Chapter Fifteen #2
Not that Joe had figured out yet how they were going to go their separate ways when they had a dog and three kittens to consider.
When Joe got home the evening after another long day, he was surprised to find the house full of delicious scents. Not to disparage Austin’s cooking….
Okay, totally to disparage it. It didn’t usually smell so herby and garlicky and layered. He still leaned toward eggs, toast, and reheated meals.
Joe followed his nose and found Austin pulling something out of the oven.
“You cooked?” he asked, probably sounding very rude, but it smelled amazing.
“Only in the technical sense,” Austin laughed.
“I picked up some ready-to-heat stuff at Schinkels—garlic bread, lasagna, and roasted veggies.” He motioned to a foil-wrapped packet and a covered foil pan.
The delicious smells were all from the lasagna, then.
“Just gotta heat the rest while this cools.” He opened the oven back up.
“Not that it doesn’t look and smell amazing,” Joe said, “but buying lasagna for an Italian? Bold move.”
Austin froze, hand still on the oven door after having shut it, and shot a startled look at Joe. “Uh.”
Joe waved his concern away. “I’m joking. And also starving and grateful. I never turn away dinner cooked by someone else.”
“Good,” Austin said, though he shot a look at the pasta. “I didn’t think—”
“It smells amazing. Stop worrying. Now. I’m going to change while the rest cooks so I don’t have to eat in my work clothes.”
Joe beat a hasty retreat, feeling like a heel. He’d only been teasing, but now he wondered if he hadn’t blundered into another one of those social blind spots of Austin’s that he seemed to have thanks to years of foster care and that Joe couldn’t seem to stop finding.
Shaking himself, he quickly washed and headed back to the kitchen.
Where he found Austin holding an unopened bottle of wine and staring at it uncertainly with flushed cheeks.
Joe paused and blushed himself. Drinking red wine together seemed ill-advised, and clearly he wasn’t the only one who thought so. Maybe they should just have water tonight?
Pepa, noticing his return, hopped in Joe’s direction, alerting Austin to his presence. So Joe swallowed his embarrassment and asked, “Trying to decide on drinks?”
Austin took the out and said, if a bit strangled, “I wasn’t sure about pairings.”
“Right,” Joe said with forced cheer. He knelt to pet Pepa, and in a bid to be totally normal while not thinking about Austin’s perfect cock, asked, “Er, what did they tell you about the lasagna?”
Austin put down the bottle of wine and lifted a paper from the counter. “Beef with béchamel sauce.”
“Ah, well, white wine it is, then.”
“White?”
“Yeah.” Joe stood and headed for the fridge. Thank God. White wine was good. He could do that. It didn’t make him horny. “Red wine for red sauce, white wine for white.”
“Oh,” Austin said. “That seems kinda… racist.”
Joe snorted. “What?”
“Like with like. Kinda exclusionary, is all,” Austin pointed out.
Joe rolled his eyes and pulled a white from the fridge. “It’s about flavors, not about color matching.”
Austin shrugged. “If you say so. I still think it sounds sus.”
“Wow.” Joe paused, then resumed his search for the corkscrew. “Sus, huh? Maybe you’re spending too much time with my kids.”
“I don’t know,” Austin said, faux speculative. “You ever think you might be the problem? Maybe you just attract people who like to give you a hard time.”
You gave me a hard time, all right, Joe thought. If he hadn’t already uncorked the white, he might’ve thought twice about it. Maybe he couldn’t be trusted with any alcohol right now. Instead he said, “Oh sure, blame the victim.”
They plated up and brought their food into the dining room to eat.
“We should get a kitchen table,” Austin commented. “It feels weirdly fancy to eat out here.”
“Even on this battle-scarred old thing?” Joe’s table had been a hand-me-down already when his mother got it.
“Less the furniture, more the surroundings.” Austin gestured at the dark hardwood floors, carefully restored wainscoting, original crown molding.
God forbid they ever got any water damage in here, because Joe wasn’t paying to fix that.
It would all have to come down. With the fresh coat of paint they’d put on the top half of the room, it did feel grander than the table warranted.
“Besides, now that you can actually see the window in the kitchen, it has better light.”
Joe looked pointedly toward the exterior door behind Austin, where it was very obviously dark and had been since before five o’clock.
Austin rolled his eyes and nudged him under the table. “It will have better light, then,” he amended. “Besides, if we’re going to host Christmas dinner for… twelve?”
Joe did some quick calculations. “Kids, us, Starling, Linda, and I think Gavin’s parents are coming… and Alex’s mom might come with their stepdad. And my mom.”
“Thirteen,” Austin said. “Plus a dog and three cats.” He gestured around. “They ain’t gonna fit in here.”
“I wasn’t planning on setting Pepa a place at the table.”
Austin quirked a smile, something fond and almost impish. “Liar.”
Joe found himself flushing. It must be the wine.
Tannins or something. He cleared his throat, took another sip.
“I mean, you’re not wrong about the table.
But….” Austin lived here too; Joe might as well get his opinion.
“I was thinking—a big island? I’ve got a couple nice slabs of black walnut.
” His grandparents’ neighbor had a tree fall a decade ago; Joe and his nonno had helped clear it up.
His grandfather had the boards milled and gave Joe half for his help, but he’d never had time to do anything with them. “They’d make a fantastic tabletop.”
Austin made a show of checking his watch. “I mean, yeah, but you’re gonna want to get on that ASAP if you expect people to eat at it in two weeks.”
“It’s just sanding and glue,” Joe protested. “Well, and figuring out a base, I guess.”
Austin tapped his fingers on the table. “Not wood?”
Joe waggled his hand back and forth. “Not fancy turned legs, anyway. That’s where the time would come in.”
“Metal ones?” he suggested. “Like… this house is kind of a hodgepodge, right? Hundred-year-old house, fifty-year-old addition, thirty-year-old pole barn. There’s some unused metal pilings in the garage, probably from when the addition was built.
And what might have been a basketball net once. I could weld some.”
Joe tried to picture it. It would either be really cool or a complete disaster. “Farmhouse industrial?”
“Sounds like something your mom would hate.”
Joe grinned. “What, you think she goes around to her clients’ houses suggesting they paint live, laugh, love on the bedroom walls?”
Grinning, Austin reached for the wine, lifted the bottle in offering. Joe realized his glass was almost empty and nodded for the refill. “Maybe not painting,” he said. “Maybe she just, like, drives around with a few extra knickknacks, you know. Throw blankets. Candles. Framed embroidery.”
They finished sketching out table/island plans over dinner, but when Joe headed to the kitchen to clean up, Austin stopped him. “Actually, uh, I need your help with something first. Can you grab the dog treats?”
Joe did an about-face and grabbed the bag from the top of the fridge. “She’s not still taking any medication, is she?”
“No. She finished those a few days ago, which you know.”
Joe turned with treats in hand to see Austin holding a contraption.
Joe raised an eyebrow at the thing in Austin’s hands. “You trying to tell me something about your nighttime activities?”
Austin looked down and blushed. Apparently he hadn’t considered how the strapping and buckles might appear. “Oh my God, no. It’s for Pepa. Obviously.”
“Oh, right. Obviously,” Joe said and did not make any crass jokes.
He opened the treat bag and Pepa hobbled in, tail wagging and tongue lolling.
Austin greeted her with affectionate coos and knelt next to her. Joe sat down and gave her a treat, as directed, then gripped her collar to help hold her still.
Austin fitted one end of the thing over her amputation stump and—
“You got her a prosthetic?” Emotions warred within Joe. Affection toward Austin for doing such a sweet thing, guilt for not having thought of this himself, worry that it wouldn’t work.
Austin didn’t answer at first, too busy buckling the straps around her rump and waist. “Made it, actually,” he said distractedly.
“You made her a leg,” Joe repeated. His heart and stomach did a weird flipping, growing, shrinking thing. How much research had been involved in that? How much trial and error?
Austin grunted and tested the fit of the straps. He tightened them and checked again. Joe kept feeding Pepa treats to keep her occupied, which worked beautifully. Finally satisfied, Austin leaned back and encouraged Joe to do the same.
Joe released her collar. Pepa sniffed the floor and took a step forward in search of more cookies.
Since she hadn’t yet gotten accustomed to her lack of hind leg, she tended to move it as if it still bore weight, so she moved the prosthetic and accidentally dragged it forward.
Pepa froze and turned back to look at her stump.
She took a hesitant, limping step forward, testing it out, letting it bear some of her weight.
Then she took several exploratory steps.
Suddenly she was running about the room, whining at a happy, delighted pitch.
She stopped to press into Austin, crying and licking his face, then tore off to spin around the room.
When she galumphed in the direction of the three curious kittens who had arrived to see what the fuss was about, Walker naturally was happy to join in on the zoomies, and Dallas tried to get a better look at Pepa’s new leg.
Meanwhile, Ozzy hissed in alarm and jumped up onto the couch so he could watch from safety.