The Quarantine Diary of Adam Garrett [mxm]

Day 8

Another crazy day. Who knew quarantine, being stuck in the same 1000 square feet 24/7, could be so exciting?

The second I opened my bedroom door Brad scrabbled for the remote to turn off the TV.

"Hi," he said, all bright and innocent. When I asked what he was watching, he told me, "Don't worry your pretty little head about it." In the shower, I couldn't stop grinning about that. I did wonder what he was watching, but after I'd settled down to work and heard the now-unmistakeable sound of coins hitting the floor, I realized he was watching magic trick videos. The coin-dropping sounds continued for most of the morning and after lunch, too, but they became less and less frequent.   

Soon I wasn't hearing them at all. Either he had given up or he had mastered the trick, and he didn't seem like the type to give up.

When I finally finished work, Brad was halfway through making a steak salad for dinner. As soon as I came out I offered to help, but he refused.

"Just sit at the bar here and talk to me," he said. "How's your ankle?"

I said it was fine. The bruise is still really tender, but the swelling is down and it doesn't really hurt to walk on. Once he was satisfied with this, he asked me about my day.

"I literally just sat at my desk and worked, like every other day. Very boring."

"What's that like?" he asked. "What are you working on? Who do you work with? Do you like them?"

I gave him a little summary of my team's current project and let myself complain about Ian, the weak link of the team who always lets me down.

"But that's enough about me," I said. "How was your day?"

"Nuh uh, no spoilers," he said. "Until I choose to reveal it, that's between me, myself, and I."

I said, "All right, Mr. Mysterio" and asked if he wanted to watch the news while we ate.

"Nah, it's so depressing. Maybe we could sit out on the balcony?" he suggested.

I almost never use the balcony. In the summer I open the sliding glass door and let the breeze in, but to be honestly, being up on the sixth floor kind of freaks me out.

I went with "We don't have chairs" as my excuse.

Brad said, "So? We can spread a blanket out and make a picnic of it!"

A guy wanting to have a picnic with me... I could brave sixth-floor air for that.

So we did: we spread one of the couch blankets on the balcony and brought our plates out there. Brad grabbed a bottle of wine, too. I went to grab glasses, but hesitated, because what if they spilled and fell over the side and we killed some poor hapless person down on the street?

So I asked him, "On a scale of one to ten, how germophobic are you?"

"Uh, like a five," he said. "Why?"

"Do you want to have to wash glasses and risk them falling over the edge, or do you want to just both drink out of the bottle?"

"Just bring the bottle. I'm sure your germs are delicious."

I laughed, but as I uncorked the bottle with my back turned to him, I let myself have a little swoony moment. Then I rearranged my face into a semblance of normalcy as I took the bottle of wine out onto the balcony.

He was right. It was nice out there. The sky was cloudy, but the sunset had stained it purple and it was strange and gorgeous. The rest of the view was kind of garbage—just the other buildings around us and the street below, but there were trees down there, and a little park across the street. The wind rustled the leaves and our hair and I kind of realized that I hadn't been outside in over a week. The last time I had felt the wind on my cheeks, I took it for granted. I didn't even remember ever really appreciating it, but when I felt it then a whole dumptruck of emotions landed on me and soon I was blinking tears out of my eyes. I tried my best not to let it show, but soon my chin was wobbling and my chest was tight and it was hard to draw in a breath.

Brad suddenly said, "Oh, hey, you've got something just here—" and reached toward my head. He drew his hand back, he was holding up a penny with triumph. He winked and said, "Penny for your thoughts?"

I smiled and laughed, because that was a) impressive, b) comforting, and c) really, really cute, but somehow being pleasantly surprised and simultaneously shot through the heart by Cupid's fucking arrow made my sadness more poignant. Then I was actually crying and speaking utter nonsense.

"I'm just thinking about how ungrateful I've always been toward Mother Nature and everything that's good outside and I miss trees and flowers and I don't know when I'm going to be able to see and touch them again." Something ridiculous like that.

Brad didn't laugh at me. He listened closely and said stuff to make me feel better, like, "It's okay. We all took things for granted. This isn't the end of the world. Soon this'll all be over and we'll be back to real life."

But the mention of real life freaked me out, because this... whatever we have going on, this friendship, this quickly burgeoning crush, isn't a part of real life. If we hadn't been forced into this confinement, we may have just continued forever as acquaintance-roommates who never did anything more than watch Netflix together every once in a while. There's no way, under normal circumstances, that he would be holding my foot in his lap, falling asleep on me, and spending the day learning a magic trick for me.

But since this is all as-yet unspoken, I couldn't just come out and tell him I'm afraid that all this would fade away once we're back to real life. Once Brad has his life outside this apartment back, all his energy won't be confined in here. What if I become boring once he has other options?

I have no other options. I have this apartment and my job and myself and I have no one to blame for that but myself.

"What if real life isn't that great, either?" I asked him, aware that I was doing the annoying thing again: hinting, contradicting myself, testing the grounds. I was terrified but I couldn't stop because I'm a total sleaze.

"I think I have an idea," he said. He took out his phone and typed and scrolled a lot.

"What?"

"It's a surprise." He grinned at me. "It'll be here tomorrow."

"I don't like surprises," I said, but Brad laughed.

"That's not true at all," he said. "I saw you smile at my coin trick, before you started crying about Mother Nature."

I laughed at that and told him I was impressed by both his skill and dedication.

"I'm just getting started," he said.

Then we went inside and watched a couple episodes of Arrested Development—so Brad could get some magician inspiration from Gob, of course—and passed the wine back and forth. The wine-passing was a great excuse to sit leaning against each other. As the level in the bottle got lower and I started to feel warm and heavy and tingly, I let my leg fall until it was resting against Brad's. He didn't flinch, didn't move away. In fact, after he finished his swig of wine, he squeezed my knee.

"How's your ankle?" he asked, for the fourth time that day.

Like a slightly intoxicated individual, I said, "Fine. Your's?"

He laughed. As we watched a couple more episodes of the show, he kept his on my knee. Not on it—it rested on his thigh, but his knuckles were touching me, and every once in a while he brushed them across my knee. Like he was reminding himself that I was there. Reminding me that he was there. It was the most comforting thing I'd felt in... god, forever, and definitely the nicest thing since this whole quarantine nightmare started.

When I think about it now, I want to cry all over again.

We went to bed after that, brushing our teeth in the bathroom at the same time. In my tipsy state, I was contemplating doing something drastic. I don't know what I would have done, with my mouth full of toothpaste, but I wanted to do something he couldn't misinterprete in any way. Then, as usual, as soon as I was alone I felt like a pervert. I could just picture his eyes going wide in disgust and him pushing me away. I had seen that look before. I knew it well.

But the slightly drunk knee stroking... I would never, ever do that to someone I wasn't interested in, no matter how drunk I was. And I don't even think Brad was all that drunk—he's bigger than me, so half a bottle of wine would hit him differently.

How are we going to face each other tomorrow without acknowledging this?