Insurance Covers Sex Damage, Apparently
MAX
The flight home is almost normal. Almost. Leo's sitting next to me, reading on his tablet, probably a linguistics article or code documentation. His shoulder bumps mine when we hit turbulence, and he doesn't stiffen. He doesn't pull away, and that small point of contact feels like progress.
"So the con is January twenty-first, twenty-second, and twenty-third," Leo says, not looking up from his screen.
"Perfect timing." I pull up the convention schedule on my phone. "We already have tickets. I mapped out the panels we both want. There's only one conflict, but we could split up for that hour if you want to hit the voice acting workshop."
"You sure? I know you wanted to see the animation techniques panel."
"I can catch the recording later." I zoom in on the vendor hall map. "Besides, the artist alley is right after, and I want first crack at the Madoka Magica prints before they sell out."
Leo's lips twitch; it’s almost a smile. "I finished your cape before we left for Wisconsin."
"You did?" I light up. "Can I see it when we get back?"
"Final fitting first. I want to make sure the closure sits right." He's doing that thing where he tries not to look pleased but totally is. "Still need to finish detailing mine."
"You're going to look amazing as Beelzebub."
"It's a costume." But his mouth is doing that thing where he's trying not to smile. Finally, we are getting back to normal.
"It's Obey Me, and you made it, and you're going to look incredible, and I'm going to take so many photos."
"That sounds threatening."
"It's a promise." He's definitely smiling now. Small, but real.
Things have been like this for the past few days. Gradually warming. Leo is treating me more like he used to, less like I'm freaking him out. We haven't talked about the sex again; I decided not to, and that seems to help.
Not sure if that's good or bad. But we're talking, so.
My brain drifts back to Isaac. Fishing on the ice.
I wish I could tell Leo. The urge is so strong it's almost physical, the way it always is when something big happens, and my first instinct is to find Leo and say You're not going to believe this.
We've been doing that since freshman year.
Every weird thing, every breakthrough, every disaster. Leo is the person I tell.
Except I can't tell him this.
It's not that I don't trust Leo. I'd trust Leo with anything. It's that this isn't mine to share. Isaac handed me something carefully, something he's been carrying alone for years, and I'm not going to drop it the second I get home because I can't handle holding it myself.
So I hold it in. Leo's asleep in the seat beside me, head tipped toward the window, his shoulder an inch from mine.
This is strange. I've never had a secret from Leo before.
Not a real one. I've had surprises, like the three weeks I spent building him a custom keyboard for his birthday and nearly exploding trying to act normal, but that's different.
A surprise ends. You get to tell the thing eventually.
This is just… permanent.
There's a part of my life Leo doesn't get to know about.
And there will probably be more of those as we get older, things that belong to other people, things I have to keep, but I've never felt the shape of it before.
The specific weight of knowing something and choosing not to say it to the one person you'd normally say everything to.
The man in the seat ahead of me reclines so far back that his headrest is basically in my lap. I stare at the top of his head for a moment.
Leo would understand. That's the worst part. He'd probably just nod and say something quiet and exactly right. But Isaac said no one knows, and I'm not going to be the one to break that trust. Even to Leo.
The plane starts its descent. Leo closes his tablet and looks out the window. "Thanks for coming with me," I say.
"Always." He glances at me, and for a second, his expression is so soft it makes my chest ache. "Your family's great, Max."
"Yeah. They are." The moment stretches, and then the landing gear deploys with a mechanical thunk, and Leo looks away from me again.
Soooo, not back to normal. This sucks.
We grab our bags from the carousel and head outside to the pickup area. JP's already there, leaning against his car with his phone out, and waves when he spots us.
"Welcome back, guys," he says, popping the trunk. "Good trip?"
"Really good," I say, tossing my bag in. "How was your Christmas?"
"Loud. Chaotic. My cousins are feral." He slides into the driver's seat. "Also, fair warning, Luca and Del are basically attached at the mouth now. It's adorable and disgusting."
Leo huffs a quiet laugh. "How bad?"
"I walked into the kitchen yesterday, and they were making out against the fridge. The fridge, Max. Who does that?"
"People in love?" I say. JP glances at me in the rearview mirror. His eyes meet mine and narrow slightly, just at the corners, before he looks back at the road.
Yeah, yeah. I look out the window. The drive back to the geek house is quiet. Comfortable. JP doesn't push, which I appreciate. Just drives and hums along to whatever's playing on the radio. When we pull up, I grab my bag, and Leo grabs his, and we head inside.
The house smells like coffee and something sweet, cookies, maybe? Luca's been baking again. "I'll take this up for you," Leo says, reaching for my bag.
"You don't have to—"
"I know." He's already heading toward the stairs. "Come on." I follow him up. He drops my bag in my room, then lingers in the doorway for a second.
"Thanks for everything," he says. "Christmas. Your family. All of it."
"I'm always happy you can come with me." We smile at each other, and it kind of feels like maybe, maybe, we're finding our way back.
"I should unpack," Leo says.
"Yeah. Me too." He heads down the hall to his room, and I watch him go. I'm putting my toiletries away when I hear the water running. The shower's going. Someone must've gotten home before us, Elliot, probably, or Haru.
Then I hear… other noises. Giggles. A low laugh. The unmistakable sound of someone saying "wait, wait—" followed by more giggling. Oh my… That's not Elliot. I grin, shaking my head, and head back to my room. Good for them. Del and Luca are—
CRASH. "SHIT!" I freeze. That was loud. That was really loud. I'm out of my room and running before I even think about it.
"Luca?" I knock on the bathroom door. "Del? You guys okay?" There’s furious whispering on the other side. The water shuts off, and there’s more whispering.
Then the door cracks open and Luca's face appears. He’s flushed, his hair dripping, and wearing a towel and nothing else. "We're fine," he says quickly.
"What was the crash?"
"Nothing. It’s… We're handling it."
"Luca?”
He winces. "The towel bar may have… come off the wall." I blink. Behind him, Del appears, also in a towel, also dripping, also looking like he wants the floor to swallow him whole.
"We'll fix it," Del says. "I can totally fix it. I think—”
There are footsteps on the stairs. JP appears at the end of the hallway, takes one look at the scene, and stops. "What's going on?"
Luca's face turns even redder, and Del clears his throat. "So. Funny story."
"Was that crash from in here?" JP's looking at the bathroom now, his eyebrows climbing.
"Technically, yes," Luca says.
"What happened?"
Silence… More silence. Then, finally, Luca gives up and throws his hands in the air. "We were having sex in the bathroom, and Del pulled the towel bar out of the wall!"
Del makes a strangled noise.
"And the tile came with it," Luca continues, because apparently it’s not done. "Like, six tiles. Maybe seven. And when Del dropped the bar, it hit the edge of the sink, and now there's a chunk missing from the sink."
JP and I stand and stare. I’m not sure about him, but I don’t know what to say.
“So, yeah. There's a chunk missing from the sink," Del confirms miserably.
I start laughing. I can't help it. The image of Del and Luca going at it, somehow managing to demolish the entire bathroom, is too much. "Congratulations," I wheeze. "That's impressive."
"It's not funny," Luca mutters, but his mouth is twitching.
JP's grinning now, too. "I'll call the landlord. Get it repaired."
"We'll pay for it," Del says immediately. "Seriously. However much—"
"With a sink and tile damage, that's a full bathroom repair." JP taps his knuckles against the door jam. "That'll hit insurance for sure."
Luca's eyes go wide. "Insurance covers… that?"
"It covers tile damage, yeah." JP's trying hard not to laugh. "Even sex damage can qualify if it was a legitimate accident."
Del and Luca exchange a look. Some silent couple communication that ends with both of them looking mortified and relieved at the same time. "Okay," Luca says weakly. "Thanks."
"Just…" JP gestures vaguely. "Clean up the bathroom. And maybe avoid any more... structural damage?"
"Noted," Del mutters. JP turns and heads back downstairs, his shoulders shaking with laughter.
I'm still grinning. "You guys okay?"
"Mortified," Luca says.
"But fine," Del adds. He slings an arm around Luca's shoulders. "We'll… yeah. Clean up." They head back into the bathroom. As the door closes, I hear Del say something, then Luca's laugh, bright and happy.
My throat does this weird squeeze thing.
They're happy. Really, genuinely happy. I want that.
Except, and here's where my brain gets stuck, the person I keep thinking about is Leo.
And Leo had sex with me because I asked him to, and then spent weeks barely able to look at me, and we are only just now getting back to something that resembles normal.
That's not someone who wants more. That's someone who did a friend a favor and then had to recover from it.
I'm not doing that again. I'm not risking what we just clawed back.
Find someone who actually wants you, Max. Someone who doesn't need time to recover. I walk downstairs. JP's in the kitchen, making tea, and looks up when I appear in the doorway.
"Hey," I say. "Can we talk?"
"About?"
"Dating." I take a breath. "I'm ready. To try again."
JP sets down the kettle and studies my face for a long moment. Then a slow smile spreads across his face. "You sure? Because I have ideas."
"Of course you do."
"I've been planning while you were gone." He gestures toward the stairs. "Come on. I'll show you."
His whiteboard is out, the big one he uses for project planning, and it's covered in notes. I step closer. There's a section labeled POTENTIAL DATING POOLS in JP's precise handwriting, with bullet points underneath and what looks like a ranked list.
"There's another mixer for the LGBTQ+ society coming up," JP says, tapping the board. "And no auction this time." I groan.
"What? The auction wasn't that bad."
"JP, I got bid on by a guy who was a complete ass-hat."
"Okay, that was bad," he concedes. "But this'll be better. No bidding, I promise. Just—" He taps the board again. "Trust me."
I look at the whiteboard. At the meticulous color-coding, the ranked lists, the effort he's put into this while I was gone. Something in my chest loosens a little.
"Okay," I say. "Let's do it."
JP grins.
I'm doing this. I'm moving on. The facts are simple: Leo had sex with me because I asked, then spent weeks not looking at me, and then there was the silence. The silence hurt. I can't do that again. JP's plan has statistically better odds of finding me my person, and I like good statistics.
Besides, me and Leo are finally, finally almost back to normal. Normal is good. Normal is great. Normal means Leo still exists in my life.
I am not going to poke normal with a stick.