I Keep You Close

Roommate

Roommate. The word sits bitter on Aaron's tongue when his overly peppy mother asks how living with Andrew is. He lets out a puff of smoke from the cigarette between the fingers of his left hand. Andrew and what he is to Aaron simply cannot be encompassed in the word roommate. But it's the only word his mother will ever hear from his lips.

This seems to be the first of many yearly phone calls on his and Andrew's new rotary phone, and the thought of more makes Aaron inhale another long drag of his cigarette. He'd prefer if his mother ignored his existence like his father instead of just ignoring what she didn't want to hear.

"Mhm." The thud of Andrew's heavy platform boots against the warped wood of the apartment complex's hallway floor catches Aaron's attention. "Yeah Ma, but listen I really have to go now." Keys jingle on their way to the lock. "Yeah, of course, it was nice talking to you. Okay. Bye Ma." He hangs up as the front door opens. He takes another drag of his cigarette and the ash falls to the countertop where his elbows rest. It's an ugly pale duckling yellow, but it works.

Aaron stays there, elbows on the ugly duckling yellow countertop, and listens as his boyfriend, not his roommate, takes off his shoes and puts them neatly in the closet like he always does (too many memories of yelling and crashing and smashing when he didn't). He stubs out the remainder of his cigarette on said countertop and lets his head drop between his shoulders as he hears his boyfriend, not his roommate, walk up behind him.

Arms wrap around his waist and lips give a gentle kiss to the nape of his neck. Tears drip down his face. "Rough day?" And shoulders start to shake with teary laughter. His voice is thick with it too, when he answers.

"Mom called," he wipes his face with the sleeves of his black duster, "for my birthday."

"Oh baby," another kiss to the nape of his neck. "You know that I believe you right?" The teary laughter just turns into tears, hot and heavy against Aaron's cheeks and chin. It's the only response Andrew is going to get right now, these shoulder shaking sobs, but it's the only answer Andrew needs. The only one he's ever needed. He turns Aaron around, so that he can cry into the crook of his boyfriend's neck instead of that god-awful yellow countertop.

"I love you, my baby," Andrew whispers. "And I'm sorry that your family doesn't love you like you deserve, because you deserve the world my baby. The whole world."

When Aaron has stopped crying, he registers in the back of his mind, vaguely, that his ribs hurt. But that can be dealt with later. Right now, he needs to stay here, with his beautiful boyfriend, not roommate, next to this ugly-ass yellow countertop and hold him tight. "I'm sorry," he croaks. "I called you my roommate and you're not, you're my boyfriend and-"

"Stop saying sorry baby, I'm staying right here. You said what you said to keep yourself from fighting with your mom baby, I'm not mad." He kissed Aaron's head. "I would do the same thing in that situation, you're ok, just breathe."

Aaron took a shuddering breath in and released it. God he loved Andrew.

"God I love you." Andrew laughs.

"I'd hope so baby, otherwise this would be quite weird, wouldn't it?" And god, Aaron finds himself laughing with his boyfriend in their crappy kitchen next to the god-awful yellow countertop and smiling with him on a day that felt like he wouldn't be able to. Instead of trying to explain in words what he's thinking, because he knows he can't, he presses a smiling kiss onto his boyfriend's smiling lips. And Aaron knows his nose is plugged and his eyes are puffy and there are tear tracks on his face, but it's ok because it's a kiss that says thank you, I love you. And when it is broken, Andrew is still smiling.

"Happy seventeenth baby." And Aaron couldn't be happier than he was now, in this crappy kitchen with his forehead pressed against his boyfriend's.