Liam and Luke lay side by side, in utter silence, in total darkness, Liam's head buried in Luke's chest as Luke gently patted his hair.
“How are you doing?” Luke asked softly.
Liam gave no response.
“What if your leg?” Luke asked again, “How is it? Can you walk?”
“Yes,” Liam whispered a response. “It's healed, but it still hurts a bit.”
“What about you? How are you?”
“Honestly… I… don't know.”
“Baby, about your basketball…”
“Can we… can we not talk about that?” Liam asked softly, cutting off his words, “I don't want to talk about that.”
“Sorry,” Luke said apologetically, kissing him softly on the forehead, “What do you wanna talk about then?”
“Anything,” Liam said softly, “Anything that's not… basketball. Can we talk about us?”
“What about us do you wanna talk about?”
“About the plans we made for Christmas,” Liam whispered, “You said we would spend some time alone, at a cabin, by the sea, just the two of us.”
“Yeah, about that, I'm already saving up for it from the allowance my dad pa
