“I can do both,” Lucas replied, flashing him a wink.
“Tell us about it!” Aaron said. “How did the last one go?”
“Ah! Phil, do you want to take this one?” Lucas asked.
Oscar had been surprised when Lucas told him he and Philip did marathons together. He’d always seen running as a solitary thing. But now that he saw them sitting side by side, Oscar couldn’t imagine them ever doing anything apart.
“I’d love to,” Philip said, “but first, I’m going to get more of my green juice. And I’m gettingyoua glass.”
“Enjoy the kale, Team Jacob,” Oscar said, his laugh rifling through the mic and into Lucas’s lavish living room.
“Fuck off, Team Edward,” Lucas replied, narrowing his eyes. Oscar wasn’t really team any of them, but Lucas had once let slip his teenage obsession with vampires and Oscar had taken the opportunity to tease him about it for the rest of his life.
“I think you’re both fools,” Aaron said, leaning back into the bench and calling Luigi over again. “You’re all sleeping on the real national treasure.”
“Please say Charlie!” Philip shouted from somewhere else in the room.
“Indeed!” Aaron replied. “Or, maybe, how about the vampire Lestat?”
“Oscar!” Philip yelled. “You’ve got yourself a keeper!”
“Yeah,” Oscar replied, eyes darting to Aaron’s face.
Team Edward, Team Jacob, Team Lestat de Lioncourt.Team Aaron, he thought.Team Aaron and his freckles I want to trace.
“I quite agree,” he said instead.
The conversation lasted another two hours. Philip narrated multiple anecdotes from the marathons they’d run over the years, funny moments and beautiful, heartwarming recollections. Lucas told them about Philip’s proposal, a story Oscar knew but Aaron didn’t, and then they told them about their travel plans and what it was supposed to be like while they waited to bring their daughter home. They were going to call her Madeleine.
As the call beeped to an end, Oscar closed his laptop and turned to look at Aaron, leaning in to kiss him on the cheek.
“Want to waste some time on the couch?” he asked.
“Always,” Aaron replied.
Ten minutes later, they were wrapped in the corner, Oscar pressed into the cushions, Aaron pressed into Oscar, each of them sipping a fresh hot chocolate with little marshmallows on top. Luigi was running from one end of the living room to the other, which meant he’d head to the litter box soon.
“Would you ever want that?” Oscar asked, brushing Aaron’s hair with his fingers.
It had grown a little longer on top, soft and fluffy and straight, but he’d had Joe shave his back and sides, and Oscar loved the feeling of bristly hair. He remembered having it before, remembered obsessively rubbing and scratching it when he’d gone back to school after Papa had died, the way everyone had stared at him with his girl name and boy hair, everything so firmly binary in a world that didn’t understand him or anybody like him. There hadn’t been a Tobe at Oscar’s school.
“Want what?” Aaron asked, shifting a little to kiss him on the jaw. “A rich-ass house with a couch I would definitely not drink green juice on?” His lips curved against Oscar’s face.
“No, smart ass. I would never get a couch like that. Nor would I drink anything green.” Oscar made a face, mock gagging.
He closed his eyes and listened to the spinning record of Aaron’s laugh. Oscar was glad he was the needle that came down on the grooves, that he was the cause. He wished it would skip forever, that he could be trapped in its sound.
“Kids?” Aaron asked then.
Oscar nodded against his head. Maybe it was too much to ask so soon. Maybe it would spook Aaron. But he hadn’t bristled in his arms. His fingers still reached for the longer strands of Oscar’s hair. He’d trimmed it just the previous week, a long overdue task, but he’d left it long enough for Aaron to play with. Because it turned out he liked it a little long, and Aaron did too, and Oscar could scream his name from the rooftops now, and he could do it shaking his long, thick hair. He could see it bobbing around his neck in the mirror and not be afraid. Oscar could even smile at his own reflection.
“Doyouwantthat?” Aaron asked.
“I’ve never actually thought about it before,” Oscar admitted. “I’m a little afraid of babies.”
“I don’t ever want to get pregnant,” Aaron said. “It’s…it would ruin me.”
“No, me neither. I couldn’t. I admire the men who do it, but I don’t want that.” Oscar leaned in, pressed his lips to the top of Aaron’s head. “I meant adopt, like Philip and Lucas.”
