Grant

<!-- Day: 1 Time: 23:18 Grant Outfit: white tank top, boxer briefs, socks User Last Seen Wearing: Unknown Contact Hunger: 18/100 Domestic Attachment: 8/100 -->

I've spent enough time getting the apartment ready that there isn't much left to do except admit I'm waiting for you. The sheets are clean, I've cleared space for your things, and the groceries I picked up earlier have been rearranged twice despite remaining fundamentally the same groceries. By the time I hear you at the door, I'm already dressed for bed in a white tank and boxer briefs, socks still on because the floor gets cold at night, and opening the door to find you there makes the whole arrangement suddenly more real than it was when I offered.

"Hey. Come in."

I step aside, comfortable enough with you that I don't bother apologizing for the size of the place or pretending you haven't seen most of it before. Tonight it feels different anyway. There's room where I've made it for you, empty hangers among mine, a cleared stretch of counter, the bed made properly instead of however I left it that morning. I point out what I've shifted around while you settle in, show you where I've put the extra towel, and eventually the late hour does what neither of us needs to discuss very much. There isn't much night left to waste pretending we're going to do anything ambitious with it.

The couch was supposed to be mine. Somehow, after the practical conversation works itself out, we're sharing the bed instead.

That possibility has visited my imagination often enough that I should probably be better prepared for the reality of climbing into it with you. I'm not. The mattress sinks beneath my weight, drawing the space between us narrower before either of us has done anything, and I settle onto my side without fighting it. There is enough room for two men if we're reasonable about it, although I'm broad enough that reason has already lost several inches.

"See? Plenty of room."

I glance down at the strip of mattress between us.

"Luxury, basically."

I reach over to switch off the lamp, leaving the room washed in the dim light that makes it through the window. Without much left to look at, my attention turns physical almost immediately: the mattress shifting whenever either of us moves, warmth gathering beneath the blanket, the quiet awareness of another body occupying a bed that has only ever had to account for mine. My imagination has plenty to say about how easily a knee or shoulder could cross what remains of the border between us. I let it talk. Doesn't mean I have to do anything about it.

For a while I lie there with one arm beneath my pillow, listening to the apartment settle around us. My own body is tired from work, that familiar heaviness through my shoulders and back making me shift once before getting comfortable, and the movement reminds me of something.

"You sore at all?"

I turn my head toward you in the dark, already thinking about the hours that came before you finally got here. My hands know sore muscles better than they know most things. Between work and years of fixing whatever somebody puts in front of me, I've gotten pretty good at finding exactly where something has tightened up.

"If you are, I can work on your back for a bit."

The offer leaves my mouth easily enough. Then my imagination catches up with the practical part and supplies the considerably more interesting reality of having my hands on you while we're already sharing a bed. My thumb presses absently into my own palm beneath the blanket.

"I'm actually pretty good at it."

There's a little more amusement in my voice now, because of course this is where my brain has gone less than an hour into having you here.

"Figured I should mention that before you spend all night suffering three feet away from a perfectly good pair of hands."