Chapter Sixteen
Sometimes, the softest sounds rang out the loudest.
The thudding of Marsh’s heart. The rapping of a knock at his door.
Marsh forced himself to relax, clenching and unclenching his hands to keep himself calm.
He’d been sitting on his bed, back braced against the wall now for a couple of hours, trying to focus and get through this one damn article for class and failing miserably. Greg had been planning to take his parents out to dinner. They saw him so infrequently, of course they’d want him to spend some time with them. Of course Greg would want to see his folks. Not exactly something Marsh could really relate to, but sure, he got it. Didn’t make it any easier, though, sitting there and waiting.
He’d kept his music off the entire time, kept his ears trained for the sound of the front door. Listened for footsteps in the hall, and he could recognize the sound Greg made when he walked now. How many nights had he spent, wondering if he’d hear it coming down the stairs? And the minute he had—the instant he’d recognized that particular jangling of keys and that quick, efficient gait, his body had gone rigid. His breaths had quickened, his lungs going tight. He’d thought maybe Greg would just keep walking. Head upstairs and not even bother coming to say hello. Maybe he’d want to get some rest.
Or maybe he wouldn’t even want to look at Marsh’s face.
But no. Greg was right outside his door, and that brought a whole other set of possibilities. Maybe he’d be cool, maybe everything would be fine, or maybe Greg was stopping by to tell Marsh off. Because Marsh had overstepped, Marsh had crossed a line, Marsh wasn’t even really his boyfriend anyway, and Greg was so bad at asking for help. How he’d react to having it thrust upon him, well. That was anybody’s guess.
Not for the first time, Marsh wished Ronnie hadn’t been tied up in classes and stuff for that symposium today, because damn if Marsh wouldn’t have loved to pick his brain about this, or at least get some idea how Greg had reacted when Ronnie had told him everything this morning.
Another quick sequence of knocks sounded out, and shit, Marsh had to say something. Now.
He cleared his throat and managed to croak out, “Come in.”
The door creaked open, until Marsh could see Greg standing there through the gap. The top button on his shirt was undone, and his expression was pointedly neutral. Marsh looked him up and down, searching for any kind of a sign. Greg’s skin was still too pale, the shadows under his eyes lingering, but the furrows on his brow weren’t quite so deeply set. Still tired, then, but not actively in pain. Not so raw and ragged as he had been the night before.
Greg gestured toward the room within. “Can I?”
“Yeah.” Marsh capped his pen and set his article aside, sitting up straighter. “Of course.” He wiped his palms off on his thighs, but then he didn’t know what to do with his hands. Clasping them together in his lap, he cracked one knuckle after another before he could stop himself.
And Greg was moving so slowly, a deliberateness to his every action that had been absent of late. He was less harried, and that was good, but it was killing Marsh. Suddenly, all Marsh wanted was for Greg to tear the damned Band-Aid off, because all this waiting and wondering was going to drive him insane.
If Greg was mad, he should just
be mad
, and if he wasn’t, he should be over here, preferably in Marsh’s lap. He should let Marsh touch. Kiss. Ease this nervous energy with the heat of his breath.
But Greg just stepped a few feet inside. He closed the door behind him, and Marsh swallowed against the dryness in his throat. Greg settled his gaze on Marsh, and there was something penetrating to it, something searching. If only Marsh knew what he was looking for.
Marsh was being stupid. This kind of uncertainty wasn’t attractive. Relaxing his spine, he let go of his knuckles and draped his palms across his knees. He strived for that casualness, the mask he put on at parties and games and whenever Greg was scrutinizing him like this. But his voice still rasped as he asked, “How are you?”
Greg chuffed. “Better. Couldn’t be much worse, though, could I?”
“You could, but then I’d have to take you to the hospital, and neither of us has time for that.”
For a second, Greg’s neutrality slipped, and his gaze darted to the papers Marsh had set aside. “Are you busy?”
“Nah.” It wasn’t like he’d been able to focus today anyway. If Greg left now, without saying anything, Marsh would be fucked for the rest of the night. “It can wait.” Marsh hesitated. “Are you? Busy?”
A minefield opened up in front of him, and he wasn’t treading carefully enough. Then again, he’d been the one wishing Greg would rip the bandage off. No reason Marsh couldn’t do the ripping his own damn self.
The laugh that escaped Greg this time was less wry, but an achy tremor clung to it all the same. “No, I’m not busy. Strangely enough, my whole schedule seems to have cleared up today for some reason.”
“Oh?” Marsh’s heart was fucking hammering.
“Yeah. But you knew that.”
All right. Good. No more pussyfooting around. “I did.”
And there was that level stare again. Marsh felt paper thin, but he wasn’t going to bow to the weight of Greg’s gaze. The moment seemed to drag on and on, the two of them staring at each other.
Greg was the one to look away first. He jerked his head to the side and crossed his arms over his chest. He brought one hand up to his mouth and tugged at the nail with his teeth. “I don’t know how you did it, or why.”
Marsh’s ribs squeezed hard at the thought. Really? After all this time? Greg still didn’t understand. Marsh forced out a breath and scrubbed at his face. “Because you needed it. God, if you could have seen yourself last night.”
“I never asked—”
“You didn’t have to. Okay?” There wasn’t much to lose, now, so no reason to keep this in. Marsh had already laid his cards out on the table, doing this for Greg. “You never have to ask. When you don’t take care of yourself…I hate it. I hate seeing you like that.”
Greg visibly bristled, and if his walls had come down at all, they were building themselves back up. They looked so damn fragile, though. Like it took everything Greg had left to hold them around himself. And he didn’t have much left.
Marsh stopped Greg before he could say whatever awful, self-effacing thing was clearly forming itself on his lips. “And that’s not to say I don’t want to see you, so don’t even start with that. I’m glad you let me see you like that. When you’re not at your best.” Because even at his worst, Greg was better than pretty much anyone else. “I want to take care of you. I just won’t let you work yourself into an early grave. Not if I can help it.”
“I’m not working myself—”
“You are. And I saw a way to help. So I did, and I’m not sorry.”
Greg still wasn’t looking at Marsh, and there was a little pit of dread opening itself up in the bottom of Marsh’s stomach.
“I am,” Greg said, and the pit cracked even wider. But then Greg was turning, was facing Marsh and looking him right in the eye. And the walls were all down. Everything about Greg softened, his shoulders dropping and a ghost of a smile coming out to curl around the corners of his lips. “I’m sorry I didn’t thank you.”
All at once, the bed underneath Marsh felt solid for the first time since Greg had walked through his door. A bubble of laughter forced its way out of his chest. “Jesus Christ.” He let his head fall into his hands, leaving it there for a long second while he tried to catch his breath. “I thought you were going to chew me out.”
“The thought occurred to me.” Greg’s voice was lit with the force of his smile, and he took a few tentative steps toward the bed. Marsh beckoned him closer, and he dropped down to sit on the edge. When Greg reached a hand out into the space between them, Marsh didn’t hesitate to take it, squeezing hard at his palm, relishing the feel of Greg, real and there and not walking away. Greg gripped him back just as tightly. “How did you know?”
“I didn’t mean to pry,” Marsh confessed. “Last night, when I was getting your medicine, I knocked your mouse by accident and that calendar came up.”
“Ah.”
“I know I said I wasn’t sorry, but I am. I guess. For that part. I know your stuff is private, but…”
Greg shrugged. “If it was that sensitive, I would put a password on my computer before I invited strange men to sleep in my bed.” He scooted closer and nudged his shoulder against Marsh’s, a teasing little bump.
It wasn’t entirely a joke, though. Maybe Greg had asked Marsh to spend the night, but only when he was laid up and sick and not quite thinking straight. “Yeah,” Marsh agreed, but it came out a little more serious than he wanted it to.
Picking up on Marsh’s shift in mood, Greg went quiet for a second. Then, lower, he said, “It’s late.”
“Yeah.”
“And I have a big day tomorrow.”
Yeah, Greg did. Marsh didn’t let his feelings about not being invited creep in again. He’d groused enough about that to Yulia already today, and Yulia had given him more than enough shit about it. It smarted, but it probably wasn’t personal. Not if the way Greg was looking at him now had anything to do with it.
Maybe, if things went the way he hoped they would, he’d be invited to the next one.
Keeping that hope in mind, he nodded, shifting closer to Greg on the bed. The relief at not being told off for rearranging Greg’s schedule was still a heady thrumming in Marsh’s veins, and he just wanted to sit here a little longer, soaking in Greg’s acceptance and his warmth. He wanted to touch him and kiss him, and maybe more. Mostly, he just didn’t want to let him go.
Then Greg had to go and say, “We have to talk, you know.”
The warmth receded faster than Marsh could grapple to hold on to it, taking the relief right along with it, but Marsh was only so deluded. Greg was right. They’d needed to talk for a while now.
And there was a low, simmering quality to Greg’s voice. One that didn’t speak to a break-up being imminent.
Turning his head, Marsh pressed a hesitant kiss to Greg’s shoulder before leaning his brow against his neck. Greg smelled warm and clean and so good it scrambled Marsh’s thoughts. “Yeah,” he said finally, quiet and slow. “I guess we do.”
All the words Marsh had been imagining saying hovered in the air, right beside the ones he’d been waiting for Greg to speak. The space around them felt pregnant, ripe with potential.
But Greg exhaled and wrapped an arm around Marsh’s side. “Tomorrow? When I get home?”
The air around them crystallized, the unspoken words suspended within it, like flies in amber. They’d hold. At least for tonight, they could wait. Greg was exhausted, and he had a lot on his mind. A lot to get ready for, and he didn’t seem up to it right now.
Marsh
didn’t feel up to it right now, just in case he was reading this whole thing wrong.
“Yeah.” Marsh’s lips brushed the hollow of Greg’s collarbone. “Of course.”
“Okay.” Incrementally, Greg pulled away. “I should probably go”
Marsh darted out a hand to grasp Greg’s wrist. To keep him there. “You don’t have to,” he said, and this was stupid, but Greg had asked. A couple of times now, he’d let Marsh into his bed, and Marsh could have stayed, if only he’d had the guts to say yes. He swallowed hard. “It’s okay if you don’t want to, but if you do. If it’d help you sleep or whatever. You could stay. If you wanted to.”
Time stretched out like so much taffy, Greg unmoving at Marsh’s side, and Marsh’s insides churned. Then Greg wrapped his arm around Marsh and pressed his face to Marsh’s hair. His grip was almost too tight, but that was okay. That was fine.
“Yeah.” Greg’s voice was rough, as earnest and raw as Marsh felt, and Marsh shivered from his shoulders to his toes. “Yeah. That’d be…nice.”
Marsh clenched his eyes shut and squeezed down tight on Greg’s wrist. “Okay.”
“Lemme go upstairs and check some things first? Back in…an hour?”
“Sure.” And damn, but Marsh didn’t want to let Greg go, but he could be reasonable. He’d have plenty of time to hold on to Greg later, when he came back. When he slept in Marsh’s bed.
He let Greg pry himself from his grip. Greg put gentle fingers to the underside of Marsh’s jaw, tilting his head up. The kiss, when it came, was firm and dry and perfect against Marsh’s lips, and Greg’s eyes were so fucking soft.
Then Greg walked away, and Marsh let him go. The instant the door was closed, Marsh fell to his side, sprawling out on the mattress like a starfish, limbs outspread. He stared up at the ceiling and imagined he could see all the way out to the sky, and for miles and miles beyond.
This time, when the knock came, Marsh was ready for it. He was lying in bed with the covers tugged up to his waist, dressed in a T-shirt and boxers. The only light in the room was the little lamp on the floor beside his bed.
He quit the stupid game he’d been playing on his phone and set it aside as he called for Greg to go ahead and come in. Greg pushed the door open and stepped inside. In an undershirt and flannel pants, he didn’t look like he was trying to be sexy, but he might have been the best thing Marsh had ever seen.
Greg hovered for a second just inside the door, and Marsh rolled his eyes, ignoring the way his chest was fluttering. He scooted to the side and turned the covers down. “Coming?”