Now he got to watch Aaron’s pretty ass as he ascended four flights of stairs, climbing to the attic. Outside were two low shelves lined with shoes that seemed to belong to three different people. Aaron’s sneakers were easy to identify alongside large chunky boots belonging to some other man for sure, which made Oscar jealous to know he was living with Aaron, and then there were ballet flats and pumps and pretty girly Converses that reminded him of Lina.
But he didn’t want to think about his sister right now. Not after what had happened.
Oscar bent down to unlace his boots and set them by the shelves while Aaron kicked off his flip flops and reached for the door handle.
Warmth and spice engulfed Oscar the moment he stepped through, sealing himself in as the door clicked shut behind him. It was a small apartment, with a sloping ceiling that for once made him glad he wasn’t all that tall, but it was pretty. And cozy. Oscar could imagine liking winter here.
Lamps sat on every piece of furniture, shaded in burnt orange and mauve, showering the place in amber light. Pretty vines wound around twinkling lights over the large wall unit where a TV stood mounted against the wall, paused on what looked like the middle of a dinner scene.
The kitchen was even smaller than Oscar’s, the table square with a shiny surface and matching chairs that reminded him of diners from the fifties.
And on a couch among a mismatched set with soft knit throws sat two people. They looked around Aaron andOscar’s age, somewhere in their early twenties. The man was tall, which was clear from his long legs, even though he was sitting. He had wide shoulders and hair buzzed down to the scalp, green eyes wide as saucers on a handsome face. His arm was wrapped around the woman who sat beside him. She was pretty, with dewy brown skin and thin brown braids woven with pink down to her waist, long lilac nails on slim hands that were digging around in a popcorn bowl.
On the coffee table, there were three pots of instant noodles, one of them half-finished, and something twisted in Oscar’s gut as he realized he’d interrupted Aaron not only during dinner, but also movie night with his friends.
There were unopened bags of candy beside the half-eaten noodles. Oscar knew these were for Aaron, coffee-loving Aaron who chased a sugar rush like a dog with a thrown ball.
“Hi!” The woman smiled at Oscar, scrunching up her nose.
“Hello,” Oscar mumbled, scratching his head.
“Do you guys want to join?” The man glanced at Oscar only for a moment, then fixed his gaze on Aaron. “Ron?”
“We’ll be heading straight in, actually.” Aaron picked up two bags of candy and walked past the coffee table, heading to a door beside the TV unit. Oscar glanced at the others awkwardly and hurried across, scurrying behind him like a mouse.
The man on the couch looked like the kind of person Ryan might hang around, a gymbrowho’d call a trans guybuddylike Ryan sometimes did with Oscar—as though Oscar wasn’t an entire two fucking years older than him—and then craft him a program to sculpt hips like a vase. Not that Oscar had ever gone to Ryan for gym advice. Or to the gym at all. But he imagined Ryan would do something like that.
Ryan.
Oscar willed his rage to simmer as he pulled Aaron’s doorshut behind him and took in the view. It was a tiny room, far smaller than Oscar’s back home, the sloping ceiling taking up most of the space, but Aaron had still managed to make something gorgeous of it.
The curtains on his window were drawn shut, and the lighting bathed the room in blue, glinting off the trans flag pinned to his wall, which matched the knitted blanket Aaron had sent him a picture of that second time they’d chatted. Although there were only a few pieces of furniture, Aaron had created storage space out of moving carts and low shelves, stacked with books and clothes and photos of him with much shorter hair between a pretty girl and a pink-haired person with a septum piercing, as well as one singular photo of him with an older woman who had the same nose and mouth. Maybe his mother.
Aaron shrugged off his jacket and hung it on a hook drilled into the door, then shimmied out of his sweatpants to reveal an entire bunny pajama underneath.
“No headband?” Oscar asked, lips twitching.
“But of course!” Aaron’s cheeks pinked, seeming almost purple underneath the blue lights, and Oscar wished to swim in the ocean of him as he reached for the pile of fleece on his small desk and put it on, pushing back his hair. “Pleased?”
“Very,” Oscar replied.
He glanced around, not sure where he was supposed to sit, but Aaron seemed to be far better prepared. He headed to a small set of drawers and pulled out a stack of clothes.
“No outside clothes on my bed,” Aaron said.On his bed.“I’ll go get us something to drink.” He passed, curling his small fingers around Oscar’s shoulder and pressing.
Pressing.
Hepressed.
Oscar could barely contain himself as the door shut behind him. In a quick flustered fumble, he undressed,shedding the scents of the bus, sneaking a sniff of his armpits. Maybe Paulie had been onto something when he’d said the knockoff deodorant was better than the brand name. Oscar could smell nothing except for the fresh cool lingering scent of what he’d sprayed after his shower that morning.
Moments later, he was wearing a pair of Aaron’s soft sweatpants, the scent of his flowery detergent wrapping him up like a blanket. The larger T-shirt, which must have engulfed Aaron when he wore it, was comfortable on Oscar’s bigger frame.
Aaron returned soon after with a mug of tea for Oscar and—unsurprisingly—a cup of coffee for himself. He clambered onto the bed, crossing his legs and wrapping his hands around the cup, and Oscar thought that if he ended every single one of his days to the image of Aaron in pajamas drinking coffee on a blanket he’d knitted himself, then it would be a happy life he lived.
“Come.” Aaron patted the blanket.
Over the incessant pounding of his heart, Oscar approached. Their knees were a hair’s width apart as they sat facing each other, cups in hand and steam curling in front of their faces. Aaron had removed his glasses, and Oscar could see all the freckles climbing up the sides of his nose, curving into his brow bones.
