To Zachary, it didn't seem like much time had passed between him taking off his shoes and being swarmed by two women he assumed to be Leroy's sister and mum. One minute he was asking where he should put his bag, and the next minute two women appeared out of thin air and asked him who he was, and how he met Leroy.

     "What's your name?" the younger woman said, smiling at him. She was standing close, with her hands folded across her chest, as she eyed him with interest. This was probably Leroy's sister. Zach was taken aback by how similar they looked. The same brown hair and dark thick eyebrows, even though hers were a little more groomed.

     "Err... Zach..." he managed, staring at her before doing a quick sweep with his eyes to look for Leroy, who seemed to have disappeared from his sight as quickly as the women appeared.

     "You're quite tall, aye?" the woman said, still smiling at Zach. "My name's Emilia, by the way. I'm telling you now because I'm sure my brother will avoid introducing us."

     "What's his name?" the older woman said, going in on the conversation as she stopped in front of them.

     "Zach," Emilia said before Zachary could repeat himself to the older woman.

     The older woman smiled a bit, and Zach noticed the wrinkling on the side of her eyes when she did so. She looked like Leroy, but not enough to call it a spitting image. Although her hair was graying, Zach could tell its original color was some sort of blonde. Her eyes were ice blue, and he could see a couple of age spots just under her eyelids that could easily be mistaken for freckles.

     "I'm cooking some chicken for dinner today. I hope that's okay with you. Any allergies?" the older woman asked, and Zachary stared at her, wondering what he should say to that.

     "Err, I do... but the chicken's fine, as long as it doesn't have any butter. I can't really say for dressing, it depends on the ingredients, but I'm okay just eating chicken and veggies... with as little oil as possible... if that's okay?" The older woman was starting to give Zachary that look he knew too well—when someone was confused and wondering if he was being serious.

     "Err... sure..." the woman trailed, looking over at Leroy's sister, who seemed just as puzzled by his answer.

     "I—"

     "He has some medical issues. If he can't eat what you make, we'll just grab Vietnamese if that's okay."

     Zach felt the panic that was boiling inside him wash away at the sound of Leroy's voice. He turned in its direction to find Leroy standing at the door that led to the hallway.

     "Oh, okay, you should have told me that earlier," Leroy's mother said, turning to look at her son. "I would have tried to be considerate."

     "I forgot, I'm sorry," Leroy said, looking from his mother to Zach. "We'll figure something out, we always do," he said, and Zach's face began to warm up, remembering the times they would order out or Leroy would grab something from his way from work and they would have to 'unbuild' the food. Leroy once commented that subway sandwich artists would probably brand Zach as public enemy number one if they saw how he took apart a sandwich to make it edible for himself.

     "Your stuff's upstairs if you want to head up," Leroy said, and Zach blinked, realizing that he'd been standing there staring for the past several seconds.

     "I'll come up," he said, walking over to Leroy, who opened the door to let him pass before walking behind him. The hallway led to a staircase that Leroy led Zach up through.

     The younger man gestured to the door at the far end of the hallway, before saying, "That's my bedroom, and that's the office," he said, pointing to the door just on the corner right after the stairs. "Err, I mostly work in the office, but I don't mind taking my laptop to the bedroom if you want to lie down or sit while I work."

     "The bedroom, if you don't mind," Zach said, deciding that he did, in fact, want to lie down. The brief commotion at the entryway was making him feel a little skittish and tired.

     "Okay, I'll go grab my stuff. You can head to the room first, then," Leroy said, smiling at Zach a little before disappearing into the office. Zach hugged himself, staring at the door before walking over to it. He opened it, sticking his head inside before fully walking in. He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, but it wasn't what he saw. Leroy's bedroom looked like it belonged to a teenager, with the posters that covered almost every inch of the wall, and the bookcase housing recognizable characters from tabletop campaigns and media. The place felt nostalgic for Zach, even though his room had never looked like this.

     Not even a little.

     It was more reminiscence of the bedrooms he saw in movies and his imagination when he'd been like fifteen wanting to put up posters and collect knickknacks. Hell, even the stormtrooper helmet Leroy had sitting on his dresser was something Zach had once wanted.

     Zach edged into the room more, noticing the corkboard just about the bed's headboard. He walked towards it, noticing to-do lists, photos, and keepsake media-related cards pinned up. Zach awkwardly lifts himself onto the bed to take a sit. The king mattress sat very high on the box spring that was additionally propped on a high bed frame. The mattress was on the same level as the window, just beside it.

     Zach was looking out the window when the door creaked. He turned to find Leroy making his way into the room with a laptop in his hands. The younger man smiled when they locked eyes but quickly looked away.

     Is he nervous? Zach wondered, watching as the younger man turned to close the door before walking towards the bed. It wasn't like there was anything to be nervous about. Leroy's room was ten times better looking and organized than his, but he guessed having someone new share your space would put one on edge for a bit—Zach knew he had felt nervous the first time Leroy entered his bedroom too. Leroy didn't try to get on the bed as Zach had expected. Instead, the younger man sat on the floor at the edge of the bed, before propping his laptop on his lap and opening it up.

     "I don't do very well with my laptop on the bed," Leroy said, offering a casual explanation.

     "I see," Zach said, laying down on the bed before resting his head at the edge, just adobe Leroy's head of cute little waves of hair. Zach found himself smiling a bit—was it even possible to envision something cuter? He didn't think so. The two stayed in silence for a bit as Leroy worked. Zach started reading along—mostly out of boredom, but the more he read, the more interested he became.

     "What's this for? Is it for a product launch?" Zach asked, leaning even closer. He let his fingertips touch Leroy's hair as he glanced at the charts and paragraphs on the screen.

     "Something like that. It's a project proposal," Leroy said, flipping his head up so that he was staring into Zachary's eyes. "Pretty much, I'm taking the market research findings and interpreting them to lay out a marketing plan going forward."

     "The data is social media ads you guys ran?"

     "Yes."

     "Sorry, ignore me if you don't like my impute, but don't you think concluding young women don't like natural ingredients-based supplements because the age group didn't click the ad enough is a bit weird?" Zach asked.

     "I... I don't know," Leroy said, looking back at the screen. "Why do you think it's weird?"

     "If the ad sample is what you have on screen. It's leaning old school. I don't think even if you run that on TikTok you'd get hits from younger people," Zach explained, reaching out a finger to tap a sentence on the screen. "There's a hyper-focus on 'family' and 'aging'. Young people don't care about being old yet, and they don't have families to give supplements to. You're trying to run an ad to sample consumers for market research, but your ad already has a consumer age bias, which leads to sampling bias..."

     Leroy stared at the screen

     Blinked.

     Then stared at it again.

     Zach was... correct.

     "Zach?" Leroy said, looking up at the older man again.

     "Hmm?"

     "Why are you so fucking smart?"

     The older man frowned a little for a bit before he realized Leroy was complimenting him before laughing. "I studied writing—then focused on copywriting. That's my job... well, sometimes it is."

     "Well, fuck, someone needs to hire you clearly since a whole department carried along with this for a month and didn't notice and you did," Leroy said, looking back at his screen. "I guess I can structure the project proposal around the brand image and projection and how it's affecting consumer reach?"

     "Go for it..." Zach trailed, still riding the high from Leroy's compliment.

     The younger man worked for the next hour before closing his laptop and sighing. "Dinner's in ten minutes. We should probably head down," Leroy said, checking his watch before sliding his laptop under the bed. "Remember, if you don't want it you don't have to eat it."

     "I'm pretty sure I'll be fine," Zach said as Leroy got up and straightened his sweatpants. The two made their way downstairs and, sure enough, Leroy's mum was setting the table as Emilia typed away on her phone.

     "Oh, you're here. I was about to go up and get you guys," Emily said as the two men sat down. Zach sat beside Emily, and Leroy sat on the other end of Zach.

     "I hope you guys like it," Leroy's mum said, sitting across from all three of them. They served themselves and ate in mostly silence until Leroy's mother spoke up.

     "Zach, what do you do for work?"

     The older man blinked. "Err..." he trailed then stopped, starting to feel the world spin as the embarrassment started to set in. How would he explain he didn't work without coming off as a bum? He didn't want Leroy's mother to look at him like before—the skeptical, confused look was always enough to send him into a spiral—

     "He freelances sometimes, but he can't do it too much because of medical issues," Leroy said, pulling Zach out of his panic. "He's a writer and fucking good at it. Pretty much copy-edited my whole proposal upstairs"

     "Oh, so a writer? Did you go to school for that?" Emily asked. "Was it worth it? I want to go to art school, but I'm having a hard time justifying the tuition. Leroy has a fuck ton of student debt, holy..." Emily trailed.

     Zach rolled his eyes. "Sorry, some of us are talentless and need to go to college."

     Leroy's mother chuckled, and the whole table went silent. It seemed that even siblings weren't used to that. Well, not anymore.

     The awkward silence that followed after, settled for a bit before Zachary chipped in. "I did go to school for writing, but most of it was online and for a cheap college. Honestly, most arts-related degrees and certificates are about your portfolio..."

     Emily nodded. "Yeah, I guess that's true."

     Soon the table was chatty again, with most of the conversation coming from Emily's lips. Leroy's mother chipped in a few times, mentioning her time in the Air Force and asking Zach if the chicken was okay. The initial shock from her laughing had worn off, so the conversation carried on as normal when she did it a few more times. When dinner was over, Leroy helped Emily with the dishes and Zach just sat with Leroy's mother. The two didn't say anything to each other, but Zach could swear he heard her say, "Thank you for coming," just as he got up to head upstairs with Leroy when he was done with the dishes. He didn't dwell on it too much and instead focused on the man in front of him who seemed to be speed walking all the way upstairs.

     When the two got upstairs, Leroy started the PlayStation and handed Zach a controller when they climbed into bed.

     "Err, what's going on?"

     "We're going to play a game," Leroy said, getting on the bed with Zach. "Cuphead, not sure if you've heard of it."

     "I have, but I think we're kind of ignoring something..." Zach said, gesturing to himself." I don't know how to use a PlayStation controller. I've never had one."

     Leroy stared at the older man and the older man stared at him.

     "Really?"

     "Yes. really."

     "I guess, change of plans, then. You're learning today," Leroy said, scooting closer to Zach. "I'll help you."

     "Okay..." Zach's voice was low, more because most of his attention was on hyper-focusing on Zach's hands.

     After playing for what seemed like hours, the two abandoned the game, laughing at Zachary's painful attempts to navigate the game camera while getting killed on the spot.

     "It wasn't that funny," Zach said, chuckling as Leroy brought up one of his fails for the hundredth time as they lay in bed together. He didn't even believe his own words.

     "Sure, it wasn't," Leroy chuckled, catching the time on the clock on the wall. He noticed it was getting late—Zach might start asking to leave, but the younger man didn't want him to yet. He started wondering what he could do to have Zach stay longer. "Should we order Vietnamese?"

     Zach chuckled, looking at Leroy from the side of his eyes. "I had two chicken breasts."

     "Now you can have pho on the side," Leroy offered.

     Zach shook his head. "Maybe tomorrow after the movie."

     The room was silent for a bit until the older man spoke up.

     "Leroy."

     "Hmm?" the younger man mumbled, unable to get over how comfortable to be tangled with Zachary on his bed.

     "I think I'm going to stay over tonight," the older man whispered, brushing hair away from Leroy's eyes as he stared at him. "I don't think I can leave now... your bed's super comfy."

     Well, it was that and just being in the presence of Leroy gave him a comfort he couldn't quite express. The thought of heading back to his bedroom, where he was alone in the darkness, didn't sit well in his chest. He'd enjoyed today—loved today. He wanted to sleep next to Leroy and wake up to the man's big brown eyes staring at him in the morning.

     "You sure it's just my bed?"

     Zach felt his stomach twist up with nerves at Leroy's sentence. Just his bed? Of course, it wasn't, but Leroy wasn't going to make him say that out loud, was he?

     "Not just that," Zach mumbled, just high enough for Leroy to pick up. "I don't want to leave. I'll miss you."

     Leroy rolled on his stomach and reached out to pull the hem of Zachary's shirt. "You look really good in this. Green's your color."

     Zach swallowed back a breath. He could feel his heart in his throat and a feeling of lightness in his head. Really? Leroy touching his shirt was making him feral.

     He was so whipped.

     "Your bedhead is the cutest thing I've ever seen..." Zach rattled off as Leroy snuck a hand under his shirt. The man placed his open palm over his stomach, letting his icy fingers send tingles through Zach's body and concentrate on his groin. "I've wanted to kiss you all day."

     Leroy smiled, edging up just enough that their faces were right beside each other's. Zach could feel Leroy's breath on his cheek, and when he turned the younger man quickly pressed their lips together, igniting the most toe-curling sigh from them both. Soon, the two were tangled together, making out in the watching distance of their enthusiastic audience of figurines.