Page 80 of Single Teddy
“Yeah, of course, buddy. I’m…I’m just tired, that’s all.”
Bear seemed to buy the excuse and nodded before asking me to watch a movie before bedtime.
“Can we watchLilo and Stitch?” He looked at me with big puppy-dog eyes, and I couldn’t refuse him. I found the movie on Popflix, and we cozied up on the sofa, but it wasn’t long before I went back to thinking about Wesley.
By the time credits rolled he was fast asleep and I carried him to bed, moving to my own right after brushing my teeth and I tried to get some shuteye, only my head was too busy running through whole scenarios.
Why…why him?
And why did I want a repeat? What had he awakened in me?
It was no wonder I didn’t get much sleep or that I stayed in bed scrolling through pages and pages of articles, trying to figure out what had happened to me until the sun rose.
Words like asexual, demisexual, graysexual, aromantic, demiromantic floated around in my head, threatening to give me a headache, but despite all that, I found a couple of identities that might speak to me. Which only made me wonder how on earth I had never thought to look this kind of stuff up.
Regardless of what I called myself or which identity best described me, there was one thing I had no doubt about. Wesley was special to me, and I wanted more of him. And not just sexually. No. I wanted to spend more time with him, get to know him better, be surrounded by his kindness and wisdom, and his beautiful smiles and deep, inquisitive green eyes. I wanted to know what made him tick.
My alarm pulled me out of my internal mayhem and out of bed and into the start of another day.
We might have only just moved into our home, but our routine had become a thing of beauty by now. First, I woke up and showered, then I got started on breakfast before I woke Bear up and got him into the shower too. Then we ate our breakfast and were off to school.
But today was the weekend, and weekends were still wild cards. And wild cards stressed me out. So while having breakfast, I went through my list of suggestions and tried to narrow it down to a couple for Bear. The last thing I wanted to do to make my weekend less overwhelming was to overwhelm Bear with a myriad of options to choose from.
“Do you want to go to the park or pay Mac and her dads a visit?” I asked, and of course, he chose the second option, so I shot a message to Slade, and after cleaning up and being lazy for a bit, we set off for Slade and King’s house.
King was already at work, so Slade and I sat and had coffee while the kids played with Pixel, the dog, in the backyard.
My phone buzzed.
Wesley:
Did yesterday really happen, or did I have the best REM I’ve ever had?
His message brought a smile to my face because it was exactly how I felt.
Teddy:
It definitely happened.
“Who’s that?” Slade asked, and I turned my phone off before I glanced at my friend.
“Oh, erm, no one. Why?”
Slade shrugged.
“No reason. You just have this silly smile on your face.”
I tried to smooth my lips back to compliance, but I had no idea how successful I was.
My phone buzzed again.
Wesley:
Is it wild that I want to do this again now but also all the time?
“There it is again,” Slade said. “That no one you’re talking to seems to have the perfect skill of making you smile.”
I frowned, trying to hide whatever it was Slade was seeing.
