Chapter Twenty-Three
UNFORTUNATELY, JOE’S condition did not improve by morning.
Austin woke a few times in the night to deep, rattling coughs that echoed through the house.
Will, at least, didn’t look like he’d slept badly, though when Joe coughed like that while they were both seated at the breakfast table, a little of the pre-Christmas Will shone through, timid and anxious. “That doesn’t sound good.”
“I’ll see if there’s a clinic open later.” Assuming he could get Joe to agree to go… or carry him to the car if he didn’t.
“Okay.” Will worried his lower lip for a moment. “Text me if he gets worse?”
Ah, Austin thought. Right. This might just be a cold, but Will had just lost his entire family in one fell swoop. “You want me to tell you what color his snot is too?” he asked, hoping to lighten the mood. “I can take pictures.”
“Don’t be gross.” But he looked a little lighter when he grabbed his bag from the hook by the door and left in Joe’s truck, so Austin would take it.
Half an hour or so later, he checked on Joe again and found him awake but glassy-eyed. “Hey. Still alive, sweet thing?”
“Unfortunately.” He sounded like a frog.
“You want anything?”
Joe took a rattling breath. “Actually….” He pushed back the covers. Underneath, his T-shirt was stained with sweat. Now the whole room smelled vaguely of sickness. “Maybe help me get into the shower?”
“Maybe you can sit on the floor of the tub so you don’t die?” Austin offered as a compromise, taking his arm.
He got Joe set up in the bathroom, then stripped the bed, cracked the window, and put on a fresh set of sheets.
He made Joe eat a piece of bread and drink a glass of orange juice, then pumped him full of cold medicine and put him back to bed when he started to shiver. “I’m going to take Pepa for a walk, but I’ve got my phone, so call if you need me.”
“I’m allowed to voice call you,” Joe said sleepily. “You must really like me.”
“I think I probably wouldn’t be able to decipher your texts,” Austin said honestly.
“Pff.” But his eyes were already closed.
The day fell into an odd routine. Austin did a few chores, then checked on Joe, tried to get some liquids into him, made sure he hadn’t spiked a worse fever, and let him fall back asleep. He sent Will a message around lunchtime letting him know nothing had changed.
He never did make it out to the garage to fidget with one of his projects.
He didn’t want to be that far away for that long, get into the kind of mindset where he was focused on his work and wouldn’t hear his phone.
Instead, he put a nature documentary on Netflix with the volume low and googled recipes for chicken soup.
He was debating if he could get Will to pick up soup noodles on his way home or if they should just make do with rice when someone banged on the door.
Austin had barely made it to his feet before the knock came again.
“Joe? Will said you’re home today, so—”
Austin crossed the dining room and pulled open the side door. “Hey, Alex. Shouldn’t you be in school?”
They pushed inside, running their hands through their hair.
Austin suppressed the urge to ask them where their hat was.
They’d just gotten out of a vehicle; they hadn’t had time to get their ears frostbitten.
And Austin wasn’t their mother. “Is Joe home? I need to talk to him and he wasn’t answering my texts. ”
“I mean, yeah, he’s home,” Austin said. “He’s in bed, though. Passed out. You could talk to him, but, like, you might as well talk to a wall. He’s pretty out of it even when he’s conscious.”
“Fuck!”
Pepa, who’d wandered in to say hello, nudged Alex’s thigh in a quest for affection. Alex ignored her, which made Austin nervous.
“Do you want to come in?” he asked after a moment. Dumb question—they were already inside—but he wasn’t sure what else to do to preempt the panic pouring off them.
“No, I—” They ran their hands through their hair again.
Their undercut needed a touch-up. “It’s fine, you know, uh—I actually don’t think I wanted to talk to Joe anyway, right, because, like.
How many times in my life am I going to have to disappoint my dad, right?
I mean, at some point the bit is going to get old—”
“Come inside,” Austin said more firmly, closing the door to the elements. “I’ll make tea.”
Alex laughed, but the sound was manic, brittle. “I don’t, uh. I don’t know if—can you drink tea? If you’re, like, pregnant?”
Austin’s brain screeched to a halt, along with his body, and for several long seconds, he stared, frozen, at Alex as he rapidly assimilated all the thoughts created by that one statement—discovering they were sexually active, hysterically wondering if they knew about condoms or the pill, realizing he suspected he knew who the baby daddy was, and also Joe was too young to be a grandpa but damn he would look good holding a baby.
“I don’t know,” Austin finally managed to say. “I think caffeine might be bad?”
“Oh, good, so now I can feel guilty about drinking coffee,” Alex gasped and stared at Austin, wide-eyed and desperate, and looking so horribly young that it shook Austin out of his stupor.
“Right, come in and sit down.”
Once Alex was settled at the table with a glass of water and a mug of peppermint tea—their only caffeine-free option and which the internet said was safe for pregnant people—Austin said, “So, you’re pregnant?”
“I don’t… maybe.”
Austin stared at Alex, trying to figure out what to say next. “Um. Maybe…. Why do you think you’re pregnant?”
Alex gave him a look. “I know you’re gay, but you must know where babies come from.”
Austin gave the look right back. “Yes, Alex, I know where babies come from. But you must have reason to worry more than just having had sex with a penis-having person.” He paused, and then, because he was apparently a massive hypocrite and also apparently hated himself, added, “An appendage I hope you’ve been wrapping up. ”
Alex glared. “We’re not stupid. We use condoms.”
“Thank God,” Austin muttered.
“But condoms aren’t, like, foolproof. And I’m late and I feel nauseous all the time and I don’t want a baby!”
Shit, Alex looked like they were going to cry.
“Okay,” Austin said quickly, as if he could forestall that if he could just get the words out fast enough.
“First, you don’t have to have any babies you don’t want to have.
There are options that don’t involve teenage parenthood.
Second, have you taken a pregnancy test? ”
Alex sniffed. “No. I can’t…. What if someone I know saw me?”
Austin blew out a breath. “Okay. So, first things first. You need to know for sure, right? I mean, no sense borrowing trouble.” Like, okay, buying a pregnancy test…
not generally a fun time for a teenager, probably doubly unfun as a trans person.
And yet wouldn’t it still be better than not knowing?
“But then I’ll know.”
Apparently not. “Uh, yeah?”
“What if it’s positive?” Alex wrung their hands in their lap, avoiding Austin’s gaze. “Joe will be so disappointed in us.”
Because the curiosity was definitely killing Austin even if the cats didn’t give a fuck, he couldn’t help but ask, “Us?”
Alex tensed, looked around cagily, and then slumped. “Me and Gavin,” they whispered.
Austin did not jump up and shout, I knew it! because he was an adult who could restrain himself and also he could read the room. “Ah,” he said instead. “Does, uh, Gavin know?”
“No, because if I tell him then he’ll react and then I’ll know!” Alex warbled.
Okay, so, add Gavin and his reaction as components of this Schrodinger’s pregnancy stress.
“Right.” Figuring it was best to leave that aside for the moment—and seriously, how many issues could he just sidestep?—Austin returned to the other thing Alex had said. “Joe’s not going to be disappointed.”
“He’s going to ask us about condoms.” Alex pouted.
“Probably, but only because he’ll want to know you’re being careful.”
“We were. But what if he doesn’t believe us?”
If this cycle kept up, Austin was going to down the rest of Joe’s NyQuil and crawl into bed with him. He was getting a headache. “Have you given him reason not to trust you?”
Alex wiped their nose on a napkin. “No, but—”
“So he’ll believe you,” Austin said. “And look, it doesn’t matter, okay?”
Alex regarded him through watery eyes.
“If you were careful or if you weren’t. It doesn’t matter.
If you’re pregnant or aren’t. If you have an abortion or don’t.
Joe is still going to love you. You think anything could stop him?
Will’s been an asshole on purpose for the past three weeks and Joe would still walk into traffic for that kid without thinking.
So just—you can worry about all the rest of it.
Your mom, your stepdad, Gavin, people. But you don’t have to worry about Joe. ”
And if, on the odd chance Alex’s parents reacted badly, well, it wasn’t like Austin planned to use his bedroom much once Joe got healthy again. They’d make it work somehow.
Alex squished their face up like they were in pain, and a few tears squeezed out. They dabbed them away with the napkin and took a deep, loud breath that turned into a single sob.
Then they buried their face in their hands for a second and then raised their head. “Okay,” they said, voice surprisingly steady. “Okay, that’s—yeah. You’re right.”
“I know.”
That got a wet chuckle. Austin pushed another napkin across the table before Alex could reuse the first one. “You’re weirdly good at this, you know.”
Austin’s cheeks heated. “Nah,” he demurred. “It’s not weird. It’s just—I know what I’d want someone to say to me. And it turns out I can say it to you because it’s true.”
They nodded and balled up the second napkin. “Well, anyway… thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” He paused. “Uh, do you… want me to go buy you a pregnancy test?”