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Mike had slept pretty well that night, so well, in fact, that he actually woke up earlier than Brad, which was a reversal of the usual situation. He had kept a careful eye on him since Brad had told him about all the garbage he had to put up with from his family, and was more amazed each day at how he had overcome it and had become such an incredible guy. Thinking of how much this guy meant to him, he just enjoyed gazing at his partner in bed, breathing lightly, a million miles away from the world.
It seemed like the talk had done a lot for him, as he seemed unusually buoyant, even for the always-up Brad. Brad told Mike several times how relieved he felt just to talk about it, to share it with someone, someone who cared about what happened to him. It wasn't' just the talk, though, that allowed him to relax and release his feelings, but how Mike had taken up the challenge of making him feel even more wanted and secure.
His strategy was not very obvious at all, at least if you weren't looking. And it wasn't even obvious if one was looking. But it was there, nonetheless. Just a nudge, a slight poke in the ribs, a look, sometime a very short note found in his evening reading. He knew exactly what the gestures meant and they started him downy the long road of dealing with the pain he had kept submerged all this time.
It also probably didn't hurt that, for all intents and purposes, Mike had moved in with him. His lease was up at the end of the semester, but there was no good reason to wait until then. They hardly even talked about it. Mike just gradually brought more and more clothes and stuff over so that at a certain point he was moved in. Since the place had come mostly furnished, he could move out pretty easily.
Watching Brad sleeping like this, with consciousness imminent, got Mike to thinking . He continued to watch Brad, see how at peace he seemed, and thought about what he should wake up to. It would be great if it was something really special and a great surprise. He deserved it.
Ideas went through his mind. He could do something overtly sexual, like be lying next to him naked, maybe with his dick pressed against him as he woke up, but that wasn't much of a surprise. Except for the naked part, his dick was pressed against him a lot. Various other ideas went through his head, but none of them seemed to fit at all. If he wanted to pull this off, though, he'd better come up with something fast. He wouldn't sleep all morning.
Aha! There's something he'd like,' he thought to himself as he had a eureka' moment and came up with an idea.
Breakfast in bed!
He knew that Brad enjoyed eggs, especially omelet's, and he made them often for the both of them on previous weekends when he had time. They fit well with the diet that Mike was supposed to follow, too. Brad would love that!,' he thought. Even thought he had never made an omelet before, he thought, jeze, how hard could it be? Just some veggies, meat and eggs.' So with a beginner's enthusiasm, Mike slipped out of bed as quietly as he could to whip something up for his guy.
He also wanted to try to repay Brad for all the cooking that he had done for the both of them since they were together. Mike didn't quite realize how much Brad actually enjoyed cooking for him, how much fun for him it was. He felt that Mike certainly carried his load by shopping and cleaning up, and didn't feel that there was any debt at all. Besides, he didn't do it to be repaid or for any quid pro quo anyway, he did it for his guy because he wanted to. He actually felt kind of privileged, being able to take care of him, choose the menus (with Mikes consent) and continually improve his skill as a cook. Seeing Mike enjoy it was the best reward. But for Mike, he still felt like he needed to do more.
He had barely used his own kitchen, except to heat up food that his Mom had made for him, or maybe zap some sausages. But hey, he was going to be an Architect, someone who builds things according to instructions, he thought. The job of the Architect was to basically write the instructions, and a house or any building is a lot more complicated than food. `This should be easy,' he thought.
He scrounged around and found a recipe in one of Brad's cookbooks, and set to work on the task. Being more of a "big picture" guy, he only read the instruction over a few times and then got going, thinking that he had understood the main idea of the recipe and would just work out the details from there. This casualness also meant that he did not really study the adjacent illustrations that went with the instructions.
Brad already had most of the ingredients around, even some ground meat, left over from the Sloppy Joes they ate last night. Slicing vegetables, browning meat, more slicing, all pretty simple. He was even getting a little artistic about it, making little Halloween pumpkin-like cutouts in the peppers before he sliced them up. He was pretty good at cutting things apart. The trouble started when he actually had to go in the opposite direction and make them into something.
Mixing together all of the ingredients, he finally got to the part where he was actually cooking it, a huge step for him. This was not mere browning of meat, he thought. He thought he was now making art as he anticipated the transformation.' He didn't realize that he could have used a bigger utensil. Or maybe just a different one.
Mike tried to flip over the mixture and promptly put half of it onto the stove top. `Shit!' he cursed to himself. He struggled to put it all back in, but some was still in the pan and was starting to overcook, while the other half was still raw. Finally, getting everything back into the pan, he tried to flip it again and lost half of the filling again, this time down on the floor. At least Tony wasn't there, he thought. He would have had a feast.
Meanwhile, Brad had started to wake up. He saw that Mike was gone, and definitely heard some commotion from the kitchen. And he smelled something. Something burning.
He quickly got out of bed, threw on some shorts, and ran into the kitchen to see Mike futilely trying to move around a hard ball of some kind of egg thing in a pan on the stove. He was working at it intensely, trying to unwind the ball with two metal spoons, surrounded by pieces of egg, veggies and meat on the floor around him. Brad started to smile, but was concerned for Mike's obvious frustration.
"Pup, what's going on? What are you trying to do? He tried not to seem harsh, as he was getting a pretty good idea of what was going on.
"Damn..." Mike said with exasperation as he turned the heat off and threw the spoon into the sink, along with his weird concoction. He stood there for a moment, staring at the disaster in front of him, when Brad came up from behind and put his hands on the shoulders of the failed chef.
"I'm sorry, Babe. I wanted to serve you breakfast in bed, an omelet, but I just fucked it up." Brad could tell that he was truly let down.
"Hey, no worries. It was nice of you to try. Thank you" He leaned over and kissed him on the neck. But of course, the issue was bigger that just breakfast in bed.
Mike didn't say anything for a moment, then spoke up. "I don't like it that you have to do all the cooking! I want to take some of the load off of you, but I know I'm really bad at it." He thought Mike's reasoning might be something like that, knowing how seriously he always took any responsibilities.
"Hey, I love to cook, so don't worry about it at all." He then turned Mike around to face him. "And I like it even better when I get to cook for you." He gave Mike a hug but Mike just stood there, immobilized, not returning the gesture but still resting his head on Brad's shoulder.
"If you can just keep doing what your doing with shopping, and help with cleanup and all, that's plenty. I can teach you how to do some of this stuff, but I have to tell you that I really do enjoy it, especially, like I said, when I do it for you" He was trying to comfort Mike as much as possible, seeing how hard he had tried.
But he was silently amused by the absolute mess that Mike had made. He couldn't help but notice some of the hard yellowish-brown spheroid, still smoldering on the stove. Moving Mike over gently, he reached around him and took the pan off of the burner, moving it on to a cooler butcher block nearby, as he maintained his hug.
Mike continued to rest his head on Brad's shoulder and was quiet for a few more moments. Then he made a loud mock sniffle. "Brad..." he said as he sniffled very conspicuously again." ...am I more than just a nice piece of ass to you?"
Brad didn't let on anything. He continued to wrap his arms around Mike and whispered in his hear. "Yes, Mike, you are more than just a nice piece of ass. You're a nice big cock too, and beautiful chest and fantastic legs, I mean really fucking fantastic legs, and ..."
"No!" Mike protested. "your supposed to say what a big heart I have, romantic stuff like that!," he said smiling.
"Why?" Brad retorted. "How do I fuck a heart?"
They both chuckled as Brad dragged the playfully protesting Mike back to the bedroom for what was becoming one of their favorite activities – spending a morning with hours of hot sex.
Brad had recently gotten back the negative results from his HIV test, but it didn't give him immediate sexual license. He was still a fairly conservative guy when it came to these things, and didn't want to push Mike too fast, so they still hadn't screwed yet. But he really didn't miss that, either. They had so much fun doing everything else that it didn't even seem like a big deal.
In spite of Mike's playful intransigence, they were both in such a primal rut when they got to the bedroom that they practically ripped each other clothes off. The guys seemed to have sex two way, depending on the mood, and also the time of day. While evenings were usually as tender and gentle as they could possibly be, mornings were usually physical free-for-alls, with lots of action and sweat and pounding, with a fair amount of wrestling thrown in, too.
Brad would usually prevail in these because of his slightly bigger size, typically ending up by pinning Mike down and demanding a load as he would rub is body against his struggling partner beneath him. Feeling Mike arch his back, futilely straining every muscle in his body to push him off drove Brad absolutely nuts with lust as he would grind his own body back down.
"Give it to me! Now!" Brad demanded.
"No way! Never!" he grunted and strained in resistance, Brad's hard chest dominating him from above. With one heroic but futile push, he rose up as far as he could, and, pushing his cock into Brad's groin, shot a huge load into his partner' stomach, which triggered the same intense response from Brad.
Mike obviously enjoyed the wrestling and getting overpowered by his stud boyfriend, but vowed to start lifting weights to even things up a bit more. It took all of Brad's willpower to put this threat out of his mind, as every time he thought of Mike working out he couldn't contain his hard-on, no matter where he was.
The sex certainly got Mike's mind off of the cooking failure, and it would be a while before he'd try it again. They finally did get something to eat, after sex and then cleaning up the kitchen, but it was almost 11:00 before they actually sat down for some more successful omelets by Brad. The rest of the day was work, though, for both of them. They wanted to go to Mike's parents house the next weekend, and even though they could study there, they knew they wouldn't get as much done as they would at school.
When they finally hit the sack that night, both of them were pretty tired. The sex was exhausting and exhilarating at the same time, but the studying they did for the remainder of the day was just exhausting. The only break was dinner and a walk around the neighborhood afterwards. The gym would have to wait for the following week.
In spite of the intense day, though, neither one was able to get to sleep very easily that night. Probably because of the intense day, but also, at least for Mike, because of other things on his mind.
"Babe?"
"Yea, Pup" Brad replied in the darkness.
"You still awake?"
"Yup. What's up? Can't you sleep?
"I guess I could sleep, I'm kind of tired...but I have a question for you. Feel like talking?"
"Sure. What's on your mind?" Even though it was very late for them, past midnight, it sounded like he really wanted to talk, which Brad was more than willing to oblige. Since it was a Saturday night, Mike could always sleep in the next day. He was especially curious, too, seeing as it was something keeping Mike from sleeping when he had seemed so tired earlier in the evening..
"Remember when you were telling me a few weeks ago, when you came over the week after my seizure, something you said about you'd been thinking about our future together?" Although they had settled into a pretty good life since they had that conversation, they actually hadn't talked directly about that night since.
"Oh that, yea. I remember." Brad was a little reluctant about going into detail about that particular statement, but was hoping that Mike wouldn't press him on it. That turned out to be misplaced hope.
Mike had a sense of Brad's hesitation, but continued anyway. He hadn't let on at the time, but I was one of the special things that Brad had said that night that moved him deeply. So he wanted to know - what future for them did he have in mind? Even Mike had a little trepidation about what the answer might be.
He heard a sigh from Brad. Not a sigh of reluctance, more like one meaning that someone is about the do something important, like an athlete psyching himself up for a race, or a person preparing themselves for some difficult task or challenge. In retrospect, it was the thing he said that night with the most import for their future lives together, but at the time the urgency of other issues didn't' make it stand out so much.
"Pup, before I say anything, I have to say that this was just my own musings. I'm not trying to um..., uh, run your life, or anything like that. I know we haven't talked about a lot of this stuff yet. I was just some random thoughts. I hope you don't think I'm over-the-top or anything like that." Mike saw some of his insecurities emerging, Brad thinking the he might be upset with him, and was quick to give assurances."
"No way, guy. You know, from my point of view, we have to start thinking of our future, and doing it together. I'm real glad that you did think about it. Unless you were planning on selling me into slavery, I'd like to know what your ideas are."
"No not slavery, maybe prostitution, though. You got that nice pretty ass and all." They both laughed.
"But seriously, pup. If I tell you, just promise that you won't think I'm too crazy." There was no way he'd think that about Brad, but he needed the reassurance anyway.
"Promise made, babe. So go ahead," Mike agreed quickly.
Brad cleared his throat and swallowed, As spontaneous as Mike's question was, Brad would never said anything like that statement without it meaning something, and he had put a lot of thought into it, as speculative as it was at the time. In fact, there was nothing over the past few months that he enjoyed more than thinking about there future together, the only exception being thinking about Mike in the here and now.
"Well..." Mike had by now rotated his position in bed and rested his head on Brad's stomach, settling in for a long conversation. Brad was beginning to realize that Mike often did that when he wanted to talk.
"It's kind of silly speculation. You sure you want to hear it?" he said, his last try at deflecting the conversation.
"Yes, I do. A lot."
"Ummm, OK. Well, remember, this is just me" Brad was still a bit nervous, and a little embarrassed about his romantic daydreaming.
"'K"
"Well, It looks like we'll both graduate next year together, assuming I don't get expelled for mouthing off to any of my profs." Brad joked.
Mike laughed. "That sounds like Todd's department, but until you have your diploma in your hand, I don't want to expect too much, but go on." Mike replied, smiling.
"Well, step 1, I thought that we would go to grad school together the following fall. From what I think you said, a grad program for you would be about 2 years, and Law school for me would be 3, so you'd stay in whatever town we'd be in and work for a year until I graduate. I hope that would be OK, and I know we need to talk about it more, but I'll let me just continue here with this plan, if that's all right."
"OK, go on..." Mike replied.
"As far as schools go, we should shoot really high. Not only that we deserve the best educations we can get, but so that I could do my part on Step 2 ."
"Which is...?" Mike said with anticipation.
"I don't know exactly where we go yet for school, but wherever it is I need it to get me into the best corporate job I can so that I can make tons and tons of money. And for these entry level mega-buck jobs in top law firms, schools count for a lot. For your part, you get a job in a firm that you really think you can grow in and that you like. I know that Architects don't make huge money, at least when they're staring out, so it would be my job to rake in as much as I can from people who want to pay me too much." Brad smiled and laughed as he said this, but then got serious again.
"I'll have to work a lot of hours, but that's OK. We can still have some fun, do some traveling see the world. It would be so great to go to Europe together. I'd love to see where you grew up, see the town, your schools, where you lived. We could also go to see France, Italy, England. Go to Asia, too, maybe Japan and China." He relished the thought of traveling the world with Mike.
"Camping and stuff like that we could do, too, although we could even do that this summer. It would be real fun to go down to Indian Park and do some rafting, don't you think?" he asked, but kept talking anyway he was so nervous. "Anyway, it would be a time to work, save and be a little irresponsible."
"But It might a bit tough, too, because I'm thinking that we need buy a house at this time, a place that we'd be in for a while. And we'd need to sock away a lot of money so that we can go to Step 3."
"Why save for step 3? What's that?" Mike said, curious.
"Because in step 3, I quit my job."
Mike sat up and looked back at Brad, a little bit stunned. "What? I thought that you really want to be a lawyer?" Mike not only knew he wanted to practice law, but thought he'd be really good at it.
"I do, Mike, and maybe I continue with part-time work, which I think a lot of people do these days. A couple of the in-house lawyers were doing it at the company I worked at last summer. But I want to do something else even more."
"What's that?"
"In step 3, I quit to be a stay-at-home dad to raise our kids. I think that one of us has to be home with them full time, at least until they go to school. You continue on with architecture, because you really love it and can do really well." This was a huge declaration on Brad's part, and he really wasn't sure how Mike would take it. It could work a lot of ways, he thought, and wanted to make sure that Mike understood that.
"But if you want me to work and you raise the kids, we could do that too, remember, this was just some daydreaming..." Brad got a little anxious again, thinking that maybe he had gone too far with too much, especially the part about having children. Maybe he should have waited, he thought, but he continued on, anyway. "You really love architecture, Mike, it's part of who you are. I think that I'll really enjoy being a lawyer, too. I think that law if very exciting and important. but it will never be part me like Architecture is for you."
"After that, it's up in the air. Even I can't plan ahead that far!" He laughed. "A lot depends on the kids. But it would be great to retire someplace, either near water or mountains. I'm not too choosy, though. Being with you will always be enough." Though the room was dark, but he tried to look at Mike to see what he was thinking.
Mike, who had settled in again on Brads tummy, was silent.
"Pup, are you OK. Did I shock you?"
"No, no, not at all. I was just thinking." He replied quickly.
"About what?"
Mike waited a moment to respond. "How many kids?" he asked.
"2 or 3, whatever we decide. I don't know how we'll have them right now, It seems like there's a lot of options these days, but we'll figure that out later." He thought that Mikes question was a positive sign, but still wasn't exactly sure how it was all going over with him.
"Another thing," Mike added. "I want to come back here, to be near my folks, after we both leave grad school. No matter what happens, I know we'll have some life with them, Brad, and I want to be there for them when they're older."
"Count me in. What about the other stuff?"
There was another pause.
"Um...Mike, is this OK, I mean we should talk more about some of...
Mike cut him off.
"Babe?"
"Yea." Brad replied, with some anxiety in his voice.
"It's a deal" he said softly.
"What?" he asked incredulously, not really believing, or understanding, what he had just heard.
"It's all of the stuff I've ever dreamed of Brad, only a lot better. Maybe just because it's you, I don't' know. I'm sure it will be tough sometimes, especially being gay and having kids, and with the epilepsy thrown on top of all that. But I can't imagine a better life than being with you and having a family."
He continued, "I think you'll be a terrific Dad. I still remember that first day you came over, when you played ball with that little girl from next door. You know how to connect with kids. You make them feel important. Like you make me feel important."
Smiling in the darkness, Brad just reached his arms around Mike, who took Brad's hand in his and squeezed gently. For a few minutes they just lay there in silence, Brad gently massaging Mike's hand in return.
He started talking about how relieved and happy he felt, but noticed no reaction from Mike. The he realized something else. His boy had fallen asleep.
Oddly enough, this was the one thing that Mike did that moved Brad the most. That Mike trusted him so much, that he felt so relaxed and protected that he could fall asleep in his arms. This said more about how he felt than any words could ever say.
Not wanting to wake him, knowing by now how difficult it was to actually get him to sleep, he just continued to gently caress his hand him until they were both out for the night.
"Was that all just a dream?" Brad thought when he woke up. He looked at Mike still sleeping beside him, his hair falling randomly over his forehead. This typical morning unkempt look was something he had started to look forward to.
Brad hadn't realized that Mike was awake until he heard him speak up in a baby-talk voice. "Dada, I got poopy in my pants!," he heard coming the other side of the bed. Then he knew it wasn't a dream.