“i woke up, & you were gone.” - tommyjon 🙏
Surprise was not quite the right word for the dull gut punch of opening his eyes and seeing the bed next to him bare and empty. Surprise implied he hadn’t on some level anticipated it, let alone experienced it first-hand several times over. But a certain disappointment was natural.
Lovett definitely hadn’t dreamt all the events of last night; there was a human head sized indentation in the pillow that confirmed someone had lain there for some period of time before fleeing into the night. Things being different this time? That could absolutely have been a figment of his imagination. An inability to discern the difference between the passion of the moment and a person’s actual feelings for him as a person was something of a hallmark of his romantic encounters, so really, he should be used to this.
Just like he should be used to his other signature move of picking out people he knew—he fucking knew—he would have to face the next day, and the day after that, and every day for the foreseeable future because they were a cornerstone of his work and personal life. This time, he couldn’t even get put of town until at least 2020.
Ugh. Whatever. Another awkward interlude in the unstoried romantic history of Jon Lovett. Everything was still hazy enough that he could almost certainly close his eyes, sleep through the thick of his disappointment, and wake up grumpy in an hour or two, able to pretend his bad mood was inexplicable. Lovett closed his eyes and got started on his excellent plan.
The numbness of encroaching sleep crept back in easily enough. He couldn’t stop himself free associating back into a period with a similar emotional landscape, but at least he felt detached from it. He drifted off with the phantom sense of his tiny, dingy room in DC around him, of his cheap, scratchy sheets, and the closed off, confusing roommate on the other side of the wall. Of all the silence and secrets, national and personal, clogging up the space between them.
Then, a noise, and Lovett’s eyes opened to his new home, to California sun seeping in and high (but not pointlessly high, that was a marketing gimmick) thread count sheets. To Tommy, all golden and healthy, tossing his shoes carelessly into the corner, like he was here to stay. He had helped himself to one of Lovett’s shirts, the inadequate sleeves straining pathetically around his ridiculous biceps. Abruptly, Lovett felt like he might cry. Now it turned out they weren’t real, all his stupid abandonment feelings were taking a rush at the barricade.
It was second nature to cover up this vulnerability by griping. “You’re going to stretch that shirt out,” he said, more aggressively than he’d intended.
“I’ll take it off then,” said Tommy, and obliged. He looked much, much too good to be true.
Lovett hid his face in his pillow, too wrong footed and overwhelmed by this sudden turn of events to respond. Or to respond in a way that wouldn’t fuck things up. The bed dipped next to him.
“You okay?” asked Tommy, because he asked intrusive personal questions like that, now that he wasn’t afraid of being asked in return.
It would be easy to shrug off his concern and keep making the same choices. But making the same choices only left you stranded in the same place. Lovett unburied his head from his bedding to look at Tommy, lying next to him now, concerned, and maybe a little wary. “I woke up, and you were gone,” Lovett said. He hated the thread of neediness in his voice, but Tommy looked understanding, not repulsed, and Lovett shifted towards him and Tommy lifted his hand, and through some complicated exchange of non-verbal cues Lovett ended up tucked under Tommy’s arm, a little too warm and a lot too happy.
“It’s the crack of dawn,” said Lovett, “what could you possibly need to do that involves abandoning me like a sordid one night stand, to a cold, lonely bed?”
Tommy looked pointedly over at the decidedly non-dawn light seeping through the blinds. “If you kept anything other than dog food and Miller Light in the house,” he said, “I wouldn’t have had to go out and buy us bagels.”
“That’s what Postmates is for,” said Lovett, reaching a hand out for his phone, “let me show you the breakfast wonders that could have awaited a more modern man.”
“Or,” said Tommy, capturing Lovett’s hand before it could pick up his phone and shamelessly leveraging his superior size to bend Lovett to his will, “we could agree not to look at Twitter till lunchtime, and actually have a relaxing Sunday morning.”
“Don’t act like you haven’t tweeted at least twice since sunrise.”
“Maybe I was too busy watching you drool in your sleep,” said Tommy, evasively.
“Creepy,” said Lovett, with a great deal of satisfaction. “Since I’ve already invited a stalker into my bed, I guess I’d better placate you with my body.”
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