Page 5 of Conflict Conclusion

Sure, things had felt a little off since the accident, but that was to be expected when Leon had spent almost thirty minutes thinking Hailey was bleeding out into the snow, and he might lose her forever. It had forced him to reckon with mortality and the impermanence of life—or whatever the fuck Kaden had said. Apparently, it was “natural” and “not at all blown out of proportion” for him to be shaken for a few weeks. Except things were supposed to have returned to normal, with him being annoyed and constantly put out by Hailey while she merely rolled her eyes at him.

Why, then, did things still feel so—to borrow Aspen’s ridiculous words—topsy-turvy?

“I know it sucks when James is gone, because it sucks when Noah’s gone, too. And I bet with Hailey’s upcoming move, and me and Noah moving a little way away, things feel all—” Leon rolled his eyes, both at Aspen and himself, “—topsy-turvy, so I doubly appreciate you coming with me. I promise, it’ll be a fun evening! Charlie made sure the grill was ready to go so as soon as we finish with the dogs, we can get our BBQ on!”

Leon somewhat regretted that, in a moment of weakness right after Hailey’s graduation, he’d told Aspen a little about all the mixed-up shit going on in his head since Hailey’s accident. Aspen didn’t bring it up often, but whenever they did, it made Leon’s fingers go numb, and his mouth run dry.

“Yeah, it’ll be…different when she leaves, but she’ll only be across town,” Leon said as he unbuckled his seatbelt and got out.

“You can totally visit her! My older sibling Dani visited me a few times, and those were always the best weekends! You could take her and Trina to dinner or grab coffee, or you and James could help her study for midterms, or…”

Aspen kept throwing out ideas as they walked into the dog shelter. Charlie looked up from where he’d been squinting at his computer monitor, and his face transformed. He had dimples that rivaled James’, and the lines around his eyes disappeared when he smiled.

Somehow Aspen managed to continue throwing out ideas, ranging from going to another haunted house to trying out every boba shop in the city, as they rounded the check-in desk towards Charlie.

“Hi, pumpkin,” Charlie said with a soft laugh, threading his arm around Aspen’s waist. “Are you coming up with things for you and Leon to do this week?”

“Things for Leon to do with Hailey when she goes off to college so that he doesn’t have to miss her so terribly,” Aspen said matter-of-factly, accepting a sweet cheek kiss from Charlie.

“I appreciate it, but I’m sure she’s going to be far too busy to—did you say go to a pie eating contest?” Leon said, crossing first his arms, then his legs, as he leaned back against the wall by the front door.

“Pie eating contests are fun! Or at least, I assume they are, based on the fact that pie is delicious, and you get to eat a whole one!”

Charlie’s arm tightened around Aspen’s waist. “You’re recommending that they…compete in the pie eating competition?”

“Obviously,” Aspen said, trying to climb into Charlie’s lap.

Charlie, apparently done with either whatever he was doing on the computer or with Aspen’s particular brand of bullshit, stood up and gently guided Aspen out from behind the counter. “I didn’t go to college, so take this with a grain of salt, pumpkin, but do you think that’s what a college student would want to do on the weekend?”

Aspen shrugged, flapping their hand at Leon to follow them back towards the kennels. “I would have totally done that as a college student. Noah, probably not, but he doesn’t like pie as much as I do. Does Hailey like pie?”

Leon didn’t feel the need to respond to that, and thankfully Charlie changed the subject to ask how Aspen’s week had been. They gave a full run down of their hair salon clients as Charlie took three dogs out of their kennels and got them harnessed. While Leon would never admit this out loud, especially not to Aspen lest they use this information against him forever, he actually liked Gordon. The old dog never tried to jump on him, lick him, or slobber on him. When Charlie handed Leon his leash, Leon raised his chin at the dog, and he could have sworn the dog raised his in return.

Charlie handed Aspen the leash to a miniature poodle who looked a little…well, deranged wasn’t a very nice word, but Leon wasn’t sure what other word to use when the dog’s tongue was lolling out, and her eyes were pointing in two different directions. Her name was, oddly, Princess, and Aspen seemed to have a love-hate relationship with the little thing. Charlie had chosen a large, Doberman-looking dog for himself that Leon didn’t recognize.

When Charlie caught him staring, he gave Leon a soft smile. “This is Patrick. He’s new and a little shy, so I’m trying to get him to socialize with people and other dogs.”

“Can I walk Patrick?” Aspen cried, bouncing up onto their toes.

Patrick, with all his bulk and rather scary-looking face, scurried behind Charlie’s legs.

Aspen fell back down onto the balls of their feet with a crestfallen look, and Leon found himself reaching for them without thinking. “Maybe if you chill the fuck out, he’ll be down to hang out with you later,” he said, slinging an arm around Aspen’s shoulders and moving Gordon’s leash to his other hand.

Aspen grumbled, and Charlie did a bad job of hiding a snort. Aspen gave him a betrayed look, but all Charlie had to do was flash his dimples again, and all was forgiven.

Leon couldn’t help but miss his own dimpled lover. He was probably sitting down to dinner now, if he’d managed to wake up from his nap in time. His mom’s cryptic dinner invitation didn’t sound concerning, per se. James already knew both of his mom’s partners, unlike Leon, who had often been told to be home in time for dinner to meet one of the new jackasses his mam had brought home.

Did James’ mom want to share some kind of bad news? Could it be that her cancer was back? That would absolutely devastate James. Leon would of course be there for him through the whole thing, just like James had been there for him over and over again the past year. It seemed like it had just been one thing after another with him—first his ADHD diagnosis, then Hailey’s accident, now these stubborn nightmares and creeping anxiety.

In a way, it would almost be a nice change for him not to be the only one who had problems.

Leon shook away the awful thought. Of course he didn’t want James’ mom to have cancer. What the fuck was wrong with him?

The dinner was probably not a big deal, just James’ mom missing him. Leon had been capitalizing on a lot of James’ time recently. It was just so nice not to be alone, rattling around in his apartment that had begun to feel too big for just him and Yarmen. Every time James went back to his house, he left a void in his wake, and it sucked the air out of the rooms, leaving Leon at risk of tumbling headfirst into the darkness.

Leon shook his head once again and forced himself to focus on the here and now. He was with his friends, not home alone, staring for hours on end at the blank walls of his bedroom.

As if to emphasize, or maybe sympathize, Gordy pressed his flank against Leon’s leg.