Packing up his room takes longer than Jamie anticipated, but that's because he's stopping to look at every item he's coming across to decide if he's leaving it at home with his mom, taking it with him to Moscow, or throwing it out. The pile of papers for the recycling is large, messy, and full of old school assignments and tests for classes he's no longer taking and has no interest in. AP Calculus, English, and government all go. The many pages of sheet music from over the years go in their own pile for him to sort through and organize later. He's not throwing any of his old music out.

Underneath his schoolwork, he finds miscellaneous papers, scraps, and random things that have accumulated over the years. His learner's license from before he got his driver's license. Birthday cards. Receipts. A slightly water-damaged map of Disneyland from when Lincoln's marching band took a trip there for a competition. A rubber duck.

"Hey."

Jamie turns to see Mason standing in his doorway. "Hi." He crooks his finger for Mason to come closer and tips his head up for a kiss.

Mason's careful to step around the mess Jamie made of his room and leans down, kissing him softly. Running his fingers through Jamie's hair, he sits on the edge of his bed, Jamie at his feet. "What are you doing?"

"Going through everything." Turning around completely, Jamie rests his chin on Mason's knee and loops his arms around his waist. "Why? What are you up to?"

"Visiting my boyfriend in his very messy and unorganized bedroom."

"Hey!" Jamie squawks, sitting upright indignantly. "I'm keeping everything organized! That's going with us, that's for the garbage, that's-"

Mason shuts him up with a kiss. "I'm teasing, baby. It looks like you're making good progress."

Jamie shifts to his knees and moves to stand up with the intent of straddling Mason's thighs, but as he does, one of his feet bumps into the pile of stuff he still has to go through, knocking it over and spilling everything everywhere. He looks at it, then says, "Oops."

That makes Mason laugh, and he hauls Jamie up into his lap, kissing him as deeply as he can through chuckles. "You silly goose."

Jamie stifles his giggles into Mason's neck.

Just as he's starting to hike Mason's shirt up to feel his firm, smooth muscles, Mason says, "What's that?"

Reluctantly, he pulls back to look where Mason's looking. "What's what?"

At the bottom of the knocked-over pile is the corner of a pink piece of paper. Before the girls, there was little to no pink in his room, and even now, there's not a lot of pink. But the pink paper at the bottom of the pile is from the old stuff that he hasn't seen in years.

Sliding off Mason's lap, Jamie bends down to pick it up, and his breath catches when he sees what it is.

"What?" Mason's hand slides around his waist, and he tugs him close. "You okay?"

Without answering, Jamie holds out the pink paper. He watches as Mason looks at it, his eyes widening a little as he realizes what it is.

He looks up. "You kept it?"

Jamie shrugs. "I forgot I still had it."

In Mason's hands is the Valentine's Day card he made for Jamie back when they first became friends in grade three. It was the first time someone made a card for him instead of simply buying a pack of pre-made cards with 'To:' and 'From:' on them. Little stickers and tattoos, if they were fancy. But Mason had crookedly folded the pink paper in half, drew a misshapen heart, and addressed it 'To my best freind, Jamie.'

Jamie loved it. Still does.

It's cute and touching. Even the misspelling of the word 'friend' is endearing. 2005 was a long time ago, but Jamie still remembers the shy smile on Mason's face when he handed Jamie the card. He remembers throwing his arms around his best friend and hugging him tightly. He remembers cradling it like it was a baby bird and showing it off to his mom when he got home.

He thinks of the years that have passed from grade three to the summer between grade twelve and college. Thinks of how much closer they are and how much more they mean to each other.

He takes the card out of Mason's hand, sets it on his nightstand, and lays down on his bed, tugging Mason down with him. He kisses him and cuddles him as they talk about their past and the future they're going to have together.