In The Name Of Love

For the longest time Eric didn’t say anything at all, he just stared at Mike in shock. The seconds ticked by, they were locked in some kind of staring contest, neither looked away or blinked but they both looked like they wanted to say something.

But what surprised me the most was how scared Mike looked. “Eric, please say something.”

Eric turned back to the lunch he was preparing, “I have to get to work,” he said softly. “I’m going to be late.” His hands shook as he roughly flung his lunch into his bag. “Yours is already made,” he told Mike but he didn’t look at him as he moved pass him to the front entrance.

“Eric!” Mike spun around, his brow drawn down in confusion. “Aren’t you going to stick around to talk about this?”

“What for?” Eric rammed his foot into his shoe, still not looking at Mike. “It seems that you’ve already decided to leave me.” He paused, sighed and looked up Mike. “That’s what all of the attitude has been about wasn’t it? You don’t want to be with me.”

“I –”

“I have to go Mike,” Eric’s voice broke as he spoke, you could see the pain reflected in his eyes. He started to turn towards the door.

“Eric!” Mike moved quickly, in one swift movement, he stopped Eric, turned him back to face him and kissed him hard. I gasped and stared. I felt like such a pervert as I stood there too. I started to back away, out of the kitchen to the living room when Mike pulled back from a surprised Eric. “You fool,” he muttered. “It’s not you that I want to leave, it’s this town; you are the only reason I stick around.”

“But the att-” Mike cut him off with another kiss.

“I’ve been miserable for the past couple months,” Mike told him. “Ever since we went to my parents’ for New Years, I’ve been longing to be back there. I have a niece I haven’t seen and another niece or nephew on the way, I’m missing a lot in both my brothers’ lives and it hurts because I’ve always been close to them.”

“I thought that I would be able to visit them but it’s always one thing or another here and to be honest, I don’t really want to just visit them. I want to hang out with them, be there for all the holidays and birthdays and…” Mike’s voice trailed off as he took a deep breath. “But I couldn’t just leave – I don’t want to just leave. I love you Eric, I really do. I can’t imagine not waking up with you every morning for the rest of my life.”

“I thought I had a lead, for a job for you back home but I found out the other day that it wouldn’t be a great as I thought it would be, I thought it was the one sure fire way to get you to agree to move with me but now…” he shrugged, his hands were resting on Eric’s hips. “I don’t know what to do honey,” Mike dropped his forehead onto Eric’s shoulder. “I’ve been wracking my brain to think of some way to convince you to come with me but you would be giving up to much if you did that.”

Eric moved back enough that Mike stood up straight; they looked into each other’s eyes. “Anna,” Eric turned to me. “Do you think we could have some time alone?”

He startled me when he said my name, “I’m sorry,” I told both of them as I headed into the living room where Nick and Jordan were sitting up on the sofa bed in sleepy confusion.

“What’s going on?” Nick asked me once I joined them on the bed. “Is Mike leaving Eric?” He looked at Jordan. “We picked a great time to come visit.”

“They aren’t breaking up,” Jordan told him but he turned to me right after. “Right Anna?”

I shrugged, “I don’t think so guys but Mike did tell Eric that he didn’t want to be here anymore, he wants to move back home.”

“Mike told him that a while ago,” Jordan stated.

“Apparently he didn’t,” I replied. “It seemed to come as a shock to Eric.”

“Well he told me,” Jordan snapped.

“He should’ve told Eric long before this.”

Jordan, Nick and I sat on the sofa bed for the longest time waiting for either Mike or Eric to come into the living room so we could find out what was going on. It would be a long wait, we would end up watching a few morning cartons, Eric and Mike took their talk into their room so that we couldn’t over hear them.

Almost two hours from the time I went into the living room, Mike and Eric walked in. “We both called in and took the day off,” Mike informed us. “Get dressed and we’ll all go out for breakfast.”

Mike and Eric took the three of us to the local diner. Conversation over breakfast was mainly focused on what’s going on in Jordan’s and Nick’s lives. After breakfast, Jordan said that we should probably head back home.

While Jordan and Nick joked around with Mike as we were saying good bye to them, I pulled Eric aside.

“So are things going to get better between you two now?” I asked him. “It did seem like you and Mike were friendlier at breakfast.” By friendlier, I mean, they were actually talking, looking at each other and occasionally touching – it was so nice to see.

Eric blushed a little, “Mike was really stressing about what I would do if he asked me to move back with him; you should’ve heard some of the things he was telling me he thought about when we were talking in our room. I can’t believe he’s been thinking all this and worrying that I wouldn’t understand why he’s not happy here.”

“So you understand?” He nodded. “Are you and Mike going to be moving?”

Eric smiled, “I don’t know for sure Anna but I promised Mike that we would visit his family in a couple weeks, for a week and while we were there, I would do my own checking for something career wise for me.”

“Do you think you’ll find something?”

“I’m not expecting to find anything like I have now but I’m certainly going to try and hope for the best. I don’t want to be without him anymore than he wants to be without me. I would be miserable here without him.”

“Will you be able to deal with being that close to your in-laws? And being so far away from any civilization? Can you live in a backwards little town?” I asked with a laugh.

“For Mike, I’m willing to try.”