Grown Men

then. He looked down at his hand holding the bottle of water.
    “I know how exceptional you are. Brain. Muscle. Reflexes. And I know that I’m not.” Runt pressed. “If that isn’t your retirement package, it could be easily and you know it. I know this can’t have been your first choice. This . . . place. This— me.”
    Ox did smile then. He smoothed the sand into a flat plate with his palm, calmly, slowly, as if he were petting the planetoid.
    For one minute, Runt expected the ground to purr the way Ox did, but it slept on underneath them. “Is someone chasing you then?”
    The pulse under Ox’s square jaw throbbed.
    Runt watched and counted the heartbeats, waiting: One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven—
    Finally Ox beckoned him closer with his big paw, and Runt knelt beside him. Ox lifted the bottle of water and filled his entire mouth, but rather than swallow it, he spat it onto the sand.
    Runt yelped in surprise and pulled back, then realized it wasn’t a joke.
    Ox poked Runt’s arm hard enough to bruise, then leaned forward and wrote a single word in abjad, carving the demi-Arabic in the wet grit as if carving plasticrete for a monument.
    BROTHER .
    Runt looked up startled. “You have a brother.”
    Ox nodded once, his face grim. Then shook his head, once.
    “He died?”
    Ox pounded his own heart with a fist. Poom. The resonant boom startled Runt.
    “ You died? You’re not dead. I’d notice.” Runt tried to read something in his friend’s shadowy eyes. “Is he as overgrown as you?”
    No answer. Ox wiped his wet mouth.
    Runt looked at the sand-writing again, trying to put the pieces together. No one had died, but they weren’t brothers. Anymore, at least .
    “He hurt you.”
    A vein pulsed on Ox’s forehead and his face flushed. Even the mention of his brother made him look monstrous or panicked or both.
    “So you came here.”
    With your brother’s weapons.
    “Your brother was a corporate assassin.”
    Ox rubbed the hated word from the wet ground, erasing it.
    “Oks’ayn.” The sweet word filled Runt’s mouth. He wanted to say it again and stopped himself. Suddenly, he wanted to say it a thousand times. A million.
    Ox’s face and neck flushed very red.
    “Hey. Hey! Doesn’t matter, yeah?” Runt reached out and wiped the sand as well, even though the word was long gone, as if he could erase history. “He’s on the other side of nowhere and look what you built. We’ve built.”
    The bigger man seemed to be holding his breath. He twisted his fingers together.
    “That doesn’t matter. Hey. This does.”
    Ox shook his head, once, but his ruined eyes stayed down.
    Thlip . A drop fell from Ox’s chin into the wet sand.
    “You still have a brother.” Runt tapped himself. “Y’know?”
    Ox looked up, not bothering to wipe his eyes.
    Runt grinned hopefully and stood next to the seated giant; even so, his face was only higher by a few centimeters.
    Ox flashed an almost-grin, then nodded once.
    “Good.” Without thinking, Runt leaned forward and kissed his cheek.
    Ox’s breath hitched and his body slowed suddenly . . . his head turning, his hand lowering, the motion taking three times as long as it should. His brows crinkled into an unasked question.
    Runt sat back slowly, shocked at what he had done. His face felt hot. His lips buzzed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean—”
    Still moving with painstaking care, Ox squinted and cocked his head, then leaned forward to press a kiss to Runt’s throat . . . his hard lips dry on Runt’s pulse, the damp sandpaper cheek pressed to Runt’s collarbone. He didn’t pull back, but kept his giant head there, breathing deeply and testing the stubble with his lips.
    As never before, Runt felt hyperaware of the half-meter difference in their sizes. Standing beside Ox, their faces still so near. He didn’t feel like a child, but he felt safe here, close as this.
    They stayed like that, breathing a moment, not embracing only because their arms hung at their sides. The warmth knocked between them.
    Runt could feel the big heart next to him beating-beating-beating-beating , and then Ox tipped the handsome Cro-Magnon face up and brought their lips together.
    And Runt let him.
    Pleasure licked down his spine and extremities. His breath caught and his chest rumbled with tapped pleasure.
    Ox sat back again, watching Runt’s eyes.
    “We have—” Runt raised his stubby fingers to Ox’s rugged features without touching the high curve of his