Page 76 of We Could Be So Good
“Oh.” Nick looks far more surprised than he should.
“But my dad doesn’t mind, either. He assumed we were sleeping together back in March. So he’s not going to disinherit me or anything. I’m rich—”
“Finally, you admit it.” Nick gives him a look that manages to be skeptical and soft and a little bit annoyed all at once, and then shifts abruptly into alarm. “Wait, did you say your dad knows we’re sleeping together?”
“I didn’t tell him. He just assumed when I moved in with you.”
“And you didn’t deny it?”
Andy doesn’t know how to explain that for all his father was never much of a parent, Andy doesn’t doubt for a minute that he can keep a secret. Andy might not think much of him as a father, but he respects him as a man. “I trust him.”
“You hardly know him!”
It’s true, but it stings. “He’s notorious for not naming names. He didn’t even name mymotherto HUAC and they hated one another.” Andy thinks that possibly Nick won’t receive this as the proof of good character that it is, but a bit of tension leeches from Nick’s posture.
“I don’t like it.” Nick’s voice is awfully small.
Andy’s kicking himself for not watching his mouth. “Think of it like this. You aren’t going to get fired for being gay.”
“He already knew? About me, I mean?”
“Must have.”
“I was so fucking careful.”
“I’m sorry. I should have denied it for you.”
Nick lets out a strangled-sounding laugh. “No, I wouldn’t like that, either. There’s no winning with this.” He starts piling dishes into the sink.
“Leave that.” Andy gently shoves Nick away from the sink. “I’ll wash up.”
“If you use soap on that pan, I—”
“You’ll hunt me down, I know, I know. Go put on the television. I’ve never known anyone so fussy about pans.”
“You’ve never known anyone else who has pans,” Nick says, and he’s right. He doesn’t leave the kitchen, like he expects Andy to say something else, or like he’s trying to say something himself. But whatever it is passes, and a moment later Andy hears the sound of the television coming to life.
***
Andy’s having a hard time sleeping—it’s a few degrees too warm in the apartment and Nick always runs hot—so he wriggles out from under Nick’s arm and slips off to the living room.
He’s debating whether turning on a lamp will wake Nick when he hears an odd pounding noise coming from the kitchen and nearly jumps out of his skin. He takes a deep breath. He doesn’t believe in ghosts, and burglars probably don’t spend much time in the cabinets, which is where the sound seems to be coming from. Mice, maybe? A lot of mice?
He pulls the chain on the kitchen light and sees that the door to the cabinet under the sink, where they keep the garbage can, is thwacking against its frame.
He’s frozen in place, not because he’s frightened but because this is inexplicable, when he sees an orange paw emerge from the cabinet door. Andy throws the door open, revealing a cat sitting inside the garbage can, the remains of table scraps all over its face.
“You’re filthy,” Andy says, as if an animal sitting in a trash can could be anything else.
The cat produces a little yowl that Andy chooses to interpret as agreement. Then it wiggles, and Andy realizes that the poor idiotdoesn’t know how to get out. “Jump,” Andy suggests. “Or climb. You got through the window. You can’t be totally helpless.”
In response, the cat makes a beeping sound, as if arguing that no, he can definitely be that helpless.
“I really don’t want to pick you up.” Andy doesn’t want fleas. He doesn’t want to get scratched or covered in garbage, either. But he can’t leave a cat sitting in a trash can. He gets a bath towel and, hoping for the best, flings it over the cat and picks him up. God, this cat is about twice as heavy as he was expecting. Which, he supposes, stands to reason if the animal makes a habit of eating inside trash cans full of table scraps. At that point Andy realizes he has no exit strategy. What’s he supposed to do with this cat? He drops the whole bundle, towel and all, into the sink.
The cat mewls plaintively.
“Yeah, you and me both,” he agrees.
