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Arthur knows what he will see in front of his face before he even opens his eyes. Blindly, he reaches out an arm and pushes it firmly against Jay-Z’s thick neck.
“Back the fuck off,” Arthur murmurs, turning his face away from the flapping tongue.
There is a jingle and a clatter of claws against floorboards as Jay-Z hops off of the bed, waiting patiently for Arthur to drag himself up to a sitting position and grope on the bedside table to tilt the digital display of the alarm clock in his direction. At least three marker pens get in Arthur’s way.
The time is 10am. This is far too early, considering that Arthur’s flight only hit the runway at LAX five hours ago. Arthur rubs the heel of one hand wearily against his eye.
Jay-Z has found Arthur’s knee, which is sticking out from the blankets. He touches it with his tongue, staring up at Arthur with furtive eyes. Soft Los Angeles sunlight is pouring through the muslin curtains and distantly, from across the house, Arthur can hear the murmur of the television set.
It is already too late to fall back asleep without a struggle.
The dog yelps happily as Arthur swings his legs over the side of the bed and stands up, running a hand through his hair, still rough with traces of yesterday’s gel. Arthur pulls on the first shirt he finds crumpled on the floor, nearly tripping over Jay-Z as he makes his way out of the room.
There is coffee waiting for him in the pot, which almost makes up for the pile of dirty, crusted dishes piled beside the sink and the half-eaten piece of toast sitting on the sticky counter-top. Arthur pours himself a mug of the coffee and uses the edge of a takeout menu to nudge the toast over the side of the counter. Jay-Z sets about it immediately as the toast flops limply onto Arthur’s beautiful tiled floor.
To be fair, things are not usually this bad. But Arthur has been working in Munich for two weeks and they are between cleaners. After Magda had moved to San Diego, Arthur had tried to replace her, but the new girl quickly developed artistic differences with Jay-Z, and then had come the inevitable talk of shanking, and long story short, there had been no time to sort out another arrangement before Arthur had left for Germany.
On the floor, Jay-Z is licking the last traces of butter from the tiles. Arthur carries his coffee through to the living room, where Eames is slouched on the sofa, with his bare feet propped up on the glass surface of Arthur’s coffee table. His eyes don’t leave the television screen as Arthur approaches, but he does lift one tattooed arm so that Arthur can slip beneath it.
“Alright, pengting? Thought you’d sleep longer.”
“Your dog woke me.” Jay-Z always belongs to Arthur, until he does something undesirable. In those instances, he becomes Eames’s again.
“Isit? Me and him’ll have to have words.”
Arthur shifts, to rest his head more comfortably against the muscled arm draped around his shoulders. On the television, a talking dog and a talking baby are having an argument.
“What crap is this?” Arthur asks.
“Don’t pretend you never watched Family Guy, blud.”
“Not at ten o clock in the morning. What are you? A teenager?”
Eames turns to press a wet kiss against Arthur’s cheek.
“Man, you is well cranky, innit?”
“I’m jetlagged and the house is a fucking mess.” Arthur stretches out a leg and kicks the paper fast food packaging off the coffee table, making room for his own bare feet to slide up alongside Eames’s. “You have time to go to the drive-through but no time to wash up?”
Eames curls his toes against the arch of Arthur’s foot. He leans over the side of the sofa and comes back again with a brown paper bag, which he passes to Arthur.
“I got you a breakfast burrito.”
“Yeah. You better have,” Arthur says, peeling the bag open and inhaling the miraculous scent of processed cheese.
“Ain’t all my fault anyway,” Eames says, with a sniff. “Domsky made at least half that mess.”
“Dom doesn’t live here.”
“Nah, but I had him round to watch the footie and that a couple of times.”
Arthur swallows, licking the taste of cheese from his lips. He looks at Eames with blossoming amusement.
“Have you been looking after Dom while I’ve been away?”
“Nah, man. Ain’t like that,” Eames mutters, wriggling in his seat and making a hocking noise at the back of his throat, like he is about to spit. “The boy just ain’t got no mates, is all. Everyone needs mates, innit.”
Eames is staring unblinking at the television screen, so Arthur runs a hand up Eames’s chest, to get his attention, feeling each contour of muscle beneath his palm. When Eames looks at him, Arthur holds out the sloppy burrito, for Eames to take a bite.
“You’re safe,” Arthur says, as Eames is using his fingers to break the strings of stretching cheese.
“That right, city boy? You think so?”
Eames speaks with his mouth full and there is a little fleck of salsa at the corner of his lips, but Arthur gets it with his thumb. And then his tongue.
“Swear down to the ground,” Arthur says, as he pulls away. Eames smirks at him, arm tightening around Arthur’s shoulders.
“You rip the piss out of my slang, man. That’s disrespectin’ me. People back home would mash you up for that. You know that ain’t how you use it.”
“I’ll use it how I like,” Arthur says, as Jay-Z waddles into the room, licking his chops and then hops up onto the sofa beside them. In the past, Arthur might have tried to chase him off, but now he has grown quite used to the distressed look that Jay-Z’s claws have given to the brown leather of the sofa.
As Arthur sinks his teeth back into his burrito, leaning away from Jay-Z, who is already sniffing the air, Eames fingers the neck of the t-shirt Arthur is wearing. His rough knuckles tickle Arthur’s collarbone.
“My clothes suit you, pengting,” Eames says, with a grin, and then Arthur glances down, to see Burberry check staring back at him.