Page 92 of Ship Happens

“It’s a hard day to remember!” he says plainly, like that’s a perfectly valid excuse. “But I think it’s interesting—you used to always pride yourself on remembering everything.” Jacob’s words come out snarky, but with a soft expression that worms itself even deeper into Owen’s heart.

“What is it?” Owen asks.

Jacob laughs softly. “Hmmm . . . maybe I won’t tell you.”

Owen leans forward, resting his chin on the palm of his hand. “You can’t just bring it up and then not tell me.”

“I actually can.” Jacob crosses his arms. “I’m doing it right now, aren’t I?”

“That’s not fair.”

He shrugs. “Too bad.”

Owen sinks back in his seat, thinking for a moment, pouting a bit just for dramatic effect. It can’t be any of the more important anniversaries. They had their first date toward the end of April, making things official in May. And he can’t think of any more significant dates in their relationship.

So, what could it be?

“I give up,” Owen finally relents.

“It’s the anniversary”—Jacob drags the words out—“of when you moved in with me.”

Owen pauses, thinking back to years ago in Jacob’s first SF apartment, before they’d moved into the place that they picked out together. Owen’s landlord had sent the text just after the year began, leaving him to spiral, wondering just what he was going to do. Between his already high rent, credit card debt, student loans, and groceries, he couldn’t afford the spike that his landlord was planning to force on his rent.

“What do you think you’ll do?” Jacob asked after dinner one night, reading over the texts. He had little experience with contracts, but after some sleuthing on Reddit, he concluded it seemed to be perfectly legal. Owen’s landlord had given him ample notice and increased the rent by just enough to avoid it being labeled a problem.

No wonder he’d spent all of December finally fixing all of the problems that Owen had complained about. He probably should’ve realized something was up when the landlord was allowing appraisers in to take photos of the building.

“Find a new place,” Owen said, reading the text thread over and over again, silently hoping that his landlord would come back with a “just kidding” or something. “Maybe a studio, could look in the Sunset, or the Richmond?”

Or he could get roommates again. Though after living by himself for a good few years, the thought of having roommates again made Owen’s skin crawl. He’d already survived a roommate years ago who blamed their ADHD for their inability to flush the toilet or do the dishes.

“Or . . .” Jacob started to say, picking absentmindedly at the blanket on the couch. “You could . . . move in here?” He could only look at Owen out of the corner of his eye.

They’d talked about moving in together before, only a few months after they made things official, both wanting to date for at least a few years before they entangled their living situations.

“Are you . . . are you okay with that?” Owen asked, unsure.

“I wouldn’t have presented the idea if I wasn’t okay with it,” Jacob replied plainly.

Living together was a whole other beast. Sure, they’d spent entire weeks together before. Often Owen wouldn’t bother going back to his apartment for days at a time, and not just because Jacob’s place was so much closer to the shop.

Owen could always leave, though. When he needed a moment to breathe, a second to himself. Moving in with Jacob would put a stop to all of that. There’d be no escaping each other’s bad moods, nowhere for Owen to go to recharge his battery.

Then Owen thought about sharing a space with Jacob, building a home together, putting his stuff around the apartment to make it a place that the two of them could share, buying new furniture when they needed it, waking up in bed next to him all the time, splitting the chores while music played through the apartment.

The thought made him feel whole, warm.

Jacob rolled over on the couch so that he could be closer to Owen, as if that were possible with how close they were already sitting. “You could even move in now if you wanted to.”

“And how exactly would I do that?” Owen asked playfully.

Silently, Jacob stood up, walking over to the barstool that Owen always set his bag on. There wasn’t much inside. His sketchbook, pencil bag, iPad, sunglasses, the book he’d been reading, hand sanitizer, his weed pen, breath mints, a bottle of ibuprofen that rattled with every step.

“What are you doing?” Owen asked.

Jacob didn’t answer. He simply sauntered around the apartment, depositing Owen’s belongings wherever he seemed to feel they fit best. The sketchbook, pencil case, and iPad ended up on Jacob’s desk. The book he’d been reading on the bookshelf, naturally. The hand sanitizer, mints, and Tylenol in the bathroom; the weed pen he stood up straight on his coffee table, like it was an actual decoration.

“Any particular reason you just unpacked my entire bag?” Owen asked as Jacob stood in front of him, proud smile on his face.