Page 30 of Patchwork
Onyxhasbeenatmy place for over a week, but it still gives me a jolt every time I pull around the corner and see his car in my driveway. Maybe some part of me is still half expecting to come home to find him gone, or to realize that the last ten days have been some kind of fever dream and he was never here to begin with.
His Mustang isn’t the only dented car taking up space in my driveway this afternoon though. My grin only gets wider as I weave around both cars and pull my bike up to the garage. As soon as I step inside, I can hear the unpracticed strum of guitar strings, followed by familiar laughter.
“My fingers are too stupid for this.” Milo’s laugh carries down the hall as I take off my boots and hang my jacket on the hook next to the door.
There isn’t any jangle of cat bells or patter of little pawed feet though.
“Deevs?” I call out and click my tongue against my teeth.
“She’s in here,” Milo says.
Huh, that’s different. To Onyx’s displeasure, my spoiled girl has mostly been ignoring him. The stilted strumming starts again. I follow the sound down the short hallway to the living room and stop in the doorway to take in the scene with a warm feeling blooming in my chest.
Onyx and Milo are sitting on the couch together. Milo has Onyx’s guitar on his lap, his fingers stumbling over the strings, and he cringes with embarrassment every time he fumbles a note. Diva is draped across Onyx’s lap, purring and happily thumping her tail while he scratches her chin and watches Milo play.
“Your fingers aren’t stupid, you’ve only been playing for an hour. Surprisingly, it took me a little longer than that to master it.” Onyx manages to be sarcastic and comforting at the same time. “It takes a lot of practice to lock in the muscle memory. Learning is always the hardest part, because it forces you to consciously pay attention to what you’re doing, and it turns out our conscious brains are really stupid about how to do things.”
“Oh yeah, I knew that. I’ve been binging this neuroscience podcast lately actually, and the host was saying—”
I clear my throat subtly. Not that I’m not interested in an hour-long info dump about neuroscience, but I’ve gotten to know Milo well enough to know that I literally won’t be able to get a word in edgewise for the foreseeable future if I don’t catch him before he gets started.
They both swivel their heads towards me and greet me with smiles.
“Hey, sweetness. I’d get up to kiss you, but it’s illegal to move a purring cat,” Onyx says.
“Against the Geneva Convention, I believe.” I chuckle, crossing the room and bending down to steal a quick kiss. “Hey, kiddo.” I greet Milo by ruffling his hair.
He stops strumming and bats my hand away with a laugh.
“Kiddo? I’m, like, the same age as your boyfriend,” Milo says.
I cringe, but Onyx throws his head back and cackles.
“Oh man, how weird would that be if we got married and your stepdad was the same age as you?”
My stomach jolts with a pleasant warmth. I know he’s just joking around, but hearing the word “married” on Onyx’s lips, even playfully, makes me want things I shouldn’t even let myself entertain. I decided I was fine getting hurt, but if I actually start picturing some kind of Happily Ever After with him, that won’t just hurt, it has the potential to shatter me when he drives out of town again.
“Not that much weirder than the fact that my boyfriend is the same age as my dad,” Milo says. “Sex with older dudes is thebest.”
I cringe again and put my hands over my ears.
“Come on, I don’t need to hear that. As far as I’m concerned, you and Piston are saving yourselves for marriage.” Never mind that I’ve been friends with Piston for years and am well aware that he had tons of sex before Milo. I accidentally walked in on him going at it with past boyfriends once or twice.
“It really is.” Onyx smirks and shoots me a wink.
“For the sake of my sanity, can we please change the subject?” I plead.
“Fine, we’ll only swap sex stories when you’re out of earshot,” Milo promises.
I’m not sure it’s any better knowing they might talk about sex when I’m not here, but I guess I can’t do much to stop them. I’ll file that under “things I refuse to think about,” right next to Milo and Piston’s sex life and whatever the hell goat lingerie is.
“Great,” I mutter. “What are you doing here? Did I know you were stopping by?” I’m already thinking about what I have in the fridge so I can invite him to stay for dinner.
“I came over to bring you more fungal cream for Diva, but I didn’t realize what time it was and that you were still at work. Onyx was here though, so he let me in, and we got to talking about guitar. I played cello all through middle school, and the chords and fingering are the same, so Onyx said I should be able to pick up guitar pretty easily. But I think my fingers forgot all the right positions, and strumming is weirdly trickier than using a bow,” Milo rambles, and I nod along.
“So should I put a guitar on your Christmas list or not?”
“Christmas?” He scoffs. “I’ll have either gotten bored with the idea by then or bought my own guitar.”
