Chapter Thirteen #2
“Can I finish breakfast first?”
“That is so valid. Eat. Then come. But forward me anything you can so I can get started going through them.”
“Got it.” Robbie hung up and started his own phone-with-breakfast duo, though he bet his scroll through his email was less fun that Sawyer’s on his socials.
An hour later they arrived at Eugene’s office—a small homey space on the second floor of a repurposed nineteenth-century home now smack in the middle of a commercial high street—and then stayed there for a couple more hours writing statements and helping Eugene write up an explanation as to why Robbie wasn’t just a fit parent but was Sawyer’s parent, and Sawyer’s grandparents might be biologically related, but they were not fit parents.
Especially not for Robbie’s kid, who they routinely belittled and deadnamed.
By the time Eugene sent them home, Robbie was drained and his eyes were itchy and a headache was building. He wanted ice cream and Finn. Sawyer didn’t look much better. Thank God Eugene needed more of Robbie’s time than Sawyer’s and had sent the kid into his waiting room to escape the nonsense.
Though Robbie wasn’t sure how relaxing the room was, given Eugene’s choice of decoration—a mix between whatever struck his fancy at the secondhand shops, like the amateur still life with a banana that looked more like a dildo or the vintage poster of Smokey the Bear, and a series of comedy posters from China that had used subpar translating services, so came out more like Dada-ist jokes than pithy puns.
Robbie was still trying to figure out what the intention was behind the poster with a chimp in a suit and the caption I am a lawyer who saves time, says I am always right.
Sometime between leaving Eugene’s office and getting home, Sawyer recovered enough from the emotional turmoil of listing all the reasons he didn’t want to live with his biological grandparents to decide that the best way to deal with the morning was to distract himself.
“So. Robbie. What’s going on with you and Finn?”
Distract himself entirely at Robbie’s expense, Robbie amended mentally. “Nothing that’s your business right now, kid. We talked about that this morning.”
“No,” Sawyer said, in the voice he used when he thought he was being very patient and Robbie was being very stupid, “you avoided talking about that this morning.”
One day, when Sawyer cured cancer or solved world hunger or invented teleportation, Robbie would be able to admit it was a good thing he had more brains than self-restraint.
Today wasn’t that day. “Yeah. I get to do that. I’m an adult.
That’s how this works. Sometimes you ask for things and I say no. ”
To no one’s surprise, Sawyer did not take the hint. “Okay, but, like… are you really friends with benefits? Don’t lie to me about it. Dad lied to me enough.”
Robbie hissed between his teeth. That was below the belt, straight-up manipulation, and it was absolutely going to work because Robbie was a sucker. Put him up against the ghost of his brother’s shitty parenting, he’d swing at every lousy pitch you threw. “It’s complicated, Sawyer.”
“So you’re not friends with benefits?”
Jesus Christ. Robbie wasn’t rethinking his stance on becoming Sawyer’s legal guardian, but he was considering taking up guided meditation.
Or ax-throwing. Could go either way. “I’m not talking about this right now, okay?
Not,” he added quickly, “because I’m avoiding it.
” He was kind of avoiding it, but mostly “Because it’s a conversation I need to have with Finn first.”
For a few seconds, he thought Sawyer had actually accepted the boundary, but no. He had one last push. “But you wouldn’t, like…. It’s just that Imogen said…. And Finn is really nice!”
Robbie needed him to fill in some of those blanks. “Give me a little more to go on, kid.”
Sawyer huffed out a gusty breath. “Finn is sensitive, okay? His ex-girlfriend messed him up and he doesn’t date a lot and he’s just nice. I don’t want him to get hurt.”
Something cold settled in Robbie’s stomach. That was the second time today someone had insinuated that he was hurting Finn. He could’ve dismissed Gail’s texts as just her being a mom, though he probably wouldn’t have. So what did Gail and Sawyer know that Robbie didn’t?
“Why does everyone think I want to hurt Finn?” The words were out of his mouth before he could think better of them. “I—”
I love Finn.
Okay, yeah, no, he definitely wasn’t spitting that out to Sawyer before he said it to Finn. And not before he’d had a little time to process it himself either.
“You?” Sawyer prompted when Robbie didn’t finish the sentence.
“I’m not that kind of guy,” Robbie finished weakly.
He could feel the intensity of the teenage side-eye. “Are you sure? Because friends with benefits kind of sounds like someone’s going to get hurt. And you’re not giving injured.”
Fuck. Was Robbie being an asshole? Surely Finn didn’t really think Robbie meant it when he gave Sawyer the friendship brush-off this morning.
Robbie thought he’d been pretty clear that he was in this for the long haul, he just needed to prioritize Sawyer until this whole brother-in-prison, parents-are-douchebags scenario was over.
Oooor, Finn had thought Robbie meant he couldn’t make him a priority ever, in which case Robbie was definitely the asshole and probably owed Finn some expensive jewelry and a lot of groveling.
Maybe Sawyer realized he’d lost Robbie to the inside of his own thoughts, because he didn’t push further.
They picked up báhn mi for lunch on the way home, and then stopped at the boutique grocery store for a pre-made stir-fry Robbie could serve without feeling like a parental failure but which did not involve him cooking anything else today.
By the time they walked in the door, it was two in the afternoon and his body was reminding him that until a few weeks ago, this was nap time.
He didn’t think he’d be able to sleep restfully until he talked to Finn, and even if he could, he didn’t want to try. As soon as Sawyer went downstairs to his video game, Robbie went into his bedroom, pulled the door mostly closed, and took out his phone.
He probably needed to talk to Finn in person. This didn’t seem like the kind of thing he could fix over text. But he didn’t think Finn would answer if Robbie called anyway, if Robbie had fucked this up the way he thought he might have. He’d have to send a text message.
How did you write a text that conveyed, Hey, will you meet me in person, because I think I might’ve accidentally been a huge dick, and I like you way more than you think I do, like in a permanent way?
Any message that conveyed the first part sounded like a precursor to let’s break up, and Finn deserved better than to hear the last part by text.
Maybe this was why people broke up less when they had to communicate by letter. That, and half of them died before they realized they should get divorced.
In the end he settled on All good at the lawyer (or as good as it can be). Miss you already. Talk later?
There. That should get the message across, right? No one would put miss you already before a let’s talk that meant a breakup was imminent.
Robbie groaned and flung himself onto his bed.
He was overthinking this. He was tired, and stressed about his parents, and his brother, and his kid, and he barely even had time to stress about the reality TV contest he was supposed to be putting effort into.
And now he was stressed about Finn because he had been stupid.
He shoved his head under a pillow to try to block further stress from seeping in his ears. It didn’t work. The pillow smelled like Finn’s shampoo.
Robbie was on the verge of thinking he might go insane from the wait and his brain’s rabbiting panic when his phone buzzed.
Sorry can’t text. At a bar.
Robbie stared at his phone, perplexed. He couldn’t text because he was at a bar? Dread filled him. Robbie asked to talk, sure, and calls and bars didn’t mix, but….
Is it too loud in there to text? haha
Robbie waited, staring at his phone, but Finn didn’t answer. The message stayed unread.
Shit. Robbie had really fucked this up.
Ten minutes later, he was hollering to Sawyer about going to the grocery store. And truthfully, Robbie meant to channel his energy into a productive food run. Honest.
But an hour later, he handed over his black credit card for a four-thousand-dollar purchase that he only really considered the sheer insanity of when the clerk was swiping the card.
“Actually, can I add something else?” he asked, because he couldn’t cancel the purchase. He had to buy it now he’d found it, but…
The sales clerk beamed. “Of course, sir, what would you like?”
Robbie pointed and refused to second—third?—guess himself.
He didn’t even argue when the clerk upsold him to a near identical but twice as expensive model.
It was all for Finn, because Robbie was going to fix this.