Page 70 of Totally Geeked

“I still can’t believe you framed that.”

“I said I was going to. It looks good here, right? Or should we put it on the wall in the hallway? Oh, we could make the whole wall photos, and framed art, your art, your sketches and drawings, and your books, we could frame your books and put them up there, too.”

“All my art?” I ask, raising a brow.

“Yes. No. Our special art can go in our bedroom, oh, oh, oh,” he starts, and I can’t help but smile at his excitement. Moving in together is a big step, or it would normally be, but we’ve been practically living together for months now, so it was silly for him to still be paying rent where he was.

“We’re not putting upthosesketches anywhere,” I tell him, opening a box labeled coffee mugs. As I pull each one out and set them in the drawer, I realize not one of them matches another.

“What is it with these?” I ask, holding up one that has a black Perfect Blend logo on it.

“They’re coffee mugs, you’ve seen coffee mugs before.”

“Yeah, but why do none of them match?”

He scrunches up his nose. “Why would they? How do you know whose cup is whose if they are all the same? That one is actually Duckie’s. I stole it. It’s bigger than my other ones. Don’t let him see it when he gets here.”

I put it at the back of the drawer and add in the others.

“Can we get custom wallpaper for the bedroom?” Harrison asks, turning the frame a little to the left and standing back to admire it.

“What’s wrong with the walls the way they are?”

“Nothing, no I mean of the art, we could get custom wallpaper made using all the sexy sketches then we can look at them all the time.”

I stare at him, watching his face, looking for any hint that he’s pulling my leg, but he grabs another box from the stack in the hall and starts unpacking his records onto the bookcase with not even the slightest hint of a smirk.

“Umm, even if we found a place willing to print and ship wallpaper like that, I don’t think we’ll be doing it.”

He pouts my way.

“But I love seeing cartoon Arlo in all those naughty positions.”

“And you can look at them anytime you like, in the sketchbook, that's in the drawer, that now has a lock so that your sister’s kids don’t almost discover them and are scarred for life.”

“Okay, true. I do not want to have to explain those to my sister.”

The front door closes and in walks Beth, Harrison’s older sister.

“What do you have to explain to me?”

“Nothing,” we both reply, and she eyes us suspiciously. “Where are the kids?”

“They’re with Duckie. They found his stash of ducks and are creating a welcome army, I think they called it, for the new roommate.”

Harrison laughs.

“I don’t know if Ryan understands what he’s agreed to live with,” he says, placing his record player on the sideboard by the television. “Who wants to listen to some music?”

He pulls out a vinyl record and sets it to play, the second the music starts he’s holding an imaginary mic under his lips and he’s singing the opening for Bohemian Rhapsody.

Beth throws her bag onto the couch and joins him in singing along, the smile spreads across Harrison’s face and warmth floods my chest. They turn to face me, singing as they wave me over.

I shake my head. Harrison sideways steps toward me one arm stretched out, his fingers curling as if to entice me toward him, and it’s too fucking adorable to resist.

He holds out his invisible mic but instead of singing into it, I grab a spoon from the top drawer and hold it up and let rip.

We dance and sing around the apartment, finishing the song and falling back onto the couch exhausted, but happy.

---