5. Chapter Four
Chapter Four
“ B enjy is my nephew,” Joe said as he deconstructed his burger fastidiously.
Benjy and Jessie had already wolfed theirs down, plates left with nothing but ketchup smears and gherkins on them, so they could go and play the arcade games in back.
That left Joe to carry his side of the conversation.
He had already covered his surname—Gardner—and that he’d been late driving in from Gateway, and apparently Quentin lived a vague value of ‘nearby’ to the suburb, due to an accident on the road.
The plan had been to avoid spoiling Quentin’s night by talking about anything heavy, but unfortunately, it turned out that Joe didn’t have much small talk these days.
“I’m just standing in for the school run and prom rides while my sister is… um…in hospital.”
“Is she OK?” Quentin asked. Then he grimaced. “Sorry. That was a stupid thing to say. Obviously… Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Joe said. “People never know what to say. No one wants to ask outright in case they look nosy, but it would look even worse to just change the subject. Your effort was pretty middling as these things go.”
“Really?” Quentin said. “I hate to think what the worst was.”
Joe didn’t need to mull over the question. He had the list lined up and ready to go.
“That honor goes to her boss,” Joe said. “When I let him know, he said, ‘The things some people do for a sleep-in.’ I think it was meant to be a joke?”
“People should need some sort of license to make jokes in the workplace,” Quentin said. “Or a certification, at least.”
While Joe snorted at that, Quentin scooped a chunk of crab dip up with some of his crostini and offered it to the toddler in his lap.
“Oh, he’ll not–” Joe didn’t even manage to finish the ‘eat that’ before Cody placidly proved him wrong. A lot of crab ended up down him, but it was still a step up from his usual reaction to anything new. “You’re good with kids.”
“Not likely,” Quentin said absently. He picked up his milkshake to take a drink, hooking the straw with his thumb as it reached his mouth. “I’m not even good with people.”
“Children are people.”
Quentin glanced down at Cody and then pulled a ‘huh’ face. “The more you know?”
He looked pleased when Joe laughed. Joe tried not to notice how much he liked that, or the way Quentin’s lips wrapped around the straw as he took that drink. He glanced down at his plate to distract himself.
The taken-apart burger looked back at him.
He winced as he registered that had been what his hands were up to while they talked.
Usually, he didn’t do that on a date when he was eating outside. Not even with close friends and family. It was a quirk he saved for when he was alone. Until tonight, apparently.
As he tried to decide what ‘this is perfectly normal’ track to take, the ‘this is just how I eat them,’ or the ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, the burger has always had no clothes,’ Quentin finished his drink and set the glass down.
Neatly.
On the printed paper coaster.
Joe wasn’t going to claim that was sexier than the mouth and the shoulders, but also it wasn’t not sexy. That was something he’d need to wrestle with later. He used to go to clubs, and now he was biting his lip over someone adulting out in the open.
“How is your sister?” Quentin asked, as if he hadn’t just done the single-father equivalent of a slut drop. At least, Joe thought as he tried to focus, he’d not asked ‘what’s wrong with her?’ Joe hated that one.
“Better?” he said. It sounded more like a question than an answer. Which was accurate, but not what people wanted. “Her doctors are pleased with her progress. She’s, um…she’s been sober for nearly two months now.”
It didn’t usually bother him to say that.
He and Tess had talked about it before she’d left.
She’d not done anything to be ashamed of, and was getting help so that wouldn’t change, so they weren’t going to lie about her being on a retreat or visiting an ailing aunt.
People who had a problem with it could show themselves out.
It would just suck if Joe’s pilot in shining armor was one of those people. He didn’t want…
…to spoil the fantasy.
The thought dropped, blunt and uncompromising, into Joe’s mind.
He shied away from it uncomfortably. It wasn’t wrong, but Joe wasn’t ready to think too hard about what it meant.
Not the ‘it’ that was a harmless fantasy about a charming, handsome man who was way out of his league.
It was the part where Joe might–maybe, one day–want to feel something like that again.
Of course, maybe he wouldn’t need to. Quentin could still disappoint him; that was still up in the air.
To find out, Joe glanced across the table at Quentin to assess his reaction.
There were none of the usual ‘tells’ that he was about to make a quick exit.
Instead of being ‘surprised at the time’ or giving himself a ‘is that MY phone’ pat down, he was preoccupied with trying to fend off Cody’s grabby little hands from his crab dip.
He did look a bit alarmed at the toddler’s persistence, but not enough to make a run for it.
That probably shouldn’t be a surprise, Joe supposed. Quentin was nothing if not a glutton for punishment.
“Two months is good,” Quentin said as he moved Cody to his other knee, as if that would help. He sounded cautious, but optimistic. Like someone who’d never had any experience with substance abuse, but hoped he’d said the right thing. “It’s a start?”
The naivete in that statement made Joe feel tired. That wasn’t Quentin’s fault, though.
Joe reached over the table, grabbed a salt cellar, and set it in front of Cody. The opportunity to pick something up and clank it on things immediately distracted him from his crab yearnings.
“It’s just the start,” Joe said. He weighed that against what he was about to say next, trying to judge how condescending it would sound from the outside. It wasn’t meant to be, but it was going to come off that way. He could tell. “And it’s a very long road. That’s why he’s with me.”
“Her husband—”
“Dead. That’s why the AirPods are so important to Benjy. His dad loaned them to him for the drive home that night.”
Quentin looked sympathetic. “I will ask about it tomorrow,” he said. “If anyone found it, he’ll get it back.”
Joe gave a brief, not completely optimistic nod to that. He picked up a slice of gherkin from his plate and took a bite, crisp flesh and a tang of vinegar and dill on his tongue.
“Gavin’s parents, Tess's in-laws, offered to take him,” he said. “But only if she signs custody over to them. They don’t think she’s a fit parent. Or that I’m a fit guardian, for that matter. Apparently, they aren’t the only ones, which is why we’re in Portland.”
Quentin cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. “You said you were here to see the ear doctor.”
“Otolaryngologist,” Joe said, on autopilot. He caught himself as the last syllable escaped his mouth and winced at how condescending he sounded. “Which is–”
“Why you got the crossword clue,” Quentin finished for him.
“Yes,” Joe said. “But…”
“We don’t have any in Alaska?” Quentin asked. The question cut off Joe’s urge to apologise as he remembered just how frustrated he was about this topic.
“We do,” he said. “But the adoption agency is here. It’s…complicated. It shouldn’t have been, but the adoption is taking longer than planned, and I’ve got a few more hoops to jump through. Such as providing continuity of medical care until he’s officially mine.”
“And your…partner’s…OK with it?” Quentin asked between one clank and the giggle. He took the opportunity to pile his toast high with dip. His attention seemed to be on that as he casually expanded on the question. “I mean, he didn’t want to come out here with you?”
There was a pause.
When Joe didn’t answer, Quentin looked over at him. “...that’s not my business?” he offered, loaded crostini hovering in front of his mouth.
“It’s not,” Joe agreed, his voice stiff and awkward. “But he would have been here if he could. He’s dead. He went off the road in brother-in-law’s muscle car, killed them both.”
He sounded choked. Raw, still. It wasn’t. Not anymore, not as much anyhow, but he didn’t talk about it often. His voice was used to the words being more painful.
On the other side of the table, Cody screwed his face up as he started to grizzle in reaction.
“Sorry,” Quentin said. “I didn’t mean to—”
Joe waved his hand in a vaguely apologetic arc. He reached over the table to grab the salt cellar and wiggle it distractingly in the air for Cody.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Joe said. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault…except possibly a moose. It just sounds so made-up when I say it out loud. It makes me think I should lock myself up in a tower somewhere instead of ruining someone’s night out.”
His brain caught up with his mouth just about there, and he winced. Had he just suggested this was…something? It wasn’t, obviously, he knew that. Had he sounded like he didn’t, though?
“You haven’t ruined anything,” Quentin interrupted his spiral of shame with the assurance.
That , Joe was pretty sure, was what people said when what they meant was ‘this was supposed to be fun, and you have spoiled it, congratulations’.
Joe attempted to rally with the acknowledgement that he knew his situation. Better than anyone else, in fact.
“It’s just not been…a lot,” he said. It was hard to argue with that, and he hadn’t even gotten into the mess Alan and his asshole parents had left them in.
At least Tess’s in-laws wanted Benjy, not just the estate.
Joe ignored that bitter little aside from his brain as he shrugged over the table at Quentin.
“It’s why it got complicated, Alan was Cody’s biological dad.
Luckily, our surrogate had no objections to me still pursuing the adoption.
It just…and none of that’s your problem.
I’m sure you have better ways to spend your evening than listening to me complain. ”