Chapter Text
Chris isn’t even home when Jamie moves out. He’s had a day full of meetings – with the last one running late because of someone’s ego – and hadn’t gotten around to listening to the voicemail Jamie left earlier in the afternoon. He only knows his boyfriend (ex-boyfriend) is gone because there’s a set of keys on the kitchen table and a missing pair of shoes by the front door when he finally gets home that night. Chris pauses in the doorway, staring at the keys. There’s a bottle cap attached to the key ring from the bar they’d first met at. It had seemed cute at the time – romantic, even, that kind of memento – but now, staring at the thin, dented metal and the logo that’s mostly scratched up, it just seems stupid.
He wasn’t hungry before and he’s really not now. Chris passes the kitchen, flicking off the lights, and goes up to his bedroom. He doesn’t bother to check the closets because he never gave Jamie a drawer anyway. He’s gotten tired of moving his clothes to the side only to inevitably move them back again. Brian is on his bed, curled up on the pillow that’s supposed to belong to him. The look in the cat’s lazily narrowed eyes is three steps towards satisfaction. The last time Jamie left him a message it was about the grocery bill or something just as mundane. Chris is pretty sure the message he just deleted from his phone without listening to it had nothing to do with milk or bread. He doesn’t think he cares.
Chris drops his clothes in a pile on the floor and flops down on the bed. The expensive mattress is a comfort (these days Chris gets a twinge in his lower back sometimes, especially when he’s been on his feet all day), but the blankets smell of Jamie’s cologne. Chris wrinkles his nose against it and rubs a hand against his chest. He’s going to have to do the laundry now, too.
He rolls out of bed, taking the edge of the blankets with him. Brian jumps to the floor as his pillow gets disturbed and the twitch of the end of his tail tells Chris he’s going to need to feed the cat in the next fifteen minutes or else. He strips the bed bare and gathers up the laundry. When he passes by the master bathroom, he spots the towels hanging on the bars – his two blue ones and the one grey towel hanging on its own bar. He grabs that too and the spare sitting on the shelf. There are blankets in the hallway closet Chris thinks he and Jamie took to the beach a couple of times, and the hand towels in the kitchen could probably use a washing too.
He met Jamie at a bar in West Hollywood during a random night out with friends. Chris can’t even remember which bar it was anymore, though he suspects Jamie could. Jamie had a knack for remembering the things Chris didn’t even realize he’d forgotten. He hadn’t meant to meet anyone new that night, and he certainly hadn’t meant to let someone buy him a drink, but it’d happened that way anyway. It wasn’t the first time. Probably wouldn’t be the last.
It’s eleven o’clock at night on a Tuesday and Chris sits on the floor next to his washing machine, surrounded by everything in his home that could possibly be thrown into the wash, even the things Jamie never touched. Like the set of linen napkins for the holidays. Brian pokes his head around the door and stares.
“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” Chris mutters. Brian blinks once, slowly, and then leaves. Brian never really warmed up to Jamie. Chris should have noticed.
Chris rolls his eyes at his cat, digs his phone out of his pocket, and thumbs the first name that comes to mind.
It rings a few times before picking up and Chris imagines Lea carefully rolling over, mindful of her growing belly, and glaring at the screen before finally answering.
“He left, didn’t he?” Lea asks by way of greeting.
Chris sighs and draws his knees up. The washing machine is an almost soothing rumble against his back. “Why is that the first thing you thought to say to me?”
“Because these days you only call me first when another one of your…boys leaves, or when you leave them.” She doesn’t sound angry, not exactly. Just disappointed. Or resigned.
Chris frowns. There’s the beginning of a hole wearing in the inseam of his left thigh. “That’s not true.”
Lea makes a disbelieving noise. Chris closes his eyes and pictures her settling into a semi-comfortable position, half on her side, while her husband sleeps soundly next to her.
“Maybe it’s a little true,” Chris concedes. He can’t think of the last time he picked up the phone to call Lea for any reason other than complain about yet another failed attempt at a relationship. He’s pretty sure he sent her a message about meeting up for a show last year. And they’d talked a few months back Lea called him to tell him about her pregnancy. It’s just that Chris doesn’t often do the calling. Maybe he should.
“So, what was it this time?”
“I don’t even know.” The words are bitter on his tongue, even if it’s not exactly a lie. “I came home and he was gone.”
“He didn’t say anything?” Lea sounds tired and Chris figures growing another person might do that to someone.
“He left a message,” he concedes.
“What did he say?”
Chris pauses three heartbeats too long.
“Chris…”
“I deleted it. Without listening to it.” Chris scrubs a hand across his face and feels like an asshole. “I didn’t think it’d be important.”
The disappointment in Lea’s sigh is thick through the phone and Chris cringes. “What are you doing?” Lea asks.
“What?”
“What are you doing?” She repeats, at thought that makes it clearer.
“The laundry.”
“Colfer, it’s almost midnight, I’m pregnant, and I have a signing meeting at 9am tomorrow.”
Chris tips his head back against the washing machine. “I really don’t know.”
There’s a pause long enough that Chris worries Lea’s about the hang up on it. He might deserve it this time.
“I’m going to tell you an address.” Lea starts.
“What are you-”
“Stop talking and listen to me. I’m going to give you an address and you are going to go there. And don’t bullshit me, Colfer. I’ll know if you don’t.”
“Is this an intervention?” Chris asks and regrets the choice of words immediately. A husband and a baby on the way don’t erase all wounds. “I don’t need…that. I don’t have a problem. I’m doing fine.”
“You have many problems, Chris. And you mostly certainly aren’t doing fine.” Chris can see Lea’s eye roll from three thousand miles away. “I’m going to text you the address – don’t you dare delete it.”
Chris wishes she were there to hug, growing belly and all. “You know that I – that I appreciate you, right? That I love you.” He feels like it’s been too long since he’d said it to anyone.
“Uh-huh. Love you too. I’m going to back to bed now. Try calling me for something other than a breakup, okay?”
“I will.”
“And before I give birth,” Lea adds.
Chris huffs something approaching a laugh. “I will. I promise.” Chris tries not to think about his last few promises. And how most of them lie broken at his feet. Lea hangs up on him and Chris closes his eyes, takes a deep breath.
His phone lights up and buzzes in his hand a few moments later. It’s an address in San Francisco. Chris frowns. He wonders why Lea would want to send him six hours outside of Los Angeles, but he knows better than to question her.