The door clicked open, bringing in the scent of something warm and delicious, something that made Oscar’s mouth water. More than this, it brought Aaron, his head poking in through the gap, eyes finding Oscar through those beautiful glasses that were so much better than the ones on his avatar.
“It smells good,” he murmured, walking in. “I think we had the same idea.”
Aaron’s eyes crinkled, lips spreading into a smile as he entered and shut the door, bending down to scratch Luigi’s back. When he stood, he lifted a plastic bag up in the air, filled with foil dishes stacked on top of each other.
“You got me Chinese?” Oscar asked, eyebrows rising.
“Your favorite,” Aaron said.
“I got you a kebab,” Oscar replied.
“Myfavorite.” Aaron walked to the kitchen, setting down the bag and taking off his jacket. “What do we do with all this food now?” He crossed back to the hook by the door,stretching a little to hang it by the tag. Oscar should have lowered that before. It was too high for both of them. He’d do it the following day, look for that cordless drill he’d inherited from Ryan.
“We eat it,” Oscar said, walking around the kitchen table to meet him halfway. He cupped Aaron’s face, brushing his cheeks, called Papa’s smile to his lips and his warmth to his eyes, and looked at him. “But first, this.”
Oscar kissed Aaron, and it was a promise.
They stood there in the middle of their apartment, lips pressed together, barely moving, and time stopped with them.Forthem. Oscar would live in this moment forever if he could, freeze the frame and hang their picture on the wall, somewhere nobody could reach it, not even time itself.
But this was not how life worked, so eventually, he pulled away, brushing the new tears that lined Aaron’s eyes—softer ones.
“Come have your dinner,” he said. “You’ve had a long day.”
So they sat at the table like they always did when they had nothing to watch, and Aaron had said he wasn’t feeling like Moira Rose right now or David and Patrick, so Oscar had chosen this place for their dinner. He ate his lemon chicken and chow mein noodles while Aaron bit into the garlic kebab like he hadn’t eaten in days, and the rest of the food they’d bought went into the fridge for the next day.
“Will you forgive me for shouting?” Aaron asked, pressing his lips together. “I should have expected you to have your own feelings about it. I’m sorry.”
“I don’t get to have bigger feelings than you.” Oscar shook his head.
Maybe being Papa didn’t come as naturally to him as he’d always hoped or imagined. Oscar had to school his expressions into soft things. He hadn’t been raised by Grandma’s gentlehands, her crocheting fingers and soft dry kisses on his cheeks. He’d had her on the weekends. But as hard as it was sometimes to be Papa, Oscar refused to be his mother, refused to scream at somebody he was supposed to love, as though their pain offended him. Maybe he could find the middle ground and be a little more like Lina. As his hand slid across the table and covered Aaron’s, turning over the palm and stretching to kiss it, Oscar saw the light come on behind his glasses.
Maybe he only ever had to be Oscar for him.
“I love you,” Aaron murmured, waving his fingers to brush Oscar’s cheek. “I love you, baby.”
“I loveyou.” Oscar leaned back in his chair but held on to his hand as it slid from his face. “Always will.”
“Yeah,” Aaron replied, nodding. He took off his glasses, taking his hand back so he could wipe them on his shirt.
When he squeezed his eyes shut and heaved a sigh longer than either of them had lived, Oscar knew something big was going to land on their table. But this time it didn’t feel like a boulder. It was a feathered thing, brushing into their life like an angel’s wing, a canopy of leaves, barring the pounding rain.
When Aaron opened his eyes, he looked afraid. But for the first time since Oscar had come home, there was a glimmer of hope.
And this would have to be enough.
24
FLUORESCENT
There were few things in the world as ugly as fluorescent lights, few scents as pungent as the smell of surgical spirit, few noises as grating as the squeak of clogs or the snap of gloves on sterile hands. Oscar had never much minded any of these before his father had died.
It was hard work to keep his knee from bouncing while they waited, but Aaron’s hand was clasped in his right over it, his lightly freckled skin white and taut from the stretch, and Oscar would be damned if he let his nervousness show.
“Aaron Thake?”
Oscar was catapulted back nearly a year, to another interruption in a different waiting room. They had been nervous, too, then, for a different reason, standing on a different precipice, waiting for a door to open. Oscar didn’t want to think of this as a door about to close. He pressed Aaron’s hand as they stood.
“Wait, do you want me to wait out here?” he asked.
