Day 6

Great day. GREAT day. I'm writing this on the morning of Day 7, because Day 6 was so crazy I was completely worn out by the end of it.

It started, uh... awkwardly. We woke up pretty early. I woke up first to use the bathroom, and as I was shaving after my shower, Brad opened the door, which I apparently hadn't locked. Thank god I had a towel wrapped around my waist and was at the mirror shaving, instead of fully nude doing my lunges or something (that's a joke—I don't do naked lunges. The fact that I'm making jokes in my private diary to break nonexistent tension says something about me).

Anyway. The door burst open and, the way the bathroom is laid out, it hit me as I stood in front of the sink and mirror. I guess I was standing with my leg jutting out funny because the door made contact with my ankle. There was a big smack as it hit the bone.

It was the kind of pain where you actually see stars. It knocked the wind out of me, too. I dropped my razor into the sink and crumpled over onto the floor.

Brad turned into a motormouth: "Holy shit oh my god I'm so so so sorry Adam holy shit are you okay???"

I closed the door to quickly get dressed, hopping on my right foot, and then Brad helped me hobble to the couch so I could elevate my ankle. He got me an ice pack and poured me a coffee and went to have a shower, promising to be right back. I laid there, sipping my coffee and feeling like an absolute dolt. For no reason, obviously, but it was pretty embarrassing to be taken out like that, like some weak Victorian lady, in front of Brad. Although, it was nice to have him press ice to my ankle and make coffee for me and ask if I was okay.

He got out of the shower and, by then, it was pretty clear that my ankle was swelling up. Brad was more concerned than I was.

"What if it's broken? What if you need a doctor? What will we do? What if you go to the hospital and get COVID?"

I told him to shut up, said he was stressing me out. But I was blushing the whole time. It's nice to be fussed over. It's nice to have gentle manly hands touching my leg and wrapping my ankle with a Tensor bandage. His hands are so careful, but kind of rough in a nice way. I can't stop thinking about them. They're exactly the kind I love. Tough, but caring. Rough, but kind. That's like, exactly my type, right there.

Aside from my ankle swelled up and is very sore and I'm basically hopping around the apartment, it was a great day. We did make bread—Brad made it in the kitchen, narrating everything as he went, and when it had to be kneaded, he brought over our biggest cutting board for me to put on my lap and he showed me how to do it. I won't lie, I pretended to be a bit of an idiot so he would show me again how to press the heel of my hands into the dough, pull it back, and squish back down into it again.

His arms reached over into my space and pressed the dough into the cutting board, which pressed against my lap. It felt... nice.

But I kind of felt like an asshole. Or like a pervert. When it was finally time to put the bread in the oven and move onto magic tricks, I was kind of glad. I could stop feeling like such a skeeze.

Brad queued up a YouTube video on how to make a coin disappear with the snap of your fingers, and he sat next to me on the couch as we watched it, tried it, rewound the video, and tried again. He kept having to bend forward to pick up our coins when they fell to the floor, or stand up when they slid into the couch.

I apologized over and over and saying we could do something else instead, but he kept brushing me off.

"No, no," he'd say. "Okay, let's try again."

He was a better magician than me. It didn't take him long to get the snap-and-slide movement down pat. Pretty soon he was disappearing coins as smooth as butter. I made a show of sitting back and watching. I even commanded him to "put on a show for me," which makes me cringe when I think back on it, but it seemed to fuel Brad's showmanship.

"Well, I've found my new quarantine activity," he said, all full of glee. "I can learn a new trick every day."

That gave me a really weird feeling. A really panicked, sad, threatened feeling. So I said something really dumb: "You'd better not let magic steal you away from me."

Ugh. Cringe. When I remember it, it's like flashing back to high school when I would purposely test the waters with the straight friends I had crushes on. I knew just how desperate I sounded and I felt so gross.

But unlike those straight high school friends, who would ignore it or push me away to teach me a lesson, Brad kind of... ran with it. His reply, without missing a beat, was "I promise I'll only study while you're working. When you're done, I'm all yours."

I said "Good." That was it.

We moved on to watching movies about magicians, starting with The Prestige, which Brad had never seen. We ate the bread and some leftover pasta for dinner and it was the best meal I'd ever had.

Then, the best part of the day... once we'd finished eating, Brad offered to take another look at my ankle. He gestured to his lap, so I rested my foot on his thigh. He unwrapped the bandage and we both gasped. I had a huge bruise that encompassed almost my entire ankle. It was black at the centre, dark blue on the edges. Brad was very alarmed, but once I got used to the shock, I thought it was kind of cool. I can move my ankle—it's really sore, but nothing's broken. Brad was satisfied that I wasn't horribly crippled.

He insisted on icing it again, though. I kept my foot in his lap and he pressed an ice pack wrapped in a tea towel to it. His other hand rested on my shin... through the whole rest of the movie. I could barely breathe. It felt like if I breathed too loud or moved in any way, he would realize what he was doing and move it away. But he didn't. Every once in a while, he would move his fingers a little bit, stroking my leg hair in a tiny, absent-minded way. I couldn't control my shivers. I'm sure he felt my goosebumps, but he didn't react.

After The Prestige, we put on something else—it doesn't matter, I wasn't paying attention. Pretty soon after that movie started, Brad yawned and stretched and leaned his head against the back of the couch. By the time the movie was halfway through, he was asleep, and he had slouched over until he was almost bent at the waist, his head near my stomach. That felt weird, so I lifted my foot from his lap—very, very slowly, so he wouldn't wake up—and adjusted myself so my shoulder was propping up Brad's head. I didn't want his neck to get sore. The deeper he fell into sleep, the more he kind of... cuddled in. I was sleepy, too, but being so close to him kept me feeling absolutely wired and there was no way I was nodding off.

When the movie was over, I shook Brad awake. I was watching, but I didn't see any sign that he was embarrassed or upset after waking up. He just gave me a sleepy smile and went off to bed.

After I'd gone to bed, I felt like my brain had been completely scrambled. Not ashamed to admit that as soon as I was in bed, I jerked off. It felt good. The first time I've had a real-life exciting experience in... three years? Ever since the first (and last) time I used Grindr. Jesus.

Well, so much for keeping this diary for my hypothetical future grandchildren.