Chapter Eight Proposition
Things settled down for the next while. We didn’t talk about it, but I kept thinking about our kiss. Why it had happened. What we’d fought about.
The thing that made me okay with his job and what he was doing with Edgar was remembering that when I’d first told him how I felt about him, he’d told me he wouldn’t cheat on Trish. I figured if he wouldn’t cheat on her, he wouldn’t cheat on me either.
I didn’t make any moves on him, and he didn’t try any on me.
Every night, I’d make us dinner and wait till he got home so we could eat together.
He didn’t argue, but after a couple of days, he started paying me for his half of the groceries.
I didn’t want to take his money, because I didn’t know how much he had. But he insisted.
It was nice having something to look forward to at the end of the day, enjoying his company, even when we didn’t talk. I’d hear his key in the lock, and I’d feel happy like I hadn’t for a long time.
After dinner, we’d work on my model plane together, then I’d practice playing my keyboards with my headphones on so I didn’t disturb him while he memorized lines for his movie.
I didn’t ask him for any details about what he was doing, and he didn’t supply any.
I figured out of sight, out of mind was the way to go, as far as his costar went.
I liked to look at him while he was practicing—that intense, focused expression on his face as he read the script. I’d catch myself wondering if he looked like that when he was having sex.
One night while we were watching TV, I said, trying to sound casual, “You’ve got a rip in the seam of your T-shirt.”
“Hmm?” he said.
My mother wouldn’t let me out the door if I had a rip in my clothes. “What would people think?” she’d say. Then she’d call me “uncouth” and tell me to fix it. “Uncouth” was her favorite word. Whenever I disappointed her, she’d call me that.
“I can fix it for you if you want,” I offered.
I didn’t want to offend him, but he must have been cold if he was walking around with rips in his clothes. And I wanted to look after him more than anything.
“Sure,” he said.
He got up and started to pull off his shirt.
Then he stopped. Maybe he noticed the way I tensed up and looked away.
He took a clean shirt from his backpack and got changed in the bathroom.
He came out holding the torn shirt. It was the same shirt he’d been wearing on our first date: sky blue with a flaking stencil of a stick man in the kind of indigo paint that glowed under UV light.
I got out my sewing kit and found a pale blue thread to match the color.
The shirt was warm from his body and soft, and it smelled of him, so I took my sweet time stitching it, making sure I did it perfectly.
I cut the thread, then handed his shirt back to him.
“Thanks,” he said, running his thumb over my stitching. He looked sad.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Just, no one’s ever done that for me before.”
“Your mom never fixed your clothes when you were a kid?”
“No,” he said, and he didn’t look at me.
“I can fix the rips in your jeans too,” I offered, feeling paranoid he’d get offended I’d insulted his clothes.
“Sure,” he said quietly.
“Don’t you feel cold in the winter?”
He shrugged.
“Doesn’t it bother you?”
“I never learned to sew. After I left home, I couldn’t afford new clothes, so I wear stuff till it falls apart.”
“Let me fix your things. I’ll show you how.”
I spent the evening showing him how to sew little tears and how to iron fabric patches over larger holes.
“You can pick different colors of fabric, depending on the look you want. If you don’t want the patches to be obvious, you can use blue or black ones.”
He said he didn’t want them obvious. I showed him how to sew, let him hold the needle and guided his hand. I held onto his hand a little longer than I needed to because my hand tingled whenever I touched him, and I didn’t want it to stop. But I had to let go eventually so he could do it himself.
When we were done, he folded his clothes and put them in his backpack. He looked at me, and he didn’t look sad anymore. “Thanks.”
“My pleasure.”
––––––––
I still had the feeling we didn’t really know each other, but we were getting closer every day. Our conversations got more personal, which was easier when we were building my model plane because we were looking at the plane, not each other.
One day, I blurted out, “What does a blow job feel like?”
He looked at me in disbelief. “Are you telling me you’ve never had one?”
“Of course I have. I’ve had loads of them. I meant what does it feel like to give someone a blow job?”
He went back to applying glue. “Depends.”
“On what?”
“On the situation. On my mood at the time.”
“Do you like giving them?”
He shrugged. “They can be hard work. If you want to do it right.”
“It feels like work?”
“Sometimes. Except I’m not getting paid.”
“Sometimes you like to, though, right?”
“Sometimes.”
“I think I’d really like doing it.” I’d wanted to say that for a long time, and I felt safe telling him now.
“Some people do,” he said.
“Do you like getting blow jobs?”
“Fuck yeah,” he said.
“Noted.” I tried not to grin. But I was also scared he’d call my bluff.
He didn’t, though.
––––––––
One night, a week after he finished his acting job, when neither of us had to work the next day, we went to Deep Ice again.
We got on the dance floor, and it was so packed we could hardly move, and we were pressed against each other for a second.
I wouldn’t have had the balls to touch him like that otherwise, but it was heaven while it lasted.
It was way too loud and crowded to stay, so we left early.
The weather was mild, so we walked back to my place.
I walked so close that I kept jostling him and saying sorry and then doing it again, and he pushed me playfully, and we laughed.
I wanted him, like I had last time we’d gone to the club.
But I was sober, so I didn’t tell him. I hadn’t had a drink since the day he’d moved in. I guess I’d quit drinking for him.
Then, at the end of the month, just after he started a new acting job, he came home, took out his wallet, counted out a bunch of cash, and put it on the table in front of me.
“That’s my half of last month’s rent,” he said.
A couple weeks earlier, he’d asked me how much rent I was paying. I’d thought he was just curious.
“You don’t have to—”
“I just got paid for my last job,” he said. “I can afford it, and I’ve been living here for almost a month. Take the money.”
And because he looked like he wouldn’t let me refuse, I took it.
Then he opened his wallet again and took out some more money. “And unless you’re planning to kick me out, here’s half of next month’s rent too.”
I stared at it on the table. That was probably all the money he had. I didn’t want to take it from him.
“I owe you,” he said.
“You don’t.” How could I explain that just having him here was worth more than any money?
“Take it,” he said.
I took it. Then I went to my bedroom to put it away. I sat on my bed, thinking. He was paying half the rent. Like we were roommates. Which we were. But I didn’t think of him as a roommate, and I didn’t want to think of him that way.
I got up and stripped the covers and sheets off my bed.
I opened a package of new sheets I’d splurged on a while ago.
I hadn’t used them before because I guess I was waiting for a special occasion.
I made the bed. Then I removed all my stuff from the top two drawers in my bureau and put it in my bedroom closet.
I went out to the living room where he was spreading the blankets on the couch. I stood there, slapping the wall with the side of my fist, stalling.
“What?” he said.
“Since you’re paying half the rent, it’s not fair for you to sleep on the couch.”
“You want us to switch—you sleep out here, and I get the bed?”
“There’s room for both of us in my bed, actually.”
He let that sit there while I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach.
“What are you saying, exactly?” he said.
“We could sleep together—just sleep. I’d like it if you did. Do you want to?”
“Sounds more comfortable than the couch.”
“I’m not talking about that. Do you want to sleep in the same bed as me and not just because it’s more comfortable than the couch?”
“Yeah,” he said. “If you’re ready.”
“I am. Just...sleeping, though.”