by Aiden Bates
Mitch settled himself on my shoulder, and I pecked him affectionately on the side of the head. He opened one bright green eye to look at me and he nudged his head in the direction of Marcos. I reached over Mitch to grab Marcos’s arm and tugged him toward us. He was so tired, he went without a word. He wrapped his arm around Mitch’s waist, and rested his fingers on the dip of my hip.
None of us said a word, just relaxing in the moment and letting the calm of the night around us settle in. My last thought before sleep took me was just how comfortable I felt, how calm and peaceful I felt having both of them here with me.
13
Marcos
Sometimes, when I slept on the two chairs I usually pulled together at the hospital, I’d wind up kicking the chair I had my feet propped on away from me. A lot of the times, when I dreamed, I dreamed of the IED explosion. Sometimes, in those dreams, the incident played out the same way it had played out in real life. Sometimes, it played out with me getting hit instead of Pedro, or with me smelling my own skin burning off like Carpenter. Once or twice, I’d even dreamed that I was paralyzed in a coffin as all my friends and family buried me instead of O’Rourke. Regardless, they weren’t the kind of dream that anyone would sleep through easily, and about the only roommate who could sleep through my nightmares these days was Pedro.
This was different, though. Last night had been amazing, but had also been exhausting, on both a physical and emotional level. The plan had worked. Mami had agreed to keep Pedro with us for now, and we were doing our best to make sure Mitch got pregnant. Everything seemed to be going right for a change. The bed was warm from all the body heat shared between Oliver, Mitch and myself, and the mattress was softer than anything I’d ever slept on; whether at boot camp, in Malmur, at the hospital or even on Pedro’s and my hand-me-down beds as we grew up.
So, I slept. And for the first time in a long time, slept so deeply and so well that I had no idea if I dreamed anything at all. I normally woke up in my two chairs when the beeping of the machines connected to Pedro changed or when the nurses came in on their early rotations. This morning when I woke up, all of the familiar beeps and whirrs were missing, the smell of antiseptic wasn’t anywhere in the air, and there weren’t any glaring lights keeping the room unnaturally well-lit.
Instead, the light of morning came in through the blinds and was warming my face, I was completely alone in the bed and in the room, and instead of the air smelling like something slightly acidic and clean, it smelled like…what was that? Bacon. The air smelled like bacon and maple syrup. The world was warm, gently-lit, and smelled like breakfast.
“Bet you can’t.”
“Bet I can. What’ll you give me if I do it?”
“Nothing, because you can’t.”
I couldn’t make out the entire conversation, but by the tones of the voices I heard, clearly some kind of friendly argument was going on in the kitchen.
“Don’t do it. You’re going to drop it.”
“Ready? On three. One…”
I chuckled softly to myself, decided that—as soft as the bed was—it was definitely time to get up, and started looking around for something to walk out in.
“Two…”
“Oh my god, please…”
Piles of Mitch’s and Oliver’s clothes were everywhere in the room, but weirdly, I couldn’t find any of mine. However, the towels we’d used after our shower yesterday had conveniently been thrown onto a dresser.
“Three!”
“Holy shit.”
“Ha!”
I wrapped the towel around my waist as the argument in the kitchen suddenly went dead silent. When I entered the kitchen, both Mitch and Oliver were wrapped in their own towels, and I suddenly understood why the argument had ended. They were wrapped up in each other, kissing deeply while Mitch held a frying pan in one hand.
It must have been Oliver who noticed me watching them. He pulled back from the kiss first, punctuating the longer, deeper kiss with a shorter peck before glancing at me.
“So…” I said a little awkwardly. It might have been stupid to still be embarrassed after all we’d done together, but it still felt out of place to interrupt them. It seemed like the kind of cute couple moment I imagined people only had in the privacy of their homes. It seemed wrong to break them up. “Who won?” I asked weakly through my awkwardness.
“I did!” Mitch said cheerfully as he disentangled himself from Oliver. “Oliver said I couldn’t flip a pancake, and it turns out that I can.”
“I mean, I kissed you because I wanted to kiss you, not because you proved you could flip a pancake. That was just dumb luck,” Oliver said with a shrug.
I nodded, relieved they seemed comfortable; not like they were being intruded on at all. That made me feel a little braver about participating.
“Here,” I said, holding my hand out for the pan. Mitch eyed me with a suspicious smile but arched an eyebrow and gave it to me. Oliver poured several spoonfuls of batter into the pan, which soon started bubbling and sizzling as I swirled the pan on the hot ring of the stove. The edges of the pancake crisped, and I shook the pan once or twice to get myself ready before swinging it up, flipping the pancake successfully in the air, and then catching it in the pan.
Though I hadn’t seen Mitch do it, his attempt at it must have been a lot clumsier than mine since he gasped and clapped his hands together. Oliver whistled in amazement, and pretty soon I was stationed on permanent pancake duty.
When the rest of breakfast was ready, and I was finally done plating my last pancake, I handed a stack to Mitch who playfully smiled, went up on his tiptoes, and kissed me on the cheek.
“Thank you, Marcos,” he said, before winking and disappearing with his food. That was unexpected of him, but not necessarily surprising. Always playful and always sort of gently teasing, that was all very Mitch.
I turned away from the counter to hand Oliver his plate next. What was unexpected and totally surprising was that Oliver more or less repeated what Mitch had done. He also went up on his tiptoes and kissed my cheek.
“Thank you, Marcos,” Oliver said, very slightly sing-songing the phrase.
I blinked, trying to understand what had just happened. Obviously, the kiss—or kisses—weren’t anything shocking. We’d done that and much, much more over the past few days. However, the stuff we’d done before was done in the process of making the baby. But those kisses were different. They were the kind of little Eskimo kisses Mami and Papi sometimes gave each other in the kitchen. They were the kind of thing couples did out of easy affection.
Couples, like Mitch and Oliver. Couples like them did not give kisses like those to others. Certainly not to stray alphas like me.
“I get it,” Oliver suddenly said from the breakfast table as Mitch wolfed his pancakes down. “It is different,” he remarked as though he’d heard all of my thought process out loud.
“Bring your plate, Marcos,” Mitch said between mouthfuls of food. “I think there are probably enough pancakes to last us for days.”
I shrugged, inwardly admitting that was probably true, so I joined them at the table. But I couldn’t help but feel sort of like I’d felt when Mami and Papi would call “Family Meetings.”
“Alright, what’s wrong?” I asked after I’d sat down.
Mitch and Oliver looked up from their respective pancakes and traded glances with each other.
“Wrong?” Oliver arched an eyebrow. “Nothing’s wrong. Why would something be wrong?”
“It feels like y’all have something to say to me,” I explained, shifting uncomfortably in my seat.
“We’ve just been talking. That’s all,” Mitch said, shrugging.
“Talking about…” I asked, hoping someone would fill in the blanks.
“Well, when we met with your mami, you know, we hugged and we kissed, and it was lovely. But I can’t shake the feeling you think it was all an act. I mean, I know part of it was. But it doesn’t have to stay that way, if you don’t w
ant it to. It could be real.”
“I d-don’t… I’m not sure I…”
“What Mitch is trying to say is that we like you. We genuinely like you. Obviously, you’re helping us create a baby, but it’s more than that. Things have changed… For us, anyway.” Oliver turned to Mitch who nodded.
“If you wanted to keep things the way they were, that’s fine. But, if you didn’t…”
I looked between them, still not understanding what they were trying to say.
“We see the kind of person you are,” Oliver said, shrugging. “That’s all. We admire the lengths you’ve gone for your brother, like taking up residency in a hospital room for almost three years and creating a baby to keep him alive. You’ve done everything possible to take care of Pedro and to also respect your mother’s wishes even though you don’t agree with everything she believes in. You love your parents. You love your brother. And I can understand where you’re coming from. You’re just what Mitch said you were: a good, honorable family man.”
“I’m a famously good judge of character,” Mitch added as he speared a piece of bacon into his mouth.
“Right,” Oliver said, looking me directly in the eyes as Mitch chowed down contentedly. “So, if you did want to be part of the family. As in, like a permanent fixture in the family we’re making, then…”
“We’d love that,” Mitch stated. Well, really, he said something that sounded more like “eed ooof daa” as he tried to chew, swallow, and talk at the same time, but I understood him.
Oliver was absolutely right when he said family was everything to me and that I would obviously do anything for my family. Still, it felt unnerving to have him compliment me so openly, and without thinking of it, I sort of tucked my chin into my chest and stared down at my breakfast.
“Marcos?” Mitch said after a little bit. “Are you alright? Is it something we said?”
“No!” I said, looking back up to face them, startled they would think I could have any problem with the kinds of things they were saying. “No! Jesus, no. Thank you. You guys have been great. And I appreciate everything you’re suggesting. It’s just… I haven’t… It’s been a while, you know?”
Mitch frowned, as if he didn’t understand what I meant. Oliver slowly nodded, as if he understood me all too well. Still, I needed to explain myself.
“Since coming back from Malmur, all I’ve felt is grief and sadness for my squad, worry for Pedro. Everything else before then… What it was like to just…live? I hardly remember it. Every day has been about going through the motions of keeping myself alive to be there for Pedro. Nothing else has mattered. I’m living on autopilot, and anything else…” I shook my head knowing I wasn’t explaining properly. “I’m not sure if…”
“You’re not sure if you can allow yourself to feel anything other than what’s become normal for you,” Oliver said. “I felt the same away about Rich. Like, how dare I be happy when he’s sick, and then dead? How can I eat food or laugh at jokes or listen to new songs, fall in love, when he wasn’t getting the opportunity to do any of those things, you know?”
“Right,” I agreed. “Right. That is how it feels.”
“I get that, but you shouldn’t feel that way. That’s what Rich told me. At first I couldn’t accept it, but he knew better than I did that the opportunity to live life is precious. Life is too short and too fleeting to not take full advantage of it. The people we love who are sick or dying know that more than anyone else, and that’s why they don’t want to see us punish ourselves by withdrawing from life.”
“Pedro doesn’t know how I’m living my life.”
“But if he did, would he want you to act like you’re just as asleep as he is just to keep him company? Instead, maybe your responsibility is to keep on living twice as big. For you and for him.”
I’d never thought about it like that. But the idea didn’t feel strange; it felt like a comfortable pair of sneakers I’d had for years. Old, worn, but impossible to throw away. My whole life, Pedro and I had done everything double. If either of us went to the store, we bought two of whatever we were getting. At a restaurant, we ordered for both of us because we had the other person’s order memorized. For Christmas, we asked for two of the same so we would never feel like the other one was missing out. It had felt natural to pause my life when Pedro had had to pause his, to treat it like a double dose of the same condition. But, maybe Oliver was right? Maybe that was backward thinking? Maybe I was supposed to keep on going so that, when Pedro woke up, he would have something worthwhile to wake up to?
I didn’t know. The idea seemed right, but it also felt…wrong. I shook my head, confused. After feeling like I’d been sitting in a vat of depression, regardless how I’d previously denied it, I wasn’t sure I could feel any other way, be any other way.
“Marcos, I’m not saying abandon him. We know you never would, and we’d never ask you to, but we want you to at least live a little, for yourself. For…us.”
Mitch was watching me, serious but with a little bit of warmth around his eyes. He moved his hand to cover Oliver’s hand on the table. They looked at each other and shared a smile between them. Was I meant to see that? I was sitting right here, they must have known I would see it. But there they went sharing couple moments in front of me again. Like, maybe they really wanted me to be a part of it.
“I should go,” I said suddenly. I tried to be careful to not seem upset by any of it. I wasn’t upset at all. This wasn’t like when I’d stormed off after that “intervention” bullshit. But just because this felt more real and felt more like something I could accept, it didn’t mean I was ready to jump in headfirst just yet.
“Leave your plate. I’ll pick it up,” Mitch said, getting to his feet then padding away to the bathroom.
“He won’t,” Oliver grumbled as soon as Mitch was out of earshot. He gave me a small smile, rolled his eyes, and then took both of our plates to the kitchen.
Mitch came back from the bathroom with the clothes I was wearing yesterday. Except they’d been folded neatly like they had just come off a store display.
“Oh, you didn’t have to…”
“I know I didn’t have to,” Mitch said with a smile. “I just wanted to. That’s all.”
When I ducked into the bathroom to get dressed and get ready, Oliver had started pulling things down from the cabinets and stuffing them into a bag. Whatever he was doing, he was finishing up as Mitch took the towel from my hands and reached up once again to kiss me on the cheek. Before I could react, Oliver crossed the house from the kitchen to where I stood in the hallway. He pressed the bag into my hand and kissed me on the other cheek, opposite where Mitch had.
“What’s this?” I asked, sort of about the bag, sort of about the goodbye kisses.
“You know your mami would whoop you if you let someone leave the house hungry. My mami would have, too. Especially if they were family.” Oliver shrugged with a smile.
Family. There was that word again, but I wasn’t really a part of their family, was I? Almost without meaning to, I looked at Mitch who was watching us with a warm smile.
But if Mitch was pregnant, then I was the father of Mitch and Oliver’s child. How much more family could anyone be after agreeing to pour a third of themselves into a brand-new person? I guessed this was their invitation to think of the baby as something much more than just a way to save Pedro? Their offer to think of me—and to let me think of myself—as more than just a sperm donor?
That was what they meant by us. I was going to be the father of Mitch and Oliver’s child, and that meant, even in a sort of distant way, I was going to be a permanent part of the family they were making. If Mitch was pregnant. Fuck I hoped he was pregnant.
I nodded as I came to that realization, and Mitch’s smile broadened like he was watching me convince myself and agreeing with me.
“Okay,” I said after I’d stood there long enough, awkwardly staring at both of them in the hallway without saying anything. “Okay. Tha
nk you,” I said, holding up the bag of snacks.
I turned to leave but suddenly worried that was a weird place to leave things. They’d extended the invitation, now it was my turn to accept? Somehow? It definitely felt like my turn to reach out to them after they’d done so much to welcome me.
“I’ll…uh…” I looked at them over my shoulder as I turned the door knob to let myself out. “I’ll see you guys later?”
14
Mitch
When I was nervous, like right now, I sat still. As still as a statue. It seemed contradictory to my personality, but it felt like the only way I could keep myself from completely falling apart sometimes. I’d been okay at the grocery store, buying the little pink box without batting an eye… Well, no more eye batting than usual, anyway. I’d brought it home and called Marcos, telling him simply, calmly that it’s time.
I’d told them I needed a minute before I took the test. It was time. But now, suddenly, stupidly, it felt like too much. And so, I sat still. I watched silently as both the men in my life paced around the room looking for all the world like two fully grown tigers on the prowl. It was amusing just how similar they were when they weren’t paying attention. One would make his way down the hallway, only to head back up while the other paced circles around the living room. Somehow they traded and swapped places without running into one another, like a very complicated dance.
The last month, well, the last month had been bliss. Marcos came over every few days, sometimes staying for more than one night. More often than not we fell into bed together, exploring one another. I’d had more orgasms in the last month than I’d had in my entire adult life, and, honestly? That was saying something. Oliver’s “research” excuse eventually became moot, and no one addressed the fact that both Oliver and I wanted Marcos in our bed. It also seemed the feeling was completely mutual.
