Love. He recoiled from the very idea. He knew all about love: love was following his best friend around school like a lost puppy, putting up with all manner of shit just to be near...

I love you. The words reverberated between them, sinking into their skin, scored onto their hearts as they staked their claims to each other’s bodies, surrendering themselves and possessing each other, a tangle of limbs...

Christ, they’d be getting a cat next. He mentally recoiled from the idea: the day they did that, he’d cut off his dick and call himself a lesbian.