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By the time they got up to the apartment, they were both exhausted, cranky, and irritated with each other.
“If you’d checked in with the contractor, we’d at least have had some warning,” David grumbled.
“If you hadn’t changed your mind eighteen times on which tile we were putting in, it wouldn’t have been an issue!” Patrick snapped.
“It was not eighteen times, ” David said, affronted. “It was five !”
“I’m not interested in debating it.”
“Of course you’re not, because you know you’d lose. Tile is an important decision! Do you want to be staring at the incorrect tile while you’re on the toilet for the next however many years?”
“David, this may come as a shock to you, but when I’m on the toilet I am typically not thinking about the tile.”
David got out Stevie’s spare key and opened the door. “I can’t believe she still lives here,” he said, under his breath. “She can afford an apartment with actual rooms now.”
“Not everyone’s priorities involve walk-in closets and showers with bench seats,” Patrick said.
“You know damn well you will be thanking me later, just like you did about the sink in the laundry room and the house vac system.”
They trudged into Stevie’s apartment. “If we’d had some warning we could have gotten a hotel room, or something. Gone away for the weekend. Made it into...I dunno, a romantic getaway.”
“Well, we didn’t, and we couldn’t, and this is what we’re doing, so we might as well shut up about it before we end up doing argument callbacks from a year ago,” David said.
Patrick sank down into one of Stevie’s kitchen chairs. “I guess we’re lucky we could even stay here, with Stevie in Ottawa.”
“Damn lucky. The next option on the list was Roland’s basement rec room, and you do not want to take a black light to that futon, lemme tell you.”
Patrick chuckled. The tension was dissipating, as it always did. He leaned back in the chair and watched David root around in Stevie’s fridge. “Ah ha!” He pulled out a beer and handed it to Patrick, then got out the whiskey and poured himself a glass. He leaned against the counter and looked at Patrick. “I am sorry about all this, honey.”
“I know. Me, too. I should have double checked with the contractor.”
“I should have made up my mind weeks ago.”
“You were thinking about the planning for the farmer’s market and I knew you were distracted. I should have put it on your planner.” David smiled at him, bemused. “What?”
“We have the most predictable fights. We always start out accusing each other of whatever, and then we end up blaming ourselves for not anticipating each other’s shortcomings.”
“It’s not like we don’t know about the shortcomings.”
“You have zero shortcomings. You are perfect.”
“Damn, how fast did you drink that whiskey?”
David laughed, full-throated and from his belly, Patrick’s favorite laugh. He looked down at Patrick, his eyes twinkling. “I’m...having some deja vu, being here,” he said.
“Yeah, me too,” Patrick said, grinning. “Our first night together.”
David polished off the whiskey and went to sit on the chest at the end of Stevie’s bed. “We sat here and you freaked out about Jake.”
“I did not... freak out. I had a moment of hesitation.”
“It’s funny to think back on that, considering how very much Jake is now your bitch. But that first night, that was way back when you were still slightly freaking out about Stevie. ”
Patrick didn’t deny that one. “It’s just...she knew you so well. You were so comfortable with her.”
“I was comfortable with you, too.” David slid over and patted the chest at his side. “C’mere.”
Patrick got up and joined him. They were sitting in just the spots they had been that night. He looked into his husband’s eyes and twined their fingers together. “I was so nervous,” he whispered.
“Me, too.” David looked down at their intertwined fingers. “I’d never felt like there were such high stakes. I liked you so much, and I knew what this meant for you. I just wanted it to be good, I wanted to be good for you. I had this fear of being too much, too demanding, too...whatever, and sending you fleeing like the wind, back to Straightsville.”
“That wasn’t really an option for me at that point.”
“Because you knew you were gay.”
Patrick shook his head. “Because I was already in love with you.”
David went still. He lifted his eyes to Patrick’s. “You...no. Not that early.”
“Yes, David. That early.” He raised one hand and cupped David’s cheek. “I just wanted to be enough for you.”
David swallowed hard and shook his head. “You were always enough.”
“I knew how many people you’d been with, how many people had wanted you, and I couldn’t stop wondering what was so special about me, that would make you want me? You could have had anyone, why me? Just a small town guy who likes baseball and looks like a thumb, according to Ronnie.”
David laughed. “You do not look like a thumb.”
“I...kind of look like a thumb.”
“I don’t have a good enough grasp of English to put into words what’s so special about you. And I already knew it. You were different. I’d never wanted to deserve someone before. You made me want to be the best version of myself.”
“David,” Patrick whispered, and pulled him into a deep, searing kiss, cradling his face in his hands. David’s hands rose to grip his forearms as he kissed back, his lips soft and open against Patrick’s mouth. “So we were both nervous that we weren’t good enough for each other.”
“We were so tragic.” They laughed into each other’s mouths and kissed again.
“Plus I just had...practical nerves. I’d never had sex with a man. I’d tried to...uh, do research, but there’s only so much you can learn from porn. You can watch the professionals do it, but you can’t know how you’ll handle having another guy’s dick in your mouth until it’s there, you know?”
“I hate to tell you this but I don’t have a specific memory of how that was, that first night. I’d remember if it had been bad, that much I know. I was just so...uh, overwhelmed with all of your situation being right here in bed with me that my recollection is a bit fuzzy.”
“Well, you didn’t voice any criticism at the time.”
“You certainly did have a steep learning curve. You could teach a damn master class in blowjobs at this point.”
“Aww. That’s so sweet.”
David looked around, as if casting his mind back to that night. “God, I was so fucking horny for you. How long had it been since we’d kissed for the first time?”
“Two weeks and four days,” Patrick said.
“That’s a very precise answer.”
“I could probably give you the hours, too.”
“I mean, you were the one who wanted to ‘take it slow,’” David said, throwing up the air quotes.
“I was terrified. And not just of having no idea what I was doing.” He slid a hand along David’s thigh. “You were just so...overwhelming. I’d never felt like that, ever. Even the slightest casual touch, your hand on my shoulder, made me feel like I was going to explode.” David was watching his face, his expression bursting with fondness. “I was afraid of going too fast because I thought I might literally lose my mind.”
“But your version of taking it slow involved a lot of making out in the back room. Or in the middle of the store. Or in your car. Talk about losing one’s mind.”
“I was kind of a tease, huh?”
“Ask Alexis how many long showers I took after being out with you. I did not hear the end of it for months.”
Patrick grinned. “Ew, David.”
David rolled his eyes and slapped at Patrick’s shoulder. He looked down at their linked hands again, going quiet. “Do you ever miss those days?”
“What days?”
“Those first days and weeks, when we could not get enough of each other. I couldn’t keep my hands off you. The going-to-explode days.”
“You mean, because we're more settled now? Calmer? Boring marrieds?”
“Well, yeah. Not that you don’t get me hot.”
“Likewise.”
“It’s just different now.”
“Yeah, it is. And that’s a good thing. I don’t think our business would have survived if we’d stayed that distracted for all this time.”
“I guess I…” He sighed. “I’ve never had a relationship that lasted long enough to get out of that crazy-hot-for-each-other stage. So this feels like a victory.”
“None of my relationships even had that crazy-hot stage. They were always sort of...mediocre and boring. You were the first person I ever wanted like that, the way people talk about it in songs and books. So the fact that I still feel like that, that I know I’m with who I’m supposed to be with, living how I was meant to...that’s my victory.”
David’s eyes had welled up. “God, I love you,” he whispered, leaning in to kiss him again. Patrick wrapped his arms around him and kissed him back. David kissed down his neck, his hands smoothing down Patrick’s back to the swell of his ass. “How did we start out that night?’’
“Do you not remember?”
“Maybe I want a...repeat performance.”
Patrick looked in his eyes. “We started out just like this. Being really glad to be alone and kissing each other. Makes me want to do those things we did that night, all over again.” He rubbed his nose against David’s. “Just maybe with a little more confidence, this time.”
“I’m highly in favor of this proposal,” David said, kissing him again. “Except...can we skip the part where we knocked our heads together trying to kiss after I sucked you off for the first time?”
Patrick laughed. “Oh my God, I forgot about that.”
“I actually saw stars. I thought that was just an expression.”
“You make me see stars every night, baby,” Patrick said, pitching his voice low and growly.
“See, that just sounds like we experience head trauma every time we have sex.”
“Only if we’re doing it right,” Patrick said, winking at him.
David tucked his head down onto Patrick’s shoulder, giggling helplessly. He swung his leg up and over Patrick’s lap so he was straddling him. “I think...yeah. We started out like this,” he murmured.
Patrick ran his hands up David’s thighs. “Yeah. I just remember thinking how you were so...big. Solid, and broad, and...a man. I couldn’t get enough of it. I just wanted to lose myself in you.”
“Normally I’d object to my partner being overwhelmed by my so-called hugeness, but I’ll allow it.” He trailed his fingers down Patrick’s neck to his chest; Patrick shivered under his touch. “I’d never been so attracted to someone in my entire life. And it wasn’t just your face and your forearms. It was the way you said ‘thank you’ after we kissed, and the way you looked right in my eyes and told me that kissing me felt like the first time, and...oh, just everything, Patrick. It was your everything.”
Patrick kissed him, sliding his hands around to David’s ass. “Where did we go from here?” he murmured, moving his lips down to the hollow of David’s throat.
“I think we moved to the bed at this point.”
He nodded. “That’s right. To the bed. And then on a hike, and then to the Town Hall, and then to our house. And now here we are, again.”
“Because you didn’t check in with the contractor.”
“You changed your mind five times , David!”