Paternal and Proud [LAMS Short Story]

XIV - Mending and Emotional

John burst through his garage door, eyes wide. He dumped the bag of groceries in one hand on the ground, completely disregarding the fact that there were at least two cartons of eggs somewhere in there. Out of habit, he removed his shoes before dashing across the hall and into the living room in a panic, forgetting that he still held something fragile that Frances had put on the grocery list for a reason unbeknownst to him.

"Frances?!" John called, right as he flung open the door to the living room. "Are you..." he nearly stopped dead in his tracks when he saw who lounged on the couch, reading his copy of Tristam Shandy. "...okay... oh, shit..."

"J-Jackie?" Alexander rightened himself from the lounge he had been relaxing I'm on the sofa. The book actually slipped out of his hands and he fumbled it, unintentionally letting it bounce off his lap and onto the carpet.

"Here, let me-" John couldn't help but smile ruefully at the usually graceful Alexander, but he rushed forward awkwardly in a poor attempt to just do something instead of standing by.

"No it's fine, I got it-" Alex stammered at nearly the same time, scrambling to scoop it off the floor. John withdrew at the last moment to avoid knocking foreheads with Alex.

"Oh, sorry-"

"No, no, I just-"

John found himself as nervous as he'd ever been around Alex, heart rate wild, hands fidgety, stumbling on sentences.

"I-I, um-"

"Uh, are those-?" Alex accidentally cut him off, gesturing to the item in John's left hand, which he had incidentally forgotten that he was even holding.

John, glancing down, saw his grip shaking around a wrapped bouquet of roses. Just then, he also heard the door click shut behind them. He ungracefully whipped around, seeing Frances through the window. He looked at her pleadingly for some sort of answer, but she only winked, a barely concealed smirk on her face.

"I-um-" John stuttered again, slowly grasping why Frances had put flowers on the grocery list, and at the coincidence of him holding them in front of Alex. He was also beginning to understand that none of this was, in fact, a coincidence. "-y-yeah. Here, for you." John tripped over his words, wrapping his mind around what was happening.

Alex, looking just as stunned at the whole ordeal, with Frances and the flowers and just the whole situation of being in close proximity to John after being deprived for so long, was thankfully just as awkward, and accepted the flowers with about as much grace as they had been given with. "Right-um, yeah, thank you," he stammered back, reaching forward and taking the bouquet.

The two stood in silence for a couple of seconds. Alex just looked down at the flowers, then back up at John, who was already looking at him, biting his lip like he wasn't sure what he was allowed to do.

They held eye-contact for the longest time, trying to gauge the emotion in each other's eyes, and John found himself lost, as usual, in Alex's. It was odd - he'd always thought he'd fall in love with someone with blue eyes; he thought the color held so much depth - but here he was, in complete adoration of Alex's deep brown eyes, which he found retained so much more than any pair of blue eyes in the world ever could. They were surprisingly dynamic - the longer John looked, the more hues he saw. There was that sort of intelligent rich rosewood color, that warm, melted caramel brown, that intoxicating swirl of coffee-color.

John, feeling that if he wasn't surrounded with Alex in one way or another any second now, he would implode, took a step forward. Alex didn't. He bit his lip, looking down at the roses, then back at John, who was startled by the emotion in his eyes. It wasn't the timid anxiousness he was feeling himself, but rather something much stronger, something glimmering and profound.