Page 52 of Fall of Us
Instead of answering him, I remained silent. I wiped him down and then took the washcloth to the laundry hamper. When I returned, Brandon had his knees pulled up to his chest and his arms wrapped around his legs. He looked small and unsure, and I felt terrible for making him feel that way.
“Come on. Let’s go lie down for a bit. Maybe after a nap we can get up and I’ll make us some dinner?”
Brandon looked up at me with wide eyes, but nodded. He uncurled himself and walked with me back to the bedroom. We fell to the bed, and he snuggled into my side. That feeling of rightness returned. Like he was always supposed to be here, that this was always inevitable.
“Andrew?”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry for earlier. So damn sorry.”
My fingers trailed up and down his back as I stared up at the ceiling. “I know you are. And I’m sorry as well.”
Chapter 32
Brandon
My nerves were at an all-time high as we stood outside of Andrew’s soon-to-be old apartment building. He still had a lot of things to pack and there was someone coming by to look at the couch. He didn’t need it since I already had one. Mine was more comfortable. We were going to keep his bed in the spare bedroom that I’d been using as a pointless office space.
Why the hell did I need an office?
“We better get moving if we’re going to be ready for everyone to help us move everything tomorrow.”
I swallowed down my nerves as we entered the building. Why the hell was I feeling like that? Maybe because it was such a gigantic step. Andrew and I had always gotten along well, and nothing had changed about that since we added sex to the equation. The only thing we seemed to suck at was deciding on when to tell people when this was official.
“I’m going to start with the bedroom stuff, if you want to start with the kitchen? You can decide what you want to keep out of it and we can donate the rest. It’s not worthselling it.”
I nodded as he put together a box and took it over to his dresser, loading his folded clothes inside of it.
The boxes looked easy to assemble when Andrew did it, but the instructions on the side looked like origami. How the hell had he done that? I opened the box and folded in the sides, but couldn’t figure out how to keep them from caving in. There was an extra flap at the bottom that I was sure was supposed to end up inside the box, but getting it there didn’t seem possible.
After my third attempt and an exasperated sigh, Andrew came over, laughing as he took the box from me. “You need to do this.” He demonstrated how to tuck that extra flap into the bottom as you opened the box and the box was magically opened.
“I swear you’re Houdini.”
Andrew shook his head, laughing. It felt good to see him smiling like that. The last few days had been rough, but we were slowly coming back to ourselves.
“Not a magician, just followed the instructions.”
“The instructions aren’t in English.”
That got me another laugh.
“They’re pictures. What do you mean, they’re not in English?”
“Pictures aren’t words. I understand basic instructions and this is not that.”
I knew I was being ridiculous, but it didn’t stop me. It was making him laugh. Instead of continuing to give me shit about the boxes, he assembled three more before he went back to his dresser.
A few minutes later, music filled the apartment. Andrew had his phone propped on the top of his dresser next to a Bluetooth speaker. His head bobbed to the beat, but I didn’t recognize the song.
“What is this?”
He grinned. “Rainbow Kitten Surprise.I heard this song recently and really liked it.”
It was really catchy, and the beat was enough to keep us motivated while packing. I settled on keeping half of his pots and pans, as they were in better condition than mine. We packed up the dishes for donation since I didn’t need any of them.
Andrew finished packing his extra bedding and then came to help me in the kitchen because he didn’t have a lot of things. The music kept playing, and I really liked the vibe of the band he picked out. They were a little more mellow, but their sound was great.
