“I’m not.” Marsh sucked in a breath through his teeth. “I’m not sorry, okay, because it was fine, and I was…I was glad. Not that you were sick. Just that. You let me…”
You let me take care of you even when we weren’t naked.
This was coming out all wrong.
Marsh jutted out his bottom jaw and crossed his arms over his chest. “Look, I’m ordering Chinese. I’m getting twice as much as I need, and one of the things I order is going to be sweet and sour chicken. If you can find it in your busy schedule to come down and eat some of my food in an hour, great. If not, it’s going in the fridge as leftovers that I will not eat, so you can decide to not get an ulcer on your own schedule, and you won’t even have to look at my face while you do it. Whatever. Your choice.”
With that, he whirled around, intent on stomping down the stairs when the low voice behind him stopped him.
“I thought you told Jason you had plans.”
Marsh’s ribs seemed two sizes too tight, because there was something wavering there. What had Greg thought? That Marsh was stopping by for a quick fuck before heading out?
He gripped the doorframe and twisted his neck to look over his shoulder. His reply came out a little weak. “I may have been being optimistic. About those plans. Was hoping my date would say yes.”
The statement hung in the air, and he hadn’t meant to call Greg his date. He wanted to pull the words back into his mouth, laugh it off, say he was only joking. But Greg nodded, and the stiff set to his mouth gave way to the first real smile Marsh had seen in a week. “I’d hate to make a liar of you, I guess.” He twirled his glasses in his hand. “Sweet and sour chicken, you said?”
Marsh breathed out a little sigh of relief. He’d been pretty sure that was Greg’s favorite, considering how he hoarded it whenever there were leftovers. “Yup.”
“I’ll try to finish this up.”
“Okay.”
Okay.
Feeling a hundred times lighter, Marsh pulled the door closed behind him, then all but floated down the stairs. He gave a little salute to Jason, who was shrugging into his jacket. Jason had probably heard everything, but Marsh couldn’t bring himself to care. Not right now.
He made his way to the kitchen and grabbed the menu for the Chinese place down the street, retreating to his room to call in the order. He winced at the total when the lady on the line rattled it off, but he could swing it. He’d have to scrimp a little, but it’d be all right.
With food on the way and Greg coming soon, Marsh flopped belly-down on his bed and pulled the book he’d abandoned earlier closer. He glanced at the clock. Forty minutes to read four chapters. Unlikely, but he’d do what he could.
And what he could ended up being…pretty good, actually. By the time the doorbell rang, he had three pages of notes scribbled out about Indo-Pakistani relations in the seventies and an idea for the paper he had to write by next week. Satisfied, he shoved his notes between the pages of the book and set the whole pile aside before bounding up and reaching for his wallet.
By the time he made it to the door, Greg was coming down the stairs, and Marsh had the biggest shit-eating grin on his face as he stepped forward to take the food from the delivery guy. He couldn’t even manage to feel like a dork about it. He’d been so sure he’d have to go up there and pry Greg out of his desk chair with a crowbar, but here he was. He paid the dude and turned to go back inside.
Greg was standing there, looking a little better than he had before, hair tamed and glasses nowhere in sight. He had his own wallet out. “What do I owe you?”
“I got it.” He sure could have used the couple of bucks, but he wanted to do this. Calling Greg his date had been a slip of the tongue, but the fact of the matter was, this was the closest they had gotten to one.
Greg frowned but tucked his wallet into the pocket of his jeans. “You sure?”
“Yeah, no problem.”
“Okay. I’ll get the next one then.”
And Marsh had been wrong.
This
was the biggest shit-eating grin. He hid it by looking into the bag to make sure everything was there. Check, check and check. He tilted his head down the hall. “You wanna be civilized and do this in the kitchen or in my room?”
“Your room is good. If you don’t mind.”
“Sure.” That was fine. He didn’t love having the place smell like takeout, but it was private. Made it even more like a date.
Greg shifted. “Unless. I mean, I’m not expecting…anything. I just don’t feel like running into anyone else. I’ve been dodging Ronnie about helping him out with one of his projects for days.” He smiled weakly.
Maybe less of a date then. Marsh’s grin receded a bit, but he hid that, too, as he led the way into his room. Greg went off to grab drinks while Marsh set out a picnic on his bare floor. He could have done better if this had been a real date—he would have done better. But this was what he had. Sometimes, you just made do.
When Greg returned, he closed the door behind himself and locked it, then folded himself down on the floor beside Marsh, passing over a beer. Marsh took it and popped the top, watching as Greg shoveled some of everything onto a paper plate. Sure enough, the plate was piled high by the time he was done. Marsh hadn’t seen him come down for a real meal in ages; the guy was going to be skin and bones if he didn’t let someone take care of him.
As soon as Greg was done, Marsh assembled his own plate. He backed up, resting it in his lap as he leaned against the bed, legs stretched out in front of him, feet just grazing Greg’s thigh. Greg didn’t move away. He was too busy digging in.
Marsh scooped up a forkful of noodles, watching Greg the entire time. The guy ate like he was starving, and with him sitting so close, the dark patches under his eyes and the lines around his mouth were even starker than they’d seemed before. It wasn’t Marsh’s job to mother-hen, but damn. He chewed and swallowed and took a pull at his beer.
“So,” he said, before he could stop himself. “What are you working on?”
Greg chuckled. “What am I not working on?”
Nudging Greg’s leg with his foot, Marsh let the corners of his lips drag down. “Really?”
“You actually want to know?” One of Greg’s eyebrows rose, and he paused with his chopsticks halfway between his mouth and his plate.
“I asked, didn’t I?” Sure, he probably wouldn’t understand it or anything, but it didn’t mean he didn’t want to know. “I mean, unless you don’t want to tell me, or don’t want to talk to me.”
Or think I’m too stupid to get it.
“Or whatever.” He shrugged.
Greg finished getting the piece of chicken to his mouth and chewed it contemplatively for a few seconds. He fished a napkin out of the bag and wiped his mouth with it, then set his plate down and leaned back, bracing himself with one arm, the other held out in front of him as he started ticking things off. “I’m TA-ing a class, and their second exam is coming up, so everyone wants extra help, and that’s on top of my normal teaching responsibilities. Quizzes to grade, problem sets to get ready.” He extended a second finger. “My advisor is on my ass about getting a new data set analyzed.” A third finger. “One of the other guys who works at the computer help desk with me has mono so I’m covering an extra shift a week.” Four. “I’m a week behind in the one class I’m taking this semester.” His thumb came up, waggling beside its brethren. “And I have to give a big presentation in a couple weeks that I’m still only halfway done with.”
Jesus.
Marsh swallowed the lump of vegetable matter he’d stopped being able to properly chew about four bullet points ago. “Is that all?”
Shaking his head, Greg let out a laugh that sounded like the guy could barely catch a breath. Like he was about to go over the edge. “You do what you gotta do, right?”
“Or in your case, you do what about five different people should be trying to do.”
“It could be worse.”
Marsh boggled. “How?”
“Ugh, you had to ask?” Greg stretched to drum his knuckles against the wood of the open closet door. “Because you said that, some freak storm or something is going to hit and fry my motherboard.”
“Um.” Gesturing toward the ceiling with his bottle, Marsh asked, “You wanna go do a quick backup or something?”
“Maybe after.” Greg folded himself into a normal sitting position again and resumed his meal. He got another mouthful of rice and sauce up to his mouth, gulping it down before admitting, “Too busy eating.”
“You needed it.”
Greg paused, looking over at Marsh out of the corner of his eye. Marsh swallowed and looked away. After the way Greg had reacted earlier to Marsh implying he’d given himself that migraine last week, maybe Marsh shouldn’t be drawing extra attention to the total shit job Greg was doing taking care of himself.
Only Greg didn’t overreact this time. “Yeah,” he said after a second. “I did. Um. Thank you. For that.”
“No problem.” Marsh focused in on his plate over the low thunder of his heart. Still half-watching Greg, he pushed his own food around on his plate. “It’s incredible, you know.”
Greg just furrowed his brow.
And oh hell, now Marsh had to explain. He lifted one shoulder and set it back down, staring at his dinner as if the bit of pepper on the end of his fork was the most interesting thing in the world. “How hard you work.”
Greg made a little scoffing noise. “I should be doing more.”
“I’m not sure how you could.” Really, how were there enough hours in the day? “You do all these things, and you still have friends. Ronnie and them.”
“I’d go crazy without someone else in the asylum with me.”
“Still…”
“And they’re not my only friends,” Greg said, and it was low. Serious in a way that caught Marsh’s attention and made him look up. Greg rested his chopsticks on the edge of his plate, his hand lowering, and it stuttered in the air for a moment. Then it settled, warm and solid on Marsh’s ankle, and Marsh could feel it all the way up his spine.
Marsh couldn’t help but squirm at the implication, forget how much he wanted it to be true. “You hardly know me,” he protested. “I’m just the guy who—”
you fuck
“—lives downstairs. And occasionally makes you eat.”
“And take other breaks.”
Marsh’s neck felt warm. “And take other breaks.” He cleared his throat against the lump forming there. “Anyway, you work really hard. And that’s…really something.” He sucked his bottom lip into his mouth and ran his tongue over it. “I mean, I take the bare minimum of classes I have to.” It was part of why he was as screwed as he was now. “Professors give me a break because I’m a dumb jock, and I’m still just barely getting by.”
The room went unnaturally still, and Marsh tightened his grip on his fork. He suddenly felt way too hot. Damn it all, he really didn’t need to help Greg figure out that he was an idiot. What the hell was he doing? Why did he ever open his mouth?
He chanced a glance up, and Greg was frowning, his expression strangely intense in a way that made Marsh’s insides twist.
Then Greg stabbed a piece of chicken with a chopstick, piercing it through, and his voice was strained. “You’re not a dumb jock.”
Marsh didn’t know where the shock of laughter came from, but his throat was raw so it must have been him. “Sure. If you say so.”
“I do.”
“Well, you’re wrong.” He shrugged like it didn’t matter, when it mattered more than anything else. More than anything at all. “If it wasn’t for baseball, I never would have made it into college at all. Even with that, I’m barely hacking it.”
“Marsh.” The urgent tone in Greg’s voice made Marsh look up. Greg reached over and snagged the book Marsh had been reading off the pile beside his bed. He read the title off. “
A House Divided: Indian-Pakistani Relations in the 1970s Era of Détente.
” He leveled Marsh with a skeptical look. “Idiots don’t read books with titles like that.”
Marsh grabbed the book and set it aside. “It’s not exactly rocket science or whatever you guys do.”
“I
like
rocket science. I got a C in history when I was in tenth grade.”
Rolling his eyes, Marsh argued, “Like that’s really held you back.”
“And like you not wanting to do rocket science has really held you back. You like history, right?”
The truth was, Marsh did. He always had, had thought the stories of flags and armies and spies and negotiations were just so
cool
. He’d hidden histories behind his comic books when he’d been a kid. Written papers when the rest of the family had been gathered around the TV. “I guess.”
Greg shook his head, and there was a sadness to it. “You sell yourself so short. You know why I work so hard?”
Because he was a genius, and because he was good at this school stuff. Wasn’t that always why brains did what they did? “Because you’re smart?”
“Being smart is why all the work pays off so well.” Greg was sitting up straight now, all his attention on Marsh, and a fire lit his eyes. “I work so hard because I don’t want to be the guy in the overalls taking your credit card at the oil change place.”
And that hit a little too close to home. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“Of course there’s not.” He sucked in a breath, gaze wavering. “That’s what my dad does.”
Marsh’s head jerked up. “Your—”