Chapter Fifteen
THEY’D CARPOOLED from the house, so Austin took them all back there. Alex tried to make a run for it, jumping out and stomping to Gavin’s car, but Joe moved faster. He grabbed Gavin and hauled him into the house for cookies. Will followed behind without prompting.
Scowling, Alex tried the passenger door and glared harder when it didn’t magically unlock. Gavin had the keys. They weren’t going to be able to hide in his car.
“Hey, kid,” Austin opened with. Maybe he’d luck out and Alex would open up without more prompting.
Alex glared. “Not a kid.”
Or not.
“Okay, noted. No calling you a kid.” He eyed them up and with a shrug said, “Okay, since you’re not a kid, why don’t you come in for a beer and talk about it.”
Alex narrowed their eyes, clearly trying to figure out the trap.
“No trap. Just beer and an ear.”
“Fine.”
Alex followed Austin into the house through the back door, and he left them in the breezeway with Pepa and the kittens.
“Take her out for a pee,” Austin suggested, then proceeded to find Joe and the boys in the kitchen. Gavin had a glass of milk and was eating a chocolate chip cookie with a dedication that spoke of emotional snacking.
“Gavin, can you take Will home?” he asked.
“What about Alex?” Gavin frowned.
Austin shrugged. “Sticking around for a bit. We’ll make sure they get home okay.”
Gavin clearly didn’t want to leave, but Joe smiled comfortingly and said, “It’s okay, Gav.”
He managed to get both boys out the door with a bribe of more homemade cookies and promises they could return tomorrow if they wanted.
Once the boys were on the road, Austin pointed Joe toward the shower. Joe shook his head and muttered, “Your funeral,” and disappeared into the bathroom with a change of clothes.
Figuring conversation might come more easily if Alex came to him, he poured himself his own glass of milk and sat down to munch on a cookie.
Austin considered what his plans to make this cohabitation permanent and living with Joe’s cooking might have on his waistline. Maybe they could put an elliptical machine in the breezeway.
“Where is everyone?” Alex stood in the doorway, Ozzy cradled in their arms like a baby and Pepa, Walker, and Dallas waiting at their heels.
“Joe’s in the shower. Gavin’s taking Will home.”
“Oh.”
Austin pushed the cookies in Alex’s direction. Alex and Ozzy sat down. Pepa placed her head on Austin’s thigh, Dallas asked to be picked up, and Walker wandered off to stalk Joe until he emerged from the bathroom.
And now it was time for Austin to put his money where his mouth was and see if his instincts about Alex’s attitude had merit. “So,” he said after Alex had nibbled their way through half a cookie, “as one poor kid to another….”
Alex stopped chewing and gave him a look.
“You’re looking at a former foster kid.”
“Oh.”
“Though I never lucked out enough to find a Joe.”
Alex resumed chewing. Then, “Didn’t you offer beer?”
Austin snorted, grabbed a bottle, and placed it on the table.
Apparently that was all it took to break the seal. “Just—Meg gets everything, you know? Like, she’s born to parents who have money, and she’s got this natural talent for swimming. Gets headhunted for a full ride to amazing schools even though her parents could’ve paid to send her wherever.”
Yeah, Austin had guessed right. He nodded neutrally and debated a second cookie.
Who was he kidding? He picked one up.
“Sucks,” he offered. “But, like… you know life’s not fair. This isn’t news to you. Doesn’t make it any easier, but….” But it doesn’t explain your kind of over-the-top reaction.
“Yeah.” Alex crossed their arms and blurted out the next part.
“But, like—I don’t even know what I want to do with my life, and Meg has this passion and her parents and this promised scholarship, and she’s gonna have, like, a career path and sponsorships and just—everything all planned out.
I don’t even know if I’ll go to college or university, and that’s—fine.
I mean, I think I’m fine with it. I know that’s not Meg’s fault, but now she’s being all weird. ”
And that was where the train of thought screeched to a halt. Austin waited to see if Alex would pick up steam again before prompting, “Weird how?”
“I don’t know,” Alex all but wailed. “And she keeps dragging me to all these feminist events, and it hurts.” They sniffled and wiped at their nose.
Austin made a note to loan them a clean sweatshirt later.
“Like, she brings me to these places filled with women and for women and about women, and I don’t know if I fit in there now and I feel weird and dysphoric. And….”
That was already a lot; there was an and? “And?”
“Sometimes it feels like she’s trying to say something,” they admitted.
Ouch. Austin winced. He could guess, but he still cocked his head and asked, “Like what?”
Alex’s voice cracked, just a little. “Like she wishes I still thought I was a girl.”
These cookies should have more chocolate in them.
“That sounds like it would be painful.” Austin chewed another bite, thinking things over.
He didn’t want to dismiss Alex’s concerns, even if he thought they were probably projecting, but he didn’t want to confirm them either.
The best advice he could give was the hardest to follow through with.
“So… look. I can’t say I’ve been there, because I haven’t.
Still, it strikes me that not everyone stays friends forever, but they definitely won’t if they don’t talk about shit like this. ”
Alex pulled a face, clearly not enjoying Austin’s advice.
He shrugged. “You don’t have to listen to me.
I’m just some idiot who knows your single dad.
But I’m also someone who’s never had this many friends because I was too busy hiding.
So maybe don’t be like me.” He paused. “And like… not to take sides, but if Meg doesn’t know what’s going on in your head right now, how’s she supposed to be a good friend to you?
It’s not like feminist issues only affect women.
I’m pretty sure that’s, like, a whole thing, right?
Intersectional feminism? Like how trans men still need gynecological care or whatever?
” He thought that was a vast oversimplification, but getting into details didn’t seem necessary and was also outside his comfort zone.
Alex pursed their lips. “I guess.” They picked up their beer and took a tiny sip.
“Maybe you could ask Meg if she wants to go to a queer event instead next time.” He paused. “After you explain and apologize, I mean. Because….”
“Because I was kind of a raging bitch?” Alex suggested, a little wetly.
“I probably would’ve phrased it differently.”
Alex sighed, sipped their beer again, then said timidly, “Can I have milk instead?”
Austin grinned as he stood up and clapped them on the shoulder.
“Of course, kid. Come on, let’s find something dumb on TV while we wait for your dad.
You want to crash on the couch? I’ve got some sweats that’ll fit you.
Well….” He glanced down at the shirt he’d inherited from DeeDee. “Some of them are pre-preowned.”
By the time Joe got out of the shower, Austin and Alex had settled on It’s a Wonderful Life. The lights of the Christmas tree cast the cozy living room in a cheerful glow. Aside from that and the television, the room was dark.
Alex was sprawled across the couch, already cuddled under a blanket, their eyelids drooping.
It must’ve been an emotional day, Austin thought.
Austin had chosen the armchair instead. Joe glanced at the couch, then the chair, then shrugged and grabbed a cushion from near Alex’s feet and plopped it next to Austin’s legs so he could use the front of the chair as a backrest.
“Good?” he murmured.
Austin inhaled. It was a new kind of intimacy, to feel the residual heat of a shower on someone else’s body. He could smell Joe’s shampoo—something with apples. He wanted to touch his hair. “Good,” he agreed. Alex’s breathing was deepening. “I’ll tell you about it later.”
Joe leaned his head back against the chair, tilted his head up. The column of his throat made a long, beautiful line, mottled with red and green and blue and magenta in the lights from the tree. “Thank you,” he said.
Austin still hadn’t figured out the specifics of making Joe fall in love with him. He didn’t have any experience to draw on. But being there for the kids seemed like a good place to start, and it wasn’t hard when he had Joe’s example to draw from.
Besides, he liked them. Sure, they were unholy terrors and they gave him and Joe an unending amount of shit and most days basic gratitude was beyond their grasp, but they loved each other and Joe.
They deserved kindness and good things and adults who cared about them.
And maybe one day they might love Austin too.
Austin cleared his throat. “Don’t mention it.”
THE DAYS leading up to the holiday flew by. Between his shopping and menu planning, Joe was glad the weather had turned cold and snowy, unsuitable for landscape work. It gave him more time to finish all the other things on his to-do list.
Shopping for the kids was easier than usual this year.
He found a deal on an older-model die-cutting machine for Gavin so he could make his silly T-shirts himself.
For Alex, a pair of Mulan socks and a used smartphone, an upgrade from their current model, which couldn’t hold a charge for more than a few hours.
Will was getting used bedroom furniture and a house key.
Joe was still turning over what to get Austin. Everything felt either too impersonal or just the opposite, like if Joe gave him that kind of gift Austin would take one look at him and see something.
Which was stupid because there wasn’t anything to see. Joe had been careful about that. He and Austin were friends who owned a house they were fixing up together, and in a few months, they’d sell it and go their separate ways.