Work Text:
I had never experienced the Boston house in the summer. Last time I was here, spring was in full bloom, but I hardly noticed. Before that, there had been Thanksgivings, New Years’, the occasional Easter. Summers belonged to Cousins. Being in Boston surrounded by hydrangeas, the kitchen bathed in the mid-June afternoon sun, felt surreal.
I watched Jeremiah move around the kitchen with the easy, fluid movements of someone in their element, humming along to the playlist I had started—my one contribution to this lunch so far. He looked at ease in a way he hadn’t for much of the past week. Like himself.
He noticed me watching him and looked up from the eggs he was whisking.
”What?” he said, smiling.
”Nothing.” I shook my head. ”Just admiring the view.”
He huffed, and I slid off the stool he had parked me on. ”Why don’t you put me to work?” I asked, slapping my hands together. ”What can I do?”
”Oh, you can’t be trusted with this,” he said, adding the herbs he had chopped up to the egg mixture. ”It’s a delicate science.”
I clutched my hand to my chest in affront. ”I can cook.”
”Sure!” he said brightly, intently focused on the eggs.
I shot him a glare and then continued my trek around the kitchen, tracing my fingers along the counters and glancing over at him. I wasn’t sure if I felt restless because I wasn’t helping, or if I just wanted to be near him. The whole drive here, I had felt the anticipation like a current between us, the sense of being on the precipice of something I had been waiting for. Knowing that it was mine, laid out in front of me, waiting for me in return. Now that we were here, I had him all to myself for the first time. I didn’t want to leave his orbit.
I made my way to the fridge, looked through its contents and came out with a can of whipped cream.
”What do we have here?” I said, waving it in front of me with an innocent smile.
He looked over at me and narrowed his eyes even as the edge of his mouth quirked into a half-smile. ”You wouldn’t dare.”
”Oh, really?” I said, walking up to him. ”What's wrong with a little enhancement?”
He stretched a protective hand out in front of the bowl, waving the whisk in my face with the other.
”Nope. Step away from the counter.”
I peered at him, tossing the can back and forth between my hands.
”Fine,” I said, finally. ”Your omelet is safe.”
He eyed me suspiciously and held his stance for a few seconds before lowering his hands, and just as he began to turn back around, I reached up and sprayed a glob of whipped cream across his mouth.
”Whoops,” I said, biting my lip to keep from laughing as he glared at me, in so much as he was capable of a glare at the moment. There were lines at the corners of his eyes as he strained not to laugh himself.
”That’s funny,” he deadpanned.
”I think so.”
We stared at each other for a few seconds, neither of us making a move. When he finally lunged for the can I jumped back and the bubble burst, laughter spilling out of both of us.
”No!” I yelped, extending my arm behind me to keep the can out of reach as he wrestled me for it, reaching around me and dropping the whisk. I pushed at his chest with my other hand until I dropped the can and it fell to the floor with a clang.
There was a split second of uncertainty when I leaned into him and felt all of it—the solid warmth of his thighs pressed against mine, his hand settling on my waist to steady me, the twirl of excitement in my chest. The sweet familiarity of his face and the novelty of having it so close to mine, all at once. That pull had grown so strong, and still it felt delicate, as if I wasn’t quite sure yet how to navigate it.
I reached up on my tiptoes and kissed him, tasting the whipped cream transferring onto my face, bringing my hands into his hair and walking him backward until we hit the counter. He kissed me back the same way he had at the motel, like it was all he had ever wanted to do—only this time he was laughing too, planting little kisses on my chin and cheeks. I felt his tongue on my skin as he kissed away the whipped cream, and his hand on my neck and jaw, gently angling my face toward his. When he pulled back to look at me with the warmth that he always seemed to radiate so effortlessly, I could feel it like sunshine on my face.
”You have some more,” he said and leaned back in to kiss the tip of my nose.
We kissed again, and it was slower this time, heavy with the promise of more. I couldn’t get closer to him if I tried, all of him firm against me, his arms tightening around my waist and the warmth of him seeping into my skin, spreading all over me and pooling in my belly. When I brought my hand down to his neck, he made a little noise in the back of his throat that sent a rush down my spine.
He looked as flushed as I felt when we broke the kiss, and I spent a moment with my forehead against his. He gave me another brief kiss, gently nudged my nose with his, and cleared his throat.
”So,” he said. ”Lunch.”
I nodded, smiling and blinking through the haze. ”Lunch.”
————————
His room was surprisingly neat. It was also more beautiful than I could remember, with built-in bookshelves and a large bay window facing the street. My Philly bedroom with its sloping ceilings felt dingy in comparison.
I listened to the sound of his shower as I took in all of the details that belonged to Winter Jeremiah. This part of his life had always been out of reach for me. On his dresser, there were several picture frames—some with photos from Cousins, others with pictures of him smiling with his high school friends. One looked like it had been taken at a pep rally. Jeremiah was at the center of it, beaming at the camera, with his arms around a guy and a girl. I didn't recognize most of the people in it.
There were familiar things, too. His graduation cap, black with a maroon tassel, sat on the bookshelf. There was a flat package to the right of it, wrapped up in nondescript brown paper that had been opened, but still concealed its contents.
I took the graduation cap down down carefully, turning it around to read the quote. The sound of the water had stopped and he emerged from the bathroom barefoot, wearing jeans and a soft-looking t shirt, drying his hair with a towel. He smiled at the cap in my hands.
”Snooping around?”
”Just a little bit,” I replied, turning it over gently in my hands before putting it back on the shelf and glancing over at the package next to it. I must have lingered, because he cleared his throat quietly.
”You can look at it if you want to.”
I looked at him to make sure, and he nodded to the package. I took it down and opened it, careful not to tear the paper any more than had already been done, and pulled out a small watercolor painting. I recognized the bluffs opening onto the beach instantly. The sand was painted brown, as if wet with rain, and the sky was a cloudy gray to the left, but faded into a lighter blue in the distance, with the orange glow of the sunrise just above the horizon. The initials were painted in the lower right corner.
”It’s beautiful,” I said.
”It was a graduation present,” he said absently, and when I looked up at him his eyes were fixed on the painting. ”She prepared it before she died. Dad gave it to me.”
”Oh,” I said. ”That’s so nice.” I immediately cringed at my own words. Nice?
I looked back to the painting, and tried to put my finger on what made it special other than what he had just told me.
”It feels like her,” I said, finally. ”Kind of… hopeful.”
He nodded. We stood there in silence for a moment before he spoke, scratching the back of his neck and looking down at the floor. ”I was thinking I might bring it to Finch. Maybe put it up in my dorm room.”
The image made me smile. It seemed perfect, and entirely like him.
”You should. That’s a great idea.”
His eyes had turned glassy when he looked at me and gave me a nod, but he smiled back. He looked grateful.
I felt that nagging apprehension creeping up—the fear that I might say the wrong thing. As if my words could somehow make it worse.
So, instead of racking my brain, I reached out and put my palm on his waist. I felt him lean into it without hesitation, and his posture sagged slightly. I put the painting back on the shelf and stepped fully into his space, wrapping my arms around his waist in a hug, and he melted right into me. The cotton of his t shirt was soft against my cheek, and I could feel the rise and fall of his breaths. When I heard him sniffle, something cracked open in my chest and I held him tighter. As painful as it was to hear him hurt, it was a relief, too. That some of it spilled out, and that he trusted me to receive it. It was even a relief to feel it myself, grief unraveling in my chest like a tightly wound thread. Even then, I still wished that I could absorb some of his. He always made things lighter for me. I wanted so badly to do the same for him.
He cried softly, not the desperate sobs that I might have expected, and not for very long. When I pulled back, he wiped at his face with a sheepish smile.
”I got your hair wet,” he said and brushed through some of my hair with his fingers.
After a moment's silence, I reached for the graduation cap again. ”I never did get to see this on you in person,” I said, reaching up to put it on him. It pushed his wet hair down and he chuckled with a sniffle as I adjusted the tassel and tucked some of his hair out of the way.
”How do I look?” he asked.
I let my hands rest on his shoulders as I looked up at him.
”Very adventurous.”
————————
Jeremiah took it upon himself to make the popcorn while I picked the movie. I ended up with a nostalgic choice—On The Waterfront—and pointed to the TV with excitement when he came in with the snacks.
”This should be right up your alley, right?”
He looked at the screen and laughed. ”Hey, I willingly admit that I was down bad for Marlon Brando. You can't embarrass me with that shit,” he said as he put the popcorn down on the coffee table and went to pull the curtains.
I still preened. ”I can try. After him you were going to marry Lauren Bacall, right? And then Marilyn.”
”Everyone had a crush on Marilyn,” he objected. ”Even you.”
”That is true,” I conceded.
He settled in next to me on the couch, and I wasted no time cuddling up close to him. As we watched the movie, my mind kept ranging over all the times we had done this before—every movie night when our encyclopaedic knowledge of Old Hollywood was developed. We had been physically close even then, with no second thought to our legs and arms touching. It had always felt like second nature. What I had never felt then, what made this different, was the weight of his arm around me, and how giddy that made me feel.
When I looked up at him, his attention was focused on the TV. I watched his face for a few seconds, taking in every detail that I could—the slope of his nose, the little birthmark above his mouth, his blue eyes—all lit up by the flickering light from the screen.
I turned back to the TV and relaxed into him, letting my head loll onto his shoulder, and I was almost entirely focused on the movie by the time I felt him drawing little patterns with his fingertips on the bare skin of my arm.
It was soothing and distracting in equal measure, loosening the tension in my joints and sending little sparks up and down my arm all at once. For a few minutes, I closed my eyes and allowed all of my attention to gravitate toward that soft touch, and the goosebumps forming in that spot on my skin.
Eventually, I turned my face toward his neck, almost touching but not quite. I wanted to wrap myself up in the sunny smell of his skin and his mango shampoo. I lingered there for a while before inching closer, tracing his neck with my mouth barely touching his skin. When I reached his jaw, his fingers stopped moving on my arm. I paused there and listened to the distant chatter from the TV and his slow, steady breathing. After a while, I continued along his jaw and then back again, nosing at the space just behind the angle of his jaw. I pulled back just a little bit to look at him, and he was still looking at the screen, but there was a smile beginning to take shape.
When I leaned in and kissed his neck, I felt his pulse flutter against my lips. When I pressed a few more kisses against his jaw and brought my hand up to the other side of his neck, he took a deep breath and pulled back to face me.
”You were the one who picked this movie,” he said, but his attempt to sound exasperated was somewhat undermined by the fact that he was smiling brightly, a picture of happiness as he wrapped his arm around my waist, tipped me over against the cushions and swallowed my laugh in a kiss. He tasted salty from the popcorn, and his hand went up the back of my shirt, and I wrapped my legs around him as we kissed, and kissed, and kissed.
——————
”I love this spot,” he said quietly, tracing the space between my collarbones with his index finger.
Our breathing had just begun to even out. His hair was a mess, still damp from his shower, and his face was lit up golden by the last rays of evening sun that filtered through the leaves outside his bedroom. This was a new Jeremiah to me; hazy-eyed and flushed, more soft-spoken than I had ever heard him before. It felt as if I had unlocked a prize—a rare version of him that nobody else had access to.
I had never felt this much of his skin. This version of Jeremiah had his legs tangled up with mine, his arm slung around my waist, and I could feel my own breathing where my abdomen was touching his. My entire body felt soft, and sated, and warm.
He kissed me, sweet and simple, and I felt him shiver. I saw the light tremor on his shoulder and his face when he pulled back.
”Are you cold?”
He shook his head. ”I don’t think so.”
”You’re shaking.”
I pulled the sheet up higher to cover his shoulder and rubbed his arm with my hand, inching closer. He still shivered all over, shoulders hitching a little on his exhales.
”I can close the window,” I said, but he tightened his arm around my waist.
”No, it’s fine. I’m not cold.”
I felt myself smile at how silly this felt. ”Then why are you shaking?”
He seemed to weigh his response for a moment. ”I don’t know,” he said with a hint of a shrug, and a small smile formed on his face. ”I think I’m happy.”
He reached up to tuck my hair behind my ear, and I felt it bloom in my chest—that light, sweet feeling that only he could give me. How many times had I felt that without recognizing what it was?
He wasn’t the only one who was different. I felt as if something had shifted into place, deep in my bones. I wanted to stay in this moment forever.
I smiled back, brought my hand up to his neck and kissed him again.
”Me too.”