Michael and Evan

LaVieEnRose

I was just closing up the shop on a Monday night when a FaceTime call came in from Justin. I finished wishing goodbye to a a kid who clearly had some kind of comic book trust fund for how often he came in here and picked up. Hey!

Justin grinned. Hey. He was sitting in the armchair he loves. He'd grown out some scruff and somehow it made him look even younger. The kid's a wonder. How are you?

Good, good. And you look about a hundred times better. I'd talked to him the week before, when Brian had called me and said, I need to go to the gym, can you make sure he doesn't fucking die, and I'd stayed on the line with an unbelievably allergic Justin for an hour. He'd been too tired to hold much of a conversation, so I'd mostly just watched him wheeze and rub pitifully at his swollen eyes.

“The wonders of prednisone,” he said, and I know enough about immune systems to know that him having to be on an immunosuppressant, given the state of his system, was probably a rough decision. But at least he could breathe now. “Is this a good time to talk?”

Yeah, just finishing up for the day. Everything okay?

He nodded and coughed a little. “Everything's fine. I just have a question for you!” His snapped above the camera for a minute and he nodded, pointed, and signed something way too fast for me to understand. “Sorry,” he said to me. “New house, no one can remember where anything is.”

You're fine. So. Question?

“Yeah! Sooooo are you busy this weekend?”

No busier than any other weekend.

“So what would you say about coming up here? I was thinking about the storylines you ran past me and I just had this burst of Rage-inspiration and I want to see what we can get done if we're both in the same space. Look.” He held up a sketchpad and showed me some...incredibly badass panels. “They're just drafts.”

They're amazing.

“Brian's gone this weekend, so we could actually get stuff done without him trying to make us go out and do things. It is my weekend with the baby but she's a lot less work than Brian.”

Who isn't?

“Me, besides that no one.” Hard to argue with that. “And you could see the new house! We've got a whole guest room and everything. Please come? I'd love to see you.”

Where's Brian going?

“Seattle for a conference. He doesn't leave until Friday night, so if you get here early enough you can see him. And he'll be back on Sunday.”

Okay, so it didn't take a genius to figure out what was really going on here. And I don't mean that in any cynical way; I had no doubt that Justin genuinely wanted to see me and get some work done on Rage, and I wasn't at all annoyed at being asked to come babysit. But I figured, yeah, that was what was really going on. Brian was going away for a weekend and he'd called me to watch Justin while he went to the gym. Of course he couldn't be alone for a whole weekend. And with the baby to take care of? He needed a hand. And with all the friends they have in New York...yeah, maybe I was a little flattered to have been asked.

I need to check with Ben, but that should be fine, I said.

Ben of course thought it was great, and the trip was on. I had to stay at the shop too late on Friday to get to New York before Brian left, unfortunately, but I'd see him on Sunday when he got back. Their new place is a lot closer to the airport than the apartment in Manhattan, so it was just a short cab ride after a short flight. Easy peasy.

I'd seen pictures of the house, of course, but a part of me was still convinced that, I don't know, this was some elaborate prank and Brian and Justin were really living on the hundred and nineteenth floor of a renovated art gallery in Chelsea or something, with a nightclub on the first floor and an eligible gay bachelor on each of the other hundred and seventeen. But...no, it really was a light blue house with little trees underneath the windows and a mailbox and a light on the front porch. It was decently sized, not as big as our place, but this was New York, not Pittsburgh, and there were only two of them versus three, sometimes four, sometimes five of us.

I rang the bell and watched the lights flash to through the windows, smiling a little to myself. Justin answered the door a minute later, Jane in his arms. I kissed his cheek and said Need to wash my hands, and he pointed to some hand sanitizer on a tiny table right by the door with their keys and the mail. Of course.

I rubbed it between my palms and looked around. The whole room was open, bigger than their entire last apartment, with an area with couches and chairs and a TV and a cluster of bookshelves and the kitchen down at the other end. There was a playpen on the floor and stuff on all the surfaces; art supplies, tissue boxes, baby toys, small little sculptures. The ceilings were high, with criss-crossing wooden beams, and despite the clutter everything looked, unsurprisingly, very clean. And of course there were paintings everywhere, bold streaks of turquoise and golden yellow and deep red.

I barely noticed all of that, though, because of how loud the music was. I didn't know how they didn't have neighbors coming over to complain. Justin said something to me out loud as he set the baby down, but God knows what it was.

Music, I signed.

There's music playing? he said, and it's so funny; obviously I know Justin is Deaf, but there aren't very many instances where it's blatantly obvious that he can't hear something—it just doesn't come up that often—and it's always kind of hilarious when it does. I think of Justin being Deaf the way I'd think about someone speaking Spanish instead of English, I guess. I forget—not on any logical level, obviously, but just like...you know—that it means that he literally can't hear things. So I guess I'm an idiot, basically.

So I laughed a little, and Justin rolled his eyes at himself and went over to the stereo. He has to have it really loud, Justin said, pointing towards the kitchen for the he, and once he'd turned off the music Evan, Justin's boyfriend, stood up from where he'd, apparently, been crouched down behind the kitchen counter. He smiled sheepishly when he saw me.

Sorry, I didn't know you'd gotten here. Hi!

Hi. It's good to see you again.

You too. We'd met a few months before at Thanksgiving, and he'd been around a time or two when I'd been FaceTiming with Brian or Justin. And...look, I'm not going to pretend I didn't find the whole arrangement super weird—I mean, what exactly was his and Brian's relationship, again?—but he seemed nice enough and of course it made sense that someone would be here with Justin between when Brian left and I arrived.

Shoes off? Justin asked me.

Oh, yeah, of course. I toed them off and left them by the door, next to two pairs of ratty sneakers I couldn't believe Brian hadn't thrown out while they were sleeping. The floors felt oddly soft under my feet, with a bouncy sort of give that was really pleasant to walk on, and at first I figured that was for the baby and thought it was funny they'd design the floors for her when she didn't even live here full time, and then I realized, of course. Seizures. That's depressing. Imagine having to have that conversation with your husband. “Let's talk about what floors would work the best when you fall and lose consciousness!” How do you even broach that shit?

Evan waved for Justin's attention and held up a stuffed rabbit. Look what I found.

In the cabinet?

Yep. Evan came out from behind the island and showed it to Jane. Is this your rabbit?

Yes! she signed, holding out her other hand for it.

Justin said, I've been turning this whole house over... Jane, did you put your rabbit in the kitchen?

She clapped her hands.

He fingerspelled something and she made this really cute noise of excitement. All right, give it to her, he said to Evan.

Evan gave her the rabbit and kissed Justin on the cheek. “Can I get you something to drink or anything?” Evan asked me. “I was about to put on some coffee.” Justin watched his lips.

Seemed kind of late for coffee, but sure, what the hell. “Yeah, thanks. I mean—” Yes, that—

He held up his hand. “I read lips really well. You're fine.”

“Right. Yeah.”

Justin signed something I couldn't see to Evan, and he responded back so quickly it didn't even look like the same language that I supposedly know, and they went back and forth for a minute signing at hyperspeed before Evan laughed a little and started making coffee. Jane pulled herself up on the edge of the coffee table and started cruising around it, and I sat down on the rug next to Justin. He smiled at me.

Is she walking yet? I asked.

“She's so close. Any day now. But the girls made me promise I wouldn't let them miss it, so I guess I have to knock her over if she tries this weekend.” He turned and coughed harshly into the inside of his elbow. It wasn't as bad as it had been when I was here for Thanksgiving, when he was still barely finished with the pneumonia runaround, but I heard a lot of it in the background since then when I was talking to Brian—usually followed by Brian yelling at his Deaf husband to shut up—and this sounded worse than it had in a while.

Are you sick? I asked him.

He shook his head. “Allergies. It's a lot better than it was. I had this whole hives and sinus infection thing going on last week. Brian said he was going to ball me up and keep me in a Ziploc bag.”

But it's getting better?

He nodded, rubbing his nose against his wrist. “Very strong meds. And we're going to try to get away to the beach for a while.”

At least you don't still live right next to the park.

“Yeah, seriously.”

Jane baby-talk signed something to Justin that I couldn't make out. He cocked his head to the side and said, Do you want crackers? and she nodded and put her arms up. Justin stood up and scooped her up and brought her into the kitchen. Evan looked up from the coffee maker when they came in and kissed Jane's cheek, then signed something small to Justin, touched his face, and kissed him gently. It was still kind of weird to see Justin kiss someone who wasn't Brian, but it was sweet.

Justin came back in a minute later and set Jane down on the floor and a plate of crackers on the coffee table, and she pulled up and munched on them. I moved to the couch, and Justin stayed on the floor, catching Jane when she fell and entertaining her with stuffed animals, and we talked about Rage some but kept getting off topic and onto Brian, Ben, Ma. Justin was coughing a lot but seemed relaxed, listening to my stories with his elbow propped on the coffee table and smiling at Jane whenever she looked at him.

Evan came in after a little while and handed a cup of coffee to me and one to Justin. He set some cream and sugar on the side table and I dug in, but Justin drank his straight and made a face. He'd always taken it a light before.

“It's medicinal,” he explained to me. “Caffeine's good for lungs.”

It doesn't keep you up?

Nothing in the world could keep me up.

We kept talking for a while, mostly about Jane. I kept expecting Evan to head out now that I was here, but he seemed perfectly settled in on the couch, asking me and Justin questions about the comic book and squirming his feet into Justin's lap.

Justin got up eventually to put Jane to bed, and Evan kissed her goodnight and went to clean up in the kitchen. I went in to help him, because like...what else was I supposed to do, but he waved me away when I tried to help with the dishes. “You're a guest,” he said, and I didn't really know how to respond to that.

So I just said, Are Emily and Gwen out of town?

“No, they're home. Justin just takes her on Wednesdays and every other weekend.”

Even with Brian gone?

Evan laughed a little. He had a nice laugh. It reminded me of Justin's: un-self-conscious. “Brian doesn't really do much with her. I mean, he loves her and he does the fun stuff, but I don't think I've ever seen him change a diaper.”

He's the one who has to get up when she cries in the middle of the night, though, right? Who else is going to hear it?

“Well, she sleeps through the night now, she's almost a year old. And I think before that he just kicked Justin until he got up.”

Justin came back from putting Jane down pretty soon after that. He was sneezing a lot, which he'd been doing most of the evening, but he was starting to look really worn out from it. Evan frowned a little and held out a tissue box. You need anything?

Justin shook his head and blew his nose.

You should get some sleep, I told him. We've got all day tomorrow to work.

He rubbed at an eye until Evan batted his hand away. Yeah, maybe you're right. He turned to Evan. We should sleep on this floor, I don't want to do the stairs in the middle of the night if she needs something.

Okay, Evan said, and that was confusing for a number of reasons. I didn't realize Evan was going to be staying over, for one, and also I knew Brian and Justin's room was on this floor precisely so Justin wouldn't have to do the stairs all the time. Where else would they sleep?

But, you know, it wasn't really any of my business, so I let them point me towards the guest room and went upstairs. It wasn't late, but I was worn out from traveling and Ben and I go to bed pretty early these days anyway, so I lay down on their guest mattress that probably cost more than my mortgage. I fell asleep to the sound of Justin coughing softly a floor below me.

Which was definitely not the coughing that woke me up a few hours later. I stirred awake to a harsh kind of barking coming from below me, and as soon as I was aware of what it was I sat up. This sounded awful, wet and choking, and I didn't know what the hell to do. I checked the time on my phone. Just after 2 AM, and given the time difference, I knew Brian would still be awake.

He picked up pretty quickly. “Yyyyyep?”

“Hey. Uh. I just woke up. Justin's really coughing.”

“Yeah, he does that,” he said, sounding bored.

“Not like he was earlier. It sounds really bad.”

“It gets worse at night. Congestion gets stuck in his chest.”

“Should I go down there?”

“No. He'll yell if he needs you.”

That really, really didn't sound like Justin, who way back when used to work eight hour days on the comic book with me without telling me he hadn't slept for two days because he didn't want to “make a big deal out of it.” But that seemed unwise to point out to Brian, who tends to get a little prickly at the suggestion that he doesn't know exactly what Justin's going to do at any given moment, so I just said, “I'm not sure he can yell. He sounds like he's barely breathing.”

“Yeah, he is barely breathing,” Brian said, sounding a bit irritated now. “Welcome to the last few months. I'm sure he's fine. Evan's got him.”

How did he know Evan had stayed over? I didn't have time to ask about that, though, before there was a noise downstairs that sounded a lot like a sob. “Brian, I think he's crying.”

Brian didn't answer at first, then he said, “Yeah, he does that most nights.”

“Jesus, Brian, he cries?”

“It's very scary not being able to breathe,” Brian snapped. “He's okay. Evan's got him.”

“I'm...”

“You're what, Michael?”

I'm supposed to take care of him, I wanted to say, but...I mean, it's not like anyone had said that out loud, and I didn't want to be the first one to do it. You spell something out to Brian that he doesn't want spelled out, and he gets spooked and digs his heels in and starts disagreeing with you just for the sake of disagreeing. Years of practice dealing with him have taught me a thing or two.

“He'll go back to sleep soon,” Brian said. “You should too.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

“And Mikey?”

“Yeah.”

He paused, just for a second. “Don't tell him you heard. He doesn't know how loud he is.”

“Okay.”

I did fall back asleep eventually, even though Justin was still coughing when I did. I woke up at around nine to Jane making happy baby noises downstairs, and once I was halfway down the stairs I could hear her clapping on the tray of her high chair and Justin and Evan making the kind of quiet signing noises I've only ever notice Justin do when he's signing to another Deaf person. He's quieter with Brian or with me, but I think he gets more hyped up when he's with other Deaf people.

He definitely signs faster. Brian's a hell of a lot better than I am, obviously, but I still understand most of what they say to each other, at least when they're not trying to be sneaky. And I get most of Brian's half of the conversation when I see him sign to Emily or Derek. But as it's a Deaf person talking to a Deaf person...that's it. It's like a totally different kind of sign language.

So basically I didn't understand a word Justin and Evan were saying to each other when I came downstairs. Part of that was that their hands were constantly full as they flitted around with spatulas and milk jugs and spoons and stuff, and I can never figure out anything anyone's saying when they have to modify for stuff with their hands. But it was also just so fast and casual, and they never seemed to need to check if the other one was looking at them, and...God. I have no idea.

Justin was still coughing and his eyes looked pink and swollen, but he seemed happy as he heated up the griddle. He smiled when he saw me. “Hey! Pancakes?”

Yeah, thank you. Can I help? I kissed Jane's cheek and poured myself some coffee.

No, just sit, we've got it, Evan said.

“Have to put my diner training to good use,” Justin said.

I sat down at the island and watched them, testing myself to see what signs I could catch here and there. Evan said...something about Jane, and Justin laughed and shook his head while he poured pancake batter onto the griddle. Justin signed something quickly with his left hand before bringing to his right wrist to hold it steady, and Evan took a few pill bottles out of the cabinet and shook them out, filled a glass of water, and held them up to Justin, who kept pouring batter while he let Evan tip the pills into his mouth, took a sip of the water, and gave him a brief kiss.

Jane banged on the tray of her high chair until they looked over and signed something on her cheek, her fingers splayed, and then a very cute please. Justin nodded, finished pouring the batter, and went to the fridge and took out a carton of strawberries, which he placed on the island and started slicing up for her. “Michael, do you want strawberries?” A lot of Rs in that word for him.

Yeah, a few. Thanks.

Justin nodded and kept slicing, but a few strawberries in his hand started shaking and the knife skidded on the cutting board. I've seen Justin's hand act up about a thousand times and I know he just prefers if you act like you don't notice, so I glanced away casually and pretended like I was reading something in the paper, but he turned and got Evan's attention and said, Can you finish this? with his left hand. Evan nodded and came and took over, and Justin went to keep an eye on the pancakes, stretching out his right hand with his left.

I'd never seen Justin ask anyone but Brian for help before. He must really trust Evan.

They finished up the pancakes, and I set the table and carried the high chair over, and we dug into the pancakes while Justin fed Jane strawberries. What are you doing today? Justin asked Evan. They were signing slower now for me.

Getting my hair cut. And I told the girls I'd go to IKEA with them.

Oh, get me a new serving bowl.

Like Brian would let IKEA into the house, Evan said. I laughed.

Justin grinned. He doesn't need to know. He licked syrup off his hand. Do you know what happened to those new markers? We might want to use them today.

I think they're down in my room, Evan said. I can grab them.

His room?

I didn't get a chance to ask about that for a while. After breakfast, we cleared the table and Evan kissed Justin and was out the door, and we got to work on the comic book. We do a ton of work remotely, obviously, and that works fine, emailing each other back and forth, but it's always amazing how much more we're able to accomplish whenever we get an opportunity to be in the same room together. Ideas flow from me to him and back again and it's like we barely even have to talk.

We were interrupted some that day by Jane, of course, and Justin kept apologizing, but I didn't mind. She reminded me a lot of Ivy when she was that age, and it honestly made me kind of jealous that he still had a little baby and I didn't. Maybe I could talk Ben into another one.

We took a break for a late lunch, and finally I just couldn't keep it in anymore. Does Evan live here?

I was expecting Justin to either scoff at the idea or give me a yeah, obviously stare, but instead he just tilted his head and looked kind of thoughtful.

“I don't know,” he said, chewing. “I mean he still has his apartment, I think. But he's here most of the time. He has a room and everything. I don't know! Haven't really thought about it.”

I could know Brian and Justin for a hundred years and I will never fucking understand them. How do you not care whether or not someone lives in your house!

We worked for most of the day, except for an hour or two when Justin needed to sleep, which I used as an excuse to bother the baby with stuffed animals and call Ben, and we got a ton finished. Evan came home in the evening with a blue glass serving bowl and plenty of stories about Gwen and Emily fighting at IKEA, and Brian called while we were making dinner and told Evan he liked his haircut and made Justin laugh until he had to sit down.

We put in a movie after Jane went to bed, one of the recent superhero ones I'd seen, of course, but they hadn't. Justin had been quiet since about halfway through dinner, except for an increasingly loud wheeze, and it was weird being the only one who could hear that, because I didn't know if I should say anything. Finally I caught Evan's eye when Justin was looking at his phone and signed, He sounds bad.

Evan nodded. I know. Thanks.

Does he need anything?

“He's got it,” Evan said softly. “He'll tell us if he needs help.”

Justin fell asleep a little while after that, his head down in Evan's lap, and Evan felt his forehead and his cheek and ran his hand up and down Justin's arm. I offered to turn it off so they could go to bed, but he told me it was fine and made jokes with me the rest of the movie, twisting Justin's hair around his fingers. He shook him awake gently when it was over and let him sit on the couch holding his head while he finished cleaning up the kitchen and went to check on Jane.

I kissed Justin's cheek. Get some rest. Feel better.

He smiled weakly. Thanks.

Let me know if you need help, I said to Evan, and he nodded.

I went upstairs to give them some space, and when I looked down from the landing Evan was crouched in front of him, signing something I couldn't see. There was a lot of coughing after that, but they were quiet by the time I fell asleep. I woke up a few times during the night, though, to Justin sounding worse than he had the night before. Once I heard Evan talking quietly, and that took me a minute to figure out until I realized that they'd probably called Brian. Good. Maybe he could come home early.

The house was quiet and dark when I got up the next morning a little after eight. I put on a pot of coffee and startled when Evan came in the front door, sweaty and panting and tugging out a pair of ear buds and toeing off his shoes. I looked at his outfit. You're a runner?

“I am. Is he up? I need to get the pollen off me.”

I haven't seen him. Do you want me to check?

“No, he's probably sleeping still. He was up a lot of the night. I'll just take a quick shower and go in.”

So I kept the coffee going and was just pouring a few mugs when Evan came out of the bedroom, hair wet, closing the door behind him. “Yeah, he's going to try to sleep some more,” he said. “I think he just needs to rest today. Sorry. I know he wanted to work more.”

No, no, it's fine. Is he okay?

He nodded with a shrug. “Allergies are really bad today. What time's your flight?”

Nine tonight.

He nodded. “Brian will be back around five-thirty, so you'll get to see him.”

That was the time I already knew, so seemed like he wasn't coming home early. Does he need anything? Medicine?

“He's taken it all. Oh, reminds me.” He went to the kitchen and got a pill bottle down and shook out a purple pill that he swallowed dry.

Topiridol? I fingerspelled, probably incorrectly.

He blinked. “I totally forgot your husband's positive.”

And my son. Who's the same age as you, I think.

He laughed. “Wow.”

How are you liking that one? Ben looked into it but he has a history of pancreatitis, so he couldn't. More words to fingerspell wrong!

“Ah, yeah. It's okay. I only started a few weeks ago. I have kidney disease so I have to keep switching around, trying to find something that isn't too harsh on them.”

That must be rough.

He shrugged. “I don't have any symptoms yet, really, it's just kind of...there. Something to worry about later.” He drummed his fingers on the counter. “Can I ask you something?”

Sure.

“You're negative, right?”

I nodded.

“Does that...does it work? A positive and a negative person together?”

Yeah. It's hard sometimes, but...I like that I can take care of him. If something goes wrong. Makes us both feel safer that one of us is healthy.

It took me about two seconds to realize that was not the right thing to say. Evan looked away.

I waved for his attention. But I bet it's really good to have someone who understands, too.

He shrugged a shoulder. “Everyone's shit is different. We're all just trying to understand with whatever we have to work with.”

He's a good kid.

**

Justin stayed in his room most of the day, though I don't know how much he slept. I could hear him coughing pretty constantly through the morning. He came out at around noon to eat something and say goodbye to the baby and had the worst sneezing fit I've ever seen, and we loaded him up with tissues and nudged him back to his room. God, that shit looked miserable. Evan went to the grocery store and brought Jane back to Emily and Gwen's, and I went upstairs to Brian's office and scanned the work we'd gotten done the day before.

Evan came home from dropping off Jane and looked at the clock. I've got to run back out.

Where are you going?

He went to the sink and washed his hands. “Airport, I want to meet Brian. Justin was hoping to do it, but...”

That's nice of you.

“It's good to have someone waiting for you when you come home, right?” he said, and I couldn't argue with that; I was already looking forward to seeing Ben and Ivy at arrivals in a few hours. “You're fine here?”

Yeah, he's just been sleeping.

About half an hour after Evan left, though, I heard him stir. I turned the volume down on the TV and sure enough, a minute later his bedroom door opened and he leaned against it, panting and messy-haired and generally looking like he'd been through a fight. I turned off the TV. Hey. How are you?

He nodded and coughed. “Better yeah.” His voice was wrecked.

Evan left to go meet Brian. They'll be home pretty soon.

“Yeah.” He rubbed his eye with the back of his wrist. “I wanted to be awake when he got here.”

I gestured to the couch next to me, and he hesitated, stretching his arms across his body.

“I think I want a bath?” he said. “Is that okay?”

I laughed. Yeah, of course that's okay.

He didn't move for a minute, then he rolled his eyes and chuckled a little. “You have to come with me.”

Oh...what?

“I'm epileptic, I can't take baths by myself. You have to hang out and make sure I don't die. That's why I asked if it was okay. Do you mind? I can wait until they're home if you'd rather.”

No. I stood up. No, let me help.

“Great. Thanks.”

I'll be honest, I felt pretty awkward about the whole thing, but Justin made it all pretty natural. There was a chair in their bathroom, probably for this specific thing, and Justin ran the bath and got himself a glass of water while I sat down. “You can read or play on your phone or whatever,” he said to me, undressing like it was the most normal thing in the world. “You'll hear if something happens.”

Sure, yeah.

He got into the tub and breathed a wheezy sigh of relief, and I checked the store inventory on my phone and re-ordered a few of the counter impulse buys that were running low. Justin was quiet, just coughing and moving around the water every once in a while.

Eventually he said, “I'm sorry we didn't get to get more work done.”

Don't worry about it. We did a ton yesterday.

“I know.” He stretched his leg out of the water and leaned forward to touch his toes. “But I was looking forward to having the whole weekend.”

And maybe—okay, definitely—it should have clicked before then, but that was the moment I realized I'd actually been invited here to work on Rage this whole time. Justin didn't need me to take care of him. And if he did, he would have gone right out and asked, like he did here.

Brian was right. I hate when that happens.

“Huh,” I said.

He looked at me. “What?”

Nothing.

He closed his eyes and relaxed back in the water.

Justin got out of the bath and went back to his room to get dressed and sit with the nebulizer for a while, and I got online to check the status of my flight and let Ben know everything was on schedule. I was just finishing that up when the front door opened and Brian and Evan came in, signing to each other and taking off their shoes. Brian rubbed his hands with sanitizer and gave me a distracted kiss, darting his eyes around the room. “Where is he?”

He's in your room. He's fine.

Brian looked at me like I was crazy. I know he's fine, he said, and charged towards their bedroom, but before he got there Justin came out and smiled and said, “Hey,” and and Brian closed the space between them in about a millisecond, cupping Justin's cheek and damn near swallowing him whole.

Evan chuckled. “I'm going to get some stuff together and get out of here.”

Where are you going?

“My apartment. Something tells me they're going to want some privacy tonight.” He kissed my cheek. “Thank you for coming. Come back soon.”

Yeah, of course. Take care of yourself.

“I will.”

Brian and Justin and I ordered pizza and showed Brian the work we'd gotten done, and he regaled us with hilarious stories from his conference and asked us about Jane and teased Justin when he kept sneezing, and it was really nice, even if I could tell they were counting down the seconds until I left for the airport so they could jump each other's bones. Justin still seemed really sick and worn out, but Brian was still looking at him like he didn't even notice, which was sweet. I guess after a while you don't really see it anymore.

Except finally, right when I was leaving, after I'd kissed Justin goodbye and brought my bag to the front door, Brian hugged me and said, “Was good to see you, Mikey.”

“Yeah, maybe next time we'll work our way up to fifteen minutes.”

He rolled his eyes. “Let's not get hasty.” He stuck his tongue in his cheek and looked away from me, then back, and said really softly, “So how'd he do?” All fake-casual like he does.

I reached out and squeezed his wrist and looked at Justin behind him, curled up and half-asleep on the couch.

“He's good,” I said. “He's got it under control. He'll let you know.”