CHAPTER SEVEN
Mark arrives early the next morning, far earlier than Elliot would usually think about getting up on a Sunday, but he doesn’t mind. An early wake-up call is worth it to see Mark like this—all tired-rough and stubbly, soft around the edges and warm in yesterday’s clothing. He looks like the personification of comfort and familiarity. Elliot can’t help but smile at him. “I like this look on you,” he says.
Mark’s face goes bashful. Here, in the gentle post-dawn light of the kitchen, all alone in the world, it feels like they could say anything. “Maybe I’ll keep it,” Mark murmurs, quiet and intimate. Elliot’s spine tingles.
The boys trail into the kitchen then, in various stages of mismatched pajamas, yawning and rubbing eyes. Mark raises his voice to speak to his son. “Hey, buddy. You have a good time?”
“Dad asked him loads of questions about your dating life,” Sammy chimes in, because why wouldn’t he? He’s an asshole.
Elliot’s blood rushes cold with mortification. “One,” he says. Mark’s looking at him curiously, eyes glinting, something like a smirk on his face. “I asked one question.”
“It was weird,” declares Sammy, before grabbing a box of cereal and shuffling off—Wade, as ever, on his heel.
The silence they leave behind them is deafening, and all Elliot can do is try to brush it all under the carpet as quickly as possible. “I have literally no idea why he told you that,” he says, making a valiant effort to hold Mark’s eye contact. “Other than to punish me for being weird.”
Mark is still looking at him with that same curious glint in his eye, and when he speaks, there’s a rawness to his words that makes Elliot’s heart stutter.
“Hypocrite,” he says, not unkindly. “And you could just ask me.”
“I know,” says Elliot. He licks his lips, oddly nervous. Mark watches him. “I didn’t even mean to ask him. The conversation just…went that way.”
Mark steps closer. There’s a deliberateness to the movement, something buoyed by gathered confidence, and it roots Elliot to the spot.
“Why are you interested?” It’s a near echo of Elliot’s question last night; the shoe’s on the other foot now, and Elliot squirms.
He hesitates. There’s an energy in the air here that tells him he should tell the truth. That it would be good to tell the truth. But it’s too early in the morning, and there’s too much of a vulnerability edging through his veins, so all he can croak out is, “We’re friends now, right?” He tries a laugh, something breezy, then winces internally at how forced it sounds. “I like to get to know my friends.”
Mark stares at him a long moment, close—too close. Then he blinks and glances down, rubs fingers across his brow. “Well there isn’t anyone.”
The words spill before Elliot can think to contain them. “Not Linda?”
It knocks an element of surprise into Mark, enough to make him look up sharply, eyes wide. “Jesus, how does he even remember her?” he asks in obvious wonder, causing Elliot’s heart to skip a complete beat. Surprise that Linda is remembered means she isn’t really anyone to remember at all. She doesn’t matter. “She was years ago,” Mark adds, speaking his next words around a jaw-cracking yawn. “It lasted, like, five months.”
Five months isn’t exactly an insignificant amount of time, but—okay, Elliot’s just being ridiculous now. Mark’s past relationships have absolutely no bearing on anything. Elliot’s still going to crush hard, and Mark’s still going to be straight.
“Sorry, let me get you a coffee.” He turns to flick on the machine, grabs some mugs. Mark comes up beside him and leans sideways against the counter.
“I hope he didn’t mess you around last night.”
“I hardly even knew he was here,” Elliot says, smiling. “He’s a good kid.” A little too enthusiastic with the sweet and sour chicken, but nobody’s perfect.
Mark breathes a laugh. “He has his moments,” he mutters, the rueful tone of every parent everywhere. After a pause, he adds gently, “He really likes Sammy.”
“Likewise. With Sammy, I mean.” It’s been such a long time since Sammy’s had a proper best friend that for one heart-stopping moment, Elliot hates himself for even contemplating the idea of wrecking that with his stupid infatuation with Wade’s father.
Mark hesitates, his thoughts apparently veering down an entirely different path. “Maybe Sammy would want to come have a sleepover at ours next weekend?” he asks, almost careful, like there’s a secret to his question. “I could do my famous barbecue ribs. I mean,” he adds, reaching out to pluck a stray thread or lint or dust or fucking something from Elliot’s collar, fingers grazing the bare skin of his flushed throat, “if you wanted to hang out as well.”
What the fuck is going on? Elliot thinks wildly, but he can’t answer, can’t say anything, because his voice is lost somewhere in the flush of his throat and Mark—Mark won’t turn his intense eyes away.
It’s all shattered when Lucas stumbles into the kitchen, boxer shorts lopsided, pillow marks all up the side of his face. He takes one look at Mark swiftly backing out of Elliot’s space and grins.
Elliot, meanwhile, prays for the floor to open up and swallow him whole.
“Oh god. I’m sorry,” Mark says, a catch to his voice that makes Elliot look at him. At his suddenly pale-white face, eyes clouding over. “I didn’t know you had company.”
And Elliot thinks, Oh.
It’s almost embarrassing how quickly he rushes to correct that assumption. “No, I—this is Lucas. My husband.” He reaches out, doesn’t really know why, but Mark shifts away. Subtle, but not subtle enough. Elliot feels like his whole body deflates.
“Mark Kade!” Lucas cries, shattering through the awkwardness like a bulldozer. “Big fan. Huge.” He darts forward, grabs Mark’s hand, shakes it vigorously. “The way you pour yourself into those shorts…”
Mark plays along with it a moment, laughing and answering with grace, but the strain of it is painfully obvious and Elliot almost feels relieved for him when he eventually manages to detach and say, “I better get going. Wade! Sorry I can’t hang around. I’ve got calls to make about last night’s event.”
“Sure,” Elliot says, nodding, swallowing, “no problem. Listen. He just—we’re not—“
“Man, no worries. There’s no reason you shouldn’t—I mean—Wade! Come on, kiddo.”
It’s an uncomfortable five minutes watching Mark hurry his kid into gathering up his stuff and then ushering him out the door, still pajama-clad and barefoot. Elliot doesn’t try to stop him, or give any input other than a brief, tight smile when Mark says his final goodbye. Once the front door closes, he rounds on his stupid husband.
“You’re an idiot.”
Oblivious, Lucas frowns to himself. “He’s not as friendly as I thought he would be,” he says, reaching for the coffee mug that was supposed to be Mark’s, back when this kitchen was quiet and soft and intimate. “Did he think we fucked?”
Well, fucking obviously. “I guess,” he says, tone laden with poorly concealed misery.
“Hmm.”
Elliot narrows his eyes. “What?”
“Nothing,” Lucas says breezily, making a show of casually pouring coffee into his mug and bringing it to his mouth. “It’s just…” He blows steam away, something wicked dancing in his eyes. “Why would he care?” And with that, he goes off to mess about on the laptop with his son, the two of them bundled up in a blanket on the couch.