by E. Davies
Except the assholes, which was perfect.
On the way out, one of the guys he vaguely recognized from the fire station stopped at the desk to grab a flyer. Remi, if he remembered right.
“Oh, I’m setting up a class schedule soon,” Matt told him with a smile. “Let all your friends know.”
“I will,” Remi promised and waved.
He looked exhausted after his workout, so Matt didn’t keep him any longer. “Thanks. See ya.”
If you wanna tell all your friends to join, that’d be cool, he mentally added, but he didn’t say it. He wasn’t that desperate.
Yet.
24
Caspian
When Caspian’s phone chimed, his thumb slid into the hot glue circle he’d just made.
“Fuck. Fuuuck, fuckity fuck.” He peeled the stray bit of glue off, sucked his thumb, and cursed in a mumble around it.
He grabbed the phone after a minute, shaking his other hand.
Oh. A message from Matt… and he wanted to know if Cas was free. He smiled, the tension finally draining from his shoulders. Matt didn’t hate him.
Not that he’d spent the last few days worrying that Matt was ditching him or anything.
“When am I free?” He looked around at the mess spread across his newspaper-covered table, and then sighed. He hadn’t even talked to his parents in days. He’d left the house for bread and milk, and that was about it.
God, had he even showered in days? First, a text back to Matt to figure out when they could meet…
swishy like wine: I’d love to see you! Are you at work today?
Next, a shower. He unplugged the glue gun and headed to the bathroom to brush his teeth and get clean.
Cas was quick to scrub himself down, wash his hair, and towel-dry. Extra mousse in his hair, a little wax, and presto—it looked stylish enough for a date.
He was halfway through brushing his teeth before he realized he’d just done that a minute ago. God, a single text from Matt and he was all in a tizzy. He had to laugh at himself as he rinsed out his mouth and grabbed a clean shirt and jeans.
When he checked the phone, no answer, but Matt had read the message.
He glanced at the clock. Just past lunchtime, so at least he could distract himself while he waited by eating something. It was a good thing he wasn’t dating in the old-fashioned days of waiting by the phone. He would be hot-glued to the couch right now.
As he finished up lunch and checked his phone again, poking it every minute or so to wake it up, his high hopes started to fade. Maybe Matt had meant they could meet sometime later this week.
This was a worrying pattern, though. Matt had started out so eager, and now…
It’s not the same, he told himself. Not even remotely.
Matt hadn’t gotten scared off, and he hadn’t been using him. Cas could see through that shit a mile away, even if he got his hopes up and his heart invested too easily.
Having good intentions didn’t stop Matt from accidentally breaking his heart, though.
God, all this being alone was bad for him. Cas swallowed hard and shook his head. His unicorn wasn’t that kind of guy, was he?
No, it was way more likely that Matt was feeling pressure from being at the center of that shitstorm and he was shutting down. When he’d visited him at the gym the other day, Matt had been distant until the pastor stopped by and ran the protestors out of town.
Plus, Cas knew perfectly well what financial pressure could do to your mental state. He was feeling that way himself, looking at his savings account spread across the kitchen table in the form of raw materials.
Hopefully the folks of Hidden Creek would support Christmas markets as strongly as they had in previous years, and hopefully he was making the right choices. A few years ago, he’d been stuck with a bunch of outdoor art that nobody wanted to display over the winter, and that had tied up his garage and his bank accounts until spring.
“Oh, God. Get out of your head,” he told himself. One way or another, he was going to find Matt and make him open up to him. Tonight, after his kitchen table was clear.
And he had one thing to finish up first.
He set aside the corks, and the glue gun, and all the damn wreaths, and made a space on his kitchen table for a small wooden planter he’d designed and redesigned over the last week.
He’d glued and sanded and varnished it already, and all he had left to do was to pot up the mojito mint Cora had given him. She’d approved of the design, so he could produce a few dozen for this year’s Christmas rush. If they sold well, they’d ramp up production next year.
Cas could see all the flaws in it, but he didn’t have time to keep making prototypes and discarding them. It didn’t have to be perfect, he reminded himself. It just had to be made with love, and it certainly was.
He was going to bring Matt his present, make him take a day off, and sort out them once and for all.
With a cleaner house and mind, Cas felt ready to take on the challenge of talking to Matt like two grown-ups who wanted something from each other but weren’t quite sure what that something was.
No sign of weird church people loitering outside the gym when he pulled up and parked, which boosted his spirits even further. He strode tall, trying to project confidence as he entered Lift, the pot under his arm.
“Oh, Cas! Hi.” Rory lit up at the sight of him, which was a good sign. If Matt had been trying to hide, she’d probably look a little more nervous to see him there.
“Hey. Is Matt around?”
“Oh! No, he’s not. He’s off for the evening now.”
Cas blinked a few times. He’d gone home from work, but he hadn’t texted him?
His heart sank. Maybe he just wants time away from me. But… no, that’s my self-defeating attitude talking. Just go talk to him.
It was the perfect chance to catch him outside of work. “Okay, thanks.” He offered a bright smile to hide the frustration that knotted his chest and strode out to the car.
He could leave the planter here, but he wanted Matt to see it first—and he wanted to make sure mojito mint was up his alley. If not, he’d replace it with something else. Thyme? Rosemary? Basil? He had options.
Cas was going to drive over and see if something was going on. After all, if he was having family trouble or he was sick, Cas would feel like a great big dick for yelling at him about not being communicative.
He buckled the planter into the passenger seat and set off. The drive to Matt’s house was quick, which was a good thing, since his knuckles were about to snap if he gripped the steering wheel any tighter.
These nerves were worse than first-date nerves, because the stakes were higher. He was clearly already invested in this, and so was Matt—or at least, he’d seemed that way.
Once he pulled up in front of Matt’s house, he checked his phone. No sign of a response, and no car in front of Matt’s house.
Goddamn it, he wasn’t going to stalk the guy. Especially when Matt knew damn well that he was tired of chasing the hot guy, only to never end up with him. No more chasing.
Cas bit his lip and pulled away from the curb sharply, doing a U-turn to get back to his own house. He forced himself to pay more attention to the road since he knew he was upset.
Just around the corner from his house, he came to a stop. Driving towards him was a distinctive white hatchback.
No way was Matt driving from the gym when he was coming from that direction. Which meant he was coming from Cas’s house.
Matt spotted him and pulled up alongside him, then rolled down the window as Cas instinctively reached for the button to do the same.
God, it was good to see him, even if they were talking through rolled-down windows.
“Hey,” Matt greeted, and Cas’s eyes strayed past him to the flower vase buckled into the passenger seat.
Oh, my God. His brain halted mid-thought, and it took him a few moments to catch up with the fact that Matt was cursing, trying to shield Cas’s view
of the seat.
“Fuuuck. There goes the romantic moment.”
Caspian blushed. “N-No, that’s… are they for me?” He hesitated to ask, not wanting to assume, but especially not wanting to hear the answer being no.
“Yeah.” Matt looked disgruntled. “I was going to surprise you, but that’s fucked now.”
He was clearly on-edge still, the corners of his lips curved down.
Cas’s heart immediately went out to him. “Oh, babe.” He couldn’t help reaching out of the window toward the car. He just stretched far enough to rest a hand on Matt’s arm, which lay along the open windowsill. “No, that’s so sweet of you! I had something for you too.”
“But it was going to be… and now…” Matt sighed, still crestfallen. Then he glanced past Cas. “What…?” He didn’t even seem to realize it was a gift for him, judging by his confusion.
Caspian couldn’t explain how romantic it was to see the whole story without Matt needing to say a word—that he’d tried to show up on his doorstep with flowers. “Follow me home,” he told him and winked. “That’s an order.”
Matt perked up enough to smile back. “Well, if you insist.”
Cas checked his rear-view mirror, watching Matt doing a three-point turn to fall in behind him.
Once he pulled up under the carport, he fumbled for his keys and strode down to the road to meet Matt.
Matt was just climbing out, flowers in his arms. “Turn around!” he called.
Cas laughed and covered his eyes. “Do you want to do this inside? On the porch?” he teased. “I’ll love it no matter where you give it to me.” The snort-laugh Matt responded with told him where his brain went. “Dirty bastard,” he added, joining in the laughter.
“Romance,” Matt laughed. “I’m trying to do romance.”
“Oh, right.” Cas kept his hands over his eyes. “Are we doing romance here?”
“Are we doing romance in the middle of your driveway?”
“Inside?” Cas suggested, grinning. He peeked through his fingers at Matt. “It has wine.” He playfully leaned to the side, as if trying to see the flowers he held behind his back.
Matt grabbed Cas by the hand and twirled him around to face the house. “Sneaky!”
Cas giggled and headed for the house. “Fine, fine,” he teased. “I can wait a minute, I suppose. But I’ve gotta get this out of my passenger seat, too.”
“One more minute!” Matt insisted.
They headed inside together, both of them laughing as Cas shut the door and set the planter down on the table by the door.
“Okay, I’ll burst if you make me wait any longer,” Cas informed him.
Matt grinned and presented the vase with a flourish, steadying it with both hands. “Ta da. I’m sorry for being so distant. I’ve been stressed, but I realized what it looks like from your point of view. I don’t want my stress affecting us.”
Caspian accepted the vase and leaned in to sniff the flowers, drawing a deep breath and letting it out. “Thank you,” he murmured, but he meant even more so for the apology than the flowers. “I… this is so sweet of you. You didn’t need to. All I want is some contact. Texts, seeing you when we can make it work…”
“I know,” Matt assured him. “But I also wanted you to know that you matter to me.”
Cas’s eyes were suddenly warm and damp. He quickly turned away to arrange the bouquet on the coffee table, stroking a finger along the fluffy white foliage around the bigger flowers. “You matter to me, too. I made something for you.”
Matt’s jaw dropped when Cas handed the planter to him. “This… but… Cas!”
“Is it okay? I hoped it wouldn’t set off anyone’s allergies—” Cas started, but Matt cut him off and kissed him.
“It’s perfect,” Matt assured him, setting the planter down next to the vase. “You made that? Holy crap. It’s beautiful.”
“It uses the cast-offs of a bunch of types of wood, all glued together for contrast and varnished…” Cas trailed off. Matt didn’t need to know the details. “Thanks.”
“I’ll put it on the desk at the gym,” Matt promised.
Cas smiled, fiddling with both of the objects on the table. The flowers looked pretty next to the plain green mint foliage. “Then you can think about me.”
“And remember to text you,” Matt inferred the rest of Cas’s thought. He came up behind him and rested a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry I was so quiet.”
“And I’m sorry I didn’t come by the gym earlier. I just… worried… about us.”
How the hell had Cas coped without his quiet presence? “You don’t need to,” he assured him. “I’m shitty at this relationship thing, but I want to get better, if you’ll stick with me.”
Cas turned his face into Matt’s shoulder and wrapped his arms around his waist. “I want to get better, too. Let’s catch up on what we’ve missed.”
Matt looked around at the place, and then kissed the top of his head. “Looks like you’ve been busy with work. That going okay?”
Cas cleared his throat and let the emotional moment pass. He took Matt by the hand to lead him to the couch. “I have, yeah. I’m on track. Stressed and broke until January, but good.” He leaned into Matt’s shoulder. “How’s the protest… situation?”
“Better,” Matt said, smiling. “They haven’t been back since Pastor Robinson’s little lecture.”
“Good.” Cas rubbed Matt’s back. “But next time shit happens, I don’t want you to lock me out while you deal with it.”
Matt tensed up, but then he sighed. “You’re right. I just feel like if I dump my problems on you, you’re going to run away, screaming.”
“I dunno,” Cas chuckled. “I get stressed out about stupid little business things, too. And I cling to people. And I chase them, even when they don’t want romance with me. You haven’t run away screaming yet.”
“No, but that’s different.” Matt was chuckling, too, though. “But I guess I still feel a little insecure. You know. High school.”
“High school fucks us all up,” Cas assured him. “Except the super-popular kids, but then they have a harsh awakening when they get out in the real world…”
Matt rested his cheek on Cas’s shoulder. “Yeah. Back then, they laughed at me for wanting to go to the prom with the popular, pretty girls. I still feel like I’m not the kind of person who deserves the pretty girl—or boy—on my arm. I decided to get fit, get stronger, lose weight…”
Cas’s heart went out to him. He knew Matt just well enough now that this made total sense—and he remembered so keenly their early conversations where Matt had talked about his deepest insecurities.
“I love you for you,” he murmured.
Matt sat up straighter, his breath catching. “You…”
“Fuck.” Cas blushed and looked down. “I didn’t really mean to put you on the spot, but… I fell for you the first time we met. Maybe before that. You put your heart on the line right away, and nobody’s ever done that.”
Matt held him close and tight. “I love you too. I don’t really know what to do about it, but when I realized how many days had passed, I just… I missed you.” He gestured to the flowers. “That’s where that came from. I couldn’t hold back any longer. I don’t yet understand it, but on some level, I need you.”
Cas smiled. “And I don’t want you to hold back,” he assured him. “It’s just been so long since anyone was into me like that, I keep assuming you just stopped liking me.” It sounded ridiculous when he put it so plainly.
“Babe, no,” Matt gasped. “I’m so into you it’s not even funny. It’s been so long for me, too… well, since I was really into someone. It’s like, I can’t just date anyone. I can fuck people, sure. But loving them? There’s so few people I feel as close to as you, and that scares me.”
Now they were getting somewhere. Cas leaned up to kiss his cheek. “I know. It’s scaring me too. But this time apart?”
“It was shitty,” Matt said and
shook his head. “I mean, to hell with it. I just want to date you. I’ve felt like I’m not good enough, but now you know why…”
“Yes. I want you as my boyfriend,” Cas told him firmly, while his cheeks hurt from smiling so broadly. “I wanna make this official. Put a label on it.”
Matt laughed. Those stress lines around his eyes had vanished. “You’d do that? I… oh, my God. I was overthinking that way too much.”
“Better late than never,” Cas teased. He kissed Matt’s lips and finally, Matt pressed back against him, running his hand slowly down his back.
Goddamn. Every time he did that, it felt like a part of him was falling into place again. A part he hadn’t even known was missing.
“Can I stay the night sometimes, even if I’m getting up early?” Matt murmured after a minute, pulling back from the kiss. He looked worried. “I can try to sneak out…”
As if Cas was going to say no. He snorted. “Of course! You can wake me up for a goodbye kiss, too.”
“Oh! Cool.” Matt grinned. “That would make it a lot easier to spend time together.”
“And I’ll start actually showing up at the gym when I can,” Cas promised. “Are you ever taking days off?”
“Sometimes Sundays. How about next Sunday?” Matt suggested.
“Yeah.” Cas smiled. “I might go to a market that day, though.”
“I can keep you company.” Matt grinned. “I shouldn’t be the only one getting visits at work. I’ll stay to the side where nobody asks me questions.”
Cas chuckled. “It’s pretty boring.”
“Nothing is boring when I’m with you,” Matt murmured, and the smile he gave Cas was small but sincere.
Once again, Cas’s heart melted. “I… Yeah. That’s why I liked seeing you at work. I just hated thinking I was distracting you.”
“Never,” Matt promised.
Silence fell for a good few minutes as they cuddled, kissed, rubbed each other’s backs… just fell into each other’s presence like they’d been missing for days.