Something in the Water (MxM) ✓

10

"We aren't discussing this." As I roll my eyes at Liam standing in our bedroom doorway looking at me with a face of worry, he scoffs.

"I respect his privacy, Cade, but I just wanted to offer him my advice and support as well."

"I shouldn't be the one to tell you about what happened. Sean should. If he wants anyone else to know, he'll tell them. It was serious." I fall against the bed, itching for another cigarette. "Want to go somewhere to get smokes?"

"Do you really need them?" he asks. I scoff and roll over to face the wall, old and unsightly eggshell-colored paint covering it. I drop my face in the mattress and lie fully on my stomach, hopefully quelling some of the ache.

"To deal with you, yeah."

"Low blow, man."

"Sorry, I didn't mean that. I just have anxiety over the situation. I need something."

I hear his shifting steps into the room, kneeling into the mattress to lie himself atop my back. His strong abdomen presses my lower back with enough pressure to ease muscle tension. "I bought more condoms?"

I chuckle, discovering I'm short of breath beneath his weight. "You would have. I'm fine. I think I'd rather go to sleep tonight. Sorry."

"No need to apologize. Let's go to bed." He slides off my body, returning some oxygen to my lungs. Is it weird that I miss his suffocating heaviness? Such a dense body of muscle mass, Liam is. It isn't the kind of muscle you have from a workout regimen; it's the kind garnered over a short lifetime of callous-building work, each sinew or taut flesh earned through hard work.

And you have me: privileged, prim, and inexperienced. At least, my past self was. Now, I'm afraid to exist in the same world as my father. I'm losing all sort of manner, luxury, and ungrateful attitude I had, now endlessly thankful for little things like food on the table and good company. And besides drugs and partying, I've experienced more in a few months than I did in my entire life beforehand.

Sean has been through more than I could ever imagine, yet he somehow looks up to me in a way. We are both role models to each other, but I suppose that's how friends should be. The way he has persevered as much as he has, as have I. His hardship spans throughout his entire life, and mine is confined to my teenage years and up, due to my own stupidity and rebellion. Sean doesn't deserve the hand life's dealt him like I do. And now, having Liam, I feel as though I'm being rewarded for bad behavior. What did I do to deserve Liam, and what did Sean do to deserve Wesley?

"I know that face..." Liam whispers. I have my eyes closed tight, apparent turmoil painting my face. I open my eyes slowly to meet his worried gaze. "Are you–"

"I'm okay."

A beat of silence permeates the previously calm energy.

"Shit."

"What?" I grunt as he sits up.

"We didn't do the laundry. And I'm not tired. What about you? You wanna sleep?"

I smile in the dark. "No, we can go to the laundromat together." Somehow I can see the white of his smile in the barely moonlit room as he takes my hand. We take Manny's truck to the 24-hour laundromat, pockets full of spare quarters collected from the bedroom floor and dirty pants. I've been meaning to start a jar.

The cold building we enter is a deep rectangular room, walls lined with washers and dryers with benches and counters in the middle. Liam hugs one big basket and I have a slightly smaller one at my hip as I shove the glass door open with my opposite thigh. There is a woman with her maybe five-year-old daughter milling about one side of the mat, so we decide to take the other side to keep our distance. Common decency I suppose.