by Jerry Cole
He also found it hard to believe. Maybe Mark was playing the long game. Angling for some sort of compensation in the future. The only reason he even lived in Cleary in the first place was to avoid homelessness. It seemed real, sure, but so did his pain when he was talking about his ex.
More real. Maybe more real than anything he felt for Jon.
He heard a knock on the door. “Hey,” he heard Laurie say. “It’s me. Have you had lunch yet? I brought you a sandwich.”
He smiled and stood up as he went to open the door.
Laurie wiped her face with the back of her hand, even though there were napkins within her reach. Jon laughed and rolled his eyes.
Laurie gave him a wide, toothy smile. “So did you like that?”
“It was fine,” Jon said. “You have something between your teeth.”
She nodded, licking her teeth. “You’re so picky. That was a perfectly fine sandwich. Now?”
“Still there,” he said. “You’re probably going to have to see your reflection to get that out.”
“Fuck it,” she said and threw herself back on the cheap hotel bed. It shook under her weight. He threw himself down next to her and watched the slow-moving ceiling fan.
She spoke first, after a moment of silence. “So are you going to tell me what’s eating you up?”
Jon turned over to look at her. “My mom just died.”
She laughed, though he didn’t think it was unkindly. “Nice try.”
“Ugh, I hate that you know me so well,” he said. “I am upset about that, for the record.”
“I know, I know. I didn’t mean that you weren’t. I just meant like, you throw yourself into work and you’re happy. Unless something is hanging over your head. Are you in insurmountable debt or something?”
“Yes,” he said. “But that’s not what this is about. I mean, you’re still sending my paychecks to that in-home nurse service, right?”
“I haven’t been our accountant for like, five years,” she replied. “You should ask our accountant. That’s why we have one, you know.”
“Ugh,” he said. “I liked it better when you were the one doing our finances. Life was a lot simpler then.”
“Yes, well, we were a lot poorer back then,” she replied. “Stop dodging the question. What the fuck is going on?”
Jon sighed. “I met someone.”
“You did?”
“Yes,” Jon said, biting his lower lip. He could tell Laurie anything — he knew that. He still couldn’t help but feel nervous about it as he continued. “So we’re kind of living together.”
“Whoa,” Laurie said. “You are living together? Like at your mom’s house?”
“Yup,” Jon said. “Like I hired them and then things kind of happened and now — well, I guess now things are, you know, happening.”
Laurie sat up and set her gaze on him, cocking her head as she stared at him. “Them?”
“It’s a — yeah, so it’s a guy,” John said.
Laurie didn’t say anything for a second before she nodded. “So you’re gay.”
“No,” Jon replied. “Shit. I don’t know. Maybe. I just like him a lot, okay?”
“Okay,” she said. “So you hired him and then — he came on to you?”
“It kind of just happened,” Jon said. “Then he thought I’d hired him to have sex with him, I guess, so he got mad. So I rehired him.”
“To have —”
“No, not to have sex with him,” Jon replied, hitting her with a pillow. “I know this may be hard for you to believe, but I don’t need to pay people to bang.”
“Are you sure?”
“Dude, shut up,” Jon said, laughing. “It’s just — I don’t know. We just kind of flung ourselves into this, and now I can’t help but be a little scared. Like what if I do it wrong?”
“If you do what wrong? The relationship?”
“The — the being gay part, I guess?”
Laurie looked at him, her eyes widening, and laughed. “The being gay part? You don’t like, suddenly go into a club and become gay. I don’t think you have to pay any dues, either. Wait, do you have to pay dues? Do they take electronic payment? Is it cash only?”
Jon waved his hands in front of his face, trying to stop himself from smiling. “Okay, okay. You’ve made your point.”
Laurie nodded. “So,” she said, playing with a strand of bleached blonde hair. “When do I get to meet him?”
Chapter Eighteen
Mark glanced at Jon. He was sitting in the passenger seat, his palm covering his eyes.
Mark smiled. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Fine,” Jon replied, quietly. “Long flight. Kept getting delayed. Haven’t slept for like, thirty hours.”
“Yikes,” Mark said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I’m moody when I’m tired and I was hoping I could sleep on the plane and then forget about how much I hated my life when I saw you,” Jon replied. “Which, for the record, did happen. I hate my life a lot less now that you’re here.”
“You’re always moody,” Mark said, laughing.
“I’d hit you if I had it in me,” Jon said weakly, a small smile appearing on his face.
“Does this happen a lot?”
“Yes,” Jon said. “And I’m sorry about that. You didn’t have to pick me up. This is why I have a team of people, you know.”
“Yeah, well,” Mark replied. “It’s one of the perks of having me as a boyfriend.”
Jon moved his hand away from his face and glanced at him. “Boyfriend?”
Mark’s grip around the wheel tightened. They had discussed being a couple beforehand, but maybe Jon had changed his mind. Maybe it had just been a phase for him after all.
“That just seems a little juvenile,” Jon said, before Mark could open his mouth to speak. “But partner seems a little too formal.”
“Wait, so—”
“It’s not the boy part of that word that puts me off, you know. It’s the friend,” Jon said. “You are more than just my friend. You’re like — anyway, I guess boyfriend is a good shorthand. I just wish there was a better word.”
“That’s kind of—”
“A little full on, I know,” Jon said. “Sorry, you know I just kind of dove into this, and now I can’t seem to slow down. I don’t want to scare you, though, so if I am, please tell me.”
Mark looked at him again. They smiled at each other before Mark looked back at the road. Jon was scaring him — but not because of how fast he was going.
What scared him was how much he seemed to want that, too. And he didn’t know if he had ever felt that before. Not even with Roger.
***
After parking outside the house, Mark shook Jon gently on the shoulder. When that didn’t seem to do anything, he leaned over and tilted his chin up, kissing him lightly on the mouth until he stirred.
Jon’s eyes fluttered open.
“Mornin’,” Jon said. “Are we home?”
“Yes,” Mark replied. “Also, it’s like four in the afternoon.”
“Can you always wake me up like that?”
“No,” Mark said. “Only when you’ve been gone for days. Otherwise, you’re going to become really spoiled very quickly.”
“I’m already really spoiled,” Jon replied, giggling. “I’m famous.”
“Humble, too,” Mark said. “I actually didn’t want to wake you that much. I would have carried you in, but I have a surprise for you.”
“You would have carried me in?”
Mark nodded.
“We are about the same size,” Jon said.
Mark nodded. “Probably can’t say the same thing in terms of our strength.”
Jon laughed. “Jerk. Okay, okay, I’m awake, but I’m sorry if I don’t react properly. When I’m this tired, it’s hard for me to process things. So just giving you fair warning, okay?”
“That’s okay,” Mark replied. He appreciated the warning. Intellectually, he understood it.
That didn’t stop his heart from doing flips in his chest from anticipation.
“Also, if it’s a magic trick—”
“Shush,” Mark replied, laughing and opening the rented car’s door. “Stop ruining it. Come on.”
He walked over to the other side of the car, opened the door and held his hand out for Jon.
“Where is it?” Jon said, lagging a few steps behind Mark, his eyes closed. He was still holding Mark’s hand tightly.
“If I told you that, I would ruin it,” Mark replied. “And that’s the last thing I want. Okay. Here we are.”
Mark opened the door to Jon’s bedroom before he tugged on Jon’s hand and took him inside. He admired his work before he took a deep breath and turned to look at Jon. “Okay,” he said. “Open your eyes.”
Jon opened one eye first, making a show of it, before he opened the next one, completely forgetting his attempt at being playful. He looked up at the newly decorated bedroom, his gaze lingering on the new four-post bed, tasteful and modern but still luxurious, dressed in blue and black. He moved on to the back wall, which Mark had decorated with blown-up posters of his Jackie Mack performances, photographs from far away where Jon stopped existing and Jackie Mack was suspended in a landscape lit by fireworks and magic.
Next to that, there were dark wooden nightstands with new sparkly round lamps. On the far side of the bedroom, there was a wardrobe of the same color. It was sleek and tall. It gave the entire room a contemporary edge that no other furniture or decoration did. The wall that it was standing against had also been painted a light blue.
The thick brown carpet had been torn off to reveal the original wooden flooring.
The entire room looked cleaner and bigger.
Mark was practically holding his breath as Jon looked around the room. Jon stopped looking around the room and set his gaze on Mark’s face.
“You did this in a week?”
Mark swallowed. He couldn’t read Jon’s tone or expression and that worried him. “Yes. You were spending countless hours working and since, you know, I have a team now, it’s a lot easier to do something like this. So — do you like it? I kind of had to go through your closet because I didn’t know what your favorite color was and —”
“Do I like it?”
Mark nodded.
“I — thank you,” Jon said. Mark noticed that his voice was shaking as he spoke, which he didn’t understand. He thought that Jon would be happy, not upset.
“I can change it back,” Mark said, looking away. “It’s my job and I — wait, are you crying?”
“Sorry,” Jon said, covering his eyes. “This is just—”
“I’m so sorry,” Mark said. He felt like crying himself. He thought he had done such a good job, making sure that they had delivered the furniture early, going through Jon’s clothes to see what his favorite colors were. Even going over hundreds of photographs to find some that displayed Jon’s skills without making him feel like he was looking at pictures of himself whenever he woke up in the morning. “I’ll take it all down. I’ll try again and —”
He stopped talking as Jon approached him and buried his face in Mark’s chest, his shoulders moving up and down. With a bit of horror, Mark realized that Jon was actually sobbing.
He was horrified. He wasn’t sure how he had caused this, but he was sure that he had.
“I’m so sorry, babe,” he said, quietly. “I’ll change it back. I’ll —”
Jon interrupted him by wrapping his arms around his waist and burying his face further into his chest. He was moving and saying something, but Mark couldn’t make it out.
Mark hugged him close, kissing the top of his head and rocking him slightly until he had calmed down enough to actually say something coherent.
“Don’t,” Jon said.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t change it,” he replied, wiping his tears away from his eyes. “Don’t. It’s perfect.”
Chapter Nineteen
“Are you sure that you’re okay?” Mark had his arm wrapped around Jon’s shoulders, holding him tightly. He had kept kissing the top of his head, shushing and soothing him, even after he had spoken. Jon hated how upset he was. He hated that he had barely been able to say anything coherent. Jon could barely hear Mark’s soothing words over the sound of his own tears. Once he had calmed down again, at least a little, he realized how much of a fool he had made of himself.
And how he had upset Mark. How he had, so obviously, upset Mark. Even though Jon had told him not to change anything, he didn’t understand how it was possible that Mark wouldn’t be upset. Mark had only been trying to do something nice for him, and all Jon had been able to do was cry. Mark, whom had spent the entire week that Jon was away—that he had spent running away, he thought bitterly—making his bedroom perfect for him.
And it was perfect. It was absolutely, completely perfect. It fit him so well that it was almost easy to forget how awful the rest of the house was and how much he hated being there.
The worst part was that he hadn’t even thanked Mark yet. All he had done was cry like a little baby.
“Yes,” Jon said, when he saw Mark’s gaze on his face. He was trying his best to keep his composure, though it was difficult, especially with Mark watching so intently. “I’m sorry, I’m just tired and this is —”
“I will change it back, you know,” Mark said. “I’ll return the furniture and paint the walls. I’ll do it from my own money and —”
“No,” Jon replied. “Please don’t. I know it doesn’t seem like it but I really don’t want you to change it, okay? It’s — you are—”
“It’s what?”
“It’s perfect — you’re perfect,” Jon replied, unable to look at Mark as he did so. He took a second to take a deep breath before he looked up at Mark, who was blushing, his face lit up by a small smile. And he also seemed incredibly relieved. Mostly, though, Jon thought that he looked concerned.
When Jon woke up, it was dark outside. It took him longer than it usually would to orient himself. The color of the walls and even the bedroom looked completely unfamiliar for a few seconds until he recalled the conversation he had with Mark earlier.
And then he thought about Mark. The way that Mark hadn't even asked him any questions about why he was crying. The way that he had instantly offered to change what he had done without so much as blaming him for not liking it. If there had ever been any doubt in his mind that Mark was the right person for him, it was all erased when he had seen the way that Mark had been looking at him.
No one had ever looked at him quite like that before.
Of course Mark was only doing his job. Still, Jon couldn't help but feel that maybe he would have done this for him no matter what. Because that was the way Mark made him feel—as if he would do anything just to make Jon smile.
And Jon did smile.
He noticed that, lately, he had been smiling a lot more than usual.
He stretched out and rubbed his eyes. His head was throbbing. He grabbed his phone, which was on the nightstand, and called Mark. “You know,” Mark said, answering the phone almost instantly. “You could have just come downstairs”
“Yes, but where is the fun in that?” Jon answered groggily. “Where are you? Did I miss dinner?”
“It’s around midnight and I'm in the kitchen,” Mark replied. “So yeah, you missed dinner. I sent Marnie home.”
“You did?”
“Yep. She's been really good about catering for the crew, but I thought it would be nice to have the house to ourselves for the night. Though I know that you were probably looking forward to her food—”
“That’s okay,” Jon replied. He was a little annoyed, because he had been looking forward to Marnie’s food. But the part he really wanted to focus on was what Mark had said when he talked about having the house to themselves. As if that was just the way things were. Jon was distracted when he heard his stomach grumble. Mark must have heard it too, because he laughed.
“Are you hungry, babe?”
Jon nodded. It made no sense, because it wasn’t as if Mark was there to see him, but every time that Mark called him a sweet name it made him weak at the knees, and he seemed unable to actually process how to speak.
“You still there?”
“Yeah,” Jon replied. “I’m hungry.”
“How would you feel about some middle of the night pancakes?”
“Pancakes?”
“You like pancakes, right?”
“Yes,” Jon replied, his heart jumping in his chest. “I love pancakes.”
Chapter Twenty
“Wow,” Mark said, as he put another pancake on Jon’s plate. “You were hungry.”
Jon nodded, still chewing his food. The fork was hovering near his mouth. Syrup was sticking to his lips. He swallowed and nodded. “I was starving. And I didn’t realize what an amazing cook you were, either.”
“Please don’t fire Marnie on my account,” Mark replied, only half-jokingly. “I really don’t know if I can cook this well if it’s not, you know, from the heart.”
“You’re so—”
“Corny?” Mark offered, smiling back at him.
“I was going to say sweet,” Jon replied. He had smothered the pancake in front of him in syrup and had just started to attack it with his fork. “But sure. That one works, too.”
“Sweet is good,” Mark replied. He wasn’t trying to be sweet. He was just trying to take care of Jon after what appeared like an incredibly exhausting week. But there was something else. He needed to spend time with Jon because he needed to prove to himself that what he had with Jon was real. That how everything had been before Jon left was real.
Because it didn’t seem real to him. It seemed scary and overwhelming. Amazing, maybe, but he couldn’t be sure of that yet.
And while Jon seemed to be in it — he talked the talk, certainly — there was a chance that he wasn’t actually in it. Maybe he did like Mark a lot, but there was a chance that Jon didn’t realize how difficult something like this could be.
