Page 110 of Puck You Both

Theo rolls onto his side. "It's modern art now."

Patrick looks from me to Theo, then back to me again, and I can sense the wheels turning. When he speaks it's quiet and it's aimed at me. "Stay tonight."

There’s this feeble, barely-there part of me screaming silently that I maybe I shouldn’t. That maybe it would complicate a thing that turned out to be, against all odds, easy. I let that part fight for its life for the span of three breaths. Then I kill it myself. “Okay.”

Beside me, Theo props himself up on one elbow. "That was alarmingly easy."

I turn my head to face him. "Did you want me to negotiate?"

"Fuck no. I'm just documenting growth."

We clean up only as far as sleep requires. In the bedroom, Theo assigns Patrick the middle by physically shoving him there with my help, and Patrick goes where he's put. I take the left side.

The sheets smell like both of them, and the peace settles over us in stages.

Patrick's hand finds my wrist under the sheets and stays there, resting, and Theo's foot hooks my ankle from two bodies away.

Every night of my adult life has ended with an exit plan. Where my keys are, when I leave, how the morning runs.

Tonight, I fall asleep with no plan at all.

***

I WAKE UP alone in Patrick's bed, to the smell of coffee and the sound of a developing argument about eggs.

For a minute I don't move as reality washes over me gently.

There’s a ceiling above me that isn’t mine. The sheets don’t feel familiar. There are two hollows in the mattress beside me and one red hair on Patrick's pillow, and my jaw is still sore.

What I'm waiting for is the itch, one that stands me up out of other people's spaces and points me at the door before anyone's awake enough to make it complicated.

It isn’t there. In its place, there's Theo's voice rolling down the hallway, and the genuinely novel realization that I want to go toward the noise instead of away from it.

I pull on yesterday's boxers, because my bag still resides by the door where I left it back when the idea of staying overnight seemed too abstract to entertain.

From the hallway, the kitchen looks like a play in its hundredth performance. Theo stands at the island naked, with his curls staging rebellion against his scalp. His hand comes out sideways with no look attached, and a mug lands in it. Patrick opens the refrigerator, and the eggs are already arriving in Theo's other hand. Toast pops.

"Marry me," Theo says.

Patrick doesn't look up from the pan. "Drink your coffee."

I stand in the doorway and wait for the jealousy. It seems like the sort of thing I should be feeling, isn’t it? Watching a routine that got built and polished before I ever showed up. I give it every opportunity to rear its ugly head.

Nothing arrives. What shows up instead is closer to impatience, and a realization that I want to be one of the leads in this play.

Patrick reaches for the cabinet over the counter, and I'm across the kitchen before the decision finishes forming, taking the shaker down and putting it in his hand.

He pauses. Looks at it, then at me. "Thank you."

I pocket these two words like I pocket game pucks.

Theo watches over the rim of his mug. "Look at that, Patrick. He's house-trained."

I take the toast out of his hand and bite it. "Apparently not."

His whole face lights up. "Oh, he's evolving."

A third plate lands on the island, no questions, no glance to check whether I'm staying. Patrick just sets it down, and I step in between them and eat Theo’s toast standing up, hip against the island, Theo raiding Patrick's plate on one side and Patrick taxing mine in return. When Theo's elbow swings dangerously close to the fruit bowl, I move it out of the blast radius without breaking stride. Somehow, the three of us just fit, at an island built for two.