One Day in October #2
“It’s got so many calories,” Isaac told her. “I save it for big deals. I was going to serve the banana kind for your birthday, but….” His smile went a little soggy. “You were both so, so stressed. Tell me what you’re thinking about doing?”
“We were going to visit our parents,” Luca said softly. “For closure. To know they weren’t an option. And also to… to….”
“To say neener, neener, neener, we have lives and they’re not in them,” Allegra admitted, staring at the last bit of pudding in her bowl. “How many calories?” she asked wistfully.
“None,” Isaac told her, taking the bowl and adding another piece of the layered dessert. “No calories. Absolutely guilt-free.”
She gave him a grateful glance. “You’re the second-best brother a girl could have,” she said sincerely.
“I’m proud of that,” Isaac said, and then he kissed Luca’s cheek. “But you know Luca’s a lot to live up to.”
He sat down and stared at his own dessert, which was not looking nearly as tasty now. “When were you guys going to do this?”
“Well, my birthday’s Saturday,” Allegra said. “And according to Nonna, my parents don’t do anything on Saturday nights, and we know they haven’t moved….”
She shrugged, and Isaac got the picture.
“You’re doing this on your birthday?” he said, almost horrified.
“Baby—I feel like maybe, since, you know, you can’t get shitfaced afterwards, maybe you should do it the day after your birthday.
Like, have a great birthday—Sophia and Pop Pop are coming over on Saturday.
Now that I’m out of the weeds, I have all sorts of plans for afternoon dinner and a cake and another dessert like this one and a whole celebration thing that revolves around you and not the stranger in your uterus, you know? ”
Allegra turned dewy eyes to him. “Really? Like what?”
“Well, Roxy and Brian and the kids were coming over, and Marcelle and Sheryl wanted to come, and—”
“Your students?” Allegra asked wistfully. “They can come?”
“You’re pregnant, honey. If we can keep Nonna and Pop Pop from serving wine—”
“Leave that to me,” Luca said. “I know you can lose your job.”
Isaac gave him a grateful glance. “And Jimmy Bob and his niece.”
Luca and Allegra exchanged glances. “You planned all this already?” Luca asked, sounding a little blown away.
“Well, yes.” Isaac gave him his most hopeful smile.
“You guys, I’m so grateful for you. Both of you.
And Luca, I know your birthday is in early March, but Allegra, this is a big birthday.
I wanted you to know I appreciate you. You’re a good roommate.
I’m… I know I’m not an official anything in your life, but I’m looking forward to your baby so much.
And the baby is going to be here in December, which is always a whirlwind, and I wanted a day to celebrate you. ”
Allegra mopped her face with one of Isaac’s cloth napkins, but Isaac didn’t care, not even when she blew her nose.
“I think that sounds awesome,” she sobbed, and Luca shifted his chair next to her so he could wrap his arm around her shoulders.
“I think my boyfriend is kind of the best,” Luca said, meeting his eyes.
Luca’s eyes were shiny, and he seemed to be having trouble swallowing.
Isaac handed him another cloth napkin, and Luca wiped his eyes and blew his nose with it, the same way his sister had, and Isaac realized that he truly didn’t care.
Not even if he had to throw the napkins away.
Love wasn’t having cloth napkins that lasted a millennium.
Love was giving something to people you cared about that meant so much it made them cry.
How had Isaac not known that before?
His parents had loved him like that. Unconditionally. Without blinking—not at his obsession with The National in high school, not at his unrequited love for Gavin Rossdale and Katy Perry. He had a sudden moment, a memory, of the last birthday he’d ever spent with them.
It had been his twenty-second, and he’d been about to graduate from college and start the teaching credential program, and they’d taken him and his college roommate to Disneyland, and they had eaten dinner in the restaurant that looked out over the bayou in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. And as exciting as that had been….
His mother, holding his hand as they brought him his dessert with the sparklers in it. “Oh, honey—this went so fast. Thanks for letting us celebrate this with you.”
“Mom….” Isaac had given his roommate—a sweet straight boy named Rob, who had stayed up late gaming with him through their entire senior year—an embarrassed glance.
“No,” his father said, also looking surprisingly wobbly for a man who didn’t get excited at much of anything except a new sports stadium in Sacramento. “She’s right. You grew up so fast. Thanks so much for letting us celebrate with you.”
He’d smiled then, and gotten a little wobbly himself, and the whole time he was thinking, This is stupid. I’m only twenty-two—hell, they’re only forty-five. We’ll be celebrating for a long, long time.
Except they’d had less than a year, and the year after they’d passed, he’d been with Todd, and Todd had “wanted Isaac all to himself.”
And except for Roxy’s kids, Isaac had given up on birthdays, until now. Now… now he knew that life went fast, and the people you really wanted to celebrate weren’t always there to be loved.
It was amazing how much celebration you could throw into your world when you realized what was important.
That night, in bed, Luca had held Isaac close like he always did—always—not on birthdays or special occasions or when Isaac had done something nice or was sad.
Always.
But tonight, Luca told him haltingly, not only about how his parents had kicked him out, but how his parents had kicked him out. How he’d trusted in his childhood, trusted in their love, and they’d betrayed him, and then Allegra, in the worst way possible.
“Oh, baby,” Isaac said softly. “Do you… you’re not hoping for anything, are you?”
“No,” Luca said quickly.
Too quickly.
Isaac just regarded him silently, because Luca wasn’t a child. He knew when he was fooling himself.
“If nothing else,” he said reluctantly, “I’m hoping they give Allegra a second chance.
” He shrugged, his heavily muscled shoulders rippling in Isaac’s arms. “I’m pretty sure they’re both homophobic as hell—the flag in front of their house hasn’t changed in the last ten years—but Allegra…
I mean, she’s gonna be a mom, Isaac. Shouldn’t they love her baby more than their stupid religion or patriotism or whatever? ”
“You’d think,” Isaac said. He was remembering that terrible moment with Angel sobbing in his classroom—in the closet in his room, actually, hidden by the lost-and-found coats—while Isaac got the shit beat out of him.
The same sickness infecting Luca’s parents had infected that mob, and they were both old enough to know that while a child’s love, a child’s need for love, should have been a cure, it was most obviously not.
Luca sighed. “I like your idea,” he said. “We give Allegra a wonderful day, and then, on Sunday, we hit them after church, and we give them one last chance.”
“And then we go out for pancakes,” Isaac said happily. To his eternal gratitude, Luca laughed shortly.
“That’s your cure? Pancakes?”
“Don’t pancakes cure everything?” Isaac asked innocently. They both knew it wasn’t true, but for this moment, this painful moment, Isaac wanted it so badly to be true.
“Absolutely,” Luca said, grunting as Euclid jumped from the head of the bed to his chest. “So do kittens.”
“Mmm….” Isaac stroked his cat’s ears, loving more and more how the goofy orange thing made his home a better place. “I’m so lucky I have one.”
“A kitten?” Luca asked.
“A hotcake,” Isaac told him pertly.
Luca laughed—quietly, but it was a true, warm laugh, and Isaac felt like maybe he’d returned just a little to Luca and Allegra that they had given to him.
That moment with his parents in the restaurant at Disneyland, with the friend who still sent him Christmas cards of his wife and adorable children and called him up six times a year, flowed behind his eyes like water.
Family. Those sad, quiet years with Todd, how had he forgotten that this was what family was all about?
“Luca?” he said softly into the sleeping silence.
“Yeah?”
“I want to come with you and Allegra when you see your parents, even if I wait in the car to take you both to ice cream. I mean, pancakes.”
“Aw… Isaac….”
“What?” Isaac rolled to his side, the better to meet Luca’s eyes. “What are you afraid I’ll see?”
Luca glanced away. “I’m…. Allegra and I, we’re gonna be a mess.”
“Luca, remember back in May when I trauma dumped all over you because my dead husband really messed me up?”
Luca huffed out a breath. “You didn’t trauma dump—”
“I so totally fucking did.”
Luca feathered a touch through Isaac’s hair. “You were hurting.”
“And you were practically a stranger, and you… you listened to me. You were kind. Let me be there. Let me hurt with you. Let me drive you both to ice cream—”
“Pancakes.”
“Sure. You believe that. Let me drive you there while you cry in the back. Let me take care of you while you and your sister take care of each other. I-I won’t think less of you for hoping, Luca, just like you didn’t think less of me for being mad at the dead. What do you say?”
Luca breathed out and nuzzled his ear. “Sure,” he murmured. “I always dreamed I’d have a guy who wanted to take care of me.”
“Yeah?” Isaac wouldn’t mind being Luca’s dream guy. “Am I that guy?”
“Even better. We take care of each other.”
Isaac’s body relaxed a little as Luca continued to nuzzle. “Would you like me to take care of you?” he asked coyly.
“After that dessert tonight?” Luca asked, moving the kisses to Isaac’s neck under his sleepshirt. “I think you’re the one getting the gratitude blow job.”
“Oooh….” Luca’s lips under the shirt, grazing his nipples, were all he needed for the pulse of desire to wake him up.