Black Velvet (72) (Patreon)

I stumble back, try to make it seem less like a wild gazelle and more like a proper human movement,

"Hey, Tobias." It sounds breathless and a bit too excited, and my blush from Nic's prior commentary flares up again.

Tobias raises an eyebrow and smiles,

"Hey, Oliver."

My brother is already smiling like some sort of wild monkey and pushes between us with the manners of one,

"I was just telling Oliver here that I think you would really like,"  Nic pauses for the drama of it all, smiles his shit-eating smile, a leans in to whisper, "I mean, really like,"

"Nic!  We were talking about," I motion towards the weirdly wrapped basket in my brother's lanky arms,  "this fruit basket, here."

"We were?"  Nic hums, a thoughtful finger on his chin.  "I thought we were talking about—”

I inhale, shouldering him,

"And about apples.  Then, we started thinking about, um, whether or not —you liked apples.  Well.  Um, fruit... If you liked fruit."

I end that with a nod, cutting myself off with a forced smile.  Tobias' grin grows into something humored and curious, and my stomach blossoms with butterflies,

"What I mean to say is.  We like fruit.  And it's awfully expensive nowadays,"  I nod again, eyes averting to catch my mom like somehow she'll pop in to save the day.  She's too busy drunkenly chattering and pushing her business card into Tobias' bewildered coworkers' hands.  Damnit, "which is why a fruit basket seemed to be a really practical choice."

"Ah.  This is painful."  Nic snorts, waving his hands as if they will derail his oncoming fit of laughter,  "Wow.  Nice, Oli.  Yes. We were very curious about your love for apples, Toby, that's good.  Good save."

Nic pushes my shoulder playfully as he passes along the fruit basket to Tobias.

"Here, I bestow upon you expensive and practical fruit."

"Thanks," Tobias laughs softly as his eyes graze over me,  "Give me a second. I'll put it on the counter."

"God, you're an asshole." I hiss as Tobias turns his back, hating that Nic is almost doubled over in giggles, "thanks for that.  Now he thinks that my love language is fruit baskets."

I ignore my mom's less than subtle staring at our interactions with our old neighbor, squinting back at her because she didn't hear my telepathic cries for help.  She crosses her arms.  I avert my squint.

"It's my brotherly duty to help make you extremely uncomfortable given any scenario." Nic shrugs, wipes at his eyes before he plops down on the living room sofa, one that's surprisingly unoccupied by the other guests.

My dad still looks vaguely horrified at the prospect of being at a housewarming at all, despite his allegiance with the other wall-surfers.  He has his hands on his elbows, frowns at me twice, and looks towards the door.

It might be a signal to fake an illness.

I'm not sure.

"Dad might book it," I whisper, nudging my brother as I sit awkwardly next to him, occupying the space at the very edge of the seat to keep a semblance of personal space.  "Like, he has that look that he gets when he sees blood or mom's tampons."

"That's blood and the implication of blood.  Okay?  He'll survive. He just hates social gatherings that are void of men with pencil-pockets,"  Nic sniggers and swipes at the home screen of his phone, makes little effort in pretending he's enjoying himself at all, before he tucks the phone back into his shirt pocket with a sigh, "there's no wifi here. I legit can't even check my email.  What's a boy to do in the Stone Age?"

"It's a party, Nic. Why don't we go try and talk to everyone else,"  Nic pushes his palm to my mouth and keeps typing,   "Okay, rude? Why do your hands smell like gummy bears?"

"Want the wifi password?"

I jump a bit when the tips of Tobias' shoes hit my own. He reaches over me, the familiar scent of his body wash a clear indicator of his proximity. I glance up at him, and his eyes make the briefest bout of contact with my own.

I suddenly think the nearness is very intentional.

"What is it?" Nic asks, before batting his eyelashes, "I like butthole 101?"

Tobias snags my brother's hand away from my mouth and then his phone from his pocket easily,

"What, can I not make butthole jokes? Too soon?" Nic doesn't know when not to push, but Tobias doesn't seem to mind,  "Is there still too much unresolved sexual tension,"

The Amadeus man hums, swipes his finger across Nic's phone screen, and his brows raise a bit — a sinister smile following.

Nic's humor turns to an anxious wiggle from beside me, shoulders tightening through his feigned disinterest,

"Man.  You better not... Toby.  Listen to me."  Nic warns, kicking at his boots with his socked feet.  Tobias swipes again, and again, "Bad Toby, down!  Oh.  C'mon, I got a million more butthole jokes, and I'm not afraid to use them."

"I didn't say anything." Tobias pauses like he's considering giving him the phone back, before he taps it against his chin,

"Or, should I?" Tobias waggles the phone between his fingers, and Nic pushes at his knee with his foot, "I mean, you're doing a disservice to us all by keeping it to yourself."

Nic crosses his arms, looks a bit like an inflated pufferfish for a moment before he glowers,

"I'm not scared, salad tosser."

"My moon — my sun," Nic's face is an awful shade of beet red, and my mouth is open in disbelief, watching Tobias deadpan Nic's poorly written prose, "your hair is like candlelight,"

"Fucking — Toby!  So what?  That poem isn't mine."

"It's clearly addressed to Bernadette Jackson from Calculus.  This is how you pick up women?"  Tobias' nose wrinkles.  "What is — Your hair, like candlelight, winding through dark nights..."

"She liked it."

"No kidding, Nic, this is beautiful,"

Tobias is smiling, and I'm cackling under my palms,

"The poetry works!" Nic is up and off the sofa in a matter of seconds, arms bracketing with his friend's as he tries to snag back his mobile, and Tobias looking somewhere between weirded out by my brother's written words and amused beyond comprehension, "I googled it!"

"It's not that you write poetry; it's that it's terrible,"  Tobias sneers, "Your name is like a sweet, sweet peach,"

"Hey, I gave it my best shot!" Nic is laughing harder, bending at the waist, even though his cheeks are rosy, "you know that I don't understand romance.  She likes romance."

"That's what you said, but you lied."  I nod solemnly, "and all these years. We didn't know you were such an artist."

"Oh, ha ha," Nic halts, struck by a sudden and terrible idea. Tobias' eyebrows gather as Nic dips behind him in some sort of wiggly dance — probably his attempt to get out of arm's reach before he directs his taunt,  "where's that picture of Oliver you stole off our fridge, huh?"

It's quiet, quiet enough for my mouth to snap close — for it to be audible, eyes widening.

Tobias' gaze shifts to mine and back to Nic, like it was a long-kept secret that his best friend just ripped the lid off of,

"I was fourteen."  He starts, but then closes his more than incriminating mouth, tilting his head at Nic.  I blush along with him, stricken and staring back as Nic snatches his phone from Tobias' now loose grip.

"Fourteen and in love."  Nic waggles his brows, turns to face the hall without our horrified shells,  "Oliver and Toby, sitting in a tree... How does the rest go?"

"Anywho.  Show us your sleeping quarters, Toby!"   He demands, too bright and cheerful for the devil that he is, Tobias and I left with a very traumatic silence.

—

"Come on," Tobias motions, steps down the small hallway at the end of the makeshift living room. Nic follows, interest peeked,  "the house is small.  The room is smaller."

If Tobias is still embarrassed, he's hiding it quite well.  He looks anything but, teetering closer to seeming absolutely bored as he pushes through his bedroom door, sweeping an arm out in front of him like he's gesturing for his friend to hurry up and satiate his curiosity.

"Oh, gee, Mr. Tree."  Nic rolls his eyes,  "I wonder why it feels so small."

The first thing I notice, despite the warmth of a very old, brown home — is that everything else is in shades of grey. It's like I've stepped into another type of existence, a calm one, where everything is a bit past orderly and bordering on mechanic.

I'd never been in Tobias' house growing up before, much less his room, and now — this is all his.  There are a few puzzle sets stacked next to a row of books, like he just took it up to pass the time, a finished puzzle on his floor, a half-built ship in a bottle that has collected dust on its inside sitting atop a box...

And there are stars stuck to the ceiling.

They're silly little glow-in-the-dark stars, little stars that look an awful lot like the ones on my ceiling at home.  It really — seems like the first thing that I think he took the time to put up. My eyes shift, pausing to catch Tobias' dark ones from the doorway.

While Nic is preoccupied, chattering and digging through the pages of Tobias' high-school photo album, I turn, pushing onto my tiptoes.  Surprised, Tobias' ducks his head, and in his ear, I whisper,

"Can I stay the night?"

And to that, his eyes follow mine as he rights himself again, pulling back into his height.  I settle back onto the soles of my feet, and he inhales — gaze unconsciously flicking towards the bed and away.

He pushes his hands into his pockets.

"Yeah."

--

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