Room at the Top

by Jane Davitt

  “I hope you aren’t telling me what to do in my own house,” Liam said mildly.

  “I thought this was just friends.” Austin ignored the laundry and gave Liam his attention. “If it’s not, you have to say.”

  Liam shook his head. “No, you’re right. Unless we agree to a session while you’re here, I have to remember that this is different.”

  “Okay.” It was awkward—everything about this was awkward, partially because it was adding a whole new dimension to the ways in which they owed Liam. “I should, um, go check on Jay.”

  “Yes. You do that. Did you two have lunch?”

  It was midafternoon and they hadn’t. “We didn’t have breakfast. Things were so crazy.”

  “I understand. Give me fifteen minutes, and I’ll make something.”

  Austin opened his mouth to say that wasn’t necessary, but remembered in time. “Okay. Thanks.”

  Upstairs, the guest room had been transformed before they’d even arrived. Liam had made it look like a regular guest room that anyone could have walked into without suspecting it had ever been anything else. Jay had unpacked a few things into the adjoining bathroom but was now sitting on the bed with his diorama scrapbook opened beside him.

  “Hey,” Austin said. “How are you?”

  Jay gave a listless shrug. “Okay.” He nodded at his cell phone on the bed beside him. “Mr. Dalhover called. He said the attic and our floor is the worst, but Nicole’s ceilings are all going to need replacing and the carpet is so old the people who came to assess the damage advised him to get new.”

  New ceilings and carpets sounded expensive. “How much is all this going to cost?”

  “No worries. The insurance company pays for all of it. He said they were really nice, but he sounded upset.”

  “We should go and see him.” The house had belonged to Mr. Dalhover’s family for three generations, but he’d moved out and converted it into apartments when he’d lost money on some investments. He lived with his sister, a lady who as far as Austin was concerned defined feisty. She’d visited them when Austin had moved in with Jay, dark eyes bright with interest as she’d peered around.

  “Yeah. We can ask him why he didn’t take care of the fucking plumbing.”

  The bitterness in Jay’s voice was only marginally better than the empty flatness. Austin cleared his throat. “It’s just one of those things. That tank might’ve lasted another ten years—”

  “Yeah, well, it didn’t. It cracked and the water came out.” There was a short, awkward silence. Jay broke it, adding, “They’re going to need to put everything into storage for when they bring the ceiling down. They’re taking care of that too. They pack it, take it away, dry it out or restore it. Most of the furniture is his, and all the pots and pans and shit like that, so it’s not like we have any say in it, but he told us to go back tomorrow and grab the rest of our stuff.”

  Austin began to go over it all in his head. Books, magazines…most of those were pulped, sadly. The rest of their clothes, their DVDs, Jay’s diorama supplies. He kept thinking of random items, like the food in the fridge, their potted plants.

  Overwhelmed, he sat down heavily on the bed. “It’s a nightmare.”

  “No.” Jay’s voice was wound tight, ready to snap. “It’s real. It’s happening.” He put his hand on his book as if he wanted to reassure himself it was still there. “I think I’m going to lie down for a bit. Take a nap.”

  “Oh. Do you want company?”

  Jay shook his head and lay back, rolling to his side, turned away from Austin.

  Austin sat down next to him, moving the scrapbook so nothing would happen to it. It would be just his luck to wreck the thing less than twenty-four hours after it survived a flood. He put a hand on Jay’s shoulder. Jay didn’t respond, and Austin sighed and lay down behind him. “Hey,” he said gently. “Sweetheart.” He didn’t use terms of endearment often, but right then he definitely meant it. “It’s going to be okay.”

  “Yeah. The house will get fixed, we’ll move back in, you’ll have fun putting everything away nice and neat and tidy, and there’ll be another competition next year. It’s all going to be just fucking fine. I get it.” Jay turned his head and glared at him, the hostility in his eyes like a slap. “Jesus, Austin, stop being so goddamned chirpy. And stop pretending you care about my diorama because you don’t. You hate how long I spend working on them, and you think they’re fucking pointless and a waste of time and money.”

  Stung beyond words, Austin got off the bed and stood beside it. His gaze fell on Jay’s scrapbook, and he considered, for a second or two, throwing it across the room just for the satisfaction of hearing the spine crack. But he knew he’d regret it as soon as it left his grip, so instead he kicked the leg of the bed. “I know you’re upset, and you have a right to be, but none of this is my fault. It’s time for you to fucking grow up and stop taking it out on me.”

  Austin turned and strode from the room before he could do anything he might regret, heading for the kitchen where he could hear the sounds of Liam preparing a meal he doubted he’d be able to swallow a single bite of past the lump in his throat. “Do you have anything to drink?” he asked as soon as he reached the threshold.

  “Excuse me?” Liam said, turning. He was holding a spatula, and the image of him wearing a frilly apron flashed through Austin’s mind.

  “Beer or something? I’m not going to get trashed, I promise. Just one?”

  For a long moment, Liam just looked at him. Then finally he said, “Of course. In the door of the refrigerator.”

  It was weird, opening Liam’s fridge and looking inside. Tidy. A lot of lemons. Austin focused on the beer bottles. Somehow just wrapping his hand around one, the glass cold and moist against his skin, was reassuring. There was a magnetic bottle opener stuck to the side of the refrigerator, so he used it instead of checking to see if the cap would screw off without it.

  “This house isn’t built as solidly as yours.” Liam used the spatula to flip through some vegetables cut into neat sticks: bright red, orange, and green peppers, dotted with yellow baby sweet corn and green onions. It was colorful and smelled of ginger, which brought back all sorts of memories.

  Austin pushed them aside in favor of drinking his beer.

  “I heard you two arguing.”

  Loyalty warred with the need to get rid of his anger by sharing it. Loyalty lost out. This was Liam, after all. “Jay’s being… He’s making my sister look mature.”

  “That bad? Oh my.”

  “He’s sulking.” Austin slammed his bottle down on a glossy granite countertop in a deep, rich blue, and watched beer foam up, forced through the neck. It didn’t overflow. He’d drunk too much of it. “I don’t mind him being upset. I don’t. But he’s being a complete fucking dick and I… Oh God. Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Liam gave him an amused, impatient look. “I swear, Austin. A lot. I just don’t let you when we’re together because it’s not respectful. This is a time-out. We’re not in a session. If we were, you’d be naked and kneeling and I’d be feeding you scraps of food as I cooked.”

  Any other time and Austin would’ve given that idea his full approval, but he was too churned up to focus on anything but Jay. “He said I hated his dioramas. I don’t! They’re really good, and I’m proud of him. I might not like how…how obsessed he gets when he’s working on one, but it’s Jay. That’s what he’s like.”

  “They were part of his life before you came along,” Liam observed.

  “Exactly! It’s not like he surprised me with them. And I like that he has something outside of his job that he cares about—in addition to me, I mean. It’s healthy to have a hobby. I don’t care that it’s dioramas instead of, I don’t know, watching baseball or whatever.” Austin licked his lips and drank some beer. It was a darker beer than he was used to—sour, but not in a bad way.

  Liam flipped the food in the pan around. “I’m sure you’d be just as ups
et as he is if it had been something of yours that was destroyed.”

  “Of course I would. I don’t mind that he’s upset. I mean, I care that he’s upset, but I understand. I just don’t want him taking it out on me. That’s the part that sucks. I was trying to be nice and supportive, all the stuff a good boyfriend is supposed to be, and he just spewed all this hatred on me.”

  “You both need to eat something.” Liam turned off the burner under the pan and reached for shallow bowls he’d set out, then put on an oven glove and slid a broiler pan onto the stove top. “You’ll feel better once you have.”

  Austin hadn’t felt hungry until that moment, but the fish fillets and vegetables Liam served him smelled good enough to awaken his appetite. “Thanks. This is great.”

  “It’s about the limit of what I can do in a kitchen. I eat out a lot on business, and cooking just for myself seems like a lot of work. I’ve built up a few easy recipes I can do quickly, and I freeze the leftovers.”

  Liam watched Austin eat a few bites, leaning on one of the chairs around the table. All the furniture looked brand-new and unused, though Austin knew Liam had moved in a couple of years before.

  “Would you like me to tell Jay his meal is ready?”

  Austin swallowed what he was chewing before it was ready to be swallowed and choked. He really didn’t want to see Jay again, not this soon. “Uh, he said he was taking a nap, so maybe we should just…leave him alone?”

  “Did he.” Liam reached into Austin’s bowl and pulled out a long slice of red pepper, glistening with soy-ginger glaze. “Open up.”

  Austin felt arousal shoot through him, unexpected, dizzying. He parted his lips and let Liam feed him the pepper. It didn’t feel flirtatious, though it was kind of a romantic gesture, he guessed, more as if Liam was making a point of some kind.

  “Keep eating,” Liam told him and left the room.

  Austin took another bite and then another, listening, his hand tense around the fork he held. What would Liam do if Jay defied him? Not hit him. Liam would never do that outside a session, but would it make a difference to the relationship they’d built up?

  The minutes ticked by; then he heard footsteps on the stairs. Liam and Jay walked in together, Liam smiling faintly and Jay with a sullen twist to his mouth that told Austin his bad mood hadn’t passed.

  Now that his bowl was almost emptied, Austin was feeling better, and he hoped once Jay had eaten, he would too.

  “Jay is going to eat something,” Liam said. “We’re going to wait to talk until you’ve both finished your lunch.”

  That sounded reasonable to Austin, who slowed his pace but still set his fork down while Jay was barely halfway through his food. He got up and put his bowl and fork into the dishwasher. “I could do these?” he offered to Liam, gesturing at the pans and utensils, and Liam nodded.

  It didn’t take long to do the dishes, though it felt like longer because Austin was aware of Jay’s presence and they’d had a loud argument twenty minutes before. The more he thought about it, the more it upset him. They’d had so few arguments, and the ones they’d had had been short-lived and not really about anything important. This one had cut deeper, and Austin didn’t like what it might say about them.

  Finally, having cleaned everything, he turned around and leaned against the countertop. He looked at Jay, who at that moment lifted his eyes and looked at him. There was one silent moment, and then Jay stood up and came to him and hugged him.

  “I’m sorry.” Jay muffled the words against Austin’s neck, and Austin hugged him back. “I didn’t mean any of that, I promise. Do you hate me?”

  It was pretty hard to hate someone who was clutching you so tightly you could barely breathe. “No,” Austin managed. “I don’t hate you. You lost something really important. I get that.”

  “You’re the only thing that’s really important,” Jay told him. “More important than a stupid diorama.”

  “It wasn’t stupid. And it sucks that it got ruined. If there was anything I could do to fix it, I would.”

  “I know.” Jay pulled back to look at him, and Austin realized they were alone.

  It made it easy to do what he’d wanted to do all day: kiss Jay and lose himself in the feel of Jay’s mouth on his. A slow, sweet kiss to remind them both that love was pretty waterproof when it came down to it.

  “Love you,” he whispered because they were so close there was no need to say it any other way. “Love you, Jay. My Jay.”

  “Oh God, I love you so fucking much.” Jay looked at him beseechingly. “I was saying all those awful things, and I didn’t even want to, but I couldn’t help it. Don’t remember it, Austin. Don’t remember any of it, please. God, I wish you could just forget I said it.”

  “Said what?” Austin asked with a grin. It was a forced one because he really didn’t feel like smiling after the truly shitty day he’d had, but he didn’t think Jay would notice.

  “I don’t deserve you.”

  Austin felt he’d reached his limit on reassuring Jay that he deserved everything good in the world. He was emotionally and physically wiped out. “Probably not, but it so happens that I love you, which I think I just mentioned, and that means you get me anyway.”

  Jay frowned, his forehead creasing as he worked it out. “Does that even make sense?”

  “In my head, kind of, but everything’s all weird today, so maybe not.” Austin gave Jay another kiss, a quick one this time. “Do you feel up to moving the rest of our stuff from the foyer? We’re giving the place that lived-in look, but I’m not sure Liam will be happy if he trips over something.”

  “I won’t be,” Liam said from the open archway leading to the hall. “If you’ve finished billing and cooing, moving it’s an excellent idea. If you like, you can put some of the boxes in the basement.”

  “Okay.”

  They made a few trips back and forth, putting the bulk of the boxes into the basement since it seemed like a reasonable suggestion. It was mostly a huge room with a couple of half-walls dividing the space, part of which seemed to be designated as a home gym. There was a high-quality treadmill—not that that surprised Austin. Everything that Liam owned seemed to be top-of-the-line—along with some free weights, a Nautilus machine, and a heavy bag.

  The best spot for the boxes seemed to be along the back wall, so they piled them there carefully. On the way back toward the stairs, Austin bumped into the heavy bag. “Oof.” It was solid and made him think he’d have a bruised shoulder later when all he’d done was collide with it. He punched the bag. “Ow.”

  “Well, don’t do it if it hurts.” Jay shifted to the side and swung his fist into the bag. The thud was louder than the one Austin had made, but Jay didn’t complain. “Hang on. I want to try this.”

  Austin stepped back to give Jay some room. He realized the weight bench was behind him and sat down, watching as Jay slowly experimented with punching the heavy bag and then, once he’d figured that out, adding the occasional kick as well.

  “Feels good,” Jay grunted. He swung low with his left fist, and the bag rocked away from him. “Distracting. Maybe we should get one of these.”

  “Maybe.” If they wanted to pull the new ceiling down on top of them.

  There was something mesmerizing about watching Jay. It was like watching someone with an innate ability to dance finding their stride and rhythm, and it made Austin marvel that Jay could have such a talent for this and he’d never known.

  “Want to try?” Jay circled clockwise and hit the bag three times in rapid succession.

  Austin grinned. “No, thanks. I’m good. I like watching you.”

  “I don’t”—Jay paused, kicked, punched, and then finished—“look like an idiot?”

  “God, no. You look great. Where did you learn this?”

  “I don’t know. Took a couple of different martial arts classes when I was a kid, but I didn’t like how the teachers yelled at us.” Jay hit the bag, left-right, hard.

  “You�
�re going to hurt yourself. Your knuckles.”

  Jay glanced at him. “One more minute.”

  Austin opened his mouth to protest, but Liam came up behind him, put his hand on Austin’s shoulder, and squeezed it. As nonverbal back-offs went, it worked. Austin sat silently and Jay went to town on the bag, finally, Austin guessed, finding something to hit back at that he couldn’t hurt.

  “He needs this.” Liam wasn’t lowering his voice much, but it didn’t matter. Jay was in a world of his own, his mouth tight, small grunts emerging as he landed a particularly hard punch, sweat shining on his brow.

  It felt wrong to watch Jay hurt himself, but Austin supposed given what usually happened to Jay in this house, skinned, swollen knuckles were nothing. It was most definitely Jay’s choice to do this, and he had to respect that.

  “A pillow works too,” Liam said reflectively. “In fact, in some ways, it’s better. It’s so soft and yielding that it keeps you irritated and you generally have to destroy it completely to feel better.”

  Austin turned his head and looked up. Liam was smiling. “That’s one of those jokes I don’t need to feel I’ve got to laugh at, right?”

  “At least you recognize it is a joke. You’ve missed a few over the months we’ve known each other.”

  That made Austin feel guilty for a moment, but not for long. Jay gave the bag one final, solid punch, then whirled around to face them, his eyes glittering with triumph. “Oh yeah. That felt good.”

  Austin smiled at him. “You looked hot.”

  Jay blew air up over his face. “I feel hot. The other kind of hot. It’s hard work.” He bounded over to Austin, as lively as a puppy that wanted to play. “You know, that was fun. Maybe we can’t fit one in our place, but we could, I don’t know, join a gym?”

  “Or use mine,” Liam suggested. “I try to keep in shape, but most of this equipment gets used once in a blue moon. You’re both welcome to blow the dust off it anytime you like.”

  The thought of coming over not for a session, just to see Liam, was one Austin had to turn over in his head a few times before he could decide how he felt about it, but his initial reaction was positive. Liam was older than them, yes, by about fifteen years, but he made Austin feel safe and at the same time stimulated, like standing on the edge of a cliff staring over, knowing he couldn’t fall because he was on a rope.