Chapter 11
ELEVEN
Thanks to Valerie and her boundless energy, Gus found himself doing more around the city just for fun than he had in years. They visited parks and playgrounds and looked at public art on their walks to and from school, while the weekends were reserved for kid-friendly tourist attractions like the New England Aquarium or Castle Island, a peninsula at the very end of the South Boston Waterfront that boasted beaches and a granite bastion fort dating back to the mid-1800s.
Gus had a blast doing all of it, even the more mundane stuff that came with a kid-sitting gig. Like supervising the morning and evening chaos of washing up, changing clothes, and taming of hair. Finding snacks for the bottomless pit in Valerie’s tummy and activities to entertain her busy mind. Drawing and coloring and endless kid-craft, along with plotting out desserts to surprise Madoc.
Staying busy also helped to improve Gus’s sleep, and with his ribs healing, he felt more himself every day. He didn’t get all the way back to ‘normal’ in terms of rest though, thanks to Madoc slowly driving him mad. And weirdly, Gus was enjoying losing his mind with his partner.
Once Valerie’s door slid shut for the night, Madoc was on him, kisses hot and hungry and so fucking good. They never went further than making out and their clothes always stayed on, but Gus was quickly becoming addicted to being stoned on pleasure with Madoc Walters. He loved watching those blue eyes go glassy and hearing Madoc’s sexy little groans. Kissing him until Gus’s limbs were so soaked with pleasure he had to legit drag himself to the door.
Gus always did, his cock aching and his balls so full he’d head for the shower the second he got home so he could jerk off. But now Gus was dreaming about his partner, waking up ready to explode after only a few strokes. Which was absurd when Gus was too fucking old for sex dreams about a guy who wasn’t ready to admit he was queer. Didn’t matter that Madoc’s touch set Gus on fire—they weren’t a good fit and Gus knew it.
He tried to maintain some distance. Made time for family and friends on the non-kid-sitting days and supported his basketball club every week at practice and their scheduled games. And yet Gus always felt a pull toward Madoc’s apartment.
To where Valerie would shriek as she kicked Gus’s ass at Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza, one of the weirdest, wildest games he’d ever played. Where rainbow ponies decorated the shower curtain and bath towels in the main bathroom and a hockey stick and a banana-shaped cat toy were favorite playthings. Where Madoc would ghost his fingers over the back of Gus’s arm while they cooked dinner. Only to get a hell of a lot closer than furtive touches once they were alone.
“You got a new someone?”
Gus glanced up from his phone as Felipe, his friend and basketball team co-captain, wheeled over for a quick break from shooting drills. The team was playing in Charlestown tonight, but Gus’d spent the last ten minutes going through the many video clips Valerie had been sending since Madoc had picked her up from school.
Shaking his head, Gus frowned at his friend. “Why do you ask?”
“Because you’re smiling like a dork at that thing.” Felipe nodded at the phone in Gus’s hand, dark eyes dancing with interest. “Plus, you look all gaga the way people do when they’re crushing.”
Busted.
“It’s not what you think.” Gus ignored his hot ears. “I’ve been doing my partner on the truck a favor and watching his kid after school. Val’s six and was catching me up on her day.”
Felipe’s grin softened and he reached over to pat Gus’s shoulder. “That’s very nice of you, manito ,” he said, voice fond the way it always got when he used the Spanish word to call Gus his ‘pal.’ “But how did I not know you’re like a regular Gary Poppins?”
And yeah, Gus didn’t like not knowing how to talk about the time he spent with the Walters. He’d told his parents and sister about kid-sitting, as well as Connor and Judah. But not that Gus dropped in to keep Madoc company at the hockey rink during Valerie’s practice on the days he didn’t kid-sit. That he typically stayed for dinner any night he was at Madoc’s and then lingered afterward.
Definitely not that Gus couldn’t wait to get back to the Seaport apartment the next morning so he could crowd Madoc up against the kitchen counter and make out with him some more, just as they were doing right now.
“You’re going to make me late,” Madoc chided, his lips curling against Gus’s next kiss. “But I’ll cook tots with dinner tonight to make up for having to leave. If you want to stay in with us again.”
Gus liked the hopeful look he caught in Madoc’s eyes. It made him feel like he was wanted for more than just the kid-sitting.
“I don’t have any plans,” he replied. “I’m going to grab Lemonade from the station this afternoon for another sleepover, so if you won’t mind hanging out with her too, ask me again after you get home.”
“Okay.” Sighing, Madoc dropped his arms from around Gus’s neck and turned back to the coffee maker. “Hey, you know there’s a bench in my shower in case you ever want to rinse off.”
After he’d gone, Gus took himself to the couch with his coffee and pad to draw before the quiet was shattered by a small person needing food or who wanted to ask, ‘Can you put Chapstick on a turtle?’ But Gus was more tired than he wanted to admit and soon the lines on the page started to blur and he found himself erasing mistakes.
Sighing, he closed the pad. He had time for a quick nap before Valerie woke, but napping meant removing his prosthesis, and Gus wasn’t sure how Valerie would react if she got up early and caught him without it. She knew Gus’d lost part of his leg of course, but he wasn’t sure she genuinely understood he still had a real limb beneath the silicone socket.
Would Valerie be afraid of Gus’s stump? Or worse, feel repulsed?
Gus let resentment burn in his chest. He’d learned not to fight feeling bitter over having to navigate a world not designed for his body. There were days he ran out of patience for doors that weren’t wide enough for his chair or rickety, uneven staircases that were a nightmare to climb and descend with a mechanical ankle. But Gus couldn’t and wouldn’t hide every time he needed to use his crutches or chair or adjust one of his stump socks, all things he’d do in front of Valerie at some point and that she’d want to talk about.
Removing his leg and his gear, he stretched out on the couch and considered the hushed room around him. The faint sounds of traffic from the streets below as the city woke up. A coffee smell and the cushions cradling him.
Soft noises pulled at the gauzy feeling enveloping Gus, and the cushion to his right dipped. He peeled an eye open and found a pajama-clad Valerie parked by his side, having dragged the quilt from her bed and her brown eyes still sleepy. Without ceremony, she plunked her head down on Gus’s stomach and he grunted, uncrossing his arms so he could steady her.
“How you doin’, Bug?” he asked, and she yawned, her body a warm weight against his.
“Doin’ fine,” she replied. “Are you callin’ me Bug ’cause of my ladybug tracksuit?”
“Nah. I’m calling you Bug because you’re cute as a bug in a rug who is snug.”
“Ahh!” Valerie giggled. “Can I have pancakes for breffast?”
Gus rubbed her back with his hand. “Sure. I just need to put on my leg.”
Sitting up, Valerie turned her head to get a glimpse of Gus’s lower half. “You took it off for sleeping?”
“Yup. But sometimes I take my leg off because I feel like it, remember?”
“Uh-huh.”
Levering himself upright, Gus gave her his hand and she climbed over his knees while he swung his legs off the couch. Valerie kept a hold of Gus as she wiggled her way into the seat beside him, her own bare feet dangling over the cushion’s edge a good six inches above the floor. She studied Gus from the knees down, gaze sweeping over his sound leg beside the short limb, which ended a few inches below his knee.
Gus watched her, pleased she simply seemed curious. “What are you thinking, kid?”
Tilting her head, Valerie angled a look up at him. “It doesn’t hurt?”
“It shouldn’t hurt if I take good care of myself,” Gus hedged. Kids often focused on pain when they looked at his stump because they imagined it hurt, and in truth, Gus did hurt to some degree every day. He’d gotten lucky with managing phantom limb pain, but coping with missing a part of his leg exacted a toll on the rest of his body that made him ache and sometimes worse.
Straightening his knee now, he held the short limb out, running a hand over the skin and fading scars. “I have to take good care of the real leg under the prosthesis and keep it healthy,” he said, “so I can wear my prosthesis whenever I feel like it.”
Valerie reached out and copied Gus’s gestures, smoothing her fingers over his scars. “Is that how come you wear socks on this part of your leg?”
“Yes. The socks and the liner protect my skin and also make it fit better.” Relaxing his knee, Gus retrieved his gear from beneath the table and showed her everything, taking care to explain the purpose of each layer.
“Sometimes I have to put on or take off socks during the day because the shape of my short limb changes,” he said, nodding as Valerie’s eyebrows rose. “Making adjustments like that keeps the socket snug so my leg doesn’t come off if I’m working, playing sports, or walking around.”
“Cool.” Valerie kicked her feet a few times, then pulled the quilt around her again. “Will you show me how you put on your leg so we can have pancakes?”
Gus smiled. “Yes. You know you can ask me questions if you have them.”
“Uh-huh. Daddy says it’s good I have lots of questions.” She frowned. “Noelene doesn’t like it, though.”
Shit.
Gus licked his lips. “People are different,” he said lightly, “and some have more patience for questions than others.”
“I guess you’re right.”
Valerie swung her feet some more while Gus drew on his gear and leg, and when she started in with the questions, he did his best to answer them.
“Hello, hello,” Madoc called as he let himself in that evening with his bag and a grocery sack. He breathed in a luscious, sugary-baking aroma but stopped short after spying Gus camped out on the floor outside Valerie’s bathroom in a t-shirt and shorts, a baseball game playing on the TV across the room while Lemonade sprawled out with her banana nearby.
“Well, hi,” Madoc said with a small smile. “What are you doing down there?”
“Monitoring shower time while the Sox get their asses handed to them. Val and I got kind of dusty today and she didn’t want to wait for you to get home,” Gus said. “My leg is under the coffee table, in case you were wondering.”
Brow furrowed, Madoc set his stuff down, then walked to Gus’s side. Gus had a sketchpad on his lap, but it wasn’t until Madoc had also gotten down on the floor that it truly registered Gus only had one leg stretched out in front of him, his left foot bare while the rounded end of his short right limb poked out of the bottom of his shorts.
Lemonade opened her eyes and blinked at Madoc a few times, then rolled to her feet, quickly relocating onto Madoc’s lap so she could make biscuits against his thigh. Madoc stroked a hand over her back, but he was also checking out the crutches by Gus’s right side, which were fashioned from matte black metal with forearm cuffs to support a forward-leaning position rather than being propped up under the arms.
“How are your ribs when you use them?” Madoc asked.
“Only semi-terrible.” Gus shrugged. “Val wanted to see how they worked,” he said, “so I left my leg off.”
Nodding, Madoc leaned forward and looked over Gus’s short limb for the first time, knowing instinctively Gus wouldn’t mind. With his gaze, Madoc traced the flat, pale scar running from Gus’s shin to the back of his calf, bisecting the end of the stump with surprising neatness given the severity of the crush injury Gus had sustained.
A sudden need to touch Gus—to feel that Gus was all right—had Madoc setting his hand on Gus’s left thigh.
“Do you wear a shrinker if you’re not using your leg?” he asked. Shrinker socks were a type of compression sleeve that helped some amputees maintain the size of their stump and improve the fit of their prosthetic’s socket.
“Pretty often,” Gus said, laying his hand over Madoc’s atop Gus’s thigh. “They help with swelling if I eat stupid things and with pain when I have it. I’ve got a shrinker in my bag but figured I’d need to put my leg on again soon anyway, so I didn’t bother with it.”
Madoc met Gus’s eyes. “You don’t have to put it on for Val or me. Just do whatever’s most comfortable.”
Gus smiled, very small. “All right.”
“Also …” Madoc bit his lip. “Not sure how you’re going to feel about this, but I didn’t notice you weren’t wearing your leg at first. Does that make me a bad friend?”
“Nah.” The corners of Gus’s eyes crinkled with his grin. “It means you’re getting used to having me around.”
Madoc smiled back. But his blood started to hum as he held Gus’s gaze, and the world around them shifted focus, everything else fading while Gus stood out in sharp relief. And Madoc couldn’t look away. Couldn’t get over how incredible Gus looked in the last of the day’s light coming in through the window, skin slightly sunburnt along the bridge of his nose and his cheekbones, his hair and eyes lit with gold.
Beautiful.
The timer in the kitchen pinged.
Gus nudged Madoc’s shoulder with his own. “I need to get that thing out of the oven before it burns. Val and I made cake with a tub of bluebs that we picked up on our way back to the city.”
Madoc chuckled at Gus’s use of Valerie’s word for blueberries. “Sounds fantastic. Where’d you two go today?”
“Golfing.” Grinning, Gus spun the sketchbook and showed Madoc an enchanting doodle of Valerie, pigtails flying and smile luminous as she prepared to … throw a frisbee.
Madoc glanced from the sketch to his partner. “Disc golfing, huh?”
“Yup.” Handing the sketchbook and pencil to Madoc, Gus picked up his crutches. “I took some photos for you that I’ll stick in our chat.”
Short limb held out in front of him, Gus pressed himself vertical using only his left leg, a crutch in each hand, while a laughing Madoc scooted the cat off his lap and used all fours to scramble up.
“We went to a course in Quincy,” Gus said on his way to the kitchen. “It’s in this big wooded park and there are walking trails and a playground that we visited afterward. That’s why I had the crutches out,” he added. “I like to have them on hand when I walk trails or hike in case I need extra balance.”
He pulled the cake pan from the oven and it looked truly luscious, juices from the deep blue fruits staining the yellow cake. Madoc was still more interested in watching Gus though, because his fussing over his baking was adorable.
“Your face is red,” Madoc observed. “I’ve got some aloe vera gel you can use if you want.” He paused, trying hard to sound casual as he asked, “You and your kitty-pal staying for dinner?”
Gus smiled. “Yes. Don’t forget you said you’d make tots!”
Madoc worked at not smiling like a big goof. He knew Gus had a life of his own and probably a million things to do more interesting than staying in on a Saturday night. Still, Gus stuck around most nights and seemed content doing so.
He’s a good friend.
A good friend who’d bonded with Valerie too. Madoc’s girl was very tactile with Gus, patting his hair or shoulder when they were close, clearly enjoying talking with him whether they were setting the table or just chilling while Gus showed her how to brush Lemonade’s fur. She was leaning into Gus’s side now for a mutual half-hug as he wished her goodnight, a gesture that both warmed and tugged at Madoc’s heart.
Valerie wasn’t missing her mom; she’d only asked Madoc once about Noelene’s extended absence and hardly blinked when he hadn’t given her much info. And maybe that was to be expected given Noelene had always done so goddamned much to put distance between herself and her daughter.
These nights with Gus and his kitty, though … Valerie would miss them when Gus went back to working the night shift and her life reverted to a new version of ‘normal’ that didn’t include Noelene at all. Madoc still had no idea what that world was going to look like but knew it was time he set the stage for his girl.
“I want to talk about your mom,” he said as he tucked Valerie into bed. “And about how she and I usually cooperate on decisions about who you live with and where you go to school.”
Settling back against the pillows, Valerie nodded. “You talked to the judge when you and Noelene got a divorce,” she said. “An’ the judge said you and Noelene make a team but that I belong with you, right?”
Madoc forced a smile. His custody agreement with Noelene was layered and nuanced, thousands of words filling a thick document that laid out the painstaking details of how two people could work together to care for a child. A child who didn’t care about nuances or details and simply wanted to be with the parent who made her feel loved.
“You have such a good memory! And I wanted you to know I’ve decided to go back to the judge.” Madoc took a seat on the mattress. “I’m going to tell her it should only be me making the decisions from now on. That way, you and I can do our stuff on our own while your mom does her stuff on her own. Noelene wants to get her own place, away from Boston, and I think it’s a great time for us to move everything out of your sleepover room upstairs down here to this room.”
“Even the bed?”
“Well, no, not the bed or the furniture because you already have all of that here in this room.”
“Ah! But what about Uncle T?” For the first time, Valerie looked concerned. “If Noelene moves away and I don’t do sleepovers, is he gonna get lonely? Because I don’t want that.”
“Uncle T’s going to miss your mom, but we’ll still see him all the time. He’ll just have sleepovers down here when he kid-sits you overnight instead of the other way around.”
“Oh-h-h, I get it now.” Valerie mulled that over for a few beats, pointing and flexing her feet beneath the quilt a few times before she spoke again. “So, Noelene’s not coming back?”
“I really don’t think so, honey.” Madoc took Valerie’s hand. “And that’s okay for us and your mom. She has stuff going on she needs to figure out, and if living somewhere else helps her do that, I want to support her.”
“Because you’re in love?”
The guarded expression on Valerie’s face bruised Madoc’s heart.
“I love your mom for giving me you,” he said, running his thumb over her knuckles. “But no, she and I are not in love. Noelene is still part of my family, same way you and Uncle T are, and I always want my family to have good lives. Does that make sense?”
Valerie was quiet a beat, eyes searching Madoc’s face, looking for what he couldn’t guess. But she nodded at last. “Yah, it does.”
“Good.” Bending over, Madoc pressed a kiss to his girl’s cheek. “I love you lots.”
“I love you lots back, my honey,” she said, then slipped her arms around Madoc’s neck and dragged him down for a hug. “I’m glad you’re my family.”
Chuckling, Madoc gathered her close. “I’m glad of that too, Val, every single day.”