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“Oh,” says Neil one day through a mouthful of toothbrush. “I forgot to tell you.”
Andrew glances at him from where he’s standing across the adjacent mirror in the bathroom. They visit each other often enough that when Neil first signed the lease for this apartment, he had noted the double vanity as a plus. “Finish brushing your teeth first.”
Neil spits into the sink—his sink. Because there are two of them. Then he reaches for a towel and says, “Jean called me the other day. Said that Jeremy proposed to him. They’re getting married.”
Andrew watches him as he dutifully wipes at the corners of his mouth and then along the length of his fingers. “Oh?”
“Yeah,” says Neil. “I think the wedding’s in a few months. Before the season starts. I don’t know. Should we go?”
“Do you want to?” Andrew asks, tilting his head. He already knows what the answer is.
“Well, they are our teammates,” says Neil with a shrug. “And Jean is…well. In any case, if we have the time, we should try to go, I think. If you want to.”
Andrew thinks about it, and when he decides there’s no real reason for him to disagree, he simply nods and goes back to washing his hands. He knows that Neil would want to be at Jean’s wedding. He wouldn’t take that away from him.
Andrew’s not particularly shocked regarding the news about Jeremy and Jean. Their first Court practice together was just last month, and he had noted the antsy look on Jeremy’s face for all of their time off the court. At one point, he had dragged Kevin aside to talk about something while Jean was distracted berating Neil for a particularly aggressive pass during the scrimmage—clearly, he had come a long way while playing for the Trojans—and Andrew had watched with just the mildest flicker of interest as Kevin’s usual sunny smile directed at all things Jeremy-related quickly turned into a look of shock, then concern, then smiling approval.
“I’m kind of surprised,” says Neil as he clambers into bed next to Andrew.
“About them getting married?”
“No,” says Neil. Andrew holds up his arm in invitation, and he watches as Neil’s expression turns softer before he settles against his side. “I just didn’t think the whole…big grand wedding thing was really Jean’s style.”
“Jeremy, then,” says Andrew, gently drawing a circle against Neil’s elbow.
Neil’s lips twist thoughtfully. “Do you think so? Jean told me that Laila is planning everything. Something about her not trusting Jeremy or Jean with something so important.” A pause. A faint grin tugs at the corners of his mouth. “I think it’s funny. I can’t wait to see what Jean thinks about whatever she’s doing.”
Then he hums happily, reaching over Andrew and flicking off the lamplight. Quickly, the bedroom is bathed in darkness, and Neil is wrapping himself around Andrew’s waist and breathing quietly against the crook of his neck.
“I missed you,” he says after a few minutes have passed. It’s so quiet that Andrew barely hears it. “I wish we could have this all the time.”
Andrew’s grip on Neil tightens involuntarily. He thinks back to just a few hours ago, when he had landed at Boston Logan and found Neil waiting for him in arrivals, a thin mask wrapped around the front of his face and a worn hoodie with the Bears logo across his chest. He thinks about the unsigned contract sitting prettily in his email. He thinks about this apartment in the heart of Cambridge with two sinks in the bathroom. He thinks about Sir and King curled up in the corner of the room, sleeping soundly against each other.
“Sleep,” he mutters instead of voicing any of that, and Neil’s responding huff has the corners of his lips twitching upward.
He doesn’t bring it up until the next morning, when Neil is rummaging around the kitchen in his boxers and Andrew’s t-shirt, and Andrew is sitting on the island nursing a cup of hot chocolate to his chest.
He’s been thinking about how to say this for a few weeks now, debating whether or not he should just do it over text, or over call, or over one of their scuffed little video chats. Eventually he decided that it would be best to leave it for the next time they saw each other in person—which, of course, happens to be right now.
He puts his mug down and stares at Neil’s back. “I’m transferring,” he says as evenly as possible.
Immediately, Neil goes still. Then he spins around with wide eyes. “What?”
“I’m transferring,” says Andrew again in the exact same tone.
“What are you talking about?” says Neil, still painfully frozen in place. He looks disbelieving. He looks charred and hopeful and breathless. “Andrew, what do you mean you’re transferring?”
“That’s exactly what I mean,” says Andrew. “It’s been in the works for a bit, but I have an offer now. I got it two days ago.”
“For?” Neil’s voice is more quiet than he’s ever heard it before.
Andrew just barely manages to not roll his eyes. “For the Boston Bears, idiot, what else?”
Neil’s eyes go impossibly wide, and his mouth opens as if on autopilot. Then it closes, and then it opens again. Andrew thinks about the double vanity. He thinks about their matching sets of keys, the flight tickets he’s booked to spend a lone weekend across the country when the blanket of the world turns just a little too weighted—when the threat of an airplane and thousands of miles dulls in comparison to the way Neil molds completely against him when they reunite in his apartment, tucked away in their little corner of the universe.
He thinks about the wedding invitation from Jean Moreau, how Neil would never expect to have something like that for himself. Marriage. They have never talked about it before. Andrew supposes that Neil assumes he does not want it, and he would be right. He thinks.
“Oh,” says Neil then, finally, as Andrew’s gaze brushes magnetically across his face. “I—” He takes a step closer, and then another as Andrew’s knees part to make room for him. Neil walks as if he is in a trance, his smile widening further and further until they are no more than a hairbreadth away and Neil is bringing his hands up until the tips of his fingers graze over Andrew’s jaw in silent question.
“Yes,” says Andrew, guttural, as his hands fists into the front of Neil’s shirt, pulling him in and pressing their mouths roughly together. “Yes,” something compels him to say again as Neil whines against his teeth, his arms looping desperately around Andrew’s neck and threading his fingers through the blond of his hair.
An ache shaped like relief settles into Andrew’s skin as Neil kisses him harder, and harder, and harder. When he breaks away, the blue of his eyes is wild like a glittering sheet of ocean, sunlight flicking over the surface like water pebbles.
“Three years,” Neil says, and Andrew knows what he means. Three years of playing professionally on different teams in the eastern conference together, four years of a long distance relationship. Three years of waiting for an impossible offer, a double transfer to a team that could afford the both of them, or Andrew to Boston, or Neil to Atlanta. All of it was for this point, right now, right here. “Do you think we should get a bigger place?”
Andrew makes a show of looking around the one bedroom apartment. “Sir and King could have their own room.”
“Or we could move to the suburbs and get a house.”
A house. Andrew turns the idea around in his mind, over and over and over until it’s nothing more than a smear of the yellow future and commitment and the two of them building a life they both once thought was impossible together. A house together in the suburbs of Boston, Massachusetts, signed first string to a team where they can play on the same side of the court, one set of keys shared between them instead of two.
He nods faintly. He knows Neil sees it. “Let’s see,” he says quietly as the improbability of his life begins to sink its fangs into his gut. “For now, take your clothes off and go back to the bed.”
Neil tilts his head. “You won’t take them off for me? So ungentlemanly.”
Andrew slips down off the counter as Neil grins devilishly down at him. Andrew catches the end of the world between his fingers and pulls its sweet, sunset mouth against his teeth.
Andrew flies back to Atlanta after his long weekend with Neil and begins to prepare for the off season and his move to Boston. They’re going to stay in Neil’s double vanity apartment for the foreseeable future, and once Andrew is finished settling in, they’re going to venture to open houses in Bedford and Waltham and Lexington and Burlington. Neil says that he’ll give Jean a call soon, since Laila Dermott might randomly have realtor connections from California to Massachusetts. Andrew, for some reason, doesn’t doubt that.
Then, on Friday, he climbs into his car and drives five hours to Charleston.
The Medical University of South Carolina’s campus is easy enough to find. The tiny apartment complex streets away is a little more difficult, but Andrew parks the car in the small lot with no preamble and, without thinking any more about it, hops out and makes his way up to the third floor.
He stands in front of the door at the very end of the hallway. Then he rings the doorbell, and a few seconds later, the door opens with a flash of red.
Katelyn’s eyes go so wide, it’s a wonder how they’re still in their sockets. Andrew flicks her a bored look, waiting for her shock to settle. Her brows furrow, but she calls over her shoulder, “Babe, come here for a second.”
And then Andrew is looking at his mirror image. Aaron’s eyes also go so wide, it’s a wonder how they’re still in their sockets. Remarkably, though, Aaron’s jaw also drops practically to the floor.
“What the fuck, Andrew—”
Andrew holds up his car keys. “Is there a mall somewhere around here?”
“What the hell are you doing here—”
“Great, let’s go,” says Andrew, already pivoting away from the doorway.
He can hear Aaron sputtering in shock behind him, but he doesn’t stop to check if he’s following. He knows he is. In all four years after Aaron and Katelyn got married upon graduation and were admitted to MUSC, Andrew has not stepped foot in this part of the state. During his first year playing for Atlanta, he only ever went to see Neil at PSU, and even then, Neil was the one who ended up driving to Georgia more often than Andrew did to South Carolina.
Still, they’ve tried to keep in touch. Monthly—sometimes bi-monthly—video chats that last for all of five minutes, where they’ll stare at each other for a few seconds and Aaron will make a quip like seriously, Andrew, nothing? and Andrew will shrug and Aaron will sigh and resign himself to telling one vague story before they hang up about medical school or the doctor he’s shadowing at the hospital or the dining hall’s god awful clam chowder.
He knows Aaron is doing well enough, studying to become a neurosurgeon alongside Katelyn, who is now his wife. Despite himself, Andrew does manage to be in the room when Neil is on a Skype call with Nicky, who almost always seems to know exactly what all of the original Foxes are up to despite living in an entirely different continent: Renee is with the peace corps, Kevin has a daughter now and plays for the Houston Stars with Thea, Allison plays for the Los Angeles Lions with Jean and Jeremy, and Matt and Dan are currently in Tennessee, where Matt plays for the Nashville Nightingales and Dan coaches little league exy.
Andrew thinks about all of this, tapping his index finger idly against the steering wheel of his car, not starting at all when the passenger door flies open to reveal a disgruntled-looking Aaron.
Aaron huffs before climbing onto the seat. Andrew wastes no time in shifting the gear and speeding away.
“Next right,” Aaron mutters. “Get on the highway. Fourth exit. You’ll see the mall as long as you have working eyes. What the fuck are you doing here, Andrew? News flash, my graduation isn’t until next month.”
Obviously Andrew knows this. Still, he says, “You’re graduating?”
Aaron mumbles what sounds like yet another string of profanities under his breath. He evidently opts for the rest of the car ride to be spent in silence, which Andrew is profoundly okay with. They drive until his working eyes spot the mall, and then minutes later, they’re parking outside the food court entrance and trailing inside. Aaron is staring at Andrew warily, as if he is going to explode into a thousand little pieces at any second. As if he is going to turn on him and sprout ridiculous wings and procure a magic trick that makes pigs fall out the sky. Honestly, Andrew doesn’t know if that’s not even an accurate assessment of whatever the fuck is currently going on in his head right now.
Perhaps a ticking bomb really is the only explanation for this stroke of madness. This stroke of madness that landed him in a shopping mall in bumbfuck South Carolina with his twin brother who he hasn’t spent any meaningful time alone with since they sat next to each other during their college therapy sessions.
They walk around in silence for a little while, Andrew glancing at each and every store they pass. Then, suddenly, he sees it.
“A fucking jewelry store?” says Aaron, staring dumbfoundedly up at the glowing sign. Andrew ignores him entirely in favor of going inside.
“Good afternoon!” says the store attendant, all peppy, chipper smiles and blinding white teeth. Andrew dislikes her immediately. “How may I help you?”
“I’m looking for an engagement ring,” says Andrew.
Promptly, Aaron dissolves into a sputtering, coughing fit.
“Oh, how wonderful!” says the attendant as she walks over to the display cases full of glittering diamonds, clearly too well-versed in the art of customer service to make any note of Aaron’s current state. Is he choking? Hm.
“Andrew, what the fuck?” Aaron hisses—decidedly not choking, then.
“How long have you and your partner been together for?” the woman asks, chasing small talk as she fiddles around with a nearby pile of pamphlets. Elisa, reads her name tag.
Normally, Andrew wouldn’t bother answering such a stupid question. Unfortunately, Aaron standing next to him in a jewelry store is not a normal occurrence, so.
“Nine years,” he says evenly as Elisa spreads out a few sheets of different ring styles on the glass in front of him.
“That’s so wonderful,” she smiles. “Do you have a design you’re looking for in particular?”
Andrew turns to look at Aaron.
Aaron stares back at him. “What?”
Andrew looks at him harder.
“Are you fucking serious right now?” says Aaron, and then, “Did you seriously come all the way to South Carolina, not to see me, but to drag me to go with you and buy a fucking engagement ring for Josten? And, above all, you don’t even know what the hell you’re doing?”
“Yes,” says Andrew. “You’re married, aren’t you?”
“So is Matt!” Aaron scoffs. “So is Nicky! So is Kevin, even!”
Andrew squints at him. “Are you usually this stupid?”
“Are you usually this stupid?” Aaron throws back, but it comes after a moment’s delay, and something in his expression has hardened, settled. Even years of estrangement haven’t quelled the myth of twin telepathy, or whatever it is people call it. Andrew supposes this is something Aaron would get hung up on—the fact that Andrew chose him, out of everyone else, to help him with something so dangerously life altering.
Then, through gritted teeth, Aaron says, “Fine,” and takes a step forward. Andrew watches as he squints down at the different jewels. “I got a marquise cut for Kate. This one.” He points to one of the elongated rocks. “I already knew that was the design she wanted, so. Do you.” A pause. Aaron’s face twists through several expressions with varying degrees of disgust. “Well. Do you know what sort of ring he wants?”
“No,” says Andrew.
“What do you mean, no? How the fuck are you out here ring shopping when you don’t even know what kind of ring he wants in the first place?”
“Well he doesn’t want that,” says Andrew, pointing to the marquise.
Aaron’s eye twitches. “Do you even know his fucking ring size?” he snaps.
“He doesn’t wear rings,” says Andrew.
“Okay,” says Aaron. “Okay. Okay—just—okay. Fuck off, Andrew. Just fuck off.”
“If I may,” comes the squeak of Elisa’s tiny voice. Andrew, who had honestly forgotten she was even there, turns to look at her. “Your…husband?” Andrew ignores the heat that suddenly flares up the curve of his spine. “He can always get the ring resized later, if it doesn’t fit. The most common sizes for men are nine and ten. I can show you both, and perhaps you can make a guess as to which would be the better fit?”
“Fine,” says Andrew, waving his hand out in front of him.
When Elisa disappears to the back of the store, Aaron rounds on Andrew. “Are you seriously going to fucking propose?”
Andrew doesn’t answer. Aaron, obviously, will take this as him being difficult. The truth, however, is that Andrew hasn’t thought that far.
Which is quite possibly the stupidest reality of his life. Andrew is not an impulsive person. Andrew is not someone who wakes up one morning and decides to drive across state lines to abduct his brother into helping him buy a ring to propose to Neil with. He doesn’t even know if he’s going to propose to Neil in the first place. He doesn’t know if he can.
A deal, he thinks. Marriage is yet another deal. And Andrew is carved from promises and his word a permanent brand between the chasm of two bodies. There have been no deals between him and Neil for years, that part of their lives starting with thank you and ending with you were amazing. Dying alongside Nathaniel. A deal is a means to an end, something to uphold a life that no longer wants to live.
Andrew wants to live. He does. He knows he does, and he wants to live with Neil. He doesn’t need a piece of paper to prove that. Andrew’s devotion is so much more vicious than anything a court of law could defend.
When Elisa returns, it is with an array of different-sized rings. Andrew takes one look at them before knowing exactly which one will fit.
He buys a plain band of gold and props it inside the thick velvet case. Neil doesn’t like rings. He doesn’t like the way metal feels against his scars. Andrew thinks that if he gives Neil this ring, Neil will wear it like an oath. Still, before he leaves, he buys a chain too—one just long enough where the ring can fit as a pendant and be tucked beneath the collar of a shirt.
“So,” says Aaron as the two climb back into Andrew’s car. “When are you going to do it?”
“I’m not,” says Andrew, shifting the gear to reverse.
Aaron turns. He gapes. “You just spent thousands of dollars on that ugly ring, and you’re not even going to give it to him?”
Andrew shrugs. “Maybe I’ll hide it somewhere. Like a game. If he finds it, we’ll get married.”
“You’re not serious,” says Aaron.
“No,” says Andrew, shrugging. “But that would be funny, wouldn’t it?”
Boston is shaped in shades of blue. Navy and royal and cyan and summer sky. Neil has lived here for three years. Andrew has lived here in patches of three years. Somehow, when the movers are hauling his boxes in through the front door of Neil’s apartment, that blue turns murky and shifts into something much more akin to home.
Kevin flies in from Texas to help him move in, which is so deeply unsettling that Andrew doesn’t believe any of his messages until he finds Kevin standing in the doorway a few hours later, a thin mask covering the bottom half of his face. His fingers clutch the handle of a plain black bag. Andrew stares down at it, unimpressed.
“Last time you showed up with a suitcase in front of me, you said you ran away from the Nest and would now be living in South Carolina,” Andrew deadpans.
Kevin rolls his eyes. “Let me in.”
“Are you running away again, Day?”
Kevin flinches. This time, it is Andrew who rolls his eyes.
“What the fuck?” says Neil when he notices them. He looks at Kevin, then at Andrew, then back at Kevin, then back at Andrew. “He was being serious?”
“That’s what I said,” says Andrew, sidestepping to allow Kevin to walk inside. Kevin does so with a grunt, and as Andrew chucks the door closed with his foot, he says, “Bit far from your wife and kid, aren’t you?”
Kevin rolls his sleeves up. “How can I help?”
He looks so determined, so eager for a distraction from whatever the hell is haunting his life right now since he can’t just drown himself in a bottle of vodka anymore. He quit drinking the moment Thea told him she was pregnant, and little Amalia has probably never even seen the glint of a bottle of alcohol in her short existence thus far.
Andrew’s gaze flicks over to one of the unopened boxes currently littering the living room. He points at it and says, “Start there.”
So Kevin nods and gets to work.
Neil raises his eyebrows at Andrew, who just shrugs and makes his way back to where he was unboxing a brand new set of imported kitchen knives.
“Ow!” Kevin yelps, which means Neil probably kicked him, or something. “What the hell is your problem?”
“Can you say yeehaw, partner? Allison asked me to get it on video the next time I see you for her Instagram, or something.”
“Oh fuck off, Neil.”
“She also said you can go to California so she can get it herself.” A pause. “I’d prefer that, by the way. I don’t want a video of you on my phone.”
Andrew remembers a binder from nine years ago and thinks that that’s a bit of an ironic statement, but he digresses.
“We’ll all be in California next month,” Kevin mutters, procuring a pile of towels from the cardboard box. There’s a slight lull, and then, “You do think it’s okay, right? Them getting married and all.”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” says Neil. “You’re married too. Maybe you should have thought about that before having a child.”
“I got it cleared before I proposed,” says Kevin. “They didn’t.”
Neil huffs. “I told Jean they don’t need to, it’s fine.”
Finally, Andrew looks back over his shoulder and finds the both of them hunched over the box as they talk. Neil is rifling through the items inside, and Kevin has stopped to fiddle idly with the flap and glance warily at him.
Neil continues, “I told you that you didn’t need to do all of that either, you know. He doesn’t care about our personal lives as long as we get him his check, and Jean needs to separate himself from all of this. It’s not his problem. He can’t relapse, and a conversation with Ichirou will do nothing else. There’s no need to give it more importance than it needs. Andrew and I have practically been married for years and it’s never been a problem.”
Andrew freezes. His jaw works. He knows Kevin is looking at him now, but he only has eyes for Neil.
Andrew and I have practically been married for years. Andrew and I have practically been married for years. Neil has already moved on, poking at Kevin for something or the other else, but Andrew has stopped in motion, like he’s paralyzed, like the phantom weight of the ring sitting in the bottom of the bathroom drawer has traveled to fuse its mass to every inch of skin and bone. For a moment, he thinks Neil knows, thinks this is his idea of a joke, or something. But that thought disperses just as quickly as it comes, because Andrew knows Neil.
He turns back around and looks down at the knives and wonders how sharp a blade has to be to cleave a beating heart into two, wonders if it would be enough to cease the incessant thudding against his ears. For one dark, fleeting moment, he sees it: slipping that glint of gold onto Neil’s fourth finger, vena amoris leading upwards to the most concrete proof of his life there is. Right there. The heart that Andrew unwittingly began to cradle in his palms nine years ago, when promises between them meant so much less but also so much more.
Andrew chokes against the strength of his devotion and allows it to clog his throat. It engulfs him in its entirety, rearing its ugly mouth open and capturing the object of his desires between its teeth. Would Neil thrash around? Would he rip his own skin off in an attempt to break away? How far would the mouth go to keep him there? Would Andrew let Neil go if one day he asked him to?
Of course he would. Of course he would. Shut up, stupid head. Stupid stupid head. You’re here in Boston and you transferred to a brand new team to be with Neil and he wants you. He wants you. Yes means yes and no means no and it’s always yes with you. I’ll answer it as many times as you ask but this is always going to be yes.
But this is more than kisses and it might be more than sex. They worked up to sex. Andrew doesn’t know if they can work up to marriage. Andrew doesn’t know if he can work up to—to getting down and fucking proposing or, or—how the fuck do people even propose? How the hell is he supposed to do this? Kevin booked out Thea’s favorite restaurant in Houston for dinner and did it after dessert. Matt did it on a beach in Florida when he and Dan were on vacation together. Aaron did it at his dorm in fifth year, when he littered the living room with rose petals and lit candles to dance light across the marquise diamond he offered to her on one knee.
Andrew doesn’t care about any of that. He knows Neil doesn’t either. Andrew and I have practically been married for years. Is that true? When did Andrew hypothetically propose in the scatter of Neil’s memories? Where exactly does years begin for him?
Then, suddenly, a scarred left hand comes into view between Andrew’s eyes and the platter of abandoned knives on the counter, and Andrew thinks oh, the ring would go there, right there, right next to that knuckle, that one, yes, that one.
“—drew, Andrew.” Yes. That’s Neil. That’s Neil, stupid Neil, and Andrew hates him. Andrew hates him so much he can barely breathe with it. “Andrew. Look at me.”
Andrew stares blankly down at Neil’s bare fourth finger. Then he looks up at Neil’s scarred face, his deep blue eyes that stand out even against the summer horizon of this godforsaken city, and he wonders yet again if he knows about the ring tucked away in the bottom drawer of the double vanity.
One more surprise, Abram. I think I want to marry you.
“I’m fine,” says Andrew, and his throat itches. His devotion’s claws threaten to spring forth and cage Neil in and swallow the key until it’s nothing more than dust and ash. Disintegrated into space and black matter. Where Neil can never find it, not even if he spends the entirety of the rest of his life looking.
Kevin stays for three days. It’s obvious that something is going on—Andrew is a lot of things, but he isn’t fucking stupid. Still, he doesn’t press. If Kevin wants to tell them about whatever hell is overtaking in his personal life, then he will, though Andrew knows he won’t. Not right now, at least. Not until whatever has his eyebrows creasing as he looks down at his phone and sinks his teeth into his bottom lip is resolved.
Andrew doesn’t fight Kevin’s battles for him anymore. Though he thinks that if Kevin asks him to, he might just consider it for more than a few fleeting seconds.
Perhaps it’s sentiment. Andrew doubts it.
Regardless, Kevin stays for three days. He stuffs himself onto the living room couch and has the decency to at least wake up a little earlier to make the three of them breakfast that Andrew barely touches in favor of the pancake mix Neil made sure to buy during his last grocery run. Kevin glares at him profusely for it, but Andrew doesn’t really care about what Kevin thinks of his nutritional habits. So.
Luckily for everyone, Kevin also sleeps like the fucking dead, so Andrew has no problem locking himself and Neil in their bedroom—the one they now permanently share—and pushing him firmly down on the bed—their bed, now—and running his hands over his bare skin and kissing him until he is breathless and pliant beneath him.
That first night, Andrew’s arms twist around the curve of Neil’s head, caging him in and hovering steadily over him. He doesn’t break eye contact as he pushes inside, and Neil moans a breathy promise against Andrew’s lips as his arms splay outward against the mattress, his chin tilting up toward the ceiling and Andrew’s name chanting out of his mouth like a prayer.
This is new, too. They haven’t been able to not worry about flight details and filling the gas tanks of their cars since Andrew was in his fifth year at Palmetto. Now Andrew falls asleep and Neil hooks a gentle arm over his spiderweb ribcage to pull his back against his chest. Now Neil slips away for his morning run without waking Andrew up because he knows it isn’t time lost, because he can come back and Andrew will still be there, waiting for him, his suitcase locked away and out of sight and never to be seen again until they head across the country to California.
They book those tickets together too, two first class seats side by side instead of meeting at LAX from their Boston and Atlanta flights respectively. Neil’s eyes crinkle as he turns to him, and Andrew nods, and then their hands are loosely intertwining under the stray blanket swept over their legs tangled together, sweat-stained.
“Renee’s gonna be there,” Neil murmurs against Andrew’s neck before bed a day before their flight, his palm digging just a bit tighter into the curve of Andrew’s naked waist. Andrew’s fingers draw light circles in Neil’s hair.
Before Andrew went pro and the two of them still lived together in their college dorm, this physical aspect of their relationship was just the sex, mostly. Light touches here and there, casual brushes of knuckles as they passed one another in the locker room, nightly rendezvous on the rooftop where Neil would sometimes light a lone cigarette for the acrid smell and Andrew, having quit during his third year, would lean against his hands and stare out aimlessly onto the campus below their hanging feet.
It was only after Andrew moved to Atlanta and the distance between them turned from a few constant feet to a two hour drive away that Neil’s touches would turn more desperate when they reunited after weeks and months apart.
And then it was like that every time—the gravitational pull turning them towards each other shifting to form a magnet sitting heavily in their throats. And Andrew had lost before. He had loved and he’d lost and nothing had ever been the same but somehow, this was different. Different because Neil would call him every night and send pictures of his meals to Andrew’s phone and take videos of Robin’s nimble footwork in the goal that Andrew would wake up to and pore over.
They had tried phone sex once but stopped when Andrew was half-hard and gripping his arousal and Neil was sitting there and huffing and trying to focus. I miss you, Neil had whispered instead, and Andrew’s knees had come up to press into his chest as he curled up like a shrimp in the middle of his bed one hundred and twenty miles away. I’m sorry. Andrew, I’m sorry. I just wish you were here.
Me too, Andrew had thought. Me too. Come here. Fuck this. It’s not the same. When has it ever not been the same?
“She’s Jean’s friend,” he says now as Neil turns even impossibly closer against his side. Their bodies slot together like puzzle pieces, just as they always have. “Of course she’s going to be at his wedding.”
Andrew had thought, briefly, that maybe now that they are living together again, that desperate need for each other would lessen, even just a little bit. But it’s been weeks and Andrew thinks that if Neil stops touching him right now, if he rolls away and decides he wants to sleep with his back to him instead, the world might just end as Andrew knows it.
“Mm. You haven’t seen her in a while,” says Neil.
“You haven’t seen her for the exact same amount of time.”
Neil smiles. Andrew can feel the curve of it against his skin. “Are you excited?”
“It’s Renee.”
“Renee is objectively your best friend.”
“Who’s yours? Jean Moreau?”
“No,” Neil snorts. “Obviously it’s Matt.”
“Not Kevin?”
“Don’t even joke about that, Andrew.” A pause. “Is Kevin your best friend?”
“For someone who doesn’t like jokes, you make a lot of good ones.”
“Can you believe your two best friends are both people I thought you were into at some point?”
“Go to sleep, Neil.”
“I’m not sleepy.”
“I’m sleepy. So let me sleep.”
“No,” says Neil, and then he props himself up and immediately Andrew feels the loss of his warmth like a bucket of ice. It’s replaced almost instantly with Neil’s elbows spreading over Andrew’s chest, his chin digging into his wrists as he stares down at him with that faint twinkle in his eyes. “Are you going to be okay tomorrow? Six hour plane ride.”
“Thanks for reminding me,” Andrew deadpans. “It isn’t as if I’ve flown over to see you so many times within the past three years.”
“That’s because you hate me,” says Neil, grinning.
Andrew nods diplomatically. “At least you know. Four thousand percent, at least.”
“I thought you stopped counting five years ago.”
“I’m always counting, you just can’t see it.”
Neil squints at him. “I can see it.”
Andrew squints back. “Can you?”
“Yeah,” Neil says. “Four thousand one, four thousand two, four thousand three—”
“So you think you’re doing something worth the percentage going up right now, and yet.”
“Am I right?” If it’s possible, Neil’s grin is widening now. “What am I doing?”
“Keeping me from sleep,” says Andrew. “I’m going to need it so I can spend the plane ride tomorrow comfortably freaking out.”
“For someone who doesn’t like jokes, you make a lot of—”
“I like jokes, have you met me?” Andrew interrupts. And then, because maybe the night’s high has truly taken him for a whirl, he adds, “Ha ha.”
Neil laughs into the open air above them, and the corners of Andrew’s lips quirk, ever so slightly. “That’s true,” Neil acquiesces with a hum. “After all, your nothing is with me, and as we all know, I am very funny.”
“What you just said is the only thing that’s funny.”
“Thank you,” says Neil, and then he flops back over Andrew’s chest. Seconds later, he’s asleep, a bare rumble against Andrew’s clavicle. Andrew barely manages to not roll his eyes before following him down under, as always.
“You know,” says Neil conversationally as he tugs on the collar of his black shirt. “This is the fifth wedding I’m going to and I still don’t think I’m used to all of this.”
From across the hotel room, Andrew raises an eyebrow. “You did not wear a suit to Aaron’s wedding.”
“Yeah, because he’s a dick,” says Neil.
“You didn’t wear one to Nicky’s either.”
“Because Nicky’s wedding was a glorified rave,” says Neil, and, well, he’s not wrong. “I wore one to Kevin and Thea’s and Dan and Matt’s, though.”
“You are impossible,” Andrew informs him. “I hate you.”
“I know,” Neil smiles, tilts his head, and Andrew smothers the urge to kiss him because Neil popped one of the buttons off of his shirt half an hour ago and Andrew spent ages trying to figure out how to work a sewing needle and because of all of this they’re already fifteen minutes late.
So they straighten up and do not have a quickie on the very inviting-looking king size mattress and make their way over to where the ceremony is being held. Kevin finds them immediately, looking frazzled even though not a single hair on his head is out of place, and Andrew greets him with a raised eyebrow.
“Hi,” says Kevin.
“What?” says Neil.
“I can’t find Lia,” says Kevin.
“You lost your daughter,” says Andrew.
“I didn’t lose her, I just—” Kevin cuts himself off, pinches the crease of his brows between his fingers and inhales deeply. “I’m a terrible father.”
“That’s probably not true, right?” says Neil, looking at Andrew.
“Hm,” says Andrew.
“She was literally right next to me two seconds ago,” says Kevin, looking frantically around the area again. Andrew takes a cursory glance too, and immediately, he spots something in the corner of one of the rows of seats. “I can’t believe this. What if she’s in trouble? What if someone—”
“She’s right there,” says Andrew, pointing across the yard, and immediately Kevin spins around to follow his line of sight.
Allison’s eyes find them quickly, her arms wrapped around little Amalia, who is smiling and poking insistently at her left cheek. Instantly, Kevin’s entire demeanor relaxes, and he hurries over to extract Amalia from Allison, who looks on with a raised eyebrow.
“I’ve said it before, Day, but I’ll say it again,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest as Andrew and Neil walk up to them. “Your daughter is objectively the best thing about you. I can’t believe something so cute is filled with your DNA.”
“Shut the fuck up, Allison,” says Kevin, and then his eyes go wide and he quickly covers Amalia’s ears. “She didn’t hear that, did she?”
“She’s two,” says Allison.
“Two!” says Amalia, holding up two chubby little fingers.
“Formative years,” Kevin presses.
“Neil, Andrew,” says Allison, standing up, grinning now. Her pale pink dress shimmers beneath the Californian sun, her sleek blonde hair falling loosely over her shoulders. “I was wondering when you’d get here. I was going to go over and say hi when I saw you guys come in but then someone’s lost kid waddled over to me and stole all my attention.”
Kevin glares at her. Allison ignores him.
“Papa, go,” Amalia frowns, making grabby hands at Allison’s face.
Kevin sighs as Allison gleefully holds her hands out, then deposits Amalia back into her arms. “I can’t believe she likes you,” he mutters.
“Well, I’m not her father losing her in the middle of a crowded wedding,” says Allison primly, bopping Amalia’s nose and smiling when she giggles in response. “Come on, Lia, I’ll take you to find a good seat. We’re going to watch Uncle Jean and Uncle Jeremy get married! Neil, come find me later. My brand’s about to put out a new line of running shorts and I want you to model them. Just seems fitting, no? Andrew, you come too. I know you don’t ever take anything but ice cream sponsorships but you should still see what you’re missing out on.”
And then she pirouettes away in a whoosh of pink and blonde.
“What the fuck?” says Neil.
“She’s retiring next year,” says Kevin, staring after her. “She’s going to move full time into working on her sports brand.”
“Retiring?” says Neil, his eyes going wide. “But she’s barely thirty! And she’s—she has to have at least a few more years left.”
Kevin shrugs. “I don’t know. She might want to settle down. Get married.”
“Get married,” Neil echoes.
“Wedding fever?” Kevin supplies.
“Wedding fever,” Neil echoes again.
“You know,” says Kevin, waving a vague hand out in front of him. “When everyone around you is getting engaged or married, so you want to do it too?”
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard in my life,” says Neil. Andrew stays quiet, but he glances sidelong to look at him properly. “You shouldn’t get married just because other people are doing it, what? Allison isn’t like that. You know that. She’s not even seeing anyone.”
Kevin nods slowly. “I’ll ask her about it later.” Then, as if the words have struck something, his expression flattens. “I have to sit next to her during the ceremony anyway, now that she’s taken monopoly over my daughter.”
“Where’s Thea?” Andrew drawls, making a show of looking around.
Kevin’s expression shutters, and he looks away. “She twisted her ankle during practice a few days ago. Lia still wanted to come with me, and you know I can’t miss Jean’s wedding.”
“Oh shit,” says Neil, frowning. “Is she okay?”
“She’ll be fine,” says Kevin. “Just a little sore. I’ll have to leave early though. I switched my flight to tomorrow instead of day after.”
“At least it’s the off season,” says Neil, always exy-before-all. But Kevin nods seriously, and honestly, Andrew shouldn’t be surprised after a decade of this.
Then, the time for the ceremony dawns upon them. At the front, Catalina Alvarez and Laila Dermott are clapping their hands excitedly, calling everyone to attention. Kevin says his goodbyes and makes his way to where Allison is sitting near the front. Andrew notes that Jean and Jeremy don’t have separated sides because neither of them have any blood family that would attend. Instead, the wedding is filled to the brim with former Trojans that Andrew vaguely recognizes from college games, the few littered Foxes that were invited, and Jean and Jeremy’s current teammates on the LA Lions.
He finds a seat with Neil, right behind where Kevin is fussing over Amalia and Allison has her phone out, recording them. It doesn’t take long for voices to hush around them, and then Jean appears with Jeremy, and everyone moves to stand.
It’s a wedding, so really, it’s basically the same as every other wedding Andrew has been to. It is, however, only the second wedding where two men have tied the knot, and the first one to happen in America since the Foxes flew out to Germany for Nicky and Erik’s. Andrew’s never really known Jean or Jeremy very well personally. He knows he’s here because of Neil. Because Neil was Jean’s partner on the court in another life. Because everyone knows that in this life, it is Andrew and Neil. In any life, it will always be Andrew and Neil.
“Why do people even get married?” Neil murmurs from next to him as they move to sit back down. His voice is just barely loud enough for Andrew to hear.
Andrew turns to him and says in a completely even tone, “Tax purposes.”
Neil frowns, his brows furrowing. “Seriously?”
“Yes,” says Andrew. “There are objectively many benefits to being married. For example, hospital visitation rights.”
“Oh,” says Neil. He pulls a face, then continues to watch as Jeremy leans a little closer on the stage, whispering something to Jean that makes him faintly smile. “Something tells me they’re not doing it for the tax benefits or the hospital visits, though.”
Andrew looks toward the altar as well. “Well,” he says slowly as Jeremy is saying I do. “There are other reasons too.”
“Like?” says Neil.
Andrew is quiet. For a moment, he has no idea what to do, and the feeling is so deeply uncomfortable that he flails and says, “Most people do it because they think they like each other enough to be legally binded.”
In his periphery, he sees Neil nodding, accepting the answer for the cop out it is.
Legally binded. That’s what they’d be to each other if Andrew got down on one knee. If he peeled the velvet box away from its spot in their drawer in Boston and presented it in front of Neil’s face. Another official piece of documentation, one that Neil would undoubtedly hold to his heart like an oath, and yet still Andrew cannot bring himself to do it. He wonders how Neil would react. He wonders if he would say yes, if he would say no. Yes means yes and no means no and it’s always yes with you. But what if it’s not?
Andrew has handled rejection before. Andrew is more well versed in rejection than he is in anything else. He doesn’t know if he can survive Neil’s rejection. Not this one. He doesn’t know how he’d come back from it. He learned shame with sobriety and the absence of psychosis. Yes is yes. No is no. If Andrew asked Neil to marry him and Neil said no, would the world end?
His mouth opens automatically. He comes so close to saying it; do you want this, Abram? I don’t know if I can give this to you. If I reject you first, would it hurt less? Would it hurt at all?
They’ve been together for nine years and Neil has not brought up marriage even once. Maybe he doesn’t even want it. Andrew turns to look at him again, and he finds Neil smiling softly as he watches his friends press their lips together in a chaste kiss.
Andrew’s stomach drops. He looks away. Around him, the world moves on, spins forward. Here, he drowns, and he drowns, and he drowns.
At the reception, Allison appears out of nowhere and whisks Neil away, while Andrew somehow ends up catching up with Laila and Cat. At some point, Jeremy Knox appears too, smiling that slightly-unsettling smile of his and swinging his arms around both of the girls. His wedding band glints against the bright lighting of the venue. He nods in greeting to Andrew, who nods politely back in return.
And then, later, when he’s making his way over to the table full of little French pastries—
“Will you ever marry him?”
That’s Jean’s voice. Immediately, Andrew freezes in place. He doesn’t have to look to know who he’s speaking to. He knows who it is.
Sure enough: “Why did you marry Jeremy?” Neil asks.
“I wanted to give him a last name he can be proud of,” says Jean, quieter now. The two of them are tucked away in the corner of the room, and only a small barrier is preventing Andrew from seeing them. “We always knew this was where our relationship was heading.”
Neil is silent for several seconds. “Andrew said there’s lots of benefits to being married. Tax purposes and hospital visitation rights.”
“This is true.”
“I don’t know if that’s good enough for him,” says Neil.
“Are you a citizen? Maybe you can marry him for a green card,” Jean jokes.
Neil snorts. “And deny my rightful British heritage? I’ll pass.”
“Insolent child.”
“We’re the same age!”
“Really? You don’t look it.”
“I will kick you.”
“Can you reach?”
And with that, they switch to French and dissolve into an argument. Typical.
When Andrew’s focus comes back hazily onto the real world, he finds Renee standing in front of him. He blinks in the face of her pleasant smile. Her hair is longer now, running down past her shoulders, the tips dyed a pretty seafoam green that matches the color of her dress.
“Hi, Andrew,” she says, waving.
“Renee,” says Andrew, nodding as the world tilts back square on its axis.
She’s looking over at Jean too, where he’s now scowling down at Neil and spitting what can only be vicious French insults. Years ago, Andrew would have interfered, glared at Jean until he turned away and got lost. But he knows Neil enjoys this. He knows that whatever ties the two of them together is something beyond even Andrew’s comprehension.
“It was a lovely ceremony,” says Renee, looking back at him. “I spotted you too late in the audience. I would have come over to say hi earlier.”
“We were running late,” says Andrew. “Neil broke his shirt at the hotel.”
Renee laughs. “That does sound like Neil.”
He wonders if she heard the conversation between Jean and Neil. It takes him approximately two seconds to decide that yes, she absolutely did hear everything, and that she is a saint as always for knowing Andrew well enough to not mention it. Neil called her his best friend. Andrew thinks the concept of best anythings is stupid. Renee is Andrew’s family. He would go to the ends of the world for her.
“Have you tried the eclairs?” she asks, tilting her head in the direction of the tables of sweets. “They’re Jean-approved, so they must be good. Oh, and the croquembouche. You know, I’ve always wanted to try one of those. I was so excited when Jean texted me to tell me that they were going to do one for the cake.”
Andrew swallows. His throat hums with something he can’t identify. His head is spinning, or maybe that’s just the earth.
“Lead the way,” he says instead of any of that, and Renee nods, beckoning him over.
Boston is just as blue when they return. Andrew wonders how he’s managed to surround himself with so much of the color.
Weeks pass. They get in contact with a realtor Laila sent Andrew details of at the wedding, and Andrew uses his secret Pinterest account to start collecting ideas about what the perfect home would look like for him and Neil. They both make professional exy player salaries. They can afford whatever they want, even accounting for Ichirou’s cut of Neil’s check. Neil seems oblivious to basically everything, preferring to focus on the start of the season, so during the first few weeks they spend trailing around the suburbs of Massachusetts, Andrew doesn’t bother bringing up his board.
“This is too confusing,” Neil mutters as he thumbs through open house packets of the three properties they requested private showings of that morning. “I don’t know what any of this means. We should just transport the Columbia house to Boston and deal with the physical repercussions of that.”
“I don’t think you understand physics very well,” says Andrew from next to him, peering down at the array of pictures showcasing a ghostlike kitchen.
“That’s not true,” says Neil. “I was a math major! I took, like, mechanics. I think.”
“Okay,” says Andrew. “Sure.”
“You don’t sound like you believe me.”
“I believe that you were a math major.”
“There’s nothing to believe, Andrew, because I literally was a math major. You were there!”
“Here,” says Andrew, prying his laptop away from where it’s sitting on the edge of the couch. He opens it up and tabs over to his Pinterest account. “Look at this and tell me what you like.”
“What is this?” says Neil, squinting at the screen. “There are so many houses. I thought we were done with this for the day.”
“In person, yes,” says Andrew. “Scroll through them and tell me what you like. Not the houses themselves. The bedrooms, and the kitchens, and the living rooms.”
“I mean,” Neil frowns, slowly scrolling with his middle and ring fingers, “we should have all of those, right? A bedroom and a kitchen and a living room. I have all of that right now. Oh, you know, the bathroom should have one of those counters with two sinks on them. This lease was my top choice literally because of that, did you know? Because I know you like having your own space, and also you use way more products and stuff than I do.”
Andrew did know that. Of course he fucking knew that. “It’s called a double vanity.”
“Yeah, that,” says Neil, snapping his fingers. “We should get one of those. I’m going to check the bathrooms first the next time we go and see one of the houses to see if they have one.”
This guy. “We should just buy land and build our own house,” Andrew says, rolling his eyes.
Neil stares at him. Then, “Can we do that?”
This guy. “Yes, Neil, we can do that.”
“Oh my god,” says Neil. “Why didn’t you say that before? Let’s do that instead of whatever the hell we’ve been doing so far. It’s too much work, and your ideas are better.” He gestures to the open Pinterest window. Despite himself, Andrew feels his heart impossibly warming in his chest. “Also that way, I can make our living room exy themed.”
And with that, Andrew snatches his laptop back. “Never mind. You’re not allowed to have a say.”
Neil pouts. “That’s mean! What’s wrong with an exy themed living room? We’re literally both professional exy players. You’re the best goalie in the entire NEL. Let’s please be serious for a moment.”
“You be serious for a moment,” says Andrew. “If you want to build a house with me, you have to come to terms with the fact that we are going to have exactly zero exy themed rooms.”
“What about the bedroom?” Neil wiggles his eyebrows. “Doesn’t that turn you on?”
“It turns me off.”
“Andrew,” says Neil.
“Neil,” says Andrew.
They stare at each other. Andrew has been peripherally aware that they have very much been working towards buying a house together for months, but for some reason, Neil’s exy themed bedroom spiel is suddenly making it so much more real—because Neil absolutely would want an exy themed bedroom. Jesus fucking Christ.
“Junkie,” he mutters. “Exy themed garage. Compromise.”
“That’s not even technically a part of the house—”
“What was that?”
Neil rolls his eyes. “Fine, but it has to be orange. Foxes throwback.”
Andrew cannot believe the deepest, most desperate part of himself wants to marry this guy. “Our garage is not going to be orange, Neil.”
“Okay, really, what’s the point of building a house from scratch if you’re imposing all of these limitations on yourself?”
“I’m imposing the limitations on you,” says Andrew, but he knows he’s already resigned himself to looking for fuckass orange colored garage inspiration pictures. Honestly, the things Neil Josten does to him should be considered illegal.
Neil is grinning though, like he’s already aware he’s won. Which he has. And both of them know it. “Can I have your laptop back? I want to look at your ideas for the bedroom.”
This makes Andrew smirk. “I have a lot of ideas for the bedroom,” he says matter-of-factly, and Neil is quick to return his smirk.
bbron
[12:03] bbron: so have u done it yet
[12:05] you: done what
[12:05] bbron: don’t be fucking anoying
[12:05] bbron: have u p-worded to him yet
[12:05] you: what is the p word
[12:06] bbron: wow
[12:06] bbron: u piss me off in ways i cannot even begin to describe
[12:06] bbron: also can we reschedule friday call to saturday same time i just got scheduled for night shift
[12:07] you: ok
So they buy land in Brookline and procure a builder to design a four million dollar house for them with a master bathroom that has a double vanity. Does it have to be so grand? No. But they honestly have too much money for their own good and have nothing else to spend it on, and this way, they can host guests and the other Foxes as frequently as they want. Nicky has already warned them profusely that he’s going to be clearing his and Erik’s schedule out for at least two weeks after the playoffs next year to spend, as his many messages said, quality time with you guys oh my god i’m so excited!!!!!!!!
Andrew decides right then and there that he has to marry Neil before Nicky touches down on American soil. And then he proceeds to freak about it.
So he calls Renee.
She picks up on the first ring, because of course she does. “Hello, Andrew,” her voice comes pleasantly through the line. “How have you been?”
“If the world was ending and you never got married to your partner,” Andrew starts, picking at his fingernails. It’s just after dawn, and Neil has just left for his morning run, and Renee is somewhere in Europe right now. “Would you regret it?”
Silence. Then, “I think marriage means different things to different people.”
“I know,” says Andrew. “I’m asking what it means to you.”
She hums, and she thinks for a long time. “People like us,” she says softly, “we don’t think about marriage, or family, like that, do we? We don’t need a certificate to tell us that we love someone. We think it might cheapen it.”
Andrew closes his eyes.
Renee goes on: “Mm, why should I care what the law makes of my relationship with them? Why should I give a system that destroyed my life the satisfaction of playing right into its hand? It doesn’t mean anything. Not really. I think that if the world was really ending, whether or not I got married to them wouldn’t matter.”
“The world isn’t ending anymore in this scenario,” says Andrew. “What now?”
Her silence stretches, but he can tell she hasn’t hung up yet. “No,” she says finally. “I don’t think I would regret it.”
“Is there a point, then?”
“That depends, I believe,” says Renee.
Andrew swallows. Nobody knows this next part except for Aaron. “I’ve had the ring since May.”
Another quiet beat passes. “Andrew,” says Renee softly, and, “Then yes. There is absolutely a point.”
“Is there?” says Andrew, and it is a terrible thing. It is a terrible thing, and it’s all that he has right now. This inexplicable unknowing will one day be his undoing. He takes a breath. Then another. Before Renee can answer him with anything more than a gentle hum, he says, “Don’t expect an invitation. We’re not going to have a ceremony.”
Renee laughs in that twinkling, bell-like way of hers that has always both unsettled Andrew and given him so much peace that in certain moments he breathes with it. “I wasn’t going to, no worries.”
“I don’t even know if he’s going to say yes,” he says, no, blurts. And maybe that is the crux of it, really. Maybe he’s wrong about Neil. Maybe he’s always been wrong about Neil. Since when has Andrew been given something he’s allowed to keep for the rest of his life? Since when has he been allowed to sink in the hope that’s clogged his throat ever since his mother bent over him and his identical twin brother and only took back the one that wasn’t crying?
Nine years, his mind supplies, and, I think I want to marry you.
“You do know,” says Renee, cutting through all of it, and Andrew doesn’t bother responding to that.
In the end, Aaron ends up being right:
“Andrew?”
Andrew, crazily, ironically, is bent down on one knee, but it is over a packing box with the splintering end of a roll of tape between his teeth. Their house is done. Their house is done, and they have to move in. Their house is done, and they’re going to move in, and this is something that is theirs. Just theirs. For the rest of their lives, if they want it. And still Andrew has not found the courage to ask Neil to marry him. He’s tried, fruitlessly, so many times. So many times. But every single moment is ruined by a phone call, or a stranger popping by to ask them to take a picture for their honeymoon album (of course), or they’ll be kissing and Neil will lick into his mouth too hard, too fast, and Andrew will lose himself completely in the feeling of him tainting his tongue. Even more times, he just…chickens out. And he hates it. He hates it. It is just Neil.
But this is a promise they may never be able to come back from. This is forever on paper. This is…
When Andrew looks up, he finds Neil standing in the hallway that leads inevitably to their bedroom. They’ve lived together in this apartment for over a year now. This year marks a decade since they first got together. This year is supposed to mark the beginning of something completely new, too. If Andrew can just grow a fucking spine and do it.
“What,” he says through a mouthful of tape, and then Neil holds up a familiar velvet box, and Andrew spits it out just as all the air leaves his lungs.
“Uh,” Neil starts. His expression is completely unreadable, and that’s—that’s different. His lips are strung together in a tight line. The tips of his ears are flushed the color of a pretty red rose. Andrew stares because he doesn’t know what else he’s supposed to do. He stares because Neil is standing in their apartment on the day they’re moving into their new house and he’s found the ring. He found the ring. He found the fucking ring.
Of course he found the fucking ring.
“Neil,” says Andrew, and then his throat dries as nothing else comes out.
“So like,” says Neil, and every cell in Andrew’s body freezes cold to ice. “I found this in the bathroom drawer, um, while I was packing up our things.” Is the world tilting, or is it just Andrew? “I didn’t—well, I opened it, and—I thought about putting it back and just pretending I didn’t see it, but I don’t think I’m very good at lying anymore. At least, not to you. You’d know if I—just went about this pretending like I didn’t…find it.”
He finishes off lamely. Andrew doesn’t think his heart has ever beaten so fucking fast. He knows he’s supposed to say something. He knows Neil is waiting for him to say something, do something. But he can’t move. He can’t move and it’s awful and every little prickly thought that’s crowded his mind for the past twenty nine years is crashing in on him all at once. Doe. Andrew Doe. Spear. Andrew Spear? Cass. Mother. No. No. Minyard. Andrew Minyard. Aaron. Brother. Nicky. Family. Kevin. Friend. Neil. Nothing. Neil. Everything. Neil—
Years ago, Kevin made a deal with him. He would give Andrew something to live for.
He meant exy, because of course he meant exy. And in the end it turned out to be Neil.
“Marry me,” he hears himself say against the ringing in his ears.
Neil’s eyes go wide. Andrew has always thought that maybe one day he could drown in them, let their blue soak his skin and submit to a burial beneath water. He watches Neil’s grip tighten around the ring box. He watches Neil take a stumbling step closer, then stop. He watches, and he waits, and every word pushing and pushing to spill forth past his throat stays chained up and locked there as he waits for inevitable doom, waits for the jury’s call, an impossible trial with an even more impossible end.
And then Neil says, “For the tax benefits?”
He’s smiling. Of course he’s smiling. It’s Neil. How could Andrew ever forget?
Though maybe he didn’t. Maybe this is so hard because it’s Neil.
Andrew has never wanted anything as much as he wants Neil.
“And the hospital visitation rights,” he says.
Neil nods. He opens the box and takes the ring out and Andrew watches him slip it onto the fourth finger of his left hand. Once bare, now always with a string of gold. “Okay,” he says, holding up his hand, the metal glinting beneath the lamp light. “Okay, Andrew.”
“Okay,” Andrew repeats, his knee singing as he moves to stand up. He doesn’t pay it any mind, doesn’t look at anything except Neil and the ring he’s kept hidden for a year in their bathroom that’s now decorating the delicate skin of Neil’s hand.
It fits perfectly. Of course it fits perfectly. Of course Andrew picked the perfect size, because Andrew knows everything about Neil. He is the only one in the world to know. He is the only one in the world who is ever going to know.
“Yes or no?” he asks, inching closer to him. Closer and closer until they’re barely a handspan away. He means it for touching him. He means it for kissing him. He means it for asking him to marry him, too, and he knows that Neil knows already.
“Yes,” Neil says, and then again, “yes, Andrew. All of it. It’s always yes with—”
Andrew kisses him silent and breathes with it and swallows Neil’s laugh against his teeth. Home is blue and home is Neil—like this, together, until the end of time.