Chapter Nine #2
Robbie rubbed his face. “Ask me tomorrow. Is it bad that I’m kinda grateful the idiot got arrested so I can finally get formal guardianship? And maybe official custody one day?”
“Frankly, I’d be impressed if you weren’t.”
“Thanks.” Robbie smiled at him. “And not just for today. For all of it. Seriously, Eugene. I’d have been a mess today without you.”
“Nah, you’d have handled everything just fine,” he disagreed with a wave of his hand. “You’re a natural—dad vibes all the way down.”
Robbie snorted.
And then his phone buzzed with a notification—a text from Finn.
He opened the message and found an image of a freshly replaced bathroom faucet. International handyman of mystery.
Finn had unforeseen depths, apparently. Impressive, but how are you at cleaning pizza charcoal out of ovens?
There was a clatter as Eugene set his feet on the coffee table and assessed him. “Something else on your mind, man? Cause your aura just did like a pretty quick 180.” He eyed Robbie’s phone meaningfully.
Robbie took a deep pull of beer to give himself a minute. He’d never explicitly come out to Eugene, but he was pretty sure he knew anyway. “I’m… seeing someone.”
“Oh, love is in the air.” He nodded sagely. “Happy for you, my guy. Someone special?”
“Yeah. It’s still new, but… yeah.” Special. Understatement. Robbie was ass over tits. He had no idea how he was supposed to keep their relationship under wraps for five more weeks. He’d be lucky if he got to Tuesday without asking Finn to move in with him.
Eugene wiped a dribble of beer from his hipster beard. “So like, you introduce them to Sawyer yet?”
Them. Yep, Eugene knew. Now Robbie just had to confirm it.
He could totally do that. He’d gone on TV and made an ass of himself learning how to ice dance.
He’d stood in front of ninety-mile-an-hour slap shots.
On purpose. “Sawyer’s met him,” he said, furiously annoyed with his heart for beating so fast. “But he doesn’t know we’re…
.” Meeting up in hotels for undernegotiated kink and frantically sexting each other when we can’t. “Dating,” he finished.
“Hmm.” Eugene didn’t react to the pronoun. Of course he didn’t. The stupid yet inevitable ball of tension in Robbie’s stomach loosened. “You afraid Sawyer doesn’t like him?”
The tension disappeared completely as Robbie snorted. “Sawyer thinks he’s the bee’s knees. He might like him better than he likes me.”
“So then what’s the holdup?”
“Aside from not wanting to give anyone ammunition to deny me custody of my kid? It uh. Has to stay secret for a while for… other reasons.”
“Got it. Major Romeo and Juliet energy.”
“Something like that.”
Eugene tapped the side of his nose. “Say no more, brah. Discretion.”
“Exactly.” Somehow Robbie had reached the bottom of his beer. He got up for a second. “Anyway, enough about me. Tell me all the office gossip.”
Eugene employed a rotating cast of college-age kids in various capacities—part-time, clerical work, paralegals, law students.
They were all completely hapless adults.
Stories of their ineptitude could soften the impact of even the most embarrassing of hockey blowouts.
Robbie once let in four goals in five minutes and got pulled not even halfway into the first period, and that night Eugene had him in stitches because Michaela the weekend receptionist had hired someone to water her fake plant when she was on spring break in Florida.
Obviously Eugene knew when it was his time to shine. He sat up straighter, looked both ways like he was checking for eavesdroppers, and leaned forward across the table. “Okay, so remember I said how Jill was dating a crypto bro and we were all like, ‘girl, stop’? Well….”
Finn barely heard from Robbie Wednesday night.
He tried not to let that get to him. After all, the more they talked or saw each other, the less discreet the whole thing would get.
That didn’t make it easier to feel like he was in the dark about what was happening, but he didn’t want to be the guy who sent fifteen needy texts in a row begging for attention, especially when he’d been a weirdo about liking Robbie in public the day before. He still had his self-respect, damn it.
So he texted his fourteen-year-old stepsister to see what she was up to. Nothing, it turned out, because Sawyer had cancelled on her.
Finn put that alarming news from his mind—he hoped the Zeiger boys were okay—and picked her up for a consolation date. Not that she knew about his own cancelled plans, but teens were good at being the Main Character and she didn’t ask, just accepted his offer to buy ice cream and host a sleepover.
“So, grocery and then my place?” Finn asked when she got into the car.
She regarded him with serious eyes for a long moment, then declared, “I think I need something more distracting. And also violent. Laser tag first?”
His baby sister was a genius.
“You book the tickets, I’ll drive.”
By the time she was painting his toenails bright pink, Finn was almost too tired and full of ice cream to worry about his silent phone. Almost.
At least she helped save him from being a crazy person who sent too many unanswered texts.
He was glad he hadn’t made it all about him when he arrived at the rink Thursday morning and found Robbie in their usual meeting room, looking like a lobotomized raccoon.
Finn raised his eyebrows. “Long night?”
Clutching the largest travel coffee cup Finn had ever seen, Robbie gave him a pathetic look. “What gave it away?”
“Lucky guess.” Finn set his own breakfast—a protein smoothie—on the little table and sank into the chair across from Robbie. “Want to talk about it?”
“I’d like to drink about it,” Robbie grumbled, “but it would be counterproductive. My brother got arrested, so now Sawyer’s parental situation has been brought to the attention of the law.
Which would be fine, because I no longer have to hound him for custody.
I just have to convince CAS I’m the best option.
Except it turns out he also dropped the ball on telling the court my parents should not get visitation rights.
Like, he didn’t even tell us a hearing was scheduled.
So now Sawyer’s grandparents, who misgender and deadname him, have a visitation date set. ”
“Shit.” No wonder Finn hadn’t heard from him last night. “Is Sawyer still with you?”
“Yes, they didn’t see any reason to take him away. But now we’ve got impending social-worker visits, and we’ve got to cross our fingers and hope a family court judge reads our petition for an injunction before Sawyer has to see my genetic donors. Sawyer’s a worrier and he’s… worrying.”
Finn blinked in surprise. “Shit.”
“Yeah. He even cancelled a sleepover with Imogen last night.”
“So I heard. I was the rebound sleepover buddy,” he explained at Robbie’s frown.
“Surprised you weren’t invited in the first place.”
“I was holding out for a different invitation, but I guess, uh—” Shit, keep it professional at work, Finn. “—someone was busy with more important things.”
Robbie grimaced. “But much less pleasant ones.” He leaned forward as if to put his hand over Finn’s, then caught himself and sighed. “Okay. Let me finish downing this heart attack in a cup and we can go do the practice thing. A little physical activity will be good for me.”
Finn guessed Robbie had plenty of practice pushing personal drama out of his mind, because he was dialed in to learn their individual choreography that morning and focused for group rehearsal.
He still had occasional trouble with the graceful arm movements required of a dancer, but that was because he had the wingspan of a California condor, and if he got too into it, he would accidentally smack someone in the face.
So far it had only happened to Finn once—Stef busted up laughing when it knocked him on his ass—and Emily twice, because the group choreography had them closer together.
Finn held out hope he’d smack Chad instead and make it look like an accident, but so far, no dice.
Then the cast broke for lunch. They were off until four, which was the makeup call; Robbie gave Finn a forlorn look but went home to call his lawyer and hopefully have a nap, while Finn parked his ass on the couch in Holly’s office with a book over his face and dozed off for two hours.
Thursday night’s group number went off mostly without a hitch.
Finn had to hand it to Stef—the choreography might not be what he’d have put together, but it was fun and the audience loved it.
The wardrobe department had a field day putting everyone in circus-inspired costumes.
They dressed Chad as a strongman, which he clearly enjoyed, and Robbie as a magician.
Emily wore the red jacket with gold trim of a lion tamer, and her partner was her lion.
Finn was pretty sure he was supposed to be an acrobat, with the tight-fitting black leggings and tank top, but maybe he was a tightrope walker?
Either way, he didn’t miss the way Robbie looked at him in it, even if his only comment was a relatively mild “Nice cleavage.”
Finn looked down at his chest hair peeking out from the neck of the top, then glanced over his shoulder at his ass. “Which set?”
Then, of course, Chad stormed by in his tiny strongman getup and scowled at them both, which had the same effect as a bucket of ice water.
They did the group dance number and then headed backstage to change again before they settled in the stands to watch the competing pairs.
Halfway through the second performance, Finn saw the writing on the wall. Kevin was headed home. He couldn’t keep up, and Emily had been charming even when she lacked full proficiency.
Afterward, they headed backstage for one last change—just because they looked casual, didn’t mean they were—Finn and Robbie found themselves with about two whole minutes in private.
“Tomorrow?” Robbie purred softly, his eyes making all sorts of promises.