Elijah #2
As far as relaxing games went, it was the best and the worst choice.
Mainly because, although you could spend the whole game carefully building whatever project you had in mind, you had to consider the other players.
Milo was what people called a wild card.
Sometimes, he was perfectly fine setting up the things a group needed.
But sometimes he was struck by the urge to strike out and find something new, build something new, or dig down and accidentally bring up things your group wasn’t quite ready for.
“Try not to accidentally summon Nether bitches to us,” I grumbled as the laid-back, happy music of the game began to play.
“I’ll be good,” he assured me, and although I believed him in the short term, I didn’t in the long term.
I knew better because his interests and obsessions changed with the wind.
The guy really needed to be tested for ADHD, but until he was ready to face that truth, I would let him go through life as he wanted.
There were moments of communication, but it was hit or miss as we played. We didn’t need to talk because we knew how to play around each other.
At some point, I stretched along the couch to lay my feet in his lap. Perhaps I didn’t know what I was doing at the time. Or maybe I did, who knows? Sometimes you look back and have to accept that things happened the way they did simply because they worked out that way.
Whatever the reason, my feet and part of my legs ended up in his lap as we sat on opposite ends of the couch. That had been comfortable, and why not?
My legs on him, was that how it started?
Or maybe it started a long time ago, when he broke through my childish, terrified rage.
It had to start somewhere, didn’t it? Maybe it was when he’d touched me in a way I’d never dreamed he would want to, but clearly did.
Or maybe because that was when I started to understand so much more about myself, but even still?—
The moment my legs stretched over his lap, and not his legs over mine, that was when things really changed for us.
In that moment, though, I was ignorant of the implications and just wanted to get comfortable.
I did notice how he paused when my legs slid into his lap.
I chose to ignore it, though, paying attention to his doubts and hesitation would only feed them.
Most people saw Milo at his most confident, but I had seen firsthand that when his confidence was shaken, he could be as skittish as a street cat kicked one too many times.
The best thing was to continue as normal, either letting him pretend he was fine until he really was, or until he finally broke and shared what was churning in that head of his.
His tension didn’t last long. It was another few minutes before his arms lowered, having picked them up when he felt my feet in his lap, to rest on my shins.
Once again, I didn’t let on that I noticed, focusing on the game.
I probably would have paid good money to know what was going through his head for the fifteen minutes that followed, but instead, I carried on sipping my drink.
About twenty minutes into the game, I realized the tension he’d been holding was beginning to leak out.
It must have been slow for me not to have noticed before, but he gradually grew more comfortable, drinking more and losing himself in the game's rhythm.
After half an hour, I was pleased to see that my ‘just act normal’ plan was working flawlessly.
By the hour mark, he was completely at ease, leaning back into the couch with his arms resting on my legs. I noticed he glanced at me a few times, and I waited to see if he would say what was on his mind. When it became apparent that he was going to sit on the fence, I glanced at him. “What’s up?”
“Hmm,” he said, bobbing his head in thought, a sign that he was not only indecisive, but the loose way he did it told me he was starting to feel the booze. “Trying to decide if more alcohol is a good idea.”
Alright, he had broken the ice first, bringing up what had happened a couple of weeks ago, which was a sign he was more receptive to the topic, even if he might not be consciously aware of it.
“You know, you’re allowed to drink around me.
This isn’t Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Molester just because you had a few drinks. ”
He huffed and pushed my legs off his lap, setting his controller down before snatching up our glasses to stomp off toward the kitchen. “You really know how to make me feel like I’m being stupid and dramatic.”
“You are being stupid and dramatic,” I called back.
I loved the guy, and I cared deeply about him, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to call him out when he was being extra.
It was one thing to be extra when he was doing something fun or was interested in, but when it came to beating himself up over something that, all things considered, was perfectly natural, I was going to draw the line.
“Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Molester,” he repeated in an annoyed grumble as he returned with our glasses refilled.
“You have to admit that was pretty good,” I said, leaning forward to take the glass and rolling my eyes when he jerked it back. “Withholding a man’s booze is a violation of the Bro Code.”
“Not when it looks like one’s bro has had too much,” he said dryly.
“I’m not the one who’s worried about becoming a serial groper when drinking,” I said, taking advantage of his annoyance at my joke to take my glass before he was tempted to really keep it.
“Stop,” he hissed, sitting back down and glaring at me when I put my legs back on his lap. “Really?”
“It’s like...my shins and my feet,” I told him, wiggling my toes for extra impact. “So, unless you developed an uncontrollable urge to lick toes, I think you’re fine.”
“Oh God, ew,” he groaned, suddenly distracted by his least favorite part of the human body. His dislike of feet was so strong that his dramatic shudder wasn’t all that fake. “Just...ew.”
“Aww, c’mon,” I said, giving my toes another wiggle, brushing them against one another to make a skin against skin scraping sound that made him lean away.
“Stop!” he groaned, looking like he was tempted to push my legs off, but unsure how close he wanted to get to the offending body parts.
“They’re right theeeerrre,” I said with a grin.
“Look, I don’t care how…” he stopped, and I saw color flooding his cheeks. “Just quit! This is disgusting.”
“You don’t care how...what?” I asked, and when I saw the pink in his cheeks turn red, I thought I had a good idea what had been about to fall out of his mouth. “You don’t care...how clean my feet are?”
“You’re the worst,” he said, narrowing his eyes. It wasn’t suspicion on his face, no, no, he knew me well enough to understand that I wasn’t genuinely trying to figure out what he’d been about to say. It wasn’t a matter of if I would say anything to mortify him; it was simply a case of when.
“How comfortable I am?”
“Stop.”
“How much fun we’re having?”
“Ugh.”
“Oh wait?—”
“Don’t do it. I swear to God I’ll?—”
“Were you going to say you don’t care how hot you think I am, you’re not going to suck my toes?”
Looking back, he had given what he thought was his best war cry as he slammed his glass onto the table, shoving my legs out of his way and launching himself at me.
I’d been ready, though, and caught him before his full weight landed on my middle.
I’d already known I was going to provoke him into attacking me, and my glass was behind me, away from the worst of the battle.
Like his sudden need to fight me, his way of fighting was just as predictable.
I knew he was going to go for my head, and quickly ducked so he’d have to fight harder to get hold of me.
I wrapped my arms around his chest and pushed forward, which left him scrambling to get hold of my upper body and draw me away so he could get the upper hand.
“Hold still!” he demanded as I steadily pushed him back.
Milo’s wrestling tactic with me was to go for the immediate kill, his target fully in focus, but he was always impatient, and the execution was sloppy.
Honestly, in a real fight against someone who didn’t know what to expect, he might actually be able to win.
The funny thing was that Milo was always gentler with me than I was with him, but I suppose out of the two of us, he was better adjusted to getting smacked around.
At the same time, in a real fight, someone probably wouldn’t expect the savagery that Milo attacked with, and that savagery and the element of surprise could go a long way.
He wasn’t really fighting, though, and he was fighting someone who knew him a little too well.
I paused to let him fruitlessly scramble above me as I considered angling myself to bring him down to the floor in front of the couch.
We’d learned in the first month that having a coffee table in front of the couch was not a good idea.
Not only was Milo too clumsy, but impromptu wrestling matches weren’t exactly rare.
It was more accurate to say that we no longer had on e after the last one broke.
Milo lost his balance after I fended him off and fell on the damn thing.
So the space was clear, and away from the end tables where our drinks were sitting.
Nothing at all to save him from being rolled and shoved down, his back hitting the floor.
I spared a moment to remember it was eight on a Friday night, so the people below us were probably out.
Just so long as we weren’t loud enough to draw the attention of the people on either side of us, we wouldn’t have to deal with the building manager or the cops showing up to ensure there wasn’t a ‘domestic incident’. ..again.