they got down to the parts that really hurt. Adam wasn’t going anywhere, and there was no telling what was next for Nik’s future.
Yes, the school part was over, but he had his students, and Adam knew Nik loved that more than anything.
They didn’t kiss, as much as Adam’s lips burned to press themselves against Nik’s pliant mouth, but he did hold Nik’s hand in the car on the drive over. When he rolled to a stop, leaving room for Van’s car, he waited for Nik by the stairs, then tangled their fingers together all over again.
“You need some food,” Adam remarked once they were inside.
Nik turned from where he was hanging the strap of his cane on a hook, and he wrinkled his nose. “I haven’t been hungry for days.”
“I can tell. You’ve lost weight. I’d say this calls for one of Jay’s sadness burritos, but I was more thinking we could order Chinese for delivery?” He waited, breath held, to see just how far Nik would let him go in caretaking.
“Okay,” Nik said after a moment. “Soup would be good. Let me text Van while I change and see what he wants.”
Adam let him go, reluctantly but without complaint, and he made himself at home in a kitchen he thought he’d never see again. There were discarded teacups lining the sink, but not much evidence that either brother had really been taking care of themselves. His whole soul ached for them—even Van, who had never really liked him. No one deserved this kind of pain, but almost everyone had to live through it at least once.
His time was coming—someday, in some abstract future. He’d lose his mom or his sister. Both if he was truly unlucky. Death—even one that didn’t impact him directly—had such a cruel way of reminding everyone about the true mortality of the human condition.
His thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of Nik, looking rumpled and soft in sleep clothes. The hem of his lounge pants dragged on the ground, and his t-shirt was torn at the collar, showing a delicious strip of skin. A low thrum of want settled in Adam’s gut. It wasn’t enough to do anything about it, but it was a quiet reminder that in spite of his pain, he was still wrapped around this man.
“I’m at the counter,” he said after a beat when it was obvious Nik was searching for him. “Did Van give you his order?”
Nik sighed, dragging his fingers around the edge of the marble until he reached Adam’s side, and he took the unoccupied stool. “He says he’s not coming home. He’s going to visit a friend—co-worker or whatever—for a few days.”
“Is he okay?” Adam wondered aloud.
“I like to think he is. Or, I’d like to think if he’s not, he will be.” Nik rested his elbow on the counter and laid his chin in the palm of his hand. He looked young then, like the person Adam had only heard about in stories. Messy hair and pink cheeks and full lips. “It’ll just be us for a while.”
That was the quiet time they were meant to have together before it all fell apart. Before he’d done whatever it was he’d done that sent Nik running. And that elephant still existed in this room, sitting quietly in the corner waiting for its time.
“I’m going to order food,” Adam said after a beat. “Why don’t you go upstairs, and I’ll come up when it gets here.”
Nik winced, but he nodded. “Thanks. I just…please just know I don’t expect anything out of this. I know I fucked up.”
Adam licked his lips, and the part of him that craved Nik like oxygen wanted to just give him blanket forgiveness—wanted to offer platitudes so he wouldn’t add more fret and worry in with his grief. But in truth, he loved Nik too much to treat their relationship with that kind of disrespect.
“Now isn’t the time,” he offered instead. “I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.”
The, not until you make me, remained unsaid.
Nik gave a short nod and, for a moment, looked like he might lean in for a kiss. Instead, he turned on his heel and left. Adam wanted to go after him, to curl up against him and press so tight there was no telling where one began and the other ended. He wanted to soak up every second he had left, because it still felt finite.
But he didn’t. He had to be stronger than that.
He fucked around on