Patrick rode the El a little bit tipsy. Five-dollar well drinks added up. He decided he had enough liquid courage in him to knock on Spencer’s door when he got home and tell him off.
You have a problem with me being excited about fall? I’ve lived in nothing but sunshine for the past three years. So sue me for wanting variety!
He also secretly hoped Spencer was wearing a baggy shirt. That would make this easier.
At his three-flat, Patrick charged up the stairs, summoning any remnants of liquid courage still in his system (it was a long train ride).
His plan hit the skids when he reached his floor and found Spencer on crutches, talking with Ryan outside his door. A mummy of a cast wrapped itself around Spencer’s right ankle, his toes peeking out at the bottom. Patrick hung back at the landing so as not to be seen.
“Are you sure you don’t want to stay with me?” Ryan asked in a pleading voice. “My place is ground level. You don’t want to deal with these stairs one-legged for the next few months.”
“It’s fine. I got it,” Spencer said.
“You can’t take on these stairs every day. You can crash on my pullout couch. Won’t that be easier?”
“I want to sleep in my own bed in my own place.”
Ryan tried to answer but was at a loss of words. “Spence...I think you need help.”
Spencer cut his eyes to Patrick, two narrow slits freezing him in place. “Can I help you?”
Patrick shook his head no and beelined to his door.
In his apartment, while heating up soup (it was never too hot for soup), he tried to make sense of what he saw. He hadn’t seen Spencer since Monday, and now he was down one ankle. Life could change in a heartbeat. One minute you’re in a loving relationship, and the next, you catch your boyfriend face down in your friend’s crotch. And your boyfriend has the nerve to claim it was your fault, that you drove him into the crotch of another man.
GFA, get out of my head!
Patrick collapsed on the couch and queued up an episode ofHouse Hunters. It was his escape from reality, a world where the only drama that existed was deciding which beautiful house to buy. He regularly found himself sucked into a binge session. Just as the husband and wife were about to nitpick the size of the kitchen island in an absolutely stunning house that by all financial logic they should not have been able to afford, a strong knock rattled Patrick’s door.
Ryan was standing in the hallway, a far cry from the cackling dudebro from the rooftop. “Patrick, right?” His forehead was creased with concern
“Yeah.”
“Spencer had a really bad fall at volleyball tonight.” Ryan looked over his shoulder back at Spencer’s shut door. “I heard his ankle--”
“I get it.” Patrick said, holding up his hand. Sound effects were unnecessary.
“Can you check on him tomorrow? Just to make sure he’s okay and breathing. I’m going to come by and see if I can convince him to stay with me while he heals.”
Patrick remembered the things Spencer said about him on the rooftop and the way he ignored him on the El. But he also remembered the feeling of needing help. His neighbors in Los Angeles were a retired couple from Nebraska who wanted to live out their days by the beach. He came to them for little things like brown sugar when he tried to bake Christmas cookies, big things like when his car needed a jump at seven in the morning, and really big things like advice about what to do after he discovered GFA cheating on him. In turn, he helped them with moving around furniture and becoming tech-savvy senior citizens who could stay connected to their grandkids back in the Midwest. Relying on the kindness of neighbors was a necessity for city life, and despite his personal feelings about his current neighbor, he knew deep down, if things were reversed, Spencer would check on him.
Patrick nodded yes. “No problem.”
He would take a brief hiatus from his hatred.
* * *
The next afternoon,as Patrick prepared his grocery list in his cozy kitchen, he heard a crash and a curse from across the hall.
He raced out of his apartment and knocked on Spencer’s door.
“Hi, Spencer. It’s Patrick. Are you all right?”
Two uncomfortable seconds passed.
“I’m fine,” Spencer said bluntly from inside his apartment.
Patrick opened his mouth to call bullshit, but that wouldn’t go over well with Spencer, he thought. Gay guys still had male egos.
