Sweaters & Cigarettes (51 page)

"Yeah," Theo agrees.
"Good thing Gavin saw it that way too, or else, we would have been pretty
screwed."

His mother gives him a sympathetic
smile, no doubt noticing how her son uses the word
we
, as though Max
moving would affect both of them profoundly. Which it would, of course. Theo is
pretty sure she has come to realize that, now.

They all sit there for a while,
talking and just generally having a lazy day off, when the front door suddenly
opens and Theo's dad steps inside. He looks a little surprised to see them all
sitting there, and he frowns a bit, absently wiping motor oil off his hands
with a rag. No doubt, he has just come from the garage, after fiddling with his
car.

"Eric," his wife says,
looking at him a little pointedly, "Theo just told us that Max isn't
moving, after all. He found a place to stay, 'til graduation. That's nice,
isn't it?"

Eric doesn't reply right away,
instead just stands there, rubbing his hands with that rag that looks almost
too dirty to actually serve a purpose, by now.

"Uh, yeah," he finally
says, sounding a bit distant. He looks down at his hands, nodding. "Yeah,
that's good."

He leaves it at that, only glances
up at his family, before making his way upstairs, no doubt to clean up. And
Theo clenches his jaw a little, annoyed, despite himself.

"He knows he's gonna have to
come around eventually, right?" he says, turning to his mother, while
Riley just sits there, eating his sandwich, observing the exchange.

Amy sighs.

"I know," she agrees
tiredly. "But you know how stubborn he can be. He tends to have a hard
time dealing with being proven wrong."

She takes a sip of her tea, and
Theo exhales heavily, knowing that she has a point, but still. He just wishes
his dad would stop finding this whole thing so awkward, and just accept it.

♦

It's weird, Theo thinks, how with everything that's been
going on in his personal life, these past few months, school is actually still
a thing.

Despite all the stuff with Max, his
parents, their families, not to mention the whole deal with Michael and Hannah,
and even Luc,
school is still a thing
. Theo
still
has to sit
around and study, as though he doesn't have enough on his mind to deal with,
already, and while he sits in the library, spending his third consecutive
afternoon there, he is moments away from just flipping the table over, in
frustration.

He can't believe this. He can't
believe it, and the only thing that's really keeping him sane, at the moment,
is the thought of the news Max gave him, about a week ago. The fact that he's
not
going away. It's enough to make Theo smile just a little bit, in the midst
of his studying for that stupid History test, a few days from now.

Theo likes the library. He has
never been particularly bookish, like Riley, but he likes the stillness of it,
the way all the bookshelves feel almost like protective walls, isolating the
entire, large room in silence. It helps him focus, away from loud noises and
distractions, since he tends to sit in a more secluded part of the library,
away from where groups of students usually sit and talk a little too loudly for
it to be manageable.

It's after almost two hours of
studying, that Theo hears someone approach, and he's almost a little
embarrassed about just how well he recognizes the sound of Dr. Martens against
any surface, by now.

"There you are," Max says,
as he makes his way over to the table where Theo is sitting. Theo looks up at
him, smiling a little at how he knew it was Max, even before he spoke.
"Ambitious, as usual."

Theo raises his eyebrows at him,
doubtfully.

"I wouldn't exactly call it
'ambitious'," he says. "More like 'mediocre and
overcompensating'."

Max pulls up a chair, reverses it,
and sits down next to Theo, straddling the chair and folding his arms against
the backrest in front of him. He leans his chin against his arms, those blue,
black-lined eyes locked on his boyfriend.

"You're a lot smarter than you
think, you know," he says, his tone dry, yet oddly soft, and Theo gives
him a small smile.

"Says the genius," he
teases, and Max groans.

"I'm good at math," he
says. "That's pretty much it."

"And yet, you manage to keep
up good grades, in all subjects, while spending half as much time studying, as
me."

Max shrugs.

"I may also have a good
memory," he says. "Which is basically all these tests measure,
really. It's incredibly unfair."

He actually sounds sincere, at the
end, which surprises Theo a little. But he knows he has a point; memorizing a
bunch of facts hardly feels like actually
learning
, most of the time.

Theo turns back to his notes, which
sum up most of what the upcoming test will be about, and Max watches him for a
moment, before nudging him gently.

"Hey," Max says, and Theo
turns to him. "I've got some news."

"Really?" Theo asks,
before seeing Max's now slightly excited expression, and he widens his eyes a
little.

"Oh god, you're not pregnant,
are you?" he says, in mock serious anxiety. "'Cause I don't know how
I would explain that to my parents."

Max just shakes his head, though.

"No, it was a false
alarm," he says in a casual tone, waving his hand dismissively. "Just
a food baby."

Theo nods, letting out an
exaggerated sigh of relief, before turning back to his notes. Max nudges him
again, though, to retain his attention.

"However," he says,
"I think my actual news is a bit more exciting than a hypothetical
child."

Theo looks at him skeptically.

"I don't know, man," he
says. "It would be pretty impressive if you could actually pull that
off."

Max glares at him.

"I'll keep that in mind,"
he says acidly, narrowing his eyes. "Now, you wanna hear what I have to
say, or not?"

Theo smiles a little, before
pointedly putting down his pen and folding his arms against the table, turning
to Max and meeting his dark blue gaze.

"You have my undivided
attention," he says, and Max glares a little more, before taking a breath.

"I got a job," he says,
but when Theo's eyebrows go up in surprise, he revises a little. "Well,
sort of. It's at Gavin's studio, and it's more of an apprenticeship. He's been
talking about it for a while, and I guess he finally decided, now that I'll be
living with him, and all."

Theo frowns.

"Like... tattooing?" he
asks, and Max cocks his head.

"Piercing," he says.
"As far as I know, I don't really possess the artistic skills required to
actually brand images into someone's skin."

He cocks his eyebrows.

"But shoving a needle through
someone's tongue," he says, almost gleefully, pointing at Theo,
"that, I can do."

Theo squints at the less than
pleasant image, which Max notices.

"Well, not just tongues,"
he says casually, a little defensively. "Actually, tongues probably won't
be the first thing I'm allowed to pierce."

Theo groans.

"Tongues are difficult,"
Max goes on, gesturing at his mouth. "Lot of nerve-endings."

Theo groans again, louder this
time, and Max tilts his head, glancing away.

"Okay, fine," he says,
sounding bored. "I might be exaggerating a bit. Piercing your tongue is
pretty harmless, really."

"Just please stop saying
tongue
,"
Theo mutters, and Max smiles wickedly. He can tell so clearly when Theo is
uncomfortable, and he loves teasing him about it, hence all the unnecessary
repetition.

"Tongue," he says
pointedly, and Theo glares at him, to which Max simply responds by sticking out
his own tongue, piercing and all. And Theo groans tiredly and turns back to his
notes. He hears Max chuckle affectionately, though, and then feels him press a
kiss against his cheek, making Theo look up at him again. Max looks expectant,
a little amused, and Theo can't help but smile.

"Congratulations," he
says fondly, and Max smiles a bit wider.

"Thank you," he says,
leaning his chin back against his folded arms. "It's more of a part-time
thing, and while I'm learning, it's cleaning up the place that I actually get
paid for, mostly. But it's something. At least, for now."

"I didn't even know you wanted
to be a piercer," Theo says, frowning a little, and Max hums in thought,
glancing absently at Theo's notes.

"Yeah," he says. "I
think I mentioned it to my parents, once, and they went apeshit, saying how
it's 'not a real job'."

He looks up at Theo.

"Not that my definition of a
job is any less than simply doing something you get paid for," he says.
"But I guess I got their logic, and I still kinda do. And it's not like my
dream is sticking needles into people, but at least I'll have a job. I just
have a hard time imagining myself doing something...
ordinary.
You
know?"

Theo nods.

"Yeah," he says, because
he does know, and he feels kind of the same. "I do."

"So it's not necessarily
permanent," Max continues. "But it might be, who knows, if I like it.
We'll see, after graduation."

Theo smiles a little.

"What do you wanna do?"
Max asks him. "After."

Theo shrugs, letting out a sigh.

"I don't know," he says,
picking up his pen and fiddling with it between his fingers, as he glances down
at his notes, not really seeing them. "I kinda feel like I want to travel,
or something. For a year, maybe. Then, college."

He lets out a small huff of
laughter.

"Not that I have any idea what
I'd want to study," he adds, and Max smiles. Theo can see it, out of the
corner of his eye. "I just don't want to end up in an office somewhere, or
doing something that just makes me want to stay in bed, every day. I want it to
matter. You know?"

He looks back at Max, who's now
tilting his head a little, leaning against his folded arms, with an expression
as though Theo is simply the most beautiful, most interesting thing he has ever
seen.

"I get that," he says,
his voice low. "I think I want that, too."

And Theo nods, before getting an
idea.

"We should do it," he hears
himself say, without really meaning to, and Max blinks.

"What?" he says, and Theo
suddenly feels a little apprehensive about saying that, but figures he might as
well roll with it.

"You and me," he says.
"We should do that."

Max raises his eyebrows a little.

"Like the circus-thing?"
he asks, clearly joking, and Theo scoffs, a small, slightly insecure smile on
his face.

"I'm serious," he says,
and he can see Max finally grasp that. "We should. I mean, if you'd want
to."

Max just stares at him for a few
moments, making Theo feel increasingly anxious about suggesting something so
bold. But then, Max smiles a little, with complete sincerity, as though himself
surprised at how much he actually agrees with the suggestion.

"Yeah, we should," he
says, and Theo feels his heart skip a beat.

"Really?" he says, and
Max lifts his head up, straightens in his seat, his arms still folded against
the backrest.

"Yeah," he says, sounding
a bit more confident, now. "Just go off after graduation, screw around,
travel the world, road trip across the country, or whatever. Just figure out
what to do. Then, college. 'Cause believe it or not, I actually wanna go."

Theo quirks a small smile.

"I'm pretty sure you could get
into whatever college you want," he says, and Max cocks his head.

"So, I'll get into the one you
go to," he says, and he says it so easily, like he's completely certain
that's what he'll be doing, a year from now. And Theo can't help but smile,
despite the tiny possibility that maybe Max won't feel that way, when the time
comes. Because right now, that's how he feels, and it's how Theo feels, and it
doesn't look like that will be changing anytime soon, and that's all that
matters.

Theo nods.

"Sounds like a plan," he
says, and Max smiles.

"Yeah, it does," he says
a little smugly, as though he was the one who came up with it. Then it seems to
sink in, though, and he sighs. "Wonder what my parents will think of
that
."

Theo shrugs.

"Does it matter?" he
asks, and Max just looks at him. "You're legal, it's your life."

Max doesn't immediately respond,
instead narrows his eyes, a slow smile spreading across his face.

"Now, that rings a bell,"
he says, and it takes Theo a moment, before he remembers that that's almost
exactly what Max said to him, back when Theo asked him about his tattoos, after
seeing them for the first time. And he smiles self-consciously, looking down at
his notes.