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Like Saskatoon, Poughkeepsie was cold, but New York cold was a totally different kind of cold. Up North, a chilly night slid between your ribs like the concealed blade in all your worst nightmares but, down in Upstate, the cold wind just seemed to want every warm-blooded thing to get the hell out of its way. Despite his ability to be comfortable in his blue jeans and beat up flight jacket, Roddy was more than happy to move aside as soon as he could get up the courage to do so.
Rubbing his hands together, he paced the concrete outside the Edison motor lodge, walking from one side of his shared room’s window to the other and back again. Shut away behind off-cream curtains and, hopefully, tucked under the olive green comforters was his travel buddy, but the words spoken to him hours earlier replayed in his mind like the man was still shaking him by the shoulders and spitting them at him. They’d taken on a cassette quality, popping and grainy as the tape rolled, rewound in a supernatural mili-second, and started playing all over again. Tinnitus was starting to ring in his left ear and Roddy smacked at it a few times to ward the sound off, his pacing grinding to a halt with his hand still flattening his unruly hair to the side of his head when those gaudy curtains fluttered. An edge was pushed aside and, clearly not nestled in bed dreaming of sugarplums and knocking out teeth, Adrian squinted out at him. They stared at each other until Adrian jerked his head backwards, not unlike a shotgun cocking, and released the curtain.
“Yeah,” Roddy muttered, more than a little miffed that his four AM fretting session was rudely interrupted. He hadn’t even been pacing long enough to sport chilblains for his efforts. Regardless, he marched to the faux birchwood door. “Get me a house, and build you a room with a view! Only thing you love more than a front row seat is the limelight.”
By the time he’d eased the door shut behind him, Adrian had already illuminated the light bar over both beds. He sat on the one Roddy was more likely to claim, arms crossed over his golden shirt so faded, it took Roddy months to decipher the words that had once been boldly printed across it. Now, “I’m afraid there’s no denyin’, I’m just a dandy lion” was about as legible as the quote’s speaker was cowardly. Somehow, the shirt perfectly coordinated with the ruby slipper red carpeting, the deep brown wood panel walls, those fatigue green bedsheets that looked emerald under the sickly wall lamp, and the fresh egg-coloured curtains. Adrian looked like he belonged here, despite his expression so serious it darkened his eyes to the exact shade that sent shivers down Roddy’s spine, head to tail. He eased out of his beat up work boots without loosening the laces and toed them off to the side, shrugging his jacket off before Adrian’s stare made him overheat.
“Now, I know for a fact those curtains are too thick for-”
“Piper.” The growl was enough to shut his trap, chin almost dropping to his chest. All at once, the exhaustion of the day came rushing in. The gruelling travel schedule, the cold, his earlier outburst, Adrian’s commands so assertive, calling them advice was a laughable mistake- Just this once, he wanted to climb into bed behind his buddy, curl up around the small of his back, and go the hell to sleep without worrying himself into tossing and turning for hours. Instead, he stood there, emulating the effect of looking up at Adrian through his eyelashes and wavy bangs despite still standing. Adrian inhaled deeply and took him in, contemplative, before patting the bed. “Siddown.”
Roddy complied, collapsing heavily beside the other man and refraining from telling him how much he loved the way New Yorkers spoke, sure, and Buffalonians and Manhattaners and whatever, yeah, but he especially loved the way Adrian spoke. Instead, he let the pathetic mattress slide him down until he was shoulder to shoulder and hip to hip with Adrian. He smelled like stale cologne, greasy diner food, and Downy. Instead of turning his head and burying it in that scent like he wanted to, Roddy fell the rest of the way backwards and scoot until he was awkwardly half on and half off the bed. His hair cascaded over the opposite side. Adrian’s hand clapped down on his thigh and squeezed hard before rubbing a circle into the denim so softly it hurt.
“You better take my advice to heart. So help me, if you think I was kidding-”
“No,” Roddy sighed, one hand smushing and rubbing at his own face. He needed to fidget but couldn’t get his feet on the ground like this, not like Adrian, whose heel tapped a staccato rhythm on the carpet that looked plusher than it was. “No, I know. Get a house. For the family.”
“For you,” Adonis snapped, thumping his fist on Roddy’s hip. Instinctively, he jerked his leg up, bent at the knee, and had nowhere to drop it but against his friend’s firm side once the tension drained back out of him. “You get the house for you. For your stability, for your family. So you can wear trenches in your floors without freezing your ass off, you moron.”
Roddy snorted a laugh. He wiggled up onto the bed more and oriented himself more comfortably, half behind Adrian, calves and feet still hanging off the ledge. His hand fell against Adrian’s back, where his shirt was torn in the perfect way to show off a few scars. Palm pressed flat against him, they felt cooler than Adrian’s unmarred flesh and softer than the over worn t-shirt. They felt familiar. Safe. He sighed and shrugged, knowing the motion would be felt. “You’re not so bad, Adri.”
The brunette twisted, kept twisting until he was a tornado, one leg over Roddy’s so his knee was jammed into his inner thigh and their ankles crossed, one hand fisted in the front of his shirt but tugging and pinning it to the bed at his waist, one hand under his chin with a finger aimed like a pistol. Adrian was looming over him, his eyes hurt and scared but his face stern. “I am not trying to get rid of you. You hear me? If I wanted to get rid of you, oh, daddy, you’d already have a box in the cold case department."
Unsurprised and unafraid, Roddy pat Adrian’s pointing hand. He opened his mouth to speak but Adrian swat his hand away like an angry cat and doubled down, eyes boring into his, noses almost touching. "You swear to me. You swear to me, Piper, you’ll make a home for your family better than in all your wildest, starving desperado dreams - That you’ll go and you’ll stay for them. You- You better swear, so help me god, you won’t stay now or go then for me, Roddy. You put them first, you hear me?"
“I hear, I hear,” he replied, grabbing Adrian’s hand in his and wiggling his fingers until Adrian’s were between them, callouses squeezed together. Frowning, Roddy knocked their elbows together gently, not trying to accomplish much more than giving himself some time to process everything. “Alright. I swear.”
“You swear what?”
“You didn’t let me finish.” He couldn’t help but grin, carefully turning his leg until his friend wasn’t cutting off circulation in it. “I swear I’ll put my family first. But, Adrian-”
“No buts.”
“But,” Roddy insisted, bringing his elbow up and gently knocking his forearm into Adrian’s jaw and shoulder. Willing to play along, he toppled sideways, dragging Roddy with him until they were laying side by side on the comforter. Up close, Roddy realised it was the colour of green carnations, the little white pansies dotting it, the pattern so subtle as to be conspiratorial. No doubt, it was something Adrian noticed when they booked the room. He always noticed everything, and the thought made Roddy smile with his teeth no matter how much Adrian glowered. “You’re family too, you know.”