Black Velvet (80) (Patreon)

💖 shortish and sweet because I didn’t want to take away the sentiment of early adulthood portrayed in this chapter (also I’m trying to get more chapters out this month before I leave!)

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"I don't have to think about it."

The words leave me before I have a mind to think otherwise. Tobias' distant, troubled gaze lightens all at once, with no room for the cynicism of misunderstanding.

His expression softens.

I acknowledge — for once, I've said something vague, and Tobias isn't anticipating the worst outcome of a simple statement. My heartbeat stutters with warmth. And with that, I wonder,

What is there to think about it?

Tobias is here, next to me.  Here, in Huxley.

The more I try to avoid it, the more obvious it becomes. Jameson isn't home just because it's Jameson. Yeah. I mean — it happens to be a town where my childhood occurred, where I grew from a teen into an awkward adult. It's a place where people I love lived.

Where memories I cherish, that I look fondly on, sat in its backdrop. But. I'm older now. Everyone else is too. As much as I hate it... I can't stop these things from changing.

And I go back to the same thought.

Without the charm of my brother's laugh, his drunken chatter after tailgate and house parties, the begrudging responsibility of taking care of him and his noisy friends... Without the friendly competition between Charlie-Anne and I, or the familiarity of a schedule that had me rising before the sun, in the coinciding discomfort of oven heat and the comfort of the smell of hot pastries...

Without Tobias in his apron, listening to Rick bark orders at the pancake house — or Tobias sitting there on his porch swing, the familiar creak of it at night, and the baseball games that smelled like dew and dirt and old metal bleachers. Without the bliss of listening to a sermon on Sunday without really listening, because I'm young and have nothing to disagree with —

What is Jameson?

Is a town really a home?

"I don't have to think about it at all," I repeat. This time I look at Tobias. This time, I push my palms into lake-bed dirt and reeds and cattails, and move upwards. I kissed him once at Edmund's, a lake we've known since childhood — and today, I kiss him in front of a lake that we've discovered together.

I do it because I'm happy, here, with him. Because I haven't in weeks — and I can feel the change of just about anything, and it hurts, distresses, and unsettles me... But I haven't felt a difference in how Tobias cares for me.

He's what feels right. I cup his face in my hands, and I tilt further into him. I hear his book clasp shut, discarded haphazardly with a flutter of thick pages and a thump of earth. His arms wrap around me, strong and too eager — a palm to my back, one that slides up the nape of my neck.

My uneasiness from the passing weeks shifts into an abrupt feeling of familiarity, belonging, and relief.

That's what makes me think; this is it.

Tobias is it.

I might not have been able to imagine a life without Ms. Hartgrove and her affinity for red apples and gossip, baseball games on Saturday, the science fairs, and the lake by Edmund's memorial ground — before, they were all I had.

They were what convinced me of my place there, in Jameson. My memories. The people I'm fond of. I remember telling Tobias just that, how he looked at me under the brink of dawn, how he told me his sadness without really telling me anything.  He said it wasn't his home — he didn't have those same memories, and told me how he never would.

At the time... I just couldn't understand his detachment.  But now... I do.

It's not Jameson I'm attached to, at twenty years old. I'm not tied to any of those things.  I just — I can't imagine my life without Tobias.

"... I think that's why I've been feeling like this." I murmur, our lips touch between, our noses brushing, and Tobias' dark eyes open just to lid with reassurance and the tiredness of adulthood, "you're home to me. I kept trying to think of reasons, of excuses, and — Jameson isn't, well — it isn't anything to me without you."

Tobias exhales, his grip at the base of my neck flexing.  His lips part like he wants to say something.  He hesitates, his dark eyes searching and raw and different.  I give him space to think — to try before I press my forehead to his chest, embarrassed.

"... Do you remember what you said at that party?"  I smile, small and unsure, but it's only for myself.  I'm glad I can't see him.  Glad he can't see me.  My cheeks are warm.  I feel gutted by my own openness.

Tobias doesn't respond, like he's lost, picking through memories, or maybe — he's still trying to find his words, but his heart thumps loudly and quick against my ear as I settle against his hold.

"Well.  It doesn't matter.  But.... I don't think I was ever Saturn," I whisper.  It should bother me, but it doesn't. "I think — you lied to me,"  I laugh, genuine and teasing, because I just feel so much,  "I've always been its ring. It's always been me.  Circling you."

Tobias heaves me off, and suddenly, his two fingers press under my jaw — lifting my gaze to meet his.  I swallow, half in his lap, both of us near-buried in cattails that are too quick to grow back.  I wonder, for a moment, if I've said the wrong thing.

"Well, I mean,"

Tobias' fingers slip away, and he covers my mouth.

"Oliver, that's bullshit."

He whispers, stricken, unsure — so nervous.

But — why?

I blink, surprised, my nose wrinkling above his palm.  I think, maybe — maybe I've really messed up.

But then I see it.

Tobias' dark eyes dart over my features, brows gathered above them with uncertainty.  His jaw flexes, gaze uncertain, bravery wavering.

"...Because.  I love you,"  He says.  "… I think I have for a long time."

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