Closed for Inventory

The shop was supposed to be dark. I had left my charger under the counter and used that as a key. He was still there — thirty-six, clipboard, work shirt open, sodium light from the back alley painting him like a warning.

“We're closed,” he said.

“I know. I work here.”

“Not at midnight.” He set the clipboard down. “Unless you came to help me stop pretending.”

I locked the door behind me. He watched that and nodded. We met in the aisle between the shelves we had built last spring. Kissing him was like putting down a box you had carried too far. He was solid, tired, already hard when I palmed him through his jeans.

He bent me over the receiving table because the office chair was a joke. Lube from a first-aid kit that had never been about first aid. He opened me, asked once more, then pushed in with a groan that made the stock feel like an audience. He fucked me in long strokes, one hand on the small of my back, counting nothing. I came across a packing slip. He followed, buried, the clipboard clattering to the floor like it had finally quit.

We turned the sign around in the morning like nothing had happened. Inventory was, technically, complete. I still cannot look at that table without remembering the math we actually did.