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Week one: Boyfriend
Carlos Reyes has a boyfriend.
He repeats it to himself a few times in his head, trying to make the words sound as real as the body in bed beside him. He’s on the wrong side of 25 and he’s wanted for his entire life to have a partner and a family and someone who loves him to come home to, and there was a part of Carlos – a much bigger part than he’d like to admit – that was beginning to sadly accept the fact that it was never going to happen. That he’d always be too much, that no one was going to want all of the love he has to give, that at some point he would always become too intense and too serious and frighten everyone away. He thought it had happened this time, too. Only this one came back and now he has a boyfriend.
He's never had a boyfriend before. Not like this. Not someone who Carlos wants every little bit of, not someone who looks at him the way this one does, not someone to whom Carlos is having to fight back admitting big, life-changing things because from the very first moment he saw him, Carlos’s hopelessly romantic heart decided he needed to see about forever with this man.
TK snuffles softly in his sleep, a truly adorable sound, and Carlos rests his temple on his knuckles and just looks at him. Watches him push his face into the pillow as sleep slowly leaves him and the tendrils of morning sun streaming across the bed pull him gently towards being awake. I didn’t get to wake up with you, TK had said, about the only other time they’ve shared a bed until morning. Carlos hadn’t wanted to lay there and creepily watch him sleep so he’d gotten up and gone downstairs. But TK wanted to wake up with him, so this time, Carlos waits.
He's always nice to look at – although Carlos could do without ever seeing him in a hospital bed again – but in sleep, TK is so lovely. His face is smooth, lips slightly parted and cheeks a little pink because he’s wrapped up in Carlos’s quilt. His hair is mussed, pressed to his forehead in a few spots and so soft looking that Carlos finds his fingers twitching with the urge to bury them in it. He holds back because he doesn’t want TK to wake up just yet. For another moment or two, Carlos just wants to look at him. Just wants to marvel at how gorgeous he is, just wants to keep TK in his bed for as long as he possibly can, just wants to listen to him breathe as Carlos tries to convince himself that this is real. That TK is really here, that TK is his boyfriend, that TK had let Carlos kiss him and worship him the night before and then had wanted to stay.
“Tyler Kennedy,” Carlos whispers. He tucks his arm underneath him and rests his head against it, face close to TK’s on the pillow. He wonders how many people know what TK stands for. He’d been unhappy about it, when Carlos found out. He wonders if TK would ever let Carlos call him Tyler. If in time maybe Carlos could earn the right to call him something that only his mother does. If Carlos could some day be worthy of that part of TK.
He shifts on the mattress and TK’s eyes open. Their stunning, clear, sea-glass green meets Carlos, and he blinks once or twice but then his lips curve into a smile. “Hey,” he murmurs.
“Hi,” Carlos answers.
“How long have you been staring at me?” TK asks, wrinkling up his nose sweetly as he stretches and then relaxes back into the pillow.
“Maybe two minutes,” Carlos answers honestly. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” TK shakes his head. He stretches again and sighs sleepily. “Good morning.”
“Morning.” Finally, Carlos does reach out to touch. He slides his fingers through TK’s silky hair like he’d wanted to before, heart warming as TK turns into his palm like a cat. “Sleep okay?”
“You wore me out,” TK teases. “Twice in one day.”
Carlos smiles, other parts of him warming as he remembers. “Both times were fun.”
“Yes they were.” TK rolls onto his back, looking up at the ceiling for a moment and then letting his head loll back to face Carlos. His eyes twinkle as he says, “Do you have to work today?”
“No.”
“And I’m on medical leave,” TK muses, humming. “What should we get up to?”
“You are still injured,” Carlos reminds him. To illustrate his point, he lets his fingers travel across TK’s chest and taps his forefinger gently against the bandage. Wispy tufts of hair are growing around it on his chest where he must usually shave it. That’s going to make it uncomfortable to pull the tape off when the dressing needs to be removed.
“Doesn’t seem to be slowing us down.”
Carlos laughs softly. TK isn’t wrong about that. He moves in a little closer, resting his head on TK’s pillow with his forehead pressed to TK’s cheek and his palm laid flat over the bandage. Carlos can feel stitches underneath it if he gently presses his hand down. He can feel the remnants of the bullet that almost took TK away from him.
“You okay?” TK asks, reaching up to scratch his fingers through Carlos’s hair, along his scalp.
Carlos shivers and kisses his cheek. “Yeah. I’m really, really good.”
TK keeps his fingers in Carlos’s hair. The fingers of his other hand curl around Carlos’s arm, thumb rubbing over his skin.
“This is real, right?” Carlos asks, a few of his insecurities slipping out even though he doesn’t mean to let them.
“You and me, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
TK turns his head and places a kiss on the tip of Carlos’s nose. “I’m sorry I was so flakey.”
“No, don’t be sorry. That’s not what I mean. I just wanna make sure we’re on the same page now.”
“I still can’t promise I’ll be any good at this. But I wanna be with you.”
“Okay.” Carlos smiles and pushes his face into TK’s neck. “Me too.”
Week two: Gwyn
TK barely waits for Carlos to open the door before he launches into what he came here to bitch about. “My mother is coming.”
Carlos blinks at him, that adorable little wrinkle appearing between his eyes like it does when he frowns or when he’s confused. “What?”
Pushing past him and into the townhouse, TK continues, “She’s pissed that my dad let me get shot. Her words. How exactly he was supposed to stop it from happening, I have no idea.”
Closing the door behind himself, Carlos asks, “Is it bad, that she’s coming? I thought you two were close.”
“We are.” TK sighs and scrubs his hands over his face. “But she can be … let’s say overprotective.”
“Aren’t all mothers a little bit overprotective?” Carlos steps in closer to him, arms wrapping around TK’s waist and pulling him in. He kisses TK’s cheek and says, “Hey.”
“Hi.” TK looks at him. He takes Carlos’s face into his hands and kisses him properly, and then drapes his arms over Carlos’s shoulders.
“When is she coming?”
“Tomorrow. She just called my dad and announced it.”
“Her son got shot,” Carlos reasons. He’s being logical and it’s very sweet but it isn’t what TK wants.
“I know. I was there.”
Slowly, Carlos presses his lips together, fighting back a smile.
TK rolls his eyes at himself. It’s lucky Carlos is amused by him; TK knows he can be annoying and too emotional and more irritable than a lot of people are willing to handle, but Carlos just seems enamored with him, and TK thinks maybe he could get used to that. He could get used to feeling like he doesn’t have to tone himself down and dull his own edges to keep someone around.
“Sorry,” he mutters. “Hi, how was your day, I missed you.”
“My day was good. I missed you, too.” Carlos kisses his lips again and lets go of TK long enough to lead him over to the sofa. He sits, and TK flops onto him and snuggles into Carlos’s arms. It was his favorite spot well before TK wanted it to be, and now that he’s stopped getting in his own way and is on board with letting this person into his life, TK sort of never wants to be anywhere else but in his arms.
“They’re gonna fight,” TK says with another sigh. “That’s what I’m not looking forward to. She’s my mom, and I haven’t seen her in months, I’m happy she’s coming. But she’s staying in the guest room and things will be cordial for like 10 minutes and then they’ll start fighting. And then they’ll start fucking, probably.”
Carlos coughs, like he’s choking suddenly on his own saliva in surprise. “I’m sorry?”
TK shakes his head, laughing a little in spite of himself. His forehead rubs against Carlos’s neck. Carlos always smells so good, like woodsy deodorant and soap and his own intoxicatingly manly scent. TK wants to bottle it so he can take it with him wherever he goes, but also thinks that would be a terrible mistake. He would never, ever live it down if he got a boner at work because he caught a whiff of something that smells like Carlos. He’s addicted enough as it is, and they’ve only been officially dating for eight days. TK thinks he was probably addicted to this person by about five minutes after their first kiss, and that he really was an idiot for resisting it for so long.
“Unfortunately, I have seen this movie before,” TK tells him, “and it always ends badly.”
“Do you think they’ll get back together?” Carlos rubs his back and TK nuzzles into him.
“No. They’ll just get on each other’s nerves, and sleep together a few times, and then she’ll leave and it will be unpleasant.”
“I’m sorry.” Carlos pushes his big hand underneath TK’s shirt so he can stroke along TK’s bare skin.
It makes TK shiver, makes sparks dance along the pathways of his veins. He can’t ever seem to get enough. He wants to be kissing Carlos all the time, wants to be touching him and cuddling with him and having sex with him every single minute he’s awake, and half the time he spends asleep, too. TK’s quite sure he’s never felt like this. He’s never desired someone this much, and when he stops moving long enough to let the dust of it settle around him, he understands how different it feels than everyone else he’s ever been with. TK wanted them to want him. He wanted to be lusted after, wanted them to think he was sexy and skilled with his mouth and always good for a fun night. He never ached for them the way he aches for Carlos when they’re apart. Not even Alex, and TK had really believed at the time that they were meant to spend the rest of their lives together.
“I had a dream about you last night,” Carlos says.
“A sexy dream?” TK asks with a grin, but then feels badly when Carlos says no.
“You were back in the hospital. I’d forgotten about it, until we started talking about you getting shot.”
“Oh.” TK lifts his head. He finds Carlos’s eyes shining at him, can see the reflection of his own frowning face in them as clear as a recently cleaned mirror. He cups Carlos’s cheek in his hand and promises, “I’m okay.”
“I know you are. But you scared me pretty good. Probably scared your mom, too.”
TK smiles at him and asks, “Will you stop being so mature and reasonable? I’m trying to be bitchy.”
“I noticed.” Carlos smiles back and kisses him. Against TK’s lips, he murmurs, “Maybe we could find something better for that mouth to do.”
“Oh, baby, the sweet talkin’ gets me every time,” TK jokes, as Carlos gently lowers him back onto the couch and settles over him. He covers TK with his big, solid body, trapping TK between him and the cushions, and TK holds Carlos’s face in his hands and slips his tongue into his mouth.
Week three: Firehouse
Carlos hovers awkwardly in the open bay door of the firehouse. People in dark blue uniforms pass by him, some of them with the word paramedic stitched in white on the back of it. He recognizes one of them, a tall woman named Nancy who Carlos met a handful of times through Michelle. She smiles at him, giving him a small wave that Carlos returns. For a moment it looks like she’s about to come over and say hello, but then TK bounds into the garage and hurries over to hug Carlos, and by the time Carlos looks back over, Nancy is gone.
“Hi, babe,” TK says to him, smiling widely.
“Hey,” Carlos returns, sharing his smile when TK plants a wet kiss on his lips and making Carlos chuckle. “Happy to see me?”
“Always. Come in, come meet everyone.”
TK takes his hand, leading him further into the building. This is so foreign to Carlos, and it’s more than just his lack of experience with true relationships. He would never have held TK’s hand if TK had come to meet him at the police station. He wouldn’t have even thought of it. Carlos tells himself that it’s only his instinct to maintain some semblance of professionalism, but deep down he knows it’s because he’d hate the sideways glances. He’s not sure what most of his colleagues think about him; about the fact that he’s never mentioned a wife or girlfriend, about the sort of person he might be when he goes home at night and takes the uniform off.
Carlos doesn’t hide. If anyone had asked, he would have told them the truth. He just doesn’t wear it on his sleeve the way that TK does, and no one has ever asked. But TK intertwines their fingers like it isn’t a big deal and leads him down the hallway. Nobody they pass so much as blinks, as if it truly isn’t a big deal. Carlos is surprised by how free that makes him feel.
In what looks like some kind of break room, people in uniforms matching TK’s are seated at tables and draped casually on couches. Carlos recognizes Paul, lying on his back with his feet in the lap of the hijabi woman Carlos briefly met at the hospital before TK woke up. He recognizes other faces, but doesn’t remember their names. Carlos knows he was introduced to them, but TK had been unconscious at the time, and Carlos had been consumed with so much fear and anguish about it that he’s surprised he remembered his own name, let alone theirs.
“Carlos!” a cheerful voice says.
He looks over toward the kitchen and finds Captain Strand smiling at him from across the room.
“Captain Strand,” he greets, politely nodding at him.
“Guys, this is my boyfriend Carlos,” TK says, to the room at large.
Carlos feels four sets of eyes travelling toward him and swallows, suddenly uncomfortable at being observed so closely. He knows how much these people care about TK, it’s intimidating to have them all staring at him at once.
“Hey!” Paul says, getting up and coming over. He shakes Carlos’s hand and pulls him into a brief one-armed hug. Carlos has to let go of TK’s hand to accomplish it, and out of the corner of his eye he sees an enormous man come over and pull TK into a playful headlock, digging his knuckles into TK’s hair.
“Good to see you,” Carlos tells Paul.
“You too, man.” Paul grins at him and claps him on the shoulder. He points to the other two, flanked on either side of him. “Marjan and Mateo.”
“We met at the hospital,” Mateo says, also shaking Carlos’s hand. He has a distinctly less casual energy about him than the rest of them; he’s looking at Carlos like he’s a kid and Carlos is a cool teenager he wants to like him.
“Yeah, I remember,” Carlos replies. He does remember, he’d just forgotten the names. He commits them to memory as he looks back and forth between two sets of dark brown eyes. Marjan and Mateo.
“TK wouldn’t tell us about you for such a stupidly long time,” Marjan says to Carlos, with a mischievous glint in her eye. “We had to call you Officer Sexy.”
Carlos feels his cheeks heating instantly as Paul snickers.
“Can you get off me?” TK’s voice says, complaining. Carlos looks to the side and the man still has his big arm draped over TK’s shoulders, making him look miniscule by comparison. To Carlos, he says, “This obnoxious giant is Judd.”
“Good to meet you, Carlos,” Judd says in a southern drawl the rest of them don’t have, finally letting go of TK and extending his hand. Carlos shakes it and Judd squeezes in a way that probably isn’t supposed to be as intimidating as he is. “We’re all pretty fond of TK around here.”
“Do not even,” TK threatens, pointing a finger in Judd’s face. “You are not allowed to give him that lame speech about not hurting me.”
“Can I?” Marjan asks.
TK rounds on her, grinning but exuding the energy of a chaotic younger sibling. “Absolutely not. He is way better than I deserve already, don’t fucking scare him off.”
Acting instinctively as he always does when TK says things like that, Carlos reaches out for him. He puts his arm around TK and pulls him in, kissing the side of his face. “That is definitely not true. And I’m not gonna be scared off because your friends are protective of you.”
When Carlos looks back at the others, he finds Judd smiling toward the ground and Marjan and Paul making exaggerated faces at each other with their hands clasped dramatically over their hearts.
“I don’t like any of you,” TK declares. He wraps his arms around Carlos’s middle and kisses him, right there in front of the crowd. “Except you. I like you.”
Carlos swallows over the smallest lump of embarrassment that rises in his throat and tries to be brave enough not to care that people are looking. “I like you, too.”
“Aww,” Paul and Marjan coo together, and TK rolls his eyes, but he’s laughing.
Week four: Pandemic
With his head in Tk’s lap, Carlos frowns at the television. They have the local news on. TK’s bare feet are up on the coffee table and beyond them, a blond anchor is giving a report on the virus and the rapidly rising number of cases in the United States.
“This is pretty scary,” Carlos says. He worries about his parents every time he thinks about it. They’re in good health but they’re older, and it’s taking people down so quickly, and it makes him feel sick to his stomach to think about them catching it and dying before he even has a chance to say goodbye.
“Yeah,” TK agrees. “I had to make myself stop watching the news, the other day. The stuff coming out of India is insane.”
“Are you gonna be okay?” Carlos rolls onto his back so he can look up at TK.
TK glances down at him. “What do you mean?”
“On calls. Dealing with sick people.”
“Oh.” TK looks troubled as he turns his gaze back toward Carlos’s television. “As okay as I can be, I guess. I won’t have much control over that once it starts spreading like they think it will. Or if we run out of masks and PPE.”
“What about us? Should we be quarantining?”
“You mean separately?” TK asks.
Carlos nods.
TK takes a deep breath and looks distressed, and Carlos quickly says, “I’m not saying I want to. I’m just asking if you think we should. You’re the one with medical training.”
He sits up and turns around, facing TK and taking his hand.
“So many people are dying. I just found you,” TK says. He looks at their hands intertwined in his lap with a sad little frown tugging lines into his forehead.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“You could. Either of us could.” TK’s eyes find his. Carlos moves closer to him on the couch, removing his hand from TK’s and wrapping it around his shoulders instead. TK leans against him.
“You’re right,” Carlos says heavily. He’d love to promise that nothing will happen to them. That they’ll somehow be among the lucky ones, that they won’t be the ones saying goodbye to their loved ones through plastic in a hospital. But it isn’t something he can promise, and it would feel hollow to lie about it.
“You’re not quarantining here all alone,” TK tells him. His lips find Carlos’s neck and Carlos wraps his other arm around him, too. Holds TK close to his body. Feels his heartbeat and the warmth of his skin, feels him alive and healthy and real, at least for now. “I wanna be with you. If one of us gets sick, at least we had time together first, you know?”
Carlos nods and kisses his forehead. Sometimes he wants to say things to TK. Things it’s way too soon for him to be saying, but things that he feels anyway, whether or not he should.
“I wanted to drink the other day,” TK admits quietly.
Carlos doesn’t reply. He keeps TK close and holds his breath a little, wanting TK to continue. He wants TK to be honest with him, wants TK to tell him when he’s struggling, but Carlos still hasn’t worked out the best way to react to it when TK does. He doesn’t want TK to feel judged or condescended to.
TK gestures at the television. “This is all … fucking awful. And scary, like you said. And I didn’t wanna think about it anymore, or feel anything.”
“What did you do instead?” Carlos asks carefully.
“Called you. Asked if I could come over. That was the day we went hiking at Cedar Ridge.”
“Oh.” Carlos hugs him just a little closer and his heart skips a beat or two. TK lifts his legs up off the floor and drapes them over Carlos’s lap. Carlos whispers, “I’m so proud of you.”
“I don’t know what would’ve happened if you hadn’t answered. And it’s not fair, to put that on you. My sobriety isn’t your job.”
“No, it isn’t, but I want to help, every time I can. I promise I’ll always answer if I can, okay? And you know there’s other places you can go, if I’m not available. There’s other people who care about you, TK. So many of them.”
“More than I think I deserve, sometimes,” TK says, and then before Carlos can argue, he adds, “but I’m working on that.”
“Good.”
Week five: Beautiful
Carlos rolls them over, TK falling gently onto his back on the bed and Carlos pushing up to one elbow to hover over him, bringing his other hand up to cup TK’s cheek. His eyes are glistening, as they often do when he looks at TK, in a way that makes him feel precious and cared for. Even a month ago, it would have made TK feel too big for his skin, the way Carlos looks at him. He would have shied away from it, or made a joke about it to cover for the way it made his stomach swoop in nerves and excitement. Now, he just lets Carlos look. They haven’t discussed it, but TK can tell what it means to Carlos that he does.
“Hey,” Carlos whispers, brushing his thumb delicately over TK’s cheekbone. TK loves his hands. Loves how big they are, how strong and yet gentle, the way they hold him making TK feel owned and wanted and cared for.
“How ‘come I don’t get a pet name?” TK asks, mostly teasing.
He slides his hands up Carlos’s bare arm, feeling his strong bicep underneath his palm. Carlos’s thigh slots between TK’s legs. He’s been hard for what feels like an hour at this point, but Carlos has been drawing it out at a torturous pace. Just kissing him, rubbing slowly against him, his hips undulating sensually and his tongue sliding warm and soft into TK’s mouth. Sometimes Carlos likes it like this. TK is too full of energy, too committed to grabbing hands and hasty kisses and rushed movements of his own hips. Carlos likes to slow him down, make him marinate in the feeling of their bodies against each other.
TK can’t say he minds, these days. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of their chests pressed together, of Carlos kissing his neck, of Carlos slowly rocking a warm, damp erection into his thigh. It makes TK’s head spin, makes him feel like he’s sturdily anchored to this spot and sporadically floating away all at once.
“You might regret that,” Carlos smiles, “unleash me and I might never use your actual name again.”
TK chuckles.
Carlos leans in to kiss his cheek. “Which one do you want?” he whispers. “Sweetheart?” He kisses the tip of TK’s nose, and then places kisses over his face as he makes suggestions. “Cariño?” – a kiss to his chin – “Pretty boy?” – a kiss to his other cheek – “Beautiful?”
TK buries his fingers into Carlos’s curls as Carlos ducks his head further to kiss at the spot on TK’s neck that his lips are always drawn to like magnets. He hums like TK is delicious. He often does that, and it makes TK feel so deeply desired.
“Still stuck on the beautiful thing, huh?”
“Mhm.” His thigh slides between TK’s legs, pressing down, sending sparks through him from his core. “How we feelin’ about it?”
“Gettin’ used to it,” TK answers. “Feels better than it used to.”
Carlos lifts his head back up. There’s so many emotions swimming in his eyes, that TK couldn’t name them all if he tried. There’s still a small part of him that things they should pump the breaks a little, that remembers that only weeks ago he’d been unsure about whether he was ready for all this. There’s still a part of him that is so terrified he’ll hurt Carlos, that he’ll damage this golden man beyond repair with his shadows and his failures and his darkness. Carlos shines sunlight into all his midnight crevices and TK is so afraid he’ll swallow it up like a black hole and drag Carlos with him.
As if he can hear TK’s unspoken thoughts, Carlos slowly slides his hand down TK’s neck, over his chest, fingertips skipping over the contours of his skin. When he gets low enough he curls his fingers around TK’s cock and strokes him languidly, his intense gaze having followed his hand and watching as the pink tip of TK’s cock disappears into his fist and then reappears out of it, wetness beading at the tip.
TK feels breathless, captive, vulnerable but protected in a way that makes him dizzy. The top of Carlos’s thigh nudges further between TK’s legs, pushing up against his balls from underneath, encouraging TK to rock against him.
“Baby,” TK whispers, eyes falling closed and lips parting on a shaky sigh. His arm bends upwards, the one that’s trapped under Carlos’s side, so that he can scratch his fingernails lightly between Carlos’s shoulder blades. He’s torn between wanting to come just like this, with Carlos playing him like a precious violin, or if he wants Carlos inside him. Everything Carlos can do to his body makes TK feel transcendent. He wonders if there will ever come a day when he’s not undone by the way Carlos touches him, holds him, pleasures him with such selfless reverence, like making TK feel good is his singular reason for being.
“So, so beautiful,” Carlos murmurs reverently.
Week six: Cooking
“Do you ever cook?” Carlos asks.
He’s slicing a red pepper into thin strips, while TK is sitting up on the island in boxers and one of Carlos’s sweatshirts, watching him.
“I used to make cookies with my mom,” TK answers. “I should get the recipe, they were really good.”
“Or ask her to make them with you,” Carlos reasons, “since she’s still here. If that was something you did together maybe she wouldn’t like you making them with your boyfriend instead.”
“She’s too busy having sex with my dad to care.”
Carlos looks at him, wrinkling his nose automatically. “Oh, has that started?”
“Yep,” TK answers, popping the P and rolling his eyes. “I heard them last night. Right on schedule.”
“That’s … very uncomfortable.”
“You’re tellin’ me.”
Carlos uses the knife to slide the sliced peppers onto the plate he had ready, and then slides the extra bits into the sink. He’ll scoop them out once he’s finished and take them out back to be composted. He transfers the plate to the island next to TK to keep it out of the way so he won’t accidentally knock it on the floor, and then goes to the refrigerator and selects a jalapeño.
“You like that word.”
Carlos looks up, hearing crunching as soon as TK has stopped speaking, and finding TK smiling at him with a pepper slice in his hand that he’s bit in half.
“Hey,” Carlos laughs. He crosses over and snatches the rest of the pepper out of TK’s hand. “Those have to go in the fajitas, you can’t eat them yet.”
TK grins at him and grabs another, lifting it out of Carlos’s reach and popping the end of it into his mouth. He holds it between his teeth, eyebrows raising in a challenge and Carlos huffs and rolls his eyes.
“Such a brat,” he mutters, but he gives TK exactly what he wants anyway. There’s a lesson in that, Carlos just has no intention of learning it. He pushes in between TK’s spread legs, gets in close to him and bites the end of the pepper as TK’s warm hands curl around the back of his neck. Carlos chews a few times and then kisses him, the sweetness of the fruit bursting on his tongue and combined with the taste of TK.
TK wraps one arm around his shoulders, holding him closer as his mouth opens to accommodate Carlos’s wandering tongue. Carlos pushes his hands underneath the hoodie, fingers sliding over TK’s bare back, and loses himself in their kiss. When he pulls back to breathe, he asks, “What word?”
“Boyfriend.”
There’s a bit of juice from the pepper on his lower lip and Carlos swipes at it with his tongue. Leaving his face close to TK’s, he agrees, “Yeah, I do. I like the way it looks on you. Like the way it feels on me.”
In a conspiratorial whisper, like it’s something he’s afraid to admit but knows Carlos will keep safe, TK says, “I do, too.”
Week seven: Tattoo
Carlos notices right away, when TK shows up at his townhouse at the end of the day with a bandage taped to his forearm. He frowns, quickly shutting the door behind himself and crowding into TK’s space, taking his arm in gentle hands.
“What happened?” he asks, thinking TK has been injured.
TK shakes his head and quickly assures, “Nothing, it’s a tattoo.”
“Oh.” Carlos cocks his head slightly to one side. The corner of his mouth twitches as he says, “Another one?”
TK smiles sheepishly. “Well, you liked the first one.”
“Yeah. It looks so nice against your skin. But please tell me you’re not covering yourself in ink during a global pandemic just because I thought the first one was sexy.”
“No,” TK answers, fighting the urge to playfully stick his tongue out. “It’s not about you, you egomaniac.”
Carlos raises his eyebrows, and TK giggles and shrugs.
“Alright, it’s not entirely about you.”
Shaking his head with a fond smile and dazzlingly sparkly eyes, Carlos brushes his fingertips over the bandage again and asks, “What is it? Can I see?”
“Yeah, come here.” TK heads for the kitchen and Carlos follows closely behind him. Over the sink, TK carefully peels back the gauze, wincing as the medical tape pulls at his swollen skin. “It’s not gonna look that great right now, it’s still healing.”
“I know.”
TK removes the bandage entirely, revealing a shaved patch on his arm and a honeybee tattooed on reddened skin. “I love bees,” he says, checking Carlos’s face for his reaction.
Carlos smiles down at the tattoo, gently touching TK’s skin with the pad of his thumb. It’s just barely the ghost of a touch, but it’s reverential. TK’s hoping once it heals, Carlos will spend some time with his mouth on it like he did with the last one.
“I like it,” he says softly. “It suits you.”
“Thanks.”
Carlos wraps his arms around TK from behind and TK leans back into him, examining his tattoo in the glow of the pot light. He’s always wanted tattoos. Always been interested in them, fascinated by the idea of committing himself to anything permanent because the idea of it terrified him. TK spent so much of his life not knowing who he was going to be from week to week, bouncing back and forth between bad decisions and self-destruction, that he couldn’t fathom settling on anything and keeping it forever. These days, it doesn’t scare him so much.
He doesn’t say that to Carlos, at least not in that many words, but he thinks maybe Carlos has figured it out anyway.
Week eight: Dinner
“Everything was delicious, Captain Strand,” Carlos says politely, standing up when the others do and beginning to gather the plates.
“Thank you, and you don’t have to do that,” the man says, waving at the plates in Carlos’s hand.
“I don’t mind,” Carlos says honestly. He carries them over toward the sink, and when he turns back, he notices TK and Gwyn smiling at each other.
“He does dishes?” Gwyn asks her son, with eyebrows raised like she’s impressed. Teasing, but impressed.
“He vacuums, he mops, he unclogs drains,” TK lists, grinning at Carlos. “What a man, right?”
“Too bad he’s taken,” Gwyn jokes.
“And gay,” TK points out.
Gwyn shrugs. “I could probably work around that.”
TK snickers and Carlos blushes and Captain Strand rolls his eyes and tells Carlos, “Ignore them. Thank you for helping.”
“Of course.”
At the table, Gwyn leans in and whispers something to TK and he laughs brightly. Carlos smiles to himself as he starts loading the dishwasher. He doesn’t need to know what was said, it just brings him immeasurable joy to see TK this happy. TK still has his shadowy moments, like he warned Carlos he would and like Carlos promised he could handle, but he’s so beautiful when he’s happy. Carlos likes to think he played some small part in it.
After the sun has gone down, Carlos is on the couch with TK. They sat outside in the backyard for a while after the kitchen was tidied, but then the evening chill set in and they moved back inside.
“You can stay over, if you want,” TK tells him.
Carlos looks over his shoulder to Gwyn and Captain Strand in the kitchen. He’s not sure whether they heard that – if they did, they give no indication. “With your parents here?”
It’s not something they’ve done before. Carlos has been invited over for dinner several times since TK’s mother arrived but he’s always gone back to his own house at the end of the evening, and when they do spend the night together, it’s in Carlos’s bed, not TK’s.
“I meant you can sleep here.” TK grins at him. “I wasn’t thinking I’d let you eat my ass with my mom in the next room.”
Carlos nearly chokes, and that, TK’s parents did hear. He tries to cover it by pretending to cough, glaring at TK’s smirking face when Captain Strand and Gwyn go back to their own conversation. “Thank you for that.”
“Absolutely any time, babe.” TK winks at him and kisses his cheek.
“You’re the worst.”
“Stay,” TK says again. He takes Carlos’s hand, threading their fingers together. “Tonight was a good night. I wanna fall asleep with you.”
“Won’t it be weird?”
“Carlos, I hate to break it to you, but my parents are aware I’ve had sex before. They’ve caught me having sex before.”
“Jesus,” Carlos swears. “I would literally never recover.”
“My point is, we are adults, and we’re in a relationship, and they’re not stupid. They have undoubtedly made the correct assumption that we’re sleeping together. So, stay. It’s late, and it’s starting to rain, and I want you to.”
Carlos looks at him. TK pouts playfully just to make him laugh, and Carlos does. Taking another unsure glance over TK’s shoulder, he works up the courage to shift in a little bit closer to him on the couch. TK bounces and snuggles into him, tucking himself up against Carlos’s chest. TK was always tactile, even when he was fighting against his urges, but he’s become incredibly affectionate since they’ve made things official and Carlos is not complaining. He’s always liked to touch. He thinks he was a little bit touch-starved before he met TK, after so many years alone, and he’s not sure he ever realized just how much until suddenly there was a person in his life who always wanted to be near him.
“You’re comfortable doing this in front of them?” Carlos asks. He wouldn’t be, in front of his parents. But that’s an entirely different can of worms, and it’s complicated, and Carlos doesn’t like to think about it.
“Mhm,” TK answers.
“Okay.” He relaxes a bit. Over the top of TK’s head, he catches Gwyn’s eye and she’s smiling at him.
In the morning, Carlos wakes up first, as he usually does. He’s wrapped around TK from behind, having rolled closer to him in sleep, and his hand is tucked up underneath TK’s shirt, palm laying on his stomach. Carlos smiles with his eyes closed, sliding his nose through the hair on the back of TK’s head and inhaling the smell of him – soap, fabric softener, sleepy skin. Eventually Carlos gets up when his bladder refuses to let him continue snuggling, but he spends a few seconds in the doorway just looking at TK, curled into a ball and burrowed into the blankets. Carlos is struck with a sudden, visceral urge to protect him, even though he isn’t in any danger right at this moment.
Heading downstairs after he’s used the bathroom, he finds TK’s mother sitting at the island, in a flowery bathrobe with her hair piled into a messy knot on the top of her head. She has a steaming mug and a tablet in front of her, and she looks up when he enters the room.
“Good morning,” she says warmly.
“Morning,” he answers courteously, returning her smile.
“Coffee?” She points him in the direction of the coffee maker on the counter, with half a pot still warming on the hotplate.
Carlos knows where the coffee maker is kept in this house, but he doesn’t say that. Instead he thanks her and helps himself.
“Strand men like to sleep in,” Gwyn says. “TK was an absolute nightmare to get up in time for school when he was a teenager. A few times I had to literally dump a glass of water on him.”
Carlos chuckles. It’s on the tip of his tongue to share one of his own anecdotes about TK being a grump in the mornings, but then he bites it back, not sure he should. He fills a mug and goes into the refrigerator for the milk, and as he does, it occurs to him that that’s ridiculous – they are in Owen’s kitchen together in their pajamas before 8AM, by the very nature of this conversation, she’s aware that he knows what TK is like in the mornings.
He sits next to her. It still feels weird, uncomfortable and inappropriate and not how he was raised, but Carlos pushes past that and says, “Sometimes on his days off, he drags himself out of bed and comes downstairs with the quilt wrapped around him and then falls back asleep on the couch for another hour.”
Gwyn laughs and shakes her head. “That sounds like him.”
Carlos smiles into his mug, and takes a long, warm sip, allowing it to slip down his throat and warm him from the inside.
“Does he spend the night at your house often?” she asks, and Carlos immediately tenses up.
“Uh.”
“Oh, no, I’m not …” She waves her hands and shakes her head more insistently this time. “That didn’t come out the way I meant it. I’m just … he’s my son, and I’m sure you know he’s been through a lot. I just want to know if he’s happy, that’s all.”
Carlos looks at her, is brave enough to hold her gaze even though he’s still a little uncomfortable. He says, “I take good care of him, I promise.”
Gwyn smiles at him. Her hand touches his forearm, squeezing briefly. “I’m glad to hear that. And I can see it. He looks happier than I’ve seen him in a very long time. I can tell you’re good to him.”
That thought warms Carlos more than the coffee did, and he’s sure there’s a ridiculous smile on his face as he looks back down into his mug. “He means a lot to me.”
“I can see that, too.”
They both look up when there’s a quiet noise behind them, to find TK shuffling into the room. There’s a blanket over his shoulders – not the entire comforter but a throw blanket from the chair in his room – and his hair is sticking up at odd angles, pillow creases on his cheek. Carlos feels his face break instantly into a smile.
“Morning, sweetheart,” Gwyn says, and TK responds with a sleepy sounding hum.
He sidles up next to Carlos. On instinct, Carlos lifts his arm and lets TK snuggle into him, head tucking into his shoulder. “Morning,” Carlos says, kissing his forehead. There’s a twinge of self-conscious discomfort when he remembers Gwyn is still right there witnessing this, but it’s much smaller than it was before.
“Had to wake up alone,” TK mutters.
His mother snorts. “Oh, poor baby.”
She gets up and begins making a second pot of coffee. She catches Carlos’s eye and winks at him, looking enormously happy to get to see her son cuddled up against him. Carlos brushes his fingers through TK’s hair and doesn’t mind that she’s looking.
Week nine: Picture
“Are you still awake?”
Carlos opens his eyes, squinting a little in the sun and peering up at TK.
They’re at the park near Carlos’s house. It’s not much of one, really just a bit of green space and some trees in amongst an endless sea of houses, but it’s a beautiful, sunny day and it’s nice to be outside. He’s lying on the grass with his head in TK’s lap – TK is leaning back on his hands and is smiling down at Carlos.
“Yeah.” Carlos rolls onto his side. He pushes his face into TK’s stomach, soft because he’s hunched over a little bit, and smiles as TK’s fingers find their way into his hair and scratch against his scalp. TK’s orange hoodie smells like fresh air.
“Who knew you’d be such a teddy bear,” TK jokes. “Big, strong Officer Reyes, always just wanting to cuddle with me.”
“I can be both.” Carlos pokes TK’s middle, tickling over his ribcage a little and smiling bigger when TK squirms and bats his hand away.
“I like it,” TK amends.
Rolling onto his back again, Carlos blinks up at the sky. It’s so blue this afternoon, and fluffy white clouds float by on a gentle breeze. There are birds chirping in the distance, and even further away the sound of children’s laughter as they play on a nearby jungle gym. It’s the sort of moment Carlos wishes he could capture in a container or a snow globe so he can revisit it whenever he wants, since it will eventually have to come to an end.
“What are you thinking?” TK asks, slowly brushing his fingers over Carlos’s hair. He’s letting it grow out a little on the top, because TK seems to like burying his fingers into it and Carlos wanted to give him more to work with.
“We should take a picture.”
“Of us?”
“I don’t have any pictures of you, in my place.”
“Okay.”
For a moment, neither of them move. Carlos lets his eyes slip closed again as TK’s fingernails scratch along his scalp and it sends pleasant little shivers down Carlos’s neck. When TK’s teasing voice asks again whether Carlos has fallen asleep, he pushes himself upwards. Carlos pulls his phone from his pocket and hands it to TK, who is much more skilled in the art of proper selfie angles than Carlos is. When Carlos takes them, half the time everyone has double-chins and their noses end up distorted and twice as wide as they are in real life.
He rearranges himself, sliding up slightly behind TK so he can lean in close to them as TK holds the phone out in front of them. He takes a few different shots and then brings the phone back in to check them out. Carlos rests his chin on TK’s shoulder and stops him on the second one.
“That one,” he says.
They’re smiling and squinting slightly in the sun, both with happiness shining in their eyes, and since Carlos can’t actually bottle up this moment and relive it over and over, putting that picture in a frame and placing it somewhere he can look at it every day is close enough.
Week ten: Uniform
TK grins the moment Carlos’s face appears on his phone, on a FaceTime call. They won’t be able to see each other today, they’re both working and then Carlos has a union meeting in the evening. TK’s shift starts a bit later than Carlos’s does, so he’s having a second cup of coffee in his father’s kitchen.
“Hey, baby,” he greets, and Carlos smiles at him.
“You look sleepy,” Carlos says.
“I am sleepy,” TK confirms. “You look sexy.”
Carlos chuckles. “I look the same as I do every day.”
“Yeah, that’s what I said. Sexy. All day every day.”
Shaking his head, Carlos presses his lips together and TK watches his cheeks darken.
“Show me that uniform,” TK requests, grinning as Carlos huffs but doesn’t argue.
There’s a bit of blur on the phone screen as he moves, clearly heading up the stairs and to the bedroom where there’s a full-length mirror on the inside of the closet door. It opens and then the picture stabilizes, and Carlos holds the phone so TK can see his whole body in the reflection. TK had mostly just been flirting, because making Carlos blush is tantalizingly easy and it’s become one of TK’s favorite pastimes, but he swallows thickly as he takes in the sight. The dark blue is so nice against Carlos’s skin, and his solid, muscular body looks so good in it, every curve somehow highlighted by what should be a boring, standard issue shirt and pants.
TK whistles obnoxiously. “Turn around, hot stuff.”
“God,” Carlos grumbles, but again, he obeys. He turns, showing TK the swell of his ass in the tight pants.
“You know you look hot in that, right? Tell me you know you look hot.”
“I wear it every day and it’s the same uniform everyone else in the department is always wearing. Not the easiest thing to feel sexy in,” Carlos tells him, lifting the phone back up so TK can see his handsome face.
“Well, you are.”
“Thank you,” Carlos says, with a smile that’s halfway between exasperated and fond. “I gotta go. It was good to see your face. And your bedhead.”
“I prefer to think of it as artfully tousled,” TK jokes, running his fingers through his hair and smiling when Carlos laughs warmly.
“It’s cute. You’re cute.” For a moment it looks like Carlos is about to hang up, but then he gets a glint in his eyes and he asks, “Maybe send me a pic, later? When you’re dressed for work?”
TK smirks at him. “I sure will. Have a good day, babe.”
“You too.”
Week eleven: Parents
“Do you want anything?” Carlos asks as he squeezes TK’s leg before he gets up from the couch. “Water, tea?”
“I could have some tea,” TK agrees. “Something without caffeine, I got an early shift.”
“Sure.” Carlos heads for his kitchen.
TK only ogles his ass a little bit as Carlos walks away, smiling to himself and marvelling as he often does over how gorgeous his boyfriend is. He stretches, putting his hands up over his head and straightening his arms and then kicking his feet up onto the coffee table. The movie they’d been watching is paused on the television, and TK tips his head back against the top of the sofa cushions and closes his eyes.
There’s a blanket over his lap and he’s wearing one of Carlos’s t-shirts. Everything here smells like Carlos and TK, who was never the biggest fan of his own life for such a long and storied list of reasons, loves how comfortable he feels letting himself be absorbed into Carlos’s. He feels like he fits, here. In Carlos’s house, on his couch, in his bed. TK feels more like the person he’s always wished he could be than he has since before he can even remember.
He opens his eyes when he hears a quiet vibrating sound, and looks down to see Carlos’s phone buzzing on the cushion next to him. The screen is lit up with an incoming call, and the contact information says Mamá.
“Carlos, your mom is calling,” TK says to him, turning his head and raising his voice so Carlos can hear him over the boiling kettle.
“Uh, let it go to voicemail,” Carlos answers. “I’ll call her tomorrow.”
“Okay.” TK doesn’t touch the phone, letting the call time out and watching as the screen goes dark again. Before it does, TK notices with a smile tugging at the corners of his lips that Carlos has changed his background to that selfie they took in the park last week.
A minute later, Carlos comes back with two steaming mugs and TK grabs two coasters to set on the coffee table for them. Carlos is particular about things like coasters. A little bit of a neat-freak, a little bit on the anxious side sometimes. TK’s pretty sure he’s in love with him.
“What’s her name? Your mom,” TK asks as Carlos sits next to him and settles himself back underneath the blanket they’re sharing. TK hadn’t thought of it until just now, but it’s weird he doesn’t know that, given the length of time they’ve been dating.
“Andrea. I think I've told you that before,” Carlos answers. He smiles at TK and kisses his cheek, and then reaches for the remote to resume the movie.
TK only lasts a few seconds before he’s speaking up over the dialogue. “Can I meet them?”
“My parents?” Carlos asks, not looking at him.
“Yeah.”
“If you want to.” Carlos shrugs. His eyes stay on the screen, and TK frowns a little, unsure of why the energy between them has shifted suddenly.
He tries to focus on the movie, but Carlos breaks first. He pauses it again, smiling at TK when TK frowns at him in confusion. Carlos pushes the blanket away and slides smoothly to his knees in front of TK, pushing in between his legs and ducking his head down.
“Babe,” TK laughs, fingers automatically sliding into Carlos’s hair.
Carlos nuzzles into him through his sweatpants, mouthing at TK’s cock underneath the material until his breath is hitching and blood is moving and TK is hardening quickly under Carlos’s talented mouth. He responds so eagerly to Carlos, to his hands and his mouth and every part of him, TK’s body a fine-tuned instrument that lights up like a switchboard whenever Carlos is touching him. Carlos knows him so well, has learned all of his spots and his desires and the things he likes, has studied TK dutifully like a textbook. Sometimes it makes TK feel unworthy of him.
Carlos looks up at him, faux-innocence and long eyelashes, and asks, “Want me to stop?”
“Absolutely not.”
Carlos smirks and grabs TK behind the knees, tugging him sharply until TK is reclined further against the couch. He pulls at TK’s sweats, wrestling them down his legs until TK’s erection springs free and swallowing it in one swift motion. TK shouts involuntarily and grips at Carlos’s hair, eyes slamming shut and head tipping back and hips bucking up towards all that warm, wet heat.
Week twelve: I love you
Sweating a little and slightly out of breath from line dancing, Carlos grabs TK’s hand and pulls him off the dance floor. TK is still, despite having learned some steps, a truly terrible dancer. He has no sense of rhythm. He’s always just a half-second off the beat. He forgets the steps sometimes and turns the wrong way and crashes into people. But Carlos seems to find him pretty damn irresistible even as he has to apologize to people after his two-left-footed boyfriend stepped on their toes.
Months ago, TK thinks it had probably taken every single ounce of courage Carlos possessed to ask TK to dance in this bar, and now Carlos holds his hand in the middle of a crowd of cowboys and their drunken wives. TK smiles as Carlos pulls him toward the back door, squeezing his boyfriend’s hand and following along behind him. Outside in the cool alley, TK fans his face to get some air on his burning cheeks and Carlos is looking at him with something unreadable in his eyes.
“What?” TK asks.
“I first kissed you right …” Carlos takes TK by the shoulders and moves him, shuffling him to one side and then the other as his tongue pokes out of the side of his mouth and his forehead twists into a frown like it’s important to find the exact spot, “… here.”
TK looks up at the streetlamp he remembers, and from side to side, checking it out. He nods. “Yep, I think you got it.”
Carlos smiles at him. He takes TK’s face into his hands and kisses him. It’s so much different, this time, from that night. TK knows the way Carlos’s lips will move against his, can anticipate the flavor of him and the way it will make his stomach flip when Carlos flirts with his tongue along the seam of TK’s lips. He also knows how at home he’ll feel when Carlos’s lips fall away but their foreheads stay pressed together.
“I was so nervous to ask you to dance,” Carlos tells him.
“I know.”
Carlos’s hands slide down, over his neck, down his chest, to settle on his hips. TK always feels so small under Carlos’s hands. Small, but not insignificant. “I was so into you from the moment I saw you.”
TK smiles and strokes his thumb along Carlos’s jaw. He hasn’t shaved today, so it’s rough with sandpaper stubble that catches against his skin.
“Beautiful eyes,” Carlos continues, in a dreamy voice, and then it shifts to the cadence of a tease as he adds, “bratty little smile that made me want to put you on your knees.”
TK chuckles and slides his arms around Carlos’s neck, forearms fitting between Carlos and the brick wall behind him. “Oh you did, huh?”
“Mhm.”
“And what d’you think, now that you’ve had me on my knees? Were you right?”
“So right. You’re so good to me. For me.”
“Hey, I, um. I love you,” TK blurts out.
Carlos is still for a moment, and TK’s heart races as he listens to him exhale.
“Maybe this isn’t the best place to tell you that,” he begins, nervously, but Carlos interrupts.
“It’s the perfect place to tell me that. You just beat me to it.”
“What?” TK laughs.
“What do you think we’re doin’ out here?” Carlos asks, a smile apparent in the lilt of his voice as his hands squeeze TK’s hips. “I brought you here to say that to you, asshole.”
TK laughs again, louder this time. “Too slow, Reyes.”
“Apparently.” Carlos laughs too. He kisses TK’s cheek, and into his skin he murmurs, “I love you. I’m so in love with you.”
TK hears himself make a small, pitiful noise as emotion unexpectedly chokes him for a moment, and Carlos drags his nose slowly along TK’s temple.
“What’s wrong?” he whispers.
“Nothing.”
“Please tell me?”
Swallowing first, TK admits, “Alex never said in. In love. Nobody’s … ever said that. And that’s different, isn’t it? I love my parents, I love my job, I love iced coffee. But …”
“It is different. You’re right. And I am in love with you,” Carlos repeats, understanding it’s important that TK hears it said that way. “So completely, disastrously in love with you, TK Strand.”
Week thirteen: Lie
“Carlitos!” his mother cries, her face lit up in happiness to see him as she opens the door for him.
“Hi, Mamá.” Carlos hugs her, holding onto her for just a little bit longer than he usually would.
“It’s so nice to see you,” she coos at him, ushering him inside. “Are you hungry? What can I fix you?”
“No, I’m not. But thank you.”
“Sit, sit,” she insists, leading him to the sofa in the living room. Before he can protest she’s bustling off to the kitchen.
Carlos is about to call after her but then he sighs and leans back against the cushions. There’s no use. He knows he does the same thing, pushing the people he cares about into letting him feed them even when they say they aren’t hungry. He knows exactly where he gets it, and he knows it can be annoying, and there’s probably no hope anymore of either of them getting it under control.
A minute later, Andrea comes back with a sandwich on a plate that she shoves into his hands. She sits next to him, a big smile on her face and she reaches out to brush one hand over his hair. “I hardly see you anymore.”
“I know, I’m sorry. Work’s been really busy,” Carlos lies. He takes a bite of the sandwich that he truly isn’t hungry for, because it will make her happy.
“Are you taking care of yourself? Are you eating enough? You need food to maintain all of these muscles, you know,” she teases, squeezing Carlos’s bicep.
He smiles around a mouthful of bread and deli meat. “I’ve been cooking a lot, lately, actually. Not much else to do these days.”
Carlos doesn’t tell her the reason. He doesn’t tell her TK has turned his home into a refuge for his friends, and that they’ve quickly become Carlos’s friends, too. He doesn’t tell her that he finally feels like he has a community of people he belongs to, that he can speak Spanish with Mateo to annoy the others, that Paul and Marjan understand what it’s like to be different, that TK’s presence in his life has transformed Carlos’s lonely existence into one of laughter and happiness and people he can cook for.
“What have you made?”
“Tamales, last week. Your recipe.”
“What are you going to need me for, anymore?” Andrea laughs.
“They weren’t as good as yours.”
“Come over some afternoon, I will pass on all my secrets.”
Carlos nods. “I will. That would be fun.”
He sets the now clean plate down onto the coffee table in front of him. Andrea takes his cheek in her hand and looks at him with warmth and love in her eyes.
“So handsome,” she tells him. “We miss you. I wish I could see you more often.”
The words are on the tip of Carlos’s tongue. They’re so close. Right there, about to cross over his lips. I have a boyfriend, he’s seconds away from telling her. His name is TK. He’s a firefighter. I think you’d really like him.
In so many ways, TK is everything Carlos has ever wanted and this is the one final piece that’s missing. He needs his parents to be alright with it, even though they’ve never talked about Carlos’s personal life. He needs his mother to hug him and tell him that it’s okay to be who he is. He needs his father to pat him on the shoulder and tell Carlos he’s proud of the man he’s become. Carlos doesn’t want to need these things. It makes him feel just about as pitiful as it gets to admit even within the confines of his own mind that he does need these things. But he does. Try as he might to pack the thoughts away and set them down and leave them in his childhood bedroom, grow out of them like he did out of nightmares and after school cookies, Carlos can’t seem to manage it. He needs their approval. He wishes he didn’t, but he does.
TK has no idea. Carlos gets a stomach-ache when he imagines how TK might react. He trusts Carlos, believes in Carlos, is impressed by Carlos. Carlos lives for the way TK looks at him, like he’s strong, like he can do anything. TK might not look at him that way anymore if he knew how weak Carlos really is. And if Carlos can summon the courage to do this, then maybe TK will never have to find out.
It’s on the tip of his tongue. Carlos has taken a breath in, and his lips have parted even as his heart thuds against his ribcage, and then the door opens.
Andrea turns toward the sound, making a happy sound when Carlos’s father walks into the house. She gets up, going over to him so that she can kiss his cheek in greeting. “Hola, mi amor,” she says to him.
A painful lump rises quickly in Carlos’s throat. He tries to swallow over it, and over the sudden feeling like he can’t draw in a deep enough breath, like his lungs are being compressed.
“Carlos. This is a surprise.” Gabriel comes over. He removes his cowboy hat and leaves it on the coffee table.
Carlos gets obediently to his feet and shakes his father’s hand. “Good evening, sir.”
“What brings you by?”
“Oh we were just chit-chatting,” Andrea answers for him. To Gabriel, she asks, “Are you hungry?”
Gabriel shakes his head. “I ate at the station.”
As his mother fusses over her husband and tries to convince him to let her make him a snack, Carlos slowly balls his hands into fists and tries desperately to regulate his breathing. He can feel panic bubbling inside him, building and threatening to boil over, and he can’t let that happen here.
He can’t tell them about TK. He doesn’t know how he could have been so foolish to have thought, even for a moment, that he’d be able to. It’s far too much of a risk. He’d been wrong, before, about the things that he needs. Carlos wants them to accept him, he wants to be able to bring TK home for Christmas and watch his mother fuss over him and sit here glowing in pride as his father is impressed by TK’s intelligence and his capabilities and his passion. He wants those things so much he feels lightheaded every time he remembers that he doesn’t have them, but he needs his parents to be in his life at all. If they’ve only been tolerating his lifestyle all these years because he’s kept it in the shadows where it belongs, and he insists on shining sunlight on it, it might be more than they’re willing to deal with.
“I should get going,” he says, sure that his voice is wavering but doing a halfway decent job of casually avoiding eye contact with either of them so they won’t see the terror in his eyes.
Andrea hugs him at the door, but doesn’t protest and lets him go.
In his car on the drive home, in the oppressive darkness of the country highway, Carlos lets a few tears fall. He clenches his jaw and tries to keep them inside but it’s no use so he gives up and gives into them, sniffing as he drives.
When he gets home, TK is standing on his front stoop. Carlos frowns as he pulls into the driveway, quickly wiping his face to make sure there’s no lingering traces of his moment of weakness. He gets out of his car and TK’s smiling at him, holding his phone in his hand.
“I was just texting you,” he says.
“Is everything alright?” Carlos asks.
“Yeah, everything’s great. Just wanted to see you.” TK wraps his arms around Carlos’s neck when he gets close enough and kisses him.
Carlos tries to stay still, to remain stoic, to allow it to be a normal kiss hello and not break and cling to TK. He partly manages it. He doesn’t burst into tears again, which really is what he feels like doing, but he does slide his arms around TK’s back and hold him close, kissing him deeper than TK had meant for it to be.
“Mm, hello,” TK hums happily, smiling into the kiss.
When Carlos doesn’t stop, doesn’t want to let TK come up for air, TK laughs and holds his face and presses their foreheads together, breaking the kiss. Carlos wants to grab him and devour him and he thinks he might vibrate right out of his skin if TK doesn’t let him, but for the moment, TK isn’t letting him, so Carlos cements himself to the sidewalk underneath his shoes and doesn’t move.
“Are you okay?” TK asks. His voice is soft, worried, and it has tears prickling at the corners of Carlos’s eyes again.
“Yeah. Long shift,” he lies.
“You were at work?”
“Picked up some overtime. We had a rough one near the end.” More lies, and they taste like cigarette smoke in Carlos’s mouth. He’s never lied to TK before. He’s told him a half-truth or two, things he wasn’t ready to talk about yet, things he’d like to keep private for the time being, but he’s never outright lied. Carlos despises the way it makes him feel.
“I’m sorry,” TK murmurs empathetically. “Wanna tell me about it?”
Carlos shakes his head. “Can we just go inside? I need you.”
“Yeah, of course.” TK kisses his cheek and his eyes are shining sweetly in concern when he pulls back enough for Carlos to look at him.
Carlos tries to smile at him, tries to reassure him that he’ll be alright, and fishes in his back pocket for his house key.
Week fourteen: 3AM
The light is on in the kitchen, when TK makes his way down the stairs in search of a glass of water at three in the morning. He could have obtained one from the upstairs bathroom, but water from the refrigerator always tastes better and he was restless anyway. His hip is sore, from the way he fell asleep on it. It feels good to move.
He finds his mother on the sofa, with a knitted throw wrapped around her shoulders and a mug enclosed in her hands. She seems to be staring off into space before she hears TK approaching and looks up at him.
“Hi, honey.” She smiles. “Couldn’t sleep?”
“I was sleeping,” he answers. “Then I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep.”
“Me too.”
TK gets some water and joins her on the couch, sitting cross-legged and facing her. He grabs a toss cushion to hug in his lap. The low light in the room casts shadows over her familiar face.
Gwyn tucks her long hair behind her ear and then reaches out to gently pat his cheek. “How’s the shoulder?”
“Fine,” TK says honestly. “It’s been months. It’s just a scar, at this point. You shouldn’t have to be here anymore, if all the airports weren’t shut down.”
“I’m happy to be here. Happy to get to see you so much. We haven’t spent this much time together since you moved out when you were 20.”
“I know. I like that, too.” He doesn’t mention, yet, that he knows his parents are sleeping together again, just like he predicted three months ago that they would. He’s not sure if they know he’s figured it out. He’s not sure they understand how unsubtle they’re being about it, but he doesn’t want to talk about that right now. At some point they’ll have to, but TK’s sort of hoping they’ll step up and tell him before he has to admit that he already knows. Sometimes it wears on him, having to be the grown up in a house that’s cohabitated by his parents.
“Is Carlos working tonight?” Gwyn asks.
TK nods. “Night shift.”
“Are you going to see him tomorrow?”
“Not ‘til the evening. I work until seven.”
Gwyn slowly nods her head and takes a sip of her tea. Holding it up to indicate she’s referring to it, she says, “Sleepytime. It doesn’t seem to be working.”
“That cozy bear is happier than we will ever be,” TK jokes, and his mother laughs.
Looking at him with her intense eyes, so similar to his but turned grey in the low light, she quietly asks, “How are you?”
TK frowns, not understanding, but she just holds his gaze and then he gets it. “Oh. I’m … good. Really.”
Gwyn raises an eyebrow, daring him to be lying to her.
“I mean it,” TK assures. “They had me on a mix of painkillers after I got shot but not opioids, and I only took them until I didn’t need them anymore. Gave the rest to Dad to get rid of. I’ve been sober since we moved here.”
Smiling, Gwyn reaches out for his hand. TK takes it and their hands rest on the pillow in his lap. “I’m proud of you.”
“Thank you.”
“What about everything else? How’s the broken heart?”
“I mean, Carlos helps a lot with that.”
She squeezes his hand.
“I’m okay,” TK promises. “I really do mean it. I don’t feel like using, I don’t feel so …”
“What?” she prompts gently.
“Worthless,” he admits. “I felt worthless for a really long time. Years, I think. And lost, and guilty, and all kinds of other shit. Things are a lot better, lately.”
“Do you love him?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“Have you told him that?”
“Yes,” TK repeats.
Smiling, Gwyn pulls lightly at his hand. TK sets his mostly untouched glass of water down onto the coffee table and moves the pillow so he can shift, tuck himself underneath her lifted arm and lean against her side. He always feels so small when they sit like this; like he’s a kid again and a hug from his mom is all it takes to make a cloudy world sunny again.
“I really like him,” Gwyn says, kissing TK’s hair. “I can tell how much he loves you. How good he is for you. I never liked Alex.”
TK laughs softly. “I know you didn’t.”
“He wasn’t right for you.”
“No,” TK agrees. “He wasn’t. It wasn’t all his fault, what happened with us. But he wasn’t right for me.”
“But Carlos seems wonderful.”
TK smiles and makes himself a little more comfortable, head on her shoulder. “He is.”
“Are you being safe?” Gwyn asks.
“I’m not sleeping with anyone else,” TK replies. “And we can’t exactly get pregnant.”
“Good.” For a moment, she doesn’t say anything else, and TK closes his eyes and relaxes into her embrace. Then, in with a teasing lilt to her voice, she adds, “It’s pretty great, when it’s with someone you love, isn’t it?”
“Mom,” TK complains, laughing.
“I’m not asking for details,” she says, laughing as well. “I’m just happy you’re happy.”
“It is a miracle I didn’t turn out with a complex about sex, between you and Dad,” TK tells her accusingly. “You say things sometimes and I think Carlos is literally going to die.”
“I will not apologize for being sex positive,” she declares, pinching him lightly on the arm.
“A little less positive might be slightly less traumatizing, to me and my Catholic boyfriend,” TK grumbles, but he’s mostly kidding. More seriously, he adds, “But, yes. You’re right. It’s great with someone you love. And I’m … getting better at letting him love me. Getting better at believing I deserve it.”
“I’m sad that it took this long for you to work out that you deserve to be valued, but I’m happy you know it, now.”
TK nods and closes his eyes again. He isn’t all the way there. He doesn’t tell her that. Doesn’t tell her that there are still nights he lies awake consumed with shame over mistakes he’s made. Doesn’t tell her that there are still things he can’t admit to Carlos, for fear Carlos wouldn’t love him anymore. Doesn’t tell her there are times he’d almost rather Carlos be unkind, because it would feel more like what TK thinks he deserves.
He isn’t all the way there. But he’s getting closer.
Week fifteen: Dancing
TK can hear music as soon as he turns the shower off. He squints a little, somehow believing that might make him hear better. When it doesn’t, he towels himself off quickly and cracks the door open. The sound of lively, Latin music fills the room, coming from the floor below.
He rubs the towel over his hair and heads to Carlos’s bedroom, finding a clean APD t-shirt and a pair of boxers in the chest of drawers near the door. TK jogs down the stairs once he’s half-dressed and rounds the corner, finding Carlos in the kitchen, shirtless and in grey sweatpants, moving his hips along to the beat of the cheerful music. For a few moments, TK just watches, with a smile overtaking his face. Carlos sings a few words, slicing something on a cutting board and dancing absentmindedly, as if he doesn’t realize he’s doing it. The sway of his hips is mesmerizing, and TK finds himself caught somewhere halfway between affectionate and turned on, watching the sensuous way his boyfriend can move.
TK is all too familiar with those hips. He knows exactly what they can do, how they can make him lose his breath, how they can pin him to the mattress, how they can find just the right angle and, with help from Carlos’s impressive core strength, drive TK absolutely wild.
After a moment, Carlos feels his presence and turns around to find TK watching him. He smiles, big and bright, and shimmies suggestively. TK cracks up, and Carlos reaches for him, moving his feet and his hips and keeping TK laughing as he takes TK’s hand and pulls him in.
“Like what you see?” Carlos asks, arms wrapping around TK’s waist.
“You’re such a goofball,” TK tells him. “Also a very sexy dancer, though.”
“Guilty on both charges.” Carlos takes his hand, kissing it briefly and then holding it up. He waggles his eyebrows at TK and says, “Let me show you some steps.”
“I’m so bad at this.”
“You kinda are.”
“Hey!” TK gripes, and Carlos’s smile is blinding. It crinkles his eyes and carves dimples into his cheeks.
“I love you. And I love your truly terrible dancing.”
TK shakes his head at him. Carlos ignores it, nudging one of TK’s legs backwards with his knee, holding his hip, guiding him through the steps. He speaks to him softly, instructing him on where to move next, and TK tries to follow along but ends up stepping on Carlos’s foot.
“I think you need to give up on your dreams of us winning a salsa dancing competition.”
Carlos kisses his cheek. His hand slides around, palm pressing into the small of TK’s back and guiding him in a little closer. He moves his hips slowly, body rubbing maddeningly against TK’s. “First of all, this isn’t salsa. Second, it’s not about the steps. It about feeling your partner, moving your body with theirs.”
“Mm. That part we’re pretty good at.” TK lets his forehead rest against Carlos’s, noses touching, and tries to move his hips the way Carlos does. Carlos holds him close and his body rolls, grinding into TK’s and taking his breath away for a moment.
“That’s it,” Carlos murmurs.
“Does this even count as dancing? Feels more like foreplay.”
Carlos chuckles, low and warm. “Maybe that’s what I’m going for.”
“You’re a little bit insatiable, huh?”
“When it comes to you?” Carlos kisses him, tongue dipping in to taste him just for a second. “Absolutely.”
Week sixteen: Friends
“You get the cheeseballs?” Mateo asks, the second he opens the door to let TK in.
Carlos is in the kitchen and he glances across the room at them as he picks up instantly on the irritation in TK’s voice as he answers, “No, I didn’t get the cheeseballs.”
“Why not?” Mateo trails after him as TK makes his way to the kitchen.
“Because, Mateo, my boyfriend goes to a lot of trouble to make us healthy snacks and provides us with a safe place for us to gather so we can at least have some human interaction in this uncertain age, and I’m not gonna spoil that with cheeseballs.” TK grabs a jug out of the refrigerator and agitatedly adds, “Also, I forgot.”
“Did you remember the orange juice?” Paul’s voice asks. He’s on the couch with Marjan, and the sounds of the video game they’re engrossed in mean everyone’s voices are raised to be heard over the racket.
“Yeah, I got it,” TK confirms.
“Oh, you remembered the orange juice, but you forget the cheeseballs,” Mateo complains.
“It’s not like they have all the orange stuff in the same corner of the market, Probie,” Marjan points out.
TK sighs.
Quietly, Carlos tells him, “You seem a little stressed.”
“Is it that noticeable?” TK asks, with another sigh.
Without taking her eyes off the television screen, Marjan says, “I noticed, and I’m pretty sure I haven’t looked at you since you walked in.”
“I noticed her noticing,” Paul adds.
“I had some trouble getting out of the house,” TK admits, heavily plopping himself down on the ottoman.
“Again?”
“That’s still goin’ on?” Paul questions.
“Oh, if anything, it’s worse,” TK mutters.
Carlos walks up behind him and rubs his shoulders, digging his hands into TK’s stiff muscles. Marjan pauses the game so they can pay attention to TK, seeming to have realized he’s truly upset, not just making a big deal out of something that isn’t one.
“Literally all they do is bicker and fuck,” TK continues. “It’s like living with … no, you know what, I don’t even have a good metaphor for it. It’s like living with your divorced parents who bicker constantly and then fuck each other and think you don’t know about it. There is nothing on earth I could compare it to.”
“I’m pretty sure I would for real die if I knew my parents were having sex in the other room,” Mateo says, shuddering dramatically. “Like my body would just give up.”
Carlos silently agrees but doesn’t voice that opinion. He leans down to kiss the top of TK’s head and then crosses the room, settling in a chair.
TK blows out a frustrated breath and says, “They keep having arguments about stupid shit like hair in the drain and trying to drag me into it, make me take sides. It’s exactly the same as it was when I was a kid, I was always in the middle. It’s driving me completely insane.”
“So, why’s she still here?” Marjan asks.
“Yeah, doesn’t she run a big law firm in New York?” Mateo agrees.
“Well, New York was rough at first, and like most people, she’s taking her meetings online and she doesn’t have to be anywhere.” His voice changes, turning lower and sadder as he adds, “Plus, my dad got cancer. She wanted to come and support him.”
“By giving him another tumor?” Paul quips.
“I don’t know, I’ve seen them together,” Carlos says, looking at TK as he offers his two cents. “I think they like the sparring. They’re pretty well matched.”
“Oh, there is no sparring. Nobody’s wearing gloves.” TK pops a grape into his mouth and shakes his head.
“Hope Cap’s wearing at least one glove,” Paul jokes, and TK buries his face in his hands.
“God. Forget it, I can’t talk about it anymore or I’m gonna start screaming. Put the game back on.” He gestures at the television.
Marjan and Paul make eye contact and shrug at each other, taking TK’s advice and getting back onto the couch. Mateo drops to the floor next to Marjan’s ankles so he can watch, chiming in advice as the cartoon vehicles bounce around on the screen.
Carlos stays where he is, gaze trained on TK until TK lifts his head and their eyes connect. Carlos beckons him over with two fingers and TK gets up and listens to him, stepping quickly in front of Paul and Marjan so he doesn’t block their view for longer than he has to and walking toward Carlos. Reaching out, Carlos takes his hand and tugs at it gently. TK lowers himself sideways onto Carlos’s lap, sinking easily against him and resting his head on Carlos’s shoulder. Carlos wraps his arms around him; TK’s pink shirt is silky under his palm as he rubs TK’s back.
“You can stay here whenever you want,” Carlos tells him softly. “I love having you here. I love you.”
“Love you, too,” TK mumbles. He relaxes further into Carlos’s embrace, melting into him. “Sorry I’m being a drama queen.”
“This is a tricky situation. I know that. And you’re … passionate,” Carlos tells him, smiling when TK chuckles.
“That’s very diplomatic.”
“Maybe. But it’s also true. And I love that about you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Carlos promises. TK settles as Carlos comforts him. It makes Carlos feel taller than a skyscraper that he can calm TK when he’s upset with something as simple as a warm lap and a few whispered words.
“How was your day?” TK asks. His fingertips push underneath the sleeve of Carlos’s polo shirt, petting at his skin. TK likes to do that, Carlos has discovered; likes to touch him just underneath his clothes, getting at the spots that are shielded from view for everyone else. There’s something sweetly possessive about it and Carlos can’t say he minds, when all he wants in the world is for TK to want to keep him.
“It was good. Missed you, though.”
TK smiles against his neck. “I love our friends but I kind of wish they weren’t here right now.”
“Oh yeah?” Carlos teases, keeping his voice low. The soundtrack of the game is noisy, but it isn’t a large room and Paul is sitting very close to him. “What would we be doing if they weren’t?”
“It would involve a lot less clothes.”
“We can hear you,” Marjan says loudly, and TK cracks up. Carlos feels his cheeks warming and he smiles into TK’s hair.
“My parents are subjecting me to this shit so I am paying it forward,” TK announces. “Go back to kicking Paul’s ass, I’m trying to have a moment with my boyfriend.”
“Hey, why are you assuming I’m losing?” Paul complains.
“Because you always lose,” Marjan says, answering for TK.
“I still like that word,” Carlos murmurs, just to TK; this time, hopefully quiet enough that it won’t be overheard. “Boyfriend.”
“You know it’s been almost four months?”
“I do,” Carlos confirms. He knows exactly how many days it’s been, actually. He doesn’t say so but there is a number in his head and he’s positive about it.
“Not sick of me yet?”
“Not even close. I’m in love with you,” Carlos whispers to him.
“Me too,” TK whispers back.
There’s cheering from the couch; Marjan raising her arms and whooping in victory. Paul laughs and accuses her jokingly of cheating, and Mateo pops up and demands Paul’s controller so he can play the next game. Grumbling about it a little, Paul hands it over and they switch spots, Mateo sitting next to Marjan on the couch and Paul occupying the ottoman on the other side of the room where TK had been sitting.
From that angle, he gets a better view of TK in Carlos’s lap. He catches Carlos’s eye, watching as TK tucks his face into Carlos’s neck and Carlos keeps rubbing his back. Slowly, Paul’s mouth curves into a smile. Carlos returns it.