Page 68 of Close Quarters

He gave me a small smile that tugged at my heart with its combination of messy hair and the imprint of his pillow on his cheek. “I asked you a question, but you didn’t hear me, so I let you do your thing.”

“Sorry,” I said bashfully. “I, uh, sometimes get a little involved in whatever I’m doing and lose track of the world.”

“I’ve noticed,” he said, lifting his shirt to scratch his side. “You do it a lot when you’re working and get focused on things. You do it during sex too.”

“Well, if something interests me, it’s hard to pull me away from it,” I said, letting my eyes flick over him before returning to the notebook. It wasn’t that I couldn’t focus on things; it was just that I had a hard time choosing what was going to grab my attention. “The meds help a lot, actually. But I guess I’m always going to have that chipmunk brain.”

He snorted softly. “Yeah, well, the thing that drove me crazy about you is also the same thing that I’ve grown to like about you.”

“It still drives you crazy.”

“A little. But sometimes I envy you a little too.”

“What? Why?”

“You just…you have this enthusiasm for everything. Whether it’s sitting down to draw random things that pop in your head, having sex with me, or just wondering why, if cows can have best friends, what other animals can.”

I laughed a little. “I’m telling you, cats are capable of it.”

“That was one of the ones you ranked the highest…in the almost hour-long discussion you had with yourself.”

“You could have participated.”

“I don’t usually have to. Just grunting is more than enough for you to keep going.”

I frowned, feeling an old and familiar worry bubble in my head. “You, uh…I don’t bury you under conversation, do I? Or bully you out?”

There was a pause before he appeared at my side, staring at me curiously. “When have I ever been unable to say what I want?”

“I don’t know,” I said with a shrug. “I’ve had people keep their mouths shut before. Not say anything. Not until it’s too late, and then they tell me to fuck off, and there goes another friend.”

He slid himself over to sit on the corner of the desk, still watching me, this time with a smirk. “And since when have I ever been afraid to tell you to shut up?”

That got a smile out of me, and I shrugged. “Alright, you’ve never been afraid to tell me that.”

He snorted, looking down at the page I was doodling on. “Where we found the sheep?”

“I had a dream about it the other night,” I told him.

“They look a lot bigger…and wider.”

“Yeah. In my dream, they went on for miles and were basically mountains at some points. They stretched on for what felt like forever. The sun kept coming through in different places, between the gaps and stuff like that.”

“What were you doing there?”

“I don’t know, it’s like I couldn’t make up my mind. Sometimes, I was looking for something but can’t remember what, and other times, I was running from something trying to get me.”

“Something?”

“I knew what it was in the dream, but it was gone when I woke up. I just remembered…this, really clearly.”

His finger tapped the corner of the page, untouched by my pencil. “It looks a lot like it. You did that with just a regular pencil?”

“Yeah. Probably could do better if I had actual drawing pencils and stuff. Well, after I learned how to use them. Been using normal pencils my whole life.”

“That’s…pretty impressive, actually.”

“I guess.”

---