Relocation - Part Nine

[churbooseanon]

Wherein we learn still more about David’s time in Seattle, we get an interesting new perspective, and for a moment, David is happy.

Relocation - Part Nine

The short version went like this. Connie showed up, they ate cheap delivery pizza and drank the vodka and orange juice she brought and they talked. It was calm and composed and David managed not to break down crying. In the end she left and he felt better, felt comforted, felt safe.

The short version was, of course, a lie that David kept telling himself as he curled up on his couch and glared at the phone on the coffee table and dared it to ring without its battery. The short version was easier, simpler, safer. It didn’t touch upon the way that his stomach was rolling with nausea, or how his shoulder was screaming with remembered pain, or how his leg ached or how much he hated himself right at that moment. The short version didn’t even begin to account for the yelp of fear when there was a knock on his apartment door. Or the fact that David stayed there on the couch, his legs curled tightly to his chest while the lock on the door turned and he started to take stock of the apartment around him to try and figure out what he could use to defend himself.

The short version didn’t even begin to account for the heartbreak on Connie’s face as she opened the door, or the clear restraint making her body tense as she slammed the door behind her, locked it, and carefully put down a large paper bag before throwing herself across the room.

Or the way David let her gather him up into her arms as she sat beside him.

David liked the short version better.

“David, it’s okay. It’s going to be okay. I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise I won’t let anything happen,” Connie whispered into his ear as she held him tightly.

It was familiar, it was comforting, and part of David wanted to pull away because of just how similar it was to the old days, to when he had been happy and the only times Ethan touched him were lovingly. To when he had been the thing that made Ethan’s eyes light up and Connie had laughed with them and they had all been happy and silly and flat out stupid teens just looking for something they couldn’t put into words. Maybe a sense of belonging.

“Tell me what happened,” Connie whispered at last, and it was just the right thing to say, to do, to break what little restraint David had managed to cobble together. His hands fisted into the front of her shirt while Connie’s fingers gently stroked his hair and he wept.

“It’s okay,” Connie soothed, her fingers running through his hair. “It’s okay, Dave. I’m here. It’s okay.”

He just cried until there was nothing left in him, Connie’s voice a calming mantra of assurances and promises that meant the world and felt empty. Cried over Ethan, over the life he’d left behind, over all his pains, and even over how much he had hated Connie for a while because she had moved here and abandoned him. Cried until there were only dry sobs left and Connie slowly pulled away from him before curling her fingers under his chin and lifting his eyes to hers.

“You’re going to tell me everything,” she insisted, her voice quiet and patient and as perfect as a friend’s could be. “No more hiding, David. I can’t help you if you won’t talk to me. Okay?”

All David could do was nod as he pulled away from Connie and watched her stand.

“Can’t tell you if you’re leaving,” he croaked, surprised by just how raw his throat felt, but really he shouldn’t have been. A quick glance at the clock above the television said he had been curled against her for almost an hour.

“You need fluids that aren’t alcohol to rehydrate you before we start into the good stuff,” Connie chuckled as she moved straight for the kitchen. “But while I’m getting you that, will you at least tell me what he said to set you off like this?”

“It wasn’t what he said that was the problem, Connie,” David winced, remembering his mistake as he curled up once more. “It’s what I said. I… I thought he’d stopped, thought it was you calling, so I just… I answered as if you were on the line. He knows where I am, Connie. Fuck, I let him know where I am.”

She didn’t respond, didn’t say anything at all until she was back on the couch passing him a tall glass of water. The look on her face, though, said more than David wanted to see. She didn’t know, but Connie had suspicions. There wasn’t shock on her face so much as righteous fury.

“David, it may not seem important, but I need to know exactly what you said to him,” Connie insisted as he downed almost half of the glass.

“I… I thought it was you so I said I wasn’t coming in to work if red shift was annoying you,” David sighed, drinking more of the water. “I’m so fucking boned.”

“That’s all?” Connie asked, and the relief in her voice made absolutely no sense.

“Dammit Connie this isn’t some laughing matter!”

“David,” Connie chuckled, her hand coming up to brush his cheek fondly like she always did when he was being foolish, “I never told Ethan where I was moving. He doesn’t know where I am, so he doesn’t know where you are.”

“Wait…” David stammered, staring at the woman in shock. “He…”

“Yeah, we’re good for a while,” Connie assured him, pushing off the couch once again to head for the bag she had left by the door. “Now, we need to talk. You aren’t the kind of guy to just panic over an ex calling. What did Ethan do to you?”

“He didn’t…”

“I believe that about as much as you do,” Connie insisted as she plopped the supplies onto the table next to David’s disabled phone, and she took the empty water glass from his hand. “I know you too well to fall for that line, and know Ethan well enough to be worried.” A large carton of orange juice was pulled from the bag and a splash of it went into the glass followed by vodka.

“Connie, I don’t…”

“You touch your shoulder when you think about him.”

The statement was enough to get David to move without meaning to, and the way Connie’s eyes followed his hand to his shoulder made him more aware of it.

“Show me,” Connie commanded. “Please…”

“Connie, I…”

“David, please. I need to know.”

With a sigh David grabbed the hastily mixed screwdriver, threw it back in a single gulp, then pressed the glass into her hands before grabbing his shirt and stripping it off.

* * * * * *

“Jesus,” Connie gasped, and she couldn’t help but reach out toward the wicked looking scar that dominated David’s shoulder. The motion must have been too much, because David actually flinched away from her, moved back toward curling up like she had found him when she’d come into the apartment.

“Please, don’t…” David whispered, his voice weak. “I can’t… It…”

“I’m going to kill him,” Connie cursed, and she could feel her teeth gritting and see the way David continued to curl in on himself.

He hadn’t been so fragile when she’d left him behind. The David she had known had been strong, confident, cheerful. How had she failed to notice how broken he was now? How was it that Alex had seen it so quickly? And here she was, trying so hard not to walk out right now, buy a ticket back to Seattle, and pound Ethan’s face in.

“He didn’t mean…” David started to say, and Connie could see the moment he caught himself in his eyes, his expression hardening as he shook his head. “No, he did. I got this because I went out drinking with some of the people from work, and when I came home Ethan was there, waiting for me.”

She didn’t say anything, couldn’t say anything, just watched as David’s eyes seemed to glaze over a bit, as he started to shake. At last she reached out and grabbed David’s hand, holding it as tight as she could to try to anchor him in the here and now rather than whatever memory he was caught up in.

“He had a knife, Connie. The one I gave him as a graduation present. I bought him that for his collection, and he had it. I… He pushed me up against the wall and put the knife to my throat,” David recited, his voice cold and distant and she wanted to haul David back into her embrace. But she had to know, Connie had to know.

“He accused me of cheating on him. Of being unfaithful. Of betraying him. I was so scared. I couldn’t move. There was this look in his eyes… He gets this look in his eyes, Connie. This flash of insanity before he goes from kissing to punching. I never got a handle on what was going to make it happen. It was being home late when he broke my arm. It was a bad conversation with his father when he cracked my ribs. All I could do for a while was stare at that look in his eyes while he ranted at me.”

“David,” Connie gasped, and he didn’t stop. The haunted look didn’t go away. Not even as she wrapped her hands around his shaking arms and pulled him toward her, stretched him out on the couch so his head was in her lap. Her fingers moved slowly through his hair, soothing as she mumbled the same wordless comfort as she had before. Still he shuddered, shook, whimpered and he spoke.

“He asked me why I kept trying him like this, why I kept making him mad. I don’t know entirely what happened next. I… think he must have pushed too hard, nicked me or something. I think his eyes went wide, because he’d never made me bleed before. I must have moved. I must have done something Connie, because I woke up in the hospital.”

“Oh David,” she whispered, unable to keep the pain out of her voice. “I… I never should have left you there with him.”

“Maybe I never should have stayed,” David countered, his voice weak and pained. “Maybe I should have left with you.”

“I never gave you a chance,” Connie pointed out, still playing with his short hair. “And you wouldn’t have gone, would you?”

The shake of his head was minor, but she picked up on it anyway because his head was in her lap.

“No,” he admitted.

Connie sighed and kept running her fingers through his hair, trying to calm him. She could almost feel the tension start to melt from him, but it wasn’t enough. It could never be enough. Why had she left him behind? Hadn’t she worried about his relationship with Ethan?

“Connie,” David said, and she could hear the question in his voice.

“Yeah?” she asked, glad that with the way he was lying down she couldn’t see the scar. The very memory of it was an accusation.

“He doesn’t know where we are?”

There was desperation in his voice, a need for comfort, and all Connie could do was force as much self-assurance and confidence in her voice as she could manage.

“I’m certain,” she promised, smiling down at him for all that he couldn’t see it.

The problem was that she wasn’t as sure as he needed her to be. All she could do was hope because she wasn’t sure David had it in him anymore. Wasn’t sure he could handle that burden.

* * * * * *

The pounding on the door was more than enough to shake Alex out of his sleep, and he couldn’t help but groan. His hand fumbled for something that he was certain should have been on the bed with him but all he found was the sheet bunching under his fingers. Strange, he had been so sure there had been something, someone there with him, and all he could bring himself to do to face the lack was roll to face the wall and close his eyes once more.

The pounding got worse for half a moment before suddenly there was silence, blessed silence.

“Connie?” a voice asked on the edge of his awareness.

“Where’s Alex?” another voice, higher and softer and filled with desperation, demanded.

“Wow, you really know how to make your girlfriend happy to see you.”

“Alexa,” Connie’s voice growled and Alex finally rolled back toward his bedroom door and tried to clear his head because he couldn’t come up with a reason for someone, for Connie, to want him.

“Whatever. Go get him. He’s sleeping or some shit.”

Alex managed to lever himself up into a sitting position before his bedroom door burst open and he was presented with the imposing duo of his sister and her girlfriend. His hands came up to his eyes to rub at them, because there was no way the two of them were looking down at him, Alexa with annoyance and Connie with fear and hatred and something else he couldn’t quite place.

“Connie?” Alex grumbled. His eyes darted to the alarm beside his bed and he wanted to groan at the time because at his best guess he’d only been out for four hours. Granted, he probably should have gotten up by now anyway, because if he slept the night through he was going to fuck his sleep schedule up royally.

He’d meant to set an alarm. Why hadn’t he…

David.

Right.

“Give him a moment. Alex needs time between waking and his brain booting up,” Alexa explained, but Alex watched as Connie fully entered the room, grabbed him by his wrist and started to haul on him.

“I know you want me, but geez,” Alex chuckled, letting her pull him to his feet.

“He’s also got a shit-ass sense of humor when he’s sleepy,” Alexa sighed, shaking her head and Alex just smiled at his sister.

“It’s about David. About what you told me.”

It was amazing how quickly he came awake at that. He remembered the way the scar had felt under his fingers, the way David had reacted, the way his whole reaction had screamed abuse victim.

“You two look like you saw a ghost,” Alexa observed, and when Alex didn’t say anything she turned away. “I’ll make some coffee. This is going to be a long talk, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Alex agreed, not liking the look on Connie’s face as he stumbled after the women as they left his room. “Couch?”

“Works for me,” Alexa agreed and split to the kitchen as Alex trailed Connie to the couch. He flopped down easily on his normal side and quickly ruffled his hands through his hair to try and wake himself up better.

“What’s going on?” he asked at last, his attention torn between the concerned look on Connie’s face and the sound of Alexa making coffee in the kitchen.

“David called me shortly after his shift in a panic,” Connie said at length, sighing as she stared down at her hands. “Apparently Ethan called and he didn’t realize it. He was freaking out because he thought he’d told Ethan that he’d moved out here.”

“Who’s Ethan?” Alexa asked as a coffee mug appeared before Alex’s face. He was quite happy to wrap his hands around it, and didn’t answer as Alexa moved around the couch. Without being asked Connie shifted so Alexa could take up her normal spot on the couch, then cuddled back against her girlfriend, and Alex couldn’t help but spare them a small smile. The way Alexa’s ill tempered look always shifted to the faintest smile when she was touching Connie was practically a miracle.

“David’s ex-boyfriend, and my ex-friend,” Connie explained. “And if I ever see him again, he’ll also earn the illustrious title of ex-living.”

“That bad?” Alex asked, sipping at his coffee. Except he’d already known, hadn’t he? In fact, Alex was pretty certain that the only reason his hands weren’t shaking was because the shakes from just waking were perfectly counteracting the shaking from what Connie was saying.

“Wait, what’s going on here?” Alexa demanded, her arms sneaking around Connie’s waist, and sneaking was the right term because Alexa always seemed to do it rather surreptitiously.

“David’s ex-boyfriend abused him,” Connie said, her voice cold.

“The scar?” Alex prompted, hoping she had an answer.

“Ethan took a knife to him,” Connie explained, and Alex didn’t need the coffee anymore, he was awake and his whole body was ice. “Sounds like that wasn’t the only thing. Broken arm, cracked ribs, probably a lot more than that. I just don’t… He was always so strong.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Alexa said, her voice hard as her grip on Connie tightened.

Alex couldn’t help but look to his sister, and he could see Connie’s head tip back to look up at Alexa.

“You’d be surprised how many former abuse victims I end up training,” Alexa continued as if Alex and Connie weren’t looking at her like she’s sprouted another head. “Domestic abuse doesn’t happen overnight. It builds up slowly, bit by bit, until the victim can do nothing but blame themselves. Until they think they deserve it. The fact that your friend managed to break out of that cycle is pretty impressive if you ask me.”

“Yeah, well, if you call him being passed out on his couch drunk ‘free’ then I’ve got a bone to pick with your vocabulary,” Connie sighed, finally leaning back all the way and resting her head against Alexa’s chest. “He’s… not doing well. I’m really worried about him and if I didn’t need to be in to work first thing, I’d probably stay with him overnight and look out for him as best I could. As it is…”

“That’s why you woke me,” Alex observed as he set his mug aside. “It wasn’t just to tell me what you’d learned.”

“Someone needs to be there when he wakes,” Connie agreed. “For one thing he needs to know he’s working red tomorrow. I’ll put Donut on his morning shift, because he’s going to have the worst kind of headache when he wakes, if he wants to come in at all. But mostly…”

“Of course,” Alex said, pushing himself to his feet. “Anything you need.”

“Alex…” Alexa warned, her voice low and concerned. “You need to realize something here. Both of you need to realize something. These things don’t always end well. Sometimes the people who do these kinds of things, they don’t stop. He could very well try to track David down, and if he’s willing to hurt someone he thinks he loves, he wouldn’t hesitate to hurt you too.”

“I may not be as good as you, little sister, but I didn’t take those fighting classes from you for nothing. I can take care of myself,” Alex insisted. “And I can’t just do nothing.”

The sigh Alexa gave him was the same sad one she used whenever she disapproved of some decision he had made but wasn’t willing to get in his way.

There was a part of him that wished he would listen to her, just once.

* * * * * *

His first clue was that something strange was happening was the hand in his hair that was a little bigger, a little rougher than Connie’s. The fingers were strong as they swept through his hair, brushed it aside, tugged gently enough to make his body shudder and find him moaning softly. It wasn’t like Connie, which was why he stayed still as the finger ran along the shell of his ear, brushed lightly along his jaw, and ultimately hooked curved under his chin.

David’s eyelids fluttered open as the strange hand guided his head, and he had just a moment to meet Alex’s crystal blue gaze before his eyes closed again from the intensity of the kiss that tasted like coffee.

“David,” Alex whispered when he pulled back, and David actually groaned at the sound of his name from those beautiful lips.

“David,” Alex repeated as David opened his eyes and the smile Alex wore was more seductive than David would have ever thought possible.

“David,” Alex said a third time, a throaty chuckle punctuating the repetition of his name as the smell of coffee dominated David’s senses and David cracked his already eyes open and groaned again, this time in disbelief.

“What the fuck are you doing in my apartment?” David demanded, ignoring how hoarse he sounded as he reached behind his head, grabbed the spare pillow, and flung it at Alex.

The other man caught it easily, that beautiful deep chuckle bubbling up again as David watched him drop the pillow and raise his hands before him defensively.

“Let’s not get violent here. Wouldn’t want to accidentally knock the coffee mug over, would you?”

David pushed himself into a sitting position with a groan and let his eyes follow Alex’s pointed stare at the nightstand, where there was indeed a steaming mug of coffee, a tall glass of water, and a bottle of aspirin.

“Who let you in?” David asked as he fumbled for the aspirin bottle, suddenly aware of the throbbing in his head. “Because I’m pretty certain Connie was the one I was drunk with this time.”

“True enough,” Alex laughed, and even though it hurt David enjoyed hearing it almost as much as he had enjoyed it in his dream. “She was worried about you, but had to leave for work this morning. She stopped by and asked me if I’d be willing to check in on you. I, of course, said yes, because I’m just that nice.”

“Yeah,” David agreed, still fighting with the bottle, only to have Alex take it from him and open it without any trouble, shake out a pair of pills, and pass them over to him. For what it was worth, David didn’t blush when the fingers he had so recently been dreaming of in his hair brushed against his palm. Really, he was pretty sure he deserved points for that.

“You’re working red shift today,” Alex continued, retreating to the door of the bedroom. “Donut’s covering your shift, so you might owe him a favor. I’m honestly not sure how to deal with that. I hear the best way to dodge around it is to agree to an afternoon of shopping and then have someone call you in the middle of it. At least, that’s what Simmons apparently does.”

“I don’t…” David winced as a particularly bad ache hit his head, and immediately returned his attention to throwing the pills down his throat and chasing them with water.

“Well, take as much time as you need. I brought some things over from my apartment and I’m making omelets if you’re interested. I prefer to make them Colorado style, but I’m flexible if your interests run in another direction,” Alex offered, smiling down at David.

“Sounds… good?” David asked, staring up at Alex in confusion.

“Well, it will take a little bit, so feel free to grab a shower or something while I’m cooking,” Alex insisted, before disappearing from the door. All David could do for a long minute was stare.

Stare and remember falling asleep on the couch with Connie watching over him, and wonder just how he’d gotten to the bed and why he was certain he knew what Alex’s fingers would feel like brushing around the shell of his ear.

With a sigh David reached for the coffee and tried not to freak out when he tasted it and found it seasoned perfectly. Two sugars, no cream, and a sprinkle of cinnamon. He took another long sip before levering himself to his feet and shuffling out into the apartment proper, mug in hand. Only when he reached the kitchen and leaned his elbows against the breakfast bar did he realize that he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Almost immediately David put down his cup and started to back away.

“Don’t worry,” Alex’s voice came as he came out of the fridge with a large paper bag. “I’ve already seen it.”

“You…” David froze, hand clenching tightly at the edge of the counter.

Alex sighed as he put the supplies down by the stove and came back to face David. “You were really drunk on Friday, and I know how bad it can be to fall asleep in your clothes. I tried to…” As David watched Alex’s hand came up to run through his hair. “I tried to help you undress, get you into bed, and you didn’t take my noticing the scar very well.”

“I can imagine,” David mumbled, unable to do much more than think about how he had reacted when Connie had seen it.

“I’m not going to ask about it,” Alex said, turning his back to David pulling a carton of eggs from his bag.

“Really? You seriously find a guy with a scar like that who freaks out and you’re not even curious?”

“I didn’t say that,” Alex laughed as he fetched a bowl from the cabinet and opened the carton of eggs. “I said I’m not going to ask. There’s a pretty serious difference between curiosity and prying, and the latter is something I’m not going to do.”

“May make you better than Connie,” David sighed, sipping at his coffee again and damn it was good. “She tell you how to fix up my coffee?”

“Yeah, she said you have a thing for cinnamon,” Alex chuckled, shaking his head as he cracked eggs into a bowl and started to whisk them together with a fork.

“Always have,” David agreed, and he couldn’t help but think about Shaun sipping at the cinnamon mocha and smiling up at him in a self-satisfied way. He wanted to taste those lips again, almost as much as he wanted to taste Alex’s for a first time.

He contented himself with the coffee.

“You any good of a cook?” David asked as he watched Alex pull a pair of green peppers from his bag.

“My dad was a chef for a while,” Alex admitted, pulling a cutting board from behind a canister that David was eventually going to fill with flour or something, once he was ready to actually cook again. He selected a knife from the block and carried the whole mess over to David, plopping them down in front of him. “If you’re not going to shower, make yourself useful. I’m going to assume you’ve got all these wonderful bits and pieces for your kitchen because you can at the very least chop. Dice that for me would you?”

David couldn’t resist a little chuckle at the smile Alex gave him as he picked up the knife and twirled it confidently between his fingers. “I may not be a chef, but there are tricks you pick up when you live most of your life in restaurants,” David admitted. “How finely?”

“Not too much. Half of it is going into the eggs, the other half into the filling. If you prove yourself with that I’ll even let you cut up the sausage and ham when I’m done cooking them,” Alex said, his voice betraying clear approval of David’s knife skills.

“I’m sure I’ll wow you,” David assured him, immediately stopping the knife in his fingers and turning his gaze to the peppers. “You were saying something about your dad?”

“Yeah, he was a short order cook with aspirations on something bigger,” Alex said, returning to the far counter and pulling packages of meat from the bag. “At home he tried cooking all manner of awesome things, and when I asked if I could help, he was more than eager to teach me. I never had quite his passion, but it’s always been something I’ve loved. There’s something… I don’t know, let’s say beautiful, about being able to create complex meals from simple ingredients for the people important to you.”

With that Alex started digging through the cabinets again, then looked back over his shoulder and frowned up at David. “Do you have any pans suitable for cooking this stuff?”

“I keep the bigger pans under the stove. I’m not big on baking,” David provided, and was treated to a good view of Alex’s ass as he squatted down to pull the drawer open and haul out David’s largest frying pan.

“Me neither,” Alex admitted, placing the pan on the stove. “Never appealed to me. Alexa tried her hand at it, but she’s got the cooking skill of a bull in a china shop.”

“You cook for her often?” David asked, returning his attention to the peppers and chopped off their tops. A few careful cuts had the core loosened and David set the knife aside and quickly cleaned out the peppers seeds before starting into the chopping.

“I said I like to cook for people important to me and forgot the qualifier of 'and who appreciate it,'” Alex laughed, testing the heat of the pan by letting his hand hover over it. Apparently satisfied he cut open the bacon package and started placing slices in the pan. “Alexa pretty much just eats whatever is put in front of her and doesn’t stop to think about it.”

“So what you’re saying is that I’m going to have to praise you profusely over this meal,” David chuckled as he finished working his way through the first pepper.

“That would be nice,” Alex admitted as David watched him dance back a step to avoid bits of grease flying out of the pan. “Ouch. You better appreciate it. Ow.”

“I would think the kid of a short order cook would be used to little tiny grease burns.”

“Used to and comfortable with are two vastly different things.”

They were quiet for a while, and David couldn’t help but smile fondly at Alex while he back was turned. He couldn’t even begin to imagine how nice it would be to have something like this in his life, something he’d never had with Ethan. A lover who would wake him in the morning with well cooked food, or who would merely cook with him, bantering all the while. Someone who seemed as eager to take care of him as he had always had been to care for Ethan. Someone who would laugh easily and frequently, and tease him over something as simple as dicing a green pepper.

Alex took a moment to take down a plate and, finished with the peppers, David just smiled at the man in his kitchen as he fished the strips of bacon out of the pan one at a time. No sooner were they out than fat slices of ham from a tupperware went into the grease and Alex turned just briefly to smile at him.

“Looks good,” Alex commented on the pile of peppers, gesturing with his fork. “Maybe I can trust you with the meat.”

“Like I said, you pick things up in the restaurant industry,” David smiled at Alex.

“What did you do?” Alex asked, returning his attention to the pan while he added a few sausages.

“Host, the primary at a very in demand five star restaurant. One of the chefs had a bit of a crush on me, I think, because he’d take the chance to teach me things whenever he could,” David admitted, twitching the knife resting on the cutting board into a straighter line.

“Nothing like dating someone who can cook,” Alex agreed. “Still, I suppose waiting tables at Connie’s is a bit of a step down for you.”

“Multiple steps, but it’s what I needed,” David admitted. “It’s nice to be in a situation where I’m not accidentally going to alienate some hotshot exec by not seating her fast enough.”

Alex froze, just for half a moment, and David wouldn’t have noticed it if it hadn’t been for him cursing and quickly moving to flip the slices of ham. “Sounds like there’s a story behind that.”

“Maybe, but it’s going to take a lot more than an omelet to get it out of me.”

“And just what does an omelet get me?” Alex asked, curiosity plain in his voice.

David sipped at his coffee, thought about the long list of things he could offer but wouldn’t. The chances of Alex taking those kinds of offers poorly were just too high. No, he wanted this too much. This easy moment with Alex cooking for him in his kitchen, smiling and teasing and looking so perfect with David’s gray half-apron wrapped around his hips, this was just what he wanted in life. No, he wanted more, he knew that. He wanted to be able to come up behind Alex, wrap his arms around the other man’s waist, and rest his forehead against Alex’s back.

Instead of any of that David sipped his coffee one more time, enjoyed the taste of the cinnamon, and thought.

“I wanted to make a pot roast sometime this week. Sort of a house warming meal. I’ve been subsisting on take out and microwaveable meals since I moved in. But I’m not so big on making something quite like that with no one to share it with. Too much food for one guy. I’m going to invite Connie of course, she’d hate me if I didn’t, but I suppose I could trade a meal for a meal.”

Alex glanced back over his shoulder and the smile on his lips made David’s legs want to melt away right then and there.

“I’d like that, provided you aren’t going to twist my wrist and make me drag Alexa along.”

“Yeah, I think I’ll skip that,” David chuckled, and he enjoyed the silence as Alex returned to cooking.

He’d give anything for moments like this.

Instead he resolved to steal them whenever he could.