Chapter 18 #2
“Come on, I’ll unpack the rest in a few.
You must want to freshen up. I’ll show you your room and the bathroom.
Take your time. It’s become a tradition that we order pizza on Austin's first night back. Steph doesn’t really cook much, and I’m usually the one who goes up to get him, so”—he shrugged—“pizza night.”
I smiled warmly at him and responded as he walked back toward the stairs at the front of the house, and I followed. “I cannot tell you how much I missed New York pizza when I was overseas. I don’t think I even realized it myself until I was in Manhattan and had my first slice.”
“Overseas! Man. It’s been so long. I cannot wait to hear every single thing.
But first, here we are.” There was a small landing at the head of the stairs, with a number of doors encircling it.
Marty pointed straight ahead first. “Our room.” Then to our left.
“That’s our office. Well, mostly Steph’s home office, but I occasionally do stuff for the restaurant in there as well.
” Then he pointed to the other side of the landing, where three more doors were clustered down a small hallway.
Marty pointed to the doors as we entered the hallway.
“Austin’s room,” he said, pointing to the door at the dead end.
“The bathroom and … Aus! What are you doing in there?”
“Oh. hey.” Austin smiled a really bright smile, framed in the doorway of the room across from the bathroom.
It was as if we were the ones who hadn’t seen each other in years, and he was bursting with happiness to see me.
He answered me, though his father had asked the question.
“I dropped your stuff in your room.” He pointed over his shoulder and grazed the small of my back as he exited the room, an affable smile lighting up his face.
I thought about how his smile was like a magnet, eliciting one of my own, and forced a serious look on my face.
“Pizza night, Dad?”
“It’s tradition! Unless … Are you joining us, or do you have plans with some of your old high school friends?
” My chest tightened at the thought, but I continued to temper my emotions.
I had known Austin for less than a week.
Obviously, he had friends, a life, maybe even a past boyfriend or crush, like me.
Austin looked right at me to answer, and I really wished he wouldn’t. “Nah! I’m looking forward to pizza night.” He focused on his dad then and tapped him in the stomach. “It’s tradition!” he repeated.
He pointed toward his room. “I’m just gonna change. Bathroom’s all yours, Randall.”
“I’ll leave you to it, ET. Come back down to the kitchen whenever.”
“Thanks, Marty.”
“Marty,” he scoffed in a terrible British accent, not unlike his son’s.
“I don’t have a British accent,” I yelled at his retreating back, and I heard both men laugh in response.
The guest room was large and sported a queen-sized bed, a built-in desk and shelves, and one wall with bookshelves lining it halfway up and windows lining the entire length above.
The shelves above the desk and along the wall were peppered with trinkets and photos interspersed amongst the books, family artifacts of a life well lived.
I perused them briefly, coming across baby pictures, family vacation photos, and a larger portrait of a teenaged Austin in a graduation cap amongst the other memorabilia.
When I made my way to the desk, the top shelf held a dated-looking photo collage.
It was from Marty and Steph’s wedding, and as Marty’s best man, I was present in more than one of the photos.
I let out a heavy sigh and went to grab a change of clothes.
There was a bench at the foot of the bed, and Austin had left my suitcase on it. I pulled out my shaving kit, a pair of jeans, and my favorite long-sleeved college T-shirt, which we had tossed in the wash with the sheets that morning. How was it that that morning felt like some other planet?
I headed for the bathroom, figuring that the T-shirt would be a subtle reminder to everyone in that household that I was there as Marty and Steph’s friend.
I was pretty sure I needed reminding most of all, but I realized that maybe Austin did too when I opened my shaving kit to find a strip of condoms that had to have come from his backpack, a medium-sized bottle of lube that most definitely did not belong to me, and a dildo that had lived in my downstairs bathroom collecting dust for months.
I sighed and looked at myself in the mirror.
“Fuck me.” Even my own reflection was a reminder of our time in the snow globe, when my “Clark Kent” glasses stared back at me.
The Lessands had a shower like mine, and I wished the multi heads would help relax me, but in the end I took a quick shower, afraid my mind and my hand would wander if I stayed in it too long.
I found myself at the mirror again, brushing my teeth, then using a towel to dry my hair. I threw my clothes on and donned the glasses that I had never given much thought to before.
“Traditional pizza night, here I come,” I muttered as I hung up my towel and exited the room. As if we’d choreographed it, Austin’s door and the door to the master bedroom all opened at the same time.
Stephanie came right up to me and wrapped me in a big hug.
“Look at you, ET. My husband is right. The rest of us are aging, and you look …” I thought she was going to say like Clark Kent, in which case I thought I might drop dead right at her feet.
She landed on, “... great,” as she squeezed my arms as her husband had done.
“Oh my God, you’re wearing that shirt. I love that shirt.
Still have mine somewhere.” Her voice faded at the end as if she was searching for it in her mind’s eye.
Her grip was tight as she looked me over.
I got the feeling she was making sure I was okay.
Austin stood off to the side, watching our exchange.
Without even glancing directly at him, I could sense that he was getting uncomfortable.
He had interpreted my mood more than once during our time at my cabin.
Could I really be reading his mood as well?
He seemed much more guarded around his mother.
He tried to hide it with a lilt to his voice.
“What’s with ‘ET’? Dad called him that too.” Austin smiled as he looked between his mother and me. He took in a deep breath and sounded almost natural when he said, “Oh, is it time for embarrassing story number one?”
When his eyes locked on mine, he couldn’t help it, they sparkled. He tempered them when his gaze returned to his mother. “I am going to keep count, and I absolutely expect to be in the double digits before the week is over. So, Mom, go! What’s the deal with ET?”
Stephanie had released me from her grip, but my discomfort didn’t stop as she looked back and forth between her son and me like one or both of us actually were aliens.
“Oh, that? It’s just silly college stuff.
You know your Dad and I used to watch The X-Files together, right?
That’s kind of how we started going out?
Well, Randall here used to watch with us, and after we started dating, we used to joke that your dad and I were the two lead characters. And Randy said …”
I rolled my eyes for both of their benefits, though maybe for different reasons. “And”—I said—“I guess that makes me the fucking alien.”
“Ta-da!” Stephanie exclaimed. “A nickname was born.”