Page 43 of Margins

Elijah shrugs. “I have a feeling we’ll find out—or at least learn enough to make a better guess about how it all happened.”

“You don’t want to do any of that tonight, though.”

“No, not tonight. Tonight, I just want this. Us.”

Chapter Eleven

The Poe collection remained untouched that night, Alex and Elijah content to spend another hour or so together on the couch while they talked about nothing particularly important and held each other like it meant everything. Saturday, Elijah was back at his grandpa’s, and he stopped by for a quick hello with Poe before going home to get changed for work and ready to smile for anyone and everyone, even if all the best of him was saved for Alex, and maybe Elena too. Then on Sunday, Alex and Elijah decided to have a lazy day with Elena, all movies and music and board games and hot apple cider, hours of laughter keeping them from the box Alex has moved to a shelf in his home office for the time being. It was only when Elijah was getting ready to leave, Elena having gone upstairs to pack for her week at Cassidy’s, that they finally mentioned it again, Alex inviting Elijah over for dinner the following night.

The knock at the door that Monday evening is soft, but Alex has been waiting for it, and he tugs Elijah inside as soon as he can, his hand at Elijah’s side when he kisses him hello, deep and filthy.

“We’re never gonna open that book, are we?” Elijah teases as Alex pulls away.

“We definitely will,” Alex tells him. “Just needed that first, and then maybe some dinner.”

“It’s strange how much quieter this house is when Elena’s not here, even though she’s not really a noisy kid.”

“God, tell me about it. I’ve been wandering around like this for months.”

Elijah follows him into the kitchen, where Alex has a pot of soup on the stove and a loaf of sourdough warming in the oven, and Elijah opens the refrigerator to grab two bottles of beer while Alex slips oven mitts over his hands.

“Was there any argument between you and Cassidy about who would keep the house in the divorce?”

“Nope,” Alex says, putting the sourdough on a cutting board before he stirs the soup for another several seconds. “No matter what the actual reasons for the split, she always said that it was her decision to leave, and that she wouldn't kick me out. She’s still on title, but there was no fight about me being the one to live here.”

“But it’s hard, being here alone.”

“Yes and no. It’s hard being here because there’s just so much empty space full of far too many memories, and it all starts to rattle me when I think about it too much. The alone part I don’t really mind, but the size of this place bothers me more than I ever thought it would. I’d probably let Cassidy have it if we could go back and do it over, but she’s happy where she’s at now.”

Elijah takes a sip of his beer and nods. “You could always move, right? Find something smaller for you and Elena.”

“Sure, but I’m not gonna take her away from the friends she has in the neighborhood, or the park she practically took her first steps in,” Alex shrugs. “And of all the things to whine about, I’m not sure having a big house is a fair one.”

“I’ll just have to come over and make noise a little more often,” Elijah says.

“Why do I have a feeling you have very little trouble being loud?” Alex teases, but the moment he hears it, he blushes furiously, comforted only when he catches Elijah ducking his head to hide the same, his knuckles tight around his bottle. “Okay, fuck. Yeah, I’m just gonna take that back.”

“No need to take it back. We can definitely—I’m sure we’ll—” Elijah shakes his head and offers a resigned sigh. “Just—we should probably have dinner now.”

They move into the dining room a minute later and do exactly that, the conversation light until there’s a shift they can both feel, an anxiousness about the rest of Peter and Edgar’s story, set aside for days and screaming for attention now. The rest of the meal is mostly silent, not uncomfortable but with a goal of finishing quickly so they can move into the living room, Elijah eventually clearing the table while Alex goes to get the box from his office.

They meet on the couch, nervous.

“Why does it feel like everything is so different now?” Alex asks. “Why is this harder than it was at the beginning?”

“Everything is different now, which is probably exactly why it’s harder, too. A couple of months ago, I didn’t even know you, but now we’re in the middle of this story and we don’t know where it goes from here. It’s a little scary.”

“But worth it?”

Elijah smiles. “I’d like to think it’s always worth it.”

They open the box, then the faux book, and it’s still just as overwhelming as it had been the first time, but they decide to try to get some kind of control over it now, sorting through everything they find, most of it meticulously dated so they can put the rest of Peter and Edgar’s lives in order before they read on. The pictures slow them down though, often breathtaking even without the full context, proof of their relationship without being proof of anything at all, two men so often careful not to touch with the camera there to catch them, but so clearly in love all the same. And one picture, taken in the early 70s, their backs mostly turned to the photographer, one hand at the other’s back, leaned in to tell a secret, like that wasn’t the way they’d lived forever.

“Someone took all of these,” Alex says stupidly.

“Yeah,” Elijah agrees. “My grandpa, maybe. Or they—there had to have been someone else in their lives, right?”

“I hope so.”

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