8. Marsh

EIGHT

Marsh

As per Data's plan, we start with the low-hanging fruit. Closets, cabinets. Things that can easily be shoved in a box or thrown in the trash. Data takes the attic while I clean out the linen and storage closets on the main floor. We decide to put everything salvageable in a storage locker that we reserve online and determine who keeps what once we return to the city. It's funny how the most random things make me sentimental. An old receipt from The General Store. Even that old Entertainment Weekly with Darren's face smiling at me. I probably read that on the couch with my feet on Data's lap on a lazy, snowy afternoon.

Even though we take on different parts of the cabin, our paths keep crossing:

Data climbs down the ladder from the attic to get more tape, and he smooths pieces of lint off my chest.

Data climbs back up the ladder to the attic, and I blatantly stare at his ass, a part of me wishing he'd fall right on my face.

Data climbs back down for more chips, and our bodies smush against each other as we pass one another in the narrow hallway.

Before I know it, a few boxes are packed, and my dick is hard.

We pack for about two hours. Time surprisingly flies. Data comes down from the attic, and once again, I watch those perfect cheeks bounce up and down.

"How're you doing?" I rub his shoulders, his tense muscles relaxing under my familiar touch. "Ready for some dinner?" I smell his neck. "You smell stale, like an attic. Sexy."

Data squirms out of my touch and beelines to the kitchen, reminding me that packing is not foreplay. "I'm going to heat up some frozen dinners. Sound good?"

"Sure." The cabin doesn't have a microwave, and even though we could've easily bought a small one, I like not having the convenience up here. "Or I could cook us up a delicious meal." In happier times, I would spend hours preparing intricate spreads for us to eat by candlelight. Our normal city lives and tiny city kitchen never allowed us to cook proper dinners.

"Why create extra work for ourselves cleaning kitchen appliances we'll be packing tomorrow?"

"Right." It's all very logical, yet still, my shoulders slump. Watching Data moan over my cooking is almost as gratifying as watching him moan over my cock, which he did mere hours ago. During loop-closing, breakup sex. Fuck—the bad kind.

I thought I could handle a weekend with Data, but sex has poured water all over my internal circuit board.

I follow him into the kitchen and watch him take two frozen dinners from the freezer and preheat the oven. Speaking of ovens that are preheated, I readjust myself in my pants.

"How long do they need to bake?" I ask.

He checks the back of the package. "Eighteen to twenty minutes."

"Perfect." I pull him to me, his touch turning me to fire as my cock pokes at him through my tented pants. "Then we have more than enough time."

"For what?"

"Another round of breakup sex? To fully, truly, absolutely close the loop. "

Data steps back. "We are not doing that again. That was one and done. Done." He turns toward the oven, but pauses. "And don't check my ass out when I put these meals in."

With a sigh, I face the fridge as he inserts the meals into the oven. I'm a gentleman, but I don't enjoy it.

"We could have a rule. What happens in the cabin this weekend, stays in the cabin." We could let this relationship go out with multiple bangs. A twenty-one cum salute.

Data leans against the counter, arms crossed. Not a good sign, unless he's playing bossy bottom.

"Unless you're seeing someone … " I say, my stomach stirring at the prospect. "Which I totally respect."

"I'm not," he says as he continues studying me. I can see the wheels rolling in his head, but I'm not sure what for. Oh crap. Is he planning to murder me here? Wait. Maddi saw us, so someone knows I'm here. Wait. He could easily murder her too. And the chickens.

"On the count of three, let's say if we're planning to murder the other. One, two?—"

"Did you mean what you said in the bathroom at the store?" Data's lips part slightly. "Do you miss me?"

Fuck. Beads of sweat prickle my brow. Sex takes over the part of our brain that controls language. Lust pushed the statement out of my mouth with the same force that I pushed into Data. I hoped the sounds of his heavy breathing would've kept him from hearing my admission, especially since he intended our bathroom tryst as a one and done.

"Or was it something you said in the moment?"

"It's been six months since we saw each other. I hadn't seen you in a while, and it was nice to see you again. Without pants on." I grin, showing all my teeth.

"That's different from what you said. You said you missed me, Marsh. You've been flirting with me since the moment I walked in this door. It's a 180 from how things ended, and I'm just … " He shakes his head, his adorable forehead wrinkling. "I work with numbers. Numbers are black-and-white. I'm good with black-and-white. But things with you are extremely gray, and I'm confused. Did you mean it?"

Every cell in my body clenches so I can push out my response. "It was just something I said in the heat of the moment. Of course I didn't mean it."

His face changes the moment the words leave my mouth, hardening, a door firmly being closed.

"Good to know," he says, jaw tight. "You know what? I really should head back to the city in the morning. You can finish packing. Feel free to throw out anything of mine. I don't care."

"Data." I reach for him.

"Marshall," he says, his voice shaking, before brushing past me out of the kitchen.

Being good gays who want to support the economy, we splurged on the mattress in our main bedroom. It's garishly plush, like sleeping on a bed of puffed marshmallows. Tonight, it might as well be a block of cement. I toss and turn, catching zero winks.

Here's the brutal truth: I am still hopelessly in love with Data. Of course I miss him, so badly my heart hurts.

I loved him from the second I heard that laugh in the audience of my show. I loved him every day we were boyfriends. I love him now, and I'll love him years in the future. I love him in any past life we shared, in any multiverse we find ourselves, in any permutation, any scenario.

But I can't be with him.

See, I have this nasty habit of ruining the lives of the people I care about most .

My dad built a once-thriving piano manufacturing business from scratch. He didn't have a spec of musical ability, but in his twenties, he scored a ticket to Carnegie Hall one night and watched Leonard Bernstein in concert. Dad couldn't play, but he wanted to help other musicians reach their potential.

If you were a suburban New York kid in the ‘90s forced to take piano lessons, chances are you practiced on a Harmony Piano. He worked his ass off to send my brother Albie and me to medical and business school, respectively. "My right-hand man," he called me. He pinned his hopes on his MBA-toting son taking over the family business and bringing Harmony Pianos into the twenty-first century.

Dad never expected his right-hand man to leave the business to be a (gulp) stand-up comedian. Sure, there were signs, like the fact that his son stayed up to watch every single SNL episode when he was young, or that he graduated from business school with a C average, or that he woke up every day for ten years in a cold sweat at the thought of another fourteen-hour day trying to eek profit amid ever-shrinking margins and dealing with a sprawling network of suppliers, distributors, and vendors.

Once I left the business, Dad's mental capacity began going downhill. He'd forget names, forget to show up to meetings. I thought it was typical old age stuff. Then two days before my showcase at the Laughingstock festival, I got a call that Dad had wandered into a nearby high school. The principal found him in the locker room in his underwear. Dad thought he had gym class.

When I went to pick him up, I found him sitting on the bench, his pale, small body hunched over, his eyes gloomy with confusion and embarrassment, like a little boy who'd gotten lost. The sight ripped me up inside. He begged me not to tell anyone. Not Albie. Not Data. And watching my father—the strongest man I've ever known—stare up at me, tears filling his eyes, my world seemed to be crumbling around me. If I couldn't stop the impending collapse, not telling anyone about the incident at least seemed to help me pretend it wasn't happening.

The doctor assured me Dad developing Alzheimer's wasn't because I left the business, although she admitted the condition was exacerbated with stress. Like the stress caused by trying to run Harmony Pianos on his own, and the letdown of not getting to watch his son take over. Maybe he could've retired earlier if I'd stayed. Maybe Albie and I wouldn't have to be discussing full-time in-home care for him, which costs a fortune—another reason why I need to offload the cabin ASAP.

Having my mom die of cancer when I was eleven broke my heart. Watching my dad suffer with Alzheimers is like having my heart break over and over.

Because of me, dad's business is crumbling. After years of doing dingy sets for drunk tourists and barely making ends meet, I squandered my big break. I'm on the verge of quitting entirely and to do what? I don't know. I'm almost forty and have no clue what to do with my life. Data doesn't deserve that. He deserves Evan the handsome ENT with the adorable corgi named Maxwell. Maxwell probably has more Instagram followers than me.

Data deserves a good life. The best life.

Remember in Titanic when Jack didn't share the door with Rose, and he froze to death so she could live? People may have proven that he could've fit on the door with her, but what if Jack was right all along? What if he would've caused them to drown? He couldn't do that to Rose. She skipped out on the lifeboats to be with him. Data sees such potential in me, potential that I can't live up to. I can't face watching him drown.

So I made the heartbreaking choice to put the love of my life on that door and sink into the ocean. Alone.

At 6:00 a.m., I call it quits on trying to sleep. White light glows through the window. A new day. One day closer to Data being completely out of my life.

With heavy limbs, I creep into the living room. Data stands by the big window that overlooks our front driveway. My soul screams to be close to him. I would give anything to wrap my arms around his torso, rest my chin in the nook of his shoulder.

"Morning," I say.

"Marsh, we have a problem." He steps aside, giving me a clear view out the window. The scene jolts me awake faster than morning coffee.

There is no driveway. No access road. Only snow. A mountain of powder, a flat surface of white burying every inch of asphalt.

"We're snowed in," he says.