Page 22 of Roleplay at Randy's
“I'm not lettingyou pay me.” Matty stands across from me in the living room with his arms crossed, and I don't think I've seen him this stubborn before.
“I'd be paying a sitter anyway.”
“Would the sitter have been living with you? No. If I'm not paying rent, then you aren't paying me to watch Cal.”
I sigh but can't stop a smile from spreading over my face.
“You're sleeping on my couch. It's not like you even get a room for yourself.”
It hadn't taken a lot of convincing to get Matty to agree to come stay with me, and it took us maybe thirty minutes to gather up anything he’d need in the short term. I promised we’d go back in a few days to pack him up, and he could store his stuff in my garage for now.
His eyes soften around the edges, and he gets that little wistful look in his eye I’ve caught a time or two. I'm not sure what it means, but it makes the butterflies riot.
Cal is in his room unwinding from therapy—he enjoys his combo of speech, physical, and occupational therapy, butthey tire out his limited social meter. It’s not likely that he’ll care too much one way or the other about Matty being here, except when it throws off his routines.
“I’m sorry about earlier,” I say, watching as confusion weaves itself into Matty’s furrowed brows. “Cal isn’t violent, but he can get aggressive when he can’t figure out how to regulate. He might not have reacted so badly if I’d been here because he knows what to expect from me. He knows how I’m going to handle the things he can’t. He didn’t know what to expect with you, and not having that emotional leaning post so to speak set him off.”
Matty’s face crumbles to a crippling insecurity, but he reins it in with a tight nod.
“I mean it. It wasn’t your fault, and I’m sorry you got hurt.”
“I’m fine,” he says with a half-hearted shrug, and the half smile I get is more genuine. “I’ll watch you with him and try to emulate.”
It’s sweet how earnest he already is about all of this.
“In saying that …” My own posture relaxes, and I rub my fingers over my nape. “It’s not your responsibility to watch him while I’m home. If he wakes you up—and I’ll work on getting him adjusted to you being out here—come get me.”
Something almost like concern passes over his face, and he steps closer, cocking his hip on the back of the couch. “Does he always wake you up that early?”
“Most days, yeah. Some days he sleeps in.”
“So you don’t get home until two or three, wait for him to go to bed, and then you’re … just up and moving again by like eight?”
When he puts it like that, it sounds much more stressful than it is. “Oh, I catch up on my naps when he’s in tabletmode. He’ll even hang in bed with me if I’m not ready to get up yet.”
Matty chuckles and bobs his head. “I’d still like to help out some. Once I’ve got a grasp on your routine, I’ll entertain him when I can in the mornings.”
Even if I want to argue, the look he cuts me fizzles out any fight. “Fine. We have one more semi-important matter to discuss with you staying here.”
“Oh?”
“Oh?” I roll my eyes and grin. This man is too cute. “My couch isn’t really well suited for making your kind of content.”
I can see the moment Matty regrets having ever brought his activities up. His face turns beet red, and he squeezes his eyes shut like that’ll somehow make this conversation less awkward.
I don’t think it’s awkward, though. If people want to pay him for getting off, more power to them. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.
“For starters, you can use my room when I take Cal to therapy, and if you need any privacy during the day, just let me know.”
The little “oh” his mouth makes draws my attention to his lips. How he licks them and traps them between his teeth.
“I just figured I’d lay off the physical stuff for a while.”
It does something foreign to my body, picturing Matty lying in my rumpled sheets, touching himself.
I’ve never been as insanely attracted to someone as I am to Matty. I don’t know what to do with that; where to compartmentalize it in my brain, because it comes roaring out with every little thought or touch.
“Up to you. I don’t mind it. As long as Cal isn’t exposed to anything.” I offer him a wry smile, and he laughs soft anddeprecating. “Hell, the bathroom has a lock; feel free to get up to mischief in there.”
