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David sighs and dabs again at the coffee stain on his sweater. His cashmere sweater. His comfiest, fluffiest, white-with-black-stripes cashmere sweater.
“This is what happens when people make you wake up before double digits,” he mutters mutinously under his breath.
Patrick is out of town visiting his parents and won’t be back until tomorrow. He’s been away for a week and David is so looking forward to Patrick’s imminent return that he was up far too late last night and consequently slept right through his alarm this morning.
In his hurry to get to the store on time (or as close to on time as possible. He isn’t going to run for God’s sake), he’d not been paying attention to where he was walking and stepped in a steaming pile of dog shit.
And while he hopped around on one foot trying to scrape the disgusting mess from the sole of his favourite Rick Owens high top sneakers with a stick, he’d landed funny and tweaked his ankle.
As he limped to the cafe for a much needed shot of caffeine and sugar (no sweetener today... full on sugar was required this morning), Roland had made an off-colour remark about his limp and the lingering smell of crap, and David had hurried across the street to the safety and shelter of his store. In his hurry to get away from Roland, he’d not noticed that Twyla hadn’t affixed the lid on properly, and had promptly dumped most of the coffee down his front before he even got a taste of it in his mouth.
In short, it’s been a terrible day. And it’s only 10:05 in the morning. And David has never been so miserable. He wants to hide. He wants to take off his poop-shoes and his ruined shirt and put ice on his sore ankle and some under-eye serum on the bags under his eyes. But he can’t do any of that right now. Because Patrick isn’t around today and David has to be responsible.
Deciding that his sweater has been dabbed enough, David takes what’s left of his coffee and sits down on a stool behind the counter, waiting for the next disaster to befall him.
It’s a quiet day. By noon there have been hardly any customers, and those who bother to come in are soon turned away by the pungent aroma of slowly fermenting dog crap that David just hasn’t been able to get off his shoe.
He’s hobbling around the store, doing only the essentials: spritzing the produce, stocking items that are running low from their supplies in the back. Fortunately, no customers means there isn’t much to do and David can rest his sore ankle. Unfortunately, the day is dragging on forever, and when David is sure an hour has passed at least, he nearly breaks down in tears to find that it has only been 8 minutes.
With his elbows on the counter, David slumps forward and puts his face in his hands. Maybe he should just go home. Put a sign on the door that says today is cancelled and just go back to bed. He’ll soak his sweater and burn his sneakers and eat pizza in bed until he falls asleep. Then it will be morning and Patrick will be home and David will be happy.
But he can’t do that. Because Patrick is trusting him to be here, to look after the store and take care of things while he is away. Patrick trusts him, and that means more to David than anything. No one has ever really trusted him before. Not really. Not with anything important.
So he pushes himself to his feet and hobbles into the back room to grab the feather duster. It might not be busy in the store today, but at least it can be clean. At least he can feel like he accomplished something on this good-for-nothing, horrible, dumpster fire of a day.
David is just reaching for the duster when the bell over the front door jingles.
“Be right with you!” he grumbles, limping out into the main area of the store, his least threatening smile plastered on his face. “Welcome to Ro...”
He stops. His words choked in the back of his throat. Tears spring to his eyes and he feels his face crumble.
Patrick.
Patrick is here. Patrick is back. Patrick is looking like he can smell something awful.
In an instant David hops haphazardly around the counter and pulls Patrick into a fierce hug, earning an ‘oof’ and a chuckle as Patrick wraps his arms around David and pulls him even closer.
“You weren’t supposed to be home until tomorrow!” David doesn’t even care that his voice is trembling, a hushed warble against the impossibly warm skin of Patrick’s neck. “W-what’re you... why are you...”
Patrick’s hands stroke slow, sure paths up and down David’s back, kneading gently where he finds little knots of tension. “I missed you,” he says simply. As if that is explanation enough. As if it’s just that easy. As if missing David is worth it to Patrick; worth driving 6 hours and sacrificing a whole day of precious time with his parents just to be with David, who has a coffee stain on his shirt and bags under his eyes and smells kind of like poo.
“B-but... why?” David presses. “Why are you here?”
Patrick pulls back from their embrace and takes David’s face in his hands. He smiles at David in a way that makes David feel like maybe this day isn’t turning out so badly after all. Like a thousand pinpricks of light are burning bright and warm inside him.
Patrick looks at him like just maybe, David is worth it.