The door had slammed loudly when Helen left, their whole rundown, crappy apartment shaking with the tremors of it. Raff stayed where he was, head spinning. His eye had started to throb, but that was probably normal when your wife who hated your very existence decided to lob a coffee mug at your face. Lifting his hand, he tentatively pressed his fingertips around the area and hissed at the bruising pain he felt. He looked down at his feet, where the shattered porcelain that had once declared ‘don’t talk to me before I have my coffee’ in Comic Sans lay shattered across the kitchen linoleum.
Maybe it had been his fault. Spring was coming around again, and that always made him think of Ted, who’d never failed to drag Raff’s sorry ass out to Central Park whenever the sun began chasing off the April showers. Raff hadn’t been much of a Central Park guy, hating that he could never get far enough into it to forget that they were surrounded by blocks and blocks of cityscape. But he’d humoured Ted anyway, because he was always a fucking soft touch when it came to the other man.
Thinking back on the years where he’d been able to spend springtime with Ted, plucking at their guitar strings and scribbling down lyrics, some more comprehensible than others, had twisted Raff’s insides up. He felt sick with nostalgia, but also regret.
He’d loved Ted. After years of denying it, he’d made peace with the fact that it had been love he’d felt for the other man. He’d been too late in reciprocating it, but even that hadn’t been enough of a wake up call for him. He’d retreated first to Wyoming and spent his summers missing his friend and trying to find a way to settle his broken heart again. Then, he’d returned and hidden back into his marriage, undoing any and all progress. It would’ve been nice to pretend he’d entered into a bout of courage, realising he could be happier without Helen than moving through life in a companionship that had soured long ago. Then Mav and Harlow happened. And then they happened to each other, and Raff felt weak again.
He’d played one of Ted’s records that morning. Three times over. Helen had come home from god knows where and stood in the living room doorway, a look of betrayal on her face. She had told Raff long ago that he could fuck men if he was discreet about it, mainly as a way for her to land a hit when she informed him she hadn’t been innocent either. Not that Raff particularly cared. But while Helen seemed to have made her peace with the idea of her husband sleeping with nameless men, she drew the line at him listening to Ted’s voice.
Ted was always, always going to be a sore spot between the two of them.
The argument had escalated. They never usually got this bad, with one of them usually lapsing into a sullen silence instead. It was easier to live in a house with indifference over anger, or at least that’s what Raff had been led to believe. His father and his fists had beat that idea into him.
Raff had raised his voice, a rarity for him, and Helen had seen cause to throw her mug at him. Maybe he should count himself lucky that there had been no coffee in it. A bruise was better than third degree burns, right? He’d clutched at his face in the silence that followed, both of them staring at each other. Then Helen grabbed her coat and left.
Almost robotically, Raff swept up the shards of the broken mug and dumped them in the trash can. He didn’t know why that was his first priority and placing a bag of frozen peas wrapped in a dish towel over his eye came second. He stood at the kitchen counter, eyes closed against how cold the peas were, and tried not to hate his life completely. He knew what happened to people who hated their life to that extent, and maybe there was hope for him after all when he decided he didn’t want to end up like that.
Lost in his own thoughts, the banging on his door startled him enough to nearly drop the peas. He jumped, fumbling the bag before clumsily catching it.
Sure it was Helen - or maybe even one of her current flames, showing up on Raff’s doorstep to fight in her name or whatever - he took his time shuffling down the hallway and towards the front door. Sighing heavily, he opened it with his free hand, a tired look on his face, half-hidden by the cloth.
But it wasn’t Helen on the other side.
Raff’s heart gave a familiar, uncomfortable lurch when he realised it was Maverick standing on his stoop. He frowned, and the action made the bag of peas crinkle noisily. Slowly, he lowered it, and stared at the other man who was fidgeting with a nervous and erratic sort of energy.
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