#skimbletugger

                Skimble didn’t respond. He busied himself instead with the carpet in the entryway, trying to parse out a reason as to just why he left for work and returned home, both within half an hour of each other, that would preserve some level of his dignity. It proved more difficult than he’d first thought.

                But how was he supposed to answer? In what world would a simple observation, underpinned by a simple question, expecting a simple response, be grounds for unpacking the various reasons that tonight, Skimble’s long-coveted Graveyard Shift made him so repulsed that he turned right around before he’d even arrived.

                How was he supposed to explain magnitude of the shift caused by his moving in? How could he properly convey the level of difference between the home’s before and after? The sudden silence that Skimble had just begun to resign himself to? The mornings and afternoons no longer spent ferrying to and from schools and extracurriculars; the stretches of days left open to laze and rest only for a handful of months before this new addition?

                How was he supposed to articulate the sensation of coming home and being met with this warmth? Not that drop-off hugs and good-night kisses and pre-homework chats were inferior, but that the embraces and kisses shared now, the intimacy, the heat, the reciprocated want…Skimble had been much younger the last time he’d experienced this.

                And how did he explain just how much this new affection had uprooted his daily life? Skimble was known for his adherence to routine; he prided himself on being a creature of habit; why, then, had he spent the past month resenting more and more just how late he had to work? Why now, of all times, did he want nights free and not the more obviously productive daylight hours? How was he so affected by the tom on his sofa that to not be there when he fell asleep made him feel so viscerally deprived?

Why did he covet chances, not even to go out, but to stay home together; battling for leg-space on the sofa; arguing over the specifics of un-recorded recipes; engaging in activities together he rarely allowed himself to even consider as long his children were there?

                Why did he turn his car around halfway to work without a word to his supervisor?

                He poked at the carpet with his shoe before glancing back to the sofa. The TV was paused, now, and the gaze was slowly moving from playful to light concern.

                He wanted an answer.

Skimble had none.

So, he didn’t give one.

He planted the ball of his foot on the carpet, pressed down, and twisted into the floor. He toed off his shoes, kicked them to the right of the front door, trailing them with his eyes, before turning back to his audience of one, who by now was rising to his feet, and began to shuffle forward, feeling the friction of the wool on his socks and the feet within, pointedly staring at the ground.

His head met with chest before he had time to realize it. He didn’t pull away, nor did he lean further in; Skimble just stood there, head on his lover’s chest, staring at 2 pairs of feet, and let out a breathy laugh; almost more of a sigh. He felt digits coming up onto his arms, gently gliding up and down from his shoulders to his elbows. That meant we were being genuine tonight.

Skimble finally lifted his head, meeting a perturbed face staring back down at him. Skimble realized there was a real danger he might fall in love with those hazel eyes and their thick, expressive brows. He offered a weary half-smirk.