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i.
He’s the one in blue. He’s the one in the dark blue jeans and the light blue button down, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, the muscles in his forearms straining against the weight of the box he carries up the sidewalk towards the store. Two takeaway cups are perched on top of it, a little precarious, but he seems just fine and there’s a lightness about Patrick he envies, a cool determination he admires. David thinks he could pick him in any crowd. David thinks he missed him last night.
He tries to dismiss the thought as rapidly as it appears, showing up unannounced and sucker punching him with the feeling of missing Patrick, because he’s right there, because it’s dumb. They saw each other yesterday, and what right does he have to go around missing him anyway? They’re not in love, or anything. He’s not his boyfriend he doesn’t think, he’s pretty sure, they haven’t even had a second date. He’s not even sure their first date counts, if he didn’t realise until half way through that it was one, so they haven’t even had their second half of their first date, they haven’t slept together, he could count on one hand the amount of times they’ve kissed.
It doesn’t make any sense that it would feel weird going to bed without him last night, if he’s never gone to bed with him. He’s got nothing to compare it to, nothing to miss, has been going to bed without him his whole life and he never felt like that with any of the others, if they stuck around that long. It wasn’t about bed anyway, with them, with the others, in the sleeping sense. It was about sex, about bodies, about games, rules, unspoken codes, social morays he became adept in - if he should stay the night, if he should leave before they wake up, if they might leave before he does, and when should he call, and what if they don’t, and what if they do, and what is it they want, what is it he wants.
It’s not that he hasn’t thought about it, what it would be like, with Patrick. Sex, with Patrick. His body. Their bodies. All sweat and sheets, awkward limbs, nervous laughter, expletives unfamiliar to his gentle mouth. Obviously he’s thought about it, thinks about it, wants it - knows Patrick thinks about it too, knows he wants it, too - but it feels different, feels novel; because he really, really likes him. He doesn’t like him because he wants to have sex with Patrick, or because he knows Patrick wants to have sex with him. It’s more like, he likes him, and he wants to have sex with him, wants to wake up with him, go to bed with him, make him come, make him happy, make coffee for him, make dinner for him, trek out to the fucking farmers’ markets with him. The sex feels peripheral, felt peripheral last night in his bed, in the motel, without him; and it’s weird, and he doesn’t want to think about it, so he’s not going to think about it.
Instead he fishes his keys out of his pocket, puffs his chest with a bravado he doesn’t feel and hurries across the road, to meet Patrick as he nears their store. He worries briefly that he’s interrupting, invading on a moment of peace before they spend the rest of the day together, but Patrick pauses, breathes out a smile, gestures to the four or five people on their slow journey to work.
‘Hell of a commute.’
‘Rush hour. Hi.’
‘Hi,’ Patrick tries to lean forward then, but is buffered by the box and two coffees which bump uncomfortably between them. David shuffles out of his way, then, uses the advantage of his height to kiss him hello with a level of casual self-assurance he certainly doesn’t feel. ‘You’re in early.’
‘Sometimes I’m in early.’
‘Which some times are those?’
‘Okay,’ David attempts to bristle, feels fit to burst instead, fumbles with the keys in the door so Patrick won’t see how endeared he is, or that David thinks he likes him far more than previously anticipated, or that he missed him last night, but he knows, David knows he knows. ‘Sometimes you’re not very nice.’
David chews at his lip, presses himself up against the door, so Patrick can move past him into the store, but he pauses, shoulder brushing his chest, head cocked to the side so his warm breath plays on David’s neck. He leans closer, and David’s heart crawls into his throat, like it is wont to do, when he flirts with him, and it occurs to him that Patrick might have been flirting with him for a while, actually. Before his birthday, maybe. Like from the start, possibly, he might have been flirting with him.
(He was flirting with him.)
‘Oh?’ Patrick’s voice is soft, and low and curled around a smile. ‘When am I not nice?’
Turns out it’s early early, like well before nine o’clock early, and the prospect of attempting to keep his cool in the hours before customers, of trying to maintain an air of winsome charm so Patrick doesn’t regret the mess he’s got himself into, is entirely too much. He’s itching to run away, spend the day hiding amongst cardboard, avoiding feeling this thing he’s been feeling, or thinking about feeling the thing he’s been feeling. He skirts behind the register while Patrick is preoccupied with the box, picks his way through the storeroom, as far back as he can go, tucks himself between boxes of sweaters and containers of tea, tried to stay there as long as he can.
It’s just that the longer he stays there, the more he realises that he will have to come back out at some point, if he wants coffee.
Really, the longer he’s back there alone, and the more he thinks about it, the more he misses Patrick, like last night, misses having him around, wants to be around him, and maybe it wouldn’t be too bad for him to know, somehow. Maybe he missed him too.
He picks his way out to the counter, peers at the coffee with his order scrawled on the lid. He wants to tell him, wants to explain, but every variation sounds too serious, sounds like some sort of declaration, and he lingers awkwardly, tries to figure out some way to say he missed him that doesn’t come out idiotic.
‘You okay?’ Patrick offers eventually, bless him, frown crawling across his forehead.
‘Yeah,’ he thinks he should just leave it there, maybe Patrick will read between the lines. Except, well, he did ask, and he doesn’t think he was super convincing, and there’s something about the way Patrick looks at him now, teetering between shrewd and shy and soft that makes him think maybe he could tell him, or half-tell him, or trust him, a little bit. ‘I kinda missed you, last night.’
‘Oh’, Patrick says gently and David feels warmth blossom in his cheeks as he watches him, expression unreadable for a moment before it softens entirely. Patrick is unguarded in his affection, wide eyes and smile lines and bravery and it should make David feel a bit safer, but instead he feels a little exposed. It’s a nervous habit he hopes he’ll grow out of, but for now he bites at his lip, tugs at his sweater, peers at his feet. ‘Kind of?’
‘After a fashion.’
‘After a fashion?’ Patrick repeats with a laugh, and David chances a look at him.
His smile is bright and teasing and David starts to find his feet again in their back-and-forth with a roll of his eyes, a casual shrug.
‘You know, in a way.’
‘I know what it means,’ Patrick shifts from where he leans on the island bench, makes his way to David. He stands close, close enough to touch him but he hovers, hesitates instead, waits for David to reach out first. He hooks a finger through a belt loop and play nervously with the denim there, and a smile bubbles on Patrick’s lips, teasing, endeared, as he catches David’s eyes. ‘I guess I missed you too. You know, somehow. In a way. After a fashion.’
Patrick leans forward then, stretches upward to kiss him, a teasing smile and his black coffee, three sugars, staining his lips. They’re still a little unpracticed, still a little new to this, but David doesn’t mind, revels in the clumsiness of it, the novelty of it, letting his nose bump awkwardly against Patrick’s, letting the kiss linger, easy, tender, until it becomes familiar.
‘You taste like coffee,’ David says as he pulls away, and fumbles blindly for his own cup, body still flush against Patrick’s, and he’d happily stay here for the rest of the day. ‘Thanks for mine, by the way. You’re very nice.’
ii.
It’s well past midnight by the time Patrick gets home.
He knows Patrick’s home, to their home, their new home, when a large crash sounds near him. He’s wrenched from his early night’s sleep, sits up on an elbow and peers, bleary-eyed, at one of the many packing boxes towered around the bed now at Patrick’s socked feet.
‘Hi.’
‘Hi,’ Patrick whispers, panicked, turning the box upright. ‘Sorry. Go back to sleep.’
‘Drive okay?’ David asks, letting his head fall back on the pillow, pulling the duvet around his neck. Patrick’s wearing pajamas, so he must have got in a little while ago, poking around in the dark so he didn’t wake David, and he loves him for it. He’s been gone a few days, opted for a late night drive home so he didn’t have to spend another night in some out of town conference hotel, with, by all accounts, the dullest people in the state, and David loves him for that, too.
‘Fine. Long,’ he hears Patrick mumble, feels the mattress dip beneath his weight, feels his chest, warm and solid against his back. Patrick’s fingers find the hem of his sweater, and when they slip beneath it, he can’t help but to flinch at the cool metal of the thin gold band (second finger, left hand), against his stomach. ‘Sorry.’
‘Sh,’ David presses his hand over Patrick’s, atop the sweater, when he begins to move away. He doesn’t want him going anywhere, again, for a while - no conferences, no work, no leaving this bed - until he doesn’t miss him so much, miss him while he’s here. He thinks it’s only when someone comes back do you think about missing them, and what they took with them, and what they brought home, but he could be talking nonsense. He’s too sleepy. He missed him. ‘I missed you.’
He’s already starting to doze when Patrick shifts from where his chin rests on David shoulder, turning so his face is buried in his neck, and he’s followed into sleep by Patrick telling him he missed him too, punctuated by his mouth, pressed in a kiss against his bed warm skin.