Your Cup of Tea

I have resolved, more or less, to write something every day. Most of these somethings are coming in at a page or less and aren't particularly good, but I've been posting them anyway hoping for critiques. Anyway, this story draws token inspiration from Belle & Sebastian and Sage Francis, two artists who couldn't be more different but both have songs about tea.

I curl up in the middle of the bed, too large without you in it, and wait for the caffeine to kick in.
I've kept up your tradition, one cup of green tea, loose leaf, steeped at bed time and drunk in the dark downstairs at the coffee table. I still make two, on reflex, and sip mine while yours, while the other gently steams and sets its footprint on the table's glass.
The cup listens, more patiently than you ever did, but not half as well. Your questions linger, unasked but present, in the twisting ghost of the fragrant tea. Your boy is doing well, his day went okay, crazy busy but in a good way.
The catering business has taken off since the end of January, I was able to quit my other job. You should have seen the look on the Sous Chef's face when I walked out of that kitchen downtown for the last time, I'm not sure if he was impressed by my nerve, or annoyed that I had gotten out before he did. If he calls me looking for a job I'll give him one, nobody deserves to work for Antoine.
Sorry, I know that's still a raw spot for you, I shouldn't have mentioned him, he's just...
I'm apologizing to the air, thick with shadows, in the armchair you always favored while your boy made his report. I can see you in the dark, if I squint just a little, and hold my head the right way. I see your head, cocked to one side, just enough that I know your listening, your patrician features framed in the moonlight.
Instinctively I send one foot cautiously forward, probing beneath the table for your legs. You were to tall to sit comfortably for long, whatever your position you always managed to sprawl... I find nothing, of course, you've been dead two months, two days, fourteen hours, and a single heartbeat.
My cup is empty and I look for meaning in the dregs but find only the solace of soggy leaves. You taught me not to waste anything, you taught me so much, I sip the cool second cup with shaky hands and I feel like I'm stealing something precious.
I linger over that cup far longer than my own. It was your favorite mug, thrown by hand, glazed in shades of brown, chipped in one spot on the rim somewhere over the Atlantic despite your best efforts to wrap it up, keep it safe. You always said it fit your hand perfectly, I always thought it was a little to big.
I savor even the bitter end, where the water has been steeping far to long, thinking of the ghosts of your lips.
We would always finish about the same time, our cups I mean, but that too, and you would climb the stairs while I did the washing up. The agreement was unspoken, and mutually beneficial, and the first night I lay in a cold bed was the first time that I cried for you. After that I did so nightly.
It didn't take long for me to realize that your smell was fading, light, slightly musky, male, unique and beautiful. I hadn't appreciated it when you were with me, but smell is most evocative of memory. I put a few of your favorite shirts into plastic bags, but they too have lost you now.
Of course, intellectually speaking, your death was not a total surprise. There was a reason you called me a grave robber after all, and why your friends all called you a lucky son of a bitch. I was thrown, the first time you introduced me too them, by their stares and fabulously lewd comments; like you told me, there's no reasoning with old fags. Least of all you.
You didn't slow down, you always said you didn't have time too, and I guess you were right. You refused to accept the passing of time or the changing of the seasons, even as you savored each new day. You treated funerals like challenges, or maybe counting coup, but you went with a kind word and a heartfelt hug and seeing you always made the bereaved smile.
Your last joke even got me, I hadn't thought you were serious about the viking funeral. Hell, you even fixed it so it was quasi legal.
And here I am, in the fetal position, in the midst of a field of silk sheets, and I'm shaking, wracked with silent sobs, and gods damn you but I'm grinning like a mad man.