Chapter Two #2
Austin wanted to argue that wasn’t true—wanted to volunteer to take all those tins home with him—but where would he put them? He didn’t have a ton of room at his place, and he needed to keep the shop tidy.
“Look,” Joe said, “if it got dog crap on it, would you clean it off? If not, it’s garbage.”
In spite of himself, Austin snorted. “That’s, uh… that’s an interesting metric.”
Joe grinned. “It’s what my mom tells her clients when they’re decluttering before listing a house. It works, though.”
“Fair enough.”
With that in mind, and the help of the extra-large box of extra-large garbage bags, they cleared off the rest of the countertops and then stopped for a water break.
Automatically, Austin moved toward the fridge—it would be great if DeeDee had some bottled water in there; that stuff didn’t go bad—but Joe stepped in front of him. “Whoa, whoa. That thing does not get opened inside the house.”
Austin looked at the fridge, then at the doorway to the kitchen. “Where were you planning on opening it?”
“Honestly, I was thinking about padlocking it shut and burying it in the yard—”
Outside, a car door slammed.
Austin blinked. “Were you expecting someone?”
Joe closed his eyes. “Oh Jesus,” he said. “That’s probably my kids.”
“Your kids,” Austin said slowly, eyeing Joe up. Nope, Joe still looked about his age, and barring high-school pregnancy, not old enough to have kids over the age of middle school.
“Not like biologically or legally,” Joe admitted, “but emotionally?” He led the way out of the kitchen and toward the hall. Curious, Austin followed.
“I have questions.”
Joe sighed. “Most people do.”
Austin opened his mouth but was cut off by the arrival of four teenagers. Unless he missed his guess, they were recent high-school grads or just about to be.
They stumbled to a halt, gazes jumping everywhere as they looked around the house, clearly just as curious about the contents as Joe and Austin.
“What are you doing here?” Joe sighed, sounding for all the world like a weary single parent.
Four heads snapped in their direction. “Joe!” said the tallest and most energetic of the group. He practically vibrated.
Then all four of them caught sight of Austin, lingering behind Joe. After a beat, they burst into laughter, and before Joe or Austin could say anything, they stumbled back out of the house into the rain.
Austin blinked. “Was it something I said?”
“If anyone ever tells you they’re going to adopt a bunch of preteen kids, tell them no.” Joe shook his head and went back to the kitchen.
“So many questions,” Austin whispered.
JOE CONTEMPLATED next steps while his devil children lost their collective shit over Austin.
His hair was pulled back into a ponytail today so that it was out of his face, and he’d tied a bandana around his head, presumably to protect it from dust and other questionable content. If Joe’s hair weren’t short, he’d probably have done the same.
But even without the photo-ready curls, Austin still looked extremely kissable, in spite of—or maybe because of?—the old work clothes.
“So,” Austin started when he rejoined Joe in the kitchen.
Joe shook his head, but he might as well answer the questions now instead of waiting. “I taught Meg how to swim years ago, God, before she had braces. I grew fond and she came with an entourage.”
“I see,” Austin said, in a tone that implied that he didn’t but was too polite to say so.
Joe wasn’t going to drop I was a lonely only child and so were three of them on a guy he just met.
“Meg’s a good kid, and I was kind of like a big brother after a while.
” He pulled open a cupboard and started sorting, needing to keep his hands busy.
“Which is around the time that I noticed the total lack of adult supervision happening in their lives. Meg’s parents are good people but busy.
The other three….” Gavin’s parents had a messy divorce and made it their seven-year-old’s problem, Alex’s mom didn’t get sober until two years ago, and Will’s family believes in conversion therapy.
Joe cleared his throat. The kids would be back any second.
Now was not the time to vent his true feelings on the matter.
“Let’s just say there is a reason I tell them to eat their vegetables. ”
“Got it.”
He didn’t—he couldn’t. But if they were going to be spending time together while they cleaned out this house and got it ready to sell, then he would eventually. The kids would be around. Alex, Gavin, and Will would be here as much as Joe let them. They didn’t really have anywhere else to go.
The kids came bounding back inside, damp, Gavin and Meg in the lead—Meg because she clearly felt some ownership over the house and the adventure, and Gavin because he was always in the lead.
Will and Alex followed more slowly. Now that the initial reaction was over, they held back to better assess Austin.
Will measured him up with curious brown eyes.
Joe wasn’t sure what Will looked for or saw, but he always read people right.
After the time Will started refusing to go to the local Mac’s Milk and then the cashier got arrested for child porn, Joe trusted Will’s gut.
Alex sucked their bottom lip, playing with their lip ring, then tossed their head to get their hair out of their eyes.
Three months ago, Alex had disappeared one Saturday afternoon to return with half their head shaved and the rest of their blond hair dyed purple.
It was blue now, but they’d kept up the undercut.
“Okay, so I’ve prepared a list of questions,” Gavin announced, because no amount of ADHD medication could curb his curiosity or dampen his energy.
“Shut up,” Meg cut in, elbowing Gavin in the gut. He wheezed and whined about her pointy elbows. “Me first.”
Meg held her hand out to Austin, who stripped off his right work glove and took her hand. “Meg Mitchell. DeeDee was my grandmother. Why did she leave you her house?”
“Meg,” Joe groaned. Meg might not yet qualify for adulthood, but she was old enough to have some tact.
“What? I want to know! Don’t you want to know? Four months looking for him. I’m dying to hear the story.” Meg settled her hands on her hips. It might have looked silly on another young woman, but on Meg it highlighted the breadth of her shoulders and the muscles in her arms.
“You could at least let the man introduce himself before you start the interrogation.”
“Why? He’s clearly Austin Taylor, the guy who owns the other half of this house.”
“How does that work, anyway? Do you divide the house up front to back, or top to bottom?” Gavin wondered.
“They’re not going to saw it in half and take it home, Gav.” Alex rolled their eyes. “It’s not a danish.”
“But, like, what if they both want to live here?” Gavin turned to Alex.
“Why would they want to live here?” Alex shot back, somehow managing to encompass all of the many reasons cohabitation—or, in fact, any habitation—in this house at this time was a terrible idea.
Austin’s lips quirked. “There wasn’t a letter,” he said, addressing Meg.
“So I don’t know. I fixed her lawn mower once and she kept inviting me to lunch on Sundays.
I came. Which, uh—” He glanced around at them, his half-smile twisting into a slight grimace.
“—I probably would not have done if I’d ever seen the kitchen. ”
For a moment Meg evaluated him. “So you were, like, friends. Cool.”
Joe was just glad they were paying attention to each other and not him, because now he was remembering all DeeDee’s too-casual invitations and developing a sudden humiliating suspicion why she’d left him half a house.
She never had taken to Paul.
“Hellspawn, introductions go two ways, you know,” Joe put in when he’d schooled his features. “Austin, as mentioned, this is Meg Mitchell, DeeDee’s granddaughter.”
Meg shook back chlorine-streaked damp hair and smiled. “Hi.”
“And this is Gavin Chalmers. Don’t let those baby blues fool you, he’s the ringleader even if Meg’s the brains of the operation.”
“I resemble that remark,” Gavin said and ripped off a salute.
“This one’s Will”—Joe indicated his skinny twink-wannabe son in his hand-me-down jeans and flannel—“and finally Alex, the light of my life, the child of my heart, the fruit of my loom—”
“Blessed be the Fruit,” the four of them intoned.
Alex added, “My pronouns are they/them.”
Joe loved them all so fucking much.
Austin said, “Nice to meet you,” and looked back and forth between them like he expected one of them to explode.
Good, Joe thought; obviously he’d clocked the vibe.
“So hey,” Gavin said, “are we going to look around or what? Personally I’m excited to excavate—”
That was Joe’s cue. He clapped Gavin on the shoulder. “Glad to hear it.” He steered the kid toward the dining room, collecting the others in his wake. “Minions! Grab some work gloves from that box and let’s get going. We’re wasting daylight.”
“It’s literally dark outside,” Will said.
“What’s that?” Joe asked. “You volunteer to clean the bathroom?”
Behind him, he heard Austin snort.
“He means we would be happy to help,” Alex translated, catching up. They smacked Will in the chest with a pair of work gloves.
“That’s what I thought. Keep the gossip to a dull roar, please. I have to own property with this man for at least a few months, and he won’t trust me if he realizes what a band of miscreants I’ve raised.”
Meg booed, obviously having translated that correctly as Don’t embarrass me or I won’t let you help when Austin’s around.
“If it’s trash, trash it. If it’s salvageable, save it. If it needs more investigating, set it aside and Austin and I will go over it later.” He paused. “Maybe ask Meg if it looks like it might have sentimental value.”
He weaved them around boxes and rolled-up carpets and a beat-up rocking horse that might actually be as old as the house, and deposited them in the living room.
Impossibly, there was a fishtank, still with water in it, lit and bubbling, though Joe didn’t see any fish.
God, he hoped they died long before DeeDee, instead of slowly starving to death.
“You can start in here,” he said. Nobody was going upstairs until he’d had a chance to test the floors, because even if the roof didn’t leak now—and he didn’t think it did, based on the lack of water damage on the ceilings—that didn’t mean it hadn’t in the past. There could be dry rot, or termites, or God knew what else.
“But we want to help in the kitchen!” Gavin protested.
“There is barely room enough for me and Austin in the kitchen.” Thank God for that, even if it would make the place a pain in the ass to sell later. “This is the only room big enough for all four of you without being emptied out first. Take it or leave it.”
Meg narrowed her eyes in a teasing challenge. “We could split up—”
“Nope. Buddy system. Just in case there’s a mummified rat.” Also because she and Alex used to be inseparable, but they had been low-key sniping at each other lately, and Joe figured witnesses would keep the bloodshed to a minimum.
Gavin perked up. “Have you found—”
“No!” Joe wondered if he had any Advil left in his truck. “Okay, well, here you are. Your work’s cut out for you. Try not to get in trouble.”
The four of them rolled their eyes in unison. “Yes, Dad.”
Unsurprisingly, the kids were enthusiastic workers. Their curiosity to see everything meant that they happily tackled box after box, sorting, tossing, and laughing.
Once Joe got them set up with the three-piles system and several garbage bags—“Seriously, kids, if it’s garbage, it’s garbage.”—he went back to the kitchen.
“Life tip: there’s no point in having kids if you can’t occasionally use them as free child labor.”
Austin snorted. “Is this your pro-parenthood pitch?”
“Yes.” Joe nodded, straight-faced. “If having loyal minions doesn’t appeal to you, you’re not cut out for parenting.”
Austin barked out a laugh and shook his head. “Good to know.” He pulled a box of crackers from the cupboard, frowned at the open flap, and threw it into a garbage bag. “Once I realized I couldn’t accidentally impregnate any of my partners, I stopped thinking about kids.”
His tone was so light, Joe suspected it hid some deeper feelings. “Uh.”
Austin paused and examined the box of pasta now in his grip. “Though I guess it’s theoretically possible for trans men to get pregnant.” He shrugged and put the pasta—unopened—in a box.
Joe stared for a beat. The kids can never know was his first ungenerous—and unrealistic—thought.
Once they found out Austin was gay as well as hot, they would not rest until Joe proposed marriage.
This thought was followed in rapid succession by Screw you, DeeDee and vague surprise at how casually Austin was willing to come out.
Then again, Joe had just introduced him to his nonbinary child without blinking.
Shaking those thoughts away, he opened a cupboard a few feet from Austin and started his own excavation.
Then, putting on the most casual of tones, he said, “I can’t say newborns are on my radar either, what with the four kids already.
But I guess an accidental baby is a theoretical possibility since I’m bi. ”
Two could play at this game.
“Fair enough.” Austin kept sorting through his cupboard. Before either of them could say anything else, a loud gurgling noise came from the sink.
Joe froze and turned toward the source of the sound.
“Is that—” Joe started.
“Can’t be good,” Austin said.
The sink gurgled again, and Joe and Austin looked at each other. For a moment they were locked in a staring contest, playing chicken to see who would approach first.
“I do plants. You’re the mechanic.”
“Cars generally don’t come with sinks,” Austin pointed out, but he stepped across the room and peered down into the sink. “Well, fuck.”
Joe closed his eyes. “What is it?”
“Uh, looks like the sink might back up in the rain.”
Fuck indeed. Joe braced himself and took the three steps across the kitchen to peer over Austin’s shoulder.
The basin was slowly filling with murky water, bubbling up from the drain. At least it wasn’t as gross as Joe had feared. But it wasn’t exactly an appetizing sight for the kitchen.
“Fuck,” Joe repeated out loud, fighting the urge to groan. “That looks like a job for a professional.”