Chapter 15 #2
He and Junie walked arm in arm around the Spectrum for a few hours, Connor content to listen to her talk about recipes she was hoping to try that weekend and whatever Tiktok drama she was following that week. And then he took her home to her apartment.
It was the first Friday night they’d spent together, just the two of them, in far too long.
But they didn’t spend the next Friday night together, because Nate invited Connor over.
“What do you think?” He’d asked that Monday, hovering around the subject the way he always did, like he didn’t know how Connor might react.
To his credit, Connor hadn’t known what to say to that. No? Yes?
He’d had Nate in his own home, so… why not?
Fortunately, Connor managed a little more interest in his answer, eyeing Nate from over his computer before asking, “For what?” like he didn’t know what it could be.
“For dinner,” it turned out.
“You've cooked for me enough times, it’s my turn to cook for you,” Nate said with the kind of smile that left no room for discussion.
So that Friday saw Connor making his way to Nate’s duplex, the same place where he’d gone to pick him up only a couple weeks before as they headed out on their cinema date.
But Connor had never stepped foot inside.
He understood why as soon as Nate invited him in, apologizing for the mess, telling Connor to make himself at home while he unpacked his groceries in the kitchen.
“Want a drink?” Nate offered from the kitchen?
“Sure,” Connor said, taking in Nate’s space in quiet observation.
Nate’s duplex was larger than Connor’s apartment, with a massive main room and a lovely open kitchen that had clearly been remodeled recently.
But it wasn’t dirty, or cluttered. The floors were clean–more than that, they were nice hardwood. The windows were large, letting in plenty of light from the fading sun. In fact, the first thing Connor noticed when Nate opened the door and beckoned him inside was just how new his place felt.
New, but not much of anything to fill it.
A couch, sure, but it looked like one of those boneless couches he would have ordered online.
Nothing much in the way of decorations, or even personal style.
He had a small television mounted on the wall, and a tiny folding table in the kitchen.
A dark hall no doubt led to his bedroom and the laundry room.
A little wooden cross, hand-carved, about six inches in length, hung against the wall separating the kitchen from the living room.
All of this, Connor took in, silently observing the place Nate called home for now.
“It’s nice,” Connor said when he realized Nate seemed to be watching him apprehensively, like he was worried what he might think. “It’s big.”
He didn’t mention the crucifix, just as he hadn’t mentioned the rosary in Nate’s car. Like if he did, then Connor would get an answer he didn’t want to hear. So he pretended it wasn’t there at all, like the little wooden relief of Christ’s face wasn’t watching them in silent, solemn condemnation.
And all the better he hadn’t, because at his reassurance, the lines between Nate’s eyebrows softened. He smiled, like he was relieved.
Like he’d worried what Connor might think.
“Yeah–it feels huge. I mean, my place back home was–well, it was a studio, but it was about the size of this kitchen,” Nate held out his arms as if to show the size of his old studio. “My bed was pretty much five feet off the ground so I could store everything I owned under the frame.”
‘Everything he owned’ couldn’t have been much, Connor reasoned, glancing around his living room.
The cardboard boxes stacked in the corner, the yellow plastic totes tucked behind the couch told a story, the story of a man who moved across the country with all his worldly possessions and never seemed to finish unpacking.
Well, except for one corner of the room, near the brick fireplace and the French doors that led to the yard Nate shared with his neighbor–or roommate, as Nate called him.
Connor hadn’t noticed it at first, his eyes seeming to skip over the fact that nearly half Nate’s living room was penned off, a patterned rug poking out beneath the little black wires.
And then he saw the soccer ball, the pile of hay. Out of curiosity, he approached the pen, wondering what could possibly be in there. But as Connor peered his head over, he only heard a loud thump and the rustle of paper, jumping in surprise.
“Oh, that’s Mano,” Nate said, an explanation without much explaining at all.
“Mano?” Connor repeated, and as if on queue, he watched a gray rabbit with long ears hanging down poke its head out of a gray hut, sniff the air, and retreat back inside.
Connor glanced back at Nate, who was watching him with a nervous smile, like he worried what Connor might think.
“Yeah, he’s my rabbit.”
“You have a rabbit,” Connor repeated, more surprised than anything else.
“Well, inherited is more accurate. He was my roommate’s, uh, back at Cornell.
And when he flunked out, he just left everything.
I didn’t even know he had a rabbit in there until–” Nate cut himself off, shaking his head.
“Anyway. It was pretty sad. Poor guy spent his whole life in a cage. Hated everyone. Hates me, still.”
“So you kept him.”
“And he’s been ungrateful ever since,” Nate grinned.
watching with an amused smile as he watched Nate chop onions, cilantro, limes, and peppers whose names he might have known but he wouldn’t have been able to identify from sight alone.
“Look, I know there are a couple “Puerto Rican” restaurants around here,” Nate’s use of air quotes got a little laugh out of Connor, “But this is real Puerto Rican food.”
The crack that sounded as he use the palm of his hand to crush a head of garlic against a cutting board felt like an unspoken exclamation point.
“Ah, so I’m getting the authentic experience here,” Connor smiled, watching Nate work.
“Authentic enough.”
He had a way of peeling garlic that Connor had never seen before, tossing everything into a metal bowl and giving it a hard shake.
“What are you making?” Connor asked, intrigued. It was a strange experience, feeling like a guest in his own kitchen, so he hovered near the kitchen island. Mostly, he liked watching Nate.
“Sofrito. Makes it taste right.”
It was a chicken-based dish that Connor admittedly had never tried before, and Nate hadn’t remembered the name until they started eating.
“Pollo guisado,” Nate grinned. “Guisado means stew, I was stuck on soup, you know, sopa, so the name wasn’t coming. My mom made this all the time when I was a kid. I think hers is better but–”
“This is delicious,” Connor said, meaning it. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had a guy cook for me.”
It wasn’t an admission he intended to let slip, but there it was. That kind of vulnerability never felt easy for Connor, and for a moment, he considered clawing it back, saying something to undercut it.
But Nate’s smile was enough for him to decide not to, and Connor found himself mirroring it.
Because Nate insisted, Connor let him take their plates when they’d finished eating, leaving him to again consider the state of Nate’s duplex as he cleaned up in the kitchen.
He kept coming back to Nate’s first day at Alarie, how terribly lonely it must have been to be starting out completely alone on the opposite side of the country, with no one but a rabbit for company once he was home.
Connor always had Dawson waiting for him–and he and Junie had become fast friends by the end of his first month.
Did Nate have anyone? His roommate, sure, but Connor couldn’t imagine there to be much friendship among the directors of Alarie.
But that was a problem Connor couldn’t solve. In front of him lay something much more manageable.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Yeah? What’s up?”
“Why haven’t you finished unpacking? You've been here, what, four months now?”
He heard Nate turn off the water in the kitchen, a long period of silence passing. Long enough to almost make Connor regret asking.
Maybe it had been rude. None of his business.
But Nate poked his head out of the kitchen, trying for a smile, ending up with something more strained.
“Is it bad?” He asked. Connor bit the inside of his cheek, shaking his head.
“Honestly? No. I’m not seeing college apartment, if that’s what you're asking.” Connor chanced another look around the living room, taking in how carefully arranged Mano’s pen was.
Like Nate had trouble showing himself the same care.
Truthfully, Connor hadn’t thought much about Nate having ADHD since he found out, but maybe it made a bigger impact on his day-to-day life than he’d expected.
“Just looks like it needs finishing. You deserve to feel at home, you know.”
He didn't say that it felt more like a prison in Nate's duplex than an actual home, even if it was what he thought. Something told Connor that would be more hurtful than helpful for Nate.
Even this, he felt he had to deliver it as delicately as he could, because Nate’s expression was unreadable.
“Yeah. I–yeah. I know you’re right. I keep making plans with myself on the weekend to finish putting things away, but inevitably, something else comes up.”
Nate looked around, too, something pained in his eyes.
“I guess it gets overwhelming sometimes.”
Connor pressed his lips together.
“What if I helped you?”
That was how they ended up spending the next weekend strolling around Ikea, Nate armed with a notepad and a checklist of items needing to be grabbed.
A rug for his bedroom, an actual coffee table, some decor to bring it all together.
Well, that was the plan.
Nate, however, seemed especially prone to distraction today, not quite keeping to task.
He was especially taken by the model rooms.
“Now this is a kitchen I can see myself in,” Nate declared with a grin, strolling around a white tiled model with a gray and black speckled counter lining the perimeter. He picked up a champagne glass from the display and offered it to Connor with a wink. “And for the gentleman, a drink?”
Connor felt his lips twitch as he accepted the glass.