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He wakes up alone.
The bed has a mismatched quilt neatly spread along the end of it, which he sort of hates, and there’s a space on the other side of the mattress that he throws a leg towards as he tries to shake the sleep from his bones, sheets cold on his bed-warm skin. He wakes up alone. He supposes he’ll have to get used to it.
He wishes he could have woken later, early early morning light peering through the curtains, and he’s tired from the late night, last minute, lost twice drive into town. He was greeted with endless cups of tea at the end of it, and Ray’s mile a minute conversation as they worked their way around the house at a quarter to midnight. He’d contemplated bailing, briefly, escaping to the motel he’d seen on the way in, then getting the hell out. He’d chalk it up to some sort of preemptive mid-life crisis, and things could go back to the way things were, in his town, his job. Rachel.
But he’s made up his mind.
This town seems nice enough anyway, from what he saw on the way in, pretty to spite its name maybe, and small. The main strip couldn’t have been more than an intersection, collected around a cafe, and there’s a garage, and an empty general store, for lease taped across the windows. A collection of houses on streets with odd names balloon from the middle, a few fields, old silos, a brown baseball pitch, and he’s run away to places like this before. He’ll stay until he figures out what it his that he wants, who he wants, where he wants. He’s tried the stiff-collared, stuffed elevator life, and he’s tried, and tried, and tried with Rachel, and he’s tried to want both of those things, but he doesn’t. For now, he’s made a decision and he’ll see it through, like he does, most of the time, and he’ll sort himself out. It’s a temporary sea change, so to speak, a chance to breathe country air.
Rachel would have teased him about it, his jumble of mixed metaphors, his mess of bed hair. She would have told him he could do better, that he’s wildly overqualified for shuffling paperwork around the dinky office downstairs. He would have said he likes paperwork, she would have called him a nerd. She would tease him about this too, about the quilt at the end of his bed, and the room in Ray’s pokey house, and the town with the funny name, and up and leaving her like that, for this.
He thinks it’s only fair that she’s his frame of reference, for things, for everything. He doesn’t think he should begrudge himself that, doesn’t think there’s any sense in burying the last twenty years and every part of his life she had a part in. He can’t obfuscate, won’t erase that she kissed him in the stands of a baseball match when he was sixteen, that he took her home to meet his parents, that she was his best friend, that he broke her heart, and broke her heart, and broke her heart , and broke off the engagement, and said they needed a break. He wants to forget the tattoo of the rain on his balcony, and his skin bristling from the cold, and her voice crackling like she was at the other end of a shoddy phone line and not in amongst boxes, in his apartment, in his head. He can’t forget how he felt, how she looked, her face crumpling, frown collecting beneath his mouth when he pressed a kiss to her forehead, and that he felt sad, but he didn’t feel the way she felt, even though he thought he did, even though he’d wanted to.
It’s not as hard as he thought it would be, waking up without her.
-
He wakes up alone.
He wakes up late, with flannel sheets tangled around his bare legs and David attempting to be quiet as he picks his way across Stevie’s apartment through the mess of their clothes on the floor. He has their forgotten whisky glasses in one hand, his shoes in the other, and his dark brow furrows when he sees Patrick propping himself up on an elbow.
‘Were you gonna leave a note?’
‘Yeah, look, I’ll call you,’ David says, his tone somewhere on the way to teasing, and Patrick watches as he attempts a more casual stance, crossing one bare foot in front of the other and leaning a little to the side, as if loitering against some imaginary wall. He’s half-dressed, has quoiffed his hair back into its usual shape, but his arms are bare, unsweatered, and he can see the hair rising on his skin. His eyes are a little inflated, like a deer in the headlights, somewhere between freeze and flight.
The blind panic bubbles somewhere right below the surface. Patrick can tell, because he feels it too, and he knows David’s afraid he’s making a mistake by staying, that he’d make a mistake by going, that he’s used to being walked out on, left without a note, used to walking out when he’s asked to, or before he is, to save himself more hurt. Patrick knows he’s fighting every conditioned instinct standing there, teasing him, not walking out the door, and he wants to tell him he won’t walk out either. He wants to say he won’t do that, that he’s here, that he’ll be here, but he doesn’t want to scare him off. Instead he clears the sleep from his voice, replaces it with all the warmth within him, and affection, and ginger teasing, and a small wave.
‘See you around.’
‘Definitely,’ David says, and he takes a few cautious steps toward the bed, leaning over to kiss him. It’s soft and short and tender, less desperate, less breathless than last night. His stomach still swoops as David presses a kiss to his forehead, to his left-side temple, to the mark he made on his neck that’s blossomed into a mottled bruise, before he stands again, moves back toward the kitchen. He places the glasses near the sink before he opens the fridge, bends down to peer inside. ‘I was going to make you coffee -
‘Come back to bed.’
‘ - but she doesn’t have any milk.’
He’s avoiding Patrick’s gaze, he thinks, avoiding his request, staring into Stevie’s empty fridge for answers instead. His expression is wound tight, and his posture pulled apart, voice straining still. It’s making Patrick panic a little that David is panicking so much. It’s making him worry that he’s come on too strong, or not strong enough, or that he made a fool of himself last night.
He’d liked that they had the time, had the space to spend the time figuring out each other’s bodies, figuring out what the other one likes. He’d had an idea, had a sense from their halfway there attempts at the store, because they couldn’t keep their hands off each other, but it wasn’t the same. It’s nothing compared to sitting on a bed with him, kissing lazily because they have the time, letting laughter bubble between their lips. It’s not the same as feeling David’s hands slip beneath his sweater, or whisper against his belt. It’s not the same as his body atop his, or beneath his, around and intertwined and inside his. It’s not the same as chasing each other’s lips, all tongues and teeth and bodies against each other, thighs and hands and the small of his back, and David’s stubble against his cheek.
Thinking that he knew what it might be like, from a few attempts in the backroom of the store, or from what he’s seen, what he’s watched trying to figure out what he wants, is different, is so different from reality . It’s messy and sweaty and very personal, and David has so much experience. He can’t help but feel he’s made a shambles of it, or said the wrong things this morning, or not said enough.
But David had fallen asleep tangled around him, hand hooked around his bicep and feet knocking his feet, and David had peppered kisses along his shoulder before he’d fallen asleep, and David had told him that it was good, so good, don’t stop, so good. They’d taken each other in their stride, and figured things out as they went along, it needn’t have been perfect because it was nice. Patrick feels good, feels right , things feel easy and he likes David, he really likes him. He doesn’t want to overthink it, doesn’t want to re-litigate, doesn’t wants to deconstruct. He doesn’t want to go into work.
‘David,’ he says softly, pressing his palm against the mattress to push himself upward, gesturing to it when David finally meets his eyes. ‘Come back to bed.’
‘We’re late,’ David mumbles, even as he moves towards the empty side of the bed, mouth threatening a smile and the mattress dipping a little as he crawls atop it. Patrick leans forward then, catching David’s shy, joyful expression between his hands, fingers splayed out against his jawline.
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Patrick says, and it takes him by surprise a little, its other meaning, and that he means it, that he wants David to know. It seems to take David by surprise too, his expression morphing into something unspeakably tender as he moves forward, as Patrick tugs him toward the pillows.
‘What will the bosses say?’ David surges against him, and the question sounds around laughter, is muffled between their mouths. He lets Patrick run his fingers through his hair, lets him mess it up, so little dark tufts stick upwards and there’s no mistaking what he’s been up to. He lets Patrick’s hands find purchase at the nape of his neck, and at his waist, as he rolls his hips against him.
‘They seem like the forgiving sort.’
-
He wakes up alone.
He wakes up without David.
He’s woken up without David before, has woken up without him most of his life, and on and off in the last four months, when it suited them, or he needed a change of clothes, or they couldn’t get Ray to shut up. This is different, this sucks - waking up without the possibility of waking up with him, every day since the barbeque, every morning for the last week.
It’s been a week of torture, of emotional self-flagallation, caught in between the lines of text messages, wrapped around link bracelets, and he’s not like this. He tries not to overthink, tries not to spiral into worst case scenarios or get caught in emotional quagmires from which he can’t see a way out, but he can’t seem to help himself.
Maybe it’s because he’s in love with him.
(It’s because he’s in love with him.)
Maybe it’s because he’s got nothing else to preoccupy his thoughts, nothing else to fill the silence, waking up alone this morning, and going to bed alone last night, and the night before, and the night before that. He’s at the store alone too, and on the walk home, and on the coffee run at the cafe, clocking odd glances from familiar faces. He’s sure what happened has made its way around the town already, gossip jumps between people here like wildfire between wooden houses. He’s been told that it’s made the rounds and he thinks they might have taken David’s side in the break up. He wants to tell him, wants to let him tease him about it, and he would if they were still talking, if they were still together.
He had thought they might have been together still. He’d told Rachel he was his boyfriend, is his boyfriend, hands plunged deep into his pockets and mouth dry, an overdue conversation, but tricky all the same to change decades of their history like that.
And they had texted. David had texted him. He had asked him to mind the store, told him about getting away for a couple of days, stilted conversations abutting an affectionate back-and-forth and Patrick had run headlong into over-worrying every response. He thought if he’d kept the conversation going David wouldn’t forget about him, he wouldn’t move on. He thought if he was gentle, and light, and funny enough, David wouldn’t be so angry, wouldn’t end things, would let them stay in this awkward space between dating and not, until he won him over.
After a day or two of radio silence he’d sent flowers to the motel. He’d dropped off chocolates with a bemused, protective Stevie, who’d told him he was a moron and said she’d pass them on. He’d sent a note, sent a bracelet, settled right into old gestures, tried and true to get someone to talk to you. He tailspins into something akin to desperation, a blind panic of texts and gifts until he goes to bed last night, alone, and realises he’s been an idiot.
David hasn’t told him much about his life, about the others. He should have asked, should have let David ask him about his, but they’d fortified the edges of the corner of their town instead, let their fledgling relationship run wild within its artificial boundaries until it could stumble safely into love.
David hasn’t wanted to tell him about his past, but heard enough from throwaway self-deprecation, off-hand jokes to know that it hadn’t been good, that the others, the ones before him, hadn’t been kind, hadn’t treated him well. He’d pieced together enough of the puzzle of him to realise, last night, mismatched quilt at the end of his bed, and a pair of David’s socks in the corner of the room, and his heart in the pit of his stomach, that he’s treated him the same way. He hadn’t told him, he hadn’t asked , and then he’d smothered him. He’d thrown thing after thing at him without so much as a text in response, because it had made him feel better, and he hadn’t thought any further than that.
He feels the same in the morning, sleep failing to assuage the tightness in his chest, the waves of embarrassment that lap against his skin and make him blush, make him feel a little sick. His head is so full of things he wants to tell David that they spill into his mouth, and he tests them out as he wakes up, to see how they fit around his tongue, between his teeth. He wants to tell him he’s sorry. He wants to tell him about Rachel. He wants to tell him everything about before, everything he’d left out, the boys he thinks he might have liked, the men he thinks he might have wanted. He wants to tell him he loves him. He wants to tell him he loves him, and his world feels like its shifted left of centre, but that’s not for David to resolve, that’s not for him to figure out. He’ll figure it out by himself. That’s what he’ll tell him.
They can still run the store though. He cares about it too much to leave it behind, and there’s nothing to stop them being colleagues. There’s nothing to stop them being friendly.
There’s nothing wrong with maybe telling him he missed him, as a colleague. It’s not weird to fix his hair in the reflection of the register before David gets there, rectify the mess that sleep made of it. He doesn’t need to analyse the way his heart leaps into his throat when David comes through the door, even half an hour late, even in a leather sweater, even in this weather.
After, he pretends to be cross.
After he couldn’t be more thrilled, David’s hands on his thighs and music filling the store. After he leans forward, tells him he’s an idiot, tells him he’s sorry he was an idiot. After he takes him home, takes him to bed, presses a line of kisses along the line of his hair.
-
He wakes up married.
There’s a pile of their suits, shirts, ties, shoes, draped and folded neatly across the chair. There’s a pile of oddly wrapped presents by the door, and a pile of half-eaten strawberries from the hotel staff on the coffee table, and a pile of David’s hair tickling his neck.
His head rests at an odd angle against Patrick’s collarbone, he thinks he’ll complain when he’s awake, and it rises and falls with Patrick’s slow waking sighs. He’s a little trapped by David on his shoulder, and by his arm flung across his middle and tangled in the sheets at his waist, but he doesn’t mind. He still feels like he did yesterday, a little overwhelmed, a little full to the brim, and to the ends of his nerves. It’s like there’s only so much happiness one body can handle in a day, like it had to hold some in so he could deal with the residue today, let it jump between his synapses, run wild around his body, let it bubble on his lips, and against the lines on David’s forehead.
‘Morning’, David mumbles, and he’s woken him up. He shifts away a little, tries to keep still.
‘Morning. Sorry.’
‘I don’t think - ’ David clears the sleep from his throat, and he feels him shift closer, feels his fingers trace the linen at Patrick’s waist, before they slip beneath it to make light, messy circles around his left hip bone. David’s brow is serious, but his voice is laced with humour, and he starts to drum a gentle tattoo against his skin. ‘I don’t think I caught your name last night.’
‘Oh, let’s not do names.’
David peers up at him then, eyes bright, mouth in a tight-lipped smile, pulled to one side of his face, so he can hold in the happiness the best way he knows. David looks at him like he always does, like he did at the start, relieved Patrick’s in on the joke, thrilled when he brings David in on his.
‘Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve hooked up with a stranger at a wedding,’ he shrugs, and Patrick places a hand atop David’s to pause his fidgeting. David turns his hand over then so their palms meet briefly, before he lets his thumb slide across Patrick’s knuckles, like mountains and valleys to crest before he reaches the thin gold band on his fourth finger. It’s a new addition, a yesterday addition to his fairly jewelry minimal collection. It makes him feel entirely far too happy to deal with atop his current portions, a separate happiness that he’ll process later, so he just lets David traces his thumb against it, lets himself feel David’s own rings bump against it. ‘Probably the last time though.’
‘Probably?’
‘Probably,’ David brings Patrick’s hand up to his mouth, presses a grin to the ring there.
‘Funny,’ Patrick deadpans, shuffles down a little on the pillow. He brings his free hand under Davids chin to shift his gaze upward and leans forward, presses his nose against David’s cheek. ‘Remind me to tell my next husband that one.’
David doesn’t bother to hide his grin this time, wide and warm, and caught against Patrick’s mouth, the kiss messy and familiar and dissolved into laughter.