23. Gabe #2
“You should rest,” Parker said. Brandon stood up from the edge of the bed.
“No,” Gabe said, reaching for Brandon with his bad hand and wincing. “Fuck, I forgot that hurts. Stay with me. Until you have to leave.”
“He has two and a half hours before he can take another oxy,” Parker said, looking at his phone. Brandon set a timer on his own phone. “Call me if you need anything.”
“Can you close the cat door?” Gabe asked, thinking about how the part of his chest that hurt the most was the part Otis loved to sleep on. Another piece of his heart broke.
“Of course.” Parker flipped down the corner flap of Gabe’s bedroom door and fastened it shut so Otis couldn’t slip through. The second Parker shut his door, Gabe let out a moan.
“Are you okay?” Parker asked through the door.
“I’m fine, Parks. Just emotionally distraught.”
“I love you.”
“Love you too.” Gabe heard Parker’s creaky steps as he crossed the hallway into his bedroom, and he let out a sigh. “What time is it?”
“A little after six.”
“God, it’s been, like, seven hours since I left Jackson and Ryan’s.”
“Can I update them? They’re worried sick.”
“Yeah, go for it. Are you sure about skipping your hockey thing this morning?”
“Morning skate. Jackson is going to talk to Coach about it. He isn’t worried. There’s wiggle room for humanity sometimes in the sport.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I don’t think you know how much I absolutely do have to do that,” Brandon said. His gaze was intense. Heavy.
“Will you lie down with me?” Gabe asked.
“I’m not going to hurt you?”
“I already feel like shit. You’ll make my heart feel better.”
Brandon’s gaze softened, and he leaned down to press another kiss to Gabe’s forehead. Just slightly farther north than where he wanted it.
Gabe flipped over to his other side, and as Brandon slid under the covers with him, he arranged a pillow under Gabe’s bad arm to elevate it and keep an ice pack on it.
He spooned Gabe, his body warm and comforting behind him, hand coming around his chest to hold the second ice pack in place over his seat belt bruise .
Even breathing hurt. Gabe’s entire body felt like a network of aches that set each other off with the slightest movement.
Brandon’s breath was warm on the back of his neck and conjured the memory of falling asleep with him on the couch the night before.
It had felt so incredibly, intensely good.
The mental hoops he’d had to jump through to leave after that instead of crawling into bed with Brandon were Olympic level.
He needed to start listening to the voice in his gut when it was screaming like that.
“Has there ever been a stupider person alive than me?”
“Baby,” Brandon said, lighting that fire in Gabe’s chest that made him stay so late the night before. “You’re not stupid. You’re overworked and you’re stretched too thin. You’re not at fault for wanting to better your life while working the jobs that make it possible to survive.”
Brandon pressed a kiss right below his ear, and all Gabe wanted to do was turn around and catch Brandon’s lips with his own.
But the exhaustion was catching up to him.
Brandon woke him up to make him take his pain meds, texting Parker with the next time he’d need them as a fail-safe.
Parker brought him some toast to eat with them and a glass of water, Otis slipping into the room after him.
Parker sat on Gabe’s desk stool and watched to make sure he actually ate the toast—Duncan’s sourdough with salty butter.
Brandon had helped Gabe sit up at the edge of the bed and rubbed his back as Gabe sat there feeling like a rag doll.
Otis climbed up into his lap carefully, like he knew something was wrong.
Gabe scratched the top of his head, and he pressed into the touch.
Actually, Gabe thought he’d be fine with however bad it felt to have Otis sleep on his chest. Wasn’t purring healing or something?
“Duncs and Mac are getting close to home, and they want to know what you want from the grocery store,” Parker asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Okay, I’ll make them get ingredients for soup—if you don’t make a request, I’ll make lentil because that’s what I want. Some more ice packs so we can rotate through them. Bandages for the little cuts on your face.”
Gabe hadn’t looked in the mirror yet. He wasn’t looking forward to it.
“Lentil sounds good.”
They made their way downstairs to park Gabe on the couch for a while.
He couldn’t watch TV with his minor concussion, so he watched Brandon do the dishes while Parker cleaned the counters and got the Dutch oven out, getting ready to make soup as soon as Duncan and Mac got back.
Otis claimed the spot behind Gabe’s knees, and Gabe was convinced his cat was a genius.
“Should Otis go to Harvard for Cats?” he asked, just as Duncan and Mac came in through the back door with bags full of their grocery haul and the packs they took on their brief camping trip.
“Can you afford to send your son to an Ivy League?” Duncan asked, like Gabe had just asked a reasonable question. It always warmed his heart when people acknowledged he was Otis’ second dad.
“Probably not, but I assume he’d get a scholarship.”
“Oh, of course. Obviously. Maybe if he can go to online Harvard for Cats. ”
“He’s always had more class than I do. He wears a tux all the time. It’s normal to want your stepchildren to achieve higher than you did, right?”
“I’ve always thought he was overdressed for this household, honestly,” Mac said. He was putting groceries away, and he pulled a quart of ice cream out of one bag and showed it to Gabe. Moose Tracks. His favorite.
“Thanks, buddy.”
“You’re going to get pretty smothered with attention here, just so you know.
” Duncan tapped Gabe’s feet so he’d move them enough to let Duncan claim that spot on the couch.
And to his surprise, he pulled Gabe’s feet into his lap and started rubbing them.
It was sweet, the affection he could share with his housemates.
When Brandon was done with the dishes, Parker shooed him out of the kitchen so he and Mac could start the soup, and Brandon came to sit on the floor in front of the couch, right by Gabe’s head.
Gabe dozed, and each time he woke up, Brandon was right there, close enough to kiss. He really wanted a kiss.
“I have to leave pretty soon,” Brandon whispered.
“Okay,” Gabe said, letting out an involuntary sigh.
“I don’t want to leave. If I didn’t have to, please know I wouldn’t.”
“I know. But you need to go make a good impression. Impress your coaches. Stay up here so you can keep hanging out with me.” He wanted more than just hanging out, but so far, Brandon hadn’t been ready for that, and Gabe wouldn’t push.
“After my game tonight, we get on an airplane and go straight to Florida.”
Gabe groaned. He had a good idea of what the AHL schedule was like, but he hadn’t brushed up on the NHL schedule yet. Brandon had just gotten called up yesterday.
“I’ll be back in four days. And I can come straight here if you want.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Okay. I’ll come straight here.”
Gabe smiled, reaching out his good hand to grab one of Brandon’s. He got another forehead kiss.
“I’m relieved to see you have an excellent care team,” Brandon said, gesturing around the living room and kitchen to his roommates. “If you didn’t, I’d have to quit my job.”
“Don’t joke about that. Fuck. I need to call my boss. Bosses. Time to spiral about school, too.”
“You have plenty of time to spiral. And someone else can call your bosses.”
“I will,” Duncan volunteered, holding a hand out for Gabe’s phone. He made two quick calls that Gabe would need to follow up with in a few days, but it bought him time.
Too soon, it was time for Brandon to leave.
“Call me constantly,” Gabe requested.
“You’re going to be so sick of me.”
“Can’t wait. We’re going to watch your game.”
“You’re not supposed to be looking at screens much.”
“I’ll close my eyes unless you’re on the ice.”
Brandon had a beautiful smile, and Gabe was grateful every time he got to see it. The urge to draw him was cut with the realization that he wouldn’t be drawing for a while.
He got one last forehead kiss, and then Brandon was gone, and Gabe wanted to cry. Brandon being there was the last thing keeping him together. He hated crying when he was lying on his side.
Parker brought him tissues .
“Wow,” Parker said, the soup on the stove bubbling along without him. Duncan put a par-baked loaf of bread in the oven, and this house felt so deeply like home. Nowhere else had ever felt like this to Gabe.
“Wow what?”
“That boy loves you.”
“He doesn’t.” Getting his hopes up now would break his heart, and he was in enough pain as it was.
“I was with Lucas for over a year, and he never looked at me like that one single time.”
“Don’t say that name in this house,” Mac called from the kitchen.
“I stayed so late last night because I fell asleep on the couch with him, right on his chest. And it felt so good that maybe I died right there? And this is all just…hell?”
“Is Otis really going to Harvard for Cats in hell?” Duncan asked.
He’d moved from the couch to the kitchen table at some point, the puzzle for the week spread out across it as he picked at pieces.
Otis was warm behind Gabe’s knees. He was in a lot of pain, but yeah.
Parker probably wouldn’t be making him soup in hell.
Gabe sighed and took another tissue.