“You’re stupid,” I told him. It sounded more reassuring in my head.
He rolled his eyes. “Thanks.”
“No, listen. You’re stupid.”
“Got it the first time.”
“Well, stop it, then. I told you I wanted this. With you. Okay? And I wouldn’t take something like this back. This is a big thing, Otter. And it’s terrifying and ridiculous and I’m sure I’m probably going to freak out a billion times more.”
“Maybe a little more than a billion.”
“You know me so well. It’s like we’re married or something.”
Oliver Thompson seems simple on the surface. He’s big and strong and smiles like the sun. He’s well-spoken and handsome, and I could understand how people would look at him and just see the superficial. It’d be so easy to dismiss him as a pretty face who never seems to let a single thing get to him.
But he is so much more than that.
Little things make him happy. He likes the sound leaves make under our feet when we walk in the fall. He likes the way the ocean smells, salt carried on the wind. He loves his brother fiercely but laments at times that he’s not sure he knows who he is anymore. He likes drinking beer and has an obscene number of beer cozies, most of which he can’t even remember where he got them from. He loves it when I sit on his back when he does push-ups, no matter how much he complains about it. He likes hugs and the way sand feels between his toes and eating crunchy peanut butter directly from the jar.
But there is more.
He’s never completely forgiven his parents for their treatment after he came out, even though they supposedly had their reasons, however ludicrous they were. He loves them, but they hurt him, and hurt is not so easily forgotten.
He sometimes doesn’t know his own worth, and I decided a long time ago that I was going to do my very best to make sure he understood he is worth everything.
He can be shy, especially when meeting new people, because he doesn’t want to say the wrong thing. It’s why he always finds himself behind the camera rather than in front of it. Things are easier when they’re filtered through a lens.
His leg bothers him more than he likes to admit, because he doesn’t complain about anything.
He’s stubborn and too self-sacrificing.
He has the biggest heart out of anyone that I’ve ever known.
He’s good. He is kind.
And for some reason, he’s mine.
Which is why I knew exactly what I was doing when I said, “It’s like we’re married or something,” because Oliver Thompson loves being reminded of that fact. For some reason, the idea of being married to me will always put a smile on his face, no matter how serious the situation.
I knew him. I knew his heart. His fierce, breakable, unfathomable heart.
And he did. How he smiled at that.
“Yeah,” he said. “Like we’re married or something.”
“We’re going to be parents,” I told him. “I promise. I don’t care how long it takes or if we have to sell my kidney, we’re going to have a kid that will one day hate us for being reasonable because we won’t let him try crack or get on the back of a motorcycle.”
“Those… aren’t even remotely related.”
“Sort of.”
“Him, huh?”
“What?”
“You said we won’t let him try crack.”
“Our conversations are so weird.”