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Days like these, what was meant to be a flawless repository capable of perfect recall, faltered when it came down to minutes, hours, days — it would simply look over it.
Andrew was not surprised to find that he could not be sure of how long it had been. His muscles were tense and cramped from laying in the same uncomfortable position for too long, his mouth parched, a lump in his throat.
Days like these, when the feel of sheets against his skin only fueled the churning of his gut and any sound triggered an additional headache, memories of hands and mouths came by uninvited. Days like these, when his mind turned on itself, forcing him to relive in excruciating detail every second of a past he could never forget, there was no safe haven within the confines of his own head.
There was nothing for him to do but wait.
Wait for his skin to stop crawling under the weight of phantom hands and unwanted touches. Wait for his brain to wave a white flag, cease the friendly fire, and allow the intake of a painless breath. Wait for the ghosts that haunted him to retreat back into their darkened corner and eagerly watch out for their next chance to strike.
Wait, wait, wait . How long had he been waiting? There was no way of knowing.
His phone had long since died, he was sure to have missed practice, and the cats… how long had it been since he’d last fed the cats?
The thought brought a fresh wave of nausea. Andrew buried his face into the pillow and stayed very, very still. Maybe that way the problems would get bored and solve themselves, maybe that way he could pretend he was not as pathetic as he felt.
God , if Neil saw him like this he would pack his bags and leave before Andrew even got the chance to blink away the haze.
No . That was not true.
He knew that wasn’t true. Neil wouldn’t do that. Neil would try to understand the problem in order to find a solution. Neil, all soft edges and bright eyes when they were alone, would not hesitate before attempting to help.
That knowledge should have probably made him feel better — after five years there were few demons the other was not already acquainted with, but this was a state Neil had rarely seen Andrew in, and it was no coincidence. Vulnerability had never come easy to him; Andrew had spent so long sparring against his every weakness that admitting he still had them felt like owning up to failure.
But now, sweaty, tired, barely responsive, and subject to an ever-looming past, Andrew wished for Neil to materialize and talk him out of his misery while simultaneously praying Neil would stay away and never see him like this.
He felt wrong in every sense of the word. Wrong as in having the certainty that nothing would ever be right again — which, logically, he knew was simply not true, but logic was now bound, gagged, and forgotten. Any and all existing judgment had been clouded and remained too far away for him to reach with weakened fingers.
He was tired. He was pitiful. He was a tragic sight of a man.
Time passed in an indistinguishable blur of fitful sleep and restless waking thoughts. His body had harvested a dull feeling of hunger a while back, which quickly developed into aches he could not soothe and a need he would not sate. Getting food from the kitchen was a feat he could only ever dream of accomplishing in this wretched condition.
So he stayed put, never moving a limb, never trying to.
He thought maybe it had been a little over a day, if he judged by how much daylight had seeped into the room, but his eyes had been closed for so much of his time in bed that chances were the math was off.
He thought he could hear the clock in the living room ticking, the second hand obnoxiously announcing its redundant presence with every echoing beat, though maybe it was paranoia starting to set in.
He thought the sound resembled that of a finger rhythmically tapping against a surface. He thought, maybe, all this had been wishful dreaming and he had never escaped Drake and his penchant for making Andrew squirm by trailing burning fingertips up his body and tapping at his rabbity pulsepoint.
Logic gave an energetic writhe against its shackles but ultimately gave up. Nothing had been real. He was alone. Nowhere was safe. Neil wasn’t here. He never had been.
A dream, all of it.
He was alone, always had been, always would be. Such was the paramount truth — when it mattered, and when it didn’t, Andrew Minyard would always dwell in solitude and hoping to waste away fast enough to stop hurting.
***
Again. Funny little thing time was. It had warped and mocked him in every way it knew how, and now space had joined in to weave a complex web in which Andrew had never stood a chance at survival.
When he opened his eyes the last persistent rays of a dying sun were seeping through the crack of a neglected window. His spot on the bathroom floor didn’t allow him to catch a glimpse of anything else.
Andrew did not remember moving, he thought he should, it was dangerous not to know. Although, did any of it really matter? There could be no pain in solitude, not anymore. It was just him and the ghosts who goadingly made a home out of Andrew’s scarring — physical and otherwise.
Just him, his personal demons, and that ridiculously loud clock, its rhythmic thumping louder, and louder, and louder –
“Drew?”
Oh.
There were hands on him. They did not belong to this voice, yet there were fingers wrapped around his wrists, heavy breaths on his neck–
“Drew. Open your eyes.”
Panic should have shot through every nerve, tensing his muscles and readying him for another night spent drowning in rumpled sheets, trapped under a sickening weight… Yet his body did not react. He was trapped, his mind reeling and fighting a losing battle as he failed to muster an inkling of strength.
He felt a frown coming over his features, his eyes shutting twice as hard. He did not want to open them and be met by an empty room. He would not survive tricks this cruel —- he would not survive the absence of Neil.
“ Drew ,” that voice, the one that could not be him , echoed once again. “Come back to me, love. It’s going to be fine, you’re safe.”
Safety. What a silly concept — not unlike ‘family’ , which was meant to offer a safe haven, was meant to be a shield to protect from the world’s brutality. Knives were supposed to provide the illusion of security. Hospitals were meant to be refuge, shelter.
Lies. All of it.
Safety was an unachievable ideal Andrew had never aspired to attain for himself. Safety was the silky quality of a voice he only heard on speakers as of late. Safety was kisses that tasted of mint and hugs that smelt of aloe body wash.
Safety was miles away, this was not real.
But the voice didn’t offer a long enough intermission for Andrew to gather the sufficient strength to hold himself back from opening his eyes when it whispered once more. “Open your eyes, Drew. I’m here, I promise, I’m here.”
And who was Andrew Minyard to deny his mind of whatever cruel games it was inflicting upon him? Heavy lids fluttered open, tired eyes struggled to focus on what Andrew had expected to be an empty bathroom.
It wasn’t.
There was a man there, crouched beside him on the cold merciless tiles, gaze unguarded, and fists clenched as if poised to battle away the nightmares. There was a man there, and Andrew could breathe for the first time in days.
“Abram?” The word — a name — escaped his dry lips with a questioning quality to it, so far from the snark he’d intended and yet somehow so much more gutturally truthful.
The man nodded softly, the smallest of smiles gracing his lips, tension rolling off his shoulders. “Yeah.”
Hadn't Andrew run out of tears by the time he completed his first decade of life, a sob would have surely broken out then. Where demons had been lurking not a moment ago, now something that resembled hope in its brilliance began to seep in through the cracks.
Abram. A truth. A reality. A beacon.
Abram. Gorgeous. Fast. His .
Andrew recalled the movement, his mouth opening, throat tightening, tongue molding the words to then be fired like shots. He was unsure of where the bullets would end, he couldn’t remember what he’d said, but he knew it couldn’t have been nice.
Yet Abram, skilled, nimble Abram, dodged them with ease and merely shifted to kneel on the floor.
“What do you need, Andrew?”
What a loaded question. Instinct told him he needed nothing. Helplessness screamed at him to dismiss experience, push away predisposition, and bury his face in Abram’s neck. Maybe it all came down to a matter of wording , mere semantics — did he truly need anything? Or was he finally past denying himself of his ability to want ?
He wanted Abram, but those words were lodged in his lungs, a heavy stone weighing them down.
He wanted to feel clean again, but even the meager act of voicing that desire made him feel like a nonsensical child in need of coddling.
He wanted to sleep, desperately, and wake up rested instead of panting.
He wanted this to stop . He wanted the past to stay behind . He wanted to feel safe again.
Abram, in that way to still baffle Andrew, read the unspoken words with a sharpshooters’ accuracy.
“Shower?” One word. Sounded easy enough. It felt impossible.
Andrew’s response was little more than a grunt, or maybe something a little more pitiful.
“A bath?” Abram amended.
Maybe, if he soaked for long enough, the grime and dirt he’d accumulated over the years would wash away without him needing to do much of anything.
Wishful thinking.
He nodded.
“Okay,” Abram agreed, soft voice dull around the edges, careful not to nick Andrew's feeble walls.
Abram, graceful as he was, rose to his feet in one swift movement and stepped away. Andrew felt the loss of the presence like a kick to the gut, his chest twinged with a pain no more physical than his ghosts, and yet, the moment the sound of running water echoed, Abram was back and so was hope.
“Hey,” he whispered as he crouched, velvet smooth words soothing over intangible wounds. “Can you get up?”
Maybe.
“Can I help?”
The question came as it always did, with hands still far away and no bite lurking underneath. Just concern, just that almost venerating tone of his even as Andrew looked rougher than he had in months and more vulnerable than he had in years.
Andrew, to the best of his ability, ran a mental check only to reinforce what he already knew — his every line of defense had been corroded away by ravenous memories. And yet, if there was one person he could trust with his bare and barren self, it was him .
Andrew gave a nod and a “yes,” that scraped its way out.
Abram offered both hands. Andrew noticed he had yet to take off his rain splattered jacket.
They were standing not long after. Abram had only touched were strictly necessary and Andrew had yet to feel repulsed by the intimacy.
Safe .
Abram was a buffer. Andrew’s demons rarely touched him, no matter the name, let alone dare tarnish the growth he represented.
Andrew was safe.
And he knew for sure when he finally looked up to encounter a wide-open expression. No masks. No lies. Just him, just them.
The blue was as hypnotizing as it had always been but it was the delicate crease between his brows that caught Andrew’s attention now. Emotion was still a sparse visitor to Andrew’s heart, but that, this — it opened the gates and welcomed it in.
“Hey,” Andrew was the one to speak this time around, croakily and too quiet, but the crease softened and some warmth creeped into the icy landscape that was Neil’s gaze. It never failed to make Andrew double take — how he, of all people, could put that there. Steal a flame and coax it to flourish where only distrust had used to bloom.
“Hey,” Abram replied with a minimal tug of his lips. “Help you with the clothes. Yes or no?”
Again, tempting the wrath of a god who had long since abandoned him, Andrew nodded. “Yes.”
He didn’t have to tell Abram to avoid skin to skin to touch, to steer clear of certain places, to evade specific movements. Abram knew. Andrew was known and understood. It was still odd to think about.
With care and wariness, the days-old clothing was removed and promptly hurled toward a corner. Without touching, Abram led him to the tub, where soap suds already dwelled and steam tendrils danced their way up.
Once submerged, whatever chilliness had rooted itself deep within his bones slowly began to melt away. His legs folded against his chest and his forehead rested atop one knee. He could hear Abram shrugging off the heavy jacket and draping it over the counter next to the sink.
Hear. Not see. He didn’t need to monitor Abram. Not him, not anymore.
Andrew felt the air shift around him, a barely-there fluctuation amplified by the water on his skin resulting in a shiver full-body shiver.
“Drew,” Abram called, and when he turned to look he was surprised – or maybe he wasn’t — to find him kneeling beside the tub, eyes searching. “Wash your hair, yes or no?”
Ah .
Half of him wanted to scream his agreement, nod, yield to Abram’s touch. The other was all too aware of his limits and the extent to which they had been tested this afternoon alone.
Andrew, much to his dismay and self-preservation, shook his head.
Abram nodded. “Do you want me to leave?”
No.
No, if he left then he’d cease being real. If Abram stepped out of Andrew’s reach then he’d be taken away, yet again, and all Andrew would be left with would be the poignant echo of a still vivid “ you were amazing ”.
Andrew shook his head.
Abram nodded again, sat down with his back against the tub, and rested his head atop the porcelain lip. “I had a football fan seated beside me on the plane. Want to hear about it?”
Subtlety was an art unknown to Neil Abram Josten.
Andrew, finally unfurling to reach for the shampoo bottle, mumbled a “yes” that got lost in the maze of sounds that was the water stirring, the chain attached to the plug rattling, and the buzzing in his head. Still, as he always did, Abram found his way through the warren and grasped the meaning of Andrew’s whispers.
“Okay, so this guy didn’t recognize me, right? He just saw me watching an Exy recap on my phone and immediately started shitting on it. Have in mind–”
The words became a hovering cloud of white noise not long after, the sound of him enveloping Andrew whole, settling around him like a heavy fog he wanted to suffocate in.
Time escaped Andrew, there was no way of knowing how long it took for him to shampoo, condition, and rinse his hair, but Neil hadn’t stopped talking once. His tone remained feathery and serene all throughout his story, his hand gestures slow and calculated.
Andrew knew what Neil was doing. Andrew wished he could kiss him all the ‘ thank you’s ’ he couldn’t voice.
“Towel,” he croaked.
Not two seconds ticked by before Neil was on his feet and reaching for a towel carefully propped atop the bathroom’s radiator. Once near the tub, Neil offered it to Andrew, who took it as he stood and wrapped it around himself, the cloth warm enough that, if he closed his eyes, it almost felt like a coveted hug.
They walked in silence, slowly, Neil on the lead, Andrew a shadow. Nothing at his back, just him on the horizon.
Methodically, Neil tapped the foot of the bed, an unspoken request for Andrew to take a seat. The queen-sized purgatory wasn’t as intimidating with Neil there. The promise of a panic attack was chased away by the beginnings of trust and better memories created on this very mattress by two willing men chanting “yes” after “yes”.
Yes to a kiss, yes to graze, yes to a wandering hand, and an all-consuming feeling he had once feared.
Andrew sat on the very edge of the bed.
Neil’s fingers were feeling through the clothes in Andrew’s closet, testing fabrics and doling out judgment based on a criteria Andrew was unaware of. When he finally turned, softest of sweatpants, boxers, and long sleeved shirts in hand, Andrew knew to take them.
“Do you want me to step out?” Neil asked, the last syllable barely escaping his lips before Andrew was shaking his head. “Okay. Do you want me to turn?”
Shame was a constricting hug around his ribcage as he gave an imperceptible nod. He almost wished Neil hadn’t seen it. It felt too much like losing hard-earned progress to horrors he should have overcome a decade ago. Back to square one.
With his back turned, Neil, though quiet, made sure to make his presence known — a shift here, a sigh there, always announcing himself to the terrors hounding Andrew’s every step and somehow keeping them at bay.
Dressed, clean, and not trembling anymore, Andrew cleared his throat in what he hoped Neil would understand as permission to meet his eyes once more. He did.
Andrew wanted nothing more than to reach out, allow the cotton-like texture of his shirt to brush against scarred skin, the sleeves to ride up as he wrapped both arms around Neil’s shoulders — delusional. He wanted, he wanted, he wanted . So much want, not enough courage.
“Come on,” Neil began, appeasing Andrew’s flaring anguish with five words and the hint of a smile. “I’ll make cocoa.”
Next thing he knew, there were blankets, cats, the white noise of a cooking show on TV, and Neil striding from one room to the other — changing sheets, washing dishes, refilling the cats’ bowls, making food. Andrew could hear the pan sizzling. Andrew could smell the butter.
Seven minutes and Neil was carefully setting down a plate stacked with pancakes on the table before Andrew, the screen’s flickering lights reflecting against the syrup drooping from the sides.
“You don’t have to finish it. But I really think you should eat something,” Neil, standing at an angle where Andrew could perfectly track his every move, advised.
“You didn’t have to come.”
Andrew hadn’t thought that through. He sounded ungrateful. He sounded petty and unreasonable. Neil would finally tire of his ways and leave–
“I know.” Neil shrugged. “I missed you.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
A tilt of the head. “Of course I was worried, Andrew. And I know I didn’t have to come. But I wanted to, so I did.”
“I don’t need coddling.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Difficult. Andrew was being so difficult.
“Yes,” Neil said as he perched himself atop the couch’s farthest armrest. “This is not coddling. This is me being selfish.”
Too weak to summon his voice, Andrew raised a brow.
The hesitant shrug of a shoulder and tug of Neil’s lips only made the following statement all the more gut-wrenching. “I need you around. You’re not wasting away for as long as I’m here to prevent it.”
A lump formed in Andrew’s throat, tugging at his insides, making them into a feather-light mush. “You’re an idiot.”
Neil nodded. “Yeah.”
“And I hate you.”
He nodded again, this time the action followed by a breathy chuckle. “I know.”
They stared for a moment, and then longer. Nothing and everything mattered — the distant sound of the TV, its colorful lights caressing Neil’s cheekbones and merging with the blue of his eyes, the scent of freshly baked goods. It meant nothing and Andrew thought he could die fulfilled right there and then.
The crawling of his skin had subdued somewhat, his stomach finally made room for something other than bile and memories, and in his head there were cerulean hues and auburn waves were hours ago a taunting laughter and the surety that Neil would flee if Andrew stumbled had resided.
“I don’t think you do,” Andrew retaliated because surely Neil couldn’t know.
Neil couldn’t possibly know how much Andrew hated his satin-smooth voice. Neil couldn’t know how much Andrew hated that glint in his eyes when they were both panting and submerged in a feverish haze. Neil couldn’t know how much Andrew hated his name on his tongue.
And that look. Andrew hated that look. The one Neil wore right now and that translated to “ I do” and “ me too ”.
And yet, a stark contrast to the message his very stare was so clearly conveying, Neil’s mouth voiced an antithesis and exactly what Andrew had needed to hear. “Maybe I don’t.”
With no way to address the lie hovering over them without risking the fragile modicum of peace, Andrew opted to heavily sigh and eye the stack of dripping pancakes, the singular fork propped on the side of the porcelain, the glass of water sitting atop a coaster.
There had been hands on his skin, nails digging into shoulders, heavy breaths deafening against the nape of his neck. The hands were five years old. The nails were nine. The breaths were eighteen. In the past. All of them. In the past. Ahead of him, pancakes, syrup. Enveloping him, cozy blankets, and the company of a man he ached for.
Andrew did not eat the pancakes. He let them grow stale, and as he watched the process, the increasing inevitability of exhaustion became unconquerable.
It was night time, the sun had long since taken cover behind the unforgiving Denver skyline. It had just been him before, now it was them. Every time, when it would just be Andrew and the weight of a splintered past, Neil would always be there and help carry the burden.
But Andrew had already known this. Andrew had known it on the roof five years ago, and in Columbia one year after that. Andrew had known it in their shared dorm and in one of many late-night drives heading nowhere. Andrew had known in Palmetto, had known in Columbia. Now Andrew knew in Denver.
And it sounded ludicrous, the need of constant reassurance when all to have shifted was their location. It felt ridiculous to hesitate this much, to doubt a man who had proven himself fifty times over.
Absurd. Absurd, absurd, absurd–
“Hey.”
There he was again. When Andrew’s unfocused gaze left the TV’s blinding screen, there he was.
“Can I?” Neil gestured at the glaringly vacant spot beside Andrew.
“Yes.”
One word and the spot was overflowing, full to the brim with Neil and warmth and the characteristic scent of airports that Andrew had learned to associate with both home and loss.
The kitchen clock ticked obnoxiously, counting down the seconds until Neil left again, adding to the defunct pile that was the past, mercilessly stealing from Andrew with every tick, tick, tick .
783 ticks and Andrew’s head was resting on Neil’s shoulder, no memories resurfaced, no demons snapped their chains. 784 ticks and the clock vanished, took the shape of smoke and yielded to the breeze.
One, two, 653 heartbeats — a lifetime in a second. The rise and fall of the body pressed against his cheek was nothing if not an anchor tethering him to this reality, tangible and true.
Now, lulled into a dreamless sleep by the certainty of a present he was in control of and the promise of an attainable future, Andrew drowned the TV’s white noise out and melted into the couch, the sweet smell of butter still stubbornly clinging to the air.
***
What followed then was a blur of auburn and soft guidance. Words leading the way in the stead of intruding hands.
With his eyes barely open and the blanket firmly wrapped around his frame, Andrew had been slow if not outright clumsy throughout his journey from the living room to the bed.
He recalled Neil, all patience and adoring looks, sitting on the edge of the mattress. He recalled the wish of a touch, the feel of an unrequested “yes” left to die on Andrew’s tongue — it had not been its time.
He recalled the whispers, Neil’s voice dropping to a barely intelligible hum, the shape of tender words of devotion.
He recalled the disappearance of that comforting dip in the mattress, the sound of a pillow softly meeting the carpeted floors and boots being carefully unlaced.
Andrew recalled until he couldn’t.
***
When Andrew finally stirred awake, it was a peaceful hike back to full awareness — no harsh awakenings in the hopes of escaping self-made terrors.
Through the wide open door, Andrew could hear Neil tinkering around in the kitchen as well as the choir of cheerful meows accompanying the sound of the coffeemaker and Neil’s morning Exy news.
For a handful of cursory minutes, all Andrew did was blink at the ceiling and take in Neil Josten’s existence in an attempt to reconcile himself with the bed beneath his back.
Tick, tick, tick.
Andrew tossed the comforter aside, freeing himself of the latent impulse to fall back asleep, and padded over to the bathroom where the pile of grubby clothes no longer sat on its forgotten corner.
Tick, tick, tick.
Andrew, face still damp with the remnants of freezing water, walked out of the bathroom and made a slow approach Neil was sure to have detected from the moment Andrew had stepped into the room, if not earlier, but had yet to acknowledge.
With his back still turned, Andrew was given the privilege of a moment’s worth of hesitation before closing the distance and his arms wrapped around Neil’s waist. His eyes fell forcefully shut in a feeble attempt at heightening all his other senses in the hopes of, maybe, staying in this instance forever.
Neil, though silent, didn’t bother concealing the relief to wash over him, muscles going pliant under Andrew’s touch, every point of contact a reassurance.
They were not back in square one, back at the start and only ever imagining a potential outcome in which a life together was a far-fetched possibility. They were past those unspoken insecurities, living in this instant, one in which Andrew could wrap his arms around Neil and find comfort in touch. He tightened his hold.
A soft sigh escaped the seam of his lips when Neil, unhurriedly and leaving room for a ‘no’, tilted his head to press a kiss against Andrew’s hair. The action, though insubstantial in the grand scheme of things — just another kiss, just another morning — held the value of five years worth of patience and growth.
“Good morning.”
The words, croaky with an early morning quality, were a soothing humm that laced its way down Andrew’s spine. He planted a feather-light kiss on Neil’s neck and watched it bloom in shades of pink. He was safe.
“Morning.”
Andrew took half a step back, merely enough to nudge Neil so he’d turn. Easily complying, Neil shifted his stance and moved to lean against the counter, hands on both sides resting on the edge, blue searching hazel.
Andrew stared back, letting Neil read him and process whatever lurked underneath the stoic façade, until the sincerity of Neil’s understanding became too much to bear without a cup of coffee and a chance to collect himself. With a telling sigh, Andrew closed the distance, let his fingers get lost among the fabric of Neil’s shirt, and buried his face where he had just dropped a kiss.
Here, like this, he could feel Neil’s heartbeat. One intense thump after the other, and lulled by their compassed hymn, Andrew exhaled all the disquietude he had meticulously gathered over the span of brutally lonesome days, and rejoiced in the growing serenity boding to consume him whole.
They remained there for multiple stanzas recited by the kitchen’s clock. Tick, tick, tick and Andrew was home. Tick, tick, tick and Andrew was safe. Tick, tick, tick and he knew they would be fine.
***
It had been one hour, three minutes, and twelve seconds since Andrew had let go of Neil, emptied a cup of steaming coffee, and devoured a plate of freshly cooked pancakes. They had talked, or rather Andrew had listened to Neil ramble on about whatever crossed his mind. This time, Andrew listened. He didn’t contribute much more than the occasional nod or grunt, but he listened and stored away nonetheless.
It had been one hour, three minutes, and thirteen seconds since Andrew had tentatively kissed Neil’s lips before retreating to the bathroom and closing his eyes against the waterfalls of scorching water.
Had, had, had. That was then, this was now, and Neil was on the loveseat scrolling through his phone, legs stretched before him, and features lit up by the blue and gray hues seeping through the window panels. The snowstorm outside cast the room in a light that called for fuzzy socks and blankets upon blankets, yet there Neil sat, clad in thin sweatpants and a short sleeved shirt.
Begrudgingly, Andrew snatched yesterday’s blanket from where it uselessly laid on the couch and made his way toward Neil, who raised his head to offer Andrew the hint of a smile and the beginning of a confused frown when he caught sight of the fabric clutched in his hand. Puzzlement gave way to understanding when Andrew perched himself atop the armrest and covered the both of them with it.
“Okay?”
Neil nodded, stared, and nodded again. “Okay.”
Tick, tick, tick.
Time went by, minutes hunted down seconds, and as the never ending chase persisted, Andrew slowly migrated from the armrest and settled on Neil’s lap — only in moments like these did Andrew not actively resent his height. Only now that it allowed him to comfortably curl against Neil and breathe in everything he represented.
Neil’s hands remained a safe distance away from Andrew’s body. It was a good thing too. He wasn’t sure he could handle being touched just yet. He wanted to revel in the feeling of security only Neil knew how to provide without risking an encounter with the demons still hot on his trail.
The line between touching and being touched — an abyss in a few inches.
“We could order take out,” Neil mumbled at some point, benign words spoken against Andrew hair. “How would you feel about italian?”
Andrew, too engulfed by the moment’s placidity, only groaned his agreement.
“Pizza or pasta?”
“Pasta,” Andrew responded without angling his face away from where it rested on Neil’s chest.
“Pesto?” Neil asked. “Oh, this was the place with the good boletus, right? Ristorante La Traviatta? We could order that.”
Andrew hummed his agreement. “Boletus is fine.”
“Perfect,” Neil breathed, sent the order through, and discarded the phone once again in favor of watching the snowflakes skirt their way down to the ground.
Tick, tick, tick.
Food was on its way. Snow fell from the sky. Cars honked, and people desperately sought out refuge from the cold. But here, in their small bubble of an apartment where phantoms had been vanquished and monsters were slowly retreating, Andrew let the rest of the world fade into the background and focused on Neil’s steady heartbeat.
Thump, thump, thump. Andrew fell asleep.