxiety he felt slip into his voice. Apparently unsuccessfully, as he felt Park still beneath his hands.
  
  "Not quite," Park said eventually. "Though like a breakup, certainly some wolves feel more...trapped than others depending on the circumstances."
  
  Cooper's heart was beating very fast and giving him a nauseating, light-headed buzz in his veins and throat. Trapped? He hated the way that sounded. Depending on what circumstances? What kind of bad feelings? But he could feel Park growing even more tense under his hands and changed the subject quickly. "All these rules," he said, forcing a light tone. "Will it be a problem that I'm not a wolf?"
  
  Park shook his head dismissively. "No, of course not."
  
  "Because I've been down that road before with you and it was...bumpy," Cooper added, remembering the whole mess of meeting Park's family.
  
  Park twisted out of his grip a bit to meet his eyes. "I really am sorry about that. I failed you. Too caught up in my own bullshit."
  
  Cooper pulled him back in place, uncomfortable. He hadn't meant to guilt-trip Park. Especially not after what had happened earlier. "It's fine. It's not like you didn't have anything else going on at the time. Go back to telling me about how I'm going to be the most popular boy at camp and make so many new friends."
  
  "We might get some curious looks and overly personal questions, but it won't be a problem," Park said, relaxing under Cooper's hands again. "My family is one of the oldest packs in North America with hardly any history of—" he cleared his throat "—ah, mating with humans. But it's unreasonable and increasingly impossible to maintain as we die out. I'm sure Paul Claymont is far more...modern."
  
  Cooper made a face. On one hand, that sounded like some seriously messed up shit. On the other, humans who knew about wolves had a track record of treating them like garbage, intentionally or not. How exhausting, how painful, was it to partner with someone who could never possibly understand your daily experience? Who didn't even know how to touch and comfort you when it mattered?
  
  He winced. On days like this, he understood why wolves like Park's grandmother worried about wolf-human relationships.
  
  The conditioner was well worked in at this point, but he continued to massage Park's head. Contrary to earlier, Park was pushing into Cooper's hands and practically thrumming with pleasure at the touch. What made this touch so different to before?
  
  Cooper used the lather to work Park's hair up into two little ears, then sat back to get a good look at him. He couldn't help grinning and kissed his fingertips. "My finest work."
  
  Park gave him a look that said he knew exactly what was happening and was only tolerating it for Cooper's sake. "I would think you've seen enough of my big ears for one day," he said, and turned the faucet on, leaning forward to rinse out his hair.
  
  Cooper frowned, watching him. It was difficult to know when to let potentially self-disparaging comments like that slide. Difficult to imagine Park ever felt poorly about himself at all, but Cooper knew better now. He waited until Park had turned the water off and was reclining with his eyes closed before he said, "I want to know what happened in the bedroom."
  
  Park groaned. "A terrible I Know What You Did Last Summer porn parody."
  
  "Oliver," Cooper insisted. "Did I—I hurt you?"
  
  Park's eyes shot open. "No. Of course not."
  
  "But you yelped," Cooper said, and Park winced at the animalistic term. "Or shrieked, cried out, yodeled, I don't know, but it sounded nothing like, Jeepers, that feels grand."
  
  "I shift into a wolf, Cooper, not a Hardy Boy."
  
  "You know what I mean."
  
  Park bit his lip. "I was just...startled."
  
  "That's not just it. I need to know what I'm doing wrong so I can fix it. Please," he added, almost whispering.
  
  It hurts me to see you hurt, Cooper thought. He didn't say it. He didn't want to guilt Park further or make it about him. He didn't even quite understand why it had hurt so badly. The visceral...something that had torn through him when Park had cried out.
  
  "It's not—there's nothing wrong." Park sighed in frustration and maneuvered himself so he was sitting straighter in the tub, knees up, and Cooper's hand fell away. Park reached out to take it. "It's not you, it's me."
  
  Cooper nodded. "Very helpful. How on earth will an evolved couple like us convincingly pretend to need counseling?"
  
  Park squeezed his hand and he took a deep breath. "I really was just startled. I'm not used to being touched. Like that." He coughed. "In fur. Petted like that."
  
  Cooper's throat clenched. "You mean it was...demeaning?"
  
  "No, no." Park looked at the ceiling, and Cooper could see his jaw muscle pulsing as he clearly struggled to say something. "You saw how Muñoz reacted to me today. Her aversion. The story she told of...the Shepherd."
  
  "How she jumped you, you mean."
  
  "I had just cut off the head of her pack," Park said, without any inflection at all. "I was a monster of her worst nightmares there to turn her world upside down."
  
  "Oliver, no—"
  
  Park held up his hand. "Her attack was justified, if unbelievably reckless. The point is that when I'm in fur, no one really...touches me. Not like you did. Nicely. Gently."
  
  "What are you saying here, that no one's ever touched you in fur unless it's to attack you?" Cooper asked. He meant it jokingly, but Park blushed and looked down, rubbing his finger along the grout at the edge of the tub.
  
  "I mean, no, of course people have touched me. Like, in February, when you saw me in fur for the first time, you touched me then, too." Park's speech was quiet, stilted, embarrassed. "That was...really nice."
  
  "Oliver, I was tugging shards of glass out of your flesh after we'd fought for our lives," Cooper said bleakly. "Tell me that's not your only positive touch story. What about your family? Your exes? You cannot look me in the eye and tell me Eli isn't touchy."
  
  Park smiled with wry fondness, shifted, and the water sloshed. "Of course he is. But not when I'm...like that. Not while I'm hurt, angry, dangerous. No one, ah, dominant, has ever reached out to calm me down."
  
  Cooper's brain flipped over at the word dominant—him dominant over Oliver? That just didn't sound right—but Park was still talking.
  
  "I promise, it just startled me," he said, and pulled Cooper's hand to his own cheek. "Though it shouldn't have." He twisted to press a lingering kiss to his palm. "I know what to expect next time."
  
  "Next time?" Cooper's voice sounded a little shaky.
  
  A strange expression flashed over Park's face, too quickly to decipher. It had almost looked like fear, but when he spoke Park sounded calm and casual. "I think after a weekend at Camp Howl you'll have more than your fill of wolves in all our forms, myself included."
  
  "Impossible," Cooper said. "I can never be too full of you."
  
  Park softly nipped at the flesh between Cooper's thumb and finger, then rubbed his mouth back and forth over the spot like an apology. "But I love it when you're full of me."
  
  Cooper snorted. "I don't know what you think you're doing, but whatever it is, the answer is I'm too hot for it."
  
  Park gently guided Cooper's hand into the water, grasp loose enough that Cooper could easily pull away. "It's cool in here."
  
  "So it is," Cooper said, mock-surprised. He rubbed his hand lightly over Park's chest, brushing almost imperceptibly at his nipples, letting the movement of the water do most of the work. Park's dick twitched lazily, but Cooper didn't reach for it. Instead, he thought about what Park had said about touch. The different ways we touch people: to arouse, appease, calm, excite, hurt, warn, beg. How impossible it was to fully understand how our touch feels to another. How it means different things to different people. Cooper may not see Park as submissive to him, but obviously after a lifetime being viewed only as a threat, a leader or both, Park felt Cooper's touch was different. And that was fine.
  
  Until the day Park realized he'd been wrong about Cooper all along and thrown away a ton of money and bought a whole-ass house for someone who couldn't be the person he thought he was. Cooper wasn't special. Just clueless.
  
  "I'm getting all wrinkly," Park said, startling Cooper out of his thoughts. He gently batted Cooper's hand away. "Grab me a towel."
  
  "Yes, sir," Cooper said sarcastically.
  
  "Chop, chop, there's a good boy." Park winked and heaved himself to standing, water pouring off him. Cooper fetched a fresh towel, then perched on the sink counter to watch Park soap himself thoroughly in the shower and rinse off. He was tempted to jump in there with him, clothes and all, but resisted, enjoying the view too much.
  
  When Park stepped out onto the bath mat and reached for the towel, Cooper resisted. "Should I dry you now, sir?" he asked, winking.
  
  Park raised an eyebrow, but dropped his hand willingly and seemed bemused. "Yes, I think you'd better."
  
  Cooper slid off the counter and carefully scrubbed the towel over Park's hair and then down over his skin. He kept his eyes lowered, focused on collecting all the stray water droplets. When he'd finished drying Park's torso, Cooper eased to his knees and began to make his way up his legs, but could sense Park watching him, breathing slightly more audibly than before.
  
  While working the towel in slow, circular movements on Park's inner thigh, the back of Cooper's hand brushed accidentally, then intentionally, against his balls. Park's muscles flexed and clenched beneath his hands, but Cooper stayed "focused" on his task, moving his face close enough that he could feel his own breath bouncing back to him off Park's skin.
  
  When Park was mostly dry—and definitely hard—Cooper sat back on his heels, with the wet towel clenched in his own lap, and looked up at him from under his lashes, faux-shyly. "Will that be all? Or is there anything else I can do for you?"
  
  Park reached down and grabbed Cooper's chin, forcing his face up. He dragged his thumb across Cooper's lips roughly, parting them, then easing off, studying Cooper's face. Cooper stared back up at him and tried not to shift on the hard, uneven floor. He was too old for this. Actually, fuck that, at what age was kneeling on tiny tiles not painful?
  
  Abruptly Park let go of his face. "Go into the bedroom," he said.
  
  Cooper gave him a look that meant he knew Park had noticed his discomfort and chosen knee health over what was shaping up to be a sexy bathroom blowjob and he did not approve, but Park just crossed his arms. "Don't make me say it again," he said.
  
  Cooper stood awkwardly, hard in his shorts, and opened the door to leave. Park's hand shot over his shoulder and shoved it closed again. Holding it like that, his arm blocked Cooper in, preventing him from turning to face Park in the cramped space.
  
  "Your clothes are wet," Park said evenly. "Leave them here."
  
  Hands trembling, Cooper carefully stripped, the movement occasionally bumping his body against Park's. When he bent to pull his shorts down, Park's other hand gripped his hip for a moment, steadying him, then pulled him back against his crotch twice in rapid succession. Cooper barely had time to choke back a groan before Park released him and patted his ass cheek.
  
  "Go wait for me on the bed," he said, taking his hand off the door.
  
  Cooper stumbled into the bedroom and considered what to do. Behind him, he could hear Park tidying up the bathroom, cleaning spilled water on the floor and hanging the towel to dry right in the middle of kinky sex because he was ridiculous, fastidious and filthy, and Cooper never thought he could adore anyone as much he did this fucking man.
  
  Quickly he yanked the comforter off, set some pillows up by the headboard to look as welcoming as possible and kneeled right by them at the top of the bed just as Park came in.
  
  Park made an approving sound and lay down, back up against the pillows. "Mmm. Isn't this more comfortable?" Park asked, stroking lazily up Cooper's side that was just about even with his shoulder. "Now I get to use your pretty mouth and watch that ass bobbing in my face. Would you like that?" Park checked that Cooper was down with this plan.
  
  "Yes," Cooper said, a little breathlessly. "I'd like that."
  
  "Good." In one fluid motion, Park wound his fingers through Cooper's hair, tight to the scalp so it didn't hurt, and dragged his head down between his legs. "Suck me," he ordered.
  
  Cooper gripped Park's dick and greedily guided it into his mouth, working his tongue. Park's hand remained on the back of his head and gently urged him up and down even as he resisted thrusting into Cooper's throat. Balancing on his knees and one hand, Cooper took Park deeper, up and down, and arched his back toward Park in the same rhythm. He felt Park's other hand grip his ass cheek, massage it, then tug him open and exposed.
  
  Cooper groaned when Park spit on his hole a couple times and then began to rub his thumb firmly over the quivering flesh, relaxing the muscle there, getting him slick.
  
  "Slacking on the job already?" Park asked, and Cooper realized he'd been doing nothing but breathe heavily with Park's dick resting against his tongue for several moments. Too lost to the trickling electricity lighting the nerve ends along his taint to his balls to do anything but drool.
  
  Dazedly he started blowing him again, and Park rewarded him dipping his thumb inside Cooper's hole. "That's it," he murmured. "Greedy little thing. Sucking me right in, aren't you?"
  
  Cooper didn't know whether he was referring to his mouth or ass, but hummed agreement and worked himself up to an almost frantic pace, stroking and sucking sloppily. Park let him—occasionally grunting and twitching his hips, his feet arching as he fought to stay still—before easing Cooper's head off gently.
  
  Cooper whimpered and Park shushed him soothingly. "It's okay, come up here for me now so I can taste you." He urged Cooper to straddle his chest backward, spread him open, and licked into him.
  
  "Oliv—Oliver," Cooper gasped against the crease of Park's thigh, and squirmed away, curving his back in a vain attempt to hide himself. The sensation too much, too intense, too intimate. Park growled and tugged him back, one large hand pressing down on Cooper's back, forcing him to arch and open.
  
  "Can't—I can't—" What precisely he couldn't do was unclear, even to Cooper. He couldn't lasso his thoughts into working order? Couldn't continue any semblance of a semi-decent blowjob while Park ate his ass out? Couldn't remain fully grounded on this planet? The possibilities were endless.
  
  Without thinking, Cooper began to rock backward against Park's tongue desperately, dragging his own open mouth back and forth over the coarse hairs of Park's thigh. When he felt two thick fingers press unrelentingly inside him, Cooper keened and bit down on Park's flesh there.
  
  Park's whole body bucked, and if Cooper had been a smaller person, he might have been thrown off. As it was, he was disoriented and barely cognizant of being flipped onto his back in the bed, until he found himself there looking up at Park kneeling by his side. "That wasn't nice," Park scolded. "I ought to muzzle you."
  
  Cooper groaned and nodded. "Yes. Do it."
  
  Park carefully covered Cooper's mouth with his palm and pushed down so that Cooper's head felt pinned to the bed and he had to breathe through his nose. Park studied him for discomfort and Cooper gave him a quick thumbs-up.
  
  "That's better," Park said, satisfied. "Now we won't have any more accidents if I do this, will we?" His other hand reached down and started jacking Cooper off.
  
  Cooper squirmed, crying out into Park's palm. He couldn't seem to keep his eyes open, but he also couldn't bear to look away from Park's gaze, focusing on him intently. A pleased, possessive expression on his face.
  
  "You know what I want," Park murmured. "Come on. Give it to me. Let me see you make a pretty mess all over yourself."
  
  Cooper thrust a couple more times into Park's grip and tipped over the edge into orgasm. Feeling, not as if he himself had moved, but as if the world had dropped—hurtling suddenly and violently away from him, leaving him behind, untethered and weightless. The only awareness that he still had a body at all, the warm, glowing epicenter of him, seated deep and powerful between his hips.
  
  The world returned to him in pieces. When he licked his lips, he realized Park's hand was no longer on his mouth. When he opened his eyes, he saw Park was kneeling up, stroking himself jerkily over Cooper's body. Cooper just watched him for moment, feeling treacle-slow and detached. On Park's thigh he saw the spot he'd bitten him, nowhere near hard enough to break skin, but it was blotchy and might bruise for a day. Cooper reached out to brush his fingers over it and Park looked at him, startled.
  
  "Come here," Cooper croaked, touching his own lips, fine with however that was interpreted. Park shuffled over to Cooper's head, and guided his dick to his mouth.
  
  Cooper kissed and licked at it, holding eye contact, before tentatively suckling the head. It wasn't long before he felt Park stiffen and jerk. He pulled back to come over Cooper's chest and neck, then collapsed with a groan.
  
  They lay like that, not touching in a T-shape by the bottom of the bed, Park lying on his side and facing away, perpendicular above Cooper's head. After a while, when they'd caught their breaths, Cooper began to laugh. "Well, we've certainly got the fucking part of our relationship cover story down, anyway."
  
  Park chuckled. "I'm all for practice, but you don't think they'll be watching us in our private room, I hope."
  
  "You never know," Cooper said, sobering a bit. He tilted his head up slightly to look at Park, noticing the now familiar, faint scars that littered his back.
  
  "You've never mentioned it before," Park said hesitantly, still facing away from him. "That you worked undercover."
  
  Cooper didn't say anything for a moment. Then, "Not much to tell. I did a couple assignments in my FBI days. Nothing too intense."
  
  He traced one silvery scar shaped like a wishbone with his eyes. It was a startling reminder that there were still things they didn't know about each other. Or, hell, maybe there weren't. Not very important things, at least. In real life, not every scar had a story. Not every silence hid a dark secret. Maybe that's what a long-term relationship was. After the heady rush of discovery had passed, it was time to learn when to reopen a healed wound and when to just let the scar fade. He supposed he had plenty of opportunity to ask at couples' camp.
  
  "Any tips?" Park asked, and Cooper frowned, confused. "Any tips on being undercover?" he clarified.
  
  "Hmm." Cooper thought about that. "I find the key is not to lie."
  
  He could feel Park's skepticism. "That seems...counterintuitive."
  
  "Even if you're a good liar. Especially if you're a good liar. The first lie is easy. The second one isn't that hard, either. But then there's the third. Three lies is the beginning of a character sketch. And if there's something off about your character, if the lies don't add up to the same believable person, you get found out. Trust me, everyone's a wannabe psychoanalyst, ready to get on the couch and dissect your inconsistencies."
  
  "So to be undercover, we tell the truth?"
  
  "We tell a bunch of truths. As many truths as you can. Overwhelm them with true things until they know so much about you they won't even notice that they don't know anything important at all."
  
  Park sighed mock tragically. "And people think I'm the scary one."
  
  Cooper studied his back. "I hope you know I don't think you're scary. Not ever," he said quietly.
  
  Park didn't react, but his body was very still, like he didn't quite know what to do with that information. Then, abruptly his hand reached back behind him, seeking, and Cooper grabbed it.
  
  "See? I told you," Park said, holding on to his hand like it was something precious. "You're just different."