Bad Case of Loving You

I packed my textbooks, laptop, and some clothes into my pack, then looked around the room to see if there was anything else worth stealing there. Only my porn, I guessed, but I didn’t feel like lugging a carton of muscle mags over to Andrew’s, so I hid them under my dirty clothes.

I rolled the futon up to discourage people from fucking on it and stuck a sign saying, ‘STAY THE FUCK OUT’ on my door, then pushed my way through the press of bodies and down the stairs.

The party had spilled out onto the footpath, too, and down the street, so I worked my way through the crowd and up the street to somewhere that Andrew would be able to see me.

Exactly how good an idea this had been became obvious when, just as the Morris rattled to a halt beside the kerb, a panda car came down the street and pulled up where the crowd had spilled out onto the street.

Andrew was grinning as he leaned across and unlocked the passenger door.

I tossed my pack onto the back seat, put my laptop down more carefully, and climbed into the car.

“Hey, babe,” he said, and I leaned across and kissed him.

“Thanks for this, they’re being the housemates from hell at the moment,” I said.

He kissed me again. “I’m not going to complain, not if I get to sleep with you tonight.”

I had to admit, it was a benefit that had occurred to me, too, so I just grinned back at him.

He didn’t the start the car again; instead he took hold of my hand, looking serious all of a sudden. “You don’t have to say yes, but how about going back and getting the rest of your stuff?”

I could see by the streetlight that his hand was stained with paint or something. “You want me to move in with you?”

I asked. “Seriously?”

He nodded. “You’ve been at my place the past five nights.

I know you planned on being at your place to study, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to work. I think, if we set some boundaries, especially with Henry, you’ll get more study done at my place.”

I squeezed his hand, and he lifted my hand up and kissed my knuckles. “This is going to sound horribly needy and desperate and just plain embarrassing, but I was really missing you this evening, and was not looking forward to sleeping without you.”

I hugged him and said, “If you think I’m not going to drive you crazy, I’d love to move in with you.”

The police had dispersed some of the hordes of party-goers, which made emptying my room into the back of the Morris easier. I left Andrew lugging boxes down the stairs and went and found Jeff number one. He was in the kitchen, hanging onto some girl while she was sick in the sink, and I tapped his shoulder.

“Yeah,” he said, and I was glad the police had confiscated the stereo and the noise had dropped enough that I could hear him clearly.

“I’m moving out,” I said, and I took the money I’d just borrowed from Andrew out of my pocket.

“What?” he said.

“Here’s a month’s rent,” I said. “I’m leaving my futon behind, too, the household can have it.”

Heidi came over and said, “You’re leaving, Matthew?” She took the money out of Jeff’s hand and put it in her own pocket. “Because of tonight? The party?”

I shook my head. “No, because Andrew just asked me to move in with him.”

She hugged me tightly.

I didn’t really own much, not without the futon, and Andrew had got most of it in the car before I’d extricated myself from Heidi’s clutches.

He met me on the stairs, his arms full of the sheets of revision notes and anatomy sketches that had covered my walls.

“I don’t really need to take them,” I said. “Your place is too lovely to clutter up with sheets of scribble.”

He shrugged, crinkling the papers, and said, “You, of all people, must know that I’m casual about what happens to my walls. If I can paint on them, you can cover them in revision notes.”

Henry was sprawled on the couch, watching something on the TV that involved a lot of gunfire, when we arrived, and he barely glanced up when I said, “Hello.”

About five minutes later, when I walked into the house, trailing an armful of my clothes, he appeared in the doorway to the lounge room. “You moving in?” he asked me, looking at the bulging pack in my arms.

“Yep,” I said, and he nodded and went back to sprawling on the couch.

“Cool,” he said, picking up the remote control.

I carried the stuff in my arms up to Andrew’s room and added it to the mound on the bedroom floor. “That’s the last of it,” I said to Andrew, and I sat down on the bed, unbearably tired all of a sudden.

Chapter Forty Three

When I woke up on Saturday morning, the other side of the bed was empty, but there was a reassuring mound of junk at the foot of the bed. Matthew had definitely moved in.

I pulled a robe on and wandered downstairs. Henry was still in bed, but the lights were on and the coffee percolator had been started. I poured myself a mug and headed back upstairs.

Matthew was in the study, a strip of fabric tied around his head to hold his hair back, textbook propped beside his laptop on the desk, chewing his lip in thought.