Chapter 25 Luke
Luke
Five Years Later
“Hey, Blue.” Jessie’s raspy voice comes through the Bluetooth car speaker, and I hear a slow smile spread across his face as he speaks. I know that smile. I love that smile. I love the fact that after all this time, I can count on him to smile like that when he says my name. “How’s your day been?”
“Pretty good, no major dramas. That little guy, Keenan, is doing so much better. His fever broke and it looks like he’ll be able to go home in a couple of days.”
“I’m glad, baby. I know you were worried about him.”
“Enough about work, how’s Adrian?”
I hear another smile. A different one. This one pulls one side of his mouth downwards and makes him expel a tiny breath. “He’s had a much better day today.”
“No more tummy troubles?”
“Nah, think it must have been one of those twenty-four hour things.”
“Thank goodness. D’you think that means he’ll have a better night tonight?”
Please, please God, let him sleep better tonight. I could hardly stay upright today.
“I hope to God it does. I’m exhausted.”
“I’m broken, so I can only imagine how tired you must be.”
“I’ll be okay.”
“You’re such a good dad, Jess. I knew you would be, but you’re even better than I thought you would be.”
“Right back at you. I love seeing you with him. It does something to me.”
“Well, hold that thought – I’m pulling into the garage. I’ll be home in a minute.”
I listen at the door for a second before I unlock it.
I hear footsteps and a couple of squeaky little yelps.
I swing the door open and hear Jessie’s voice crying, “Daddy’s home!
” followed by frantic scraping of tiny claws moving at speed across floor tile.
By the time I’m inside, Adrian is bounding down the hallway.
He’s moving so fast it looks like there’s a chance his hind legs will overtake his forelegs.
I scoop him up in both hands and lift him to my face, sighing happily when the heady smell of clean puppy fur hits me. “Have you been a good boy today?”
He spins wildly in my hands, treading air, trying desperately to lick my face.
His eyes are great big brown globes, partially hidden by wheaten fur and glinting with the type of thing that puts an end to a fur parent sleeping well any time soon.
Simply put, they are the most mischievous eyes ever to find themselves on a good boy.
“Well,” says Jess, drawing out the word, “that depends on who you ask.”
“Oh, no. What’s he done now?”
“I mean, if you ask me, I’d say he’s been absolutely adorable but if you ask your leather boat shoes, they’d have a very different version of events.”
Adrian stills in my arms, nuzzling his little face into my neck, letting out a soft, contented little whimper.
Ah, well.
I have other shoes.
I put him down and take off my jacket.
“Holy shit!” exclaims Jessie. “That’s what you’re wearing?”
I give him the same chuckle it gets from me every night. Can’t help it. It’s funny cause I’m wearing standard, hospital-issue scrubs. Today’s are pink, yesterday’s were blue. It doesn’t matter the color, his response is always the same.
He pushes me up against the wall and steps into my personal space. “Now tell me the truth, Blue, did all the other nurses spend all day flirting with you?”
“Nah,” I smile, showing him the gold band that glints on my left hand, “this little thing seems to be imbued with magical properties. Seems to repel men and women alike.”
“I love it when a plan comes together, fiancé o’ mine,” he smiles as he leans in to kiss me.
By the time we part, I’m feeling flustered and a little too warm.
“What’s for dinner?” I ask, following him to the kitchen as the smell of something rich and delicious hits my olfactory system.
“Your mom’s lasagne.”
“Yesss. That’s exactly what I feel like. Did you invite Trouble?” Trouble moved down to LA a few years back and loves my mom’s lasagne even more than I do. He rains hell down on us if we serve it without inviting him over.
“I did, but he couldn’t make it. Said something about using dark magic to manifest a three way with two straight dudes.”
I make a face. “D’you think that means he’s staying home and jerking it to porn?”
“That’s exactly what I think, yeah.” Jess rolls his eyes. “It’s his loss. This is the last one we had in the freezer, and I told him that.”
“Oooh, in that case I better call my mom and invite them to come up for a visit.”
“Way ahead of you, bud. I spoke to her earlier – they’re coming down next weekend. My dad has the day off on Friday, so they’re going to make a long weekend of it.”
“That’ll be nice.”
It will be, and I don’t just mean for the massive stock of home cooked meals my mom brings whenever she and Greg come to visit. We love having them over. They’re exactly the same. Cute if you ask me, cringey to the bone if you ask Jessie.
We sit down side-by-side on the sofa with our meals on our laps and eat while Adrian sits at my feet and looks up at us like an underprivileged pup who’s been severely neglected and starved all his life.
“No begging,” says Jess now and again.
Adrian ignores him flatly.
After dinner we put something mindless on, and Adrian falls asleep on the sofa between us. The dog bed we bought when we were under the impression we were the type of people who didn’t allow dogs on the sofa sits on the floor, tucked away under the side table, in pristine condition.
Jess watches TV and I watch him. He’s even more beautiful now than he was when we met, if such a thing’s possible.
He’s grown into his features, his lips and jawline no longer compete for attention, they’ve called a truce and have settled into themselves.
He wears his hair a little shorter now, but still long enough to fall into his face.
His eyes are probably what’s changed most about him.
The tension and pain they once held has released.
It took a while, but eventually, when she realized he wasn’t playing her game anymore, his mom moved back to the States.
She lives in Portland near her family. Jess and I see her whenever we go up there.
It’s not perfect and I can’t say I’m not glad we have a ton of miles between us, but it’s important to Jess to have a relationship with her, so of course I support him any way I can.
As time has passed he’s gotten better and better at putting boundaries in place and calling her out when she does something manipulative.
When things happen in her life that upset her, Jess no longer spirals with her.
He’s able to see her pain or discomfort without feeling like it’s happening to him.
She doesn’t always like the changes he’s made, but she toes the line because she can tell he’s not messing around.
I think I’ve more or less killed her with kindness because these days when we’re in Portland, she hugs me for way more than the obligatory two seconds that society demands when she greets me.
When we called to tell her we were engaged, she sounded this close to being sincerely happy for us and completely missed her opportunity to make a barbed joke about us being stepbrothers.
The credits for the program we’re watching start to roll. I shift in my seat. Watching Jessie has started to have the same effect on me that it always has.
“D’you have work to do, or should we call it an early night?” I ask.
“Nah, I finished the cover I was working on this afternoon.”
Jessie didn’t have nearly as much trouble finding a job as he was expecting.
He works in graphic design and while the pay isn’t great, he loves it and it’s super flexible.
He usually goes into the office one or two days per week and works from home the rest of the time.
The thing that’s really surprised both of us is how successful his side hustle has been.
He started making TikToks of himself drawing when he was a student and a bunch of them went viral.
It didn’t take long for indie authors to come knocking, asking him to illustrate covers for him.
His waiting list is four months long at the moment and it shows no sign of slowing down.
I probably shouldn’t say anything about it, as nothing’s been set in stone yet, but he’s also in talks with a really big name about doing the drawings for a graphic novel.
Watch this space, world!
My man’s coming for you.
“Bed?” I say, waggling my eyebrows at him in a way that always makes him roll his eyes, but never fails to get my message across. “I’ll put him down.”
I pick Adrian up and am rewarded with a sleepy growl as I do it.
Putting Adrian down is slightly more of a fanfare than one might expect from a fur baby. I admit it involves more tummy scratches, soft pats, and being swaddled in fluffy blankets, than is completely ideal.
Still, we are where we are.
“Your daddies love you, Adrian,” I whisper as I slowly and very, very cautiously back away from his bed. “We love you so much, but we’d really love it if we didn’t see you until six AM tomorrow morning, okay?”
“Seven,” whispers Jess, who’s leaning against the wall in the hallway, eyeing me with a wry smile. It’s the tired, happy smile of a man who knows damn well he’s soon going to find himself digging into a reserve of energy he had no idea existed.