the sad truth.

“Your soulmate needs to be someone infinitely cooler and more reliable than Trevor from Postmates, or else what’s the point?” Nicky teased with a roll of her eyes. At his critique of her pancakes she nodded, “Wow, such an accurate description.” She sighed and abandoned them for now, scratching her name into the styrofoam container and shoving them in the fridge. Maybe she’d eat them later if she had the munchies and was desperate. She returned to the barstool as Keaton mused on the importance of names, “Trevor sounds like the kind of  douchebag who tells girls sex doesn’t feel as good with condoms and claims his pull out game is hella good.” She pointed at him, “Tell me I’m wrong,” she dared. She shrugged at his description of Albert, “Blinded by good looks and better sex… We’ve all been there, Kiwi.” She sighed wistfully. Her current dry spell was thoroughly unfortunate but she didn’t meet many queer ladies filming bar mitzvahs and sweet sixteens. She tossed the M&Ms his way and watched as he tried to fix the pancakes, “Oh. Okay the tail helps. I can buy them as rabbits now.”

Keaton shrugged. “Beggars can’t be choosers, Avocado. And I’m definitely begging at this point.” Maybe Keaton was a little bit blind to any actual potential soulmates, because they were liking among the romantics, for fear of falling for someone that would then break his heart but... that wasn’t the point. Messing around with an unreliable, unattached stranger like Trevor was painless and, frankly, easier. “If someone ate those, they’d only be doing you a favor,” Keaton commented, his mouth full, while watching Nicky write her name into the styrofoam. “Oh fuck, yeah, he does.” Keaton then ran across the room to the window in their shared living room, which he threw open and hung his torso out of. “Fuck you, Trevor!” Keaton didn’t even wait to figure out if he’d heard, nor did he care about the consequences. Instead, he returned to the kitchen. “I’d hook up with him again, given the opportunity.” Keaton shrugged, completing their pancake masterpieces and sliding a plate across the counter to her. “Snails or rabbits, doesn’t matter. As long as they’re marginally better than Trevor’s flavorless, uninspired blobs.”

“Two in the morning is like my 9 pm, babe,” Gemma said with a grin. It was true, she worked nights at a club in LA and if she was being 100% honest she may have done a line of coke earlier in the night. Even if she was to go inside and into her room she wasn’t going to sleep. She’d probably swipe around on Tinder for a bit or watch Netflix until finally getting to bed around five or six. “Right, double threats are hard to find, naturally someone’s taking care of it for her.” She sat down on the top step as he hurried off, “My lame voice and I will be here. Fingers crossed.” She leaned back and laid so her body could settle comfortably between the stairs to wait for him. 

“Time is meaningless to me at this point,” Keaton admitted with a casual shrug. Being a musician, a lot of the work he did was freelance or otherwise on his own terms. Typically, he just worked until he physically couldn’t anymore, or around parties and other events. Keaton returned a few moments later with a handful of half-crumbled papers and his guitar. He sat down a few steps above Gemma, attempting to avoid invading her space, but remaining within arm reach so he could pass her the sheet music. While she looked it over, he strummed. He’d been playing it on repeat, so he didn’t even need the notes anymore. “You don’t give yourself enough credit, by the way. You have a beautiful voice.”

“Alright, alright, let me live,” Ash joked back as Keaton ragged on him about his mess of a room, “I need my room to match my life, so it’s got to be a big ol’ mess.” Once he was down to his boxers, Ash laid back on his bed and stretched out, curling up next to Keaton as he did so. “No, not really. I just don’t wanna go. It’s a pain in the ass. Plus at this point, the clean and the dirty have all merged together so sorting is going to suck.” 

Keaton turned his head into Ash’s shoulder, his smirk on full display for the other for just a second before he nuzzled his face against Ash’s neck while they laid side by side. “I don’t think you’re a mess.” Keaton relaxed in the comfort of Ash’s bed, and his presence. “I bet Seb would help sort it out, they might spend the entire time chastising you for ‘letting it get this bad’ or list some scientific facts about how ‘a clean room leads to a healthy lifestyle’ or something. Or I could help. Play some music, hang out, organize.”

Gemma didn’t love the tone of his reply, but she knew how frustrated he was with the slow progress of his career and also it was so late, so she chose to ignore it. “You’ll get there, Keat. Slow going is still going.” She mentally kicked herself because it sounded so lame when she said it out loud, but she shrugged it off. “You kidding me? The night is still young!” Gemma could carry a tune, but she definitely wasn’t the world’s best singer or anything. Back when they first started dating, she sometimes fantasized about a world where she also had musical talent and they could go on tour and see the world together, but her lack of vocal talent had squashed that.  Probably for the best, in the end. “I mean, just keep in mind that whoever really sings it will sound infinitely better than me… but so long as you can remember that I’m willing to give it a go.”

Keaton probably wouldn’t have even brought the topic up if he wasn’t a few drinks deep and, frankly, exhausted. Sharing his insecurities wasn’t generally something he did often, but if it had to be anyone... Gemma was one of the safest people to talk to. She knew him better than most, and had certainly seen him at his worst before. “I guess.” Ever since leaving his last band, Keaton had truthfully been struggling. “Isn’t it like two in the morning?” Admittedly, he hadn’t checked the time in a while, and his phone was still upstairs where he’d left it after reading her message. It didn’t matter, so long as she didn’t mind staying up a little bit later. “I don’t think the actress is even singing the song herself, they probably have a NDA for that too. I wouldn’t worry too much, I appreciate it regardless.” Keaton sped up, now knowing that he had to grab his guitar and any necessary sheet music. “I’ll be right back! If you’re not here when I come back, I’ll assume you changed your mind. No hard feelings if you do.”

Ash shook his head. He knew he wouldn’t get tired of sharing a bed with Keaton. Ash loved to cuddle, he wasn’t extremely picky about it, but with Keaton, it wasn’t ever awkward. He felt comfortable and if he needed to switch things up because his arm was falling asleep he knew Keaton wouldn’t make a scene about it. “Mi cama es tu cama, you’re always welcome,” Ash said as he opened the door to his bedroom. He let go of Keaton’s hand and slipped out of his jacket and tossed it onto the chair in the corner of his room. He pulled his shirt up over his head as he made his way over to the fan. “Sorry about the mess.” He said, gesturing to the clothes strewn about the floor as he walked. He hit the fan’s on button and the machine went to work cooling the room. He yawned and stretched his arms over his head, cracking his back as he did so before sitting down on his bed and kicking his shoes off. “The chair’s a safe place to keep things from disappearing in the chaos.” He offered as he removed his belt from the loops on his jeans.

Keaton didn’t say any more on the matter, but he genuinely did believe that anyone could get sick of him. Sooner rather than later, in most cases. Even Ash, who was pretty patient with him and all his flaws thus far. “Someone DM Marie Kondo!” Keaton jokingly called out to a presumably empty house. Everyone else was still out for the night, as far as he knew. “We have to get her in here because you need some serious help, man.” Keaton spoke directly to Ash now, the telltale smirk on his lips enough to show that he was only teasing. Soon enough, the smirk disappeared behind the t-shirt he discarded. Keaton considered leaving his shoes outside the door, but he knew what the others would say about that. Instead, he risked leaving them under the aforementioned chair, on top of which he left all his clothes; aside from the boxers that he kept on when he finally dropped into Ash’s bed. “Is there a reason you’re avoiding the laundromat?”

Nicky set her tardy pancakes onto the counter and shook her head, “It didn’t come up between me grabbing the bag and slamming the door in his face.” She flipped the box open to see cold, mediocre pancakes and sighed. “Keaton. You deserve someone better than an incompetent Postmate named Trevor.” She wrinkled her nose at the name, “Homeboy doesn’t deserve anything remotely good in his life based upon my brief time dealing with him.” She abandoned her place and headed into the kitchen to rifle through the candy drawer. Some might say it was childish, really, for a house of adults to have a designated candy drawer, but honestly, with this group it was necessary. “I found M&Ms?” She said as she pulled a bag from the drawer and plopped them on the counter near where he was making pancakes. “Are you going for some sort of escargot inspired pancake aesthetic?” She half teased and half genuinely asked.

Keaton shrugged. “Shame. He could’ve been my soulmate. Now my eternal loneliness is your fault. It has nothing to do with all my flaws, it’s all on you.” Keaton stuck a fork through the top of her postmated pancakes. He wrinkled his nose as he took a bite from it. “Tastes like something you’d find at a Golden Corral. Been in a hot case, more accurately a luke-warm case, for four hours too long. But, it’s just good enough to feed to your kid’s soccer team after an all-day tournament. Barely. And only because everywhere else is closed.” Keaton waved it off, tossing the discarded pancake, fork and all, back into the styrofoam it came from. “Trevor is an okay name, not that it matters. I dated this guy named Albert once- awful name, right? He was a terrible person, treated me like trash, but he was hot. And... great in bed.” Keaton didn’t even stop long enough to acknowledge how clearly misplaced his priorities were. He often, accidentally, made it abundantly clear that commitment was something he avoided. “M&M’s are fine, James is slacking on keeping that drawer stocked up.” Keaton pulled the whipped cream and chocolate syrup from the refrigerator, and squinted at his poor attempt at bunnies as he turned back around. “They’re rabbits.” To emphasize his point, and to try to repair his failed pancake art, he added a whipped cream tail to a few.

“Blue raspberry, of course. It’s the only choice.” Ash let go of Keaton’s shoulders as they approached the house so he could unlock the door. “Keaton, you can crash with me anytime, man.” Ash meant it. Being with Keaton was easy, comfortable. At this point, Ash just wanted to cuddle up with him and go to sleep. Ash leaned against the doorframe as Keaton unlocked the door. He stepped inside and took Keaton’s hand.

Keaton pointed at Ash, clearly in affirmation of his flavor choice. “You’re right, it’s the only one that matters. I’ll settle for strawberry, but only if it’s over 90 degrees and I’m desperate.” In actuality, Keaton was known to mix the two most of the time. Keaton opened the door and held it to let Ash go first, then followed him in. Immediately, his fingers intertwined comfortably with Ash’s. Keaton relocked the door behind them. “Careful what you wish for, I’ll be there every night-” The heat in his own bedroom wasn’t that bad, it was survivable. He would just want someone to spend the nights with. “and then you’ll get sick of me.” Keaton was the type to claim that he hated cuddling, it felt too intimate. Way too vulnerable. But, when it came down to it, he craved it. And when it came to Ash, there was no point in pretending.

Nicky watched as Keaton began cooking the pancakes. She remembered him doing so on nights where he’d slept over with her at her dad’s place. She was so impressed when she was in high school that her friend could cook like that. “Let’s get some cool toppings and we can put them on mine when they get here too.” Her phone dinged and she looked at it. She held it out so Keaton could see the updated map.

“I’ll be back. Trevor finally got here, I gotta run down and grab them.” Nicky jumped up and rushed out to the staircase. She hurried down and took the bag from the Postmate without a word, just a heavy glare and no tip on the order. She made her way upstairs and untied the bag, tossing it in the trash, “Finally. I bet yours will be better, I shouldn’t have wasted my time.”

Keaton wasn’t a fantastic cook, that was Cooper’s forte. But, he had always been decent enough to get himself by. Nothing he made was pretty either, as foretold by the vaguely snail shaped pancakes that he had intended to be rabbits. “I think we have whipped cream, some chocolate syrup, definitely sprinkles. Check the candy drawer, we might have some reese’s or something-”

“Hey! If you think Trevor is worthy and objectively attractive invite him to join us.” Keaton called after her, unsure if she had even heard him before leaving. By the time she had returned, his pancakes were ready and plated. With a few of each variety for each, along with a plate of extras for any romantic that was drawn in by the smell of cooking. “Well? Did you tell him how desperately single I am?”

Gemma leaned against the wall at the top of the stairs, “Everyone starts somewhere, and money is money.” She said with a shrug. She was about to head in, but she wasn’t tired and she did not want to be alone in her room. “Anything I can help with? I spent the evening listening to soul-destroying sell out bullshit so it’s fresh in my mind.” It might have been weird to ask, falling back into old habits was something she said she wouldn’t do, but it came out before she could stop it. 

“I started somewhere twenty years ago.” The response came off short, but he hoped she knew it wasn’t because he was angry or upset with her. It just bothered him sometimes that he didn’t amount to anything after so many years of playing music. Nevertheless, he swept it quickly under the rug and moved on. “Actually, the singer is female. It might help to hear someone with a similar vocal range singing it... if you don’t mind. You don’t have to, though, if you were headed up to sleep or anything.”

“A snow cone would save my ass. I’ll hold you to it.” Ash smiled as Keaton called him hot, “Wow, smooth,” he teased while they continued to make their way home. He yawned as Keaton talked about his room. “That sounds miserable.  I’ve got a pretty nice cooling fan if you wanna crash with me.” Ash didn’t mind sleeping in a bed with Keaton. In fact, it sounded really nice tonight.

“I would expect nothing less. Name your flavor.” As they drew nearer to their shared home, Keaton’s longing for his bed, or better yet Ash’s bed, grew exponentially. Just walking with Ash was so comfortable that he could only assume that he’d sleep soundly with him too. “That would be great, you sure you don’t mind?” Keaton glanced at him to be sure, then unlocked the key to their place. “I’ll add buying a fan to my to do list for tomorrow.”

Nicky couldn’t deny the accuracy of the last statement, so she made a sweeping motion with her arms before she stepped around the counter so Keaton could have run of the kitchen, “By all means, make your damn pancakes,” she said as she settled onto a barstool and set her phone down on the counter, waiting for it to ding.

Pancakes were one of the many reasonably easy meals that he learned to cook at a fairly young age, as a means of keeping himself from endless nights of rumbling stomachs. Keaton started pouring various ingredients into a mixing bowl, with the intention to split the one bowl into three. One with chocolate chips, one with blueberries, and one for whatever nonsense the two of them would decide to put in. Probably something like gummy bears, oreos and weed knowing them. “Our damn pancakes, Nicky.”

Gemma paused as Keaton drummed his fingers on the railing of the stairs. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Pretty good.” She said, basing her claim on nothing. Gemma honestly didn’t really know much about music, everything she learned she picked up from dating Keaton. From talking to him about songs, laying in bed with him as he wrote songs or played guitar. She was definitely far from an expert. She looked back at him for a moment before climbing the remainder of the stairs. When they reached the top she ran a hand through her hairs. “So, what project’s keeping you up? Anything fun?” 

Keaton realized that the conversation had quickly become entirely about him, and in an effort to be less self-absorbed, he nearly asked what she had been up to that night. But, he knew that he probably didn’t want to know. So, he didn’t ask.

The words Keaton and music so often went hand in hand. Without music, Keaton wasn’t sure what his life would be like, or if his life would even be at all. He had an ear for the little things that most would never even notice. He knew he didn’t have to explain that to Gemma. Keaton sighed. Not even just a light sigh, but a heavy, defeated sigh. “Soul destroying, sell-out bullshit, honestly. There’s this new movie that needs an original song, NDA and all.” It wasn’t what he’d ever wanted, but it paid the bills.

Ash bumped his hip against Keaton’s as they made their way onto the main street. “Eh, it’s 10 am. Not too early but it’s still going to suck. People get grouchy when it’s hot and tomorrow’s supposed to be a scorcher. I bet I’ll be ready to walk out by noon.” 

“In that case, I’ll drop by at noon with a bag of ice and a snow cone to keep you going.” Keaton offered, figuring the timing would actually suit his schedule for the next day perfectly. The bag of ice was mostly a joke, but treating Ash to a snow cone would likely brighten both of their days. “Speaking of hot,” Keaton nudged Ash, to insinuate that Ash was hot. Although, that wasn’t the point he was initially getting at. “my bedroom this time of year is basically Hell. I think that’s why I’ve been so tired lately.”

Nicky rolled her eyes, “It’s a figure of speech, you nerd,” she said with a smile, “I just wish there was a way to give Trevor some external motivation.” She watched as Keaton started digging in the cupboards, “But, Kiwi I already paid for these pancakes to cure my hangover. It’s the principle. I deserve them. Trevor is keeping me from my destiny.” 

Keaton grinned, while also pulling ingredients from the cabinet and sloppily piling them onto the countertop beside him. “Dammit, Avocado, just let me make us some pancakes. Alright?” Keaton insisted, albeit jokingly. “Only because I know you didn’t order enough for us both, anyway.”

Gemma hurried inside as Keaton held the door open for her. Living with her high school ex probably wasn’t the smartest idea, but Gemma loved her friends and when the idea of living together in this building came up she agreed without thinking through the consequences, as per usual. So far it was going well, aside from the occasional moment where she caught herself missing him, pining a little bit for their good times, and needed to mentally bitch slap herself. She smiled, “Well, I definitely owe you one, Keat.” She said as she started up the stairs, taking them two at a time so she didn’t hold him up getting back to his songwriting.  

They were about halfway up when she decided she couldn’t take the silence anymore. “So, um, what was the idea?”

Keaton didn’t talk about it, but once upon a time Gemma did genuinely break his heart. They broke each other’s hearts, repeatedly. Then, Keaton broke his own heart. Telling her they were over for good. 

Now, they were living together. Sharing a kitchen, passing each other in the stairwell. “Well, I’m sure there will be a day I lose my keys or forget them, too. When the day comes, I know who to call.” Keaton said, jogging up the stairwell. He paused to drum his fingers on the railing. “I just realized how good the acoustics are in the stairwell. Might just be the spark I need.” He had never been great with deadlines. He preferred to just... let things come to him naturally. But, time wasn’t always a luxury he could afford.