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“Looks like we have a new neighbor,” Ali heard Jimmy say from beside the window. He put his teacup down on the kitchen island and went to peer over his husband’s shoulder.
“Hm, looks like we do,” he replied while watching the Moving Company unload some furniture from a red container. “Know who they are?” he asked Jimmy.
“Why, yes Alastair, I know every single person in the world before they move in next door,” Jimmy replied sarcastically but Ali knew from the smile his husband was trying, and failing, to hide that he was curious as well. They watched as the two movers fumbled with a coffee table, Jimmy chuckling at their misfortune while Ali lightly hit him on the shoulder.
“Well, we better introduce ourselves when the Moving Company leaves,” Ali said, returning to the kitchen to finish his tea, and sticking his tongue out in distaste when he found that it was ice-cold.
“Why?” Jimmy asked, as if the thought of a simple ‘Hi, my name is Jimmy’ traumatized him.
“Because James, not all people like to sulk around their house without talking to anyone around,” Ali said with a pointed look. Jimmy took that look as the cue to stop the ‘we should go say hi to our neighbor’ argument. For now.
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Ali could name lot of reasons as to why he loved his husband. But he could also name a bucket load of reasons as to why he might one day be responsible for his husband’s death. Ali loved his husband, he truly did. But when someone takes a complete hour to switch between multiple clothes, only land on the first one at the end, you tend to lose your patience.
“Jimmy, that shirt looks fine!” Ali said for the hundredth time as he locked their front door, adjusting the freshly baked pie in his hand and saw that the fast bowler was comically fixing his shirt while looking at his reflection in the side-mirror of their car.
“I remember that it looked different on me the last time I wore it!” Jimmy replied indignantly as they walked toward the house next to theirs.
“No, it didn’t. It looked exactly the same the last time you wore it, which, by the way, was two whole years ago,” Ali finished in a deadpan voice. All he got in return was a grumpy huff and an (adorable) childish pout.
Once they reached the door, Ali knocked lightly on the double doors and waited. The silence of the street allowed them to hear footsteps coming down a staircase and towards the door. The door opened and, in the doorway, stood a man in his late twenties, with brown hair and green eyes.
“Can I help you?” the man asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Yeah, I’m Alastair and this is my husband James, we live next door. We saw that you moved in today so, we thought of introducing ourselves,” Ali replied with a smile while Jimmy stood there like garden gnome.
“Oh, well, I’m Dave and I don’t need your help with anything,” the man said with a smirk, “So, you can go back to your house.”
Usually, this type of behavior would anger Jimmy and he would open a dictionary of swear words right then and there. But given the pin drop silence next to Alastair, Jimmy was either dead or still angry with Ali for making him come along.
“Well, um, that’s fine. But we wanted to give this to you as well,” Ali said extending the pie in his hands.
Dave took a good look at it and said, “No, you can keep it. Have a good night!” And then he closed the door without another word.
Ali staired at the door in completely shock. How rude! He thought to himself with a frown.
Then the dead and/or angry man next to him spoke up in a high-pitched, mocking tone, “Because James, not all people like to sulk around their house without talking to anyone around.”
Ali smacked his husband’s head and started walking back to their house.
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Whenever someone appreciated their home garden, they gave all the credit to Ali. But that isn’t exactly how it’s supposed to be. Sure, Ali’s a farmer and he knows his way around plants and gardening, but in their first week in this house, Ali had done all the interior work while Jimmy had spent 24/7 in the garden. They had even passed up a house that was perfect for them at a lesser price because Jimmy reasoned that it didn’t have enough garden space. Although, you could let loose a herd of wild buffalos in its garden and still have a fancy tea party.
If questioned, Jimmy would deny it till the end of time, but he adores gardening and can’t get a good night’s sleep unless he makes sure everything in their garden is okay.
So, the reason Ali’s standing at the window with his jaw open in surprise isn’t because his husband is out in the garden with a rake. It’s because Dave, the same person who hadn’t even been civil to them the previous night, was laughing and talking with Jimmy over the fence between the two houses.
What they were talking about, Ali couldn’t make out, but Jimmy was clearly giggling. James. Michael. Anderson. Was. Giggling. Ali decided not to stair out window in case one of them noticed so, he went over to the kitchen to make breakfast.
Half an hour later, when Ali was eating his pancakes, Jimmy walked in with a smile, “Morning, Ali.” He gently kissed Ali on the lips and sat down across the table.
“Morning,” Ali replied. Trying to not seem too interrogative, he asked, “So, did Dave say that we peasants had the permission to speak with him?”
Jimmy laughed lightly and said, “No, he apologized actually. Said that he was a bit tired yesterday because of all the moving and that he didn’t mean to come across so rude.”
“Oh,” was all Ali said. Perhaps his majesty, Dave was nice after all, Ali thought. “What were you laughing about?”
Jimmy paused the inhalation of his chocolate syrup-covered pancakes and looked up at Ali. When he found that Ali was simply smiling at him, he answered, “Nothing much. He asked me what we did and when I said we were cricketers he said that he didn’t have a lot of knowledge about the sport. He told me he was an underwear model,” Ali’s eye twitched, “So, then we started talking about the new Fall Collection by Gucci and he said that I would’ve been great as a model for it.”
Oh, fashion. That’s what they were talking about, Ali thought. Ali never did get the whole ‘dress-to-impress’ idea. As long as he was comfortable in his clothes, he didn’t mind. That was until he married his husband. Now, everything in Ali’s wardrobe, apart from his pajamas, was picked by Jimmy. Not that he’s complaining, he really didn’t have any sense of fashion and now that he had his fashionista husband, he didn’t have to worry.
But back to the problem at hand; Another man, an underwear model, was flirting with Jimmy. The remaining pancake on Ali’s plate did not meet a beautiful ending.
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How much pressure makes a glass break? Ali thought as he stared intently at his wine glass. He heard the other two occupants of the dining room laughing but he really couldn’t get himself into the spirit. Inviting Dave to a dinner had ‘bad omen’ written all over it but saying no to a smiling Jimmy had never been Ali’s strong point.
‘That smile deserves an award.’ ‘You should’ve gone with modelling.’ ‘Your exes are probably the most stupid people on earth.’ Dave telling all of these things to Jimmy is fine by Alastair. But ‘Who’d ever kick you out of bed?’ was taking it too far. Alas, insert Jimmy’s smile, stop Alastair from doing anything.
“Don’t you think so, Alastair?” the sudden question pulled Ali out of his thoughts. He looked up to see Jimmy and Dave staring at him. Dave was smiling at him in an obnoxious manner but Jimmy had a blank expression on his face. Ali might even register a pleading look in Jimmy’s eyes had he stared a bit more.
“What?” he asked. “Don’t you think that anyone who has sex with Jimmy should feel blessed?” Dave asked with that bloody raised eyebrow.
Ali glare at the man, who still kept smirking, and said, “Yes, indeed.”
Dave gave a big laugh and said, “Yeah, well, I mean, who knows? Someone might pull the rug from under your feet at some point, am I right?”
Bloody damn right! Ali thought viciously. “Excuse me, I have to go to the loo,” Ali gritted through his teeth as he got up and left the dinning room.
However, he missed both the worried look Jimmy gave his retreating back and the murderous one he secretly gave Dave afterwards.
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Nothing lasted forever. That was the basic law of life. And that law applied to Ali’s patience as well. Today he was going to do something about the man flirting with his husband and that was the end of it. He was going to do it blindfolded if it was Jimmy’s smile that kept him from doing it!
He sat down on their couch and thought about what he was going to say. His thoughts were interrupted by Jimmy opening their front door and coming in.
“Hey, Ali,” Jimmy said, coming into the living room, “Listen, there’s something we need to talk about.”
“Okay, Jim, first of all,” Ali said, standing up and moving towards the other man, “I have something to say. Isn’t this whole Dave thing unsettling you even a little bit?”
Jimmy started at him with his mouth open a tiny bit. If they weren’t having such a serious conversation, Ali would’ve even called it cute and kissed him. Focus on the plan, he told himself.
“I’m sorry, what now?” Jimmy asked.
“This whole Dave thing,” Ali said gesturing around him as if the living room furniture explained everything.
“What Dave thing?” Jimmy was again in the unknown.
“Him continuously flirting with you!” Ali said, frustrated, “Him acting like you aren’t already married or that I, your husband, am right here!” He took a deep breath. “But most importantly, you acting like everything he does is fine,” Ali finished in a soft voice, looking down at his shoes.
The whole room was silent for what felt like eternity. Ali didn’t think he could look up at Jimmy’s because he was scared of what he might see. Would Jimmy be angry at him? He wasn’t sure.
Then, the silence was broken by a quiet, “Oh, Ali,” and the next thing Ali knew was that Jimmy was hugging him tightly. Ali wrapped his arms around his husband, melting into the embrace and burring his face in Jimmy’s neck.
“I pit up with it for you,” Jimmy muttered, “I thought you wanted to get to know Dave.”
“What?” Ali asked quietly, lifting his head to look at Jimmy.
“After that night we went to introduce ourselves to Dave, I felt really guilty for being angry at you and for not defending you when he was being an arsehole. So, I decided to put up an effort and try to get to know him since that’s what you asked for. But the last few days it was actually about not punching him in the face,” Jimmy replied with a smile.
“Oh my God, Jimmy, thank you so much!” Ali nearly yelled as he hugged his husband with enough force that it almost knocked them both to the ground. “I did want to get to know him but after the way he was behaving, I wished he’d just move away.”
“Well, why didn’t you say anything?” Jimmy asked with a smile.
“Well, you were always happy and you two seemed to have a lot in common so, I didn’t want to upset you,” Ali said into Jimmy’s shoulder.
“I was putting up a happy face for you. I didn’t want to ruin your plan of making a new friend. I actually came here planning to ask you why you were okay with Dave flirting with me.”
Ali gave out a soft chuckle and kissed Jimmy’s cheek.
“I love you, Jim,” he said in a soft voice.
“I love you too, Ali,” Jimmy replied in a heartbeat.
“So, we both hate Dave?” Ali asked. Jimmy nodded in confirmation.
“I wish he’d just go somewhere else,” Ali said.
Jimmy was silent with a thoughtful look on his face for a while. Then he said, “Let’s spray paint a dick on his car.”
And just like that, laughter was back in the Anderson-Cook household.
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And if Dave woke up the next morning to find a dick spray painted on his car door, and also woke up to get the cold shoulder from everyone in the street, well, no one pitied him.