weekend warmth

by Arya Muralidharan

 

“You come in here, six a.m. on a Saturday, ask me to make French toast, and the only milk we have is skim. Which you bought yesterday. On purpose.”

A too-loud scoff. “When did I ask you to make me French toast?”

“That’s not the point—”

What was the point, Matthieu wondered, of not setting an alarm on weekends, if he was going to get yanked awake four hours too early regardless? He rolled onto his side and shoved the two pillows next to him over his exposed ear.

“—paid attention to the milk documentary from last week, you would know—”

Welp. Matthieu made a note to order some military-grade earplugs—which, knowing the States, had to be a thing—and got up to use the bathroom, cursing his terrible taste in partners the whole way.

The argument was still in full swing even after Matthieu had gone through his unabridged morning routine, hair refresh and everything. He walked into the living room to find Cassie sitting cross-legged on the kitchen counter and Leo standing in front of the stove.

“Well, maybe if you drank skim milk growing up, you’d be as tall as me instead of topping out at five-foot-eight,” Cassie was saying.

Leo scowled. “Five-eight is a totally—”

“Below average.”

“—acceptable height for a man, and you can’t shame me for it. Plus, I’m still taller than Matty!”

“But I’m much cuter,” said Matthieu.

They both turned towards him.

“Ah, his majesty hath arisen,” said Cassie, waving him over and letting her legs hang off the counter. Matthieu complied, then stood en pointe so she could drop a kiss on his forehead. He reached around her for one of the coffee mugs on the drying mat, but when he tried to go make himself a cup, he found that her legs had wrapped themselves around his waist. Matthieu turned around to lean back against her, only to come face-to-face with a black piece of plastic.

“You,” Leo said, brandishing his spatula mock-threateningly at two of them, “are not cuter than me.”

Cassie hummed in disagreement. “Don’t know about that one, man. Our boy was once a gymnast. And a ballerino.” Matthieu couldn’t see her, but he’d bet his new gaming laptop that she was fluttering her eyelashes.

“Ballet and gymnastics aren’t cute, they’re, like, pretty and regal and shit.” Leo lifted the arm not holding the spatula to swipe his sleeve against his forehead even though he had a towel on his shoulder. “‘S why we call you ‘your royal highness’ and stuff like that.”

“I thought it was because I’m a short king,” Matthieu said.

Cassie grinned against Matthieu’s neck. “That too.”

Leo rolled his eyes and faced the stove again. He transferred the slice of bread in the skillet to a nearby baking sheet, which already had five slices of bread on it, and popped it into the oven.

“Ready in fifteen, max,” Leo said.

Matthieu raised an eyebrow. “You’re baking our French toast? Fancy.”

“I always follow my Mamma’s recipe. She ever found out I did something else, you’d never find my body.”

“So if I told her that you used skim milk…” Cassie trailed off. Matthieu burst out laughing at the sheer terror on Leo’s face.

“Shut up,” Leo grumbled. “You guys deserve this stupid skim milk French toast.”

Cassie brought up a hand to her heart, as if genuinely touched. “Thank you, Leonardo, that is the sweetest—hey!” she exclaimed, laughing, when Leo whipped his towel at her.

True to Leo’s word, their breakfast was out of the oven in ten minutes and plated on their dining table within another two. Another fifteen minutes later, all three plates were licked clean, rinsed off, and placed in the dishwasher.

“Now what?” asked Cassie. It was the first time since college that all three of them had the weekend off, thanks to Cassie’s and Leo’s travel-heavy jobs with weird, weird schedules. Usually they’d spend the stolen moments they had ‘catching up,’ as well as lamenting the fact that they didn’t have more time, but now that they actually did have more time? It was much harder to come up with things to do as tired adults who could no longer spend hours getting drunk and roaming around the Bay Area.

“We could play some—” Matthieu started.

Cassie cut him off. “Don’t you dare say ‘Marry-oh’ Kart.”

“That’s how it’s pronounced!” Matthieu protested. “Mario.”

“Not in America, your grace,” said Leo. “Or in Italy. Have some respect for my ancestors!”

Matthieu snorted. “You can’t speak a word of the language, and your family has lived in the States for…how many generations?”

“I’m not really in a gaming mood,” Cassie said quickly, before Leo could get himself worked up for a rant about his Italian-American community back in Boston. “Why don’t we just do nothing? I actually mean ‘nothing,’ not a euphemism,” she added with a pointed look at Matthieu.

“What, laze around in bed all day?” Leo asked skeptically. “That sounds…pretty nice, actually,” he conceded.

“I’ll put on a podcast; you grab whatever book you’re reading; Matty,” Cassie glanced at her watch, “probably wants to go back to sleep. We can just vibe.”

“I’m down,” Matthieu said. “I’m not going back to sleep, but I’m down.”

They settled back into their bed, Cassie on the left with earbuds and nail polish, Leo in the middle with some historical romance novel, and Matthieu on the right with his sketchbook and pencils. Once in a while, Cassie or Leo would let out a laugh or make some sort of noise, then share why. Matthieu sketched silently, shifting whenever he started to feel uncomfortable. Eventually, he ended up flat on his back, sketchbook and pencils on top of the covers between Leo and himself.

Matthieu snuggled into his pillow and drifted off to sleep, smiling, as his partners quietly chatted beside him.