The year after Alec left dragged on, every month stretching into a lifetime. But the two years after we got back together blinked by. Time flies when you’re having fun. Though, packing and shipping all my belongings wasn’t a blast.
“Where…” I muttered to myself. “Babe! Where’d you put the tape?” I yelled into my almost emptied apartment.
“I have it. You’ve packed a whopping zero percent of the bathroom,” Alec shouted back.
“I’ll take that stuff on the plane. I’m gonna need deodorant and my toothbrush when I get there.”
Alec stepped out, holding three loofas and two different body washes. “Yeah? You need all three of these right when we get back?”
I giggled as my cheeks reddened. “I, well—”
“Whydo you even have three?” Alec said, starting to laugh.
“They’re… uh…”
“You just buy a new one and never throw the old ones away?”
“Yes,” I said as we both laughed.
“Fucking gross, dude. I’m tossing them.”
“Probably for the best.”
He disappeared back into the bathroom, still laughing. “You know you have a toothbrush and multiple deodorants at my place, right? And a loofa, too.”
“Yeah.”
“So I’m just gonna go ahead and pack everything in here.”
“Thanks, babe! Love you!”
“Love you, too. But I'm in charge of packing if we ever buy a house.”
“That’s a deal. Sir.”
I laughed, and so did he. We were happy. And in love. And excited. So, so fucking excited. After spending two years in a long-distance relationship, I was moving out to Denver to be with Alec. Permanently.
I say long distance, but we never went more than a week without seeing each other. I was out there five or six times a month that first year, staying with him while we brought on CompComm. The year after, he spent a lot of time working remotely from my bedroom and dining table. In doing so, he landed FinCrest as a client and a few other big names in the area.
The plan was for me to be all packed up when he arrived that day. But it didn’t happen. Once the moving crew drove off with my furniture, destined for a storage facility out there, I realized I’d be shippingwaymore boxes of crap than I thought. A man gathers a lot of clutter in four years—without a spring-cleaning boyfriend like Alec to reduce it. When he got to my place that morning, after almost popping my air mattress pounding me into it, there was more to pack.
“Look what I found,” Alec said, tossing me something I couldn’t see. “Poor fucker looks worn the fuck out.”
I snatched it from the air and smiled when I caught it. “Well, we used it a lot.”
It was the Wi-Fi-enabled butt plug he bought me the first time I flew out to Denver. He was right about it working wonders for long-distance couples. Alec controlled it over video calls, giving us intimacy over thousands of miles, and allowing us to feel less alone.
He laughed. “Yeah? How many times did we actually use it, Mason? Like twelve over two years?”
“That’s a lot!” I laughed and blushed. “I might’ve used it on my own sometimes, too.”
He laughed more. “Why didn’t you pack it?”
“I don’t know… it works really well… and you got it for me…”
He walked over and bent down to kiss me. “You’re sentimental over a butt plug?”
“I’m sentimental about you.”
