Izzy drew him across the wide, wide floor. There was a door in the back wall. It opened up into a small corridor.
“Okay,” Izzy said. “Bathrooms, and door to the back, I guess? And…” He pushed open another door. “Found the stairs.”
Wyatt followed him up them. A flickering bulb illuminated the stairs, on and off.
Izzy opened another door at the top of the stairs. “Oh, wow.”
He got that right.
The top floor had clearly been renovated more recently than the downstairs. It was an open-plan loft. A wall full of windows let the light right in. The kitchen was at one end of the loft, and the living space at the other. Above the living space was a mezzanine floor with a set of steps leading up to it.
“Okay, shit,” Izzy said. “This is amazing!”
Wyatt nodded, heading for the kitchen first. It wasn’t brand new, but it wasn’t old either. He ran his fingertips over the counter tops. They were slightly dusty, but they were spacious. This was no cluttered little kitchen at all. Whoever had lived here last had definitely liked to cook. The oven was a top of the range electric double convection oven. Wyatt could work with that. He had visions of making dinner here every night, Izzy helping him chop and cook.
He turned to see where Izzy was and caught sight of him climbing the steps to the mezzanine level.
Maybe he was getting ahead of himself here. Maybe Izzy wouldn’t want to live here with him.
“Holy shit, Wy!” Izzy called. “You could fit a California king up here if you wanted! And there are plenty of shelves for all your books!”
“What about for yours?” Wyatt called back, marveling at his own audacity.
Izzy reappeared, leaning on the railing of the mezzanine level. “The last thing I read was the TV Guide,” he said. “But if that’s an invitation to move in with you here, then yes.”
Wyatt laughed, relieved and delighted. “It kind of was.”
Izzy walked down the stairs again He ducked his head and scratched the back of his neck. “Listen, I had an idea too.”
“What?”
“I was thinking, I really appreciate everything that Justin has done for me, but I’m not a fan of waiting to die of a bee sting, you know?”
“I’m not a fan of that either,” Wyatt said. He reached out for Izzy and drew him closer.
“So I reckon maybe I need to get a new job,” Izzy said. He held Wyatt’s gaze, looking strangely vulnerable. “I don’t really have many skills, but I think I could learn how to make coffee.”
“You want to make coffee?” Wyatt asked softly.
“I mean, if you hired a manager who could teach me how,” Izzy said. “I could work the early shifts or whatever, so we’d have the afternoons off together.”
Wyatt gazed around the loft, his mind’s eye filling it with furniture. With a couch and a TV, with a dining table, with a bed. He imagined coming home to this every afternoon—to this and toIzzy—and the thought of it was so perfect that he had to blink back sudden tears.
“Baby?” Izzy asked, his expression pinched with worry.
“I want that,” Wyatt told him. He pulled him in for a kiss. “I want that so much, Izzy.”
* * * *
The twelve weeks passed both more quickly and more slowly than Wyatt could have guessed. Quickly, because he had so much work to do. He’d signed a contract on the building—his hand shaking so much the signature didn’t even look like his—and now he was dealing with getting quotes from contractors who could refit the downstairs just how he wanted. It was nerve-wracking, and Wyatt was emailing Paul and Dad every step of the way. He didn’t even have as much time to bake as he liked, and that alone made him feel jittery. He couldn’t wait until he could just get into a kitchen again, and not worry about all this other stuff, but that was all still months away.
The twelve weeks also passed slowly because Wyatt missed Dad and Justin so much. It was like a constant ache in his chest that even Izzy’s presence couldn’t totally erase. It wasn’t the same relying on phone calls or Skype or Dad’s social media updates. It wasn’t enough to quell his anxiety, because the world was a dangerous place, and what if something happened? Nights like those were the worst, because even Ativan barely took the edge off his worry and Wyatt could hardly sleep.
It was a process though, and Wyatt worked hard at not letting his anxiety take charge, and Izzy was patient with him. He understood exactly what Wyatt was dealing with and he didn’t judge him for it.
The weekend Dad and Justin were finally due back, Harper arrived for a visit. Nobody was surprised that she turned up with a cat carrier holding the shelter cat she’d ‘accidentally’ found online, or that she was now dating the guy from the elevator who wore Hugo Boss suits.
“You’d think he’s got his shit together by looking at him,” she announced as she lugged the carrier inside, “but I wouldn’t trust him to watch a goldfish. Have you ever seen a grown man get his hand stuck inside a tube of Pringles? Lucky he’s good in bed.”
