Neil is mooching off Matt’s gym membership while he visits, not wanting to risk getting out of shape even if he’s only here a week. Matt had warned him that his mother would be visiting as well, a weekend between press events, and spending the night in an apartment with a woman he’s met only twice is mediated by the presence of Matt and Dan, whom Neil trusts as close to unconditionally as he can for anyone besides Andrew.
Boxing holds no interest for Neil aside from self-defense. The corrections Randy calls out as she and Matt circle each other fly over his head. There’s something Kevin-like about her nitpicking, though she smiles more, and Matt hangs back instead of immediately trying to shove her against the ropes as he would Kevin. Instead he adjusts his stance and waits until his mother leaves an opening even Neil can see to attack.
Randy dodges easily and gets Matt in the side of the helmet with a triumphant laugh. Matt shakes his head, shoulders tilting the way he does when he grins, and rocks back over his feet. He is considerably taller than his mother, has to bend his knees almost into a squat to reach her, but Randy proves that her titles are rightfully won as she ducks and weaves and lands strike after strike on her son’s unprotected torso. Neil watches Matt anxiously for signs of injury. He may not know shit about boxing, but he does know that being punched is something that hurts.
“Ma, come on,” Matt says, after he fails to connect his glove for the umpteenth time. He’s laughing. Randy waves cheekily and sweeps out a leg. Neil’s mostly sure that isn’t a legal move. Matt goes down hard.
Thankfully for Neil’s stuttering heart, Matt gets up immediately, groaning. Neil unwinds his hands from the rope he’d grabbed in panic, belated sweat tricking down his spine, as Matt holds up both hands for a reprieve and sits down right there in the middle of the ring to take off his gloves and helmet. His curls are mashed to his forehead with sweat. He’s still grinning.
“Worse than I thought,” Randy says, sitting down next to her son. She too is smiling, and she punches Matt’s shoulder like she’s joking. A hot flare of anger on Matt’s behalf rises in Neil’s belly. Matt only laughs again, dropping back onto his elbows, abdominals flexing with the effort. He turns his smile on Neil.
Lately Neil’s been getting a funny feeling in his chest and stomach whenever Matt smiles at him (which is often). The anger doesn’t leave, but it does get muddied up with whatever-it-is, racing around and around until there’s a buzzing knot under Neil’s belly button making him flush all over. It’s kind of like how he feels around Andrew, but…not. Neil can’t explain it. He wishes it would stop.
“Don’t be a stranger, come on up,” Randy says. Neil doesn’t want to, but Matt’s smile gets wider, and Neil finds himself hopping up onto the platform and wiggling under the ropes. He sits down facing Randy, placing himself firmly on Matt’s side. Matt’s sneakers brush the side of Neil’s thigh. He prods Neil with a toe and looks pleased with himself when Neil huffs and shoots out a hand to grab his ankle, keeping it still.
“How’s the new cat settling in?” Randy asks, removing her own gloves. The scrape of her unfastening the Velcro on her helmet covers Neil’s flinch; Matt shoots Neil a look that’s half comforting, half guilty.
“I told her you guys got a new kitten,” he says to Neil, hitching a shoulder in apology. It’s difficult to be annoyed at Matt when he’s like this, sprawled out and contrite and fixing Neil with big, woeful eyes. “Sorry, I just, you said I could name him, and…”
Neil shifts a little towards Matt so Matt will know he’s not horribly upset and turns back to Randy. “He’s great. We got him his own bowl so he can have different food, for baby cats. ‘Drew says he’s going to get fat if I feed him so much but he was definitely malnourished when we found him, so.”
“I’m glad he has you,” Randy says, smiling warmly. Neil can see the family resemblance, and it throws him for a moment, though Randy doesn’t incite the same squirmy feeling in him that Matt’s smile does. Thank fuck. It’s already confusing enough.
Matt shuffles around, kicking up echoes where his feet and elbows knock against the floor of the ring, until he can lay his head in Neil’s lap. Neil clears his throat pointedly, but Matt shows no shame and keeps wiggling until Neil relents and sticks a hand in his hair, stroking. Aside from Dan, Neil’s the only one Matt lets touch his hair. Though now it’s a clumpy mess from the inside of the helmet, so Neil can only improve it.
Randy is watching them with an expression that’s a little too knowing, all the more disconcerting because Neil’s not sure what it is that she thinks she knows. He scratches at Matt’s scalp the way he would one of the cats and Matt’s eyes flutter closed. Even when he speaks again, he doesn’t open them.
“I was thinking, like, I’ve been given unlimited power,” he says. “For the name. So what’s something I can do that will completely fuck—sorry, Mom—that would, uh, completely be vetoed under normal circumstances, and then I was like, Neil’s cats already have such wild names, what if I pick something that’s not a name—”
“I can’t control Andrew’s reaction,” Neil says dryly.
Matt whines. “Aw, babe.”
It’s not the first time Matt has called him that. Neil is uncomfortably aware of Randy’s eyes on him as he flushes. “I got every single thing connected to Exy thrown out before you or Kevin ask, so don’t try those.”
“Oh! Matt told me a little about your last game,” Randy says, leaning forward, and the conversation moves on to the current championship rankings. Randy knows enough that Neil finds himself absorbed, and he’s enjoying himself, despite everything. He loses track of time; Randy’s watch beeping jolts him back into his own body. She grimaces and heaves herself off the floor.
“Sorry. Got to meet Bronstein for dinner, I promised him I would next time I was in town. I’ll see you boys tonight?”
“Yeah, sure, Mom,” Matt says, lifting a hand. Randy’s got that knowing look in her eye again. She points two spread fingers at Neil before pulling up the ropes to step under them, striding towards the locker rooms with her gloves thrown over her shoulder.
“What was that?” Neil asks. Matt nuzzles deeper into Neil’s lap and doesn’t answer.
Funny: in any other circumstance, Neil would swear that Matt was embarrassed.
Weird.
Work Text:
Matt’s thrown himself into the ring—sans actual ring—enough times for Neil and the other Foxes that it doesn’t occur to Neil that he’s never seen him actually box. When Randy Boyd shouts for her son to come up and go a few rounds with her, Neil pauses the treadmill and wanders over to watch.
Dan and Matt have always been as physically affectionate as Neil will let them. Nowadays, that means very. On the last day of Neil’s visit Neil curls up between them on their too-plush couch, his head on Matt’s shoulder, Dan’s head on Neil’s. The television blares a program Matt and Dan follow religiously. Neil can’t keep up; he’s missed the episodes since his last visit, having no desire to watch them, and whatever smidgen of plot there might be is buried under exaggerated emotional drama that, Neil points out, could disappear if the characters actually talked to each other. That’s okay. He’s not here to watch television. He’s here to be with his friends.
The show segues into a re-run of something else, broken up by colorful commercials displaying things Neil thinks people must be idiots to consider buying. Dan falls asleep, arms wrapped around Neil’s waist and her face buried in his shirt. Matt is trying valiantly not to succumb, but his hand keeps going lax where it’s tangled with Neil’s. Eventually Neil decides he has to pee and extracts himself from the two of them, thumbing his nose when they mumble protests.
“Shit, bedtime,” Matt says, forcing his eyes open. He bends down to speak in Dan’s ear. “Come on, babe, we promised we wouldn’t sleep on the couch again.”
Dan swats clumsily at Matt’s face and allows herself to be lifted up into his arms. Matt smiles at Neil, indulgent, and kisses Dan as he carries her to their bedroom. Dan kisses back sleepily, and Neil–
Neil realizes he wants a goodnight kiss as well.
Oh.
He needs to talk to Andrew.
It’s difficult to shove the wanting to the back of his head now that he’s aware of it. Neil used to be so good at turning off his emotions, and the confusing whitewater rush of them has a tendency to drown him since he’s started letting them through. It’s a gate hard to open, but harder still to shut again. He knows Matt and Dan notice he’s off, but they drop the subject when Neil indicates he doesn’t want to talk about it. At the airport they both hug him even longer than usual. Dan’s got that shampoo-and-deodorant smell she always does, clean and unassuming, but Neil notices how Matt’s cologne overpowers it in his nostrils and makes his whole body feel warm. Matt is so tall but if Neil stood up on his tiptoes and dragged him down by the neck–
Not now. Andrew.
Their reuniting blows all other thoughts out of Neil’s head until they’re sprawled in bed together, sated, sheets tickling bare skin. King is making a game of pouncing on their toes. Andrew glares at her, but when she starts to lose interest he’ll twitch a foot to draw her back in. Sir is probably trying to get into the food bin. It’s what she does. She’s surprisingly effective at it. Once she manages to work out the current setup, the next step is padlocks.
Neil rolls his face against the pillow, his still-shower-damp hair leaving wet trails. It is good to be back in his own apartment, in his own bed, with Andrew. Borrowed mattresses are never quite comfortable.
“What would you say,” Neil says, wiggling his hands under his cheek, “if I wanted to kiss Matt?”
Andrew turns his head to look at him. Neil wasn’t nervous before he spoke, but now his heart is thumping. Andrew brushes the pad of his thumb over Neil’s cheek. He treats Neil so delicately, sometimes, that Neil feels like he will shatter.
“Do you?” Andrew asks.
“Yes,” says Neil, helpless to lie now, with this man he loves so much. “But I can forget about it if you want me to.”
Neil falls silent under Andrew’s touch and waits, watching him. He knows Andrew gets jealous. The few times Neil has realized someone was hitting on him, Andrew’s response was quick and violent. Andrew likes having, and Neil gets a pleasurable shiver down his spine every time he thinks of being had, by Andrew. He is Andrew’s, completely; and Andrew is his.
“You are impossible,” Andrew says at last. Neil hums in agreement, closing his eyes to better feel Andrew’s hand on his face. “Give me forty-eight hours.”
“Okay,” Neil says. Andrew snorts, once, and withdraws to swing his legs out from under the covers (King jumps down to the floor to continue her pursuit of his feet). Neil misses him, so he follows, and Andrew gives him his hand to hold with automatic absentmindedness. Neil kisses the back of it because he wants to, and it is one of the things that is a yes now unless explicitly said otherwise. It is good, to be home.
The next forty-eight hours go more normally than not. Andrew and Neil go grocery shopping, buy a new vacuum to keep up with the one-third increase in cat hair (though, as Andrew keeps pointing out, it doesn’t make sense given relative surface area). They go to practice; Andrew blocks Neil’s shots with lazy grace. Andrew cooks dinner the first night. The second night Neil brings in take-out, and the whole apartment smells like chicken parm. Sir gets into the food bin and the padlocks are deployed with much swearing and stomping of feet, while the new kitten gleefully chases kibbles across the kitchen floor. Rent is due and paid.
Neil doesn’t think much about it during the allotted time. It’s in Andrew’s hands now, and whatever the choice is, Neil trusts Andrew’s hands not to let him down. He can tell Andrew is thinking hard, turning the question over and over in his mind, and Neil’s chest is hot with pride. And gratitude. Andrew’s manic impulsiveness has been wrestled around a series of mental (and sometimes physical) exercises set up by Bee and reinforced by subsequent therapists, and if Neil sees only a fraction of the work Andrew puts in to keep his checks and balances intact, it’s enough to know it takes Andrew’s full concentration.
A few times Neil catches Andrew staring off into space, brow furrowed, and Neil goes quiet and watches him, waiting for him to be ready for Neil to interrupt. Thrice Andrew pins Neil against various pieces of furniture and kisses him hard, wandering away afterward to leave Neil a panting mess. Once he slams a fist on the table when Neil steals a sip of his hot chocolate, and then curls his fingers in Neil’s shirt in apology. Neil strokes a curl off of Andrew’s forehead and lets Andrew hold him.
When he wakes up on judgement day (because Andrew made him wait the full forty-eight hours, half so that Andrew could go through all his therapy set-ups and half because Andrew is an ass), Andrew is already up, his spot filled by all three cats curled in a pile of whiskers and soft bellyfur. Neil eases himself out of bed so he won’t disturb them and tiptoes into the kitchen. Andrew is sitting on the couch, nursing a mug of coffee. Neil knows immediately that Andrew has been up for a while.
Andrew doesn’t look at him, so Neil sets about making toast. His skin is buzzing in anticipation; too, a little bit of fear, not of Andrew but of the knowledge that A Statement is about to be made. He settles beside Andrew with his plate, not touching him. Tucks his cold toes under the dragging hems of his pajama pants. Concentrates on folding a piece of toast down the exact center to stuff it in his mouth.
Andrew stirs, reaching for a butter-and-jam covered piece himself. Unlike Neil he doesn’t try to contain the mess, but rips the bread into tiny pieces, releasing a shower of sticky crumbs as he methodically places bit by bit into his mouth and chews.
“The cat box needs doing,” Neil says.
Andrew rests the bottom of his mug on Neil’s folded knee, a circle of brown-stained warmth through the cotton. “You might as well ask, if you’re going to be like that.”
Neil can’t help the tiny grin that rises from his throat to spill over his cheeks. “It’s been forty-eight hours. And…” he checks the clock on the cable box. “Thirteen—no, fourteen minutes.”
The coffee in the mug ripples as Andrew lets out a gusty sigh. “You tell me if he does anything. Anything, Neil.”
Hope is so hard to quash now that Neil knows what it feels like. “Is that…”
“I’m saying yes. Abram. Idiot.”
Neil folds against Andrew, splashing coffee onto his pants, but he barely registers the burn. The last piece of toast teeters along with the plate. Neil doesn’t care. “I’m still yours,” he says, against the honesty of Andrew’s skin, right where his collar ends and his pulse starts.
“Idiot,” Andrew repeats. His arm comes up to wrap around Neil’s waist, holding him close.
The next step is telling Matt.
Neil had been so wrapped up in the confusion—the improbability– of his own attraction that he hadn’t considered that Matt might not want to kiss him back. This is a vast oversight. Neil’s reasonably certain Matt wouldn’t hold it against him, if he told Matt and Matt wasn’t for it; that Matt would continue on with their friendship as if nothing had happened.
Reasonably isn’t completely.
Neil postpones his and Matt’s weekly (more often, daily) Skype call two times.
It’s more complicated as Neil dallies and realizes that it’s not only kissing (and maybe, with a hot flush under his skin, more) he wants, with Matt. He wants Matt’s voice explaining the films he loves that Neil doesn’t care about the same way Andrew reads aloud from his novels, letting Neil sink into the sound of his voice, the words unimportant, the sharing and the him-ness of it encompassing all. He wants Matt carrying his bags at the mall while he goes to the bathroom, probably teasing with a smile instead of Andrew’s glare at Neil’s penchant for sparkly things. He wants to sit with Matt at the end of the day, not explicitly paying attention to each other but existing together, comfortable and reliable.
Defining what he wants, even in his own head, is difficult. So much of the way he and Matt act is already easy intimacy, affection shared back and forth. From what Neil’s heard he knows friendships like his and Matt’s (or his with the rest of the Foxes) are uncommon and coveted. Neil can’t say for sure; this is the first kind of friendship he has known. All he knows is that it is good, and he doesn’t want to lose it.
Neil is also reasonably certain that Dan won’t mind. She’s had the odd hook-up and even a brief relationship with other people while dating Matt, and Matt has assured Neil that he knows and is enthusiastic about Dan getting an abundance of love. He’s allowed to pursue other relationships as well, but aside from the times he and Dan bring someone back with them for the night, as far as Neil knows Matt hasn’t taken advantage of this permission. Dan says as much sometimes, gently teasing, and Neil’s not sure why she always looks at him when she brings it up, sometimes frustrated, sometimes almost sad, for no reason at all, and…
Ah. That is, Neil supposes, a data point.
He stops postponing Matt’s call.
“Neil!” Matt shouts as soon as he connects, grainy face splitting into a grin. He bounces up and down, making his image shake as he jostles his laptop. “Oh my God, you’ll never guess what happened the other day, it was the DMV, right, because—”
Neil’s tongue is glued to the roof of his suddenly dry mouth. “Matt,” he croaks. Matt notices (of course he notices) and his expression loses its wild joy.
“Babe?” He asks, mouth pursing around his concern. Neil can’t help but stare at the swell of Matt’s lips, caught in worried patience as he waits for Neil to reveal whatever it is that Neil is keeping inside.
Neil wants to kiss him so badly. Wants Matt so badly, and it’s wonderful and it hurts, and Neil has to let it out or he’ll have to shove it down to nothing, right now, forever.
“I like you,” Neil says.
“Hah—wh—n—yeah?”
For a terrible moment Neil thinks Skype has cut out for his confession. He gathers himself to say it again. Matt forestalls him by leaning forward, the crinkle of the blankets loud over laptop speakers, touching his fingertips to the outside of the camera as if he’s holding Neil’s face. “You, um. Like. You mean like…like?”
Neil fists his hands in his lap. Matt has cut right to the heart of it. It must be easier for him to think that way, all heart as he is. If Neil’s stomach keeps squirming it’ll wiggle right out of his body, maybe down a leg first to be extra uncomfortable. “I think so? I want to kiss you. And I like spending time with you. And you’re…you look good.”
Especially now, in a thin t-shirt that clings to the definition in Matt’s chest, the yellow light from his bedside table warming the angles of his face. Neil’s not used to this. It’s similar enough to how he feels about Andrew for him to recognize it, but it’s not the same. Less edge-of-the-world. More…lazy Sunday morning. Though lazy Sundays with Andrew are some of the best parts of Neil’s week, so that division doesn’t make sense.
Neil can’t define how he feels about Andrew. Has never been able to, to his satisfaction. He just knows that the feeling is there. Maybe if he’d tried harder to categorize it, he’d be able to figure out how he’s feeling right now, about Matt.
Sensing the beginnings of a headache, Neil presses his fists into the seat cushion through the gap in his crossed legs and pulls back. He first thought of Andrew in terms of actions; actions are something Neil understands.
He wants to kiss Andrew. He enjoys kissing Andrew. He wants to kiss Matt. He likes holding Andrew’s hand. He likes holding Matt’s hand. He likes going places with either one of them, or both, the few times Andrew has agreed to it. He likes sex with Andrew. Does he want–
Warring answers clash in Neil’s chest, sending his head spinning off. There’s a jubilant, hungry yes that presses eager pictures of Matt’s smile, his hands, his body, reminds Neil how good it feels with Andrew, whispers that Matt would be good as well. It batters against a spike of fear so sharp Neil can’t breathe. It’s not only the memory of his mother’s slap. It’s also his general unfamiliarity with non-Andrew-related desire, the certainty that despite Andrew’s permission he’s not supposed to feel like this for anyone else. It’s not how he’s put together.
He’s been silent for too long. Matt has messaged him, the text popping up below the pixelated worry sketching wrinkles across his eyebrows, digging lines on either side of his mouth and poking dimples in his chin.
Neil can u talk to me?
Kinda worried about u
Neil?
The panic ebbs, not banished but content to wait. This is Matt. Matt is safe, warm, giving. He might have answers Neil doesn’t, but even if he doesn’t, he’ll help Neil find them. Neil unclenches his aching fingers and rests them on his knees.
“Do you?” he asks.
Relief breaks across Matt’s face. Neil knows Matt hasn’t heard him over the reassurance of him speaking again, so he repeats himself. The pencil lines of Matt’s expression rearrange themselves. Thoughtful; holding back. Internally, Neil shakes his head. The most neutral face Matt is able to make is a beaming grin.
“Do I want to….” Matt’s lips close in the shape of a kiss. He touches the back of his hand to them, and then blinks and looks away, embarrassed at the gesture. Neil’s not sure why. “Uh. I mean if you’re down?”
His voice cracks. Matt jerks a hand up to cover the bottom of his face. Neil tilts his head. He’s never seen Matt be shy.
It’s fascinating.
“Sorry,” Matt says, muffled by his hand. “Never—actually.”
“You cut out for a second,” Neil says, and Matt swears. He sounds more like himself as he lowers his hand to try again.
“I just said, I never thought this would happen.”
Neil frowns. “You thought about it?”
“Dude,” Matt groans. He flops back on the pillows, tipping his image back and forth. Neil’s glad he doesn’t get seasick. “I might have been thinking about it for a while.”
His face is hidden by his pillow and the angle of his chin. Neil doesn’t think it’s an accident. “Why?”
Matt’s eyes appear as he cranes his neck. He’s got his t-shirt pulled up over his nose. Neil misses the sight of his mouth until he notices that Matt’s belly button is now exposed. It’s a sight Neil has seen more times than he’d honestly like to, but this new feeling welling up inside of him urges him to stare. The skin there looks smooth, a patch of tiny curls meandering down into Matt’s waistband. Neil wonders what it would feel like, to touch. Would the muscles jump if he tickled? What if he scratched, lightly like he does to Matt’s head?
“Hey.” Matt’s voice is gentle. He comes out of his shirt, friction working on Neil’s side for once in his life and keeping it rucked up. “Do you want this to change anything? It doesn’t have to.”
Neil nods, firm. Of this he’s sure. He wouldn’t have said anything if he didn’t want his words to have an effect. He’s too good at hiding for that. Unfortunately, that’s where the sureness stops; Neil doesn’t know what kind of change he wants to happen, just that he wants something. And hopefully it can involve kissing, but that isn’t necessary. He stares at Matt through the camera helplessly, wishing he could pierce the miles between them and lean against Matt’s strong chest, rest in the knowledge of Matt’s breathing and that things are, for the next few hours at least, going to be all right.
“How about…um. Can I take you on a date?” Matt bites his lip and then smiles, boyish exuberance trickling back into his frame. He sits up against the headboard and takes the laptop with him, gesturing with his free hand. “When I first got signed Dan and I used to do these video dates. I’d still like to take you out for real, but it’s not that far off from the real thing, we can dress up and everything…” he sees how Neil’s not moving and with visible effort calms down. “If you want that. We can do something else.”
“I’d like it. The date,” Neil says, feeling a bit topsy-turvy himself. He’s only vaguely sure what people do, on dates; he and Andrew don’t tend towards that sort of thing, or if they do, it’s more one of them dragging the other somewhere and them insulting each other and seeing how soon they can get the maître-d (or cinema worker, or park concert usher) to kick them out. Neil has never regretted the lack of traditional romancing. It’s a pointless ritual when he and Andrew are already wrapped past each other’s deepest twistings. But with Matt….
Matt is so excited, and Neil feels himself pulled along. A small spark of anticipation pricks under his breastbone. “We can try it.”
“Great!” Matt beams at Neil, and Neil finds himself blushing. Starting to work out why Matt’s smile is affecting him differently now hasn’t dampened the reaction. If anything, it’s made it stronger. “Now where’s my little boy?”
Neil recognizes the distraction tactic for what it is, and is grateful for it. There have been too many feelings for today. He relates the story of the new kitten’s latest exploits to Matt’s rapt attention, which runs right into Matt sharing the story of the puppy he saw on the way to the gym this morning, and they exchange subjects until Neil gives a cracking yawn and Matt demands that he go to sleep.
“No,” Neil says, to be contrary.
“What if it will make me feel better if you go to bed?”
“Guess you’ll never find out.”
Matt laughs. Matt’s laugh has never made Neil feel excluded, the way the laughter of other children did when he was younger. No, Matt’s is an invitation, and Neil is smiling without really knowing why. “Okay. Goodnight, babe.”
There’s a slight hesitation before the babe, and it makes Neil want to wrap himself in his bedclothes and hum. He raises his hand to wave as Matt mimes a video fist-bump, and then cuts the call.
It seems he’s got a date.
Neil has gotten better at dressing himself. Most of the time he’s in his uniform or in gym clothes, so it’s only obvious when he makes an effort, like now. He had fussed for an hour in front of his side of the closet before pulling on one of the two-button t-shirts that Allison is making him replace all his regular t-shirts with, and the pair of jeans that makes Andrew stare at his legs most intently.
He sets up the laptop on the kitchen table, taking care to center it and turn on the light over the sink so he’s not in shadow. His hands are shaky. Andrew heaves himself up from the couch as soon as Neil is situated and starts chopping vegetables behind him with their largest kitchen knife.
“You don’t even like bell peppers,” Neil points out, booting up the Skype app. His armpits are sweating. It’s cold and damp and gross. Will Matt be able to tell?
Andrew slides the knife between his middle and index fingers and uses it to flip Neil off. Neil responds with the British hand-slang for “cunt.” Andrew gives him the five fathers. Neil twists around in his chair to show him a Greek write-off. Before he can finish the gesture, Matt messages to ask him if he’s ready to call.
The video takes seven hundred years to load, and the shivery anticipation that has been swirling around in Neil’s stomach coalesces into a single sharp crystal when Matt’s voice comes through, a second before his face. He looks nervous. He’s wearing a button-down, and he…is he holding a rose? Neil didn’t even put shoes on.
He can’t do this.
“Wait, sorry, wait,” Matt blusters, shoving the rose out of frame and reaching out both arms. There’s a laugh from off-screen and Dan’s chin appears in the upper left corner, her hand patting Matt on the shoulder.
“I told you it was too much, babe. Hey Neil!”
“Hey,” Neil says. Andrew, who has resumed his meal prep in the background, sighs.
Matt rubs a hand over his forehead. “Hi, Andrew.”
Andrew flips the knife over the back of his knuckles and stabs it point-down through a pepper, pinning it to the cutting board. Matt jumps in his chair and winces.
No matter how many times he does it, it always makes Neil feel warm inside when Andrew shows himself willing to protect him. He shuffles his socked feet on the floor, pleased. He must be doing something silly with his face because Matt smiles (Neil shuffles faster and tries not to duck his head) and Dan laughs.
“Now the knife is dull,” Neil says. “Great job.” He dodges automatically to the side, and a moment later one of their smaller knives whistles past his ear, narrowly missing the laptop. The thunk-thunk-thunk of Andrew’s chopping starts up again. Dan’s chin kisses the top of Matt’s head and retreats.
Conversation is stilted in the beginning. After a while, though, the familiarity of speaking to Matt takes over Neil’s nerves. It’s not all that different from their usual Skype calls and before long Neil is sprawled sideways, gesturing with his hands while he and Matt interrupt each other. Andrew finishes bristling in the background and rinses the knife to put it away, grabbing Neil’s trailing fingers and kissing them on his way through to the couch, the way he does several times a day. Matt waggles his eyebrows when he sees this, and Neil flushes.
“I had a good time,” Matt says, when they start winding down. “Can we, um. Do this again? Next week?”
Neil fiddles with the edge of the placemat he’s dragged towards himself at some point during the call. “Can we still call regularly in between?”
“Of course,” Matt says, his eyes soft. Neil bites the inside of his mouth and thinks better of it, lets himself smile, as wide as his face wants him too. Matt looks dazed. Oh; so that’s something Neil can do. Neil presses the knowledge into the safest part of his brain for keeping.
“I had a good time too,” Neil says.
Matt is more happy with that than makes sense. “Damn, I wish you were here. I’d send you off with a good-night kiss. If—if you wanted, I mean—”
“Yeah,” Neil says, feeling the pang of Matt’s absence sudden and sharp. “Um, when—in person. We can. Do that?”
“Sounds like a plan,” Matt says. Neil wonders if the uptick in his pulse is visible over the screen. He cups a hand to his neck, just in case.
Being attracted to people is exhausting. Neil thinks he likes it anyway.
“You’re going to be a hot mess,” Allison promises over the phone.
“Thanks,” Neil says sardonically, juggling the phone to his other shoulder so he can fit another piece into the puzzle spread over the coffee table. Andrew has made a game of finding the most psychedelic, difficult to look at puzzles he can and spreading them over useful surfaces. He gets bored with them quickly, so they remain half-finished unless Neil makes an effort to complete them.
“You know I love you,” says Allison. “But you’ve been dating one person, since like, forever. You’re like a little baby bird again.”
Neil’s fairly certain that’s another insult. He squints at a swirl of glittery pink and tries to see if the shape matches any of the loose pieces he’s arranged in front of him. “It’s Matt.”
“Exactly,” Allison coos. “I was there when he won Dan. You have no idea what you’re in for, chickadee. No, Parker, down!”
Rustling and barking come through the other end. Renee and Allison are fostering hypoallergenic seeing eye dogs, because Renee is a good person and Allison gets hives around anything with fur. Allison pretends she hates the work. Neil sees through her. He’s had practice.
“But we already know each other,” Neil says, pushing sternly down on the anxiety rising in his chest. He tries a piece against the edge of the pink swirl. Nope. “It’s not like we have to make a good impression.”
“Just you wait,” Allison says ominously, which doesn’t help Neil’s anxiety at all.
Thankfully Neil is too tired to be nervous when he gets off the plane, stumbling from the baggage claim into Dan and Matt’s waiting arms. Checking baggage is old hat by now, and he spares a thought to wonder at it as he lets Dan sling the case protecting his Exy stick over her back and Matt take over his carry-on. He falls asleep on Matt’s shoulder in the back seat.
He gets set up in the guest bedroom, same as usual, and it’s not until the next morning that Neil thinks to wonder if he should’ve expected to stay in the master with Matt (and Dan). He flips over onto his back and stares up at the stippled ceiling. It’s not like he’s never slept beside them before, during Fox sleepovers or accidental naps on the couch. Thinking about doing the same thing now, in this context, gives rise to a squirmy feeling that isn’t quite comfortable. Not bad, but not good, either. He decides he’s glad he slept in the guest bedroom this time.
The smell of coffee and frying butter beckons him from the kitchen. Neil wraps himself in a blanket (Matt likes the apartment so cold, he and Dan agree it’s terrible) and makes his way into the open. Dan is flipping pancakes on the stove, Matt reading from his phone at the table. Matt’s eyes light up when he sees Neil.
“I was hoping I would catch you before I had to leave today! Good morning,” he adds as an afterthought, scooting his chair over to leave room for Neil. Neil grabs the open seat and sits in it crosslegged, drawing the blanket up over his head. He makes eyes at the three mugs waiting by the coffee maker.
“I’m hungry,” Matt whines, leaning back to nuzzle his face into Dan’s back. She pokes him with the butt of the spatula, shooting Neil a look that says can you believe this guy?
“You rush pancakes, you get shit pancakes,” she says. “I know how to cook one thing and I’m gonna do it right. Morning, Neil. Coffee?”
“Yes.”
Matt has practice for most of the day (he’s apologetic, which Neil finds silly, because he’s the last person to think that’s a bad excuse), but it’s a school holiday so Dan stays at the apartment with Neil and her playbook. She gravitates from the table to the couch to the floor to the table again, watching replays on her laptop and taking copious notes. There are five different pens in her hair before she starts running out of space.
With the nonstop rush Neil’s life usually is, Neil is happy to take up residence spread-eagle in the middle of the rug. He rambles on to Dan about his teammates. He flips through channels until he finds a sepia-steeped Western movie and decides it’s good enough. He texts Andrew, and gets back a picture of the new cat (whom Matt has finally decided to name “Thunderkick 3000;” Neil and Andrew usually just call him “Teddy”) hanging from a claw snagged in Andrew’s armband. Dan calls him over for his opinion on her players, and Neil advises her happily. Though she does keep reminding him that these are freshmen, not his professional colleagues. Neil keeps reminding her that they’ve got to learn sometime.
He doesn’t remember to be nervous until Dan points to the threadbare shirt and pair of (Andrew’s) sweatpants he’s been wearing all day and asks, “Matt’s almost home. Is that really what you’re going out in tonight?”
A swift kick to the gut would make him less suddenly nauseous. Neil knows from experience. “I don’t know where we’re going.”
“He didn’t say to dress fancy,” Dan says, propping her hands on her hips and scanning Neil from head to toe. Neil’s skin prickles. “You’ll probably be good with jeans. As long as they’re not fifty years old or ripped. My man’s a classy one.”
“Since when?”
Dan sticks out her tongue and implies something rude about Neil’s parentage, which all things considered might even be true.
She is Neil’s family, though, so she cuddles him on the couch after he gets changed until Matt comes home. The rush of warm air from outside and Matt’s heavy footsteps announce him plainly, but neither of them move until Matt tips his head over the back of the couch, shaking his sweaty headband onto Dan’s stomach. Dan picks it up and snaps it back into his face.
“Ewww,” she says, grinning.
“I kinda like coming home to my two favorite people,” Matt says, and while Neil’s face goes hot he leans down to kiss Dan hello. Neil’s instinct is to look at his feet, but their faces are in the way and so that would be counterproductive.
Well, why should he? Didn’t he and Matt agree that they were going to kiss when they saw each other again?
Habit makes Neil stop before reaching up, tucking his hands behind his back. “Do I get one too?”
“Wh—oh,” Matt says, hand flying up to cover his face. “I. Not yet? Is that okay?” His voice gets squeakier, so at the end he sounds like a cartoon character.
“Okay,” says Neil. He starts to ask where they’re going, but Matt stops him with a hand on his arm.
“It’s not that I don’t want to,” he says. “Like. I’m totally still down with kissing. Kissing’s great!”
The last time Neil saw Matt bouncing around on his feet that much, it was because he had to go to the bathroom; that doesn’t fit, here.
“You’re just a romantic,” Dan teases, and there’s the gut-kick again. Neil’s arms tighten around Dan. She pats him. “You good?”
“Mmhm,” Neil says into the pens sticking out of her head.
“We don’t have to go out tonight,” Matt says, concerned.
That sounds awful. “I’m good. I promise!”
“Really? Because—”
“Shut up. Where are we going?” Neil says, quickly, before any more arguments can come through. “Is this okay? What I’m wearing.” Dan shifts to the side so Matt can get the full view.
“Perfect,” Matt says, all bright white teeth, and oh, Neil wants Matt to look at him like that and say nice things about him forever.
After a shower and change himself (“He looks hot in his uniform, doesn’t he?” Dan says to Neil, winking, and Neil feels a quiet thrill when he answers, “Yeah”), Matt slings a jacket over his shoulder and offers Neil his hand. Neil takes it, comforted by the familiar gesture. Matt smells like hair gel and soap and cologne, and Neil presses his face into Matt’s shirt in appreciation.
“Drive safe,” Dan says, opening the door for them. She pecks them both on the cheek, stretching up for Matt and leaning down for Neil. “Have fun, you two.”
“Don’t blow up the house when I’m not here to see,” Matt responds, and they’re off, carried down the stairs to the parking garage on Dan’s laugh.
The air changes once they’re closed inside Matt’s truck (a different one from his Palmetto days, but no less beloved). Neil knots his hands together in his lap and stares out the window. He can’t stop remembering that this is a date. He’s on a date, a real, physical date, with Matt. His best friend Matt. He’s on a date with him. Matt. A date. For romance and stuff.
It’s so much bigger than their Skype dates. Neil wants to open the door and leap out onto the highway. It’s survivable if you know it’s coming.
The shirt Matt is wearing has a deep vee down the front, exposing the long line of his neck. Whenever Neil turns to answer a question or make a comment, he’s overcome with the desire to find out how it feels under his lips. Thinking about wanting someone other than Andrew is weird enough, and Neil has had months. Actually doing something about it might give his central nervous system the final excuse to tap out.
Matt pulls them into the parking lot of a bistro that has an alarmingly elegant spray of poppies carved into its sign-front. Warning bells sound inside Neil’s head as Matt leads him through exposed-grain wooden tables and couples in collared shirts and pretty dresses. His casual getup marks him instantly as an outsider. Neil dodges the judgmental glances, curling his shoulders and dropping his gaze to the floor to be as invisible as possible.
They get to a small counter at the back that turns out to be the cash register, hidden so as not to offend delicate sensibilities. Matt chats easily with the cashier and is soon handed two large paper bags, receipt attached marking them as take-out. Neil nearly sinks to the floor in relief. He keeps his legs steady out of sheer will.
A childish lisp breaks him out of his thoughts: “Mommy, look at the man with the scars.” A haggard mother tries frantically to silence her child at a nearby table, darting fearful glances up at Neil. She’s not distressed at her child’s rudeness, Neil realizes, just afraid that he’s heard them. Neil straightens his spine and bores his eyes into her plastic smile, keeping his face still and staring much longer than social norms would dictate. Her pale mouth turns down. Her son has no such compunctions.
“Guy! Guy! What happened to your face?” He points to both his cheeks, eyes bigger than the plate in front of him. “How did you get those?”
“Kidnapping children who ask too many questions,” Neil says, not dropping the mother’s gaze. She flinches and yanks her son close to her, but not before a peal of laughter bursts from him, bouncing off the exposed decorative rafters.
Matt is beside him, takeout bags in one hand, the other rising to rest proprietary at the small of Neil’s back. “Do we have a problem?” He’s smiling at the mother, and for once—Neil didn’t know it was possible—the expression holds no warmth.
Neil has to give the hostess his respect. It’s the fastest he’s ever been ushered out of a restaurant.
They don’t get back in the truck. Instead, Matt steers Neil across and down a handful of the city’s long blocks, chatting idly. Neil memorizes the pattern in the automatic back of his mind. It’s a warm evening, humid but not miserably so, and people on the street nod instinctively to Matt’s general aura of charm. His hand remains on Neil’s back the whole time, pressing lightly to guide him. It’s something Andrew does when he’s feeling possessive, but not in public. Neil has always liked the way it makes him feel taken care of.
They stop to buy cups of lemonade from a dinky stand (the “best in the city,” Matt proclaims. Neil takes charge of the bags of take-out while Matt fishes for his wallet), and then they’re tramping through the close-cropped grass of a park, dodging picnickers and other (other!) couples. A frisbee arcs through the air towards them, and Matt catches it one handed, laughing and calling out to the children tossing it while he sends it back. His easy athleticism makes Neil’s skin burn under his collar.
Expecting to be out in the open, Neil is pleasantly surprised when Matt ducks around an intentionally arranged copse of trees and crouches to put the lemonade cups down behind a hedge. He motions for Neil to sit beside him and hand over the bags.
“I was worried this spot would be taken,” Matt says, pulling out napkins and Styrofoam containers. “I found it last summer, but I can’t have been the only one. Look.” He points with a plastic fork through a gap in the hedge, and Neil squints to see an outdoor amphitheater, concrete steps dotted with clusters of sunhatted people.
“There’s a concert?” Neil has, in the past years, gained somewhat of a passion for live music. It is as much of a shock to him as anyone else. He blames Kevin.
“Most nights, once it’s warm enough. The sound carries decently well to here, and the important part is you can eat as messy as you want and nobody else can see you.” Matt nudges Neil and passes over one of the containers.
The hedge and the trees block them from the rest of the park, enclosing them in a small bower of greenery. On the stage in the amphitheater Neil can see the sound crew taping wires and gesturing to microphones. Matt leans against a tree trunk, leaving space for Neil to curl beside him but letting him decide whether he wants to or not.
He understands Neil so well. Neil’s fingernails make dents in the Styrofoam. He has to swallow rapidly.
“Eat that before it gets cold,” Matt says through a mouthful of food, and the lump recedes from Neil’s throat. He crawls to slump against Matt, heedless of the grass stains he’s getting on his jeans, and opens the container to find a large, crusty-breaded sandwich and a cup of sauerkraut. “Because your taste in food should be a criminal offense,” Matt says.
“Won’t be the only thing criminal about me,” Neil says, elbowing Matt’s stomach. Matt yelps and nearly overturns his own, much less cabbage-y dinner.
It’s not the most comfortable place to be. Roots dig into Neil’s ass, and the dry grass is prickly even through his clothing. He keeps on the lookout for ants. The sandwich is too good to sacrifice to them, as is, true to Matt’s promise, the lemonade. They use every single one of the paper napkins and need more. Neil rubs his sticky hands on the grass, and Matt unselfconsciously sucks dipping sauce off of his fingertips. It’s an action he’s done a hundred times before. This time Neil is allowed to stare.
A four-person band takes the stage. Neil misses their name and half the lyrics. The drumbeat thuds up his hipbones to control the pulse of his heart. He closes his eyes and wiggles into Matt’s lap, listening, feeling the sweat make their t-shirts stick together. Dusk turns to twilight turns to the fluorescent brightness of a city night.
“I was worried you were going to take me somewhere with white tablecloths. Or tuxedos. Or chandeliers,” Neil says. He wraps the flap of Matt’s jacket tighter around him. He’d stolen it after sundown had turned the gentle breeze to chill. That is, after all, why Matt has brought it.
Matt chafes Neil’s arms. “Give me more credit, c’mon.” He pauses, and Neil can hear him thinking, so he waits. “Would that be…absolutely horrible?”
The band finishes their last (no really, their last) encore to the scattered applause of the visible audience. There’s the shrieking of feedback as they begin to pack up, the crew reappearing to monitor the band’s abuse of the equipment. Neil uses the time to figure out how to put his words in an order that makes sense.
“I don’t get it,” he finally says. Matt’s legs shift under him, tipping Neil into the crease, and Neil grabs Matt’s shoulder to stay upright as Matt leans back to look at him. “Why does anyone do that stuff? If you care about each other, it shouldn’t matter.”
Matt takes a while to answer. “When I was a kid,” he says, slowly, “I used to watch a lot of those—pirate movies, knights, cowboys…where it was all about the good men and chivalry and beating the bad guys and winning over the fair lady. And Mom wasn’t…she was busy, but there were a couple months when she had done something to her elbow, and she read a whole book of Arthurian legends to me. It was the most time I’d ever spent with her all at once.” He traps Neil’s ankle in the circle of his fingers; unties his shoelace when Neil kicks at him. “I guess I thought that that was what it would be like, for me. Stupid, I know.” He tips back, taking Neil with him so they’re sprawled on the grass. Neil is grateful to have Matt’s cushioning between him and the rocky soil.
“Everyone’s stupid when they’re a kid,” Neil says.
Matt laughs weakly. Neil can feel it rumbling against him, like the music earlier. “Yeah. Anyway then I moved in with Dad and it didn’t. Happen like that, I mean. I think the most romantic thing that happened to me was one time a guy made edibles that were m&m cookies because he knew those were my favorite. And that was only because he thought I’d suck him off. When I got to Palmetto, I wanted…I think I want to be the one to make it better for other people, you know? It doesn’t have to be like that, but it can. And not just to get someone to put out, or as a trick, or whatever. When I was younger I wanted it to mean something. I guess I still do.”
Neil digests that, lying on Matt’s chest, Matt’s arms clasped around his waist as they look up at the sky through the shadowed branches. The city lights are too bright to see any stars, but Neil knows where they are. “Do people really do that?” He asks. “Have sex with someone because they’re nice to them, or give them things?”
“I don’t remember,” Matt says.
Neil flips himself so he’s kneeling with his legs on either side of Matt’s, hand resting on the ground beside his head. With two fingers he traces Matt’s nose, his cheek, the swoop of his browbone and the delicate skin of his eyelids. He is so much bigger than Neil; Neil forgets he was built on as cracked a foundation as the rest of them. Neil wants to kill every single person that made Matt have to be strong.
“Can I kiss you now?” Matt asks in the breath between them.
“Do it,” Neil says, and leans forward first.
Matt’s lips do not feel appreciably different from Andrew’s. Slightly fuller, perhaps, but just as soft. Neil goes down on his forearms as Matt’s palms press against his spine, urging him closer. How long Matt has been waiting, Neil does not know; Matt does not rush him, keeps the kiss soft, pressing and easing against him in waves. Only when Neil tugs at the back of his neck does Matt roll them over so he can pin Neil to the ground with his mouth. Neil can’t feel the roots with the weight of Matt’s hips on his.
His heart is a wellspring, and Matt keeps adding water.
“I would try it,” he says against Matt’s lips. “The tablecloths and chandeliers. If that’s what you want. You can explain it to me.”
“We’ll talk about it,” Matt promises, and kisses him again.