Chapter Seven
Edwin
As much as I tried, I couldn’t get Brax and Cliff out of my head. I’d had so much fun with them. At the time, I thought that was all it was, having fun, wanting to do it again. Or maybe I’d been fooling myself even then.
At night, my dreams weren’t about our time in the little room. I had dreams of kissing Brax, and I had one of watching him with Cliff doing far more than kissing.
What was wrong with me?
They were people I played with…once, and that was that.
Chances were, I wasn’t going to run into them again.
I hadn’t gotten an official membership to Chained, still trying to figure out if that was in the budget with my new position and leaning toward it needing to wait.
Accidental run-ins while hanging out weren’t going to happen.
It was best just to let it go…to let them go.
If only I could convince my nocturnal self of that.
I woke up on Saturday morning with a list of things I needed to accomplish. My laundry was piling up, I was down to not much more than coffee and a few Hot Pockets in the grocery department, and it was long past time to take my suit to the dry cleaners. I felt motivated to do exactly none of them.
It didn’t help that I woke up hard, my sleep ending before my dream had a chance to. And it wasn’t a random dream, no. I dreamed about Brax and Cliff again in one that was definitely adult in nature. So much for promising myself I’d forget about them.
I moseyed downstairs to grab a cup of coffee, hoping the caffeine would infuse me with not just energy but also motivation. It did not.
Giving up on leaving the house, I focused on my mound of dirty clothes and sheets and managed to get them all washed and folded.
My errands were far from complete, but I still felt accomplished.
As I was putting the last of the folded clothing away, I eyed my teddy bear jams and decided they were my outfit for the day.
Errands could happen tomorrow, not that I hadn’t already pretty much determined that. This was just the cuteness that made it official. I took a quick shower and climbed into my soft bear outfit of happiness.
It felt nice being in a place where I could just do this.
I didn’t have to worry about a roommate discovering my secret like I did when I was first out of college.
I didn’t need to take everything out and set it up so I could play for a little bit, only to put it all back, hidden away from any potential visitors.
All I had to do was wander down the hall and play. And so that was what I did.
There were a lot of toys to play with there, but I’d brought a bucket of my own.
They were magnetic cubes and had no right to be as fun as they were.
I dumped them out and had started to build a castle when I heard Dalla, one of my roommates, talking to someone I didn’t recognize. They came in a few seconds later.
“Oh, sorry,” I said when Monroe looked like he saw a ghost. He was really nice, and I thought it had less to do with me and more to do with him thinking he intruded. He very much did not. I could use some friends to play with.
“Would you rather we come back?” he offered. “You haven’t met Chris yet, he was away for work.”
I knew there was a Chris, but this was my first time meeting him.
“No, I like friends. I’m Edwin.” I waved.
The little beside him said, “I’m Chris. Do you share?”
“I love sharing, and these blocks have magnets in them. Look!” That was all it took to have both of them wearing huge smiles and joining me on the rug.
A minute later, the three of us were working on a castle together, talking about different things we liked to play, our favorite clothes, and which cartoons we enjoyed.
Nothing too serious, unless you counted the which is better discussion on nuggies vs.
dino nuggies. Chris could be wrong about it if he wanted to, but dino nuggies were superior in all ways.
“My friend Brax would like these,” Chris said as we were plopping the cubes back in the bucket.
“Brax?” It couldn’t be the same one? Could it? It wasn’t a particularly popular name where I’d come from, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t here.
“Yeah, Brax. He’s little, too, and I think he’d like these a lot because of the magnets. Do they stick on walls?”
“Walls aren’t magnetic.” Monroe shoulder-bumped him.
“No, like the walls at home, the kind like at school, the white ones.”
Monroe rolled his eyes. “Whiteboards?”
Chris nodded.
“I don’t think so.” I hadn’t considered it.
“Let’s check.” Monroe grabbed one and ran to the other side of the room, where there was a small dry-erase board where people put up things they wanted to share that were very “little” specific.
Usually, it was if they were going to invite people to the playroom or if they wanted to watch a particular movie on the big TV downstairs. That kind of thing.
“Nah, doesn’t stick,” he said, coming back with his head hanging.
“I played with a Brax at Chained one time,” I said, instantly wishing I could suck the words back in. They looked straight at me, both of them waiting for more.
“Oh, really? And was he alone?” Monroe finally said and leaned closer.
“No, he was with his daddy, Daddy Cliff.”
“Huh. Well, if that’s the Brax you played with, you’ll probably see him here. Sometimes we all like to play together.” Monroe sat back up.
So much for ignoring my feelings and hoping they went away, since I wasn’t going to see them again.
“That’s good,” I said, because what else could I say to that? “His daddy was nice to me.”
“Yeah, Cliff’s a solid guy. He’s not weirdly jealous, like some daddies get. Actually, Brax isn’t either. I think that’s why I don’t mind playing with them, even though they’re a couple.” Monroe sounded more like he was talking to himself than to us at that point.
“Huh. Well, that’s pretty cool. What do you guys want to do next?” I was ready to move on from them.
“We could race cars.”
“That sounds great.”
I set my bucket of cubes by the door as Monroe grabbed the bucket of cars.
If I raced them fast enough, maybe I could avoid spending the rest of the day wondering if and when Brax was going to walk through the door and how I should or shouldn’t respond.
Pretty sure wrapping my arms around him and asking him to kiss me while his daddy watched was the wrong way.
Only problem was, right now, that was all I wanted to do.