Sray Cat Chronicles (Novella)

Strays Under the Stars

"A picnic under the stars?" Leslie asked curiously.

"Yeah, you've been doing so good lately with everything that I want to do something special. No real reason," Aaron responded as they came into their apartment.

It had been over a month since everything came out at Valentine's Day. They had talked a lot over the next week, and Leslie acknowledged he had a problem and needed to do something about it. It hadn't gotten all better, of course. Just knowing what the problem was didn't fix it. Aaron began keeping track of what Leslie ate, but for a different reason than he did. He also knew almost immediately when he was lying about eating something. Leslie had a hard time keeping it out of his face.

Aaron had insisted on Leslie sticking to a strict eating schedule. He still tried to put eating off, or tried to avoid it altogether, but Aaron wouldn't let him get away with it for long. It was a struggle to get him to stop counting the calories in everything that he ate, and Aaron knew he was still keeping track of it no matter what he said. He hadn't convinced him to go see a therapist yet, though. That was the one area Leslie hadn't budged. He claimed to not need anyone. Aaron thought differently, but he was going to give him a chance to work through things on his own before he insisted on outside help.

"I think you just want to have sex outside," Leslie said as he sat down on the bed and crossed his arms.

"Now, why would you say something like that?" he asked as he walked over and cupped his face.

"Everything with you leads to sex." Leslie arched a brow at him.

Aaron sighed and shook his head. "I'm not planning on having sex outside, if you must know. Now, when we get back home, I can't make any guarentees."

Leslie sighed. "I don't know," he muttered, looking away. Aaron could already see him mentally calculating what foods they were going to take to see if he'd eat.

"Look, we can invite Micah and Aiden and make a night of it. And didn't you say your friend Dominic finally asked the girl with the big boobs that likes you out?" Aaron asked, stroking his thumb across Leslie's chin.

Sighing, Leslie knew he couldn't say no to that face when he was asking like that. "Yeah, Dominic finally asked her. I guess he never asked her because he thought he would be getting between her and me, but when we got together, he decided that wouldn't be a problem anymore."

"See, there, wouldn't it be nice to go out for a nice evening with them? We haven't done anything like that before. And you've been doing a good job sticking to your food schedule," Aaron pointed out, standing up straight and putting his hands on his hips.

Leslie looked up and him and gave him a small smile. "If you really want to, I can ask Dominic and Micah if they're interested in doing something like that. I'm meeting Micah for a study session tomorrow afternoon after class. I can talk to her then and text Dominic."

Aaron leaned over and kissed his head and undressed to crawl into bed. It had been a busy day, and both of them were tired. Aaron, though, worried as Leslie fell asleep in his arms. His fingers slid down his sides where his ribs were still too pronounced, and his hips where the bones jutted out a bit too much. He was scared, to be honest. He loved him too much to watch him destroy himself.

* * * * *

Leslie honestly forgot. It wasn't on purpose. He just forgot to eat before he left the apartment with Aaron. They'd gotten up late, both sleeping through the alarm on Aaron's phone. Luckily, Micah had called Leslie to make sure they were still on for studying that day, and he woke up. They weren't too late, so it was no harm, except of course, Leslie didn't have breakfast before he left. Even Aaron, being as rushed as he was, didn't think of it as they got out the door as quickly as possible.