24

He convinces the gang to hold game night on a weekday, after a fair bit of complaining from both Goby and Mona. They always have game nights on the weekend; that’s what they argue as they lay strewn across the living room and kitchen, wondering why Malcolm wants to switch up game nights for the first time in years.

But Rebo works on weekend nights, which means Peter wouldn’t be able to stay long.

Jazz seems to sense Malcolm’s train of thought. “I think a weekday works better for my schedule,” she chimes in from the couch, having a staring contest with Lady Governor as she sits on Jazz’s chest. “Got lots of, y’know, beekeeper shit to do this weekend. Can’t keep the bees waiting.”

“Aren’t you in the research department?” Goby asks. A soggy bite of Nutri-Grain bar sits in their open mouth, and Malcolm cringes.

“Yeah, and I’ve got lots of important bee information to write about. Did you know male bees’ dicks explode when they ejaculate?”

That seems to convince Mona (about game night, not the bee sex), and Goby’s outnumbered 3 to 1 once Mona is on board, so game night gets moved to Wednesday. Malcolm mouths a ‘thank you’ to Jazz, and she throws him a wink.

Peter sends a text that night that just says, show me the baby. Lady Governor is comfortably asleep on Malcolm’s chest, purring loudly. He smiles and adjusts the camera until she’s within view and presses record. He brings a hand up to brush down her back, and she makes a soft mrrp noise, burrowing further into his chest. The collar of his shirt pulls down with her, but he doesn’t dare fix it and disrupt her peace. He huffs out a quiet laugh, not wanting to wake her up, and kisses her on the head before ending the recording.

When he sends it to Peter, the three dots that indicate he’s typing pop up about four times before he finally sends a simple, cute. Malcolm spends more time debating whether Peter was referring to him or the cat than he cares to admit.

The night before game night, Malcolm spends hours in his bed trying to fall asleep. He was half tempted to lay out his clothes for the morning, like he would for the first day of school when he was little. He tries every method of falling asleep that he knows of: counting down, counting up, counting sheep. A lot of counting. He played YouTube clips of rain, thunderstorms, something titled “Wind Chimes and Flutes for Meditation,” but nothing did the trick. He was stuck thinking of how tomorrow could possibly go; but even when he went through every scenario—from best case to worst—his body still failed to let him calm down and drift off.

Malcolm grabs his phone, hissing when the light hits his eyes. He blindly lowers the brightness, blinking a few times until the burst of color behind his eyelids goes away. He pulls up his messages, debating. Goby’s definitely asleep, and so is Mona. Jazz might be awake, but he doesn’t want to risk her wrath if he accidentally wakes her up...

Malcolm imagines it, for just a moment. Calling Peter, talking to him, just the two of them without an audience of who-knows-how-many people listening in. Slowly hearing Peter’s voice grow tired since he wouldn’t have the radio show to keep him awake. Speaking in hushed tones and sleepy laughter. Staying on call even when the phone goes silent except for their quiet snores, connected through a single line of communication even in their sleep.

don’t wanna wake the others, y’know?

You, Malcolm thinks vehemently, desperately. He wants to say it. He even types it into the message box. But he can’t. He can’t.

what? why?

Malcolm stares at his phone. He didn’t know any of that. Peter’s been teaching him so much, and the guy’s done all this research to help himself and others; Malcolm just assumed Peter had everything figured out about himself.

His thumbs hover over the keyboard. How does Peter do this so easily? How does he always know the right thing to say? Malcolm’s not like that. His words are jumbled and clumsy and sometimes do more harm than good.

goby sometimes takes stimming breaks

when they’ve had a long day.

just, you know, sits in the living room

and rocks back and forth, or spins in

circles to get all their energy out.

mona puts reminders on the fridge for

me to eat breakfast, cause i forget a lot.

especially if i haven’t taken my meds yet.

i used to read jazz the study guides for

our finals out loud cause letters can get

real mixed up for her sometimes.

i’m saying i’ll help. we all will.

you’ll learn how to be yourself again,

peter. and while you figure it out, you

won’t be alone.

i promise.

The read receipt appears under Malcolm’s texts, but it takes longer for the typing bubble on Peter’s side to pop up again. It takes so long for Peter to respond that Malcolm falls asleep before it’s sent, the buzz of his phone only a distant sensation in his drowsy state. When he wakes, he checks his phone to see only two messages from Peter, much shorter than he anticipated from the amount of time it took him to respond. Malcolm looks at the time stamps and sees that there’s a twenty-minute gap between the first text and the next.