#rockton

It can't be more than forty-five minutes before I return, but the lights are on and, judging by the shadow passing in front of the light every so often, he's awake and pacing the living room.

I play it cool, though, opening the door and strolling in like I hadn't mysteriously snuck out when I should've been relishing my time with him.

"Sorry," I say. "I needed to run a quick errand and I didn't want to wake you."

I go to slip past him so I can hide the keys I just picked up, but something in his voice as he says, "An errand?" stops me.

When I turn to look at him, really look at him, I realize that maybe not waking him up wasn't as good an idea as it seemed.

"Was it an errand related to the call you were on when I came in?" he asks.

It isn't accusatory, just mildly curious, so I answer with a, "Yeah," without thinking.

He nods slowly. "Okay," he says but doesn't add anything more to it, even though I wait.

"What?" I ask, finally. He can be a quiet guy, sure, but the last time he was reduced to one word sentences was... probably our last fight.

Well, fuck. If he's going to get pissed at me for leaving him for less than an hour while he was sleeping on one of the few days of the month that he was here... I really don't want to spend his visit fighting, but...

He looks at me for a minute, then looks around the room. When he doesn't find whatever he's searching for, he heads for the kitchen. I sigh and follow him.

"Oh, no," I say when I see him taking down a bottle of damn tequila. "You don't get to make every hard conversation easier for you by getting drunk." I take the bottle from him and put it back. "Spill."

He stands with his back to me for a moment, then says, quiet desperation in his voice, "Please tell me you aren't sneaking around with someone behind my back. I'll understand if you want to-"

"What?" I say as I realize what he means by "sneaking around," and I grab his shoulder and turn him to face me. I hadn't known what to expect, but it certainly wasn't an accusation of cheating. "You're awful quick to jump to conclusions, there."

He winces, but says, "That's not a denial."

"For fuck's sake, Eric, no. No I am not cheating on you. Where is this even coming from? You got a little somethin'-somethin' on the side up north and-"

"No!" He looks so startled and horrified by the question that I know he's telling the truth -- like I had any doubts about that in the first place -- but that only makes me more pissed.

"I just-" He flounders, not looking at me, and normally I would think it's cute, but somehow my nice evening with my boyfriend has gotten off track because he thinks I'm cheating on him.

"Just what?" I ask. "Have I given you any reason at all to think that I might have found someone else while I was living down here? That I'm even looking?"