Sonder

Chapter 45

When his shift ended, Nick found Clair at his apartment. Still shook by the visit to the pink house, he was too happy to escape into her arms and eyes. They had the apartment to themselves and they went directly to bed.

***

In the morning, the two contraband kids wake up with the sun's rise seeing a new sort of glow. They are hearing never before heard sounds... the world they experience is a complete and total separation from the domain they had inhabited 12 hours ago. Either their sensory array has upgraded from the generic models which they formerly possessed. Or the universe had transcended from a galactic state of being that was energetically 'sub-terranenan'.

The living sparks within the naked bodies on the mattress floor are not the passengers the flesh wagons had held the last time the sun brushed upon them. They were aware of this shift. But, their minds did not belabor themselves with excessive contemplation or consideration. Analysis. He woke up to her loving gaze. 

She woke up to his loving gaze.

How is this possible?

Never mind how this is possible. 

All kinds of crazy things happen when you're young and in love.

They tease one-another for watching the other sleep:

"Stalker", "Creepo", "Wierdo", "Cannibal", "Freakenstein", "Chester", "Lester", and so on, these words spill from both mouths until an abrupt silence is born. An abrupt silence is born. The mockery is smothered by adoration. Mischief-joy. Love-Peace.

"I love you" Someone says.

Elation and shock splatters inside both of them.

"I love you." Someone else says.

Things are good.

***

After a shower, they start doing some yoga/palliates in the living room.

As they contend with the contortions, comprising a comical pose. Ryan and Zach entered through the Sarcopha-door. They freeze. They avert their eyes. They attempt to undo their entrance. 

They hadn't walked in on Nick and Clair naked on the living room floor. Nick had jogging sorts and Clair had spandex jammers and a sportsbra. The sweat-wicking-fig-leaves of the modern age.

Moaning on the ground, they may have been. But they were separate. Flat on their backs. Ryan and Zach analyze the scene, contrasting it with the Kama sutra. When they confirmed that the activity on the floor was not sexual, they snickered and eventually expanded to big gay Santa Belly laughs.

Nick's face is red as Yoshi's breath. Self-conscious laughter spreads his blush down his neck, blotchy patches blossom over his clavicle, shoulders, and chest. By the time his ribs are burning red, he collapses from the pose and sighs at the ceiling.

"you guys never saw this"

"We're the gay ones... aren't we supposed to be doing that?" Zach chortles, adding under his breath: "whatever that is... yoga?"

"Pilates" Clair says "If you guys want to join, we can make room. Scoot..." She pokes Nick. Zach and Ryan assume a repulsed pair of aristocratic faces, they turn away from that vulgar suggestion, elevating dignified nostrils.

***

*Blah, Blah, Blah*

The four banter over coffee and they concoct a hypothetical  reality series... or a sitcom perhaps. A show in which Ryan and Nick are followed by cameras which chronicle their domestic misadventures. A show catalyzed by their dynamic as the most effeminate heterosexual and the most masculine homosexual the world has ever known. Kind of like Bob and God... The Devil and God... And that other show where the Terrorist and the CIA agent are roommates.

*Yada, yada, yada*

"Do we share toothbrushes?"

"Of course we share tooth brushes"

"You take your shirts off weird." She notes

"You take your shirts off weird. You use the 'stripper pull', all smooth and erotic.

Clair laughs with disbelief "That's how my mom takes her shirts off" She states with authority.

"Well, obviously... your mom is a stripper!" 

*SMACK*

They laugh and continue to riff about who is or is not a stripper.

They go off to work, planning to meet at a concert later that night.