He gulped back a lump in his throat. Patrick’s green eyes were on him, not looking away. They glowed with intent inches from his face, a glint of light as they traveled through a dark tunnel. It sent a warm feeling through Spencer’s chest.
Spencer had never been this close to Patrick. He noticed little details that made Patrick so Patrick: the shaving nic on his throat, the way his nose bulbed at the end. His fresh body wash scent fluttered up his nose, distracting Spencer even more.
He’s my neighbor. Sort of my friend. He’s just helping me out for a few weeks.
His reasoning couldn’t hold a Pumpkin Apple candle to the feeling of Patrick’s body heat.
“It’s the last Friday in July,” Patrick said, lips pulled into a sly smile that sent another warm zing through him. “You know what that means.”
“What?”
“Next week is August. Let the countdown to fall officially begin.”
August
a.k.a. The Countdown to Fall
4
Patrick
Patrick felt each of the thirty-one days of August. He sweated them out literally, as the dog days of August proved especially dogged, the heat a thick blanket from which you couldn’t untangle yourself. The three flights of stairs he faced each morning and evening might as well have been an elliptical machine.
Patrick celebrated the small milestones of calendar movement. He breathed an excited sigh when it was August tenth (double digits!), then August fifteenth (halfway there!). The paper shopping bags from his trip to Yankee Candle sat in the corner of his living room, staring at him, tapping their imaginary feet at him.
Not yet, he told them and himself.
He couldn’t blow his autumnal load too early. Fall did not start until September. The Tuesday after Labor Day to be specific. It was so close, yet so far.
Patrick could get things ready, though. He might’ve made an excursion to Home Goods for some fall decor to prepare. Better to be early than to go to the stores when everything’s been picked over, he rationalized with himself.
By celebrating his first fall in Chicago and being witness to crisp fall weather, it would be the final nail in the coffin on his time in California. He would escape the endless summer he’d been stuck in and could move on with his life.
Would that new life involve Spencer?
He wasn’t just sweating out the August weather. He found himself in a mental tug of war over his neighbor, fighting between him being a fun train buddy and someone he wanted to climb like a tree.
Spencer was objectively attractive with a dentist-approved smile. Patrick had known that from the get-go, but recently, his thoughts had drifted to that objectively attractive body lying on top of him and that dentist-approved smile gazing down at him like he was the only guy in the world. He had almost been late to meet him in the morning a few times because he was jerking off to some variations of this fantasy in the shower. A part of him wished that Spencer would break down the door looking for him, find him in the shower, and take it from there.
But it wasn’t just his neighbor’s hot body that he wanted. Patrick had found himself digging all these little parts of Spencer that most people probably missed on first glance: the different types of laughs he had, the way he scratched at his left stubbled cheek when he asked a question, the passion he had for sports marketing (or that anyone was able to have for it).
Patrick reminded himself that Spencer needed his help as he recuperated. It was a friendship of convenience. They didn’t hang out outside of working hours. Spencer didn’t invite him to go out with his friends, and neither did Patrick. They were neighbors who rode the train together. And sometimes met up for lunch. And went to Yankee Candle once.
It didn’t matter that Patrick counted down the hours at work until he could meet Spencer to ride home together. (All this counting down was exhausting!) He was afraid of making things awkward and risking Spencer trying to navigate the El by himself because he didn’t want to be around Patrick.
On August twentieth, Patrick celebrated another ten days down of the never-ending month by picking up fall pillows for his couch and a harvest wreath for his front door from Michael’s, which was all set up for fall, during his lunch break.
“How many pillows did you get?” Spencer poked into his bag on the train ride home that evening. “How big is your couch?”
“I don’t need you judging my decoration decisions.”
“I’m gay. It’s in my genes.”
They crossed the Chicago River. Dark clouds shifted over the sky. They filled Patrick’s heart with hope.
“I think it’s going to rain all night,” Spencer said.
“I know. Isn’t it exciting?” Gray and rainy was one step closer to fall. He could pretend it was chilly outside from his apartment. Spencer predictably rolled his eyes.
