When he wakes up again, it’s still dark, and Cecil is sitting on the other side of the bed, back propped against the wall and legs crossed, playing Angry Birds on his phone. Carlos can’t help but smile at that, because it’s just one more normal thing about the sharp-toothed radio host that he’d never have expected before this.

“You can probably think again,” Cecil says, as though he'd known exactly when Carlos would be up, “If you start feeling a migraine come on, though, put on some daytime television until the pain subsides.”

"My darling Carlos," Cecil says, with a lovestruck sigh, as he laces his fingers into Carlos's. "You're so goddamn smart."

Carlos tries to hide his reaction, not that Carlos really knows what that reaction is. Cecil has never actually sworn at — or maybe it's more appropriate to say towards — Carlos before, and Carlos doesn't know what to think about it. The sound of those horrible words in Cecil's beautiful voice does something to him, something that he can't explain. It's completely unorthodox, being, well, excited about the prospect of hearing Cecil swear like that.

Then again, orthodoxy is antithetical to the pursuit of true science. Carlos isn't sure if that's good reasoning or a poor excuse.

It was warm as melted butter, Carlos had always known that. But now he’d kissed Cecil, knew the faint taste of the mouth that was behind that voice, and for some reason that changed everything

...

Cecil’s voice had featured in a fantasy or two or Carlos’s before; just an echo of his voice in Carlos’s ear, murmuring filthy things, sighing and gasping with —

That – wasn’t a fantasy.

Those were sounds that Cecil was actually making; a tiny, hitching sigh, let out on a soft moan, broadcast over the slightly grainy Wal-mart radio in Carlos’s living room.