Chapter 19
OLLIE STILL didn’t know how he was supposed to figure out what he wanted to be when he grew up, but he had never been one to shy away from doing the job in front of him. Right now that job was sorting through… stuff.
Ty’s father had kept everything . At one point in his life, that had probably been a good thing. Ollie imagined businesspeople needed to keep all kinds of records. But somewhere along the way the disease in his brain had taken over, and now he had his attendance badge from the 1996 Republican National Convention in the same file folder as an investment agreement for a greenhouse operation signed in 2015.
He more or less had the important stuff separated out now, with the junk mail and trash in one box and the personal things set aside to go through later, and he was sorting the business things into files. Most of them had been intact, at least; only a few had been of interest to the later Morris.
The greenhouse operation papers were everywhere—in two different filing cabinets, on the bookshelf, in a briefcase, and under the desk. Ollie tried not to read them beyond identifying them—he felt like they were Ty’s personal business—but every now and again he got sucked into what felt like a soap opera for rich businessmen.
For example, in the early nineties, Morris did several hundred thousand dollars’ worth of business dealings with someone named Applegate, and then all those partnerships were dissolved and some kind of lawsuit ensued. Unfortunately it had either been settled out of court or Morris had lost the paperwork afterward, because Ollie couldn’t figure out who won that battle.
In 1995 Morris had gone into business with Alan Chiu instead. It seemed like half the town had come to him with their business ventures. He’d held people’s mortgages, owned property to rent, even lent money (at punitive interest) so people could pay their medical bills.
By lunchtime on Wednesday, Ollie was half convinced Ty’s father hadn’t died in a car crash, someone had murdered him. Who wouldn’ t want someone this obnoxious dead? Maybe the townsfolk of Suffolk all actually hated Ty because they couldn’t hate his rich dad out loud or he’d call in their debts.
Finally he emptied all the misfiled cabinets—two in the back seemed relatively untouched—and the desk drawer and was ready to start putting things back in order. He turned to pick up the water bottle he’d left on the floor—and stopped.
There was a corner of paper sticking out from under the filing cabinet behind the door. Ollie must’ve missed it. Frowning, he reached down to pick it up.
It was a legal-size envelope, stamped and mailed, bearing the house’s address and Ty’s father’s name. The return address was a law firm in Bridgeport.
At some point it had been opened, so Ollie didn’t think it was illegal for him to look inside. He lifted the flap and pulled out the papers inside.
Ten minutes later, he put down the papers and pulled out his phone. “Eliza? Yeah, hi, it’s Ollie. Do you have an hour free this afternoon? Or maybe tonight? It’s important.”
WEDNESDAY WAS the last baseball practice of the year. Even if they were playing a team that consisted entirely of the three loners who hadn’t managed to get the mumps, Henry thought the kids should be prepared.
Danny and Peter Chiu still wouldn’t look each other in the eye, which could not be good for Henry’s blood pressure. It wouldn’t help their odds of winning a baseball game either, but unless someone came up with a miracle cure for mumps, that probably didn’t matter.
No one got seriously maimed, and Ty had an hour’s distraction from the looming specter of Saturday’s town hall meeting, which at this point was all he could hope for.
“I’m sorry we didn’t put on a better showing for you, bud,” he told Theo as they made their way to the car. “It would’ve been nice if we could’ve won a couple.”
“It’s okay,” Theo said seriously. “The Cubs get paid to play baseball, and they lose all the time too.”
Ty cackled and unlocked the doors. “Who’s been teaching you trash talk? That was good.”
“Grandma.”
Even better. “I thought she didn’t like baseball.”
“I think that’s why she’s so good at trash talk.”
“Could be.”
The drive home passed mostly in silence, with Theo leaning his head against the window and Ty humming along with the radio.
When he pulled into the driveway, there was an unfamiliar truck parked behind the house. The hair on the back of Ty’s neck stood up, but Theo just said, “What’s Grandpa doing here?”
If that was Ollie’s father’s truck, at least Ty didn’t have to worry about another potential vandal attack. Probably. Ollie’s dad didn’t hate Ty enough to break his window, right?
He clicked the button to open the garage and maneuvered inside. Whatever Ollie’s dad was doing here, he was doing it without Ollie; the Toyota wasn’t in its space. “I don’t know. Let’s go find out.” He pocketed his keys and led the way around to the back of the house.
What Ollie’s dad was doing appeared to involve Ty’s office window and a new pane of glass. Jake was there too, helping lever it into place. Replacing a windowpane evidently took two people.
For a second, Ty honestly couldn’t think of anything to say.
“Uh,” he managed after a moment. “Hi.”
“Hey, Ty,” Jake said cheerfully. As if Ty hadn’t rejected his advances two days ago. “Just about done here.”
Mr. Kent pushed a small metal pin in next to the glass, then did the same on the other side. Ollie had said his father had a construction company at one point, if Ty remembered right. “Had a free afternoon, and Maureen said you could use some help.”
She did?
Ollie’s parents were speaking to each other again?
“Oh,” Ty said after a moment. “Well, I appreciate it. Let me know what I owe you for the materials and labor.”
“No, no. I had a piece of glass in my garage, just had to cut it down.” He didn’t quite meet Ty’s eyes, and Ty had no idea what was going on. He felt like he’d stepped sideways into an alternate dimension. “Theo. You want to learn a skill? Come over here and I’ll show you how to seal a window. ”
Ty slowly backed away, giving Jake a little wave. He didn’t want to come across as unfriendly, but he did want to figure out what was happening. He pulled out his phone to text Ollie. Your dad is fixing the window???
The little checkmark indicated the message had been delivered, and then it changed color. Seen.
A moment later Ollie replied. Oh good, I thought he might not get to it until tomorrow.
Ollie was going to pretend this was normal? That he and his dad hadn’t been engaged in a sort of cold war for weeks?
Did he have a come to jesus moment or something , he wrote.
I don’t think Jesus was involved. Mom might have been.
That explained nothing. But fine. Let Ollie keep his secrets. Where are you? Going to be home for dinner?
Sorry, boss. Top secret mission. Eat without me. But I’ll be home in time to tuck Theo into bed.
Pause.
And you too.
Frowning, Ty put his phone back in his pocket. Well, if Ollie was busy and Jake and Ollie’s dad had spent their afternoon doing repairs to Ty’s house, he probably owed them dinner, at the very least. He walked back around the house to make the invitation.
OLLIE DIDN’T want to spend the days leading up to Ty’s de facto trial essentially AWOL. He and Ty both knew Ty had done nothing wrong, unless you counted assuming other people had basic human decency, but that didn’t mean Ollie couldn’t see the specter of the town hall meeting weighing on him.
Ollie couldn’t fix that.
What Ollie could do was take care of the other things in Ty’s life.
Getting the window fixed proved easier than he thought. Ollie couldn’t ask , and his father couldn’t offer. Ollie had to hold the grudge until his dad made things right. The family politics made the whole thing trickier than it had to be. Ollie had to arrange for his father to find out about the broken window from someone else and hope he decided that fixing it might be a good first step in building goodwill with Ollie and, by extension, his wife .
Fortunately for Ollie, Peggy knew everyone in town and was far more Machiavellian than Ollie could ever hope to be. All he actually had to do was be home at the right time to give his father access to the office so the initial piece of glass could be set into place.
Sure, it almost made him late for his after-school meeting with Peggy and Jason, but it was worth it.
By the time Ollie got home, dusk had fallen. Theo and Ty were in the living room, watching the Tigers beat the snot out of the Cubs.
“Uh-oh, baseball? Shouldn’t you be reading your book?” Ollie teased.
“Dad, I’m over halfway done. I’ve been reading during the commercials.”
“What?” Ollie walked over, ruffled his hair, and grinned when Theo made a face at him. “No homework?”
“Dad,” Theo protested.
Ty turned his face upward to look at him. “You’re in a good mood.”
“Mmm.” He was, actually. Ollie hadn’t felt this bone-deep contentment—sexual encounters with Ty not included—in…. He didn’t want to think about how long. It would only depress him. He leaned over and pressed a smacking kiss on Ty’s mouth, upside-down. “Unemployment agrees with me.”
“Gross,” Theo said from the armchair, but he didn’t actually sound upset.
“Uh-huh,” Ty said, obviously skeptical. He made room for Ollie on the couch and then promptly shoved his feet into his lap, but he didn’t ask any other questions. Ollie’s nonanswers from earlier had had the desired effect.
“How was practice?”
“Nobody died.”
Any other day it might’ve sounded light. On a day when Ollie knew Ty had been obsessing over Mrs. What’s-her-face, that was black humor at its finest. Ollie rubbed his hand over one of Ty’s ankles, then the arch of his foot. “Always good news.”
“Danny and Peter won’t look each other in the eye, so that’s a good sign of team togetherness.”
“Paolo says they used to be best friends,” Theo piped up. “But now they don’t talk to each other.”
“Did Paolo have any insight?” Ty asked. “Because Henry forbade me from getting into it, and I am dying to know the tea. ”
“He forbade you?”
“He said I might learn something we’d have to tell their parents.”
“He said I was too young to understand.” Theo rolled his eyes. “People always say that, but what they really mean is they don’t want to explain it.”
Theo really was too smart for his own good. Ollie pressed his thumb into the arch of Ty’s foot.
A barely perceptible shudder went through Ty’s body, and then he went a little limp. After a deep, gusty sigh, he gave Ollie a heavy-lidded look.
Maybe the foot rub should wait until after Theo had gone to bed.
When he had—when they’d turned the game off and fended off complaints, and when Ollie had enforced the “ten more minutes of reading” bedtime rule and was sure Theo was sound asleep—Ollie coaxed Ty into his bedroom and spent half an hour getting a crash course in blow jobs.
Neither of them made a move to get up afterward; they simply lay together in the soft blue of twilight, Ty scratching his fingers over Ollie’s scalp while Ollie lolled on his chest, feeling like an indulgent cat.
“You’re not going to tell me what you were doing today, are you?” Ty said after a long, pleasant silence.
Ollie turned his head enough to press a kiss to his sternum. “Not today. That all right?” He lifted his gaze.
“The suspense is killing me.” But he made the complaint around a yawn, and there was a smile under that.
Good. Maybe that would keep him from worrying about Saturday.
Ty’s nails skittered down Ollie’s scalp to his nape. “You going back to your room?”
Ollie should. God knew the last thing Ty needed was one of Ollie’s PTSD nightmares to worry about. “In a minute.”
“Hmm. ’Kay.”
Neither of them moved until morning.