"Next Step"
"What are you thinking about?" Matt regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth, and he shoved his face into his pillow in shame. "I cannot believe I just asked you that."
"Why?" Ted asked with a wry smile, "Because it makes you sound like a woman?"
"Yes. That's exactly why."
Ted yawned and stretched his arms above his head. "You're a mind reader, Parkman. You tell me what I'm thinking about."
"I don't like to," Matt said with a shrug. "I don't want to just read your thoughts without your permission."
"You read Bennet's thoughts pretty freely."
"Yeah, well, you're different." Matt paused as he struggled to find the right words. "I don't want to be… inside you without you knowing it."
"I guess that's fair. I let you know when I was inside you."
Matt face flushed red again, and Ted smiled at his little joke. The two men lay in a content silence for a few minutes before Ted spoke up, "I was thinking about how we're going to be in New York tomorrow. We'll finally be taking out the tracking system. And this could very well be my last night in a hotel room for a long while."
Matt nodded, "I'm glad we made the most of it then."
"Same. But I don't know what's going to happen next. What happens after we take out the tracking system? What do we do then?"
"I guess we'll need to get out of New York right away. Get as far away from those guys as we can."
Ted turned so that he was face to face with Matt, a solemn look on his face as he spoke, "That's not what I meant."
Matt didn't need telepathy to know what Ted was thinking. "Oh. That. …I don't know."
"Yeah, me neither," Ted sighed.
Matt didn't know what to say. Truth be told, he hadn't thought about it before. Janice had been at the back of his mind for nearly the entire trip. He thought about her once or twice, mostly guilty thoughts, the first time he and Ted gave in to their urges but since then…
"I can't… I can't just leave my wife."
"I know," Ted hissed. "I wasn't asking you to."
"I didn't mean it like that. I was just saying-"
"Look, forget it, Parkman. It was just a passing thought. No need to get your panties in a bunch about it. It's not like this means anything." Ted grunted in anger and rolled over onto his side, his back facing the man lying next to him.
"Right," Matt whispered. "I guess it doesn't.
Neither of them said a word for what felt like an eternity, and then Matt spoke in a barely audible whisper, "So this might be the last night that we…?"
"Yeah," Ted said, eyes on the wall. "Probably."
"Okay then," Matt swallowed, his mouth suddenly feeling very dry. "Do you want me to go and sleep in other bed then? It's not a problem if you do. I can…" He didn't know how to finish the thought and just let it trail off.
Ted didn't speak, but he softly shook his head. He turned over and met Matt's gaze, and as the two men stared at each other, Ted reached out and grabbed a hold of Matt's hand with a firm yet simple touch. "You can read my mind, Parkman."
Matt allowed himself to open up to Ted's thoughts, and he picked up on the message that his companion was trying to give him. Ted had no other thoughts at the time, no chaos clouding up the signal. Just four simple words that he had been thinking the entire night.
"Yeah," Matt nodded with a bittersweet smile on his face, "Me too."