Chapter Five #2
“It’s not too plebian for you?” Jesus, Austin’s knees had forgotten his feet even existed. He was all pins and needles. On the way down the stairs, he held tight to the railing.
Behind him, Joe huffed a laugh. “Nah, it’ll be just like the dinners I made the kids before I learned to cook things that didn’t come out of a box. Nostalgic, practically.”
Austin shook his head. He’d seen the evidence firsthand, and it still seemed impossible that a teenage boy could collect seven-year-olds like orphaned ducklings—that he would want to. How different would his life be now, if he’d had a Joe when he was that age?
“I’m not much of a cook myself. Never seemed much point.”
They trotted out the side door, down the steps, and across the driveway to the trailer. Austin gestured Joe toward the tiny table while he filled a pot with water and took out the milk and butter. There wasn’t really room for Joe to help.
“Not much family?”
Joe asked the question mildly, in a way that would’ve let Austin brush it off, but he didn’t.
Maybe because he knew Joe wouldn’t judge him and maybe because Joe didn’t feel sorry for the kids.
He just cared for them because someone had to, and he could.
“Foster kid,” he said. Joe didn’t need to know all the details.
“No one really took the time to teach me when I was young, and once I was on my own, it seemed pointless to cook for one.”
“I hear that. I don’t even do it most of the time, and I like cooking.”
Austin had a vision of the farmhouse kitchen, torn up and redone in secondhand cabinets, Joe standing in front of an oven that didn’t match the fridge and the kids crowded around an island or snatching pieces of roasted turkey off a cutting board while his back was turned.
He dismissed the thought with a shake of his head.
Just because they were fixing up the house didn’t mean they were keeping it.
But maybe they’d have time for a celebratory meal before they sold it.
“Well,” Austin said without thinking, “if you’re willing to cook, I’m willing to eat. Or, you know, do cleanup or grocery shop or whatever.”
“Careful or I’ll take you up on that.” He paused. “Though before I cook anything in that kitchen, we have to deal with the fridge.”
Austin snorted and dumped the macaroni into the pot, the hot dogs into his little frying pan. “If you’d let me handle it two weeks ago—”
“We didn’t even know if we could open the windows yet then. They could’ve been painted shut.”
“Well, it’s getting kind of cold to open them now.”
“It’s not like the pipes are going to freeze. And no one’s sleeping in there at the moment. It’ll be fine.”
For God’s sake. Austin shuffled the hot dogs over, pulled out the colander to drain the pasta. “Why are you okay with it now when you were dead set against it before? And don’t give me the window line.”
When he didn’t get an answer right away, he looked over. Joe was sitting at the tiny chipped Formica table, looking at his hands. “Would you believe me if I said I had fridge-related trauma?”
Fridge-related…? Austin poked at the hot dogs. “Not without follow-up questions.”
The pasta had finished cooking, so he drained it in the tiny sink and scraped the last of the margarine out of the container into the pot. He crossed the two steps it took to open the door and drop the empty container in the blue box next to the step.
When he turned around, Joe was looking up at him, smiling. “Give me a second to come up with a good lie, then.”
Austin gave him a moment while he finished dinner and plated it up in a couple of plastic bowls he’d salvaged from DeeDee’s.
They had scenes from Peter Rabbit on the insides.
But before either of them could take more than a few bites or Joe could spin his wild tale of refrigerator terror, there was a shuffle of noise from outside the trailer, the rattle of plastic and tin.
They met eyes over the table. Underneath it, their legs tangled for a fraction of a second as they both sprung to their feet.
“Is it—”
“The dog—”
Austin half tripped as he went for the door and grabbed the plug-in flashlight from the bulkhead as he went. The trailer door flapped behind them.
The recycling bin had been tipped over—no shock there; he should’ve realized keeping it outside was a bad idea—and the margarine container, which he’d dropped in without its lid, had wandered off.
They stood on the driveway for a moment, listening, and then after a moment, Joe pointed around the back of the house. “That way, I think.”
Part of Austin recognized that chasing a dog that was running away would likely not result in the dog trusting them, but what else was he supposed to do?
It was a dark country road, and the thing could get hit by a car.
If it was out here scavenging in his trash, it was obviously hungry.
And Linda had said there were coyotes around.
“So, foster kid.” Joe paused like he was making a point. “You always wanted a dog?”
“Fuck off,” Austin said automatically, even as the guilt set in, because—well, yeah. “Every kid wants a dog.”
Joe snorted as Austin played the beam of the flashlight around the side yard. No little-to-medium-size dog revealed itself, though he did catch an opossum trundling along next to the breezeway. It stopped its lopsided waddle to hiss at him.
“I mean, true. Mom would never let me have one, said it’d get dog hair all over the house.”
“Not a fan of messes?” Austin asked, casting the beam about.
Joe hummed. “She kept her house showroom ready.”
Interesting. “She’s a Realtor, right? So it’s not like she was selling your home….”
“Live like you wanna be, and all that.” Joe shrugged.
“Mom understands the value of a good impression and of appearances. If she’s going to tell clients to have their houses in order, then she should too.
Not to mention, how can you trust someone to know the value of your home if they don’t know the value of their own? ” He gave a rueful smile.
“Sounds like she has… high standards,” Austin offered tentatively.
Joe shrugged and moved forward, visibly searching once more for the dog, making Austin suddenly aware of the fact that he’d stopped in his curiosity about Joe.
“High standards is one way of putting it. Another would be that the house, the husband, the kid were all… checkpoints. She had a kid because that’s what successful women did, but she didn’t know what to do with us…
me. Especially after I got too old to be an adorable showpiece and her marriage ended anyway so there were fewer family-style holiday parties. ”
“I’m sorry,” Austin said feelingly.
Joe shrugged again. “Poor-little-rich-boy problems.” He shot a grin over his shoulder. “Though I guess my whole teen-adoption thing makes more sense now. I have Mommy and Daddy issues.”
“Doesn’t everybody?” Austin said, letting Joe change the conversational flow. “I mean, I’m given to understand even good parents leave their kids with issues.”
“You’re probably right,” Joe huffed as they rounded the house, still no sign of the dog. “Should we keep searching?”
As much as Austin wanted to say yes, common sense prevailed. “Maybe we’ll catch sight of him on the way back to the trailer?”
“Maybe.”
They kept checking the greenery and under and behind objects, but they had no luck as they approached the trailer again.
Austin tripped up the steps and stopped in his tracks. Their dinner—or rather, the empty dishes of what remained of it—lay on the floor.
“Uh….”
“Austin?” Joe followed up the steps, but since Austin was frozen, Joe had nowhere to go but into him. His chest pushed up against Austin’s back, broad and warm, and he hooked his chin over Austin’s shoulder. “What’s—oh.”
They stood in silence, staring at the floor.
“Hey, Austin? I think we found evidence of the dog.”
“Yeah,” Austin said glumly. He sighed and stepped forward to clean up. The trailer was too small for the dog to be hiding in it. He must have snuck in after they left and made a rapid escape. “I think we’re going to need a backup plan for dinner.”
Joe cleared his throat. “I’ll pick something up while you take care of this. What’s your order?”
SUNDAY MORNING found Joe at the farmhouse bright and early, wincing against the mean morning sunshine that glinted off the lurid green dumpster parked next to the trailer.
“Think it’s big enough?” Austin asked, voice morning rough. His breath steamed in the chilly air.
“Based on how much you hate throwing things away?”
“Hey. Rude. See if I offer you a coffee.”
Coffee. Joe knew he’d forgotten something in his haste to get out of the house this morning. He turned beseeching eyes on Austin.
“God, put those away.” Austin shoved his arm. “Come on. I’ll caffeinate you, and then we should get started. The kids coming to help?”
Joe waggled his hand and followed him into the trailer. “Gavin and Alex are coming later—you know what teenagers are like in the morning. Will’s got church with the family, and Meg has practice. Wouldn’t ask her to help anyway. I’m not risking her swimming career.”
“That’s fair.” Austin poured a mug from a tiny coffee maker on the trailer counter and passed it over. In chipping enamel paint, the side read, 1979 Harrow Fair. “Sugar?”
“Please. And milk, if you have it.”
Austin tsked. “Such a princess.” But he handed over actual creamer, not just milk, so obviously he loved Joe and wanted him to be happy. Or at least caffeinated.
Joe poured in enough liquid fat to cool the coffee to chugging temperature, then downed it and handed the mug back. Austin watched with raised brows but didn’t comment as he set the mug in the sink. “Okay,” Joe said. “Let’s go. Operation Dumpster Fire.”
“If you pour gasoline in that thing, we’re getting a divorce.”