Chapter Fifteen Happy Anniversary #2
“Your waiter will be out in a moment,” the ma?tre d’ says, leaving their menus. “Hope you gentlemen enjoy. And happy anniversary.”
“Thank you so much.” Owen nods, a tad overenthusiastically just to make sure she knows he’s grateful.
“My pleasure.” She smiles at them before walking off. Owen turns to sit down before realizing that Jacob is pulling his chair
out for him.
“Oh.” Owen pauses, caught off guard by the gesture. “Thanks.”
“No problem.” Jacob clears his throat awkwardly as he takes his own seat across from Owen. “Happy anniversary,” he says with
a twinkle in his eye.
“Happy anniversary.” Owen smiles back, just as a waiter comes by to leave a tall carafe of water. “And you’re welcome for
the table too.”
“I was getting there!” Jacob objects. “Give me some time.”
“Well . . .” Owen motions with his hand, as if telling Jacob to get on with it. “I’m waiting.”
“I bet you don’t even remember that today’s an actual anniversary.”
Owen pauses, eyeing Jacob skeptically. “Wait . . . what?”
“Oh!” Jacob says. “Look who’s bad at dates now.”
“You forgot your own birthday, Jacob,” Owen reminds him. “Three years in a row.”
“It’s a hard day to remember!” he says plainly, like that’s a perfectly valid excuse. “But I think it’s interesting—you used
to always pride yourself on remembering everything.” Jacob’s words come out snarky, but with a soft expression that worms itself even
deeper into Owen’s heart.
“What is it?” Owen asks.
Jacob laughs softly. “Hmmm . . . maybe I won’t tell you.”
Owen leans forward, resting his chin on the palm of his hand. “You can’t just bring it up and then not tell me.”
“I actually can.” Jacob crosses his arms. “I’m doing it right now, aren’t I?”
“That’s not fair.”
He shrugs. “Too bad.”
Owen sinks back in his seat, thinking for a moment, pouting a bit just for dramatic effect. It can’t be any of the more important
anniversaries. They had their first date toward the end of April, making things official in May. And he can’t think of any
more significant dates in their relationship.
So, what could it be?
“I give up,” Owen finally relents.
“It’s the anniversary”—Jacob drags the words out—“of when you moved in with me.”
Owen pauses, thinking back to years ago in Jacob’s first SF apartment, before they’d moved into the place that they picked
out together. Owen’s landlord had sent the text just after the year began, leaving him to spiral, wondering just what he was
going to do. Between his already high rent, credit card debt, student loans, and groceries, he couldn’t afford the spike that
his landlord was planning to force on his rent.
“What do you think you’ll do?” Jacob asked after dinner one night, reading over the texts. He had little experience with contracts,
but after some sleuthing on Reddit, he concluded it seemed to be perfectly legal. Owen’s landlord had given him ample notice
and increased the rent by just enough to avoid it being labeled a problem.
No wonder he’d spent all of December finally fixing all of the problems that Owen had complained about. He probably should’ve realized something was up when the landlord
was allowing appraisers in to take photos of the building.
“Find a new place,” Owen said, reading the text thread over and over again, silently hoping that his landlord would come back
with a “just kidding” or something. “Maybe a studio, could look in the Sunset, or the Richmond?”
Or he could get roommates again. Though after living by himself for a good few years, the thought of having roommates again
made Owen’s skin crawl. He’d already survived a roommate years ago who blamed their ADHD for their inability to flush the
toilet or do the dishes.
“Or . . .” Jacob started to say, picking absentmindedly at the blanket on the couch. “You could . . . move in here?” He could only look at Owen out of the corner of his eye.
They’d talked about moving in together before, only a few months after they made things official, both wanting to date for
at least a few years before they entangled their living situations.
“Are you . . . are you okay with that?” Owen asked, unsure.
“I wouldn’t have presented the idea if I wasn’t okay with it,” Jacob replied plainly.
Living together was a whole other beast. Sure, they’d spent entire weeks together before. Often Owen wouldn’t bother going
back to his apartment for days at a time, and not just because Jacob’s place was so much closer to the shop.
Owen could always leave, though. When he needed a moment to breathe, a second to himself. Moving in with Jacob would put a
stop to all of that. There’d be no escaping each other’s bad moods, nowhere for Owen to go to recharge his battery.
Then Owen thought about sharing a space with Jacob, building a home together, putting his stuff around the apartment to make
it a place that the two of them could share, buying new furniture when they needed it, waking up in bed next to him all the
time, splitting the chores while music played through the apartment.
The thought made him feel whole, warm.
Jacob rolled over on the couch so that he could be closer to Owen, as if that were possible with how close they were already
sitting. “You could even move in now if you wanted to.”
“And how exactly would I do that?” Owen asked playfully.
Silently, Jacob stood up, walking over to the barstool that Owen always set his bag on. There wasn’t much inside. His sketchbook, pencil bag, iPad, sunglasses, the book he’d been reading, hand sanitizer, his weed pen, breath mints, a bottle of ibuprofen that rattled with every step.
“What are you doing?” Owen asked.
Jacob didn’t answer. He simply sauntered around the apartment, depositing Owen’s belongings wherever he seemed to feel they
fit best. The sketchbook, pencil case, and iPad ended up on Jacob’s desk. The book he’d been reading on the bookshelf, naturally.
The hand sanitizer, mints, and Tylenol in the bathroom; the weed pen he stood up straight on his coffee table, like it was
an actual decoration.
“Any particular reason you just unpacked my entire bag?” Owen asked as Jacob stood in front of him, proud smile on his face.
“You’ve officially moved in!”
Owen had never felt such pure giddiness before.
“Come here.” He held his hand out, willing Jacob to take it, pulling him back to the couch gently on top of him, their kisses
seemingly lasting for hours. Owen’s heart aches at the memory of just how effortless it’d been to fall in love with Jacob
Morrison. He remembers feeling so settled that night, as if he’d finally come to the end of the longest day imaginable.
Like he’d finally found somewhere he could be safe, somewhere—or someone—he could call home.
“It was today, wasn’t it?” Owen recalls. “I forgot.”
“Good thing I’m here to remind you,” Jacob says as their waiter finally appears again to take their orders.
They start with drinks, Owen sticking with water and Jacob ordering a glass of wine.
They decide on an appetizer of roasted cauliflower with pine nuts before they order their entrees.
A strip steak for Jacob, and salmon with butternut squash for Owen.
And finally, they finish off their meal with tiramisu, sharing the dessert with a single spoon they pass back and forth.
And all the while, he and Jacob just talk.
Owen listens as Jacob recounts how, after a late night in the lab that stretched into the early hours of the morning, one
of the techs forgot to lock one of the specimen containers, and when they came back the next day, the whole team had to spend
the entire day hunting down the squid that’d managed to sneak out of their habitats.
Owen tells Jacob of a client he’d had a few months back who’d assured her friends that tattoos didn’t hurt at all. He’d been
a bit confused because, at least on the surface, Owen couldn’t see a single tattoo on the client’s skin. But he’d laid the
stencil down anyway, gotten his supplies ready, and when he pulled out the box of needles the woman looked at him and asked:
“What are those?”
“No . . .” Jacob says, realization dawning on him.
“I’m not sure who she’d gone to before.” Owen dabs at the corners of his mouth with his napkin. “If she’d only ever gotten
henna done or what, but somehow she had no idea that tattooing actually involved putting a needle to skin.”
“What did you do?”
“I told her what was actually going to happen, how the needles would stab her over and over, and she just went pale.” Owen
almost feels bad for laughing.
Almost.
“Your bedside manner still leaves a bit to be desired, I see,” Jacob remarks, finishing off the last dregs of his wine.
“Her friend who came with her offered to go first instead,” Owen continues. “At the first sight of blood, she decided that tattoos weren’t really for her.” Owen sips his water. “I let her keep the stencil on, though.”
“Well, that was kind of you.” Jacob chuckles.
“I’m known to be nice. When the occasion calls for it.”
Long after dessert has been finished and Jacob orders one last glass of wine, Owen a cup of coffee for himself; long after
the bill is paid and most of their fellow diners have exited the restaurant, the two of them are left sitting there.
With each other.
Jacob reaches across the table, pulling Owen’s hand closer so that his can rest on top of it.
“I had a great time today,” he says with a smile, one that Owen can’t help but return. “Thanks.”
“I did too.” Owen nods. “Thanks for . . . everything. I know none of this was easy.”
Jacob nods. “I was nervous, I can’t lie.”
“Why?” Owen asks, knowing good and well how foolish of a question that is.
“Well, it’s not every day that your ex approaches you to pretend that the last year never really happened.”
Owen’s inclined to agree with him.
“And I guess I was worried that this entire day was going to be a mistake.” Underneath the table, Owen feels Jacob’s ankle
slot in next to his.
“But . . .” Owen prompts, feeling the tone of what’s coming before Jacob can even open his mouth.
“But,” Jacob continues, drawling out the sound, his hand going to his chin to rub at his beard, “today felt good.”