"Hey, I know it's my turn to do laundry, but Ci got off early and asked if we could go get food..."
He bites into his lip as Awsten says the words, doesn't move his gaze from the TV and keeps pressing buttons on the controller in his hands. He tilts it to the side to make the little Mario on the screen veer left to avoid a falling boulder. "Can't you put the clothes in now? I'll get them later."
"I said I'd leave right now." He doesn't have to look up to know the smile on Awsten's face. The sheepish, half guilty but not really, 'I wanna hang out with my girlfriend and don't give a shit anything else' smile. "Sorry, Gee. I promise I'll do it the next two times to make up for it!"
There's a lot of rustling and he hears Awsten swear as something crashes to the floor. A door opens and shuts, and then the front door creaks open. Awsten leaves with a hurried 'love you!'. The door swings shut loudly behind him.
Geoff blinks up at the screen, feels liquid drip off his lashes and settle on his cheeks. He forces down a swallow and looks at the little map off to the right, his blinking icon with all the other characters eons ahead. As if that weren't enough, the little 12 in the corner says it all. He takes a heavy breath in, squeezes his eyes shut and keeps them closed for a few seconds, focuses on just inhaling and exhaling.
This isn't a new development. This has been happening for days, weeks, even. Awsten cancels plans or slacks on his chores or even forgets to pick him up from work because he's off spending more and more time with her.
He remembers that day.
His car was in the shop because it'd broken down the day before. He asked Awsten to be there at 5:30, texted him twice during the day to remind him about it. And Awsten texted back with eye-roll emojis, wondering why he had so much little faith in him.
And then the clock on his phone flipped to 6:00 and he was still standing outside the building, rain pouring down on his shoulders and his fringe plastered to his face, listening to Awsten's answering machine for probably the tenth time in twenty minutes.
