Chapter 3 – Leon #2
Leon grunted, and Aspen’s face turned serious again.
“Putting that aside, though, that’s really common for folks with ADHD.
You said your therapist wants to do the evaluation the day after tomorrow?
Maybe give some thought to what sex is like with your partner, and you could even ask him for some insight.
It can help with the diagnosis and also cue your therapist to the fact that it might be something you want to explore when you’re diagnosed. ”
Leon noticed they had gone from saying if he got a diagnosis to when.
“We, uh, haven’t had sex yet. I mean…we did some stuff last weekend, but we’re going to have our first sleepover this coming weekend,” Leon said, his face, which was already flushed from the beer, heating even further.
Aspen took a sip of their drink. “I’m sure you have enough knowledge from your past experiences. Maybe you can even take what you discuss with your therapist during your assessment and bring it into your weekend with James.”
“Like I won’t have enough going on,” Leon murmured.
Aspen hummed in question, and Leon decided to take a chance. Whenever they attended Rainbow Bean events, James always wore some sort of transgender pin or sticker. Leon wouldn’t be outing him by opening up to Aspen, and if Aspen could offer even a sliver of insight…
“I’ve never slept with someone who wasn’t a cis man.”
“Ah, so this is going to be a really exciting sleepover!” Aspen exclaimed, and their tone was just as enthusiastic as it had been when Leon first admitted he and James were dating. “That’s so exciting! Have you guys talked about it yet, or is that going to be part of the weekend?”
“Part of the weekend.”
Aspen surprised Leon by placing a hand on his knee.
“Have you done any reading on it? That can be really helpful. I’m not sure if you saw it at the event, but Noah was also wearing a trans sticker.
Sometimes, he experiences gender in ways I can’t really relate to, and there are a lot of Reddit threads and blogs I find helpful. ”
Leon rubbed a hand down his face, careful not to dislodge Aspen’s hand from his knee. He didn’t think he’d be able to say this next part if there wasn’t a physical tether between them, almost like tangible proof of their newly formed friendship.
“I have a hard time reading things like that,” he said.
Aspen pursed their lips, and Leon hurried to clarify.
“Like…things that are important, things where I need to really absorb what’s written.
I can understand the words themselves, but they don’t always come together to mean something, or if they do, I don’t always… understand.”
This wasn’t something Leon talked about often, and he wasn’t sure what to expect until Aspen’s hand tightened on his knee.
“I’m going to state this as a fact that may have absolutely nothing to do with you whatsoever, but ADHD and dyslexia have a pretty high comorbidity rate.
It’s a bit like dyscalculia, which I have. ”
Leon didn’t live under a rock. He’d heard of dyslexia, but the few kids he knew growing up who had it couldn’t read at all, or when they did, they told Leon it was like the words moved around the page.
It wasn’t like that for Leon. The few times he’d gotten caught pretending to read in elementary school, his teachers simply told him to pay better attention and try harder.
He’d managed to get through school by the skin of his teeth, mostly by context clues and taking notes he could decipher later.
Thus far, he hadn’t brought it up with Caden, but maybe he should.
Aspen squeezed his knee. “Anywho, there are a lot of trans podcasts and videos out there I could recommend instead?”
They ended up closing out the bar, thankfully not talking about his sex life and his brain for too much longer.
Aspen finally explained what they meant by “their Noah” and also shared some heartwarming stories from their job as a hairdresser.
By the end of the night, they’d exchanged phone numbers and made plans to meet up the following day, since both Noah and James would still be busy.
Even if they weren’t, Leon vowed to try and add Aspen into his life.
Opening up to James over the past few months had been scary, but he was thankful every day that he had.
Opening up to Aspen hadn’t felt nearly as scary, and maybe, just maybe, that meant he could do it with a few more folks.
Hailey often used words like “found family” to describe her group of friends. As Aspen hugged Leon goodbye, for the first time, he sort of thought he understood what that meant.
The following Friday, Leon made damn sure his laundry was done and put away the night before. All he had to do was a quick sweep and mop when he got home from work, and then he’d be ready for James.
They’d had lunch the day before, and Leon received a full debrief on how the holidays had gone.
From the sound of it, James was completely on board with Linda but was still trying to get a read on Howard.
Apparently, he often brought up his late wife, but neither Linda nor his mom seemed to mind.
James had let it be, but he’d taken copious amounts of mental notes, which he shared with Leon while stress-eating tacos.
Leon wasn’t overly concerned about Howard, but he was eager to hear how James’ conversation about sleepovers went.
Fortunately, it seemed to go well, and his mom agreed to add Leon’s number to her emergency contacts in case anything happened to James’ phone.
They hadn’t committed to a double-header sleepover, but Leon was totally open to hosting James for the entire weekend if he was interested.
“I should probably pop home super briefly at some point on Saturday,” James had said, as he crumpled the leftover taco foil in his hand.
“Mom and I usually get lunch on Saturdays. I can always pick something up on the way home, so I don’t have to be gone too long, but I think she’d really appreciate still getting to see me, if that’s okay with you, of course. If it’s a problem, I could always try–”
“Darlin,” Leon interrupted, grabbing his hands before he could lift them to his chest and try to crack them in that heinous way of his. The more time they spent together, the easier it was for him to catch James before he went into a full panic spiral.
“We don’t have to change everything all at once.
Why don’t we stick to our usual Friday and Saturday night plans, just with a bonus Friday night sleepover?
If we decide Saturday morning that you want to spend the night again, you can tell your mom at lunch, and regardless of what we decide, we can still hang out that night. ”
James had eagerly agreed to the plan, and now it was ten to six on Friday night, and Leon had finished cleaning.
James was always punctual, if not a little early, so Leon did what he always did when he had a few minutes to kill.
He found Yarmen, scooped him up, and leaned his hip against his kitchen island while he waited.
Caden hadn’t diagnosed him with ADHD during the assessment they’d done the day before.
He said he would need to gather the assessment results, along with his notes from their months of therapy, and compile everything into an official diagnosis.
Aside from still not having an answer, the assessment went well, at least from Leon’s perspective.
The questions sparked several interesting conversations, including about sex, audio stimuli, and something called “task shifting.” He texted most of this to Aspen, who sent along videos Leon was hoping to watch later that weekend.
If he understood everything Caden said correctly, his inability to do anything except pet Yarmen while he waited was probably an example of his challenges with shifting tasks, but it wasn’t something he was going to fix today.
As the minute hand approached the 12 on the clock by the door, Leon felt that balloon of affection inflate inside his chest. He and James were, hopefully, about to take the next big step in their relationship.
It was obvious from the string of texts they’d exchanged that James was nervous.
From Leon’s perspective, James had always seemed confident and assured in his gender.
Meanwhile, Leon had no idea what he was doing and was also starting to question his own identity in terms of his neuro… ness.
Leon’s fingers tingled, so he forced himself to do a bit of box breathing, which always made him picture breathing into a cardboard box the way some people breathed into paper bags.
Sometimes that image alone would help, but today he had to go through at least four rounds before the tingling started to subside.
When a knock finally came at the door, the numbness had eased enough that he could almost fully feel the cold metal of the door handle as he pulled it open…to reveal a rather frazzled-looking James.
“Hi, sorry I’m…well, I guess I’m literally only two minutes late,” James said as he ran a hand back through his already tousled hair. “I’m sorry I’m such a mess, though.”
James walked into Leon’s apartment without Leon having to invite him in. This was new, and as far as Leon was concerned, a good thing, but James’ clear distress obviously wasn’t.
“Mom decided that a good time to tell me she wasn’t sure if taking her phone with her to the bathroom was necessary was when I literally had one foot out the door,” James said as he dropped an overnight bag on the floor next to his shoes.
Leon pressed Yarmen into his arms and quickly turned to the fridge to pull out the kebabs he’d picked up on the way home, along with two beers.
He hadn’t been sure if James would want to drink, but he knew James often needed something to do with his hands when he got worked up.
Even if all he did was play with the beer bottle, it was better than nothing.