Chapter Eleven
Colt sleeps in past noon the next day. By the time he gets up he decides it's too late to look for a new job. He spends the afternoon painting a second coat on the living/dining room area, at least for a little while before he starts to feel like crap again. He goes to lay down and replays the night before in his mind over and over again until he drifts off again. He only wakes up when he feels the mattress shift next to him.
Marc is here, settling in beside him and gently touching his face. "Were you lazy all day, Vanilla?"
"I painted a bit. But I think I had hangover take two." Colt jokes, leaning slightly into the places where Marc touches him.
"Feeling better?"
"Yeah, just tired. I bet I'm a new man tomorrow." Colt brushes his fingers against Marc's palm and laces their fingers together. Marc still has some grease smudges on his palms and under his nails. "How was work?"
"It was work." Marc answers with a shrug. "The part came in for your bike. I'll have it purring like a kitten by the end of the week."
"Are you sure I can't pay for it?"
"I'm sure. I also paid the bills today. You don't have to worry about it."
That surprises Colt. The twist in his stomach has nothing to do with being hungover. "Marc..."
"Shhh... I said don't worry about it. All you gotta do is exist here with me. Just stay with me and be mine."
Marc settles down onto the bed next to him and Colt feels Marc's lips nuzzle at his neck. Marc takes a deep breath of him and Colt realizes that he didn't shower today. He hopes he doesn't stink too terribly bad.
His mind is racing with thoughts of getting a job and paying his own bills again when it's derailed by what Marc says next.
"I love you, Vanilla."
The whispered words make Colt feel warm from the inside out. He's trying to work up the courage to say the words back to Marc when Marc's phone makes some sound. When Marc gets his phone from his back pocket he notices that there's a picture of himself on the home screen.
Colt waits for Marc to answer the text message before saying anything. "You took a picture of me sleeping?"
"Yeah. Awhile back. I take a lot of stealth pictures of you."
Marc flicks his fingers over his phone to open to the camera app, then he holds his phone up above them. Colt turns his head in toward Marc a bit and Marc is just starting to grin when he snaps the photo of the two of them together. "Now I have one of you awake."
The entire moment makes Colt smile. "One of us together. Send it to me."
"Alright."
Another text received and answered on Marc's phone and then he tosses it aside and turns in toward Colt to hold onto him. Colt's fingers glide lightly over one of Marc's biceps.
"You smell like garage mechanic." Colt teases him.
"You complaining, Vanilla?"
"Nah. I like it."
Marc presses a kiss to Colt's brow. "You smell like you've been in bed all day."
"Are you complaining, Marc?"
"No. I like it."
Colt smiles again, slowly drifting off with Marc.
**
When he wakes the next morning Marc is already gone. Colt slept late again but at least this time it wasn't past noon. He wakes and showers and brushes his teeth, feeling like a new man. He dresses in jeans and a tee.
In the living room he finds a tall stack of money on the table, crisp bills and as Colt thumbs through it, he realizes it's an obscene amount of money, as in the kind of money he's never seen before in one lump sum. There's a note on the table, scrawled in Marc's messy writing.
Vanilla-
Money for groceries, beer, liquor, and I want you to pick out a new couch for the living room. Anything extra, spend on yourself. Gonna be absent for a few days for work. Maybe you'll have the walls finished by the time I get back?
-Marc
Colt reads the note three times before he goes to check the fridge and cabinets. Yes, they do need groceries and beer. There are still a few liquor bottles on the cabinet, but not as many as Marc likes to have around. The request is reasonable.
His couch, the second item he ever bought for this house and it was used when he bought it, is old leather and frayed at the seams so he can see why Marc might want a new one. He didn't ask Colt to buy a new one though. He told him to buy a new one.
It takes him a minute to push himself beyond that frustration. Every time he thinks he and Marc are doing better, Marc does something controlling or unexpected that unsettles him like a scratch on a record. It also worries him that he's getting past those instances more often and more easily than he initially had.
Maybe Marc has pushed him faster than Colt was comfortable with, but Marc also hasn't pushed him so hard that Colt has wanted whatever he has with Marc to stop completely. Sometimes he wonders if this is how it started with his mom and dad. A person makes small concessions and finds excuses for the tiniest things until they're in too deep and accepting things they never should have started accepting in the first place.
When Colt thinks too much about it, he gets confused. He gets scared.
Marc has never hit him, he reminds himself. He's gotten rough a few times. He's demanding as all hell. He doesn't take no for an answer.
Then there are moments where Marc is so sweet to him. As a child Colt used to be starved for any kindness from anyone who would offer it. He likes to think he's grown out of that, but when Marc touches him just so, kisses him so sweetly and tells him he loves him in the most reverent of ways, anything that could confuse him about their relationship disappears.
