Work Text:
It's better to feel pain, than nothing at all
The opposite of love's indifference
- The Lumineers, "Stubborn Love"
Something is wrong.
David’s body knows it before he even fully wakes, before he registers the feel of the sheets cool on his skin or the sun warm across his face. Before he notices that the mattress doesn’t quite dip towards the right the way it usually does and that his toes are colder than they otherwise would be because they aren't tucked between a pair of warm, strong calves.
His body just knows that something is inherently wrong. And that’s because his husband is not in bed with him.
It’s not the first time David has woken up alone. A natural morning person, Patrick greets the day first more often than not. But if he’s not next to him sipping coffee while scrolling through the news or David’s ebay bids when David eventually blinks his eyes open, it’s usually because he’s hiking or making breakfast or opening the store whose hours David still hasn’t grown accustomed to.
But just like he knows Beyonce should have won Album of the Year for Lemonade, David’s body knows something is not right.
Because David’s body knows Patrick didn’t come to bed at all.
~*~
It was stupid, really.
They’d been arguing over which renovations they could afford first, a battle of wills and budget line items that’s been ongoing since before they even moved in, but it’s always been teasing. Always hinging on humor. Until last night.
David had had just enough wine to turn biting. And Patrick had not yet had enough to call him out on it.
So stupid, in retrospect.
It’s not like he needs a subway tile backsplash in this immediate moment. Patrick does most of the cooking anyway, and their only guest so far has been Stevie. And she only goes into the kitchen to refill her glass from whatever open booze bottle happens to be on the counter. They have a perfectly… adequate (if not aesthetically acceptable) one for the time being.
Which is what he could have said last night if he hadn’t let a frustrating day and a very good bottle of rioja get the better of him.
David blinks at the ceiling, hand splayed out beside him on the area of the mattress Patrick usually occupies as he waits for his phone’s alarm to go off. He has to open the store because Patrick is probably halfway to some small scale city David wasn’t paying attention to for a conference about something David didn’t care about.
He cares a bit more now. He wishes he’d paid more attention.
The alarm blares and he doesn’t even jump, feeling that awful post-too-much-wine combination of numbness interrupted by the occasional spike of panic and regret. His most irrational fears come out to play now, like they can sense blood in the water, and when he turns the alarm off and doesn’t have a single text from his husband waiting on his home screen, his fears move from ‘play’ to a fucking bacchanale.
Patrick always texts before he leaves if David isn’t awake.
Always.
He pushes the covers back and swings his legs over the side, pressing the toes that Patrick wasn’t there to warm into the rug and feeling like the weight in the pit of his stomach is anchoring him to the bed. He can’t let it, though. There’s a store to open and if they want to be able to do any renovations at all, let alone the ones they can’t yet afford, he needs to be there to upsell some products to some unsuspecting patrons with dry skin and dark circles.
Currently, David empathizes.
He pushes himself to standing and stumbles into the hallway, blaming the fact that he ricochets rather gracelessly off the wall on sleep deprivation and caffeine withdrawal. He catches himself on the door jamb to the guest room, and he really wishes he hadn’t because then he wouldn’t have to look at the carefully folded sheets Patrick stripped from the bed after he spent the night there.
No, it’s not the first time they’ve slept apart since moving in together or even since getting married - small business conferences and wine nights with Stevie have certainly contributed to separate nights in separate beds -
But it is the first time they’ve slept apart while still under the same roof.
And David can’t quite help the frisson of fear that traces down his spine - slowly, notch by notch, as if ticking off all the ways he’s fucked this up already. Even when Patrick falls asleep on the couch in the middle of the (admittedly) lesser Julia rom coms or David passes out during the seventh inning stretch, they each make sure to wake the other and carefully maneuver them up the stairs so they can crash together in a heap of jumbled limbs and mumbled I love yous.
He takes the stack of sheets, burying his nose in them and whining at the fact that they don’t smell like Patrick. He hasn’t spent enough time in them (thank God) and their lavender fabric softener is too strong to relinquish its hold on them yet. Clutching them to his chest, he makes his way downstairs and into the kitchen where the smell of lavender is finally interrupted by a new, stronger scent.
A fresh pot of coffee has just finished brewing, thanks to the auto-brew feature David never bothered to learn because Patrick always did it for him. And it’s a special kind of relief to know he won’t have to teach himself anytime soon. Even if Patrick didn’t include a note on a post-it stuck to the carafe the way he usually does.
David tries really hard not to read too much into that. Nor does he want to grab hold of it too tightly like the flimsy olive branch it is.
It’s something. A tiny thing, but… a thing nevertheless.
He leaves the sheets on top of the washer and pours himself a cup, adding a splash of the salted caramel creamer that Patrick thinks is disgusting but loves to kiss from his lips. David smacks them together just to feel the phantom press of his husband before heading back upstairs to shower and get ready to face the day. His phone remains annoyingly (and worryingly) silent on the bedside table.
But Patrick is driving. Patrick doesn’t text when he drives. They’ve yelled at each other enough for it over the years that they know better by now. At least he hopes Patrick does. Because now he’s conjuring the image of Patrick trying to reach out to him and crashing his car into a tree because David’s brain is nothing if not reliably masochistic.
Fuck.
He presses his eyes closed hard enough to see spots and bumps into the doorframe again as he tries to navigate blindly to the bathroom. Deciding that he can’t afford to undo the frankly stellar work Dr. Brauer did on his rhinoplasty, he opens his eyes but avoids looking in the mirror as he turns the water on and waits until it warms. There is nothing in his reflection that will make this morning any better.
Stripping and letting the hot water beat down on his shoulders, he is perfunctory in his scrub and doesn’t linger under the spray. Knowing Patrick won’t jump in and join him rather ruins the routine.
He shivers in the cold, getting a towel around his waist and taking another sip of his coffee. There’s no message written in the steam on the mirror, and though streak marks are decidedly incorrect, David’s never had the heart to tell Patrick to stop. Not when the outline of hey beautiful lingers into the afternoon until his husband does it all over again the next morning.
His clothes are so often his armor, but today he dresses for comfort and not combat. After all, his more pugnacious side did enough damage last night. Now, he just wants to be coddled. To be cuddled.
Unfortunately, his main source of comfort is hundreds of kilometers away, about to step into his first session of the day.
David grabs his keys and his silent phone and heads out the door.
He never does notice the ibuprofen next to the glass of water left for him on his bedside table.
~*~
The sun is mocking him.
It’s hot and bright and cheery when all he craves is rain, and for David Rose to actually want humidity anywhere near his hair or damp anywhere near his knits, the End Days have truly come.
He parks the Lincoln behind the store and walks around to the front. It’s 8:58 and he doesn’t have time to go in through the back and get set up before opening because reliable business hours blah blah blah -
“Oh.”
Twyla spins around where she’d been waiting by the door and smiles the only way she knows how - so luminescent, she rivals the star in the sky.
“Morning, David!”
“Hi?” He shifts his bag in one hand as he struggles to get the keys out of his pocket with the other. Matters aren’t helped when Twyla holds out a to-go cup and a paper bag for him to take with a limb he doesn’t have. “Um, is that... for... me?”
“Oh,” she shakes her head, ponytail swishing, in that silly me move she’s perfected as she lets David get the door unlocked, “Patrick stopped by and asked me to drop this off for you. He said you might be running late this morning and wouldn’t have time to swing by the Cafe.”
David’s head snaps up and he stares at her, all thoughts of building customer loyalty flying out of his head as the keys clatter to the pavement. Hope bubbles in his chest, but multiple instances of compounded disappointments have caused him to temper his expectations.
“When - when did he do this?”
“Oh, yesterday,” she replies, beaming smile not even enough to drive away the rain cloud hovering over his head. “After he picked up lunch.”
Ah. That’s why. Patrick did this pre-fight. Undoubtedly he’d rescind his order of - David sniffs - a breakfast burrito with extra cheese if given the chance.
“Well, that’s…” he bends to pick up the keys and shoves them into the door, needing to get this conversation over with so he can mainline his caffeine and cry his insecurities out in peace.
“It’s very sweet,” Twyla finishes for him, because of course she does. It is fucking sweet! Or it would have been if David hadn’t fucked it all up in the interim!
“Well, thanks,” he manages, throat feeling like he’s just swallowed sand, scraping him raw, as he loops his bag over his wrist so he can take the burrito and cup from her hands. He hip-checks the door open, vowing to come back for the keys (unlike that one time when he left them in the door all day until Patrick came back from his vendor run). “And he didn’t - he didn’t say anything else?”
She frowns and tilts her head, expression somehow still remaining happy despite her confusion. “No? Should he have?”
“No,” he whispers, nodding a little and lifting up the macchiato. “Thanks for bringing this over. He was right,” he says as the time on his phone switches over to 9am, “I was running late.”
“You’re welcome!” She turns and starts back across the street before spinning around. “Oh - he did call this morning and ask that we remove the jalapeños. He said you might have overindulged last night and spicy stuff gives you heartburn when you’re hungover.” Then she leans forward conspiratorially. “Don’t worry. We used the mild salsa.”
She smiles once more and practically skips back to the cafe, leaving David standing slack-jawed in the doorway of his own store. The store he shares with his husband. Who called the Cafe in the early hours (hopefully before he got on the road) to remove the jalapeños from David’s breakfast burrito.
Hope sparks in his chest again, the tiny flare before the match catches fire, but he douses it before it can consume him. He is still David Rose after all. It’ll take more than just a marriage to the love of his life and a career that fulfills him to make up for a lifetime of poor decisions and questionable company.
He places his breakfast on the counter, but not before taking a fortifying sip of his macchiato, and pulls out his phone to snap a photo. He types out a Thank you. and hits send before he can think of all of the other things he should say instead; in addition: I miss you. I love you.
I’m sorry.
The bell chimes over the door with his first customer, a woman who seems to know exactly what she wants as she makes a beeline over to the body milk, and he slides his breakfast under the cash until she leaves once more.
His text goes through as green, not blue, though, and the Delivered never comes.
~*~
There aren’t many things David excels at but wallowing in self-pity is definitely at the top of the very short list. Truly, it could get him at least to the qualifying round for the Olympics if not the medal ceremony. Bronze, maybe.
Rationally, he knows Patrick is in the middle of a session. And he’s presenting at one later this afternoon, so every moment he has is probably being spent either networking or polishing because his Boy Scout of a husband is nothing if not prepared. But rationality has never been David’s strong suit, so by the time lunch rolls around, he’s pacing the length of the store and glaring at his phone on the counter like it insulted his taste.
The bell over the door rings and he spins around, already schooling his face into his customer service smile until he sees Stevie standing in the doorway.
“Oh,” he blurts and she snorts.
“Hello to you, too.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Um, making sure you remember to eat while your husband is off at war?” Only then does he notice the paper bag she’s holding up with the hand that’s not giving him the finger.
He rolls his eyes but grabs his phone and heads for the back, leaving the curtain open to listen for the bell. “I’d hardly call a small business conference on localized entrepreneurship the front,” he mutters, clearing off the little table of the renovation sketches he had been doodling the day before. The sight of them now makes his stomach turn.
“One turkey BLT with extra mayo and a side of fries,” Stevie says, thunking the bag down on the wood, pulling out a container, and sliding it across to him.
David stills as the scent of bacon overwhelms him. Not once has Stevie ever deigned to order him extra anything, even when asked. Except for candles on his last birthday cake because she’s a monster who loves to point out he’s older than she is.
Which really only leaves one person.
“Is he doing this?” he asks quietly, opening the takeaway box to find his lunch exactly as he always orders it.
Stevie opens her own cardboard container and shoves a french fry in her mouth, raising a disinterested eyebrow. “Is who doing what?”
“You know who,” he snaps, habitually moving his platter out of the way as she tries to snatch up his pickle.
“I really don’t.”
“Patrick.” He stuffs his own fry in his mouth and gestures up and down at her like she’s a Fashion Week choice he just can’t get behind. “Getting you to come check on me.”
She snorts again and takes a seat, kicking her sneakered feet up on his chair. “Like I care enough to check on you.”
He shoves them off and plops down. “Well apparently he doesn’t either.”
“Please,” she retorts, her face pinching like she’s swallowed a pickleback before she glares at him. Seriously. “You know better than that.”
His jaw drops in indignation. “Um, no! He’s ignoring me!”
But Stevie doesn’t rise to his bait. He wants a fight; he wants to blow off the steam that’s been building since becoming conscious this morning reminded him of what an asshole he was last night. And she fucking knows it.
“Isn’t he at a conference?” she asks blithely. “That he’s presenting at? You know, for the betterment of your shared business?”
“Oh don’t do that. Don’t be…” rational, is the end of that sentence. What Stevie suggests instead is:
“What, not on your side?” She pops another fry in her mouth and rolls her eyes. “I’m not a child you automatically get custody of in every fight.” God, she’s annoying.
“Fuck off,” he replies without heat, but she isn’t phased. In fact, her train of thought is barely broken.
“I mean, he’s listed at the top. I checked the website and everything. His name is even larger than the others, so…” She fixes him with a careful look, her sharp edges softening for a moment. “It seems like kind of a big deal.”
And what does it say about him that Stevie checked the website for the conference his husband is presenting at and he didn’t? He didn’t even bother to really ask what it was about. And then he went and was a dick about vintage farmhouse kitchen faucets.
“He didn’t even - ” he stops and has to clear his throat as it goes inexcusably tight, “he didn’t even text me to let me know he’d made it. He always does that. It’s basically our unspoken rule, but he’ll talk to you and Twyla - ”
Stevie finally makes a noise of frustrated exasperation. “David, it’s not a secret that Patrick was going to be away. And it’s also not a secret how well you normally handle that. Maybe I just wanted to check up on you. But if I had known I was walking into,” he gestures wildly at him, “this I never would have agreed to pick up your lunch.”
“Oh, so you did talk to him. You didn’t just bring this out of the goodness of your heart?”
“Absolutely not,” she snaps. “I brought this because your husband is a good person and, unfortunately for me, very persuasive.”
“I know that,” he hotly retorts because, yes, his husband is a good person and, yes, David knows just how persuasive he can be. Thankfully, he assumes Patrick uses differing methods for them both. “So… what - what did he say? Did he say anything about me?”
“No, but I can pass him a note if you want.”
“Stevie!”
She narrows her eyes, like she’s contemplating keeping him hanging. “I texted him good luck or whatever this morning.” She pauses. “Literally, I said Good luck or whatever, and he asked if I would mind grabbing the food he had pre-ordered for you from the Cafe and spending lunch with you. I did mind, so naturally, I made him pay for mine, too.”
“I don’t need a babysitter,” he mumbles and she snorts.
“But you do need a kick in the head.”
He groans at the thought, having only just finally shaken his hangover, before he sighs, feeling fucking exhausted. “I was an asshole last night.”
“What else is new,” she replies as she takes a grotesquely large bite of her sandwich.
David picks at his BLT, pulling a piece of lettuce off only to tear it apart like a paper napkin. “Do you think he has a limit?”
“On what?” she mumbles and he gags.
“Oh my God, chew your food. On how many times I can be terrible to him before he leaves?”
Stevie swallows and stares at him like he’s an idiot. In her defense, he is.
“David, he put five rings on your fingers and pledged himself to you in front of the entire town. I don’t think he’s going anywhere.”
Rationally, he knows this but alcohol does wonders to amplify the voices that whisper to him in the night. And so they’ve come full circle now.
“Well he seems to be talking to everyone in town but me.”
Stevie shrugs and drops her gaze to her food. “Maybe he didn’t think you’d want to hear from him.”
And that’s… that doesn’t make him feel good. He doesn’t want Patrick to think that. David always wants to hear from him; even when he thinks it might be something his ears won’t like.
He glances up to see Stevie watching him carefully.
“Eat your lunch, David. Your man is off fighting the good fight and he wouldn’t want you to starve.”
“You’re the worst,” he replies even as his heart mends a bit.
She goes to steal his pickle again and he lets her. “I know.”
He pulls out his phone and after a minute of googling (Jesus, how many conferences can there be in rural Ontario?), he finally lands on the website for the one Patrick is attending and - oh. Patrick isn’t just presenting…
He’s the keynote speaker.
No wonder he hasn’t had time to reach out to David.
Stevie remains blessedly silent as he scrolls down further to find the breakdown of participants, and though it’s Patrick’s name on the schedule, David is all over it. From his bio where David’s name populates every other sentence from husband to co-owner to founder - a credit he never asked for but one Patrick seems hellbent on bestowing anyway - to the photo David took of him standing in front of their artful (and color-coordinated) shelving, solely for this purpose. David stares at his better half, standing in the building they built together, arms crossed and forearms delicious, confident smile firmly in place.
He closes the webpage and pulls up his messages again, clicking on Patrick’s name. He can do his apologies in person, but right here, right now, there’s only one thing Patrick needs to know:
I’m so proud of you.
~*~
Closing up is never as fun when he’s doing it alone, and not just because he can’t foist off the less glamorous, more menial tasks onto his devoted husband. There’s no one to flirt with, no one to tease about music choices, no one to argue with about what to have for dinner. It’s… quiet.
He used to chafe at quiet - before; there was always an opening to go to, an after-party to make an appearance at, a drug to take to make the silence less suffocating. Now that he’s more settled into his life, into his skin, he’s come to appreciate a lazy evening with a book and his husband by his side.
But he doesn’t have his husband and, given the day he’s had, he doesn’t want his book. He wants his comfiest clothes, the most caloric carbohydrates, and a cup of herbal tea because the thought of wine causes his stomach to roil again.
Patrick still hasn’t texted him back, but his message did finally get marked as Delivered. David’s not spiraling about it, though, the way he had been a couple of hours ago. Of the two of them, David is the petty one. If Patrick isn’t texting him back, there’s a reason, and he takes comfort in knowing if a few minutes was all Patrick had time for today, he spent them making sure David was taken care of: breakfast, lunch. He hasn’t spared a thought for dinner, but he’s just hip-checking the front door of the cottage closed when his phone rings in his pocket. He drops the mail on the side table and his bag by the foot of the stairs, fishing the device out and groaning when he sees his sister’s name on the screen.
Twyla, Stevie, Alexis.
He always did hear spirits come in threes...
“What do you want?” he greets, receiving an indignant noise in return.
“What, I can’t just, like, call and see how my second favorite brother is doing?”
“You have all the subtlety of Miley on that wrecking ball,” he says, but it’s soft, lips pinching together in an effort to keep his smile under control.
She huffs out a put-upon sigh. “I figured we could FaceTime dinner.”
Oh the smile definitely has to go before then because there’s no way in hell he’s letting her know how pleased he is by this.
“I don’t even know what food I have in the house - " and then the doorbell rings. “Oh you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”
Alexis hums out a pleased sound. “Tom Cruise taught me how to synchronize our watches.”
He opens the door to find a delivery man from their favorite pizza place in Elm Glen waiting on the front step.
“David?”
“That’s me,” he murmurs, fumbling to hold the phone between his ear and his shoulder so he can accept the large pizza box the man is passing over. “Do I owe - ”
“All taken care of. Oh, and Patrick says be nice to your sister.” Then he turns and goes back to his idling car, leaving David to stand on his doorstep and gape after him. He would be indignant, but the man did just bring him his favorite food in the world.
His phone chimes with an incoming FaceTime call, and he hits Accept despite the fact that his throat is too tight to actually give her a proper greeting.
“He sent some to me, too, so don’t think you’re, like, special or anything,” Alexis says and he closes his eyes because that’s what nearly sends him over the edge: the fact that Patrick not only had David’s preferred pizza delivered, but that he had pizza delivered to Alexis in New York as well, solely so she could keep him company. Twenty-four hours after they fought.
He inhales raggedly, the entire day building up to a moment that’s just too much.
“I have a really good husband.”
“Duh, David,” she murmurs, not nearly as snappish as she could be. “Now hurry up. Mine arrived just before I called and I’m not waiting anymore.”
He finally glances at the screen to see her lifting a piece of veggie pizza to her lips. “Clearly.”
“Don’t, David.” She glances at a non-existent watch on her wrist. “You’re, like, three minutes behind schedule. Tom would be so disappointed.”
He kicks the door closed once more, letting the scent of melted cheese and tomato sauce nearly make him drool.
“Tom can comfort himself in the bosom of scientology’s warm embrace. Hang on a minute.” He sets the box down on the coffee table and heads to the kitchen to grab some napkins and the mini-tripod Patrick got him as a gift so he could FaceTime with his family while he cooked. He returns to find Alexis picking the broccoli off her pizza like a charlatan. “And you call yourself a New Yorker.”
“Um, no. I most definitely do not. I’m entirely too personable for that,” she states, like being personable is some sort of badge of honor.
David hums as he takes a seat and opens the box, nearly choking up again at the sight of a large meat-lovers pizza with extra pepperoni. His face must be doing something ridiculous because Alexis leans closer to the screen and asks softly:
“Did he get it right?”
David sighs, a happy wisp of a thing. “He always gets it right.”
Even when I get it wrong.
So they sit and they eat, chatting about nothing and everything, and David forgets that it was ever quiet because Alexis’ voice fills up all of the spaces of his living room; her company fills up all of the corners of his heart.
“When did he call you?”
“Hm?”
“To set this up. When did he call you?”
“Oh, last week,” she replies, like it’s nothing. “He wanted to pencil you into my very busy calendar and I ended up giving him a very thorough education on which pizza places in my delivery radius are acceptable.”
Last week.
Patrick set this up last week.
While David was probably scrolling through reviews for the best rain shower head. He shakes his head and picks up another slice, throat going tight once more.
“I have a really good husband,” he whispers again.
Alexis smiles so hard her eyes close, and when she goes to boop the screen, she misses by a mile.
“So you’ve said.”
~*~
He’s just about to makeout with Rihanna at the Fendi show in Milan when the mattress dips to the right, slowly pulling David to consciousness. He groans and slides his hand across the bed, expecting his palm to find nothing but the still-too cold sheets -
when he hits something warm and solid and so, so familiar, a whimper leaves his throat before he can even open his eyes.
“Patrick?”
“Hi,” his husband whispers, curling onto his side and closing the parentheses on David’s terrible day.
“Honey, what’re you doin’ here?” he asks, even as he tangles his fingers in Patrick’s shirt and tugs him closer.
“I came back early.”
“But… the conference,” he murmurs, tucking his nose into Patrick’s throat and inhaling deeply. “You have to keynote.”
“I keynoted earlier,” Patrick replies, running his hands up and down David’s back. “I left after the dinner.”
“But it was supposed to go through tomorrow.” He feels Patrick shrug beneath the death grip he has on his shoulders.
“Tomorrow is just 'Building Brand Aesthetics,' and I don’t need to learn about that. Because I have you.” He nudges David’s nose with his own and forces their eyes to meet. “Right?”
“You have me,” he whispers. Then - “I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
“I was a brat.”
“That’s a little harsh.”
“Well my first choice was raging bitch, so.”
Patrick gently swats his ass. “Don’t talk about my husband like that.”
David hums as Patrick leaves his hand there, soothing the nonexistent sting, so David scoots closer, allowing Patrick to hitch his leg over his hip and slot them together.
“I missed you today,” David murmurs, slightly wounded, a hint of recrimination slipping into his tone despite his best intentions. Patrick looks chagrined.
“I’m sorry. I was still a little stung this morning,” he murmurs and David can’t fault him for that. “And then I got caught up with the conference and networking and dinner and by the time I realized how much I just needed to hear your voice, my phone was dead. Idiot me didn’t pack a charger.”
“You always pack a charger,” David replies with a frown, and Patrick hums.
“Had some things on my mind this morning.”
“Like the jalapeños on my burrito?”
“Especially the jalapeños on your burrito.”
David sighs and presses his face back into Patrick’s neck as Patrick sneaks a hand under his shirt, drawing patterns only he can see.
“When I realized my phone was dead, I just - got in the car and started driving. I had to see you.”
“I’m really glad you did,” David says against his throat, voice thick.
“Me, too.” Patrick replies, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “It means I can give you this faster.” Then he shifts, releasing his hold on David so he can dig in his back pocket. David pulls away in time to see Patrick extract a business card. “Met a guy who specializes in tile. I showed him some of your sketches for the kitchen and he wants to work with us.”
David blinks, trying to read the fine print in the elegant font in the darkened bedroom. “You have my sketches?”
“I have a picture of your sketches. They were on the counter the other day and I snapped a couple of photos, just in case.”
“In case?”
Patrick shrugs and slides the card back into his pocket so he can gather David in his arms once more. “In case I ran into someone at the conference who could give you what you want.” He licks his lips and David can’t help but kiss them. “I want you to have everything you want, David.”
“I have everything I want,” he rasps, shaking his head.
“But a subway tile backsplash wouldn’t hurt,” Patrick replies with a smile, wiping a tear from David’s cheek with his thumb.
“Okay, fine. I don’t have everything I want.” He thinks of the new cabinetry he’d mood-boarded and the custom closet he’s been designing and the new Thom Browne collection he’s been incessantly googling.
And then he looks at the man in front of him, who left a conference early and drove hours just because his phone died; who drove hours just to be with him after he spent a day making sure everything was okay.
No, David doesn’t have everything he wants. But damn, if he hasn’t come close.
“But I have everything I need.”