Chapter Eighteen #2
It wasn’t a perfect night. Joe’s mom committed a party foul by dropping a full glass of generously spiked eggnog on the dining room floor; at least Austin had insisted on plastic cups, for cleanup’s sake, so there was no glass to sweep up, just a rag to run over it.
The bathroom doorknob had fallen off again, so Austin had stuffed one of Pepa’s tug toys into the gap, and if someone wanted privacy they had to hold the rope while they used the toilet.
Austin regaled everyone with the months-old story of Joe’s heroic bathroom rescue, including the anticlimax where Austin saved himself, and Joe’s mom cackled and threatened to tell Joe’s uncles, who all worked in construction, that he’d forgotten how doorknobs worked.
“Wait, didn’t you actually work for them a couple summers?” Gavin asked. Joe could still take his Christmas present back.
“Oh, shit, you did. I remember that,” Meg put in. “You kept showing up to swimming lessons with black thumbs.”
Austin’s eyes lit up. “Are you telling me that you work with chainsaws every day but you can’t swing a hammer?”
“You literally watched me frame the floor in the kitchen—”
Will, like a little sleeper agent, piped up from somewhere behind a mountain of wrapping paper. “I showed him how to use a hammer.”
“Betrayer,” Joe gasped theatrically. “That was supposed to be our secret.”
“This is excellent, actually,” Joe’s mother said under her breath to Starling, who was squashed in at her elbow. “Getting to tell my brothers a ten-year-old taught my adult son something they didn’t? Blackmail material for life.”
“I think that story deserves dessert.” Austin stood and went toward the kitchen. “Nobody get up, it’s crazy in there. I’ll bring it out.”
The wrapping-paper mountain suffered a small avalanche. “I’ll help.” Will shook his leg to get free of the ribbon wrapped around his ankle.
There was still tension between Meg and Alex.
Things had been better since the dinner-out disaster—Joe was sure Alex had apologized—but they weren’t totally solved.
Alex even helped Meg put on her necklace.
Joe held his breath when Meg opened her gift from Alex, which turned out to be tickets to a queer feminist film that was screening at the university, but Meg smiled and thanked them and it all seemed genuine.
Cautious optimism, Joe thought as Will and Austin passed out dessert plates and Alex and Gavin started a spirited discussion about whose slice of tiramisu was bigger.
Somehow they dragged Starling and Linda in to adjudicate, while everyone else was busy just eating it and making appropriate noises about how good it was, so Joe was the only one paying attention when Will bumped into Austin in the kitchen doorway, one heading in and the other out.
For a second Joe couldn’t parse Will’s flushed face, but then he followed the line of his eyes up to the mistletoe hanging in the doorway, and—ah.
Austin caught Joe’s gaze over Will’s shoulder and gave a tiny shrug before pressing a kiss to Will’s cheek.
Will went red to the tips of his ears and looked around furtively, as if to check whether anyone saw, but Austin was already back in the kitchen for another set of desserts.
Joe took the opportunity to turn to Linda and answer her recipe questions, pretending he hadn’t been looking. Will didn’t need an audience for this.
The party went strong until nine o’clock or so, when Joe’s mom and Alex’s parents started looking at their phones to check the time, hiding yawns behind their hands.
Joe expected the kids to still be going strong, but Gavin was slouched on the floor with his head against Will’s knee, and Meg kept dozing off in the armchair with Starling, doing that thing where her head would dip toward her chest and then she’d jerk it back up again.
The final straw was when Alex emerged from the bathroom clutching their stomach and admitted, green-faced, “I think I ate too much chocolate.”
The kids and parents headed out after a perfunctory tidy and several rounds of hugs.
Starling and Linda stayed behind to help put the kitchen to rights, and by ten the house mostly looked as it had before the whirlwind of revelers descended.
Austin took Pepa out for a short walk, and Joe released the kittens on a new pack of catnip mice to try to get some of their crazies out before bedtime.
“I can’t believe you have four pets all named Junior,” Starling teased as Dallas vaulted over her slippered foot to reach her fuzzy prey. “You fucking sap.”
“Wait, four?” Linda asked. “I mean, I know about Pepa—”
Starling pointed at the cats in turn as Joe’s ears heated. “Ozzy, as in a nickname for Austin. Dallas, as in another city in Texas that isn’t Austin. And Walker, as in Texas Ranger.”
Linda laughed. “Oh my God. That explains Austin’s face when you named them. I thought you were taking it slow.”
Joe was saved from needing to defend himself by the sound of the back door opening. He stood up. “Okay, well, it’s been fun, but it’s time for you to get out of my house.”
“Why?” Starling asked, mugging. “I thought you were taking it slow—”
Joe put his hand right over her face and pushed her toward the door. “Oh my God. Begone, wench. Austin! Come say goodbye to the guests who’ve overstayed their welcome!”
Thankfully, it seemed Starling and Linda didn’t need an engraved invitation to the driveway. They waved them off at the door, and then Joe closed it behind them, locked it, and pressed his back against it.
Austin met his eyes and shook his head, exhaustion legible in every line of his body. “People do this every year?”
Joe made a noise of assent. “Next year we’re getting takeout.”
He would’ve panicked about the assumption, but Austin snorted around a yawn and corrected, “Next year we’re getting a dishwasher.”
“Now we’re talking.” The yawn caught.
Joe had hoped they might have time tonight for another movie, some quality making-out-on-the-couch-like-teenagers, but he didn’t think it would be very polite if he suggested it and then yawned into Austin’s mouth or fell asleep and drooled on him.
“Bedtime, I think,” Austin said before Joe could decide. He stepped forward into Joe’s space and kissed him—a soft, gentle promise of a thing that left Joe swaying forward, leaning into his space. It ended almost as soon as it began, but Austin didn’t pull away immediately.
Joe pressed a kiss to the curls at his hairline and inhaled. He smelled like turkey dinner. “You going upstairs?”
“Mmm,” Austin agreed. “Tonight I am.”
Oh. Joe swallowed. That was very specific. “And tomorrow?”
He didn’t get an answer, unless you counted a pointed once-over and a spine-melting smile that felt very much like a promise.