Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 6

corner of his desk, taking his time to get the corners lined up.
    No work home tonight. We need to talk.
    That's what his lover, Erik Panek, had said just before Ted had rushed out the door that morning. Leaving him all day to worry over what he had meant. All through the day different versions of the same two scenarios had filled his mind. Erik finding someone new. Erik not finding someone new, but leaving anyway.
    Ted held no illusions about himself. He was plain. His short-cropped black hair was the typical style for men his age, his eyes were just brown, and he was too thin. No man's dream, that's for sure. Most days, he tried not to think too hard on why Erik stayed with him.
    Five years was a long time. Maybe...
    He clenched his teeth. Tucking his pencils into their designated slot, he made sure they were all on a flat side, erasers to the front of the right-hand drawer. Pens went next to them, and then his notebooks in the second drawer with his grade book on top. Once his supplies were put away, Ted could find no other reason to stay.
    Rising from his chair, he pulled on his windbreaker and zipped it to precisely half way. He smoothed the front of the blazing red North Face jacket, remembering when Erik had purchased it for him when they were on a weekend trip to Chicago last November. Ted had given his thicker coat to a teenager camped out, shivering, on a street corner just off Grant Park. Erik had said that such a generous heart deserved to be spoiled.
    Ted sighed and stuffed his hands in his pockets to keep from snatching his unfinished grading from the desk as he left. It would only take an hour to finish it up but Erik had been so damn serious that morning he didn't want to risk it.
    The corridor of the middle school was quiet, but it was Friday so he expected that. His students had bailed from class with their thoughts already on the divisional basketball game that night. Banners stretched from one side of the hall to the other, cheering on the varsity team. Streamers in red and black draped the walls, framing poster boards with various players' names and pictures on them.
    He smiled at the exuberance of the students. It was good to see them rallying behind their team like that. Even if he did cringe whenever he thought of the clean-up to come.
    Pushing the school door open, he stepped into the sunlight, turning his face to the heat. So far, March had been unseasonably warm in Michigan. Personally, he preferred that. He wasn't a snow bunny, that's for sure, and it made the short walk to the apartment he shared with Erik a whole lot more enjoyable when the weather cooperated.
    Ted rounded the last corner onto his street, not entirely sure how he'd managed the six blocks without being aware he was walking them. His pace slowed for the first time in the three years they'd lived there. The remaining two driveways between him and their front door felt like the whole of the United States.
    Did he even want to hear what Erik had to say? Or get it over like ripping off a Band-aid?
    Things had been hectic the last few months at both of their jobs, leaving them exhausted at the end of the day. Their love life had suffered as a result. Would Erik tell him he'd found someone new? Or that he was tired of catering to a neat freak, which Ted admitted to readily?
    Much too soon, but not soon enough, Ted found himself slipping his key in the door and twisting the polished gold knob. He stepped into the foyer of the apartment, dropping his keys in the small bowl on the table just inside the door. Toeing off his shoes, Ted slid them into his spot between the table legs.
    He took a brief second to run his fingertips over the smooth skulls decorating the outside of the red and black swirled dish. His heart warmed at the memory of the two them shopping the small boutique shops in New Orleans on their first vacation together in the summer of 2007. He and Erik had reached for the unique bowl at the same time, then they'd laughed and decided it was meant to be theirs.
    And that had been the start of their collection. Each trip they took, regardless of how short or long, yielded a prize that they had chosen together. Sometimes it would be a painting, like the red and black four-piece abstract hanging over the foyer table, or a skull of some shape or size. They always purchased one oddity as their souvenir.
    He sighed and then stripped his windbreaker off, smoothing the creases before hanging it on the coat tree in the opposite