Page 5 of Strange Lad

My fingers barely graze the back of his tight black shirt as he dives for the couch, leaping over it with speed. I growl, chasing him around the tiny studio, nearly crashing into the rats’ cage beside his bed. He barrel rolls over it while I wince, pausing to apologize to his rats.

“Sorry, bebes,” I coo and then go for him again.

Oli ducks out of my grasp, slamming the door as he hides in the bathroom. “Not happening!” he calls through the thin wood, and I thunk my forehead against it.

“One day, Oliver, mark my words.”

“I don’t like hugs,” he insists.

“That’s because you haven’t had one ofmine.” I sigh, defeated once again.

Only once did I almost hug him, and he threw me to the floor like some fuckin’ ninja. We laughed, but there was this pinched expression behind his smile.

Maybe he thinks I want his dick.

I donot.

That’s not what it is. I’m just a physical person, so you can blame my abuela. She gave me so much love and affection that I expected everyone to do the same. Huffing, I concede and back away from the door.

“Alright. I’m done. The moment has passed,” I say with dramatic flair.

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

The door creaks open, a single eyeball visible through the sliver. I hold up my hands in surrender. He comes out and offers me a tiny smile, then gestures to hisenormouscard hoard. I mean…it’s massive.

“I got some new ones while you were gone,” he admits shyly. “Sorry in advance.”

“Motherfucker,” I groan. “Let me guess. More devil rats.”

Smirking, he tucks his hands in his pockets and shrugs. “You know how I get. And some of them are even holographic. Nearly blew my whole paycheck.”

Oliver may be in recovery and has been sober for almost a year, but he still struggles with addictive tendencies.

First, it was the gym, and let me tellyou, that sucked having to keep up with him. Oli is a damn beast when he wants to be. Several times, he had to peel me off the floor. Not that he’d ever touched me like that, but he’d been sweet and talked me through moving my arms and legs again.

When he realized he was going too often and didn’t want to be some giant bodybuilder, he eased off the gym and rediscovered his love for Magic: The Gathering. This is his current addiction, and if I don’t keep it in check, he’ll go broke buying every fun card he sees. Eventually, he’ll latch on to something else because he’s restless and needs to be distracted.

“Well, I’m here now, so I won’t let you go into debt over a card game.”

He nods along, then goes over all his new cards with me.

Twenty minutes later, we take up our spot on the floor by the rats. Our first few games were sitting around his coffee table, but I kept getting distracted by the little grabby hands reaching for snacks on the other side of the room. The rats are by his bed in the back corner. So now, I take my place with my back against the wall to offer goodies to his fur babies, and he sits against the side of his bed.

He pulls the game mat from under his bed, flattening it between us. And for the next two hours, I get destroyed.

I spent copious amounts of time trying to make my deck specifically to take his down, but he’d apparently added new cards and ruined my strategy.

“Can we just make a rule that I won’t play the green deck if you don’t play the rats?” I ask when we pack up our cards.

“But it’s so much fun watching you squirm,” he says through a cheeky grin.

This is my favorite part about the game: seeing him light up like this. His happiness means I did a good job, that I’m bringing him joy when his world was dampened by darkness before. I nibble my lip, chest squeezing, and let him have this. He needs this joy more than I do.

“Fine. But I’m adding giant growth to my deck.”

“Alright.”

---