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Adam and Ronan aligned, for the most part, on what they wanted in an apartment.
They both wanted a decent kitchen with ample cabinet space and a full-sized fridge so they could hone their cooking skills. They both wanted a balcony or terrace or some kind of outdoor space where they could sit among Adam’s growing collection of plants and drink beer. They both wanted a bedroom that fit a king-size bed because while Adam’s full and Ronan’s queen mattresses suited current needs, they were both looking for more room for fun.
Even the things they didn’t align on weren’t make-or-break features.
Adam wanted a second bedroom he could use as a home office to take advantage of a hybrid work schedule courtesy of a recent promotion. Ronan understood and didn’t mind shelling out a bit more in monthly rent if it meant better access to Adam two days a week.
Ronan wanted a big bathroom with a shower and a bathtub. Adam didn’t quite understand, but he went along with it. It wasn’t something that sent them out of their price range. They weren’t bath people, though; Adam had never seen or heard Ronan take a bath. Ronan never even mentioned taking a bath. But if Ronan wanted a place with a nice bathroom, they’d find a place with a nice bathroom.
Adam was usually inclined to give Ronan what he wanted.
Not long after their first anniversary, they started hunting for a place after running it past their individual roommates. Noah, Adam’s roommate, approved with the stipulation they still had to hang out. Adam agreed, because Noah and Ronan had gotten so close Ronan made a skateboard for Noah for his birthday, and Ronan didn’t do free woodwork for just anyone. Ronan’s roommate, Gansey, required a similar arrangement. Adam was amenable to that, too, if only because hanging out with Gansey made him feel like less of a nerd. So, with their roommates’ assent, Adam and Ronan started looking for a place they could call home together.
For six weeks, every weekend and some weeknights they toured apartments around D.C.. They looked at places in Logan Circle and NoMa and Adams Morgan and DuPont Circle until, one Saturday morning, they looked at a place in Capitol Hill and when the broker left them alone in the kitchen to talk things over, they looked at one another with matching glee.
“Yeah?” Adam asked.
Ronan nodded. “Yeah.”
They hugged, hard, Ronan’s belly squished between them as they waltzed around the empty space where their kitchen table would be. They only broke apart when the broker came back in and said, “I’m thinking this is a yes.”
They got copies of the lease, and, like any time he filled out paperwork, Adam felt like he was signing his life away as he scrawled his signature and initials on page after page. He and Ronan sat in a coffee shop as they filled out forms and addendums and waivers. Ronan flew through his packet and was working on his second snickerdoodle latte and his second blueberry muffin while Adam was still only a third of the way through his copy, and Adam stopped reading for a moment to give his eyes a rest from eight-point font to look across the table at his boyfriend.
“Are you taking this seriously?” Adam asked. “You could have just signed away your first born and you’d have no idea.”
“You’d have told me if I did that,” Ronan said before tearing off a piece of muffin and popping it in his mouth. He chewed and washed it down with a sip of his latte before continuing, “You wouldn’t let me do that.”
Adam wouldn’t. Their vague talks of a far-distant future had started becoming less vague recently, and while discussions of children were still amorphous, Adam definitely wouldn’t let Ronan give any hypothetical children away. “But, like, your BMW. If anything happens to it in the garage, they’re not liable. And if we get a dog–”
“You want to get a dog?”
Adam stared at Ronan a moment before he said, “Maybe someday.”
It probably wouldn’t be a bad idea, getting a dog. It’d get them out of the apartment, exploring their new neighborhood, and it would get them cardio other than sex, which would be a good thing considering living together gave Adam unfettered access to feed Ronan whenever they were in the mood.
They were almost always in the mood.
A little smirk played on Ronan’s lips and he ate some more of his muffin. He swallowed and said, “So we get a dog and it tears the shit out of the apartment and we don’t get our security deposit back. Who cares?”
“I care. You can’t just throw money at stuff.”
“You can. And it usually works.”
Adam gave Ronan another flat look. Money was the only thing they consistently argued about and Adam wasn’t in the mood to argue about it on what was a really good morning for them. “We’re being adults. Responsible adults.”
Ronan took a long sip of his latte and toyed with the cup a little before he told Adam, “I’ll read it. It’ll probably help me sleep.”
“You don’t have to,” Adam replied, kicking Ronan’s foot under the table. “I’ll tell you if they’re coming for your organs. Just eat your muffin.”
“I can do that.” Ronan grinned.
Adam grinned back. “I know you can. Get to it.”
Adam read through the rest of the paperwork, satisfied the property managers wouldn’t be after first borns or internal organs. Ronan finished his muffin and got another. Then they dropped their paperwork off at the leasing office and Ronan asked, “Want to get lunch?”
Three weeks later, they moved in, and three weeks after that, Adam figured out why Ronan wanted a bathtub.
His in-office days, Adam typically wrapped up around six, but after a series of successful workshops for a new project, Adam’s boss benevolently sent her team home early on a Friday. Even after the Metro ride home, he walked through the front door of the apartment hours before he usually would, and Adam ditched his messenger bag, kicked off his shoes, and started towards the bedroom to change out of his suit when he heard a splash from the bathroom.
Adam stopped.
It could have been his imagination, him hearing things, but Adam’s imagination didn’t usually provide him with splashing sounds. Anything auditory was a burp or a grumbling stomach, but more often than not, Adam’s imagination was visual, pictures of what Adam could feed Ronan and how Ronan would look after he ate it. Adam was about to let the sound slide and keep walking.
Until he heard a second splash.
One, Adam could brush off, but not two. He thought back to a conversation he and Ronan had not long after they’d moved in about the creepy vibes the superintendent gave off and the paranoid part of Adam’s brain clicked on. He glanced around the living room for something he could wield as a weapon, but the best thing he could find was a weird piece of pottery Gansey’s girlfriend Blue made them for a housewarming present, so Adam picked it up and brandished it as he headed down the hall. Outside of the ajar bathroom door, he slid his phone from his pocket and one-handedly texted Ronan I think someone broke in before he put his phone away, took a deep breath, and pushed the door open.
Adam’s text was futile.
No one had broken in.
It was Ronan splashing, submerged in the bathtub and surrounded by bubbles. He had his noise canceling headphone on and his eyes were closed as his head rested on an inflatable pillow. He looked one hundred percent at ease, blissfully unaware his boyfriend thought he was an intruder.
As a self-employed carpenter who made weird things for weird people, Ronan didn’t keep standard work hours, but he would go to his woodshop while Adam was at work so they had more time together in the evening. That morning he’d texted Adam he was heading into work not long after Adam got to his office, so Adam hadn’t thought Ronan would be home at one o’clock in the afternoon.
But there Ronan was, surrounded by suds, having a spa day.
Adam watched him for a while, taking in how relaxed Ronan looked. He was too tall to fit in the tub with his legs extended, even though the tub was large as far as bathtubs went, so Ronan’s bent knees poked through the thick layer of bubbles. His arms were splayed along the sides of the tub as Ronan reclined back against one end, and in the middle of it all, Ronan’s belly rose like an island out of his bubble bath.
Taking his phone back out, Adam took a photo he wished he could set as his wallpaper, one he’d at least print out and put on the fridge. Then, quietly, he put Blue’s ceramic thing down, hung his suit jacket on the hook on the door, and rolled up his sleeves as he went to sit on the edge of the tub.
Adam’s thigh brushed Ronan’s arm as Adam sat and Ronan’s eyes shot open. He flailed slightly, his legs and body sloshing water out of the tub, and stopped when he realized it was Adam. “What the fuck are you doing home?”
Lifting Ronan’s headphones off, Adam asked, “What the fuck are you doing home?”
“Taking a bath. Duh, Parrish.”
Adam put Ronan’s headphones on the sink and turned back to him. “A bubble bath.”
“Yeah, so?” Ronan lifted an eyebrow in challenge.
“I don’t have a problem with it,” Adam said, dipping his hand into the strait of water between Ronan’s island belly and the peaks of his underwater mountain pecs. “Is this why you wanted a tub? Lazy afternoon bubble baths when I’m not home?”
“Maybe.”
Submerged to his wrist, Adam rubbed the top curve of Ronan’s stomach and watched the bubbles around his arm sway. “You coulda just said so. It’s cute.”
“That’s why I didn’t say so. I’m not cute.”
“You’re cute.” Adam poked Ronan’s belly a few times and it jiggled underwater, making ripples in the water. “Really cute.”
“Fuck off,” Ronan laughed. His chest shook, his belly shook, the water and bubbles made little wavelets.
Smiling, Adam wandered his hand over Ronan’s belly, swirling the suds around it. “We both had bathtubs. You never took one before.”
“Needed a bigger tub to hold my tub.” Ronan waved around at the bathtub and at himself. Their new tub was significantly larger than the bath-shower combos at either of their previous apartments. Ronan’s length and growing width would have had a hard time fitting in them.
“So you secretly wanted a tub so you could take secret baths.”
“They’re not secret baths.”
Adam laughed again. “This seems a little secret.”
“Would have stayed that way.” Ronan rolled his eyes. His cheeks were a little flushed, though Adam couldn’t tell if it was from the heat of the water or embarrassment. “Why the fuck are you home?”
“Noelle let us leave early because of all the OT we put in on the North Carolina levee thing,” Adam said as he found Ronan’s belly button and tucked two fingers into it, twitching them to shake Ronan’s belly fat. He watched the chain reaction of belly rippling to water rippling for a second before looking back at Ronan. “Why the fuck are you home? I thought you went into the shop.”
“I did. I finished that coffee table early.” Ronan pushed Adam’s fingers out of his navel and scooped bubbles into his hands, mounding them on top of his already round belly. “Didn’t want to start anything new.”
“Guess we get an early weekend.” Adam smiled, watching Ronan. His heart warmed a little that Ronan didn’t begin a new project. It would have itched Ronan all Saturday morning until he needed to scratch it by going to work for a few hours. “You look like you need tub toys.”
“You could be my tub toy.” Ronan smirked.
“Maybe this weekend. I like you all sudsy.” Adam captured bubbles on his fingers and flicked them at Ronan before gathering more and piling them on Ronan’s chest. “All wet.”
“Of course you do.” Ronan looked down at his foamy tits and stomach before sloughing the bubbles away and grabbing his belly in both hands to shake it. Water sloshed around again, spilling over the edges of the tub onto the bath mat and Adam’s pants. “I’m the big white whale you’re chasing.”
Adam burst into unrestrained laughter for a few moments before he leaned down and kissed Ronan. “Oh god. You are. I’m Ahab.”
“You can harpoon me any day.” Ronan grabbed onto Adam’s shirt with wet hands when Adam started retreating, pulling Adam back for another kiss.
When Adam left the bathroom, his shirt was soaked almost to the shoulder and Ronan stayed blissed out in the tub until the water got cold.
The next week, Adam stopped short outside a souvenir shop he passed everyday on his walk between work and the Metro. The shop had changed its window display for the summer and rubber ducks that looked like the Founding Fathers dangled from clear fishing line between inflatable tubes printed with the American flag. It was too early for the shop to be open, but Adam ran back at lunch time, and the next bubble bath Ronan took, rubber duck George Washington and rubber duck Benjamin Franklin floated around the island of his belly.