Chapter 20 #3
The second I lay my eyes on him, my brain that’s barely functioning right now goes into overdrive, computing the image he makes.
He's sprawled on his back, curls flattened on his forehead, grinning at the ceiling, and his cock is already softening against his stomach, which is shining, and so is the hand he now raises for my inspection.
"You— How?"
He lets his eye fall closed and lets out a content exhale. "I can take care of myself just fine."
A part of me feels like I’ve been robbed. "But I was going to—"
"I know. Very chivalrous. Ten points."
Patrick lets his head drop against the couch. "You graded him?"
"Oh, I have detailed notes."
An involuntary laugh erupts out of me. Another follows it, then a landslide, and I fold down onto the rug next to Theo with one pant leg still shackling my ankle, my mouth tasting like my nemesis, laughing harder than I have in years while two naked Vipers watch me do it.
Nothing about me is dignified right now.
I keep waiting for that to matter. It doesn't. Nothing heavy shows up at all.
Instead, I feel loose inside my own body, maybe for the first time ever, and it cost me exactly nothing to give in to the feeling.
Eventually Patrick leans down and reaches for his pants, already trying to tidy up, because he's Patrick.
I catch his hand with tips of my fingers. "Leave it."
He surveys the wreckage—the stranded table, the cushions, three men's worth of clothing scattered across his rug. "In my living room?"
Theo rolls onto his side. "It's modern art now."
Patrick looks from me to Theo, then back to me again, and I can sense the wheels turning. When he speaks it's quiet and it's aimed at me. "Stay tonight."
There’s this feeble, barely-there part of me screaming silently that I maybe I shouldn’t. That maybe it would complicate a thing that turned out to be, against all odds, easy. I let that part fight for its life for the span of three breaths. Then I kill it myself. “Okay.”
Beside me, Theo props himself up on one elbow. "That was alarmingly easy."
I turn my head to face him. "Did you want me to negotiate?"
"Fuck no. I'm just documenting growth."
We clean up only as far as sleep requires. In the bedroom, Theo assigns Patrick the middle by physically shoving him there with my help, and Patrick goes where he's put. I take the left side.
The sheets smell like both of them, and the peace settles over us in stages.
Patrick's hand finds my wrist under the sheets and stays there, resting, and Theo's foot hooks my ankle from two bodies away.
Every night of my adult life has ended with an exit plan. Where my keys are, when I leave, how the morning runs.
Tonight, I fall asleep with no plan at all.
***
I WAKE UP alone in Patrick's bed, to the smell of coffee and the sound of a developing argument about eggs.
For a minute I don't move as reality washes over me gently.
There’s a ceiling above me that isn’t mine. The sheets don’t feel familiar. There are two hollows in the mattress beside me and one red hair on Patrick's pillow, and my jaw is still sore.
What I'm waiting for is the itch, one that stands me up out of other people's spaces and points me at the door before anyone's awake enough to make it complicated.
It isn’t there. In its place, there's Theo's voice rolling down the hallway, and the genuinely novel realization that I want to go toward the noise instead of away from it.
I pull on yesterday's boxers, because my bag still resides by the door where I left it back when the idea of staying overnight seemed too abstract to entertain.
From the hallway, the kitchen looks like a play in its hundredth performance.
Theo stands at the island naked, with his curls staging rebellion against his scalp.
His hand comes out sideways with no look attached, and a mug lands in it.
Patrick opens the refrigerator, and the eggs are already arriving in Theo's other hand. Toast pops.
"Marry me," Theo says.
Patrick doesn't look up from the pan. "Drink your coffee."
I stand in the doorway and wait for the jealousy. It seems like the sort of thing I should be feeling, isn’t it? Watching a routine that got built and polished before I ever showed up. I give it every opportunity to rear its ugly head.
Nothing arrives. What shows up instead is closer to impatience, and a realization that I want to be one of the leads in this play.
Patrick reaches for the cabinet over the counter, and I'm across the kitchen before the decision finishes forming, taking the shaker down and putting it in his hand.
He pauses. Looks at it, then at me. "Thank you."
I pocket these two words like I pocket game pucks.
Theo watches over the rim of his mug. "Look at that, Patrick. He's house-trained."
I take the toast out of his hand and bite it. "Apparently not."
His whole face lights up. "Oh, he's evolving."
A third plate lands on the island, no questions, no glance to check whether I'm staying. Patrick just sets it down, and I step in between them and eat Theo’s toast standing up, hip against the island, Theo raiding Patrick's plate on one side and Patrick taxing mine in return.
When Theo's elbow swings dangerously close to the fruit bowl, I move it out of the blast radius without breaking stride.
Somehow, the three of us just fit, at an island built for two.
They move on to making eggs, and I move on to take my bag to the bathroom for a quick shower. The mirror is still fogged from whoever went before me, and Patrick's soap is open on the ledge. I have mine with me, but I grab Patrick’s anyway.
I stand under the hot spray longer than my schedule would ever permit and smile.
When I step out, my eyes drift to the two toothbrushes that stand in the cup beside the sink. A black one, probably Patrick's, sits at a responsible angle. Then, there’s a blue one, one that probably glows in the dark, leaning on it with total disregard for other people's structures.
My travel toothbrush is in its slot in my toiletry kit.
I take it out, brush my teeth, and then I just stand there, holding it.
It's a piece of plastic. Any gas station between here and Chicago sells its replacement for two dollars. It’s meaningless, really, yet somehow, right now it means a lot, because a travel toothbrush is supposed to travel home with you.
Theo’s raised voice reaches me from the kitchen. "Wall! Patrick says eight eggs is excessive."
Patrick's voice comes unimpressed. "I said six."
"He says six is excessive."
I look at the two toothbrushes, smile, then yell back, "Make eight."
"Ha! Democracy!"
I put my toothbrush in the cup.
The three of them lean together, black and blue and gray, crowded and slightly ridiculous, and I stand there studying a cup made of plastic.
There. The biggest thing I've said all morning, and I said it, without using words, to a sink.
I adjust mine once, so the cup carries all three without tipping.
Then I leave it there and go where the voices are.