Page 185 of Untouchable

“Good,” Parker says, smiling broadly. He takes his time sampling the different fares that Harp has selected for them, and they’re all, predictably, incredible—and just as fancy as Parker had hoped. He thinks again how special this feels—how he’s curled up on a bed in his underwear and a stolen flannel, eating lobster mac and cheese, watching a horrible alien movie, feeling utterly at home. He’s not constantly looking over at Harp, checking to make sure he’s okay, that he’s happy, that he’s not mad, as Parker would always be doing when he was with Cole. He’s not worrying about trying to laugh more quietly or talk less. He’s not trying to make himself smaller, he realizes, make himself less.

Harp, Parker thinks, has always made Parker feel as though he’s good enough, just as he is.

His chest feels too full in the best way, like his heart is swelling with so much love his sternum might crack, and he twists to plant a kiss on Harp’s cheek.

“What was that for?” Harp asks fondly.

“I—I’m… really, really, reallyhappy.”

* * *

"I am too,"Harp says seriously. He trusts that Parker really is as happy as he says—it's there in his posture, his face, the sound of his voice, and it settles something in Harp that's been bristling ever since he'd disappointed Parker.

"Thank you for staying in with me," Harp says. "I still want to take you out and do something special but... this has been special in a different way. I can't believe you let me be me around you and you still... laugh at my jokes and like me afterwards."

Harp snorts at himself. He hadn't meant to get sentimental, but it's true. Usually Harp makes a joke and his heart sinks because he feels like a moron, but around Parker he can be goofy—and even when a joke doesn't land perfectly, Parker is a generous audience.

“I like you because of your jokes, not in spite of them,” Parker says with a grin. “Well. Sometimes. Some of them are pretty lame.”

Harp smiles and pauses, pushing a little bit of lobster around in the rich cheese sauce oozing across his plate.

"Anyway. This was much better than a panic attack. So thanks again for understanding."

“I’m glad you told me,” Parker says. “This is special. And it means a lot to me, you know? That you told me. That you didn’t just try to tough it out. It makes me feel really good that you trust me like that.”

"Thanks," Harp says. "You make it easy, you know that? Once you realize what's going on or I tell you, you really know the right things to do. I've never been around somebody like that."

“Panic attacks actually happen more often than you’d think,” Parker says thoughtfully as he picks up another fry. “In massage, I mean. Yeah, people think massage is restful—well, maybe you don’t—but we carry emotions in our bodies. It’s a real thing—sometimes when people start undoing knots that have been in their body for decades or whatever, since a certain stressful event happens, it all comes flooding back.”

Harp nods. "Yeah. Been there." It's easy to forget, now, how rough those first few sessions had been. It seems like a lifetime ago, when Parker had still felt like a stranger. Like a threat. So much had changed in such a short time, and letting him in still hadn't been a mistake.

"If you hadn't stayed that first time, we wouldn't be here," Harp says abruptly.

"What do you mean?"

It takes Harp a moment to sort it out in his mind in a way that he can explain it.

"That first session, when I freaked out and took a shower. I really thought that you'd leave—I wasn't trying to be rude to you. I thought you'd be as freaked out as I was and that you'd pack up and go. But you didn't leave. You'd been... patient," Harp says. He stops to take a breath. "That's why I called back. That's why I asked for you again. Because you stayed that first time."

* * *

Parker sitsfor a moment as the weight of Harp’s words slowly sink in, like a stone dropping down to the bottom of a still lake. He’d half forgotten about how strange things had been their first few appointments, how Harp had been so distant, so cagey, so unlike the warm, generous man currently curled up beside him. It’s dizzying, Parker realizes, almost scary, to think of how close Parker might have come to missing out on all this, how easily Harp might have just become a long ago client that hadn’t worked out instead of the most important person in Parker’s life.

The thought is sobering.

“To be honest,” Parker says slowly, “I wasn’t trying to do some noble thing. I was just… so surprised, I think, that it didn’t occur to me to leave.” He feels as though he’s somehow letting Harp down by admitting this, but it’s the truth. “I wasn’t… I mean, I wasn’t freaked out or anything, I was just confused. It was less about me being, I dunno, like, a good person and more about me… not knowing what else to do.”

Harp laughs fondly. "That's perfect," he says. "Honestly, that's wonderful, Parker. I love how your mind works, sometimes, that it wouldn't even occur to you to pack up and leave. Either way I'm glad you stayed."

Harp kisses him gently against the neck and sighs.

Parker frowns—he’d expected disappointment, not relief.

“But—it’s not like I was trying to be nice or patient or something—like, what if I had left, and then—” He gestures around at the room, trailing off. How could Harp look so happy, so relaxed, when they’d come so close to never having any of this?

"Then I guess it was meant to be," Harp says, shrugging. "You are patient and kind and all of the things that I assumed about you that day. If you hadn't been, I would've figured that out quickly enough. I didn't exactly trust you after that—just figured you were a nice kid."

Parker cocks his head, considering this.

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