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The shape of him huddled on my front stairs resolves itself from the winter darkness, taking slow form as I leave my car and make my way up the walk. “Hey, Eddie,” I say warily, stopping at the foot of the stairs to dig my keys out of my pocket. “I kinda thought you’d be in Hawaii by now.”
He stands slowly, hands jammed in the pockets of his heavy coat. “Well, normally I would be, but I put it off this year. Getting the album sessions wrapped up and all.”
I slip around him, up onto the front porch. “That’s been done, Ed.” I’m aware of him behind me, very aware of the heat of him as I fumble the key into the lock with hands made shaky by caffeine, open the front door and step into the dark entry hall. “Wanna come in?”
“Oh. Well, I mean—“
“If you don’t want to—“
“—sure, if you want me to—“
“—I’d understand—“
I turn to him, still out on the front porch as we both fumble to awkward halts, then laugh. “Let’s try again,” he says. “Mike, can I come in for a minute?”
“I’d like that, Eddie.”
*
He takes off his coat and settles at the kitchen table as I begin to automatically make coffee, even though I’m already so caffeine-wired that I know I won’t be sleeping any time soon.
He’s calm, that glass-smooth, Eddie-calm that gives no hint at whatever’s going on inside that always-spinning brain of his. And yeah, I’m babbling to cover it, babbling and moving, anything to cover that he always makes me feel like I’m in over my head. I’m not even sure what I’m saying, something about Hawaii, when he finally laughs.
“Stone’s right, you know. You never stop moving.”
I freeze, then turn to him, slow flush rising across my face. “I… you’re right. Both of you. I never seem to know what to do with myself, so I… babble and make coffee.”
“C’mere, Mike. Sit with me for a minute?”
It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, sitting across from him with only my cigarettes to keep my hands busy, to focus on so I don’t have to focus on those blue eyes that are so intent on me. “Why’re you here, Ed?”
“Because I haven’t told you yet that you look good, and that I’m proud of you.”
I manage a laugh, but it’s bitter, ragged. “Looking fat and old translates into looking good?”
“Mike—“
“I know, I know. It’s better than looking like a skeleton held together by skin, right? Better than gray skinned and shaking?”
“Exactly. You needed to put on weight.”
“Fifty pounds, Eddie. And ten years of not sleeping leaves a mark on your face.”
He reaches across the table and his fingers find my face, feather-light on my cheek and I close my eyes, just let it… let it feel good. “You don’t, y’know,” he says, his fingers feathering to my jawline.
“Don’t what?” I ask thickly, trying to get my brain to make connections when all it really wants to do is shut down under the feel of Eddie’s callused fingers on my skin.
“You don’t look old. You look peaceful,” as the fingers trail down my throat, along the tendon and I want to ask but I’m afraid to, afraid he’ll realize who he’s touching and leave.
“I’m not peaceful, Ed. Ever,” I make myself say, pulling away before his touch can become something else I can’t live without.
Another addiction.
He withdraws his hand, curling it with the other on the tabletop. “Did I do something wrong, Mike? Your face just closed.”
“You, I don’t know. You… your hand on my face…”
“What about my hand on your face? I guess I should’ve asked first, huh?”
“No, I just… I don’t know *why* you would want to touch me like that.”
He laughs a little, but it’s a weird sound, jaggedness cutting through his calm. “If you knew how long I’ve waited to touch you like that…”
And that pulls me up short. “Eddie, you’re making fuck-all sense. What the hell are you talking about?”
He reaches for me again, hesitant this time, and the tremor that I see just before the small shock of his fingers on my face is what convinces me that he’s serious. “Cready, you and I were always two of the most fucked up people I knew. And I just… I wanted…, but god, can you imagine all the ways we would’ve fucked it up?”
“Quite a few, I’m sure,” I hear myself say, and my lips are numb.
He stands up, pulls the heavy coat from the back of his chair and puts it on. “I’ll call you in a few days,” he says, bending across the table and kissing me, a soft and chaste kiss that leaves me with the electricity surging in my veins, and then he’s gone.
What the fuck?
*
Buzzing.
Weird… high… clock? Phone?
Phone.
Phone?
I roll toward the sound, blinking blearily at the clock as I reach from underneath the warm comfort of my blanket for the phone, fumble it to my ear as the blur of blue numbers resolves itself into something I can read.
3:23.
A.M.
Goddammit.
“H’lo?” I mumble, retreating back under the comforter with the phone.
“Cready? It’s Ed, I’m sorry I woke you.”
I rub my eyes, trying desperately to unfog my brain so I don’t miss any of this, whatever ‘this’ is. “S’okay, Eddie, it’s cool. I, uh, I’m glad to hear from you.”
“I was just… awake. And I was thinking about you, so I called you without looking at the time.” His lighter clicks, then there’s the brief exhale and longer, stronger exhale.
Unfortunately, I can just see him, sprawled across the bed with a cigarette. Of course, the reality is probably curled under a blanket like me, because this *is* Seattle in December, but half-naked and linen sheets really does better on the imagination.
“Cready? Mike, did you go back to sleep?”
Shit. “Uh, no, I’m here, I was just…” fantasizing about you “uh, waking up a little.”
He laughs, and something about it gives me the feeling that he has a pretty good idea of just what I was really doing. “Do you want me to let you go, call you back when it’s actually feasible of me to ask you to carry on a conversation?”
“No!” Too loudly, too quickly and I wince at the eagerness in my own voice. “I mean—“
“Hey, Cready? Let’s do both of us a favor and skip the dancing around what we really mean, okay? I called you at 3:30 in the morning because I couldn’t wait any longer to hear your voice, and you were glad to hear from me. That pretty much tells me all I need to know.”
“3:23,” I say, and he laughs, and something’s melted, some of that awkward embarrassed tension sliding away.
“My clock said 3:30,” he says, and it’s my turn to laugh at him.
“You said you didn’t look at the clock.”
“Oh, see, now you’re just being picky!”
“Hey, man, you’re the one that called me at 3:23 in the morning. I think I’m allowed to be a little picky, huh?”
He’s laughing, a low and easy sound that I love to hear from him. “Yeah, I guess you are allowed a little pickiness.”
“It’s good to hear you laugh,” I say, and he’s doing it again.
“I laugh now and then, Cready, usually at Stone.”
“Eh, he needs it now and then. Keeps his ego in check.”
“Hey, Mike?” he asks, and I can hear the change in his voice, the slight shift in mood, even before the next words are out. “I want to see you again… soon? D’you think… maybe?”
“Like tomorrow?” I ask, and then I wince a little. Jesus, McCready, desperate much?
“Tomorrow night? Seven? I’ll bring Chinese.”
Okay, maybe I didn’t overreact. I bite back the words ‘It’s a date,’ and say, “I’ll see you tomorrow night, then.”
“Night, Mike.” Eddie’s breath catches a little, like he’s going to say something else, but then he just sighs. “Good night.”
“Night, Eddie.”
I hang the phone up gently, then burrow back under my blanket. It doesn’t take me long to realize that sleep isn’t going to happen again tonight, though.
I’m doing way too much thinking about Eddie and Chinese food.
*
It’s six-fifty when he knocks on my kitchen door, and he’s grinning sheepishly at me over the top of the take-out bags. “I’m early.”
“First time for everything,” I crack, taking bags from him and putting them down on the counter as he gets himself inside, strips his gloves and jacket.
“I’m not that bad,” as he goes to the cabinet and pulls down plates for us and god, it’s familiar. Easy because he knows me, knows my house, is comfortable here with me and that somehow amazes me.
“You are,” I assure him, taking the plates from him and setting the table as he pulls the containers out of the bags.
“And yet, you all kept me around,” he says, throwing me a smug grin as he opens take-out containers, letting the scent of good Chinese food waft through the room.
“We’re not stupid,” I snort, trying to bite back the urge to return that open, easy grin. “We knew a gift horse when it landed in our laps.”
“Always did feel used.”
*
“I’m not ready to go yet,” he says, turning back to me suddenly. Dinner’s done, the dishes are in the sink and he’s standing there in the open doorway, his coat and gloves already on, and I can’t believe he’s asking for this, to come back inside and spend more time with me. “But… I mean, if you want…” and I realize that I’ve been quiet for way too long, that his face is flushed as he turns away, moves out into the cold, pulling the door behind him.
“I want you to stay.”
He smiles at me, relief huge on his face as he comes back in and strips his gloves, takes his coat off. “Movie?”
“Sounds good.”
He leads the way into the living room, crouching on the floor with me to check out the lower shelf of the entertainment system. I’m not even sure what we come up with, it’s more than enough to hear him laugh with me, to hear him tease me about my godawful taste in movies.
Settled on the couch, half against the back of it and half sprawled over Eddie, probably equals out to more comfortable than I’ve ever been. He’s a solid weight against me, in my living room, the remote for my TV on the low coffee table near his hand. The silence is something comfortable, easy.
Way too easy. This can’t work, it can’t… “Ready for the movie?” I ask, ducking my head a little so that I don’t have to look at him. I don’t think I’m ready for what I might find there, not with him. I’ve wanted for so long, I gave up so long ago.
“ Yeah. I want to do this first, though,” he says quietly, just before he kisses me. It’s gentle, almost chaste, just the press of his mouth to mine but it sends a shock through me, a deep thrill that sparks in my veins and makes that low sound start in my throat, a sound I’d never hear myself make again if I could help it because it says entirely too much about what I’m feeling, what he’s doing to me with this, *just this*, and I can’t believe I’m actually babbling to myself in my head right now, that I’m not giving him my whole and entire attention but that would be bad… bad… because…
I pull away, even though it’s way up there on the rather extensive list of things that I don’t want to do. He’s smiling at me, but I have to ignore that, I have to find out, I have to know. “I… I don’t know what we’re doing here,” I start, but he’s actually grinning now, and then he kisses me again, long and slow, tongue sliding with mine until I forget that I ever had a problem.
Finally, he pulls back, smiles at me again as he kisses my forehead one last time, then reaches for the remote again and starts the movie.
“Do we have to know exactly what we’re doing?”
-End