Re: Carriage House: Atticus & Billy
There was something there, something that hung behind the weight of the words in Atticus' mouth that branded Billy a 'sex worker' that felt harsh and heavy and had him flinching: something more than Billy's eyes shot wide with open pupils and warm, melted-chocolate awareness. There was even something that made him recoil to the words alone: "sex workers", god, was he really that predictable? With the pairing of those particular syllables that shrivelled into something sour and harsh in Billy's mind, making some abandoned muscle in his cheek twitch, he wasn't entirely stoked about it.
"Nah, you're not wrong,” he agreed easily enough, both hands coming together with the tips of his fingers tenting on the cold-condensation of wet beading on the glass of the chilled wine bottle. "It helps. She helps, I mean. We help each other."
The weight of the wine bottle tipped towards Billy's torso and one of his hands came up to tuck into his pants' pocket in a gesture of self-protection, and he felt thoroughly thrown off-balance even as he started to open the cupboards and gather mismatched glasses into his arms. And he wasn't mad, wasn't angry with Atticus making all kinds of assumptions about how easy it was or wasn't to find something better to do. Didn't even try to hide the sour twist to his mouth as he thought about it. Because how could he know, really?
"We didn't know about each other until a couple months into working in the same place. And the thing is, neither of us went to college. We don’t have degrees, or anything. She's got a little brother to take care of, since her mom walked out on them. A toddler. And me, I can’t work a real job, you know? Not one that requires a social security number, because that would show up if my family ever tried to find me.”
He swallowed thickly even as he followed Atticus into the sitting area and set the wine bottle down on the coffee table, followed by a pair of mismatched glasses that he’d extracted from the profferred cupboard. Then he straightened, blinking down at the table as Atticus settled himself on the floor, simultaneously bemused and unseeing. Forcing a bland sort of smile. “So, it’d have to be something under the table, y’know? And nothing under the table would make enough money. I’ve only got, like, six more years until I can access my trust fund, and if I want to go to college before then, there isn’t anything else I can do.”
And it was without ceremony that Billy headed back into the kitchen, opening up various drawers until he found an appropriate amount of mismatched utensils and headed back into the other room with an armful of the same.
“Okay,” he allowed, and there was the smile again, white teeth flashing as he brandished the forks and knives. “Don’t even try to act like I’m some snobby asshole for offering to set your coffee table. I don’t know shit about forks being on whatever side, I just know that it’s ridiculous to think we could eat lobster without utensils.”
Beaming, again. All kinds of charming smiles as Billy delicately placed the utensils down on the coffee table along with the roll of paper towels, and flicked a glance at the couch before he orchestrated a split-second decision and settled himself onto the floor at the end of the coffee table rather than the couch. No age-appropriate groan; just a white-toothed grin. If Atticus was going to sit on the floor, so was he.
"Okay, so, my turn. Why am I the one who gets the lobster dinner, instead of your girlfriend? It can't just be because you feel that sorry for me."