Knowing that he’s usually exhausted by the time he comes upstairs after work, I start picking up around the apartment. As predicted, the girls left this place looking like Hurricane Taterra hit. Before long, the apartment looks put together again.
Then, I move on to something for him to eat. He doesn’t usually eat anything from the pub, so I look around his fridge. I wince when I see nothing that I can cook without setting off a half a dozen smoke alarms, thus waking the girls back up, and then me having to read them at least two more bedtime stories. So, I do the responsible thing and order some takeout.
There, that wasn’t so bad. Wait, wasthisthe kind of thing Sarah had been bitching about all that time? Shit, I really did fuck things up if taking a little initiative was all that needed to be done. As much as I hate to admit it… she might have been right. I was too focused on me, my own selfish needs, and, lastly, the chokehold alcohol had me in, which I had previously thought I had a handle on.
Sigh.
Suddenly, I hear what sounds to be tapping on glass. “Gulligan!” I whisper-shout. “Come on in, my dude! Gah, I’ve been so worried about you. Where have you been?!” I ask, half expecting him to answer me back. Of course, he doesn’t. That’d be weird, right?
I take a chance at cooking another bag of popcorn in the new microwave, and this time stand guard by it to make sure we have no more incidents. When I pop the perfect bag, I mentally pat myself on the back. Tappy taps on the kitchen tile let me know I’ve got a hungry little birdy on my hands.
I offer him a few pieces before settling in on the sofa. Guillgan hunkers down on the arm next to me. Smirking at him, I warn him that he can only stay if he doesn’t poop on the carpet this time. I just cleaned the place, after all. I prop my feet up on the coffee table, and settle in to watch the rest of last week’s Pat’s game until Gordy gets back, becausefootballI can understand.
God, I miss playing football.
That’s the last thing I remember before I am thumped—hard—in the chest. I wake up to find myself in Gordy’s bed, and it’s the man himself who just hit me. Wait, I don’t remember climbing in here on my own, did hecarryme to bed? Shit, and I wastryingto stay awake so I could give him his nightly back massage.
A blatant, yet unmentioned, disregard of the no touching rule, I know. It just—I don’t know—happened one night, and has become our routine since. He slides into bed with me, and I work out all his knots. Now I know why he always stopped me before they turned into more, because, well, I can’t deny that I wanted to massagemorethan just his back.
I can’t take time to process that now, however, because Gordy is still asleep, in the throes of what looks to be the beginning of another nightmare. He hasn’t had any this animated since I’ve started sleeping in the same bed as him, so briefly I wonder what could have possibly triggered this tonight.
I’d have expected it the night after his admission, but that never came and that was the day before yesterday. We haven’t really touchedon it again either, since I’ve been so caught up with the girls being here this weekend, so I’m wondering what could have happened today. Did he open his laptop and find my research?Fuck. I hope not.
I’m perpetually caught in this maelstrom of wanting to help and making things worse, it would seem.
“Please stop,” he whimpers, and my heart cracks. I have to dosomething, however, before he wakes my girls. I haul him close to me, his clammy body against mine—because, at some point, he must have stripped me down to my boxer-briefs—and pin his arms to his side.
“Shh,” I whisper to him softly, cradling him—his pulse beating rapidly as I press his chest to mine. “No one’s going to hurt you, Gordy. It’s me, Gannett.”
He whimpers some more, a cracked, helpless sounding cry, and then he buries his face in the crook of my neck. He sucks in breaths, choppy and frantic. Then, he aggressively shoves me back. “Get thefuckaway from me, asshole!” he hisses.
I hear stirring from the other side of the wall, and I know that Gordy is on the verge of waking Tati and Terra up. I make a split second decision. “Gordy,” I say more forcefully, rolling my whole body on top of his to keep him from trashing. “Please, buddy. I am so sorry, but I need you to wake up,” I murmur quietly.
Suddenly, his eyes pop open, and he gasps. Attempting to take stock of his surroundings, he shifts under my weight, but I stay firmly in place. “I’m so sorry,” I repeat in a whisper, nodding up at the wall that separates us from my kids, who have curiouslynotasked why I sleep with Gordy every night, like it’s perfectly normal for two grown men to have sleepovers.
His body starts to lose tension beneath me, and I can feel his sweating start to dissipate. Almost as if by instinct, I roll over onto my side, reach up and start gently running my fingers through his hair. Themove calms my girls down enough to go to sleep sometimes, so why shouldn’t it work on him, right?
Still half-lucid, he starts to nuzzle into my touch, but then freezes up again, his brow creasing with concern as he fully rouses. “What smells minty?” he asks, confusing the shit out of me.
“Evan put deodorant in my Christmas stocking. I ran out of my other shit today, so I broke into it. Get this, it smells like those Thin Mint cookies. Why anyone would want their pits to smell like dessert, I have no idea. I can deep throat an entire sleeve of those, no problem, but I still don’t know how I feel ab—”
“Get it off,” Gordy snaps, cutting me off and shoving me away from him. “I don’t care what you have to do. Just go. Clean it. Off.”
“But I—”
“Now,” he whisper-hisses. “Please, Gannett.” He scrubs a hand down his face. “I’m sorry,” he grumbles. “I—mint is a trigger of mine. Marlin’s go to drink was peppermint schnapps. When he wasn’t shitty from that, he always used to cover up the smell of the alcohol on his breath with gum, mints, mouthwash—anything mint.”
I lightly gasp, realization setting in.The smell. That could have brought on this round of nightmares. I mentally file that away, along with all the other things I’ve picked up on as triggers too. “Fuck. Gordy, I’m so sorry. I’ll throw it out right now. You probably smell like it too, since I pretty much pinned you down. Come on, let me get you into the shower.”
“I can shower myself,” he grunts.
I let my eyes rake over him. “You’re as tensed up as it gets. This is my fault, anyway. Let me get you into the shower.” I fix him with a pleading look. “Please, let me do this for you…”
He grumbles, sitting up. I follow him into the bathroom, and he turns on the water muttering what sounds likeinfuriatingly stubbornmanunder his breath. That may be, but I also can’t let it weigh on my conscience that I unknowingly brought back memories for him tonight.
With one swift motion, I slide open the bathroom window, letting in a burst of frigid air, and send the gifted stick of deodorant out of it. It hits its mark in the dumpster below, and I hope to hell Gulligan doesn’t snack on it later. After shutting the window, I spin to see Gordy already in the shower lathering up, steam billowing out of the stall. I strip out of my underwear and slip in behind him.
“What thefuckare you doing?” he growls.
