25. Ned
NED
Ned wakes up and immediately reaches across the bed.
The covers are pulled up tight.
He scrambles to his feet. Pants. A shirt. Peggy, he thinks, seeing her bedroom door open.
Downstairs, her shoes are gone, and with them her coat and backpack, and Dad’s things as well. Took the Pegster to school, he’s texted Ned when Ned finally fumbles for his phone.
There’s nothing from Abbot. Ned checks again, like a message will have suddenly appeared as he stands in bare feet in the kitchen, but his phone stays silent.
Mom’s not here either, or Baxter, her heavy jacket and Baxter’s retractable leash apparently taken with her, leaving the house empty and silent.
No, not empty. Abbot stands with his back so very straight, staring out the window above the sink and holding a mug of tea.
Ned comes up behind him, wraps his arms around his shoulders, and buries his face in his neck.
“Morning,” he mumbles into the sweet smell of Abbot’s skin.
“Hello.”
“How’re you doing?”
“Fine.”
“I love you.”
“Yes, you said.”
Ned steps around to see him better. Abbot looks rubbed raw, his eyes tired and his gaze barely meeting Ned’s.
Oh, Ned wants to wrap him up in a blanket and stroke his hair until Abbot’s smiling again. Ply him with tea and treats and fuss over him, tell him again and again that he’s the most perfect person Ned knows.
“Want to know what’s amazing?” Ned doesn’t wait for an answer. “We’re working together next year.”
“I suppose we are.”
Ned kisses his cheek, his jaw, his temple. Abbot’s as stiff as he was last night, jaw set, twitching every time Ned shifts. It’s a wonder either of them got any sleep.
Be happy, Ned thinks, and kisses him again. “Not a bad thing at faculty meetings, to know I’ve got the hottest guy in the room.”
“Is that what you’ll be thinking about?” He should have the beginning of a smile, but his face is still drawn.
Ned kisses the corner of his mouth. “Well, no. It’s a faculty meeting. We’ll both be waiting for it to be over. Think this department will be as absurd to work for as Chris was?”
“When it’s your turn to be chair, you can come up with your own creative initiatives.”
Good, yes, there, a few words pointing forward. Ned will take them and run with it. “No, everyone will realize you run the most efficient meetings they’ve ever seen and never let you give up the position. Sorry, you’ll be stuck with it.”
“Oh, no thank you,” Abbot says and Ned revels in the softening of his voice. “My first act will be to depose myself.”
“Maybe we can team up and convince someone they really want to take it on long term. I’ll sweet-talk them and you put together the numbers to show what a great idea it is.”
“That is a much better plan.” Abbot tips his face for a kiss that tastes like his tea.
He doesn’t want to talk. He never does, and he won’t, Ned knows. But he shook something loose last night, and no matter how Abbot retreats, he can’t fit it back inside that private, deep place he so likes to keep shut tight.
It’s a precious thing, that confidence. The terror with which Abbot spoke, that sliver of trust extended, and Ned wants to grip it with both hands and prove he’ll hold on as tight as he can.
“Let’s get those offer letters,” he says and pulls out his phone. “And I’ll do the talking with Beverly when we call her, so you don’t have to.”
“I’m really fine.”
“I know.” Ned’s letting Abbot lie, but he’s allowed to for today at least. To recover a bit from last night. Ned leans in and kisses him again. “I still will, though.”
Ned understands now, better than he ever could have.
The guilt Abbot’s carried, and how Beverly is a reminder of that.
His exes too, if Ned has this right, all the threads of that time of Abbot’s life weaving into a knot of everything he doesn’t want to face, wrapped neatly with shame over avoiding his mother as she grew sicker.
Which makes Ned want to shake him, or squeeze him, or figure out how to finally run a regression that will prove to Abbot it’s not his fault. His father’s, maybe, for similarly stealing away and burying himself in his work, leaving his son in the care of a family friend.
Though who knows what really happened there. All Ned has is Abbot’s perspective, a scared and lonely child with both parents suddenly gone. And then an angry young adult, who had the relief of his mom in remission before being forced to watch the same scenario play out again.
Whoever this Reto guy is, Ned would like a word with him. Louis as well while he’s at it, and anyone else Abbot sought refuge in, who from the sounds of it treated him like shit.
“Abbot,” Ned says gently.
Abbot turns his face, busying himself with a sip of tea. And that’s it exactly, that quick dodge to the side. If Ned gives him an opening, he’ll be off talking about another topic entirely.
“Just one thing,” Ned says. Well, more than that. They have to learn how to communicate better, and this is the first step in a long journey. If Abbot has carried so much for so long, it won’t be easy for him to just put all that aside.
But one thing at a time. Ned takes Abbot’s hand, warmed through from his tea. “Newbury, the fact that in the midst of all of your family stuff you aced university and then got your PhD, and now Newbury is recruiting you.”
“You said it yourself. It’s just because of Beverly.”
“It’s not. It’s because you’re at the top of your career, and young enough that you’re just getting started.
You heard her. The department is excited about you, and why wouldn’t they be?
Abbot—you go for what you want. And what you don’t want, or what isn’t working for you, you ignore.
And I think your mom’s illness was a huge thing in your life you couldn’t just work harder on, couldn’t put your head down and grind through. ”
“Ned—”
“You did visit her. You told me so, but I think you set an impossible standard no one could live up to, and you’ve been beating yourself up for all these years since. You wanted to do it perfectly, and when you couldn’t, you tried to get away, and that’s been eating you up.”
Abbot won’t look at him, his chin tipping when Ned ducks closer. When he speaks, it’s to the edge of the counter.
“I wanted you,” Abbot says. “For a very long time.”
“You got me,” Ned says. “You’re it for me. I’m here, and you’re here, and you know what? We get to do this thing called life together.”
Abbot’s forehead furrows. “We don’t even know what that will look like.”
“It’ll look great.”
“But where will we live?”
“Yeah.” Fuck the practicalities of life. His finances, and the rush of it all. He needed more time, and he still does. “You said—Abbot, you told me that as we’re in this together, the rest of it is just noise. And that’s true. So let’s take care of Newbury now, and we’ll sort the rest out.”
How? Ned braces to hear, but the night wore on Abbot too, because he just nods.
Ned squeezes his hand, a punctuation to end that topic. They’ll figure it out.
Somehow.
“I am proud of you, you know,” Abbot says as Ned unlocks his phone. “Newbury wouldn’t hire you if they didn’t see you being successful. That’s something, coming so soon after completing your doctorate and with only a couple of semesters of teaching.”
Ned opens his mouth to argue, then shuts it. He won’t let any more discomfort between them stretch.
But Abbot’s younger than him by a couple years and his career could spin circles around Ned’s. Ned is at Newbury by Abbot’s grace alone, he knows, and Newbury University and Beverly must really, really want Abbot on their faculty, to be bringing Ned along.
And Beverly really cares about this man. At least Ned can relate to that.
Ned gives Abbot a smile and taps the phone number in the email from last night.
When she answers, Ned leans closer to the phone and puts a smile into his voice. “Hi Beverly, it’s Ned and Henry. We got your email and are giving you a call back.”
“Wonderful,” she says, her voice warming. “I have to tell you, I’m excited to have both of you joining us.”
This is real, Ned lets himself think. The stress of these last few weeks, Adams being ripped out from under him, it’s all being replaced with something better. Newbury University, of all places, and getting to work with Abbot again.
And he and Abbot are good. He grips Abbot’s hand, feeling closer to him than he has in a long time. “Thank you,” Ned says. “Really, we both appreciate it, and we’re excited too.”
Well, he is. Abbot is staring somewhere across the table.
“What do you need to finalize?” Abbot asks, cutting straight to the point, and yeah, he’s going to smash it as department chair someday. Their colleagues will be exhausted by his ruthless efficiency and so, so thankful for it.
“Some last-minute details,” Beverly says. “And mostly, to let you know I need your offers signed as soon as you can. Today by the end of the workweek, or first thing Monday morning.”
“You do?” Abbot asks as Ned catches his eye.
That soon? Ned mouths, and Abbot lifts a shoulder in a similar confusion.
“I know, it’s unusual, but we’re under a bit of pressure to get this done,” Beverly says.
It leaves them absolutely no time to negotiate their offers.
To even think about them. Though they didn’t really have that chance to begin with.
Abbot held out his job acceptance for Ned’s hire, and throwing that brick into the works has left them no room to make a counteroffer.
Salary, benefits, funding, all of it—they tossed the chance to be picky out the window at the beginning of the process.
But still. By Monday?
“That’s fine,” Ned says. Of course it is. It has to be. He’s not going to turn down a job he’s lucky to get in the first place. When he raises his eyebrows at Abbot, he gets a nod in return. “No problem. We can get them back to you right away.”
“Thank you,” Beverly says, and she does sound surprisingly relieved. “It’s been a real coup to get you two in.”
“Well, we appreciate the effort,” Ned says.