The Quarantine Diary of Adam Garrett [mxm]

Day 2

So today was the first day of true lockdown for Brad. Yesterday he ordered a ton of groceries, which gave him something to do today as he put them all away. He organized the dry food cupboard as he went. I didn't realize there was an optimal way to do that, but Brad apparently has it down to a science because of his warehouse job.

"Cans on the bottom shelf. Boxes on the middle shelf. Anything flimsier on the top shelf. This way, if there's an earthquake, there's less chance of something heavy falling a greater distance and hurting someone."

I didn't point out that the food cupboard is underneath the counter and the cans would only have a few inches to fall and that we'd probably have bigger fish to fry in an earthquake. It  seemed like he needed to be useful in some way.

The rest of the day was fine. I finished work, Brad made spaghetti for dinner, and we watched a movie. It was my choice, but I let Brad choose. He chose Goodfellas because, and I'm not joking, "I want to see some people get shot and beat up. Puts things in perspective."

Brad is weird.

He wasn't wrong, though. Goodfellas is the good kind of violent. Not enough to make you sick, but enough that you stay on the edge of your seat and keep your mind on the movie. Not on global pandemics, new roommates, or how your mom and dad are doing, nothing. When the movie was over I felt oddly refreshed, for someone who had just watched a bunch of people get murdered.

Plus Ray Liotta is pretty handsome. Very masculine. Brad kind of has that vibe. He's big and muscular. Not buff—no bulging biceps or rippling pecs, but definitely bigger than the average dude. He puts some work in, but he doesn't, like, live in the gym, which is even more impressive. If you spend five hours a day at the gym and you're huge, that's one thing, but if you're big with barely any effort, that's something else. He also takes care of his hair, shaves often, smells good... it's nice.

It's interesting to have someone around who's so different from me. Not that I'm femme, but I was definitely never a manly man. I'm a skinny nerd. Having Brad around feels like how it used to be when my brother, Joel, would have his friends around. I admired them so much, thought they were so cool. I wanted to be around them, but I was also scared of them. Worried they'd find out how much I liked them. Brad isn't like that. He's nothing but nice to me. He doesn't seem to know that I'm not like him, like Joel and his friends seemed to know instinctively.

When the movie was over, it was 11 p.m. As I took my last dishes to the sink, Brad stretched and said the day wasn't so bad.

"Basically like a long weekend. If I can just think of this whole thing like one long weekend, I can deal with that."

I told him yeah, he totally could. Made some generic remarks about how there's always something to do. He agreed.

Then we both kind of realized that we needed to use the bathroom at the same time. I grabbed my toothbrush and toothpaste and brushed in the kitchen, awkwardly, while Brad brushed in the bathroom. It reminded me of sleepovers at my cousin's house when I was a kid. It felt so weird to spit toothpaste into the kitchen sink.

One more friendly "goodnight" from Brad and then we both went to bed. I'm laying on my stomach in bed, writing this. I think Brad's asleep. I hope so. If he gets a good, long night of sleep, that'll be fewer hours he's awake and going crazy looking for something to do.