Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 1

lately?"
    "You think I'm nagging?" Casey asked, nodding as to himself before he grabbed the handle of the fridge and leaned against the door for a moment. "You know why I don't want to do anything, why I'd just rather lie on the couch on my day off than actually fix up something to do?"
    "Because you like to lull yourself to sleep with boredom?" Jared suggested, simply because that was the only reason he could come up with. The fact that Casey was always more than reluctant to go out, to do anything was what made Jared go ballistic, because he couldn't think of anything more demolishing than having to stay put night after night. Sure they went out, but he knew Casey only agreed because Jared would pace a hole through Casey's two-hundred dollar rugs if he had to be all domestic and shit.
    "Cute, Jared. Very cute," Casey muttered and opened the door. "But no… not because of that. I know you couldn't care less about my job or what it is I actually do for a living, but bear with me, will you?"
    Jared was just about to point out how implicitly uninteresting it was to audience through a presentation of the manners and missions of a real estate company such as the one Casey worked at, when there was a loud bang and a clay bowl hit the surface of the islet.
    "When I'm at work, that's all I do. Plan and fix up stuff. Worry about details and schedules and minute-by-minute timetables, so when I'm at home, I don't want to do any of it. I don't want to do anything, which is why I prefer to lounge around and, apparently, lull myself to sleep with boredom." Another bump and the bowl got accompanied by a white ceramic pot. Jared couldn't see Casey, because the man was nearly pushed inside the fridge, but his words were still audible.
    "But yesterday, when I actually left a few hours early and worked up my schedule so that I didn't have to worry about going to work until Monday, instead of not doing anything, I spent five hours cooking you dinner. Which you failed to show up for."
    "I didn't ask you to cook for me," Jared said. He hadn't, ever. Sometimes Casey did it anyways, and it was nice, but Jared didn't bother to ask him to do it because it didn't matter to him whether Casey did it or not.
    Jared realized his thoughts and stopped himself to actually take it all in. Just 'cos it didn't matter, didn't mean he didn't care. Right?
    "No, you didn't. But I did it anyways." Another bump and this time it was a cake dish that landed next to the pot. Casey shut the door and leaned against it without paying any attention to the remaining of whatever it was that had been on that dish, because now it was pretty much shattered around the islet."Five hours of planning and preparing and actually standing in my fucking kitchen to cook some fucking casserole and chocolate cheesecake just because that's your favorite fucking food. Wanna know how I know that? Because I actually listen when you talk to me."
    "You come across just a bit bitter right now, Casey."
    "You think?" Casey snarled and tilted his head slightly as to investigate through what he was seeing. "You wanna know why I did it despite the fact that you didn't ask me to?"
    Jared didn't even bother to answer because Casey didn't look like he gave a shit whether Jared did or didn't. This had turned into something new and oddly worrying, because Jared couldn't cut in the line of action, not now that Casey was on a row, clearly headed for something Jared didn't even know existed.
    "I did it because I wanted you to be even a little preoccupied, just enough for you to suffer through staying here for the evening, for you to stay longer that those fifteen minutes it takes you to fuck me senseless." Casey went quiet, his eyes turning from dark and heated to that soft chocolate shade in a split second before he turned his eyes on something he evidently saw through the living-room door. "I even went as far as to rent a collectors box of some 'film noir' movies you like and which names I can't even pronounce, just to keep you from being bored to death. Not because you asked me to or because I had to, but because I wanted to. Because I wanted you to be here."
    Now that the anger was gone and the mean glare had melted into a puddle of softness Jared saw as soon as Casey turned to look at him, the tone he hadn't recognized in the beginning was slowly coming to him. It really wasn't complaining or self-pity, though someone might think that after the speech Jared had just witnessed self-pity was