| |
Jamie doesn't sleep very well, despite being exactly where he wants to be. He's not nearly exhausted enough this time to override the fact that he's used to sleeping alone. But he can't bring himself to mind all the times he finds himself woken by the unfamiliar heat of a shared bed, or the slight movements of a body sleeping beside him. More than once he takes the opportunity to squirm closer, burying himself in Victor's arms and all but purring at how safe he feels.
He keeps waking up on his own side of Victor's big bed, restless sleeper that he is. But the pleased ember deep inside him continues to burn incandescent, and his fatigue in the morning can't compete with his satisfaction at starting the day with drowsy kisses.
Jamie sleeps at Victor's place the next night too. And the night after that. There's a stubbornness to the arrangement born not just of a desire for closeness, but caught up in an irrational fear that maybe January is all they'll have. What if, despite the desperate weight in Jamie's heart, circumstances bite them in the ass and all of this turns out to be temporary? What if he goes back to school and Victor slips between his fingers, completely out of reach?
Jamie does his best not to acknowledge these fears. His life is his own to shape. He won't lose Victor if he simply refuses to let go.
January creeps stubbornly by, and even with Victor's grounding presence in his life—even bouncing awkwardly back and forth between his parents' house and Victor's cozy apartment—the passage of days brings with it an undeniable rumble of cabin fever. Jamie is an overambitious student on the cusp of finishing college and starting grad school. He hasn't had a January free of obligation since he was a kid, and he's never been a fan of winter. Of course he finds himself at loose ends, with no homework to do, no applications to fill out, no essays to write.
He spends more time with his local friends. By the second week, he's meeting Victor's friends too, which brings inevitable awkwardness since many of them know Warren Phipps. Even the folks who look askance at them are diplomatic about it, though. Jamie goes in braced for more dramatic reactions, and is relieved at not having to defend their relationship to people Victor counts as friends.
The night he invites Victor to a party of his own crowd, Jamie is shocked—and delighted—when the answer is an immediate yes.
For all that Jamie has spent plenty of time in public at Victor's side, there is something powerful and unexpectedly thrilling about arriving at Tamika and Andrew's place—a small house in a stretch of neighborhood between two university campuses—and introducing Victor as his boyfriend. No one so much as raises an eyebrow in the moment, though a couple of people corner Jamie alone later to ask nosy questions. How did you meet him? Is he rich? Why didn't you tell us your boyfriend is so much older than you? Dude, where'd you find a guy that hot, you don't even date.
"I date!" Jamie protests to that last one, and only gets an exasperated snort in return.
He manages to lose track of Victor, in the course of bouncing between groups and conversations. He would feel guilty about it, if not for the fact that when he texts to check in, he gets no reply. Hey, you still good? Let me know if you want to leave. If Victor is lost and bored in a quiet corner somewhere, Jamie won't make him stay at a party he's not enjoying. Jamie's having a pleasant time, but he would honestly rather be spending time with Victor than anyone else in this over-crowded house.
It's this fact that sends him on an actual search, two red plastic cups of root beer in hand.
"He was headed downstairs last I saw him," someone says, when Jamie interrupts an animated argument about violin makers to ask if anyone has seen Victor.
So Jamie heads for the stair off the main hall that leads into a finished basement. He hears excited shouting as soon as he nudges the door open with his hip, and the volume only rises as he makes his way down carpeted steps. Laughter and taunting, and even before Jamie rounds the corner into the noisy room, he can tell they're playing video games. Something on an old-school console, full of silly cars and ridiculous projectiles. Exactly the kind of game Jamie's always been terrible at.
There's one big couch at the center of the room, over-full with the four players whose cars are vying for supremacy on an enormous television screen. A dozen other people sit throughout the rest of the room—on pillows or bean bags or a couple of folding chairs—heckling and hollering encouragements.
The action on the screen is far too chaotic for Jamie to make sense of, but from the commentary flying around the room, he quickly figures out Victor is winning.
The race ends with a flourish and an ear-splitting chorus of groans and cheers.
"Rematch!" demands Andrew from one end of the couch, tossing his controller to the ground in a huff of indignation.
"You've already had three rematches," counters someone from the floor. "Give someone else a chance to get their ass handed to them."
Jamie is standing almost directly behind Victor, and yet Victor must sense his arrival, because he twists around to look over his shoulder—and there's not even the faintest suggestion of surprise in the quirk of his mouth and the crinkling corners of his eyes. "Sorry guys, I'm out," Victor says, turning around to hand his controller to the nearest bean bag occupant and standing from his spot at the center of the couch. "Thanks for the game."
A cacophony of protests follows his retreat, but he pays them no mind as he joins Jamie at the base of the stairs. The sparkle in Victor's eyes is enough to take Jamie's breath away, and he bites his lip as he hands over one of the root beers.
"Thanks." Victor leans up and in to press a kiss to Jamie's cheek. He speaks low, not secretive, but just for Jamie, when he asks, "You enjoying the party?"
"Yeah." Jamie grins. "Apparently not as much as you, though. Didn't know you were a video game champion."
Victor shrugs. "We had a couple different consoles on base. You think I spent all my downtime lifting weights and playing online chess?"
"Guess not." Jamie reaches for Victor's hand, and his smile turns softer at how easily their fingers tangle together. "You want to head out soon?"
"Whenever." Victor shrugs. "I like your friends. They're good kids."
Jamie's eyes narrow, but he doesn't even need to protest before Victor offers him a chagrined look.
"Sorry. I didn't mean... They're not kids. Just younger than my usual crowd." He says this with a wry smile and sheepish air that acknowledges Jamie is younger than his usual crowd too. It's ground they've already covered. They don't need to retread it here.
Easy enough to relent and let Victor off the hook, especially when Jamie's just relieved the evening's been enjoyable for both of them. "Okay," he says. He takes a sip of root beer, then tugs at Victor's hand. "Come on. Let's go back upstairs." He'll drag Victor with him on one last circuit through the crowd, to say goodbye instead of vanishing into the night like phantoms, and then they can head home.
"Hey." Victor stops him on the stairs—a fleeting moment of privacy—and tugs Jamie into a real kiss, quick and sweet. Jamie presses into him, subsiding only reluctantly. He meets the fond glint in Victor's eyes with a wordless spark of heat, then lets himself be tugged right back into motion as Victor continues up the stairs.
*
The closer the end of January looms, the more Jamie wants to spend every waking hour at Victor's new apartment. He resists the urge, despite how uncomfortable he finds existing in his parents' house right now. He still sleeps in Victor's bed most nights, but he is also painfully aware that he won't convince his parents of anything by avoiding them completely.
Twice he finds himself left behind when Anika—once via phone call and once by turning up unannounced on Victor's doorstep—invites Victor on long walks, for conversations that cannot possibly be pleasant for either of them. Jamie tries not to rankle at the fact that he is expressly not invited. His presence wouldn't help. The conversations may be about him, at their core, but his voice isn't the one Anika needs to hear right now.
He hates how tense they both are when they return from these wintery jaunts, quiet and off-balance and disinclined to tell him what he's missed. But the fact that Anika keeps reaching out seems important, and Jamie chooses to be grateful she's making an effort.
Warren is a different story, quiet in a way that speaks more to sullen rage than awkward misgivings. Jamie tries a dozen times to talk to him, but the effort never gets him far. Maybe his voice is the wrong one here, too. Warren is almost certainly worried about Jamie, protective father that he is, but Jamie isn't the crux of the problem. No input from Jamie can repair the breach between Warren and Victor. As far as the betrayal between friends is concerned, Jamie is an outside party. It's not his place to ask for Warren's forgiveness.
It still hurts. More than anything, Jamie wants to help, and he hates how little he can actually do.
The day he arrives at Victor's apartment and hears his dad's voice through the front door, Jamie nearly falls over from the shock. Even more startling is the resigned calm that carries through Warren's voice, each word clipped and unhappy, but steady in a way Jamie wouldn't have anticipated.
"Are you in love with my son?"
Jamie has already put the key in the lock, and he freezes with his hand on the doorknob, keeping perfectly still.
"I've known him a month," Victor says, and the answer is as good as the yes pulsing like a beacon in Jamie's chest. If the answer were no, Victor would have spoken bluntly instead of dodging the question. "Would you even believe me, if I told you I was already in love with him?"
The sound Warren huffs is surprisingly close to a laugh, gruff and dry though it is. "Fuck no."
A thoughtful quiet extends, through which Jamie can't actually picture the expression on either man's face. Even his dad, whom he knows so well, remains a cipher within the contours of Jamie's mind. Probably frowning, but with what nuance? Stubborn anger? Grudging forgiveness? Fearful confusion? It bothers Jamie to not know—though not enough to coax him forward and through the door.
Finally Victor breaks the silence, speaking low and earnest. "Believe this, then. I want to be a good partner, for as long as he'll have me."
Exasperated wrath surges in Jamie's chest, so hot that he misses the next murmured words. By the time he tunes back in, the conversation has turned another direction. Quieter, making Jamie strain to hear the words being exchanged.
"I don't know that I'll ever be able to forgive you." Warren sounds heartbroken now, overriding the low thrum of anger still present in his voice. "I can't even promise to try. You get how fucked this is, right?"
"I know I hurt you," Victor says. "And I truly am sorry for that. I went about this all wrong."
Warren's answer is a bitter rasp of laughter. "There's no right way to go about this, Vic. We're talking about my son. You can't possibly think there was any chance I'd approve of you sleeping with him, for fuck's sake."
Victor murmurs something too low for Jamie to hear, prompting Warren to lower his voice too. Not deliberately secretive—they can't possibly have noticed he's out here—but maddeningly quiet and making it impossible to hear what they're saying. A moment later, Jamie loses track of even the softer indecipherable murmuring, and he stifles a curse as he eases closer to the door.
He's so focused on trying to figure out if they're still talking that he doesn't register the tap of footsteps approaching, and when the door swings inward beneath his hand, Jamie can't even pretend he wasn't eavesdropping.
His dad stands there blinking at him, stunned and frozen. Jamie stares back guiltily for several seconds, before finally stepping aside. It's a painfully awkward exchange, as Warren gives him a nod and a quick clap on the shoulder, and then hurries past Jamie, across the landing and down the stairs, disappearing out the front entrance without a word.
Victor's door is still open, and Jamie steps through, barely remembering to reclaim his keys on the way past. Victor himself stands near the window, posture loose, hands in his front pockets. He wears a bemused little smile, and Jamie's surprised he doesn't seem irritated about being spied on.
Jamie knocks the door shut with his hip and hangs his keys on the hook beside the light switch. Out of deference to Victor's clean floors, he kicks off his boots before flopping down onto the unsteady old armchair in the corner. The conversation replays through his mind in bits and pieces, and he draws a shaky breath as one piece in particular snags on his thoughts like a thorn.
"For as long as I'll have you?" he demands, glaring at Victor across the apartment and folding his legs up to his chest. He wraps his arms around his knees, as though maybe he can ground himself if he holds on tight enough. "What kind of fickle asshole do you think I am?"
"I don't think you're fickle." Victor moves with remarkable efficiency, crossing the space between them in quick strides. He bypasses the couch completely, and instead kneels on the floor where Jamie's feet would be, if he weren't so thoroughly folded into the chair. "I think you're young."
"That's not the vote of confidence I was hoping for." Jamie swallows past a lump of feeling and makes himself push past the instinct to brush this aside. "Whatever you think I'm trying to... I wouldn't use you like that, Vic. I know I can be thoughtless, but I wouldn't—"
"Hey." Victor rises up onto his knees and takes both of Jamie's hands between his own. "You've never been thoughtless. And I know you wouldn't. That's not what I'm saying."
Jamie unfolds his legs, the better to let Victor hold onto his hands. Hell, he hadn't even realized he was anxious about this, but here he is staring into Victor's eyes, begging for reassurances he's not sure how to articulate.
"Then what are you saying?" he asks.
Victor considers him for what feels like a very long time. "I'm saying you don't need to make me any promises. Not now. Not yet." An upward twitch at the corner of his mouth tempers these words enough that they don't feel like a rejection. "This is still new for both of us. We've got a lot to figure out, no matter how much we might care for each other."
Jamie catches his lower lip between his teeth, worrying at it for a moment but ultimately failing to stop himself from blurting the quiet confession. "You know I love you, right?"
Victor's dark eyes go soft, his whole expression beaming with fondness, heat, humor, even a hint of possessiveness. Such a complicated whirlwind of emotions, and every single one of them resonates all the way through Jamie's chest, his belly clenching tight in answer. When Victor's hand touches the side of his face, Jamie nuzzles into his palm.
"I love you too, sweetheart," Victor says, and the ready sincerity of the words chases away the worst of Jamie's fears. "But I've also got decades on you. The last thing I ever want is to make you feel trapped."
What if I want to be trapped by you? Jamie resists the urge to ask this question, painfully aware that it won't get him any extra points in their discussion. Hell, if any of his friends called and told him they'd found the love of their life in someone they'd only known a matter of weeks, Jamie would be hard pressed to believe them. From a more practical vantage point, nothing about this makes sense. And little as Jamie wants to think about that view of reality right now, he can't actually fault Victor's caution.
"We're at very different places in our lives," Victor murmurs, as though answering the meandering path of Jamie's thoughts. "That doesn't mean we can't be together. But it complicates things. I'll never forgive myself if I hurt you, and the best way to make sure that doesn't happen is to be realistic about the challenges ahead."
"You were talking to Dad like you're assuming this won't last."
"Not assuming." Victor's other hand squeezes tighter where he still holds both of Jamie's. "I'm not letting you go without a fight. But if you ever want out, I won't hold you back. That's the truth your dad needs to know, if he's ever going to trust me again."
"You should come to Spokane with me." The words burst out of Jamie, sudden and jarring, and his eyes widen at the urgent plea in his own voice.
Victor blinks up at him, startled to silence.
Jamie sets both feet firmly on the ground and leans forward—so close he could kiss Victor if he wanted to—holding onto Victor's hands more tightly than ever. "I'm staying put for grad school, so I'll be there a few more years. You could move in with me while you figure out what you want to do."
Victor only looks more shocked at this explanation. "Jamie..."
"It's a small apartment, but we already know we can share a bathroom without killing each other." Jamie tries to keep his tone teasing, but he can't entirely conceal the pleading ache. The thought of having Victor in his space fills him with eager longing, even if his tiny little one-bedroom apartment will be completely impractical to share. "You can still buy your own place if you want. Or we can look for a bigger apartment together. But no matter what, house hunting will be easier if you already have somewhere to stay, right? I mean... assuming you'd be okay with living in Washington."
"You're serious?" A note of awe has crept into Victor's voice.
"Of course I'm serious. I want you with me." Jamie swallows hard. "I'll do long distance if we need to, but couldn't we just... Once I finish grad school, we can go anywhere. Washington's as good a place as any for an existential crisis in the meantime, right?"
Victor huffs a low laugh. "I told you, it's not an existential crisis."
Jamie cracks a smile. "Soul searching, then. Washington's as good a place as any for soul searching."
"You're probably right."
Jamie's breath hitches. "So you'll come to Spokane?"
"I will," Victor agrees, and covers Jamie's relieved laugh with a kiss.