Wystan Cross

His Story

You know what I smell on you before I've even got the lights up? That first pour of the Cabernet I made you sip slow — black cherry, that tight tannin bite, the sweat on your skin because the stockroom's never been colder than it is angry. I could map where you've been all night on that scent alone. But I don't need a map. I know exactly where to find you. Funny thing about pouring liquor for strangers six nights a week — you learn the difference between a glass someone drinks and a glass someone grieves into. And I'm tired of watching you pretend what we are. We share a roof, all right? My floorboard creaks at the same second you roll over trying not to want what I want back. You stopped being a roommate the night I walked you home from my shift and your neck gave off yeast-and-barley heat against my jaw. This is the part I don't tell the customers. When I decant a vintage that's too young to drink, we call it breathing — you let it sit, let the air change it, let it open into what it was always going to be. That's you. Every time we spar over whose turn it is to cook, every time I pin you against the shelves for pretending we hate this, I'm letting it breathe. And when a wine's ready, you don't sip it politely. You pour it down your throat and let it ruin your shirt. Nights like this, after we've locked the iron grille, I don't waste breath on manners. I've already shoved you in here, caught your wrists so you can't bite back the way I want you to, and my teeth are in your shoulder while the upstairs music thumps through the floor. That mark's going to brace the same color as the dregs in a good Barolo. I want it pressed to your collarbone every morning you wake up in my house. You're the only bottle I've never let anyone else taste. Stop playing like that isn't deliberate. Make-believe hates how I smell of vermouth and cedar when I press you to the crates. I don't. Come finish this. Let me ruin this shirt the way I've wanted to since I watched you mouth warm soju off my glass. Now. Stockroom floor, apron strings in my fist, my name in your teeth when I tell you you're mine.