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“Evan, are you coming?” Tommy calls out.
There’s no response. Tommy checks his watch again. They’re not exactly late, but if they wanna have time for two runs to Evan’s apartment before their dinner plans they should get going.
“Evan!” Tommy calls a little louder, fiddling with his car keys as he waits for his boyfriend to appear.
When a minute passes without any sign of Evan, Tommy puts the keys back in his pocket and goes looking. He’d last seen him disappearing into the bedroom, something about doublechecking drawers. Moving Evan’s stuff into Tommy’s house has been surprisingly slow going, mostly down to their schedules, but also because Evan has more stuff than they first thought and Tommy’s – no, their – house isn’t exactly big. They’ve had a couple of tense conversations already about beds, couches, and yes, closet space.
Tommy pokes his head inside the bedroom and finds Evan sitting on the edge of the bed with his back against Tommy. “Hey babe, ready to go?”
Evan breathes deeply, loudly. There’s a quality to it that makes Tommy frown.
“You okay?” Tommy walks further inside. He comes around the bed, sees the red box on the floor in front of Evan. “Oh.”
Evan looks up at him, “That’s it? That’s all you’ve got to say? ‘Oh’?”
Tommy’s frown deepens, “Uhm, well, I mean. I should’ve put that away. But it’s no big deal. Unless… it is?”
Evan looks away, but Tommy can tell he’s got his eyes closed tightly.
“Are you… Evan, what’s wrong?” Tommy sits down next to Evan, lets out a surprised noise when Evan flinches away. “Baby? Fuck, was there something really upsetting in there? I’m sure I can explain why I kept it. You know I only care about you.”
Tommy reaches for the box, tips the lid all the way open. He can’t see anything too upsetting straight away. There are the concert tickets from his and Aaron’s first date, the menu from where they went on their first and only, anniversary, signed by Jeff Goldblum because he happened to be in the same place and Jeff Goldblum is fucking cool. There’s the plastic dalmatian Morris got him, and some other trinkets. Fuck, there’s a picture of him and Morris from Germaine’s wedding. That must’ve been what upset Evan.
Evan takes another deep breath, “What… what is it?”
“Uhm, well, it’s my box with stuff from my exes.” Tommy starts carefully. He knows Evan can be sensitive about his own dating history, so he hasn’t really been too detailed about his own.
“Your… box. With stuff from exes?” Evan asks, at least looking at Tommy now, and while he looks less upset, he’s definitely confused.
“Baby, you’re the one I love. You’re moving in with me. If you want me to get rid of this I will, or I’ll put it somewhere you never see it.” Tommy offers. He hasn’t looked at the stuff in years, had practically forgotten about the box. Wishes now that he hadn’t, so that he could’ve put it somewhere Evan wouldn’t have seen it.
“Why do you have a box with stuff from-from your exes?” Evan asks, nudging the box with his foot.
“Uh… well, it’s kind of a thing, isn’t it? To save stuff, or memories I suppose, that matter to you even when the people don’t matter in that way anymore, right?”
Evan’s quiet, fiddling with the sleeves on his hoodie. The seams came apart months ago, and now he’s pulling on threads. He takes another breath, but his voice comes out all thready, “Is-is it?”
And oh no. Tommy realizes then, knows why Evan is upset. “You don’t have a box like that? Stuff you’ve saved from, uh, Taylor or anyone?”
Evan shrugs, “No.”
Shit. Tommy doesn’t exactly have the best dating history, but there’s a couple of guys that meant a lot to him, the memories of them together something he treasures no matter how things ended. From what Evan’s said about his past, that seems to not be the case for him.
“Hey, look at me.” Tommy reaches out, takes Evan’s hand. Evan grips it tightly. “I had no idea it would upset you that much. I’m sorry, I’ll get rid of it.”
“Does-does everybody have one of these?” Evan asks, glancing at the box again.
“I don’t know. I know an old roommate did, and his girlfriend, because they talked about it one time at a party, and most of the people there had, maybe not a box, but stuff they’d kept.” Tommy chuckles, “Actually there was one girl there who said she always burned anything she found after a breakup. But, uh, I see it sometimes on TV and movies. I don’t know how common it actually is.”
Evan nods. “I don’t have one. Just like I didn’t have a baby box.”
Tommy has no idea what a baby box is. It doesn’t feel like the right time to ask, so he’ll save that one for later. He drags one hand up Evan’s back, feels how tense he is. He lightens his touch but moves the hand up and down, hoping to steady Evan.
“Guess none of my relationships meant that much, huh?” Evan says finally, a bitter undertone to his voice. “There was nothing worth saving. Nothing important to them at all.”
Tommy purses his lips. He can tell Evan is hurting. This is about a lot more than trinkets and photos. He takes his time figuring out what to say. “Well, I’m a little older, this is from when people still printed out tickets and photos. You’ve mostly dated in the digital age, right? You must have some photos or texts saved, maybe emails?”
Evan tilts his head, shrugs again, “Not really. I deleted all my Instagram posts with them in, and the text threads. That’s like, part of a breakup. For me anyway.”
“Oh.” Tommy didn’t have Instagram until a couple of years back, and he mostly uses it to follow people, not to post anything on his own. He’d never posted any pictures of a guy he was seeing until Evan. It’s not his fault Evan’s photogenic.
“Fuck, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…” Evan waves his hands around his body in a vague gesture. “I’m just exhausted from working all those shifts back-to-back, and I wasn’t ready to-to find that. I wasn’t snooping, I swear, I just-just wanted to see where I could put my sneaker boxes because we never did check that yesterday and I have a lot of sneakers, and I was–”
“Evan, it’s fine, I promise.” Tommy moves in slow enough that Evan can stop him, but he doesn’t, so Tommy kisses his temple. “I’m not mad, and the box isn’t secret. I’ve just never lived with anyone before and I hadn’t even considered it. I haven’t thought about it, or them, in a long time. Especially not since I met you.”
Evan steals a glance at the box again. “Would you be mad if I told you to throw it away?”
Tommy considers it. Turns out, he doesn’t need to think that hard. “Nah. Like I said, haven’t thought about them in a long, long while.”
“But still, you cared enough to save that stuff.” Evan says.
“I did, yeah. And I’d probably keep it if you hadn’t found it. But I mean it when I say I wouldn’t be mad at you. Honestly, that box could’ve disappeared and I doubt I would’ve noticed.”
“Okay.” Evan reaches down, picks up the photo of Tommy and Morris dressed up for a wedding. “When was this?”
“About, uh, seven years ago, eight maybe.”
“Huh. You were hot.”
Tommy laughs, “Still am, thank you.”
“Yeah, but I haven’t really seen older pictures of you, just the past couple of years.” Evan points out. “Don’t get me wrong, I like the daddy-vibe you’ve got going on, but you cleaned up good back in the day.”
“Fucking hell, you’re something else, aren’t you?” Tommy shakes his head, feeling his cheeks heat up slightly.
“You got any pictures of a younger you without a dude hanging all over you?” Evan asks.
Morris is most definitely not hanging all over Tommy in the picture, but Tommy lets it slide because he’d probably hate seeing a woman on Evan’s arm. “Sure, I’ve got another box of all my old stuff, and photos on my computer.”
“When you say ‘old stuff’, how old? Like, army-you?” Evan asks, a little hesitant.
Tommy’s not exactly been forthcoming about his years in the military. He wants to be, at some point. Maybe letting Evan see him in his uniform is as good a place to start as any. “I’ll see what I can find.”
Evan sighs, putting his head on Tommy’s shoulder, “Could you, uh, put the box somewhere I won’t see it for now?”
“Sure.” Tommy kisses Evan’s hair, wets his lips before saying what he wants, “I hate that none of your previous relationships had memories you want to keep, and I hate that the only thing you’ve taken from them is an idea that they’ve not cared for you. But I’m also glad you’ve not saved anything from them, because they were all assholes.”
Evan’s sat up straight, looking at him with wide eyes.
“So yeah. I hate that.” Tommy ends with a self-conscious chuckle.
Evan laughs, “My big, protective boyfriend.”
“Damn right.” Tommy nods to exaggerate because he knows Evan will like it. “If you wanna do something else today that’s cool.”
“No, I wanna move my stuff in.” Evan smiles a small, shy thing, “It’s already taking so fucking long.”
“I know. I thought you were supposed to be good at planning.”
Evan scoffs, “I am. It’s all the extra shifts we’ve been doing that’s fucking the plan up.”
“No stress, but if you wanna get a load over here today, we should get going.”
“Yeah.” Evan stands up.
Tommy follows him, “Hey, Evan, I love that we’re moving in together.”
Evan smiles, “Me too.”
**
A week later Tommy’s gotten rid of the plastic dalmatian, the concert tickets and pretty much everything but the menu signed by Jeff Goldblum and the photos from Germaine’s wedding. He’s put that in a plastic folder and put that in the other box, the one with stuff from his childhood, school, the army. He’ll get around to showing Evan more from that box eventually.
He’s tossed the red box, because he thinks Evan will not react well to seeing it again no matter what’s in it. He knows Evan’s sensitive about the fact that he gets, well, sensitive about things sometimes, and doesn’t want Tommy to think less of him because he sometimes can’t hide his emotions. Tommy’s working on a long-term plan to show Evan he doesn’t care how insecure he gets, as long as he’s not hiding any hurt from Tommy.
Evan’s sneaker boxes are many, and take up way more space in Tommy’s tiny walk-in closet than either of them calculated with, but their presence means Evan lives here now. He also has a surprising amount of clothes, considering Tommy thinks Evan wears more or less the same every day, but that may be Tommy’s disinterest in fashion, or clothes in general, coming through. Tommy just goes to the same colors at Target and gets what he needs. Evan looks at him in horror when he says as much. Tommy worries he’s going to be dragged to way more clothing stores in the future.
Since the house is closer to Harbor station than the 118, Tommy’s home earlier than Evan despite their shifts ending at the same time. He starts on dinner, and cleans off the sitting area on the porch that makes up most of the small back garden. His previous outside furniture has been put in the garage, awaiting a trip to the city dump, because Evan’s balcony furniture was a lot nicer. He brings out glasses and the salad bowl from the kitchen to the table, as well as a bag from the bedroom that he prepared earlier. He chases away the last crumb of hesitation from his mind.
“Hey,” Tommy says when Evan shows up, coming over for a hug and a kiss, “welcome home.”
“God, I love how that sounds. I can’t wait for this move to be done already.”
“This weekend. Eddie and Chim are still helping out, right?” Tommy asks.
“Chris too.” Evan replies, watching Tommy move stuff around the kitchen counter. “They expect to be paid in very good food.”
“Speaking of,” Tommy gestures to the stove, “dinner should be done.”
They serve themselves in the kitchen and head out onto the porch.
“Oh, you can sit over there.” Tommy says, not awkwardly at all.
Evan gives him a look, but walks around the table. He puts his plate down and pulls the chair out. “What’s this?”
Tommy sits down, plays it cool, “Why don’t you open it and find out?”
Evan picks up the bag and places it on the table. With eyes going between the bag and Tommy, Evan pulls out a navy-blue box roughly twice the size of a sneaker box. It’s got a bright blue sticker in one corner. Evan reads the words out loud, “’Evan and Tommy’?”
It’s so incredibly corny that Tommy wants to shrink into his seat. He was embarrassed even as he wrote their names on the label, but this is for Evan, for them. His flush is answer enough for Evan, who opens the lid. He looks confused for a moment, then he takes out a photo, the two of them at Maddie and Chimney’s wedding.
“Tommy…”
“So, the box you found clearly rattled you. And I hated how upset you got. And the thing is, I don’t want a box in the future that’s memories from our relationship because we broke up. I want a box that we make together, memories we look at together when we’re old and grey and have false teeth. I want to buy souvenirs together, take photos, vacations, house deeds, the whole fucking lot. I want us to make a life together. And yeah.”
Evan looks like he’s about to cry. He takes out a crappy printed picture of the Dune II-poster. “What’s this?”
“The tickets are digital these days, so I printed out the poster on regular paper instead, but that’s the movie we saw on our two-month anniversary.” Tommy explains.
Evan laughs, “You made that up. You have no idea when our anniversary is. I have no idea when it is.”
“Sounds like something we should decide on. Together.”
Evan puts the box on the table, coming around to kiss Tommy senseless.
“You’re so good to me. You really fucking are.” Evan says. “I love it, I love you. I want to make a life with you too. Can I pick what we put in there next?”
“Of course. We do it together, right?” Tommy said, before realization dawned, “Oh no, you have something in mind, don’t you?”
Evan grins, “We should eat.”
“Tell me.”
“Dinner’s getting cold.” Evan takes his seat and makes a show of cutting his chicken breast.
“I’ve created a monster, haven’t I?” Tommy mutters.
**
Evan goes all in on the box, hyperfixating for a couple of weeks. He tells Tommy about a call he had years ago, an older man losing the love his life and soon following him to the other side, but not before he imparted some wisdom onto Evan.
“It’s kind of amazing that you said some of the same stuff, about making a life together.” Evan says. “I always remembered that.”
Tommy smiles and lets Evan put a notice from the LAFD newsletter about their medal ceremony in the box.
“What? You look good in a dress uniform. I need an excuse to get you suited up real soon. I bet you look hot in a black suit, white shirt, fuck yeah.”
“Blue shirt.” Tommy interjects. “I’ve got some pictures I could show you.”
“Really?” Evan’s eyes bug out. They’ve been together for nearly a year, but they’ve not had many reasons to dress up nicely, not since they first started dating and even then they never wore suits.
“Hang on.” Tommy heads out to the garage, pulls on a large plastic container until he can dig out what he’s looking for. He’s not entirely sure he’s completely ready, but he doesn’t think he ever will be. Evan will take care of him if he needs it.
Evan’s on his phone when Tommy returns to the living room, but puts it away instantly, holding out grabby hands, “Ooh gimme!”
Tommy hands him the paper envelope of old photos. “Remember that you love me, and that teenagers are prisoners to the trends of their days.”
“Oh my god, prom pictures?” Evan opens the envelope, takes a photo out, “Prom! Yes! Oh my god, look at you, baby Tommy, aww so cute! And your date was hot, who was she?”
Tommy feels embarrassed as hell, but he has to smile when he thinks of her, “Jessie Sinclair. She was my girlfriend for like, two weeks.”
“Jessie Sinclair,” Evan grins. “Did she put out?”
“No!” Tommy slaps Evan’s shoulder. “Did your prom date put out?”
“Her name was Hannah Brown, and she most certainly did. I was madly in love with her until she went with her folks to Delaware for the summer.” Evan gets a fond smile on his face as he reminisces.
“Delaware? For the summer?” Tommy questions.
“I know, right?” Evan shrugs. “I love you for putting out too.”
“You better.”
“Yes, daddy.” Evan flutters his eyelashes. “Oh my god, is this you on the basketball team? Tommy. Thomas. Wow. Just… wow.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Tommy mutters, pretending that he’s not embarrassed. Making Evan happy is worth a little embarrassment, anyway.
**
Eventually Evan explains to Tommy what a baby box is and Tommy’s happy to start one when the first ultrasound is done.