15. Chapter Fourteen #2
Kathryn looked uncomfortable and a little guilty. “I did try to get him to come home with me,” she said. “He just hates a fuss when he’s sick, and since the hospital wasn’t worried about a concussion…”
She trailed off and looked at Dean for support. He nodded.
“He was the same as a child,” Dean said. “We’d offer to take time off work and stay with him, but he’d just hole himself up in his room with Gatorade and chicken soup until he felt better.”
Of course.
Quentin had denied he had a hero complex, but he’d never touched on a martyr one.
Joe raked his hand through his hair, dragging it back from his face and loosely gripping it at the nape of his neck. He glanced toward the office.
“Would it really be OK to watch the three of them?” he asked. “I can do the storage unit another day if that's ok, but I’d like to check on him.”
Kathryn took Cody off him. “Of course,” she said.
“That’s no problem,” Dean said. “But he won’t thank you for it.”
“I don’t expect thanks,” Joe said.
****
Quentin opened the door to his place and blinked blearily at Joe.
He was bare-chested and wearing loose cotton pyjama pants that hung low around his lean hips.
Joe appreciated that part, but not so much the black eye, split lip, and the livid, purple welt of a bruise that started at his eyebrow and disappeared up into his hairline.
“What are you doing—” he started to say.
“You owe me an apology,” Joe interrupted him.
Quentin reached up to gingerly rub along the edge of his forehead bruise.
“I know I let you down about the storage unit,” he admitted. “But I’ll make it up to you.”
Joe stared at him. He had to stop for a moment to press the ball of his thumb in the gap between his eyebrows to try and get ahead of the headache he could feel taking root.
“I need you to think about that,” Joe said. “Then try again.”
Quentin just looked confused. “I don’t understand.”
Of course not. Joe shook his head, handed Quentin the bag of takeout, and pushed past him into the apartment. It did occur to him that he might just come face to face with Quentin’s full-time Anchorage boyfriend and have to make an awkward escape.
He supposed he could always pretend to be a DoorDash driver.
It wasn’t likely—if nothing else, the amount of time that Quentin spent at Joe’s house would make Anchorage-Joe the part-timer—but Joe liked to be prepared.
The apartment, once he was inside, felt empty, though.
The only evidence that anyone else, including Quentin, had been there was a cup of coffee on a dining room table.
The takeout bag rustled as Quentin looked inside it.
“You didn’t need to do this,” he said. “I have food…I have food here.”
The brief pause in that statement gave him away. Joe shrugged his jacket off and turned around.
“What’s in the fridge?” he asked.
Quentin started to answer, bit his lip, and thought about it. “Milk?” he finally asked. “I mean, I don’t know, but there’s definitely food somewhere.”
Maybe– maybe– a box of cereal.
Joe went back over to pull Quentin into the apartment and close the door to the hall behind him. Then he turned around and leaned back against it. The brittle shell of his anger threatened to crack as he looked at Quentin, but he shored it up stubbornly.
“What the hell happened?” he asked. “Dean said you got in a fight?”
Quentin sat down on the couch and started to unpack the boudin balls and the dirty rice bowls.
“It wasn’t a fight,” he said. “One of the passengers got belligerent on the flight. It happens. I just had to step in to try and calm him down.”
“It doesn’t look like it worked.”
Quentin reached up to poke the just-scabbed cut on his eyebrow. “Most of the damage came from the wall.”
“Idiot,” Joe said. He pushed himself off the door and walked over to Quentin, combing the dark, sticky hair back from his bruised forehead. He leaned over and kissed the edge of the bruise, the skin hot against his lips. Then he rested his forehead against Quentin’s skull. “You didn’t call me.”
Quentin took his hand and pulled it down to plant a kiss on his wrist.
“I didn’t call anyone. I didn’t want to worry them over nothing,” he said. “The airport let Dean know there’d been an incident on the flight, and he snitched to my mom.”
Joe closed his eyes.
“OK,” he said. “I see it now.”
He straightened up and went to sit on the other side of the coffee table, grabbing the sweaty, styrofoam bowl of andouille. Quentin stared at him, plastic fork in hand and a worried expression on his face.
“See what?”
“I thought you were perfect,” Joe said. “Kind, patient, good with kids—”
“Nobody else would know you’re describing me,” Quentin told him. Joe ignored him.
“Employed, respected, likes cats,” Joe went on. “And I looked at you, and I couldn’t see how having me in your life would make it better.”
Quentin looked at him. “Really?” he said. “You should have asked me, I could have told you.”
“Yeah, because you’re nice. And you love me,” Joe said. “That doesn’t mean it would be the truth. If anything, I could only see how I made your life harder with my…with everything. But now I get it. You’re an idiot.”
Quentin stopped, his mouth open to say something reassuring. His expression flicked between confused and mildly offended.
“I’m what?”
“An idiot,” Joe repeated. He popped the lid off the bowl and started to flip chunks of sausage into his dirty rice. “The cat can’t cough without you ordering special anti-hairball gummies for him. If there’s food in the fridge, then it’s probably his.”
Quentin looked shifty. “Not all of it.”
“Benjy wants to learn to fly; you work out how to make it happen.”
“...I mean, I’m a pilot,” Quentin said. “That’s easy.”
“Jessie wants a mural in her room, you order her paint.”
“We asked first.”
“Cody needs to go back to Portland for a check-up, you make sure your parents can babysit.”
“That benefited me too.”
“But you? You never ask for anything.”
Quentin popped the lid on his coffee and took a drink. “I asked for you.”
“Not today, though,” Joe said. “Not when you needed me…and don’t say you’re fine. There’s no way the hospital wasn’t worried about a concussion. And that’s why you need me, because I’m not going to wait to be asked.”
They both knew the broad strokes of why.
Loss—grief—left you with a very sharp understanding of how easy it was to waste the time you had with someone.
And Joe knew he’d waste some time with Quentin, that they’d argue or be impatient with each other, or be too busy with work and kids to really appreciate each other? But not the important parts.
Whenever Quentin was away from him, Joe would know what they’d said to each other last. He’d not have to live with wondering about that again.
Quentin poked at his boudin as he thought about that.
“I thought you didn’t like calling people stupid?” he said.
Joe got up and leaned over the table, bent at a precarious angle with one hand braced between the coffee and the fries. He kissed Quentin, whose mouth tasted smoky and sharp from the spices, with a hint of salt from that split lip.
“I love you,” Joe said as he leaned back. Quentin looked up with a slow smile as he absently swiped the tongue over the cut on his lower lip. “So I’m not being mean.”
****
The sound of the shower ran in the background as Joe checked the cupboards while listening for the thud of a six-foot, overly self-reliant idiot hitting the floor.
He’d been right that most of the food in the apartment was for the cat.
All that Quentin had in stock for humans was coffee and two packs of expired instant noodles.
Joe regarded them warily as he turned the packet over to check again.
He was right. Two months past their use-by date. He’d not even known that could happen.
Huh. They were dried, though, so he doubted they were spoiled. The flavor packet might just be less intense.
He stuck them back into the cupboard and was about to start on the fridge when someone knocked on the door.
For a second, he hesitated, eyes flicking between the bathroom and the door as he tried to work out what Quentin would prefer him to do. Except he was Quentin’s boyfriend, and he’d met his parents, his sister, and his co-workers. If Quentin was trying to keep him a secret, Joe had no idea who from.
He brushed the dust off his hands and went to answer the door, pulling it open just as the man outside knocked again. They looked at each other.
“Oh,” the man said. He’d apparently been for a run, from the hair raked back in sweaty curls and lycra shorts. He looked down at the stack of mail in his hands and then back at Joe. “Did the guy who lived here before move or…I’ve got his mail. Somehow it ended up mixed in with mine.”
“He’s in the shower,” Joe said as he reached out. “I can give it to him. I’m his boyfriend.”
It wasn’t marking his territory, Joe assured himself. He just hadn’t gotten to say it much yet, and he needed to get used to it.
The runner looked surprised. “Oh, um, I didn’t know he had…he was dating,” he said. “Are you sure? He’s a tall guy, dark hair, I think he works at the airport?”
“I’ve met him,” Joe said, his hand still extended. “I can give that to him, if you want.”
The runner pulled a dubious face, but then shrugged and handed it over. “Tell him that No. 24C had them?” he said. “Bryan.”
Joe nodded, gave a little wave with the stack of mail, and closed the door. He waited a decent period of time and then snorted to himself.
“Are you sure?” he muttered.
“About what?” Quentin asked as he padded out of the shower, a towel slung low about his hips and water beading on his chest hair. His face still looked like he’d gone six rounds in the ring, but if ‘Bryan’ had been five minutes later, this was the show he’d have gotten.
Joe set the mail down on the end table and walked over to kiss Quentin. He smelled like roses, and the water on his arms, slicked off under Joe’s caress, was still warm.
“About moving in with me?” Joe said. “Not right away. Not today , but…soon.”
Quentin’s mouth moved in a smile against Joe’s as he reached up to cup Joe’s jaw in one hand.
“I’m always sure about you,” he said. “Haven’t you worked that out yet?”