Archive of Our Own

David’s still staring at the note in his hand when he hears the now familiar scuff of Patrick’s sneakers on the kitchen’s non-slip floor. His coffee is lukewarm where it’s sitting abandoned on the counter in front of him.

Marry me.

“Are you sure?” David asks without turning around. Just in case. The edges of the paper are slightly damp where he’s been clutching it, but he can’t let go. Not yet.

“David,” it’s nothing more than a whisper. A tiny, almost broken thing. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my entire life.”

David finally turns, his entire body trembling with emotion his brain isn’t yet sure how to categorize.

“You’re sure?”

Patrick nods, his eyes wide and hopeful. David slides off his stool, the note still crumpled in his hand as he cups Patrick’s face and presses a kiss against his mouth, all teeth and smiles and a few tears. He backs Patrick up through the bakery until he’s got him pressed against the same countertop Patrick tried (and failed) to knead dough on two years ago. He’s curling his tongue against Patrick’s when he realises what he hasn’t yet actually said.

“Yes. It’s a yes. I love you.”

Patrick learns to bake a cake. Well. Stevie helps Patrick make a cake.

“This is one percent for you, nineteen percent for my entertainment, and eighty percent for David.”

Under her watchful eye, Patrick creams butter and sugar, beats in eggs, mixes cocoa powder and espresso, sifts flour, cocoa, and baking powder together and folds them in gently. He carefully melts chocolate, sugar, water and butter together to create a soft, rich frosting.

Patrick ends up with chocolate in his eyebrows, under his collar, and splattered on his shoes. He leaves a smeared thumbprint on the card he steals from under the cash register, a reimagining of the card he’d written eons ago, back when he was still flirting with David via soft, targeted trolling.

David’s face cycles through at least seven different emotions when he arrives for his afternoon shift and takes in the carnage surrounding Patrick. The expression that spreads across his face when he reads Patrick’s note and takes a far too confident mouthful of the cake is, well.

The thought of scrubbing chocolate out of his jeans is the only thing preventing Patrick dropping to his knees like a man with a higher power to impress.

David’s phone buzzes across his nightstand and he throws a hand out to silence it, rolling delicately out of bed and pulling the blankets back up over Patrick’s shoulders to keep the warm in. He shoves his feet into his uggs and murmurs a variety of prayers up to the heavens as he pads down the stairs into the lounge. The blinds are cracked open still, and the light spilling through fills David with the hope he’s held onto since the beginning of the snowfall the night before. The drifts are creeping up the storefronts opposite the bakery, the divide between the street and the sidewalk a distant memory.

David still isn’t used to it, the lack of infrastructure in small, rural towns. If the snow continues, most of Elm County will be in snow day mode, schools and non-essential businesses all shuttered until the weather relents and the plows do their thing.

He’ll make the most of it, turning the thermostat up a little and heading back up to the bedroom. He’ll shut Patrick’s alarm off and crawl back into the nest of warmth and comfort and the luxury of a lazy, sleepy snow day with his fiancé.

Patrick loves Ruth. She’s smart, she’s sharp, she debates baseball stats with him, and she’s a perfect teammate in the very specific sport of riling up the combined forces of David and Stevie when they get a simultaneous bee in their bonnets about something.

They’re sitting with their heads tucked together at the dining table in the apartment, finishing a bottle of red and watching as David and Stevie rapidly escalate an argument about a topic Patrick has already forgotten.

“Does it ever throw you how similar they are?” Ruth asks him quietly.

Patrick smiles fondly. “It used to. Not anymore.”

“They fight exactly the same way. Same facial expressions and everything. Have either of them ever actually won an argument? Or do they just end up in circles every time?”

"Mostly just circles. But I cannot recommend fighting against them together. This carnage—" he gestures at David and Stevie, who are now… actually baring their teeth at each other? "—is a terrifyingly well oiled machine when they work together on anything."

Ruth grins at him. “Those sound like the words of a man who has experienced something he never wants to repeat.”

Patrick grimaces. “Clancy, you have no idea.”

Valentine's Day is a scam. A corporate, materialistic scam designed to make single people feel bad and couples feel like they have to spend money on gifts and cards to show off the love they should be showing each other every day.

It’s a scam, and Stevie refuses to partake in any kind of engagement with it. She teases David when she catches him writing a series of lovey messages on scraps of paper and stuffing them in a little handmade card, and pointedly rolls her eyes when Patrick tries desperately to find somewhere to stash an understated but beautiful bouquet of flowers in the kitchen.

She braces herself, expecting to wake up to some terrible surprise despite her weeks of vocal displeasure at every pink and red store display in the greater Elms.

The horror never comes.

Stevie does, though. In an early morning haze of bruises being sucked into the sensitive skin of her inner thighs and her hands making a disaster of Ruth’s hair. With Ruth’s fingers curling into her perfectly and her own hand slapped across her mouth as she’s pinned to the mattress and teased until she sees literal stars.

God, she loves her.

David doesn’t wear his rings to work. It starts as a professional choice, a matter of proper hygiene, of not tempting the wrath of the Canadian government for a second time in his life.

It becomes a personal choice much later.

His work is entwined with his personal life in a way he never imagined he would let happen, let alone embrace and enjoy almost every day. His relationship with Patrick has left its fingerprints all over the bakery — a year of ink stains and paper scraps under the cash register becoming two years of stolen kisses, of whispered desires and promises that have seeped into every exposed brick in the building.

His engagement is something he wants to keep just for him.

For when he has stripped off his apron and washed the flour from his hair. For when he sinks down into a chair at the dining table in the apartment, with damp hair, an oversized sweater and a pair of soft sweatpants. For when Patrick slides a bowl of steaming chili under his nose, hands him a glass of wine and rubs a thumb delicately across each of his four rings.

They become a symbol of home.

"So my landlord is selling my apartment."

David is literally wrist deep in pizza dough when Patrick drops his little bombshell, his back to David as he carefully stirs crushed fennel seeds into the sauce simmering on the stovetop.

“Like, right away? They can’t do that — you have rights Patrick! Tenant rights!” A small piece of dough goes flying across the tiny kitchen space as David gestures to a non-existent audience.

“No, No! David I’m not being evicted. Well, I am. But not like that. I have time. A couple of months I think. But I need to start looking for somewhere, which isn’t going to be easy at this time of year.”

“Move in here.” David blurts.

That gets Patrick’s attention.

“You’re here most of the week anyway, half your stuff is here, we have enough space here and we can save a little more if you’re not paying rent anymore and-”

“David.”

“Mmhm?”

“You’re sure?”

“I mean, we’re getting married, we should probably cohabitate ahead of that. Just in case. And I might have already cleared it with Stevie. Just in case.”

Patrick grins. “Just in case?”

“Shut up. I love you. Move in with me.”

“Okay, David.”

The monthly Rose-Budd smoke and sincerity night is the longest tradition Stevie has ever been a part of. It started as an excuse to make out and fuck back in college, a crutch to blame their behaviour on when they woke up with headaches and a tinge of regret. These days it’s an excuse to order in trash pizza, banish Patrick and Ruth to their respective homes, and cry to Disney movies together — a thing they keep, just for them.

David is sprawled out on her lap, his eyes red from the combination of his joint and the final scenes of Pete’s Dragon. She runs her fingers through his hair and he hums softly, smiling up at her.

“I can’t believe you’re getting married.”

His eyes widen comically.

“Fuck! I know. Can you imagine? This? Married.”

She pulls his left hand up over his face. “It’s happening.”

“Fuck. Do you think you will?”

“Get married? I don’t know. Am I wife material?”

David sits up abruptly, grabbing her face in his hands.

“Stevie. Stevie. You are absolutely wife material. I’d marry you. Except I’m marrying Patrick. You should marry Ruth.”

“You think?”

David nods. “I definitely think.”

She smiles. Maybe.

David and Adelina’s cupcake recipe

(baked by Patrick Brewer)

• 115g self-raising flour
• 115g caster sugar
• 115g unsalted butter (soft)
• 2 medium eggs (room temp)
• Vanilla/Almond extract (the fancier the better)

For the frosting

• 600g sifted confectioners sugar
• 300g unsalted butter (very soft)
• Finely grated lemon zest OR finely grated orange zest OR finely grated lime zest OR cocoa powder to taste.
• Few drops of gel food colouring (optional)

1. Set oven to 180c/350f. Line muffin tin with cupcake liners (12 small or 9 large)
2. Cream butter and sugar until light, pale and fluffy
3. Beat eggs and add gradually to butter and sugar, mixing in fully before adding more.
4. Sift flour and add to the mix a tablespoon at a time, folding carefully to incorporate air
5. (If batter seems too thick add milk a tablespoon at a time to loosen)
6. Divide mix equally between cupcake liners
7. Place in centre of oven for 20-22 mins or until golden brown and springy.
8. Remove cupcakes from tin and place on a wire rack to cool.
9. Decorate when room temperature.
10. For frosting, whisk butter, sugar and flavourings until light and fluffy. Pipe onto cupcakes.

David hated his body as a teen. He grew far too quickly and his limbs never did what he wanted them to do and his pants never seemed to reach his ankles and he seemed incapable of gaining any kind of muscle whatsoever.

He knows he’d be unrecognisable now, that a manual job has broadened his shoulders, strengthened his thighs, given him arms even he struggles to believe he possesses. It makes shifting sacks of flour easier, makes kneading dough a dream, makes it effortless to carry entire trays of freshly baked bread through the bakery.

It makes it really satisfying to pull broken moans out of Patrick when his feet leave the floor entirely and David scoops him up to press him against a wall, Patrick’s legs wrapped around his waist, or to throw Patrick bodily up the bed, leaving his eyes wide and almost shellshocked with arousal.

It makes the heat pool low in his belly when he holds Patrick’s wrists above his head, when Patrick bucks up uselessly below him, when he’s able to keep Patrick exactly where he wants him using a single hand.

He no longer fits into half his clothes.

It’s absolutely worth it.

Patrick is doing something absolutely heavenly smelling with a leg of lamb, Stevie is downstairs checking on the dough for her hot cross buns, and David has somehow been relegated to peeling duty, sitting at the countertop like a small child and faced with a mountain of root vegetables.

“Why am I doing this job?” he asks petulantly.

“Because you don’t know how to cook the meat and you didn’t ‘want to deal with the candied peel aspect of those buns’, so this was the only job left for you.” Patrick explains patiently for probably the third time.

“Okay, but peeling duty? Is there really nothing else I can do?”

“No David, unless you’re willing to go without roasted potatoes.”

David is absolutely not going without roasted potatoes. He refuses to admit this though, and picks up the peeler Patrick had placed in front of him.

“Do I at least get first dibs on these when they're served?”

“Yes David, you can have first dibs on the potatoes.”

“And those honey roasted carrots you’re doing?”

“If you peel them, yes David.”

“Not sure I like this taskforce version of you. Very mean. Very demanding.”

“Peel the potatoes, David.”

It would have horrified David, once upon a time, to think of his own life as predictable, as routine and repetitive. He still hates his alarm, but the recurring entry on his phone is comforting. Being able to muscle memory his way through his morning routine in the bakery is comforting. Patrick’s arrival at seven in the morning is something he can look forward to. The twenty minutes of sleepy privacy they have in the kitchen each morning is one of his favourite things, every day.

The notes Patrick leaves on David’s nightstand every morning are a constant, something to ground him and remind him how much he appreciates his life now.

David’s life now is definitely predictable, it’s definitely routine, but it’s something he wouldn’t change for the world.

Patrick loves birthdays, because he’s someone who apparently grew up in a normal family who threw normal celebratory events for their child. He’s never been thrown a surprise party though, and for some reason David cannot possibly begin to understand, he actually wants one.

So against all his inner (and outer) disdain, David plans a surprise party. He makes secret phone calls to Patrick’s parents and allows Alexis to work with a modest budget for a venue.

It’s more difficult than he expected, to keep a secret from Patrick. David can apparently be read like a book, which he feels multiple kinds of way about, but regardless of which way wins out at any given moment he spends the week running up to Patrick’s birthday convinced he’s going to get found out any minute of any given day.

He manages it though, and even though the party ends up being less of a party and more of a casual sit down dinner with friends and family, the look on Patrick’s beautifully expressive face when he spots the Roses, then Stevie and Ruth, and finally his own parents makes every stressed text to Alexis and every night David had laid awake and hoped his plan was working absolutely worth every single second.

“When you—” Stevie pauses, not quite sure how to word what she wants to ask. “When you...came out. How did you— how did you know what you were coming out as?”

Patrick is smiling at her, but he looks thoughtful, like he’s not thrown by her question. Almost like he expected this question at some point. And she’s not sure she likes that, being known like that.

“You know you don't- you don’t have to have a label for yourself, right?”

“I know. But, I don’t know, this was stupid.”

“No, hey. Once I knew I was into guys, I knew I definitely wasn’t into girls, and gay just felt right. You just gotta go with what feels right.”

It makes sense, he makes sense, but.

“What if nothing feels quite right though?”

“Then you don’t pick one. Or you try out a few. Or go umbrella, try out something like queer. You don’t need to fit your feelings into a little named box. Feelings don’t work like that sometimes.”

He’s right, and she’s only a little mad at just how much better he’s made her feel.

“Thank you.” She manages.

He reaches over and grips her hand. “Anytime.”

“Do you want a ring too?”

“Do you want me to have a ring?”

“I don’t know. Yes? Maybe?”

“David. Are you trying to show me off? Marking me publicly as off the market? Claiming me as your soon-to-be property?”

“Well that’s a terribly awful and patriarchal way of looking at marriage. You proposed. Surely I’d be becoming your property in this scenario.”

“David.”

“I just. It’s nice. When someone asks about them. I like telling people without having to be the one to tell people, you know? I want that. For you. I want you to be able to enjoy that as well.

Patrick’s throat tightens a little. When he’d started thinking seriously about proposing to David, when he’d planned and saved and consulted with jewellers to create David’s rings, he’d never considered an engagement ring for himself. He does a speed run through the process of dismantling the strange, leftover hangups he feels about wearing an engagement ring, and lets himself imagine scenarios in which people ask him about it. Thinks about every additional opportunity he’d have to talk about David, his fiancé. His soon-to-be husband. The love of his life.

“I think I’d like that.” He murmurs.

“You know, my original plan was to propose up here.”

David is standing on top of an honest-to-god mountain. Okay, maybe not a mountain, but a place with a very steep drop on one side and a significant incline on the other.

“Propose...to me? Up here?”

Patrick chuckles. “I used to come up here a lot when we started working together and I was trying to work you out and figure out how I felt about you. I was gonna wait til it got warmer, and bring you up here, and tell you how much you meant to me and how much I love you and hope that you were distracted enough by the view that you wouldn’t notice how nervous I was to ask you.”

“What changed the plan?”

“I couldn’t wait. So I made a second plan. Found a different way to cover up how nervous I was.”

“Did you think I would have said no?”

“I don’t think so, but it was the biggest thing I’ll ever ask you for. I don’t think there’s anything that would have made me absolutely sure.”

“I just climbed a mountain for you. It would have always been a yes.”

It’s quiet when Patrick notices the couple walk in, He’s seen them before - a pair of older gentlemen, not quite regulars but frequent enough customers to be recognizable at least.

“Sorry, I know you don’t advertise this, but we were hoping—” The man cuts himself off nervously, and Patrick smiles kindly at him.

“We were wondering if you are able to bake for events?” His partner finishes the sentence for him, looking hopefully at Patrick.

“That’s not something I can commit to, but if you give me a second I can grab my partner, he’s the man you want to ask here.”

Right on cue David appears from the kitchen, pulling a pencil and notepad from beneath the counter.

“Hi, I’m David Rose. We’re not quite equipped for large scale catering, but if it was something small we may be able to come to an agreement.”

“We were hoping to work with you, to commission a wedding cake?”

David’s face softens as he takes in their joined hands, the flat silver bands on their ring fingers.

“I can absolutely arrange that.” He gestures to the tiny seating area. “Please, take a seat. I want to get this right for you.”

Patrick moves in gradually over the course of a week, driving in each morning with a car full of boxes and trash bags of clothes. (“Trash bags, really Patrick?” “It seemed like the easiest way to transport them!”).

Through a variety of called-in favours and bribes they obtain a truck, loading in Patrick’s tiny desk, dresser, battered loveseat, rustic looking coffee table (“I got it made recently by a local woodworker a couple of towns over?” “Wait, are you talking about Jake?” “David, how do you know Jake?” “How do you know Jake?”), and the last boxes of kitchen equipment (“You know ours are going to be significantly better quality than this, right?” “Always good to have spares, David.” “Not when they look like this it’s not.”).

David makes space in their now-shared bedroom, the living room becomes a little less sparse, the bathroom gains a tube of Patrick’s weird charcoal toothpaste. Patrick’s favourite tea mug takes up residence on the kitchen counter and his name gets added into the chores rota taped to the fridge door.

David’s spent most of his second life waiting for the other shoe to drop. With Patrick, he starts to truly believe it might never happen.

Stevie’s lived with a boy for half her life, and there’s been a second one almost living with them for two years. She thought she had boy habits down. Or at least David’s habits. David’s terrible at using the last of the milk and leaving the empty carton in the fridge. He’s great at the whole toilet seat thing, but has a habit of using more than his fair share of the hot water on weekends. He has a thousand notebooks and no idea where any of them are at any given time. David she can predict, David she knows.

Patrick is a whole new ball game. Suddenly there’s five pairs of shoes by the door for her to kick out of the way when she gets home, a baseball mitt on the stairs for her to trip over. He seems to be building a little art installation of old tea bags on the kitchen counter.

They also seem to be going through some kind of moving-in honeymoon period. The building’s pretty old, she’s separated from them by two walls and a hallway, but still.

She loves them, really she does. And she’s happy for them. But really, guys? Every night?

David’s side of the bed is always cold by the time Patrick wakes up, the sheets still crumpled and his pjs shoved under his pillow each morning. It was jarring at first, falling asleep tangled up with David only to wake up alone most mornings, but Patrick learned quickly to make good use of the time and the privacy. David has him battling a teenage libido in the mornings, something completely incompatible with their shift-like schedules.

The bed smells like David, his fancy shampoos and moisturisers, the specific scent of fabric softener he uses on his pajamas and bedding. Patrick makes the most of it on the mornings he wakes before his alarm, the ten or fifteen minutes of luxury he has to roll over and snuggle down into David’s pillow, let himself rock gently into his own hand and get out a little of his excess energy.

He'd tried denying it, once, when David had got a little wine drunk and giggled his way through a question about Patrick's 'private time'.

"You know you can. You should! While I'm working away, hard at work. You, in bed, all aloooone. Just think of me, promise?"

"I promise, David."

He does. Every time.

The kitchen is in a state of chaos Patrick has literally never seen it in before. David has hundreds of sugar cookies laid out on sheet trays, each one headed with a post-it doodle of the intended icing design. Stevie and Ruth have been mixing enormous batches of royal icing, mixing various combinations of gel food colouring into bowls to create a rainbow of options. Patrick has been prepping piping bags and cutting the tips as they’re handed back to him filled with icing.

He starts icing cookies carefully, neat blocks of blue, purple and pink. To his left, Stevie is alternating between pale blue, pink and white. Ruth has an array of pinks and oranges, while David is working with various shades of grey, occasionally taking the purple from Patrick.

By the time the sun sets, there’s not a single pride flag they haven’t managed to represent. In the morning, Patrick and Stevie will package up some bundles in little trays, the rest set out to be sold individually over the next week.

David looks nervously over the results of their work. “Do you think they’ll sell?” he asks, uncharacteristically unsure.

They sell their entire stock in three days.

“Have you ever thought about being a dad?”

David isn’t entirely sure where the question comes from. It’s not something he’s ever really considered, but as soon as it leaves his mouth, he realises a family gathering might not have been the best venue to broach the topic.

Patrick turns to him, his face reading somewhere between confused and amused. “Once upon a time, yeah. It just seemed like the trajectory my life was taking. Haven’t thought about it in years though. Why, something you’re thinking about?”

David shakes his head. “Not for me. And not something I’ll change my mind about, I don’t think. I just. We should probably be on the same page about that, right?”

Patrick leans in a little closer. “I wanna talk about this properly, when we have time, and privacy. But I’m happy with our life, just as it is, just the two of us. I want for nothing more. You already give me more than I ever thought possible, I don’t need anything else. Or anyone else.”

“I mean, don’t write off that last statement. Someone else could be fun.” He raises an eyebrow.

“Well that’s an entirely different conversation. Another one I am not having here.”

“Okay so when you said you knew Jake, what exactly did you mean by that?” Patrick’s been sitting on the question for weeks now, and it’s falling out of him thanks to half a bottle of wine and a homemade edible David had told him only to eat half of.

Stevie snorts from across the room.

“Um, just socially. You know.” David’s a terrible liar. Patrick’s a little crossfaded but he’s not that far gone. He knows when David’s lying.

“David.”

“Well, you first. How do you know Jake?”

“Carnally.” Patrick says with a grin. He’s all in to play this game.

Stevie chokes on her drink and collapses out of her chair, giggling uncontrollably when she hits the ground.

David’s jaw drops. “Carnally?! Who says that?! Why can’t you just say you slept with him like a normal person?”

“Is that what you did with Jake, David? Sleep with him? Because I definitely got to know him carnally.”

“Me too!” Stevie gets out between giggles. Patrick’s attention snaps over to her.

“Seriously?”

“Mmmhm. We are two degrees of sexy separation from each other in multiple ways my pal.”

“Oh my god,” David whispers to himself.

It’s just all so new, kinda overwhelming, and Stevie feels something almost resembling imposter syndrome. David’s known his place in the community since he was a teen; this is such old news for him he’s almost infuriatingly blase about it. Ruth’s been out since her twenties, and even Patrick now has a few years under his belt with a label, the knowledge and the language to emphasise to the world who he is.

She and Ruth have been together for years now, outnumbering David and Patrick by a few months, and even with Patrick’s hand holding and Ruth’s insistence that she can figure things out in her own time, Stevie still feels a little behind, that she should know by now.

The four of them drive up to Toronto for pride, piling into one hotel room to comb glitter through their hair and spread colour across their cheeks. David carefully paints a rainbow across her eyelids and kisses her temple when they step into the crowds. Ruth takes one of her hands and Patrick squeezes the other, smiling softly at her.

Maybe Patrick was right. Maybe queer is right. Maybe just knowing herself, knowing she has a place in the community is enough.

David spends his 35th birthday floating in the lake at the falls, the sun warming his skin, his friends sitting under a giant parasol, and his fiancé topping up his drinks throughout the day.

Patrick starts a small bonfire in the sand when the sun sets, and Stevie and Ruth produce giant marshmallows for roasting. David lets his marshmallow char a little over the flame, pulling the burnt sugar off with his fingertips and letting it dissolve on his tongue. Patrick kisses the strings of marshmallow from his lips, sweet and sticky and smelling of bonfire smoke and sunscreen.

Stevie and Ruth disappear back home when the temperature dips a little, leaving Patrick to kick sand over the fire and gather their things. David wanders back down to the water barefoot, surprised at how warm it still is when it washes over his feet. He jumps when Patrick’s fingers play with the hem of his shirt, pulling it up over David’s head and dropping it in the sand. David lets himself be pulled back into the shallows, lets Patrick press himself flush against his body, lick softly into his mouth, and whisper into his skin.

“Happy birthday, David.”

David stays up way too late past his bedtime to watch the storm roll in. The skies had darkened mid evening, the rain starting just before the sun was due to set. It’s been stiflingly hot for days, humid and close, and David has been praying for the weather to break, for some kind of summer storm to clear the air.

He’s got the windows of their bedroom thrown wide open, sitting in front of them and shivering a little when the breeze picks up and ruffles his hair. The rain splashes off the glass onto his bare skin, and he’d care more if it wasn’t so goddamn refreshing.

Patrick folds himself down next to David, pressing a gentle kiss into his shoulder.

“You’re gonna be so tired in the morning,” he murmurs into David’s neck.

David watches as lightning streaks across the sky, and counts carefully in his head until the rumble of thunder rolls over their heads. It’s really close by, so he’s not going to be able to get to sleep even if he did go to bed.

“I know,” he says, reaching over to curl his fingers around Patrick’s. “It’s worth it though. Just this once.”

“This was literally the best idea you’ve ever had.” David groans as he licks the drips from the side of his hand.

Patrick vehemently disagrees. This was not the best idea he’s ever had, it’s the worst. Worse than bleaching his hair in high school, worse than streaking through the snow in college. His on-a-whim purchase at the grocery store is going to be the death of him. RIP Patrick Brewer, so aroused on a summer Sunday that he expired.

David’s working the remnants of a blue raspberry popsicle like he’s a dying man, sprawled across the couch in a tee and his underwear, apparently too hot to care about the house rule of pants wearing. His entire mouth is stained an electric blue and Patrick wants to taste him. All of him. He crunches down the rest of his lemon-lime, tosses the stick onto the coffee table and climbs on top of David, ignoring the squawk of protest and licking into his sweet, cold mouth. David’s hands are immediately on his ass as Patrick grinds down, no longer giving a single fuck about the heat.

They never do get the blue stains out of the couch cushions.

It takes months of convincing. Weeks of showing David profit margins and historical footfall numbers and savings lines in their personal budget. Weeks of accommodation options and weather forecasts and promises of a small stipend for vacation outfits.

It’s worth it, every argument, every snippy comment, every near-meltdown. Worth the multiple hours of driving and the numerous snack breaks and the traffic jam in the middle of the day that extends their journey by half again.

Worth it for the moment Patrick gets to settle down next to David on a tiny, private dock on Lake Huron, handing him a glass of wine and kissing the sun-darkened freckles scattered across David's shoulders. For the mornings spent fucking sleepily to the sound of the water lapping at the beach. For the late breakfasts and even later dinners, the lack of alarms and the absence of real clothes.

They return home after a week, sun kissed and well rested, driving through the night to eke out their time away. Patrick watches from the passenger seat as David’s face flickers with the passing streetlights, counting down the miles until their storefront materializes from the darkness..

Ultimately, there’s no place like home.

There’s a reason people assume David and Stevie are siblings when they first encounter them. Their mannerisms are similar, they react to external stressors in the same way, they bottle things up a little too much at times. They know this about each other; it’s why they know each other so well and can predict each other's moods with uncanny accuracy. It’s why they kept falling into bed with each other in their twenties, and ultimately why they stopped.

Stevie is still the first to spot the tiny signs of David’s panic attacks, knows how to ground him and re-regulate him when his eyes are wild and frantic and his breathing goes shallow. David knows the clench in Stevie’s jaw when she’s holding back tears, knows to quietly send Patrick away so she can climb into his lap and sob into his neck.

It took a long time for I love you to fall into their vocabulary, for both of them to be comfortable using it platonically, to put words to their strange little more-than friendship.

How lucky they are, David thinks, to fall into a life where they managed to each find not one, but two loves of their lives.

It’s just been too long a week. The bakery has been too busy and it’s been too warm at night so he hasn’t been sleeping well and he keeps muddling what he's trying to say in conversations which has led to accidental fights being picked with everyone he lives with. Maybe it was a mistake to combine all his lives like this because he’s not actually had a single moment of privacy in forever. He’s either working or socializing because his apartment is the size of a fucking shoebox and he doesn’t have his own bedroom anymore so he’s got nowhere to fucking hide. And he just snapped at Patrick again and the face he pulled was just awful and the only place David can actually go is the bathroom. So he runs the shower too hot and sits under the spray and cries because he’s so fucking tired and everything feels just a little bit wrong and he just needs to cry and sleep, he just needs to sleep.

Patrick gives him an hour before laying down with him on their bed, curling up behind David and placing a hand over his heart.

“I love you. I don’t know what’s going on but I love you. I want you to remember that.”

David is on the brink of expiring, of ceasing to exist, of becoming nothing but a pleasant and beautiful memory in the minds of his loved ones. He cannot move, he cannot think. It’s too much.

Patrick, the impossible human being, is playing baseball, despite the fact it is approximately fifty million degrees out and David is about to melt into a puddle of sunscreen and linen. He cannot remove any more items of clothing without risking an extensive police record and the ice in his drink is a distant memory, despite his vacuum flask.

He’s dreaming of the air conditioning in Patrick’s car, of the window unit in his bedroom, of taking a cold shower and letting the cold breeze dry his body, shrinkage be fucking damned. Reminiscing about the time Stevie shoved a handful of snow down his back and he nearly got frostbite of the ass crack. He’s in the depths of a fantasy where the bottle of vodka in the freezer is becoming acquainted with his body when there’s a roar from the baseball pitch and Patrick is sprinting over to David, sweaty, grass stained, grinning, and inexplicably stunning.

Even in the heat, David loves the fuck out of him.

“Okay, you know. You know what we need? Right now? What will make this night a million times better?”

“Snacks?” David asks wistfully. He’s really hungry. He really wants a bag of ketchup chips. And some gummy bears. The really little ones. Maybe some pretzels.

“Slushies.” Stevie grins. “Get your shoes. We’re going.”

David doesn’t really remember the walk to or from the little late night convenience store, but he has his chips and his gummy bears and Stevie got the guy to make him a blue raspberry and cherry mix and David thinks he might be in love with Stevie a little bit.

Then she pulls the vodka out of the freezer and pours a little bit in the top of his drink, swirling it around with the straw and David is definitely in love with her a little bit. He tells her so.

“I’m gonna tell Patrick you said that.”

“Snitch.”

Patrick knows that anyway. He loves Patrick so much. And he loves Stevie. Not the same way, but the same amount. Not in a sexy way though. He only loves Patrick in the sexy way. Sexy Patrick. Sexy~

“Didn’t need to know that detail, but okay?”

Oops.

Their budget just won't stretch as far as David wishes it would, no matter how much he stares at it, changes the font colours, or highlights random lines of numbers. Extravagance is a word he left behind years ago, in lieu of spreadsheets he actually understands and savings accounts he actually contributes to.

They whittle their ‘wants’ list down to just ‘needs’. They need rings, they need an officiant. They don’t necessarily need a venue, they don’t need flowers, they don't, if David is truly honest with himself, need new suits. They have a very small circle of family and friends to invite - they don’t need fancy invites or save-the-dates.

They pick a date, they call around to their families, they come to an agreement with the florist next door for some simple, autumnal boutonnieres, and find a place to eat after the ceremony.

Most of the money set aside goes on their rings, (“If they need to last a lifetime they should use up as much of the budget as possible, right?”) and then, impossibly, they’re done.

“Are you sure you’re okay with something this small?” Patrick asks him softly.

“I just want you.” David replies. “Nothing else matters.”

“If I’m honest, I was always more of a Logan guy.” Patrick announces, lifting up David’s legs to make some space where he’s sprawled along the length of the sofa in front of the tv.

“So you’re choosing violence today? Violence and objectively wrong statements is what you’re choosing?”

“Explain to me how this is an objectively wrong statement, David.”

“Logan’s flighty! He’s a privileged rich boy with everything handed to him! He was the reason Rory and Lorelai had their separation! He wasn’t good for her. She deserved better.”

“So who, Jess? Who didn’t understand her at all? Who left without a word? Who tried to pressure her into sex? Or Dean, a guy perfectly willing to cheat on his wife with her? Are you really telling me that those two are better prospects than someone who knew her world and understood her upbringing and supported her career?”

“Okay I think we have a fundamental misunderstanding of who I’d be rooting for here. It’s not any of them. No-one deserves to be stuck with some high school or college boyfriend forever. Especially boyfriends like those three, jesus. None of them are any good.”

“Okay, then who?”

“Team Paris, obviously.”

Ruth and Stevie’s birthdays fall within a week of each other, giving them the justification each year to go a little harder and spend a little more on something they can enjoy together. They book a spa weekend, something out in the country and friendly to all couples.

They spend three days in robes and swimsuits, sleeping late, eating room service, and indulging in every couples treatment they have to offer. Stevie blushes her way through a couples massage as she listens to Ruth’s pleased little sighs and hums next to her, and they spend so long making out in the warm water of the tub attached to their suite that their skin goes soft and wrinkled.

“Will you still love me when I’m all old and wrinkled permanently?” Stevie whispers as Ruth hovers over her in the darkness.

A flash of an expression crosses her face, something Stevie doesn’t quite recognise or have the ability to read, but she files it away for later, something to work out at another time.

“I’m pretty sure I’d love you whatever you looked like and however old you were.” Ruth murmurs, kissing Stevie gently and resting their foreheads together.

“Sounds good to me.”

Every few months, David and Stevie hold a menu audit, baking a couple of everything they have in their current rotation and culling the things they’re bored of, replacing them with new flavours or new techniques. Patrick’s only been allowed to take part in the last year, and Ruth’s been given her first invitation, sitting nervously next to Patrick as the array of breads, cakes and pastries are laid out before them,

To Patrick’s dismay, the raisin and cinnamon loaf is placed on the reject pile this time around, replaced by some kind of cheese bread. Thankfully, the little folded puff pastries with the almond paste and cherry filling survive, along with Patrick’s beloved oatmeal raisin cookies.

Everything that relies on seasonal fruit or veggies from the summer gets switched out for more autumnal varieties, and David plans ahead for the autumn/winter transition as they eat.

Lemon and poppyseed muffins get placed back into rotation thanks to Ruth’s suggestion, and David manages to convince Stevie that he can offer baklava once a week, getting approval only when he promises to handle all the filo pastry himself.

They’re the most delicious stakeholders meetings Patrick’s ever had the joy of attending.

It feels like a unique thing, to be loved by someone like David Rose. David loves fiercely and quietly, small gestures and gentle words spoken in stolen moments. Patrick basks in it, soaks it up, lets himself be loved and known more intimately than he ever has before.

David has only been loved by one other person, and David knows all the nuances, all the little signs and signals that Stevie gives off when she uses love as a verb.

With David’s help, Patrick has watched over the months as Stevie has softened in tiny, otherwise barely noticeable ways. Watched as she leaned into new experiences and learned how to be one half of a new type of partnership. She and David love differently, but ultimately they’ve learned to show it in very similar ways.

So when Ruth approaches him with a locked photo folder and a nervous question she knows better than to trust David with, Patrick knows exactly what she needs to hear.

“She’ll say yes. You’ll have to convince her you mean it, but she’ll say yes.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m as sure as I was about David.”

Her smile is shaky. “And you were right.”

“I was.”

There’s only one other person in the world that David trusts to bake for him, but this is something he can’t bring himself to hand over to Stevie. He runs through his repertoire of classic and not-so-classic cakes, baking a small army of tiny samples for a makeshift tasting session with Patrick.

The devil’s food cake is declared too rich, and too emotionally bound to their engagement.

The olive oil and citrus cake gets two thumbs up and a chef's kiss from Patrick.

David himself declares the lemon and poppyseed too boring.

Patrick airs his concerns about using fresh cream in a victoria sponge.

The carrot cake feels seasonally appropriate, plus David will never turn down an opportunity for cream cheese frosting, he has to let that be known.

They eat and kiss and David queries more than once as to whether a specific type of cake would still taste good if he was eating it off of Patrick.

They don’t come to a decision until less than a week before the wedding, the carrot cake winning out.

A single tiered, quadruple layered cake, sandwiched and topped with orange cream cheese frosting.

It’s the proudest David’s ever been of his work.

Things Patrick is thankful for this year

• When David’s hair curls overnight and falls down his forehead
• Falling asleep with the love of my life every night
• Lemon bars with fresh strawberries
• The cat that hangs out on the sidewalk when it’s sunny out
• The tiny grey hairs in David’s eyebrows he pretends aren’t there
• Getting to live with my best friends
• Getting David to agree to marry me
• That time in the lake
• The freckles on David’s shoulders when he’s been in the sun

Things David is thankful for this year

• Patrick’s butt when he’s in the shower
• Finding a dairy vendor that lets us stock their ice cream
• Ice cream sandwiches with the good ice cream
• Patrick and Stevie and Ruth
• The blue jay that hangs out by the bedroom window
• Going to the cabin
• When Patrick falls asleep in front of the sports on the tv
• Getting a whole extra family this year
• Sunday mornings
• Roasted potatoes
• Getting to marry Patrick

David and Patrick marry in the golden hour of an October morning, the grass still a little damp under their feet, the breath of their officiant visible when she starts their ceremony. It’s small and intimate, just their respective sets of parents, Alexis, Stevie, and Ruth watching as they quietly recite their vows, exchange rings, and promise lifetimes to each other as the sun rises and warms their skin, catching the red in Patrick’s hair and the tiny flecks of silver in David’s.

The newly combined Rose-Brewer clan pile into a pair of cars, David directing them to a small farm-to-table restaurant run by a vendor who’d graciously booked the morning out for their literal wedding breakfast. Speeches are made with mugs of steaming coffee, while bowls of soft scrambled eggs, crispy bacon, grilled mushrooms and tomatoes and thick, farmhouse slices of toast are laid out before them.

They eat and laugh and cry a little, hands joined under the table as their little mismatched family bonds around them.

It's not the wedding David ever envisaged for himself, but when he kisses the taste of coffee off his husband's lips, he knows there's no other way he'd have wanted it.

When Patrick suggested decorating the bakery for the week leading up to Halloween, he expected at least a little resistance from David, or an insistence on ultimate veto power when it came to decorations. He didn’t expect to be faced with an apartment full of pumpkins and little paper spiders and cotton cobwebs to string across the windows. David has sheets of hand drawn sketches for jack-o-lanterns and some terrifyingly sharp cutting implements and a tarp spread across the kitchen table.

They pour drinks and empty pumpkin guts into buckets and Patrick accidentally cuts himself on three separate occasions trying to carve one single pumpkin.

David decorates cupcakes with licorice spiders and makes orange coloured sugar cookies with little piped eyes and smiles. Stevie dips apples into caramel and makes little spun sugar spider webs for David's cupcakes. Patrick hangs decorations in the windows, adds little ghosts and witches brooms to the placards for their specials, and arranges the lanterns around the door.

David returns to his regularly scheduled programming the following day, arriving home with the leftovers and lifting a finger in Patrick’s direction before he can even open his mouth.

“Out of season baked goods are incorrect, Patrick.”

Until David had drunkenly brought it up, until his engagement to Patrick had placed the concept right in front of her face, Stevie had never considered the possibility of marriage, of being with one person for the rest of her life.

Ruth was solid, constant, someone added to her small list of people she could lean on and rely on, people she could tolerate for longer than a few hours at a time. Ruth made her feel safe, made her feel vulnerable in the best way. She’d never entertained the idea that she’d lose David and Patrick. They were too constant, too woven into her life now. Ruth was something she could lose, something David made her realise she didn’t want to lose.

So when she shoulders her way through the front door of the apartment, a bag of takeout in one hand and a cheap bottle of white in the other only to find Ruth, surrounded by tealights and sitting cross legged on a blanket in the middle of the floor, a small box in her hand and a question burning in her eyes, Stevie already knows what her answer is going to be.

“Yes,” she whispers. "Yes."

Patrick and Ruth start a text chain, they send spotify links back and forth, screenshots of lyrics and thirty second voice recordings of chord progressions and harmonies. They sneak in rehearsal time together when their respective partners are off doing ‘best friend stuff’ and Patrick keeps an eye on the open mic schedule for a local queer-friendly bar, signing them up when they decide they’re ready.

David and Stevie take quite a lot of convincing to actually come along, the public promise of a fully covered bar tab and for David, a private promise that causes him to blush a little eventually getting them to relent.

They take the stage a little after halfway through the night, and Patrick can see David hiding behind his glass as he starts strumming and softly counts Ruth in.

They sound good. They sound great, Patrick knows they do.

At ‘with toothpaste kisses and lines, I'll be yours and you'll be-’ Patrick watches as David lowers his glass and starts to smile softly at the stage.

By ‘with heart shaped bruises, and late night kisses divine’ David and Stevie are wearing identical expressions of love filled fury, and Patrick elbows Ruth gently.

Nailed it.

“This—ah—this is—David—this is so unsanitary.”

“Do you want me to stop?”

“God no—fuck.”

The kitchen is pitch dark, save for the light spilling through from the streetlights out the front of the bakery. David allows five percent of his thought process to be sent up to pray to whoever might be listening and prevent Stevie from needing anything from downstairs, the other ninety-five dedicated entirely to grinding against Patrick and sucking a bruise into the hollow of his throat.

“You’re gonna—fuck, David—you’re gonna have to—oh god—you’re gonna have to bleach this entire kitchen.”

“Patrick, I swear to god will you shut the fuck up.”

Patrick pulls back, the smirk spreading across his face barely visible in the dark.

“Make me.”

David growls, dropping to his knees in a movement he’ll definitely regret in the morning, pulling at Patrick’s jeans and commending himself for wearing joggers. Patrick’s giggling between sighs and David can’t help but join him, right up until the moment he wraps a hand around himself and swallows Patrick down to the hilt.

Patrick stutters out a broken moan and David smirks to himself.

Not so chatty now, eh, Brewer?

David knew it was a bad idea, letting Patrick and Stevie skate their energy out together. He just knew. When Stevie’s name flashes up on his phone he just knows something dumb has happened.

“Okay don’t get mad at me but—”

“Who’s hurt? What did you guys do? If Patrick’s concussed again I swear to god, Stevie—”

“He's not concussed. It’s a little worse than that.”

“Stevie, Don’t scare him, I’m fine.” Patrick pipes up in the background of the call while David simultaneously starts freaking out. “Worse?! What the fuck is worse than a concussion!? Is he dead?!”

“He’s not dead.”

“I’m not dead!”

“Could you just, uh, come and pick us up?”

David nearly throws up when he pulls the car up and Patrick’s sitting on a bench holding his left arm very gingerly. His hand should not be able to do that.

“You are not fine, what the fuck!?”

“David can we please just go?”

David very valiantly holds it together through the drive, Patrick’s retelling of the story at triage, his x-rays, and the resetting of his wrist. For some reason it’s the plaster that breaks him, when Patrick reappears from the room with a bright pink cast and a dumb smile on his face.

“It’s eight weeks. Thought I might as well make a statement.”

“Are you making the doughnuts this year?”

“Sufganiyot. And yes. What do you want in them?”

“What did we have last year? Strawberry?”

“I was thinking of custard as well?”

Patrick groans involuntarily. “David, stop. I can literally only be so attracted to you when I only have one working arm.”

“Okay, well that’s hardly my fault, and you do have one working arm still, so you are going to help.”

“That’s fair.”

Patrick does help, dutifully stirring milk, sugar and egg yolks on the stovetop, pausing when he’s told so David can scrape in vanilla seeds and taste a little off a spoon. David gently kneads dough, placing it in a bowl to prove overnight.

The following morning David rolls, divides, and fries his dough, carefully checking the temperature and timing his flips. Patrick gently pats them dry of oil, and holds each one still while David pipes the fillings.

David drives them out to visit his parents, the tupperware safe and warm in Patrick’s lap. If Patrick was asked to define the meaning of family, the look on Mr Rose’s face when he opens the lid and takes a messy, sticky bite of fried dough would be a very good starting point.

“Let’s go for a walk.” Patrick announces. It’s freezing outside, but the sidewalks have been salted, the sun is shining, and David isn’t going to say no to some of that kind of vitamin D. He bundles up and helps Patrick force his bulky arm through the sleeve of his winter coat, strapping his sling up and over it securely.

David was expecting a leisurely stroll, but Patrick is moving with purpose, weaving David away from what passes in Elm Falls as downtown and into the more residential areas, quiet streets with small, snow covered lawns. He comes to a stop in front of a stout little house and pulls David close with his free arm.

“I saw it online.” Patrick murmurs. “three beds, two baths, a little farmhouse kitchen and a heated garage.”

“For the sports stuff,” David says.

“For the sports stuff.”

“Why are you showing me this?”

“They brought the price down recently. It’s well within our budget, and doesn't need any work done.”

It’s a conversation they’ve only had in fits and bursts, texting real estate listings to each other and making little wishlists.

“So I guess we’re looking for real,” David whispers.

“I think we are.”

The apartment gets a real tree, seven feet of scots pine manhandled up the stairs to the apartment, Patrick waving his cast and yelling navigation like an even more annoying Ross Gellar. David tries valiantly to keep everyone to a colour scheme, but like so many things in his incredibly unfair life, he gets outvoted a full three to one, watching in horror as Patrick and Stevie pull a variety of coloured tinsel lengths and mismatched ornaments from boxes and bags. He leaves them to their horrid color story and throws together a batch of gingerbread people and trees. If he can’t have the correct decorations, at least he can ensure the snacks are right.

He ices little faces and strings of lights, crunching down on the conveniently headless little person that fell off the baking sheet. Patrick eventually wanders through to the kitchen, asking if David’s done with his sulk.

“I wasn’t sulking, I just know what’s correct.”

“Just come look, please?”

The tree is a swirl of silver and gold, the coloured lights somehow working beautifully as they weave in and out of the branches. There’s gifts already under it, and stockings hanging from the windowsill, and it’s perfect. It’s perfect.

Stevie grins knowingly at him. “Merry Christmas, David.”

The holiday rush has been ridiculous this year, just absurd, and none of them have managed to eat a single meal together for over a week, let alone have any kind of conversation or engage in anything other than early nights and far too long working days. They close early on the 24th for the holiday break and Stevie immediately disappears out of the door, yelling a ‘Merry Christmas’ over her shoulder as she jumps into Ruth’s waiting car, off to spend Christmas with Ruth’s family a few towns over.

David drags Patrick up to their bedroom, leaving a trail of clothes and shoes throughout the apartment and muttering a litany of I missed you and I love you and gonna fuck you between heated kisses. Patrick’s body goes completely pliable, letting David manhandle him into the bedroom and up the bed. He gasps and pants and lets out little wordless sighs and moans as David spreads his knees and works him loose, leaving little indents of his nails in David’s back and shoulders.

Patrick eventually finds his words when David finally pushes into him and bottoms out with a groan so deep he swears the windows shake.

“Merry Christmas...husband.”

The week between Christmas and New Year’s passes in a blur. The apartment hosts the Roses for Christmas Day, the kitchen suddenly full of way too many people working on Christmas lunch and David preening when his entire family scrambles and fights over the desserts he’d put together for the occasion. Surprisingly thoughtful gifts are exchanged, and Alexis spends half an hour telling David about the super cute vet she’s now dating, and David hugs her when she reveals she’s gone back to school and is now looking at college courses.

The Brewers arrive a couple of days after Christmas, laden with gifts and hugs and updates on all of Patrick’s cousins, aunts, and uncles. Marcy finally teaches David her lasagna recipe, and in return he quietly copies down the chocolate chip cookie recipe she’s been bothering him about for months.

By the 30th, the apartment is empty again, and Patrick curls up into David on the couch, finally decompressing after their week of solid social hosting. It’s probably their last one in this place, David thinks to himself. Their last Christmas, last new year in this place where they started their lives together, started their marriage together.

God, he really needs to tell Stevie.

What started as a very civilized wine and socializing event for New Years has devolved into a four person college rager by 11.45, and David only feels a tiny bit guilty abandoning Ruth and Stevie to neck like teenagers when he realizes how he really wants to ring in the new year.

“Naked. Get naked.” He growls at Patrick, shoving him through their bedroom door and pulling off his own sweater. “I love you. I love you. Okay’m veeeeery drunk and not sure my dick’s gonna work but you’re my fucking husband and I’ve never had one of them on new years and I wanna fuck you into the new year, okay?”

Patrick’s nodding wildly from the bed, already butt naked and pulling at himself eagerly, a luxury he’s regained with the loss of the cast on his arm. David trips out of his pants and manages to get at least one of his socks off before collapsing onto Patrick and mouthing at his collarbone. Patrick smells so good and he loves him so much and he’s so warm and comfortable and sleepy and he just needs to reach over and grab the lube and he’ll be set.

The nightstand is right there, he’s just got to reach over.

Just reach over.

Just...reach.

The power goes out in the middle of the night, after the last of them have gone to bed, but before David’s first alarm. It’s freezing when he gingerly throws the covers back, far far colder than normal, and the half charge on his phone combined with the lack of street light from outside confirms it for him. Power outage.

David collects extra blankets from the linen cabinet, leaving half outside Stevie’s door and carefully piling the rest on top of Patrick before climbing back in beside him, curling into his side to preserve the heat as best he can.

He’s dozing back off when there’s a knock on the door and Stevie’s head poking around it.

“It’s fucking freezing.”

“Power's out,” he mumbles. “Left you blankets.”

“It’s still fucking freezing. We’re coming in.”

David groans, but shuffles over and shakes Patrick awake enough to make space. They end up like a set of four nested spoons, David and Stevie becoming the filling in an admittedly very cosy sandwich.

The power is restored sometime mid morning, and David wakes up alone, now roasting half to death in his pile of blankets.

He’s really going to miss them. Really, truly.

David makes sure Patrick and Ruth are out of the apartment for the evening, arranges for Stevie’s favourite thai takeout to be delivered, opens a bottle of red far nicer than she deserves, and makes sure he’s pre-rolled a couple of very generous joints for the evening, just in case.

Like apparently everyone else David lives with, Stevie can read him like a book, looking at him suspiciously the second she walks through the door.

“What’s going on?” She asks, staring at him where he’s hovering nervously in the kitchen, their food plated up and wine already poured. “You literally have a husband and I’m on my way to getting a wife, so I know damn well you’re not flirting with me here, Rose. What’s this whole deal?”

David knows she’ll be happy for him, but it’s tough. Their lives have been intertwined for a decade and a half and it’s been impossibly hard to let himself change that. He picks nervously at his cuticles until she walks over to him and takes his hands, forcing him to sit down.

He takes a deep breath and sends one last prayer to the universe that she doesn’t slap him.

“Patrick found us a house.”