Three for the City

July: Introductory Communications

Whether by accident or intention, Matt and Topher didn’t see much of each other for the first half of the new week. Matt wondered why he attempted to sleep each night because he didn’t get much on the couch. He worked hard not to be irritable, and found himself catching naps in the staff room during his breaks at work. It was almost pure happenstance that when one of his coworkers quit he was bumped from twenty-five hours a week to forty. The increase in his paycheck was lovely – or would be – but it was hell running on four hours of shut eye.

From the dark circles under Topher’s eyes, he wasn’t doing much better.

The cousins seemed to have reached an agreement of some sort, though they were unusually quiet. Matt figured Delia had been mostly forgiven, but clearly still on Topher’s shitlist.

Matt took every opportunity to talk to Topher when he was out of the sanctuary of the bedroom. Conversations about work, funny shit they saw on the subway, food, TV programs they both enjoyed, and about how Delia would surely ace her audition were the safe topics they kept to for fear of inciting another argument or awkward silence.

The other thing Matt made a point to do was tell Topher he loved him in a variety of languages, including but not limited to English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Swedish, Russian, and a memorably barked Chinese phrase which had Matt feeling ridiculous for hours.

Topher didn’t say anything in response to Matt’s declarations of love, but he had started to openly fight a smile. Matt considered it a win, and would happily take small victories when he could.

One would have thought with one less pillow on the bed it would feel bigger instead of smaller. Coupled with the fact that Matt’s side was losing Matt’s particular scent – an interesting mix of his cologne and body wash, something Topher could only describe as Matty – he was beginning to think sleeping alone really sucked.

Topher sighed, lying on his side and staring at the clock on Matt’s nightstand, the numbers large enough for his blind self to have a stab at seeing. One-thirty in the morning.

Fuck.

Another long night in a too-big bed that, no matter how tightly he curled, he couldn’t get warm. He missed Matt’s chest against his back and a leg between his own when he fell asleep. Waking up wasn’t easy, either, as there was no one to steal lazy, sleep-warm kisses from and nobody to attempt to cajole into a joint shower.

Twenty-three years old and he couldn’t even sleep alone anymore. He might find it pathetic if he wasn’t so damn miserable. Rearranging his pillow for the fifth time, not that he was counting, since he’d crawled in bed, he sighed. It wasn’t Matt’s physical presence he missed. He missed the pillow talk, random conversations, bad-taste jokes, and other miscellaneous shenanigans they got up to before they dropped off.

There was a thump on the bedroom door.

Topher froze, eyes peering through the darkness in that same direction. Maybe Fidget had gotten the bright idea of ramming the door, though it hadn’t worked the first ten times. Damn cat didn’t know when to quit.

Another thump followed by a tentative, “Toph? You awake?”

He pushed the sheets back and crawled out Matt’s side of the bed, toes curling at the coolness of the floorboards. He kept an arm’s length between him and the door to be on the safe side, though he knew Matt would respect the significance of it being closed without it being locked. Damn thing didn’t have a lock.

“Toph?” Matt’s voice was loud enough to carry through the door but not loud enough to wake Delia at the other end of the apartment or send the neighbors scurry for the phone to call the police.