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“Okay, I think the turn is coming up here,” Avery mumbles, running his finger over the honest-to-god actual paper map the last gas station had drawn for them when they’d completely lost signal.
Max slows, turning onto a gravel drive that extends into the trees. “You think this is right?”
Avery gives a small shrug. “Map says so.”
When they finally come to the small cabin, Max relaxes because he recognizes the colorfully painted front door from the email Avery had forwarded to him. He pulls to a stop and sighs happily. “This is going to be really good for us.”
“Totally.” Avery’s already out, starting the unloading process.
They’d rented the cabin out of desperation and a need to get away. Isolate themselves in a place with no signal, no wi-fi, and finally get some shit done. Specifically Avery needs to finish the first draft of his next novel to send to his editor, and Max needs to do some introspection and journaling and recharge his creative energies. He’ll be the featured artist at the gallery coop in two months, and he has no new work.
A retreat, as Avery had called it when he’d first proposed it, came as a welcome distraction. Avery’s agent had even funded the trip.
He joins Avery at the front door, and they step inside, both taking a deep inhale of the wonderful hardwood scent. The cabin reminds Max at first glance of a studio apartment, everything in one room with a door at the side leading to what’s probably a bathroom. The cabin even has a set of narrow stairs leading up to a loft where Max can see a bed.
Curious, he looks around, then frowns back up at the loft.
The loft that holds the only bed.
There’s a couch in the living area, along with a large dining table that Max is sure will soon be covered in all of their paperwork. He groans inwardly, thinking about what sleeping on the couch is going to do to his fifty-five year old, injured back. Especially since the couch is more like a love seat.
He can see Avery thinking along the same lines. “Looks like Madeline forgot that I said you were coming with me when she booked the place. I’ll take the couch and save your back.” Avery nudges him with his hip, and Max relaxes, grateful.
He’d been involved in a traffic collision a few months ago. Right around when he’d lost his creative spark, actually. He’d been t-boned by someone running a red in an intersection, and he’s still trying to recover from the body jarring and whiplash.
But it’s not like Avery’s a spring chicken, either, Max thinks as he admires the streaks of gray peppering in Avery’s hair at his temples. He looks distinguished, Max has always thought so, and the thought of getting to sleep in the bed makes him feel guilty. “It’s your agent’s money, and you pay her, so technically I think you should get the bed.”
Avery eyes him like he knows Max is going to be stubborn about it. “We could just both sleep in the bed,” he offers with a shrug.
“You’d be okay with that?” Max asks, eyebrows creeping up his forehead. His friend is notoriously private. He’s kind of surprised Avery invited him on the trip in the first place.
“It’s not like we’re going to ‘no homo’ each other.” Avery smirks, setting down his backpack on the table and unpacking his laptop. “Let’s just worry about it later. I’m going to crack a bottle of chardonnay and make this manuscript my bitch.”
Max snorts, retrieving his art supplies from the car and spreading his own things out on half the table. At some point, Avery puts a glass of wine near him, and he sips it automatically as he works through exercises he hasn’t done since his basic design class in college. Back to the basics, he’s decided, for right now. Just to get everything flowing again.
Later comes eventually, however, but by that point they’re both a little tipsy and wired from their work. “See, we have to share the bed now, we need each other to make sure we don’t die going up those tiny stairs,” Avery points out, very reasonably.
It’s nothing to strip down to his boxers and slip into the covers with his friend next to him, Max decides. Maybe Avery’s a private person, but he’d invited Max, hadn’t he? That must mean Avery trusts him. At least, he hopes it means he trusts Max.
Avery tucks himself in, his cute little half-glasses perched on his nose as he pulls his e-reader out. But he doesn’t put it away, just lays it on his chest and meets Max’s eyes.
“Your sketches were looking good. Did you get some ideas?”
Max settles in, looking up at the wood ceiling. “I feel like I’m just on the edge of something, you know?”
Avery gives a little snort. “Yeah, like when my characters can’t decide what they’re going to do and I write like, twenty pointless pages that are just going to get axed later. Sometimes you just have to keep pushing it until some shape comes out of it.”
“Exactly.” Max sighs, grateful to have someone who understands. He gives Avery a smile. “Thanks for inviting me, again. This is...it’s going to be good, I can tell.”
Avery sets his e-reader aside and rolls toward Max, his hand propping up his head. “Well, I like spending time with you.”
“I like spending time with you, too,” Max finds it easy to say.
They’d first met when Avery had come into the gallery and been taken by one of Max’s prints. Avery had asked to meet the artist, but Max hadn’t been in at the time, so he’d just kept coming back until he finally met Max. Max had been flattered, of course, but also confused at Avery’s cloak and dagger routine - normally when patrons wanted to commission a piece, they left a name and phone number for Max to follow up with.
That, of course, had been before Max knew that Avery was actually Alexander Lincoln, author of The Knights of Helenia series and possibly one of the more famous authors in the world alongside George RR Martin and Stephen King. And he’d done it all with honest-to-god actually good gay representation in his books.
Avery thinks it’s hilarious that Max can spout off that sentence - has heard him do so in public - without having ever read one of his books. Max always gets sheepish and shrugs. “I like non-fiction.”
Avery also thinks that’s the weirdest statement a person could make, but they’ve managed to stay friends, regardless.
“Can I ask you something, Max?”
Max meets Avery’s eyes again, so bright and sharp over the rims of his reading glasses. “Sure, of course.”
“Would you ever consider living with someone again?”
Max is surprised into silence. “I mean, um-”
“What I mean to say is...I invited you here because I kind of...wanted to test you out. I didn’t intend for this,” he gestures between them. “The one bed thing. I’m sorry about that, and I hope your back does okay. But I’m just...I’m lonely, Max. And the last thing I want to do is go out into the dating world with all the apps and my name and face being so recognizable… Okay, I’m making this really stupid.” Avery pulls off his glasses and pinches his nose, taking a deep breath in and out. “Max, I’m too old to fuck around anymore. Is there any universe in which you’d want to be with me?”
Max studies the ceiling again, letting the silence hang, unsure of how he can say what he wants to say. “Is there any universe where you’d settle for someone who can’t want you back?”
Avery looks surprised and then disappointed, pulling away a little.
“Not because- not because you. You are...amazing, Ave. You’re funny, and caring, and you give so much of yourself to everyone else.” Max sighs. “When I was young, I didn’t date because I wasn’t out, so it was easier to go without than try and pretend with a girl. Then, I just never...pursued anyone and no one ever found me, so I figured I’d never date anyone. And then, when I got older, there got to be a name for what I am, I guess.” He smiles just a little. “It makes me feel a little better, knowing there’s a category I fit into when I thought I was just...wrong my whole life.”
He turns back to Avery, finding that he’s curious now at least, and not disappointed. “I’m an asexual-aromantic, Avery. I’ve always had a preference for men, so I just say I’m gay most of the time because it’s easier than explaining it and people our age are more than likely going to make fun of me for using a millennial term or something. ” He pokes at Avery’s elbow with his finger. “I really wish I could be a person you’d want like that, though.”
Avery frowns. “Wait, are you saying no because you don’t want to or because you’re being a self-sacrificing a-hole?” His lips quirk a little at the insult, taking out some of the sting.
“C’mon, Avery. I’m not what you want.”
“So it’s the latter, then, hmm? Because then I’d tell you to let me make my own decision. So what, so you don’t want to have sex? Well, my hand has been doing me pretty well for what, the last at least fifteen years, so it’s not like I have to stop now. And you’ll never love me romantically? I like the love you give me right now. I like what we have. I like that when I need to go on a retreat to finish my goddamned book before the internet eats me alive, you’re the first and only person I think about wanting with me. I like that you text me when you got places to let me know you’ve arrived safely. I like that we can sit in total silence together, because I can look up at you sketching, and realize I’m not alone. I don’t need...whatever it is you think I need.”
“What do you need?”
“Just...someone to spend the rest of my life with, I guess.” Avery turns back to study the ceiling. “What do you need?”
Max lets himself consider the answer. “I’ve always wanted to be First for someone. Not like, first love or first fuck or whatever. But when something happens to you, I’m the first one you think of. I’ve always wanted to be first in someone’s mind, the way my mom and dad were for each other.”
Avery looks at him, then reaches out to touch Max’s arm in an invitation. Max consents, threading his fingers through Avery’s so they’re joined. “Max, you are my first. Well, maybe not book-related stuff, because that would be Madeline, but you’re my first, Max. When you called me after your accident, and I thought how I could have lost you… Am I your first?”
“Technically I called 911 first.” But Avery’s lips quirk, so Max grins back.
“Yeah, you’re so fucking aro. Can I?” He pulls their hands up, looking to kiss Max’s hand. Max nods, and feels nothing at the brush of Avery’s lips over his skin.
But the way Avery looks when he does it, all satisfied, something in that look makes Max burn with pride and pleasure.
“You know, when people say they’re breaking up or getting a divorce because they realized that they were ‘just friends’ now, I’ve always wondered what other people must be feeling. Because I don’t know, I feel like living with my friend forever might be pretty great.” Max returns the hand-kissing gesture, just to see Avery look pleased again.
“I’m game to give it a try.”
Max nods, taking his hand back and snuggling under the covers once more.
With a final smile, Avery turns out the light.