One Day in October
LUCA’S MOVE was so seamless a transition, Isaac only noticed it a week later, when he realized how glad he was that Luca didn’t have to go back to the apartment to make sure the place was still there.
He’d already adapted to leaving his work boots on the porch, going around to the side door to undress, and putting his work clothes in the garage. He kept a robe there, so he could shower in the downstairs bathroom. He even kept clothes in the cupboard.
All the things Todd would have disdained about living with somebody who worked hard for a living, who used his hands and actually made things, Luca minimized with thoughtfulness and common courtesy.
And he was there for Isaac. There were more breakfasts shoved into Isaac’s hand on his way out the door, more coffees made before Isaac got out of the shower, more giant lunches packed before Isaac could even think of what to make.
Isaac still shopped twice a week, and he usually had a meal plan, but Allegra helped, and Luca brought home takeout, and everybody cleaned up, and they were good—so good—at not letting the burden of caring for three people fall too heavily on any one person.
It was one of the most marvelous things Isaac had ever experienced.
And that night, that terrible, painful night after the school had been rocked by the tragedy, Luca had sat next to him, not saying anything, just holding him.
Being there.
Ordering pizza.
Making love to him.
Isaac didn’t have words to explain how much Todd would not have cared about how hard that night was for him.
Todd’s basic understanding for those sorts of emotions seemed to have been broken somehow.
Isaac had mistaken that brokenness for strength, right up until the first time he’d lost a student—that one to cancer.
There are losses in every school. Every teacher has stories like the night Isaac came home to hold Euclid.
It’s part of being human. But until Isaac had come home after Christine Flores’s death, about three years into their marriage, and Todd had stared at his tearstained face like he was a two-headed frog, Isaac hadn’t realized how broken Todd had been.
And how much of that emotional burden Isaac would be forced to carry.
To have Luca sit next to him and hold him, to say he was sorry, to care for Isaac’s emotional health and his physical well-being when Isaac had needed somebody so badly—his lover in particular—that had fixed things in Isaac’s heart that had crumbled over years of neglect.
He could trust a lover now, because a lover could be there for him.
He could enjoy the company of a sister because his sister made his life better.
Suddenly the things he gave to the relationship weren’t things he had to worry about replenishing so he could keep up his strength; they were things that were replenished by the relationship itself.
The epiphany had been awe-inspiring. Amazing. Breathtaking.
And as quiet as looking Luca in those glorious brown eyes and asking him to live in the same house, sleep in the same bed, and be a part of his life.
The sweetness of Luca’s reply, that he’d been waiting for a pricey dinner and a bottle of wine—well, that was the first time it had really hit Isaac that Luca was younger than he was.
Thirty and not thirty-eight. But if you were going to be young, that was the way to do it, right?
With a little bit of idealism, some romantic gestures, some stars in the eyes.
But no selfishness. No callow insistence on his own way. No pouting because everything in Isaac’s life did not revolve around him. And the emotional openness to say, “I wanted to do something nice for you,” as opposed to, “That’s not appropriate, Isaac. We need to do it this way.”
There was no talk of Allegra moving somewhere after she had the baby. There might be eventually. Isaac knew that someday Allegra might find a partner who would deserve her and love her baby like his own—but not now.
Between May and October, they had become a functional little family, with visits from grandparents Isaac had already loved and plans for a baby, in his house, that Isaac couldn’t wait to love.
And a man in his bed that he loved with such sweetness, such purity, he was afraid every morning to wake up and find it was a dream.
So far it had been very, very real—right down to Luca and Allegra pitching in the money for the housekeeping and gardening services because they appreciated them too.
Isaac had only given in on that because they’d felt they should help, not because he wanted them to be one iota different than they were.
After living for ten years in an emotional desert, he’d been gifted this amazing house.
The transaction hadn’t been his intention—when he’d first fallen in love with Todd, he would have lived with him in a shitty apartment or a hovel in the woods.
But the things that had made Todd broken emotionally had also made him good with money, and Isaac found that sharing that with people he could laugh with, play with, love with, gave him a sort of balance, drew things full circle… .
Made him no longer hate the memory of the first man he’d ever loved.
He was absolutely sure Todd wouldn’t have approved of a thing Isaac had done since that evening in May when he’d refused to finish that damned brown sweater, but now Isaac could say, in all honesty, that what Todd approved of—or disapproved of—was no longer a driving force in his life.
That alone was like being freed from a prison in his own heart.
But that didn’t mean he was sure about what to do that night in mid-October.
He and Allegra had spent one of their yarn Saturdays decorating the front yard for Halloween.
(The neighbors two doors down kept trying to get him to call it “Jesusween,” and not only did he refuse, he hadn’t been able to tell Luca about it because he was afraid Luca would decorate for “Jesusween,” and then they’d all be going to hell.) The giant fruitless mulberry tree in his front yard had turned mostly yellow but hadn’t dropped its leaves yet, and the weather, which had been in the hundreds in late September, had dropped to the low eighties and was actually crisp in the mornings.
Putting big monster masks on the front door and along the window sills had been incredibly joyful for the two of them, and hearing Luca’s big laugh as he entered the house from the back had lightened the house every bit as much as the smell of the pumpkin spice candles that Isaac promised Allegra would be the first thing to go once her emerging beachball got legs and became mobile.
So that had been a happy moment—and so had the moment Allegra told him that her birthday was the week before Halloween.
He’d been working on a bolero-style sweater—one that would warm her arms but leave her beachball uncovered and unfettered, and also would fit her next year.
Something that would comfort against the overzealous air conditioning that Luca’s office seemed to emit in the mornings but wouldn’t be too hot as the day got warmer.
It was in a bright magenta, because Allegra was so vibrant and happy (as well as dark-eyed and dark-haired, so the color would look amazing on her) and crocheted in a series of shells and flower-like stitches that just shouted joy.
But Allegra and Luca hadn’t seemed happy. In fact, something had been looming over them, a sour cloud, and now that Isaac’s schedule wasn’t spinning like a roulette wheel and he had his feet under him again schoolwise, he felt like they needed to tell him what was going down.
He wanted to do his part of the emotional support, dammit—they’d both been pretty awesome at it for him.
So on Thursday, because school got out a little earlier that day and he didn’t have any meetings to fill the time, he went shopping for some pork chops, which he threw in marinade as soon as he got home.
By the time Luca and Allegra got home, both of them acting like they’d rather slog through bitter snows to an icy hovel in the heart of Minsk than take one more step into the kitchen, he had one of his best pork chop recipes simmering, along with rice and a tossed salad.
And a layered pudding dessert in the fridge.
Oh yeah. He knew their weaknesses by now. He had no compunction about using their love of good food against them.
Luca and Allegra tried really hard to keep things light and happy during dinner, but when Isaac broke out the pudding dessert, both of them looked like they were going to cry.
“Oh my God!” he said, setting down a whopping big dish of the stuff in front of each of them. “If you two don’t tell me what’s going on, I’m stealing the rest of this and putting it in the staff room!”
“Don’t you dare!” Allegra ordered, her mouth full as she demolished her first bite. She, at least, looked like Snow White after she’d been revived by the prince’s kiss or a magic potion or something. Her eyes were sparkling, and her posture straightened, but her brother was not that easy.
He sat slumped over his dessert, staring at it like it was water but he wasn’t allowed to drink.
Isaac went to him and wrapped his arms around Luca’s shoulders. “Come on, baby,” he murmured. “You can tell me. It’s what I’m here for.”
Luca let out a sigh and seemed to grow a little smaller. “Allegra and I sort of—”
“We don’t have to do it,” Allegra said after swallowing another bite. “It was a stupid deadline. We don’t have to—”
Luca straightened, leaned his cheek against Isaac’s, and smiled sadly. “Baby, we have to. I mean… they might not talk to me. But what if you could have Mom in your life? What if you could have grandparents for the baby? You haven’t said anything, not once, but….”
“But I have Roxy,” she said with dignity. “And Grandma. And Isaac.” She took another bite of pudding. “And this stuff, which may have spoiled me for all other desserts.” She gave Isaac a watery smile. “Seriously, Isaac—I can’t believe you haven’t served this earlier.”