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“Tie or no tie?” Steven asks while gesturing to himself.
Andrew doesn’t bother looking up from the stove, where he’s scrapping a can of tomato sauce with practiced ease. “Does it matter?” he mumbles.
“Of course it does!” Steven whines. The exasperation in his voice is enough to make Andrew spare him a glance (but only after popping a lid over the stock pot.)
Steven is dressed in a plain button down, with a casual oxford blue blazer thrown on top and beige trousers. He even has decent shoes on. It’s an outfit that doesn’t make him look over or underdressed and would probably blend in well with the crowd of people that would be eating at the restaurant. He’s wearing safe colors and frankly, looks great.
‘He always does’, Andrew thinks. Even when Steven wants to wear clothes that he thinks look ridiculous.
“You trying hard to look good for Shane and Ryan?” Andrew drawls with an eyebrow raised exaggeratingly high. He’s only teasing, but Steven still pouts as he makes his way over to him.
He feels Steven’s slender fingers fiddle with his apron, tightening the knot that rests crookedly by his right collarbone. It was a prototype for Steven’s homemade merch. “Now why would I wanna look good for them when I have a perfectly good wife for me at home?” Steven says, the apples of his cheeks protruding right out of his face as he sports his signature grin.
Andrew shoots him an unamused look. “Just because I wear aprons and cook for you doesn’t make me your wife.”
Steven’s grin falters. “Yeah, I know...Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. You’re like my - my househusband!” Steven tries, but the joke falls flat. Something about the way that he had said it, the way he refused to ditch the notion of having some sort of domestic, marital tie with Andrew just seemed serious. He could’ve just said boyfriend who cooks great steak or hell, Andrew would’ve been happy to be dubbed a personal chef.
But Steven just had to call him his husband, huh?
Andrew freezes, his blood going cold in his veins, and then he’s flushing red, like he’s sizzling out of his own skin.
“Ditch the tie,” Andrew says a little too quickly. He yanks the black silk out of Steven’s hand and tosses it to the back of the couch, where it drapes lazily. “You look just fine, but that won’t matter if you show up late.”
Steven, a little pinker, smiles bashfully. “Oh. Okay. Thanks, Andy.” His fingers fall away from Andrew’s apron, and Andrew already misses the feel of them, so he pulls Steven in for a chaste kiss to compensate.
“Go on, get out of here,” Andrew says with fake annoyance when they pull apart, trying his best to shake off the tension in the air.
“I’m going, I’m going - you should go too, you know, make sure you don’t overcook the borscht-”
“Me? Overcooking borscht? Just go or I won’t save you a bowl.” And then Steven is out so fast he nearly trips as he speeds out the door.
-
Andrew spends his late afternoon driving to his sister’s, just under an hour away, with a secured pot full of beet soup in the back. He’s looking forward to seeing his niece, a bubbly and positively adorable baby named Amy, who he loves, and who Steven probably loves even more. (Steven had whined for an entire week when he found out Ryan’s weekend dinner reservation overlapped with what was affectionately dubbed “baby time.”)
The sun has just started to set by the time Andrew steps out of his car. I'm here he texts, not wanting to risk waking Amy up from her numerous naps, but he hears an excited gargle from the other side of the front door as he walks up the patio.
“Well hello, beautiful!” Andrew gushes at Amy, who sits perched on his sister's hip. He almost wants to throw the soup out of his hands in his haste to cradle the baby. But that would be a waste, and way out of character. It was more of a ‘Steven thing’ to do.
“Thanks,” Emma teases, flicking a nonexistent strand of hair over her shoulder. She laughs at the grimace on Andrew's face as he shoulders past her into the house. “Where's Steven?”
With a huff, Andrew plunks the pot onto the stove, the contents swishing slightly at the disturbance. “He's got this thing with Shane and Ryan.” He plucks Amy out of his sister's arms and holds her close. “They usually celebrate milestones with just the three of them.”
“Oh, yeah? You don't have to sound so jealous,” she laughs, rummaging through drawers and cabinets to set the table.
He sways with Amy in his arms, his senses overwhelmed with the scent of baby powder and dough. “I'm not,” he frowns. “The only thing I'm jealous of is all the great food they're probably having right now.”
“Uh huh. Well it's a good thing we have some great food here too, huh?”
Amy lets out a particularly loud hiccup over Andrew’s response.
-
“I wish Josh was here. He says you make borscht way better than me.”
“That's because I do,” Andrew says, lazily rubbing the back of a half-asleep Amy, draped over him. His phone pings several times and continues to as he carefully pulls it out of his pocket.
He's bombarded with an array of photos: a mirror selfie taken by Steven in the restaurant's restroom (he saves it immediately), photos of the same rotation of food; soups, a platter of colorful salad and risotto with some roasted shrimp taken at different angles and proximities and a candid moment of Shane and Ryan bickering. The last photo is a groupie taken with Shane holding the phone, and the first thing Andrew notices is Steven's flushed face and two bottles of champagne on the table.
Stevie 💜 : was supposed to send these earlier but i forgot to switch my data on!! 🙃🙂
Andrew laughs under his breath as he types out ‘looks amazing.’ And then just because he can, ‘food looks good, too.’
Stevie 💜 : awww
‘Not you. I was talking about the restroom.’
Stevie 💜 : ☹️
“Oh my god, Andrew. You're embarrassing me, stop giggling over Steven texting you like you're in highschool,” Emma gags from the other end of the sofa.
“Shut up, go call your husband or something.”
“He's working! Not everyone's husbands are out wining and dining with friends.”
Andrew nearly drops his phone in shock and he startles so hard that Amy stirs against his chest, but luckily she just snuffles before falling back asleep. “What is with everyone today?” he mutters, leaning his head against the back of the couch to stare at the ceiling.
“What?” Emma asks as she lowers the volume of the TV.
“Why is everyone throwing that word around?” Andrew says with a frown. He's sure he's overreacting, things like this don't usually stick out to him, but he replays sending Steven off while wearing a damn apron and it's stupidly domestic- but he definitely didn't hate it.
“Husband,” Andrew articulates, tasting the word in his mouth.
Andrew likes it. He had decided he liked it a while after he and Steven had crossed the mark of two years together, when Steven had uploaded a photo of a single rose on their anniversary and comments of “when is the wedding” were all he got for an entire week. He wasn’t opposed to hearing Adam joke about how he felt like he was back home with his parents when he was around Andrew and Steven.
It’s… new, but familiar, in the sense that it doesn’t frighten him- like when he took the plunge and decided to reciprocate Steven’s touches; when his arm over Andrew’s shoulder quickly became paired with his hand on Steven’s waist, or when eating together became a regularity that was preceded by a movie.
Andrew turns to his sister. “The thing is, earlier today, Steven -”
“Oh my god, did he propose?!”
“What? Emma!”
“SO HE DID?”
Andrew knows he likes it. But not enough to talk about it with his sister. Or anyone, for that matter.
-
After hours of fruitless grilling, Emma kicks Andrew out, threatening to revoke his uncle privileges if she has to find out about the ‘engagement’ through secondary sources (twitter.)
The road is eerily quiet, only the occasional car greeting him at intersections or speeding ahead. He remembers he never got to text Steven back, so he opens his messages at the next redlight.
Stevie 💜 : dessert menu was boring, we’re gonna go hit a bar up! wanna tag along love?
we’re at the beech
drewwww
The last text is attached with a blurry photo, a vertical selfie of the three watcher boys, well, more like a photo of Shane, Steven and half of Ryan, pressed cheek to cheek, as flushed as can be. Andrew rolls his eyes fondly and dials Steven’s number, throwing it onto the passenger seat before gripping the steering wheel. The dial tone cuts abruptly and crackly, booming music blasts out of his phone’s speaker.
“Hello? Hellooooo? Andrew? Can you hear me?”
“It’s a little loud, but it’s fine,” Andrew says, raising his voice. “You doing okay? Do you need me to come pick you up?” It’s a little concerning to hear the clatter of furniture and glass bottles followed by Ryan’s distinctive cackle, but Andrew knows that Steven is in good hands, even though his mind fleetingly reminds him of that one time Steven had ended up breaking a few shot glasses.
“Andrew? No it's ohhkay, we’re leaving now-”
“Wait, who’s driving?” Andrew panics. There’s Ryan’s laugh in the background again, and he’s pretty sure that that’s Shane’s hollering. He knows the pair are a little goofy but it definitely sounds like they’re more than tipsy. “Please tell me you’re all getting a Lyft.”
There’s more shuffling and a few excuse mes until the bar’s music sizzles down into the background. “Hello?”
“Still here, honey.”
“We’re all sharin’ a Lyft,” Steven says. “Can - can you meet me at the diner?”
“There’s food at home,” Andrew replies, and laughs at the whining response.
“Pleaseeee?”
“Fine. Be good and wait for me there,” Andrew says, before the line cuts.
-
When Andrew pulls up to the diner, Steven is already nestled in a booth, eyes closed and hands clasped around a tall strawberry milkshake. The only other patrons at the eatery (a group of what looked like college students) didn’t pay the odd sight any attention, too busy highlighting an absurd amount of text.
There’s a shocking lack of said thick cut fries, so he orders it himself before sliding into the seat across Steven.
“Feellikeshhhhhit,” Steven slurs.
Andrew laughs and brushes away a few stray bangs out of Steven’s eyes. His hair is crunchy from sweat and the last bits of hair mousse. “What were you going to do if it wasn’t me who sat across you?”
Steven shifts in his seat and finally opens his eyes to peek at Andrew. “I know how it sounds like when you sit,” he says seriously.
The laugh that Andrew barks out escapes him before he has a chance to stop it. He ignores the glare he gets from a particularly snobby student. “Okay, Steven. That’s not creepy at all,” he says, shaking his head fondly. Steven smiles lazily and takes a single sip from his milkshake, no exaggerated slurp and swallow, no inappropriate moaning over the ‘richness of powdered flavoring and store bought whipped cream.’ Andrew stares at him for a while before gently prying Steven’s hands from the glass, feeling the trickle of condensation cold on his palms.
Steven looks tired, as expected from someone nearing thirty and still up past midnight after a night of drinking, but tipsy Steven wasn’t the same as a typical tipsy thirty year old (now say that ten times.) He’s usually giggly and clingy to the point where it’s socially unacceptable, and even messier when he eats, hence Andrew choosing to sit across rather than beside him. Steven certainly looks buzzed and properly flushed, so where is his clingy boyfriend?
With a quiet hum, Steven traces his fingertips along the lines of Andrew’s palms; it tickles, but he doesn’t pull away. His hands are still stained red from grating beets earlier and Steven seems to pay special attention to this. “Did you know that,” Steven says, not pausing from his tracing, “I can foretell your future by reading your palm?”
Andrew raises an eyebrow. “Isn’t it a sin to believe in stuff like that?” Steven doesn’t reply, instead choosing to arrange Andrew’s hands till they rest flat on the tacky diner table, palms open and facing up.
“It says here that…you’re going to get a least ten million views when you publish your Why I Left Buzzfeed video.”
“Shut the hell up,” Andrew laughs. “I already told you, I’m not joining Watcher.”
Steven hums, the tiniest upturn at the corner of his lip like he doesn’t believe him. “And,” he continues, “you’re bound to own at least seven cats in this lifetime.” He’s studying the lines that cut across the knuckles of his fingers so seriously, that Andrew wonders if Steven actually knows what he’s doing.
“Oh yeah? Now that sounds a little more believable. Are any of them named Cornichon?” Andrew asks. Steven’s had a bit of alcohol, why not humor him a little?
But Steven just shakes his head, stroking a nub of callous just under Andrew’s ring finger. He’s about to ask if Steven is okay, until -
“You’re supposed to have met your future spouse by the age of twenty-five,” Steven says quietly.
Andrew sucks in a breath loudly through his teeth, staring, searching for mirth in Steven’s eyes; he sees none - only finding anxiousness and vulnerable sincerity. Andrew notices that Steven has let go of his hands, choosing to sit back against his seat, his eyes unwavering.
Outside the window, the dusty neon lights that read Open 24 Hours flicker, giving Andrew less than a second to admire Steven’s blonde hair before it turns back to neon pinky-red. He hears Steven bounce his legs frantically, the heel of his dress shoes snapping on cracked tiles and he knows he has to say something. “Steven-”
“Baked thick cut fries,” a voice drawls. “Enjoy.”
They simultaneously tear their eyes away from each other to stare at the middle-aged waitress click-clack away, completely unapologetic for breaking the moment.
Well, Andrew thinks, there are at least a hundred other places to talk about getting married. And a rustic diner with mediocre eggs isn’t really up there on the list.
Andrew looks at Steven- who’s already looking back. “Stevie, what’s going on?” he says as gently as he can, but even he hears the exasperation in his voice.
“You know how Scott recently got engaged?”
“Yeah? What’s happening? Is this creating some weird pressure on Shane or something?”
“No, Shane and Ryan made it pretty clear that they don’t give a sh- they don’t care about getting married,” and then, stumbling over his words, Steven says, “but I- I’ve dreamed about getting married ever since I was a kid.”
Oh.
“Steven,” he tries again in a soft voice, partly because Steven looks one second away from bolting and running all the way home, but also because he can’t trust his voice not to quiver. “Don’t take this the wrong way but… please don’t tell me you’re trying to propose to me here.”
“Because you don’t want to marry me?”
“No, you idiot, because I’m going to say yes. And I don’t want our special moment to be here in a goddamn plastic booth.”
Steven lets out a wet laugh, folding over himself and digging the heel of his hands into his eyes. He doesn’t know what to feel - but he knows that he’s feeling something, and he’s feeling it way too much. He wants to blame the alcohol. “I- I’m not,” he hics, “at least not today, not right now- but maybe -”
Maybe one day - when Steven’s had a couple less shots, when Andrew’s knees aren’t giving him a crappy time for driving for more than thirty minutes, and when Andrew actually has the ring hiding in the sock drawer onhand. “C’mere,” Andrew says, already leaning across the table and into Steven’s space.
He catches Steven's gaze shift from uneasy to warm mellow- a skill that proves to be useful when editing Worth It; there is so much that the eyes betray, Steven's especially. And while their relationship isn't necessarily a secret - some things are just better left out of the videos,
like the secretive, longing stares during car rides, the bashful sidelong glances they share when bounding down the street together, hips and shoulders brushing the entire way. Andrew can admit that they have had a few slip ups. It was inevitable.
But he thinks about Minneapolis, and how undeniably selfish he had been before greenlighting the video for final review. Andrew remembers cutting the scene short himself, because it was his moment to have - hovering over a flushed Steven in the snow, feeling the trace of Steven's eyes as the bitter cold seeped into his gloves, sucking in that painful breath of cold air before he was yanked down into a kiss.
That moment was his.
And this moment, as imperfect as it is, is ours, Andrew thinks, tilting his head to kiss Steven once, twice - and once more, just at the corner of his lips.
“Oh, man,” Steven says when he settles back into his side of the booth, flushed and beautiful - and oh man, Andrew agrees, because he's so in love and kissing Steven is something he never wants to get used to -
The milkshake between the pair has lost a considerate amount of whipped cream on the top, most of it now sitting on Steven's button down, in a dollop of foamy white and artificial pinks and blues.
Before Andrew can stop him, he's wiping away at the mess harshly with a napkin.
“Wait, Steven! Don't wipe so - oh my god.” The mess blooms into a marble of cotton candy colors on what Andrew knows is one of Steven's only good dress shirts. “You're supposed to dab it off!” he groans.
Steven, back in true Steven-form, laughs delightfully, a comment of Andrew acting like his mom at the tip of his tongue. But he keeps it to himself, choosing to instead beam at Andrew, whose fingers graze woefully over the stain, muttering about dry cleaning.
“Don't worry so much, Drew,” he says, catching Andrew's fingers to interlock with his own. It’s ironic- for him to be saying this now, because worrying is all he’s been doing for the past few days - but hearing Andrew say that he would’ve said yes, yes at two in the morning even with his now pink-stained shirt and Andrew’s beet stained hands-
“Thank you,” Steven says, his voice already a little watery again.
Andrew sighs; fondly, like his gaze and softly, like his smile, “what am I going to do with you, Steven?” even though he means, ‘what would I do without you?’