It wasn’t really anything special. To be fair, Kota had described it as just that -- but still, actual sheets on the unframed mattress that served as his bed would have been a perk. Adri knew the place wasn’t permanent, they still had to go back to school and anything after that was still up in the air, but it looked like no one lived there at all.
“I don’t need all that stuff,” he dismissed, when she asked about dishware that wasn’t made of recycled paper.
“Look,” he turned her so her back was to him, and pulled her into his chest.
“Pots and pans,” he gestured to the full sink of dishes, turning her attention to the rest of the loft.
“Running water. Natural light.”
“Music,” he pointed over her shoulder at the small speakers sitting on the window ledge, his playlist trailing quietly in from his phone.
“Man’s best friend,” he added, as Jay skidded around the corner from the bathroom, pulling an abandoned Kleenex with him.
Adri sighed, turning around to face him with one eyebrow raised. He smiled back easily, and her disapproving expression softened.
“Kota, you should at least -- ”
“Hm, nope,” he spun her back in his arms again and shuffled them to the mattress, outstretching one leg to knock the open bag of gummy worms he’d been eating earlier onto the floor before flopping down gracelessly with her.
“At least - Kota - get - ”
“You’re going to get bugs if you don’t put sheets down!”
“Bugs?” He paused, pulling back a little to grin at his girlfriend while she struggled to twist around in his arms - whether to face him or free herself wasn’t clear. “What kind of bugs?”
He let go of her with one hand to spider his fingers up her back and across her shoulders, continuing despite her protests until her own laughter incapacitated her enough for him to let go and attack with both hands.
“Don’t hold back, baby, these walls are cement, no one’s going to hear you scream,” he assured her, his voice turning from mocking to theatrically sinister.
“Then there’s probably - something - much better - we - could be doing!” she gasped for air when he let up a little, his fingers dropping to her sides and drumming threateningly against her skin as he considered.
“Like?” he asked, just to watch as a blush suddenly heated her entire face and trailed down her chest.
Her earlier faux-confidence gone, she shyly reached for his hands and attempted to assemble her features into her go-to ‘come hither’ look.
He let her hands trail from his wrists to his forearms, passing the crook of his elbows and…
“No, I want you to tell me.” Raising her arms had proven to be a foolish risk on her part, his hands darting up to her ribs to resume his earlier attack. “Why don’t you tell me every. Single. Filthy. Detail of what you had planned, hm? I’ll stop when you do.”
Before the experiment to find whether or not Adri would first allow herself to die of embarrassment or exhaustion could be concluded, it was interrupted by Jay, who had upgraded from yipping excitedly from the end of the mattress to crawling in between the pair to mediate the thrashing and screaming laughter filling the tiny apartment.
Stretching out beside her, Kota reached over and helpfully tugged her shirt back into place, quiet as she caught her breath. Jay settled on her chest and she glanced at Kota mock-apologetically.
“Sorry. Can’t, now. Puppy.”
He reached to pick Jay up and she stopped him. “This wouldn’t happen if you just… got a bed frame.”
“Fine, fine! I’ll drop it.”
Adri cleared her throat, trying to mentally gauge what tone Kota was using.
He sighed, dropping his bag from his shoulder to the floor next to the door, already beginning to roll his eyes.
“Before you - do whatever it is that you’re doing, with the annoyed face, hear me out. My back was starting to hurt and look, it’s super minimalist, and I just - it was from Ikea, it’s not even expensive, you can just get rid of it after. Come sit.”
He rearranged his annoyed expression, rubbing a hand down his face slowly. She wasn’t entirely wrong - it was barely even a frame, just a set of legs raising the mattress from the floor, a small headboard with just enough height to keep the pillows from hitting the wall. Still, for some principle reason, he couldn’t quite get behind it. Giving her a chance, he stepped closer and settled on the edge of the bed. It did make a difference. While he appreciated the firmness that the floorbed had provided, he definitely felt a little more comfortable - or maybe she’d timed this so he’d be too tired from work to protest the idea of a softer bed. That seemed up her alley.
“Well?” She looked hopeful, wringing her hands together. He felt his expression soften even more.
She lit up and he smiled genuinely, pulling her into his side and then laying them both back to look at the ceiling for a moment.
“Next time ask before making a life-altering change in my house, please.” he reminded her. Or at the very least, don’t explicitly do what I said not to.
“I will!” she promised him animatedly. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to help.”
They laid quietly for a moment before she felt him shift next to her.
“God she’s driving me insane!”
“Relax, Adri, it’s fine. You can hide out in the apartment for a couple of days, park the car in my spot in the underground and I’ll park the bike behind it. We walk everywhere, anyway.” Kota stepped back to avoid being hit by the cart as Adri rounded the corner to the next aisle without warning.
“I don’t get her infatuation with my car.”
“It’s a nice car,” he sighed, watching his girlfriend struggle to reach the tortilla chips on the top shelf. “And you don’t want her to have it.”
“Help me!” she snapped after another moment of reaching.
Kota sighed, reaching for the chips himself before stopping, grinning, and wrapping his arms around her waist. He could practically feel her shaking at the sheer force of trying to hold her pout as he raised her up to reach the top shelf.
“Could’ve just grabbed them,” She huffed, tossing the bag into the cart and straightening her shirt around his arms.
“Babe,” he mumbled, simply pulling her back against his chest, “Relax.”
“Deep breath. In,” he squeezed her, her only choice being to inhale heavily to avoid losing her breath completely. “And out,” he slowly released her, smiling when her shoulders sagged and she visibly let go.
She sighed shakily, in the way that always reminded him of a baby calming itself down after a tantrum, and he chuckled.
“Don’t worry about the car. We’ll deal with it,” he kissed her cheek, releasing her to return to the cart. “You just worry about finding that dip your mom always gets. The one with the little potato skins in it.”
The pair continued up and down the aisles quietly for a few moments, stocking up on snack food with minimal conversation. Adri generally left his actual grocery shopping up to him (with the exception of pizza night ingredients), but this, once a week, was their next tiny hint at domesticity.
She didn’t even intentionally leave her things at his place - not aside from a few staples, like an emergency sweater in case she had to leave in the cold, a bullet vibrator with extra batteries, and a few abandoned bobby pins and hair ties lying around the surface of his bathroom sink. They were not, she’d reminded her parents several times, living together.
So she wasn’t living with him, but making love on a Wednesday night after homemade dinner following a day of running around shopping and going to the movies and other couple activities was definitely something Adri could get used to.
Rolling over, she gave a content little stretch and nudged Kota out of his sleep.
“We should go back to the Farmer’s Market tomorrow and get some flowers.”
“Yeah,” he replied, his eyes still closed. Reaching blindly out for her, he pulled her into his side and settled back in to fall back asleep.
“Yeah?” She whispered, her voice tickling at his ear enough for him to smile sleepily and scrunch his shoulder a little.
“Whatever you want,” he promised emptily, slumber already beginning to take over yet again. She laughed quietly, tucking herself into him and letting the whir of the floor fan near the bed to lull her back into relaxation.
What he really needed was decor. Anything, honestly, she wouldn’t be that picky about it. The walls just held dust, this way, even with the bed no longer on the floor the apartment felt like a half-abandoned government safehouse.
When he awoke twenty minutes later, she helpfully handed him the bong from under the bed.
“Adri, it’s like 9:30,” he pointed out, though he did take the bong by the neck and begin to pat down his jeans for a lighter.
“It doesn’t have to be the morning, it’s when you wake up.”
“Whatever, do you have the lighter?”
She held it out, snatching it back when he leaned forward to grab it. She tapped her lips twice with her free hand, raising an eyebrow expectantly and grinning as he caved, leaning in and kissing her.
He pulled away and lit the bowl, glancing up as her phone rang from where it had ended up tangled in the bedsheets.
“That’s my mom - I have to go, I need to pick Callie up from her cheer meet. I’ll see you in the morning?”
He pouted instantly, exhaling and lowering the bong.
“I - yeah, I guess. Should probably make it the afternoon.”
“Not a chance,” she grinned over her shoulder, already across the room and stepping back into her shoes. She tugged her sweater on and zipped, about to blow him a kiss when he pounced, pinning her back against the door and kissing her hungrily.
“Alright. Now you can leave,” he mumbled, kissing her one more time before retreating to the bed, leaving her dazed, and grinning like an idiot as she stumbled out to her car.
“Yeah, well, I have to take care of Jay, and remember to shower every once in awhile when you aren’t around so leaving plants for me to kill isn’t going to help,” Kota’s voice crackled through the receiver. “If you’re going to start leaving everything at my place you should start with a toothbrush. Tampons, maybe.”
“It’s a vase of flowers, Kota, don’t be so dramatic, I’m not asking to put my name on the lease,” Adri huffed, digging through her closet and humming contently as she found the painting she was looking for.
“Yeah,” his voice was much less amused, now, his tone short. “I’ll see you later, I have to get back to work.”
“Yeah, I’ll call you from the road,” was the only goodbye she got before the call ended.
Lifting the painting she’d discovered up, she dusted off the edges of the canvas and sighed. A Kota Original, she’d dubbed it, back when he’d first given it to her the summer after they’d graduated from high school. It was a rare abstract piece, something he’d made on assignment in class and only gifted to her after she’d dropped (several) hints that she was interested.
Heading toward the stairs to put it in her car, she paused, turning around to glance back at the bathroom she shared with her younger sister. Toothbrush. Tucking a spare into her purse with a tube of toothpaste, she paused again and doubled back. Tampons.
If he had been annoyed with her earlier comments on the phone, it dissipated when he tiredly stepped in the door only to be pounced on by his (half-naked) girlfriend.
“Adri,” he tried to sound annoyed at first, nearly falling back as she planted messy kisses from the corner of his mouth down to his neck.
“Adri,” he cracked, grinning and almost laughing as she pulled his arms around herself and kissed back across his face. “Relax. What?”
“Nothing, I missed you all day,” she mumbled, kissing him once more, much less playfully.
“Uh-huh, missed me so much that your clothing magically disappeared?” he pulled back despite her trying to reattach herself to his lips, raising an eyebrow slowly in appreciation as he took in the view. She stood impatiently in front of him, in her bra and his boxers, huffing as she tried to pull him back in.
“I took a shower and you were supposed to call me on your way, remember?”
“I do remember, I’m sorry,” he let himself be pulled back in, and when her lips trailed down to his neck, he finally took in the room. “Hey.”
She pulled back almost guiltily, looking up at him through her lashes.
She followed his gaze to the painting hung up against the wall opposite the bed, then chewed her lip. Shuffling back a little, she pulled both of his hands toward the bed.
He sighed, rooting himself to the spot and waiting for an explanation, despite her obvious attempts to distract him.
“I just - you needed color in here.”
“Please can we leave it up, please, please, I’ll never ask for anything else for the whole week, pretty pl-”
“Okay, okay, enough.” he allowed himself to be pulled, tearing his eyes away from the painting to instead focus on his girlfriend.
She nudged him back onto the bed and climbed on top of him, leaning forward and resuming her trail of kisses down towards his chest, stopping only to help him shed layers of clothing. The painting didn’t look half bad where she’d placed it - and he’d almost forgotten about it anyway.
It would stay up. For the time being.
“Holy shit,” were the first words out of Kota’s mouth when he stepped into his apartment. He’d gone to kick his shoes off next to the window by the door, only to be stopped by a stack of speakers. Stepping around the tower carefully, he took in the sight of both ends of the system, and covered his mouth tiredly.
“ADRI?” he called out, a little louder than intended. She didn’t answer, but Jay rattled loudly in the bathroom, clearly startled. There was only the sound of his tiny claws scampering guiltily away from the bathroom and rounding the corner, before the tiny terrier slid like a baseball player under the bed and stayed there.
Taking the evening on one annoyance at a time, Kota squinted at the place where the little dog had vanished to and headed for the bathroom instead, groaning quietly as he flicked on the light to the sight of a few shredded tampon wrappers on the bathroom rug.
Muttering angrily to himself, he slammed the door shut and returned to the main room, pulling his phone out and beginning to pace.
Sending a photo of the speakers to Adri along with a succinct little “What the fuck” text, he stepped into the kitchen and swung the fridge open. One beer out of the three he’d left there remained, and with a quick glance at the sink he inventoried the missing two cans - empty, with lipstick stains on the rims. Cracking the remaining can open, he took a long swig and leaned against the counter as his phone buzzed.
“speaker. noun. an apparatus that converts electrical impulses into sound, typically as part of a public address system or stereo equipment.”
“you’re not funny,” he typed back, rolling his eyes when she immediately responded with an annoyed emoji.
“the ihome speaker was blown anyway, you needed something new. it’s under the bed if you still want it but it sounds like death.”
“this is a four piece surround sound system. overkill.”
He sighed, taking another sip of his beer and rolling the phone around in the palm of his hand before responding. They didn’t have many actual arguments, but when they did, it tended to escalate quickly. There was no reason to fight over something so mildly annoying.
“my birthday hasn’t changed. it’s in four months. is this your way of repaying me for drinking all of my beer?”
“i’ll bring you more when i come over later, promise.”
“fine. none of that weird fruit-infused craft stuff.”
After a moment, she responded with the thumbs-up emoji and he sighed, tucking his phone back into his pocket and setting his beer down to pull out the saucepan to start on dinner. Jay, hoping for forgiveness for trashing the bathroom, came out from beneath the bed to investigate (and hopefully catch any falling scraps), and Kota remembered the trash can.
“jay got into your stuff by the way”
He set the phone back down and smirked to himself as he cooked, and by the end of his beer he’d forgotten completely why he was annoyed in the first place.
Adri arrived as he was tucking the pot into the small sink, letting herself in the open door and enthusiastically greeting Jay despite the garbage can tucked under her arm.
“I have a solution,” she announced, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek before continuing toward the bathroom. He followed her curiously, leaning against the opposite wall of the hallway as she opened the door and chuckled guiltily.
“Yikes,” she mumbled, dropping to her knees and setting down the bin. “I got one with a lid, little bastard’s out of luck, now.”
Jay looked on with hopeless curiosity while she swept up the trash into her arms and transferred it into the new garbage can, kicking it into the corner when she was finished.
Kota hummed, uncrossing his arms and standing upright as she stood up again. “Like magic.”
“And,” she added, beaming, “I have your beer in the car. But you have to agree to come for a walk with me to get it.”
He began to groan dramatically, but she cut him off, “We can bring Jay, it’ll be nice.”
Jay was much more enthusiastic about it than Kota, but the weather was nice, and he had trouble resisting the way her whole face lit up and she gripped his hand tighter with each detail of his day that he told her. She led them around the neighbourhood, clutching the leash and hanging onto Kota with her other hand, walking until Jay was practically dragging his tiny feet with each step.
They retired to the apartment, and drank the entire six-pack over a game of Mario Kart that quickly developed into a playfight, which ended with them both sprawled out naked on top of the sheets.
She was gone when he woke up in the morning, but the sink was free of dirty dishes and the counters had been freshly wiped down. Even Jay seemed chipper, still wearing his collar from when he’d clearly been for a walk that morning. Checking the time told him that he’d overslept a little, but without any obligations for the day, he didn’t mind sinking back down into the covers and closing his eyes for a few more minutes.
He’d barely laid back, however, when the door swung open, Adri bustling in with a tray of coffees and a little pastry bag. She walked around like she didn’t know he was awake, setting the breakfast down on the counter and quietly tidying up Jay’s toys that were spread hazardously across the floor. Putting his keys on the hook by the door, she smiled to herself, watering the flowers on the windowsill with her water bottle, hanging her sweater off of the back of the nearest dining chair.
She looked comfortable. More comfortable than he’d seen her at home when they were surrounded by her parents, her siblings. At her family home, they had moments to themselves, evenings where Callie was with friends and her parents were out on their own. It always lead back to the same routine, though, waking up in the morning to the loud wakefulness of a full house, neither of them unhappy but never really just being properly alone.
“Morning,” he croaked from the bed, chuckling as Adri nearly jumped out of her skin, whirling around to face the bed.
“I didn’t realize you were up,” she dropped her bag to the floor softly and wandered over, crawling up onto the edge of the bed next to him.
He slung an arm around her waist softly, aiming to pull her back down beside him but she pulled back, chuckling.
“No, no,” she took his hand from her waist and gave him a semi-stern look, “No going back to sleep. I brought you breakfast.”
“Yeah, but then I’d have to rely on getting you out of bed. I made things easier, now you can just lay there and be lazy.”
Before he could protest, she slid out of the bed and grabbed the pastry bag, bringing it back over and holding it out to him.
Intrigued by the scent of fresh dough and cheese, he slowly sat up and rested back against the headboard, peeling it open. He couldn’t protest a still-warm ham and cheese croissant.
She drank two coffees while he ate and drank the one she’d brought for him, and with her sitting cross-legged in front of him, he listened with great interest as she rambled about the weird woman she’d been standing behind in the deli line, the beautiful great dane that she’d met while walking back, and the absolute horror that they’d run out of coffee trays and she’d needed to step into the nearest starbucks and lie to acquire one.
“I love you,” he surprised even himself, cutting her off mid-sentence as she began to conclude her list of adventures from the morning.
She stopped, then softened, leaning forward and kissing him. Before she could return the sentiment, he added:
“I like having you here.”
That sentiment seemed to have a different effect on her, her whole face going into ‘think mode’ as she leaned back to survey him.
“I - like being here too. I like hanging out with you.”
He reared back a little, not even protesting this time when she stood up and took the empty paper cups to the trash can.
“My uh - Godfrey is going to pick me up in a bit. I just need to get some shopping done but - I can come by later?”
“Sure, whatever,” his voice sounded tinny even to himself, a sort of uncomfortable feeling settling over him, “If you want.”
Adri stayed in the kitchen cleaning for a few moments before returning to the bed and crawling up beside him. “Can I stay here tonight?”
He pulled back just enough to look at her. “Do you want to?”
She frowned, her brow furrowing a little in confusion before she smiled, hopeful and bright. “Yeah! I love sleeping over here.”
Because that’s what it was. Her clothes falling out of his drawers and her toothpaste next to his sink with her overpriced shampoo constantly taking up room in the caddy of his shower. She’d invested more time and money into the makings of the apartment than he had but at the end of the day, it was still his, and she was still just…
Kota yawned widely, barely shutting the front door before zombie-shuffling into his kitchen. Work was always challenging but the days didn’t usually drag out quite as long as this one had. Usually home around dinnertime in the evening, today he stumbled in half-awake just after 10 PM, making a beeline for the fridge.
The fridge was considerably more full than it had been when he’d left the apartment and his sleeping girlfriend that morning - where there was once a half package of fresh tortellini and some sauce, there was now a drawer full of vegetables, a few bottles of juice, and a slab of cheese. Deciding to mentally log that later, he grabbed the mystery cheese and tossed it onto the cutting board behind him, digging around in the cupboards for some bread.
The catch-all bowl that he usually used for receipts and keys had been emptied, the keys now resting on the counter and the receipts organized and stuck to the fridge with magnets that hadn’t been there previously. The bowl had been taken over by an army of fresh apples, so he grabbed one of those as well and began the hunt for a small knife.
He’d long given up on the principle that if he didn’t use what she left for him, she’d perhaps stop, now having tiredly retired himself to a life of having very little, if any, control over his apartment.
Tugging open the cutlery drawer, he stopped dead and glanced up, doing a small double-take at the knife set on the counter. Where there was usually a jar of cooking knives, their handles upturned so he could tell them apart in the mess, there now sat a small crafted block, several gleaming brand new handles poking out of it from all sides. Reaching over and pulling one out, he squinted, glaring down at his own reflection in the blade of what appeared to be a very new, very expensive knife. The rest of the matching set seemed just the same, and as he reached for his phone to demand an explanation, his eyes caught the slightly open cupboard for the pots and pans.
Daring himself, and taking a deep steadying breath as if he were in a horror movie and about to open a creepy door, he grabbed the cupboard handle and yanked it open.
Resting innocently on the shelf were nine, no ten, brand new non-stick saucepans. Pulling one out, he noted the super lightweight factor and turned it over in his hands a couple of times to assess the situation. Copper. Tri-Ply. Even from an inhouse kitchenware brand, the set would have had to set her back at least six hundred dollars. A worthy investment -- if she ever cooked.
“Damn it,” he mumbled, tossing it back into the cupboard and patting down his jacket pockets for his cigarettes. He reached over and opened the kitchen window, wincing as he knocked the vase of flowers from the ledge. The cheap glass shattered in the sink. and he bit his tongue to keep from loudly cursing. With a deep breath, he lit a smoke and took a drag, hiking himself up onto the counter to be a little closer to the window.
He glanced down at the flowers, which, to be fair, were beginning to be quite past their prime anyway, and sighed guiltily. Pulling his phone out, he decided to avoid the angry text he’d been planning earlier.
“Hey. I killed your flowers. Sorry.”
Glancing at the knife block on the counter again, he took another drag of the smoke, pettiness getting the best of him, if only for a moment.
“But they’ll probably last longer if I cut the stems with my new $200 knife set next time you force me to babysit a plant for you.”
If his tone read as angry, she either missed the point or didn’t care - the latter was more likely with her, she’d known him for too long.
“the knife set was $110”.
Growling to himself in irritation, he slammed his phone down onto the counter and finished the cigarette in just a few more long drags.
Kota went for almost two entire days without talking to her. Annoyed but no longer angry, he decided to leave the situation alone and cool down, leaving it up to her to reach out to him. Usually the one to text him a hundred times between waking up and lunch time, she was uncharacteristically quiet - perhaps she was giving him time to cool off, too.
Though, true to her nature, she did reach out two evenings later, knocking on his door and holding up a grocery bag full of what looked like junk food in one hand and a bottle of vodka in the other.
“Truce?” she greeted weakly, looking guiltily meek.
He didn’t say much between the first few drinks and the rough, therapeutic makeup sex, and it wasn’t until she was unloading the bag of groceries in his kitchen that he finally properly spoke up.
“I got some uh - stuff. For breakfast. Can I … stay here tonight?”
He blinked, sitting up to try to peer from the main room into the kitchen over the countertop. “If you want. You know you don’t really have to ask, right?”
Instead of answering, she closed the fridge and came into the room, setting down on the bed and looking at him seriously. “I know I’m just - I’m sorry.”
“Yeah.” she wrung her hands together and then moved from her seated position to sprawl out next to him on her stomach. “I just… don’t want you to be mad at me.”
Her voice had softened a little and he knew without looking what he was in for - but looked anyway. Her back was arched slightly, arms wrapped around the pillow beneath her cheek. His eyes raked slowly up her bare legs, to where his shirt, a little too long on her, wasn’t quite enough to cover her properly. He knew exactly what she was doing.
“I’m not mad,” he answered, somewhat shortly, and her sexy demeanor immediately vanished to make room for a much more desperate, insecure one.
“Kota,” she frowned, sitting up and scooting closer to him to wrap her arms around him poutily. He sighed, caving a little, and slung an arm around her waist, feeling her settle in comfortably.
“I just - I should have asked. Before getting all that stuff. I wasn’t being considerate,” she tilted her head back enough to plant tiny apologetic kisses along his jaw. “I just… want you to have everything. You deserve it.” She was being manipulative and they both knew it, but he let it slide, instead focusing on just how incredibly wrongly she was reading the situation.
“I know it’s your place, not mine, I’ll… pump the brakes, okay?”
“Adri, that’s not what I -”
She cut him off by crawling up and kissing him, and he fell into silence as she buried her fingers into his hair. He’d stopped trying to protest by the time she pulled away, and soon after the only sounds in the apartment were the whirring floor fan and her soft, oblivious and content breathing next to him.
Making his way into the kitchen where Adri was already sat, drinking coffee and reading school emails on her phone, Kota swung open the fridge and grabbing sleepily for the milk.
“Sleep okay?” she asked, not looking up, and he only grunted in response as he squeezed the carton in his hand open.
Their conversation the night before hadn’t done anything to help him feel any less frustrated, though he did sleep better whenever she was next to him.
He watched her profile for a moment, setting the carton down on the counter and digging his cigarettes out instead. She sat at the table obliviously - the one she’d bought him almost a month earlier - and chewed her lip in concentration as she read. Her glasses were far down her nose, and she nearly knocked her coffee over as she blindly reached for it without tearing her eyes away from her phone screen. Unable to find a lighter, he abandoned the mission for a cigarette and tucked it behind his ear, reaching for the carton once more.
He’d have to sit down at some point - have to explain why he’d been feeling so frustrated. It was beginning to stilt his creativity at work, spending too much of his time and energy thinking about her - their future - something that was supposed to be easy, and carefree. With her, it was supposed to be simple. One step after another with each other with no rushing or real structure to do things with outside of whatever they wanted to plan. They had disagreements, plenty of them, but never anything like this - they were never on such wrong pages with one another, so completely out of sync, and never with something so significant to their relationship, or at least, the future of it.
“I’m going to that weird thing with my mom today but we’ll be done before you get back from work,” she was saying, but he was hardly listening. Instead he turned away and took a swig from the milk carton in his hands.
Expecting cold flavourlessness, he winced hard, nearly gagging on the sudden thick, sweet, if not nutty taste of whatever it was that he’d just drank. Unaware of his struggling, Adri tacked on a little, “Can I stay here tonight?”
Something snapped. He was sure he could quite literally hear the ‘ting!’ of a bow-taut wire snapping hard. Like a tense guitar string flying back and slapping him mid-note, he turned around sharply and spat what he was now aware was almond milk into the sink.
She glanced up from her phone, her glasses now abandoned on the table, and raised an eyebrow.
“What. What are you yelling about.” her condescending tone only made it worse, and he slammed the carton down onto the table in front of her.
“Almond. Milk.” she pointed at the two words on the carton as she said them slowly, turning to give him an unimpressed look. “Kota, it’s too early for this tantrum or whatever.”
He wrenched the fridge back open to find the actual milk, but then gave up, beginning to pace in the tiny space of the kitchen.
“Kota,” she huffed, beginning to stand up.
“No,” he snapped, “Sit down.”
She did, eyebrows raising.
“You don’t - get it. I don’t - I don’t care about the fucking almond milk. I mean I do, why do you even have almond milk? Did you specifically go out and buy this to leave her for the once-every-ten-days occurrence that you actually eat cereal here? It’s not like you let me actually bake anything for you. It’s not like you’d go grocery shopping with me and just, y’know, ask like a normal person for some extra stuff.”
“No. Let me finish. You just - ” he sighed, slowing his pacing a little to look at her. “You didn’t even move in.”
“You just… insist on sleeping here and keep asking like you’re not welcome, or like I didn’t make you feel welcome enough to, and still manage to worm your way into every single aspect of this stupid apartment.”
He watched her face shift from confused to hurt for a moment before, in true Adri fashion, she hid it away and stood up.
“Sit. Finish your coffee. I’m going to work.”
When he returned home from work the only thing ‘Adri’ left in the apartment was the bedframe. Opening up the small closet near the door he found the painting tucked inside, but none of her jackets were left hanging.
Sighing heavily at the sudden emptiness, he shuffled past Jay to the fridge and tugged it open. All he needed was a beer and the leftover pizza the two of them had ordered a few days ago. However, the only thing that the fridge offered was his own tupperware container of leftover chilli and a nearly empty carton of orange juice. Adri’s groceries. Right.
Even the bong was gone, causing him to dig through one of the last still packed boxes near the door to find his pipe. He considered leaving it alone, packing a small bowl and sitting alone on the end of his bed in silence for a few minutes, but couldn’t.
“are you coming over tonight?”
“didn’t think the invite still stood”
She answered almost in the same instant that he texted her, and he frowned at the message.
“i already told you, the offer always stands.”
She didn’t answer him, but she did arrive no more than ten minutes later. She was quiet when she came in, dropping her bag at the door but leaving her coat on. When she turned to him, he recognized her face, the same one she’d made when they’d last had a real argument - when he’d mentioned wanting to drop out of school without telling her.
“So?” was the first thing out of her mouth.
“So what?” he wavered a little, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet and stuffing his hands into the pockets of his sweats.
“Happy to have your space back?”
“No, you don’t have to - I’m sorry.” she sighed and lowered her gaze. “I shouldn’t have done that. I just… I wanted to spend time with you. I wanted to make this like… a clubhouse, you know?”
“Yeah, but babe,” he stepped forward, reaching for her. “I live here.”
To quickly ease the pouting she’d started, he grabbed her arms and started softly rubbing them, dipping his head to catch her eye a little.
“I don’t mind the bed. And the painting. Even the flowers.” her eyes lifted enough to make contact and he smiled a little bit. “But I need more commitment than that.”
She stopped, then, frowning and looking up at him.
“Adri,” he sighed very heavily, releasing her to step back a little. He watched her eyes widen in a mixture of confusion and terror as he lowered himself to the ground on one knee and reached into his pocket. “Will you…”
“... move in for the next two weeks until my lease is up with me?” he held the key out, raising an eyebrow.
She slapped it out of his hand and he watched it skid across the floor under his bed before turning his attention back to her in time to be tackled to the hardwood floor.
“Ow,” he barely managed to mumble as she kissed him.
“You asshole,” she mumbled into the corner of his mouth, trailing kisses down his cheek to his ear and biting down softly. “I didn’t want to ask. You dick. You could’ve asked months ago.”
“You should’ve said something!!” he exclaimed, his hands dropping to her waist as she pulled back to fix him with a glare before returning her lips to his neck.
“No more secrets?” she mumbled into his skin - their hollow, never fulfilled mantra for every single miscommunication they solved.
“No more,” he promised back emptily, grinning up at her when she pulled away.
His expression turned much more serious, then, nodding slightly. “I love you too.” He slid her off of him to hop to his feet. “Your car is here?”
She nodded, slowly climbing up and dusting herself off.
“Let’s go get your stuff.”
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