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“I think it’s bullshit they can’t get another car,” Jared muttered, face creased in exaggerated concentration not taking his eyes off the pan in front of him while he answered Zoe, who had found her place beside him while he worked. It always seemed the second he’d turn away would be the same second whatever was on the stove would burn, lucky him.
Normally he wouldn’t put too much care (outwardly, but despite his best efforts he really couldn’t hide how smitten he was) and would just tell Evan to grow up if his grilled cheese was a little burnt. It was different now, though, he already felt like shit and even Jared knew what would push just a bit too far. Besides, food was always a thing and he wanted Evan to eat, especially after nearly two days of not being able to keep anything down.
“Well it was fine until Connor started driving again.” Jared noticed how she shrugged out of the corner of his eye while he pressed down on the grilled cheese with a spatula. (Their only one, Evan would remind him every time he had the flame too hot and melted the edge of it a bit, by accident, mind you.) “I would’ve come up last weekend, but..”
“What does he even do?” Jared was careful to keep his tone as in check as he could (not much, but hey) with Zoe, scrunching up his nose a bit. With Evan he didn’t really bother with niceties but with Zoe he’d try, Connor was her brother. Whether or not she cared if he talked shit, well.. that was a whole different thing they’d yet to unpack. Plus, it wasn’t like their weird feud was based on anything. Jared just.. didn’t really like Connor. Evan didn’t talk to him. Zoe didn’t really mind.
“Your guess is as good as mine.. but he, like, stays somewhere, like.. overnight, so he’s probably got some friend.”
“Friend,” Jared parroted back, under his breath, all but rolling his eyes. Whether it was some jab at the idea of friendship or insinuating maybe it wasn’t friendship.. who was to say, it didn’t really matter either way.
So maybe he did have a bit of an inkling as to why the feud burned, at least on his side. Zoe wasn’t his girlfriend or anything like she was Evan’s, but they were close. Really close. Any story he’d heard from her late at night with them curled up to either of Evan’s sides when small talk and giggles were traded for carefully offered up vulnerability.. Well. Maybe it started as some stupid, petty thing in high school where he didn’t even dislike Connor, but now he was a bit wary and more open to just not giving a shit after hearing the rocky reality.
“Mmm,” a whine reached them in the kitchen from the lump of blankets on the living room couch. While turning off the burner Jared raised his head to look, following Zoe’s same movement to see two hands, free of the bunched up blankets, making a grabby motion.
Anything on Jared’s mind was promptly wiped clean at that and he slid the grilled cheese out of the pan and onto a plate he’d gotten.
“Have you been up this whole time? Thought you were nappin’.” Zoe beat him to it, crossing the kitchen into the living room while he grabbed a rectangle off the roll of paper towels as a napkin. For a second he hesitated in the entryway between the two rooms, watching how Zoe moved around the coffee table, crouching down.
One of the big things that he’d always internally worried about was jealousy, of course it was. Human nature, something something. Even in a “normal” relationship there was bound to be bumps, this was just a bit more daunting at first. Which.. there was something to be said anyways about “normal relationships” because Jared still never really got that whole thing, but still. Any human connection had potential to foster jealousy, romantic or otherwise. Now though, watching how Zoe gently pulled at the blankets until she could uncover Evan’s face.. watching how she brushed hair away from his forehead and how he blinked up at her blearily.. He didn’t feel jealous. It was just them.
If anything he felt dangerously and painfully tender watching it.
Not to say it was easy getting here, just.. they were in it together, even if he wasn’t actually dating Zoe or anything. It was just them.
“Still nauseous?” The words pulled Jared back from his thoughts again and when Evan shook his head in response to Zoe’s question he finally got himself moving, crossing into the living room with the plate.
“Good, ‘cuz I didn’t work my ass off grilling this cheese for nothing, dude.”
“I hated.. so much about that,” Evan’s voice was a bit raspy when he finally spoke, face creased in amusement as he peered up at Jared. “But, uh.. do we have any-- any tomato soup left?”
“Oh, the lil baby wants tomato soup?” As he leaned down to set the plate on the table Jared put on an obnoxious baby talk tone. It didn’t really even come up in teasing much when it was just them--it was some weird sort of joke he’d only picked up on when Zoe was around. He wasn’t sure of the why of it all, but it only kept going because she always played right into it with him. Something about just in tandem poking at Evan. It was sort of their favorite bonding activity.
“I think the baby wants some soup,” Zoe dragged out the “ou” far longer than needed as she ran fingers through Evan’s hair, ruffling it a bit. When she turned her head to Jared she dropped the baby talk tone immediately, though a few giggles lingered while she started talking again, “I can heat some up if you’ve got some. Cabinet next to the stove, right?”
All Jared could manage was a nod because somewhere in there he just got choked up at the concept of Zoe knowing about their place, knowing where they kept things. Every little thing that reminded him that they were them. He bit his tongue while she went, slipping past them back towards the kitchen, because he wasn’t one to get all sappy--let alone in front of the objects of said sappiness.
“What?”
Apparently he wasn’t slick enough, because Evan had turned those puppy dog eyes to him now and was blinking at him quizzically. Jared couldn’t tell if it was some feigned innocence or if Evan really was still partially checked out.
“What?” When Jared shot it back at him it wasn’t mocking or anything, just equally inquisitive. Maybe he was playing dumb a bit because he knew he was never good at hiding how he was feeling, it always found it’s way to his face.
“Mm, nothing I guess,” Evan murmured, leaning his face so he could half bury it in the blankets, “‘m glad you like her though.”
Oh, so that’s what it was. So Evan did notice.
“I mean.. yeah.” It felt weird to be talking about while Zoe was hypothetically in earshot--they all had that tendency to zone out, though, and it wasn’t like he was worried--even though it was sorta obvious that he liked her. Just.. putting things out in words, being vulnerable, it wasn’t Jared’s thing usually. Plus, he hoped it was sort of a given. He wasn’t one to vocalize but he hoped the time he spent with Zoe and all the times they split costs or how he got her a birthday present alongside Evan’s.. so on and so forth. He didn’t do shit because he didn’t want to, really, and he just hoped that was projected so he never really had to address it himself. Maybe it was a shitty way of going about things, but.. It worked, apparently.
Also it was a bit silly to think about now, that felt like something that’d come up the first week or month of a relationship. Not when they were nearing two years together. He knew how Evan ticked, though, worrying was just inherent in it all.
“I don’t know.. just.. all of this is new and.. y’know. A whole thing.”
It made sense, though. As much as he wanted to treat it like a normal, easy thing it was different. Getting a partner who had a girlfriend was bound to be inherently something abnormal, or uncommon at least (not even considering any of Jared’s grappling with his own identity and the lines between platonic and not), but it was easier to just pretend it was. Normal, that is.
Here, though, he could see those familiar doubts cropping up in the way Evan’s gaze drifted, in how his fingers picked at a thread on the couch.
“Well, look at us now. Taking care of the little baby,” Jared’s tone shifted into something more antagonizing, face scrunching up as he grinned a bit. At the same time he watched Evan relax a bit, he knew Jared too well, knew that this was how he reassured, knew that this was his way of saying ‘it’s okay, we’re okay’. And they were.
The cherry on top to all his theatrics was an obnoxious kiss to the top of Evan’s head.
“Fuck off.” Even as Evan hid his face in the blankets he couldn’t hide his own grin and Jared watched how his shoulders relaxed, a weight off of them.
“Eat your grilled cheese before it cools off and the cheese gets all.. like, gross or whatever.” There was an attempt at being flippant but as Jared settled to perch on the edge of the couch next to Evan, grabbing his plate to move it closer as he sat up, he knew his facade was good as nonexistent. Evan just had a way of seeing through him and was definitely privy to how sappy Jared was feeling internally. Damn all those years of fostering a bond, hah.
“Don’t talk about congealed cheese I-- I’m finally not, like, nauseous.”
“You’re the one who said it! I was just implying!” Jared did his best to sound incredulous but he couldn’t help the snort of laughter he gave while passing the plate off to Evan who was finally upright. “Maybe don’t get food poisoning, then. Did ya ever think about it like that?”
“You’re the worst.”
“Jared’s being mean to the baby? Is that what I’m hearing?” Jared hadn’t even processed Zoe coming back into the room, carefully cradling a bowl that she then set on the coffee table before perching on the other side of Evan on the couch. Her voice was pitched back up into her obnoxious baby talk tone that threatened to cover up Evan’s exasperated groan as he ducked his head to bite at the crust he’d pulled off his grilled cheese.
“I’ve not done shit! I’m not gonna take any slander.” His words went mostly ignored--lightheartedly so--as Zoe leaned over, putting an arm around Evan’s shoulder and using her other hand to pinch at his cheeks.
“Maybe I am gonna be nauseous again,” Evan grumbled in good humor, weakly leaning away from Zoe’s touch to his face, “I can’t believe Jared made you obnoxious.”
“Oh, you did not,” despite the words, Jared had a huge grin on his face, “what the fuck, dude?”
Nothing else really mattered--it was all a sort of blur while Jared caught Zoe’s gaze and his grin split even wider while he moved Evan’s plate off his lap for him. In only a second his hands were on him, jabbing around his waist and stomach.
“I think those were fighting words!” Jared’s grin was impossibly wide as he tickled Evan who was now trying to squirm backwards into the couch to no avail with how Zoe’s arm was still around him. In the spirit of teamwork her own eyes glinted a bit as she brought her free hand up now to Evan’s chin instead of his face, poking around his neck.
“Oh, they sure sounded like them to me,” Zoe’s teasing coo had turned into something a little more antagonistic and, hey, maybe Jared was rubbing off on her a bit, but that was neither here nor there.
“Not fair!” Evan’s voice was barely a squeak between breathless gasps of laughter as he squirmed where he was stuck between the two of them. “I’m trying to eat!”
“Shoulda thought about that before you opened your mouth, huh?” Jared said it practically against his face as he leaned over to squish the side of his face against Evan’s head, still poking at his sides, “direct action.”
“Stop, stop, stop,” Evan squeaked out, face scrunched up enough that his eyes were squeezed shut, voice pitched up impossibly high. With an exchanged look--and breathy laugh--Zoe and Jared granted him that, fingers stilling. They didn’t move away though, Jared’s hand rested flat on Evan’s stomach and Zoe’s cupped the side of his face. With a sigh Evan slumped back, encouraging the whole trio to tip back onto the couch, flopping back instead of sitting up. “You guys suck.”
“I drove all this way,” the antagonistic tone was back in Zoe’s voice, though it was undercut with how she paused, straining to lean up and plant a kiss against Evan’s chin before slumping back against him, “and made you soup!”
“That I can’t even eat ‘cuz you-- you guys are animals!” It was Evan’s turn to relax a bit, finally regaining his breath from where he’d been nearly wheezing. After a second he gave a little hum, weakly making grabby hands towards the table where his food was out of reach.
“Well maybe you shoulda thought before you spoke then,” Jared’s tone bordered on obnoxious as he pushed his face up against Evan’s chin before he sat up a bit. With a quiet hum from the effort of reaching out for the plate he grabbed it before carefully flopping back down, balancing it on Evan’s lap before resting his hand against his chest, laying on him again. Again, despite all the teasing he was incredibly soft for Evan and all their weird moments like this. There shouldn’t be anything weirdly tender in tickling your partner alongside his girlfriend, and yet. Here they were.
Straining, Evan finally got himself a bit upright again, though Jared was still leaning heavy on his shoulder and Zoe’s arm was around him, as well as her head propped against him. The combined weight threatened to knock him back down but he was able to manage enough to tear off parts of his sandwich before reaching to dip them in the soup Zoe heated up for him.
A comfortable quiet settled around the three while Evan ate, Zoe absentmindedly flipping through channels with the TV volume down after Jared passed her the remote. Just.. the three of them, finally. After two missed weekends of Zoe being unable to visit they finally got to just be together.
With some reality TV show droning quietly in the background getting Evan’s attention, Jared mindlessly dragged fingers up and down Evan’s arm, only stopped when Zoe settled her free hand on top of his while pressing her head a bit more snugly up against Evan’s shoulder. Just.. them and their boy.