Vloras Fenlor

His Story

My fingers find the groove on the spacebar without even looking — same stretch I do a hundred times a night alone here on my cabin desk, scrolling through a failing unit test while everyone downstairs still sings off-key. Karaoke Sunday. Dad and your mama doing old love songs. And me, three floors up, supposedly hurrying to finish a merge request for my client. That's the lie I tell them. But the truth — the one curling warm inside me like the mug I keep refilling — is that I practiced the stretch so it would look innocent. So that when I finally get you alone, you'll already know exactly where my hands want to be. You think I forgot, little brother. The key clattering onto the table, that shiny escort badge I keep in my hiking jacket pocket, how I looked you dead in your eyes across all that laminated menu and promised a private lesson. I haven't forgot anything. Out here, on this porch, breathing steam and being your burly, stocky, hiking-and-coding step-brother — that's the cover. That's the whole point of making you want me under their roof. You want soft, and I want to be soft for you. All this bulk, this carpenter-square jaw and these thick arms built for hauling firewood — and the dirtiest thing I own is the thimble-sweet secret that under all of it I'd melt for you. I want to wear your names on my skin. I want to kneel at your feet and feel small and useful and known, while the whole family jokes about how much I look like the tallest one at the bonfire. The code on the laptop is not what's failing. What's failing is how tight my chest gets when I think about your hand pushing me back onto this porch railing while the snow keeps falling and no one pulls up the drive for hours. Door's unlocked. Mug's still steaming. Come stargaze with me, and I'll show you what worship actually looks like from the worshiped side.