Page 23 of His for Hanukkah

Weirdly, while he appreciated a mix of projects in his work, he found social media kind of overwhelming. There were too many choices and too many things trying to grab his attention. It felt out of control.

He quietly closed his laptop and began wandering around the living room. Tate looked up, gave him an indulgent smile, and then went back to his work.

The smile warmed him for a few minutes. But it didn’t last.

Adam was getting bored. And getting bored sometimes made him anxious. He could feel his fingers getting twitchy.

He was determined not to go down that path right now. He was here with Tate, which was exactly where he wanted to be. He loved Tate’s space, which felt both open and cozy. There was also plenty to do.

He just had to choose something.

Tate had some cool books, a mix of sci-fi, history, social justice, and art. They had enough overlapping tastes that he would have plenty to read.

He straightened out all of their spines, which pushed his anxiety down a notch. It was one of those satisfying tasks where he knew he could do it and the reward was immediate. Physically making order out of chaos in the external world when he couldn’t do it in his mind.

He read the blurbs on the backs of about a dozen books and brought three over to the couch. But he didn’t actually want to read any of them.

Was Tate still working? Yeah. He was busy.

Adam went to the kitchen. Maybe he could start some lunch? They’d had a large, late breakfast, but if he made something fancy it might take a while. He liked the idea of making something for Tate.

He opened a few cabinets, took inventory of their contents, and closed them again. Nothing caught his interest. He’d already made the muffins this morning and to be honest, he didn’t really want to cook again.

He was starting to feel a little antsy, the way he did when things were overwhelming, or he got too far off his schedule. It wasn’t anything terrible, just this niggling in his mind that he was supposed to be doing something and he’d forgotten it. That weird feeling always made him believe that something wouldn’t work out later.

He touched each of the cabinets in order. They were nice, solid rectangles, perfectly aligned. The handles had these little silver balls at the bottom and top where they were attached with a nice feel. Since Tate wasn’t looking, he went back along the row, touching each of the spheres.

That could be a nice practice. Tate probably wouldn’t mind. Not that he was supposed to be getting too used to Tate’s house.

It still felt like he was forgetting something. Knowing that he was on vacation didn’t help. There wasn’t anything that he was supposed to be doing except relaxing.

Relaxing was hard.

He went back out to the living room. There was a large-screen TV, but they hadn’t turned it on yet while he’d been here. He figured that if he kept in on low it wouldn’t bother Tate too much.

He kind of wanted to bother Tate, but he knew that was the wrong thing. Tate couldn’t pay attention to him all the time.

He sighed deeply. Maybe a little louder than necessary. Tate didn’t even look up.

He hunted down the remotes, turned the sound down low, and proceeded to flip channels. Which reminded him that he hated TV. That was why he didn’t have one. When he wanted to see something, he just found a movie on one of his subscription services and watched it on his laptop.

He poked around on the TV options until he found Tate’s accounts. That was when he learned that searching for movies while you typed letters in with the arrow buttons on a remote was extremely annoying. It reminded him of sending texts on his first cell phone, back when it was faster and easier to just call someone.

Also, he didn’t want to watch any movies.

The antsy, what-did-I-forget feeling grew. He wished Tate were done with work.

His internal monologue started a little argument:

Tate said he would take care of me.

Yeah, asshole, but not every second of the day.

But maybe I could interrupt him for a minute?

Sure, but you need to have a good reason, like if you make lunch.

But it’s not fair! I’m at Tate’s house so I shouldn’t be bored and lonely like at home.