Work Text:
“I’ll be back with the takeout.” Lucy seals the box she’s just finished packing, labels it “living room,” and picks up her keys. “Remind me why we boxed up the kitchen first?”
“I think it was so you’d have an excuse to order in for three days.” Tim stands up from his own box, tightly packed with Lucy’s collection of blankets and throw pillows, and kisses her lightly. “Something about your favorite Thai place being further from our house?”
She smiles against his lips, then steps back. It’s become their favorite new phrase: Our House. Maybe Tim has already lived there for a couple of years, but if he’s honest, it never felt quite like a home until Lucy started coming around.
And now she’s moving in.
They’re packing up the apartment, putting her books on his shelves and her blankets on his couch. He’s got a use for the second bedroom now, beyond storage, the third member of their little family who’s coming along too.
He can’t wait. He can’t wait for them not to have to choose between her apartment and his house, between the cozy feeling of ‘home’ and the extra space to spread out, between Kojo and Tamara.
Tamara, who should be just about done packing up her room.
The front door latches behind Lucy, and Tim pauses halfway through stretching out his shoulders.
Tamara’s room is too quiet. She’s always got music playing, or some reality drama show on her laptop, or a podcast muffled through the door. Even when she’s asleep, her room is never silent.
But it is today.
Tim stops in front of the door on his way back to the stack of empty boxes in the living room. He can’t hear any movement inside, so he reaches up to knock with the side of his knuckle.
“Tamara? You still in there?” When there’s no answer, he knocks a little harder and twists the doorknob gently. It gives under his hand, so he pushes the door open a crack. “Tamara? Can I come in?”
She still doesn’t respond. Now he’s starting to worry, so he pokes his head in.
Tamara is sitting on the floor, her back pushed up against the foot of her bed. Her legs are folded in front of her, hands hanging limp in her lap while her shoulders sag. She’s got her hair piled up on top of her head, in some messy-on-purpose style he’s never understood, but it means he can tell she’s not wearing earbuds.
So not oblivious, then. Just ignoring him.
“Hey,” he leans a little further into her room. “How’s it coming?”
He doesn’t need to ask. Hardly anything is packed up. The shelves are still full of books and knickknacks; there is still laundry piled on the chair in the corner and clothes sticking out of the closet. Her hair stuff is spread out across her desk.
They hand over the keys tomorrow, and she hasn’t even started, by the looks of things.
“Hmm?” She finally looks up at him. “Oh, I’m done. All packed up.”
She punctuates the statement by patting the box sitting by her hip.
One box. Maybe a foot and a half long, on any given side, and no taller.
“What? You’ve still got, like, 95 percent of your stuff spread out.”
“Yeah.” She glances around and sighs. “It didn’t make the cut.”
“What? What cut?”
“You know how it is, you can’t take everything with you.” Tim takes a couple steps closer.
“Why not?”
“Different story every time. Only so many bags, take what you can carry, clothes on your back. It’s just how it is.”
“This seat taken?” He nudges the floor beside her with a toe. It’s not actually about the patch of carpet, and he hopes she knows that. Tonight, this space is still hers, and he’ll respect whatever boundaries come with that.
Tomorrow, she’ll have a new space, and he’ll respect that one too.
Tamara doesn’t say anything, but she scoots over just enough that Tim takes it as an invitation. He drops down, but when he tries to stretch his legs out, his feet are pushed all the way up against the wall. So he pulls his legs up just far enough to rest his forearms on his knees and pretends he’s not watching Tamara out the corner of his eye.
“What if you could take it all? We’ve got plenty of boxes, and I could probably track down some bags, if you wanted.” It’s getting late, but Tim is already mentally cataloguing any place he could buy a box of trash bags, if Lucy has already packed them up.
“It doesn’t matter. It’s just stuff. You move in somewhere, you move on, then you move to the next place. I’m used to it.”
She sounds so despondent that for a moment, Tim is reminded of how they first met: Lucy’s stolen Datsun, and apparently the second time he’s adopted one of her puppies. It’s easy to forget how much Tamara has been through, for how resilient she seems sometimes.
But underneath that world-weary, hardened exterior, she’s hardly more than a kid.
“Yeah, sometimes that’s how it goes,” Tim starts, trying not to diminish her past. “But sometimes it’s not. Sometimes you find a place to settle in, and people to settle in with.”
“Sure, until they move on too.”
“What if they don’t?” He shifts slightly, just enough to brush their shoulders together. “What if they find you with a stolen car, and instead of an arrest warrant, you get a lease to sign? And a couple of friends for movie night, as long as you promise to stop hogging the bowl of popcorn? And a place to live?”
“And what if, one day, they decide they’re tired of you being the weirdo roommate?” Tamara finally turns to look at him, tears shining in her eyes. “I’m not stupid. I know this isn’t gonna last forever. I might need to crash with you for a couple of weeks, but I’m saving up to get a place.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Tim promises. He wants to reach out and wipe the moisture from her cheeks, but is afraid that the movement might shatter the moment. “Tamara, there’s a room for you. I heard Lucy talking to you about decorating it.”
“Yeah, Lucy told me I could decorate a room in your house.” She scoffs. “How’s that gonna go, when you come home and I’ve put another mural on the wall?”
“Depends. What’s it a mural of? I draw the line at octopi holding swords.” Her tiny smile feels like a step in the right direction. “Seriously, T, you’re a great artist. This wall looks incredible, and I’d love for you to do something like that in your new room.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” He smiles at her. “I don’t think a whole wall would go with the look Lucy is planning for the living room, but maybe we could get a canvas or something? Y’know, with the full driveway, there’d be room for you to paint outside too.”
“You think?”
“If you want to. And, ah, if you want to move. We’re not going to force you, but the room is yours either way. Kojo helped move his toys out of there today. I think he’s excited for his big sister to come live with him.” Tim chuckles. “Either that, or he was excited for a walk. Never really know with him.”
“Probably both.” She’s still not very chatty, but at least Tamara sounds a little happier now.
“Probably.” Tim lets the conversation die out until Tamara looks at him again.
“You really want me to come live with you?” He almost tells her that he and Lucy never considered a version of their future without her, but he stops before he can accidentally turn it into a guilt trip.
“We really do,” he says instead.
“And not just because I already live with Lucy?”
“Nah, because you’re 20 years old and I figure it’ll make me seem hip.”
“OK, first of all, never say ‘hip’ again, unless you’re getting one replaced.” They both laugh. “And second, I guess I can bring my box to your guest room.”
“Your room,” Tim corrects. “Bring as much of this stuff as you want.”
Tamara looks around again; he can see her sizing up her belongings.
“Even the stack of old beauty magazines?”
“If you want to.”
“And my curling wand?”
“If you want to take up … sports?” Tim hesitates. “That’s fine with me.”
“It’s for my hair.”
“Then you’ll probably need it.” He reaches out and tousles her waves. She shoves at his side, but they’re both smiling and laughing, so Tim figures they’re through the worst of it. “Seriously, I’m looking forward to this. It’ll be nice to have a family in my house again.”
“Yeah,” Tamara leans her head against his shoulder. “A family.”
Tim lets her rest there for a second before he bumps her knee with his own.
“Come on, I’ll get some boxes, you start pulling things off the shelves. Let’s see how much we can get done before Lucy gets back with dinner.”
“Alright, alright, way to rush a nice moment!” But Tamara stands up, brushes invisible dust from her legs and offers Tim a hand.
“Let’s get packing.”