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Boxes

They've mixed up the boxes. Of course, they have. They've mixed up 'our' boxes. Much to his surprise, he found that this didn't bother him in the slightest, instead he found himself grinning at the cock up.

It didn't matter how many stories he'd consumed, songs he'd heard or films he'd watched he'd never understood why people behaved so irrationally when they were in love. He knew love after all, he'd been in it, a few times but it didn't interfere with his life. It just was. He believed that that crazy version of love was reserved for fictitious characters or better yet, it was a weakness that infected inferior beings and rendered them weaker still. Lately, he found the surety of that belief slipping away from him; he was experiencing things with new perspectives. But nothing had prepared him for this, standing in a room full of mundane, colourless, fresh and thus regrettable not odourless boxes, he was suddenly awash with love. There was a fire in his belly and its warmth was unraveling, lazily spreading its tendrils into the rest of his being, his fingers tingled, his toes instinctively gripped the ground to give him greater purchase, his heart abandoned its rhythm and started to beat to a whole new symphony he'd never heard before. Here it was, laid out in front of him all neatly packed, ready to be opened, ready to be explored, each and every object ready to find a new place and in doing so, ready to be born anew; here it finally was, the life that up until this point, he didn't even know he wanted. His life. His life, indistinguishably intermingled with the life of another who felt more familiar than his own skin ever did, whose breath breathed life into his listless existence, in whose eyes he saw immeasurable love, and whose embrace was a cocoon in which he was reborn entirely. In the room that was to become the heart of their home, their lives were already beginning to be as one. If feelings had the power of movement, he would've soared right out through the open patio doors, into the cloudless, aquamarine San Franciscan morning. In that moment he felt stronger than ever before and yet so unsteady that he would've been toppled over by a single flutter of a butterfly wing.

Only you, Patrick. Fucking. Murray... Could turn me into that prepubescent girl who is a flustered mess at the sight of Harry Styles. And you're not even bloody here! Dropping his head and shaking it, Kevin smiled, willing for his thoughts to become tangible entities that would respond to gravity and fall out of his head. He was coming undone just thinking about Patrick. Try as he might, he couldn't thwart this regular occurrence, no matter what the circumstance and every time he found himself in this situation, inescapably his mind would picture Patrick's naked body pressed up against his... Again...? Snap out of it! He had a niggling sense that his attention was required elsewhere. You're ridiculous Matheson! What turned you on this time around? A bunch of cardboard boxes that smell like the back end of a dog had mated with putrid-aunt-Mildred? Plonker! It worked, he wrenched himself back into the present but failed miserably at curbing the face splitting grin that made his ears look like perfect little orbs stuck on either side of a half moon bowl.

All the while the movers had been busily scuffling in and out of the apartment adding to the ever-increasing piles. Stacked up high, with a few odd angles and edges, were his boxes and Patrick's boxes, together; just like the two of them. Everything about today was rife with anticipated promise and he couldn't wait to dive straight into all of it. Of course they've mixed them up, that is the inevitable point of all of this. The warmth spread a little further as its intensity amped up again.

"That's the last one, Mr. Matheson!" exclaimed, the Muscle Mary in a form fitting, shamrock green tee. Bending down and wiping his sweaty palms on his slightly faded work trousers, he retrieved a clipboard from the top of the box he'd just placed on the floor. As he handed the paperwork over to Kevin for him to sign, he asked, "Are you satisfied with our services?"

Still unable to contain his newly found joy, Kevin in an uncharacteristically high-pitched voice replied, "Cheers boys! You haven't a fucking clue of how awesome you've been! This... This is... This is a fucking epiphany!"

"Epiphany? Umm, no, it's just standard procedure... Wow! You Brits must have a really shitty service industry!" he mockingly replied.

Oh fuck! I just said that out loud and this guy has the cheek to smirk at my stupidity. Kevin found himself mystified at the drop of his usual persona just then. After all Kevin Matheson, the self-assured man had painstakingly become so; which is why the unmistaken twinkle of desire in the mover's eye didn't go unnoticed by him. Not one to let opportunities pass, handing the documents back to the mover, Kevin quipped, "The service industry is crap indeed, but us Brits sure know how to deliver a good... servicing!" deliberately pausing and emphasising the last word. And just as he had predicted, the Muscle Mary smiled and instinctively his eyes darted down to take in Kevin's body. He allowed him his fantasy for a brief moment and then walked over to the door and opened it. Thanking the mover once again for his help and with a gesture that indicated the finality of their flirtation, smilingly Kevin held the door open with one hand and motioned outwardly with his other.