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The loose floorboard in the hallway groans a warning as Frankie eases the apartment door shut with his hip, willing the latch to catch without waking you. It doesn’t cooperate. The sound reverberates like a gunshot in the predawn stillness.
He winces. Holds his breath. Tries to focus on any other sound that isn’t the pounding of his own pulse in his ears. Half-expects to hear the rustle of sheets, the padding of concerned feet.
But the bedroom remains silent. Small mercies.
In the cramped kitchen, he deposits his keys in the stoneware bowl you made in that pottery class last spring — the glaze a blue so pale it’s almost grey. Frankie likes the weight of it in his palm, the way the cool lip catches on his fingertips. Solid. Real. Just like you.
He then sheds his jacket. The leather one you say makes him look like one of main characters from those Mexican telenovelas your mother used to watch. Drapes the garment over the wonky lath-back chair neither of you use. Stops. Closes his eyes.
The grey half-light filtering through the blinds paints his skin in shades of ash and sorrow. He knows what he’ll see if he looks in the mirror hanging beside the door. Hair overdue for a cut. Stubble gone rogue. Crow's feet carved deep as canyons around eyes that have seen too much. Bruises under his eyes darker than the ones blooming across his ribs, souvenirs from a world that's always been more keen to break than to bend.
But there are laugh lines there too, now. Trenches carved by joy instead of worry. Your love marks him in kinder ways. And when you run the pad of your thumb along the furrow between his brows, it’s always a little less deep than it was this time last year.
You’re gentling him. Slowly, slowly. A feral creature coaxed in from the cold, learning to trust the warmth of the heart.
Frankie fills the coffee pot. Catalogues his aches as it percolates. His shoulder throbs and his knuckles sting beneath their ripped scabs. Nothing he hasn't endured before. And if he’s being honest, he doesn't remember what it feels like to wake up without something hurting. Without some part of him crying out in remembered pain.
But it's duller now, muted. Easier to breathe through.
He looks away.
There are pink dish gloves, as size too small for his hands, draped over the faucet. A mug with a chip on the rim waiting beside the sink – a faint lipstick print still visible.
You’d waited up. You always wait up.
His heart clenches and his chest fills up with that feeling that always leaves him a bit disoriented. A little bit dizzy.
He carries his coffee to the sagging couch, the one you'd picked out together at the thrift store down the street. It's ugly as sin but sinfully comfortable. He sinks into it now, letting the worn fabric absorb his weight, his weariness.
The first sip scalds his throat but he welcomes the burn. Lets his head fall back. Stares at the ceiling. There’s a water stain in the corner that looks like a lopsided heart. He wonders if it’s shaped like yours, misshapen from making room for him inside its chambers.
His eyes prickle. He closes them.
The bedroom door sighs and there’s a soft shuffling of bare feet on hardwood. And then you emerge — hair sleep-mussed and eyes barely open. But then you blink at him, your eyes still hazy with dreams, soft and rumpled and smudged at the edges.
His chest constricts, a sweet ache blooming behind his ribs.
"You're home," you mumble, padding to the couch on quiet feet before climbing into his lap, graceless with exhaustion, all elbows and knees and cold toes seeking warmth. You fit yourself against him, your head finding the crook of his neck like it was made to rest there — your cool nose nuzzling against his pulse point.
He wraps his arms around you. Tugs you closer.
“I’m home,” Frankie whispers into your hair, and you only burrow closer. Tuck your cold toes under his thigh. Hum contentedly when his fingers slip under your shirt to trace your spine. His ribs creak as you settle but he doesn’t shift you. Just breathes you in. You smell like sleep and fabric softener and something that might be peace.
The weak winter sunlight inches across the floor, tentative and pale, reaching for you with gossamer fingers. He lets it come. Lets it wash over you, chasing away the lingering shadows of the night. There are no shadows here it can’t touch. Not anymore. Not while you’re in his arms.
Not while you're his home.