However, after several moments of stillness, Marin buried his face in Blake’s shoulder, giggling in near-delirium.
“What’s got you laughing?”Blake asked, smiling down at him.Marin pillowed his chin on Blake’s chest, drawing the sheets tighter around them.Blake could have been mistaken, but when he grinned, the points of his dogteeth looked a bit sharper than usual.
“Earlier,” he whispered, almost cherishing the words, his nose wrinkled up in joy.“You called me ‘baby’.”
“I did?”Blake’s eyelids fluttered in stunned realization.“I did.I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“No, don’t apologize,” Marin shook his head, leaning up to press a kiss to Blake’s cheek.Marin smiled against Blake’s skin before he dropped his mouth to Blake’s ear and whispered: “I like it.”
20
Blake awoke to the hum of his phone’s alarm.Without bothering to open his eyes, he cast his arm out to search the floor for it, surprised when his hand hit a solid surface.Sitting up, he blinked around at his surroundings, recalling that he and Marin had crashed at Celeste’s place the night before.He shut his alarm off, rolling over to face his bed partner.
Marin stirred beside him, peeking out from beneath the hood of the sheet and smiling up at Blake, almost shy.
“Good morning,” he whispered.
Blake smiled and tugged the sheet off of Marin’s head, gathering Marin’s chin in his fingertips and leaning down towards him.Marin allowed himself to be eased back into the blankets, their mouths slotting together.He sighed into the kiss before pulling away to squint up at Blake, eyes filled with affection.
“Morning,” Blake replied with a smile, dropping another kiss to Marin’s mouth.“You feeling better?”
Marin nodded into the kiss, pulling away for a moment to reply: “Much.”But still, his eyes welled with apologetic sorrow and he glanced away, embarassed.“Again, I’m so sorry about what happened—”
“Don’t be.You have nothing to apologize for.”Blake shook his head.Cupping Marin’s cheek, he pressed a delicate kiss to his forehead.“I’m just glad you’re doing all right.”
He glanced over his shoulder at the clock on the cottage wall—he didn’t remember what he’d set his alarm for.It was already eight thirty in the morning.
He turned his head back to gaze down at Marin, who was idly tracing a hickey on the corner of his neck, eyes scrunched up in contentment.
“What did you want to get up to today?”Marin asked, curling his leg around Blake’s calf.
“Up to you,” Blake said, pressing an additional kiss to Marin’s nose.“We can do whatever you’d like.”
Marin took a moment to look thoughtful before a devious smile twitched up the side of his mouth.He reached out with both arms, lacing his hands around Blake’s neck.
“Well, I wouldn’t mind some more kisses,” he mused before grimacing, shamefaced.“Now that I’m out of the water, I probably won’t pull a Dracula.”
“If that’s what you want, I have no complaints,” Blake told Marin, who grinned and kissed his cheek.“But I really wanted to do something special with you.”
“How is spending time with younotspecial?”Marin returned, dragging his hands down Blake’s biceps.Blake ducked his head, emitting a sheepish laugh.
“Thanks,” he said.“But I wanted to know if there was anything you had your heart set on for…?”
For one of your last days alive, went unsaid, but Blake felt that it was more than clearly implied.However, he refused to let himself dwell on it, instead focusing his energy on Marin’s response.
“I… I wanted to try to remember more about that girl,” Marin admitted, squeezing Blake’s arms.“I only remember a few things about her, so I don’t know what I could do to jog my memory, but…” he trailed off pointedly, looking grief-stricken.
“What did you say her nickname was?”Blake asked, furrowing his brow.
“Hm?”Marin turned to him with a small frown.“Peanut.Why?”
“I wonder…” Blake mused, grasping for his phone.He opened Instagram first, clicking the bar and typing in “peanut Marin”.“A lot of people use their childhood nicknames as their Instagram usernames and Marin is technically a surname, so—”
As Blake scrolled through the results, a user photo gave him pause: it was a photo of the exact sculpture that he had shown to Marin the night before, taken from a slightly different angle.Beside the photo was the username peanutMarin84, the subtitle a simple name: Jessica.
“No way,” Blake whispered, clicking the username.Beside him, Marin turned his hand palm-up, gripping Blake’s.
The biography was simple enough: Jessica – 38 – Mom – Wife – Art Dealer.Below was a link to a professional account, and after that were only three posts: one detailing an art exhibition at the San Francisco Japan Center with previews Thursday night, the next of a pair of smiling women and their bright-eyed children standing in front of the Disneyland castle, and the third was of a misshapen brown lump of fabric worn to nearly nothing.
