“I realized that the first week I met you,” Park said, dipping his fingers teasingly below the waistband.
Cooper snorted and knocked Park’s hand away and turned to face him, catching the end of a grin. “All right, all right. So what do you think of this place?” Park asked.
Cooper bit his lip. “What do you think?”
Park tilted his head and regarded him. “I think your facial expression says you’d rather be drawn and quartered than put an offer in.”
Cooper looked around the multilevel backyard, walled in and secure from the rest of DC. “It’s certainly incredible,” he said, finally. “Isn’t that one of those words we don’t use correctly? Like it’s not necessarily good, it just defies credibility. You can have an incredible lack of self-awareness. An incredible seismic event?”
“So, let me get this right, on a scale from one to ten you’re rating this place a natural disaster? Is that higher or lower than—what did you call the place across town?” Park tapped his chin theatrically. “Oh right, the first monstrosity you’d raze in the coming revolution.”
“You said you didn’t like that one either!”
“I’m just trying to understand your advanced rating system for my notes.”
Cooper rolled his eyes, wishing he was joking about the notes. But even as Park teased, he was pulling out the hateful lemon notebook that had become such a staple of their lives. Cooper had snuck a peek inside the thing a couple of weeks ago. Not that it was sneaking, really. Park frequently invited him to use the notebook himself but so far Cooper had avoided it.
Then when Park was out one day—leaving him with the links to four new mini-mansions to look over—Cooper was overcome with curiosity. Inside the notebook he found Park had been religiously keeping track of every place they’d seen, talked about, driven past and every micro-expression that had crossed Cooper’s face since they’d started this hellish house hunt. What he hadn’t found was any insight into what exactly Park was hoping for. What kind of places made Park happy.
Fuck the notes, Cooper wanted to say. But that wasn’t fair. It wasn’t a bad thing that Park cared so very, very much about what he wanted. That’s what Cooper kept having to remind himself on days like this. None of this was bad. He was excited by the idea of moving into a house with Park. In fact, it had been his idea to move in together in the first place, and they’d done that fairly seamlessly, all things considered. He just hadn’t quite expected this, too.
After returning from Cape Breton around five months ago, Park had started showing up to Cooper’s apartment with boxes immediately, claiming his lease was up right now. Cooper didn’t believe that and it was clear Park didn’t expect him to. The truth was, ever since Cooper suggested living together, Park had been...giddy. When he wasn’t busy unpacking his things, he was talking about it. When he wasn’t talking about it, he was prodding Cooper to talk about it.
Was Cooper sure this was okay? Was Cooper having second thoughts about this? Was Cooper sure they shouldn’t keep all three colanders?
His enthusiasm for moving in would almost have been absurd if it wasn’t so...sweet. Flattering. For weeks Park practically vibrated around the apartment in what Cooper publicly referred to as his “settling in” period but privately thought of as some sort of claiming or scent-marking ritual. He sat in every chair at least three times a day. He slept on the couch, the bed, the floor, the tub. He somehow persuaded Cooper into fucking on every available surface. It was Goldilocks gone wild. If there was a single nook or cranny of the apartment Park hadn’t stuck his nose in, it was only because he physically couldn’t fit.
And then there were the days—not many, but memorable ones—Cooper had come home unexpectedly or woken up a little earlier than usual to find Park “in fur” sticking his considerably longer nose into those impossible-to-reach places while Boogie the cat looked on, utterly aghast. Cooper didn’t say anything about it and mostly tried to pretend he didn’t notice all the rubbing and sniffing and rearranging. The last thing he wanted to do was to make Park self-conscious.
Also, Cooper kind of loved it.
Until the day Park told him he wanted to move.
“I—I thought you liked it here,” Cooper had stuttered, shocked. They were just lying on the couch together, watching a movie, and now this. He felt dizzy by the abruptness. It hadn’t even crossed his mind that Park might be unhappy. That he might not have the same exasperated affection for the admittedly rundown apartment that Cooper had developed over the years. “You rubbed yourself on everything,” he blurted.
Park had coughed, avoiding his eyes. “That’s not—I like being with you. But...it’s a bit small, for both of us. Isn’t it?” He sounded both nervous and gently hopeful.
Cooper had looked at Park’s boxes and boxes of books stacked against the wall with no place to be unpacked, looked at the room full of his furniture because Park’s was in storage, and realized he’d fucked up. No wonder Park had been so busy getting his scent on everything. Nothing here was his. While Cooper had welcomed Park into his space, he’d never allowed Park to make the space his own. So what if they’d fucked in the literal closet? Park’s socks and underwear were still in a suitcase sitting in said closet because there wasn’t any room in the dresser.
“Of course we should move,” Cooper had said with conviction he wanted desperately to feel. “I should have thought about that. I’m sorry. Let’s find somewhere we’re both happy. Together.”
The surprised joy that lit Park’s face had soothed any lingering traces of doubt Cooper might have felt. In that moment he promised himself he was going to pull his head out of his ass and focus on helping Park get what he wanted for a change.
The very next day, the little lemon notebook had appeared. Then Josh Dolan and the parade of million-dollar houses. It was going to be a lot harder keeping that promise than he’d thought.
I can move some money around. Sell the car. What are savings for if not this? Cooper told himself, watching Park’s face light up when he saw a backyard pool or heated shower floors. Seeing how at home he looked in this world. How could he say, “Now let’s check out some one-bedroom condos”? So instead he’d teased and laughed at the decadence like it simply wasn’t his aesthetic, and hoped to god Josh would miraculously show them something affordable one day. No doubt accidentally. While drunk. Or under threat.
It was time to accept that wasn’t going to happen. Cooper either had to have a difficult, honest conversation with Park or just accept the next shiny palace they saw.
Cooper ambled closer and put his hand on Park’s wrist, stilling his pen as it scribbled notes in his lemon book. With Park’s beautiful, neat script it was easy to catch a few notes, even unintentionally. Frowned at double range stove. Dislikes chandeliers. Just crystal or all?