It was something that could be more, could be love if Apollo would let it. And this waiting absolutely sucked, knowing that Apollo might never accept more than friendship from him, might never be willing to move beyond his grief. And sure, Dylan probably could have used the sex to keep Apollo going with a secret fling, but he wanted more. All summer he’d been okay with knowing that he’d always firmly be Apollo’s second choice, if that, but something had changed in him these past few weeks. It wasn’t fair to either of them to settle for secret liaisons and second-place ribbons.
No, Dylan wanted everything. He deserved that, but more importantly, so did Apollo. And now came the hard part: waiting to see if Apollo could see that too. And to try not to get too angry about how long it was taking Apollo. He’d promised Apollo that he’d give him time, but damn, it was harder and harder with each passing day to keep a level head, to not want to punch his new bed in this new room that wasn’t the room he really wanted. Why couldn’t Apollo see what Dylan knew all the way to his bones? Doubt, the kryptonite to Dylan’s usual optimism, made it hard to keep up the pretense of everything being okay.
*
“Baba? You awake?” Chloe climbed onto Apollo’s bed.
“I am now.” Apollo stretched. The sun was up at least, so he was thankful for small mercies on his first real day off in weeks. He’d dreamed about Dylan again. More of the weird dreams where he’d start out with Neal in some bizarre scenario, then Dylan would be there and he’d wake up, not sure he’d ever really slept. And no more sure what to do about the conundrum that was Dylan than he’d been the day before.
“You’re in this bed.” Chloe’s nose wrinkled. “I like you better in the other one.”
Apollo didn’t blush, even for over-observant children, but he still felt his skin heat. He had been sleeping in the guest bedroom a bit much, which was why he’d forced himself to sleep in the master bedroom last night. Besides, his mother had changed the bedding in the guest room the other day, one more step away from it being Dylan’s room, from him deluding himself that he could still smell Dylan on the blankets.
“This room is...” He trailed off as he looked around, really looked. Gray and somber, even in the early morning light, what had once seemed classy now felt like a tomb. A shrine. He remembered Dylan’s words from a few weeks ago, and they slapped against his skull now, reverberating like a grenade. “...it’s okay,” he finished weakly, trying to sort through the wreckage in his brain.
Now that he’d seen it, he couldn’t unsee it—the room had felt claustrophobic for months now, but now it seemed like a heavy coat in the middle of summer, a weight he simply couldn’t bear any longer.
“Sweetie, how would you feel about an outing?”
“Where are we going?”
Apollo got out of bed, testing his back. Yeah, he could do this. He was ready. “Paint. We’re going paint shopping.”
*
Three hours later, Apollo put up another strip of the blue tape, masking off the trim in his bedroom. A fast visit to Dunn-Edwards had yielded a stack of paint sample cards for the girls to play with and two gallons of Golden Nectar, a ridiculously fanciful name for an assertive yellow that went with the equally imaginative Gardenia trim paint. And because he didn’t do anything by half-measures, he’d tossed in a gallon of Starstruck for the master bathroom, intent on replacing the weird mocha-y color he’d never been that fond of anyway. He’d stuck the girls and their paper paint samples in front of a video and got to work.
“What are you doing?” Apollo’s mother appeared in the doorway. “The girls said you’re painting?”
“Yeah.” Apollo refused to look sheepish. True, he wasn’t usually a DIY kind of guy—Neal had insisted on professional painters for the house before they’d moved in, and he’d been content to let Neal handle all decor decisions, but today he had a strange yearning to get his hands dirty. Literally.
“Well.” She came and peered at the row of cans on the floor. “I suppose it’s time, yes?”
She’d always been too perceptive by half. “It’s not a big deal,” Apollo lied.
“You’ll need a new bedspread to match that yellow. Maybe some throw pillows. And those lamps—”
“Are going too,” Apollo said decisively. Once he made up his mind to do a thing, he went all in. In high school, he’d done extra homework in the hopes of securing better recommendations to the naval academy. When his track coach said to run a mile, he’d run two. If the military fitness guidelines said one hundred pushups, he did double. And if he was changing this space, he was changing it. “And I’m moving the bed to the far wall later—”
“Do not stress your back.” His mother rolled up her sleeves, then grabbed a screwdriver to start removing the plates from the light switches. “Call Dustin to help you.”
“Maybe.” Apollo wasn’t about to tell her that he and Dustin weren’t speaking much, Dustin pressuring him to “fix” things with Dylan, Apollo not having the faintest clue how to do that—or if he should.
“And I can order the bedding for you. I know you hate looking at fru-fru stuff.”
“That I do.” Apollo was a bit surprised how readily she was going along with this whim of his. “And I’m doing the bathroom a blue-purple. Maybe some towels to match?”
“My. You’re going to be busy.”
“Busy is good.” Busy meant not thinking about Dylan, not thinking about what he wanted from his future, not thinking of all the hard questions plaguing him these days.
“Pass me that other roll of masking tape?” His mother set down the screwdriver.
“Sure.” He handed it over, but her hand lingered on his.
“You took off your ring to paint?” Her eyes were wide but not unkind.
“Yeah.” Apollo looked away. It had felt weird, taking it off a few minutes ago and putting it in the top drawer of the nightstand, where it looked so small and lost amid the usual clutter of the drawer. He’d snatched it out of the drawer at the last moment, pocketing it. He patted his shorts pocket now. “I’m... I’m not sure...”
“I can get you a ring box,” his mother said as she expertly taped off the light switch. “You could put it in the safe deposit box if you wanted or in—”
“I’m not sure I’m ready for a box,” he admitted. He knew, deep in some fragile recess of his heart, that this was it, the ring wasn’t going back on. But knowing was different from accepting. And he really had no clue what to do next. Safe deposit box sounded so cold and lonely. And clinical, especially coming from his mother. “But you’re not mad—”
“Apollo, paidi mou, why on earth would I be mad about you taking off your ring?”
“You never did.” He moved so his back was to her, so she couldn’t see the sweat beading up on his forehead.