Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Present Day
Sherman Oaks, California
Mission Day Two
Next week would’ve been their due date.
The alert came up on the calendar on Robin’s phone—like he would’ve somehow needed a reminder.
The combination of that notice plus Todd continuing to be a total mindfuck after he’d played the toxic character all day was almost too much.
Robin lay on his back on the cool tile floor of the living room, staring up at the unfamiliar ceiling of the rental house, trying to exhale the last of Todd as he waited for Jules and Sam to return.
Jules had been sending him regular updates as he dealt with the car accident, but that had stopped about forty minutes ago with a Fucking goddamn shit this might take longer than I’d hoped and now Robin didn’t want to bother him.
Although, it was highly probable that Jules had gotten the same reminder on his phone, so fucking goddamn shit yeah.
He wanted to cry, but Todd the freaking psychopath didn’t, couldn’t, or maybe just plain wouldn’t.
Instead, Robin just lay on the floor and wished there was something more he could do to help. Or that he could find a portal to an alternative timeline.
At least the report that Jules had been furiously waiting for from the San Diego Troubleshooters office had finally landed in his email in-box. In one of his earlier texts, before the fucking goddamn shit, he’d asked Robin to print it out.
Sam apparently had a preference for hard-copies—although Robin knew that Jules really did, too. He could relate. He’d read plenty of scripts on his iPad or even his phone, but having a paper copy to dog-ear and scribble notes on, or even just to doodle in the margins was nice...
Or maybe they were all just getting old.
Like Lois, his sister Janey’s mother-in-law, who printed out and saved every email that Cosmo, her Navy SEAL son, ever sent her. Jane had spent hours explaining both the ease and environmental benefits of digital filing systems to Lois but nope.
Since printing out the coveted report from TS was something Robin could do to help, he’d dragged Todd’s stupid-bitch-ass upstairs to the little room Jules and Sam were using as a temporary office and fired up the printer.
Pretty much all printers fucking hated him, but this evening this printer seemed to know that Todd was in the room.
Todd would have no issue with throwing the damn thing out the window onto the driveway below.
Troubleshooting made simple. Is the printer in four million little pieces on the asphalt?
If yes, click here to order a new one. If no, throw it out the window now.
But this evening, with remarkable ease, Robin had successfully printed out two copies of the rather hefty overview of producer Milton Devonshire, his wig-wearing son, and even the lawyer involved in this find-the-heir case—one Ernest Harper, who was part of the cliched Hollywood old boy’s club, right down to the copious time spent on the golf course and the three wives.
Or rather third wife, because at least he’d married them one at a time.
And yeah. Robin hadn’t asked permission, he just sat down on the sofa and read the damn thing from start to finish.
Todd the asshole had no boundaries, but he couldn’t even really blame the still-lingering, stomach-churning, backed-up bits of the foul-mouthed character for his transgression.
Because the truth was that he—Robin—wanted to read it.
He wanted to help, and he was pretty damn good at this mystery solving shit.
Jules and Sam had both often come to him through the years to get his viewpoint, or even to brainstorm.
But the real bottom-line was that he missed being a unified team—he and Jules.
Able to say anything to each other, able to share every feeling, every thought—even inappropriate or embarrassing or foolish ones.
Able to share every heartbeat, every breath, every hope, dream, fear, and doubt. Without needing to be careful.
These past few months they’d both become so fucking careful around each other. If I speak, will I hurt you? If I cry, will that trigger your grief, too? If I laugh, am I being insensitive? If I complain too much, am I the asshole?
Jules had gone really quiet in his grief—and that was weeks before he’d resigned from the Bureau.
The whole getting pregnant thing had been a loudly joyful community effort.
Finding Penny, who’d been so wonderfully willing to rent out her uterus for the tiny, growing cluster of cells that had sparked from one of Janey’s donated eggs and Jules’s extremely healthy sperm.
Their child-to-be was going to be half Jules and the very best half of Robin, nurtured to life by Penny’s upbeat sparkle and warmth.
And yes.
Next week would’ve been their due date.
Fucking goddamn shit.
In another more perfect universe, they would’ve been a week away from meeting their baby.
Penny would’ve temporarily moved into their house in Boston for the last month or so, where Jules would’ve still had his beloved and important career, where their government wouldn’t have drastically doubled down on being one that put pregnant people’s health at very real risk.
In yet another universe—one that was halfway between the brutal grimness of here and the full-throttle joy of there—Penny would be bouncing back from her miscarriage with a clean bill of heath, ready for them all to try again.
Why the fuck weren’t they talking about this?
Why was he was stuck in this place where he felt the need to be hold-his-breath careful around the man who was not just the love of his life and his soulmate, but his best friend, his everything...?
Fuck that goddamn shit.
Robin—quite possibly with Todd’s help—wrestled his phone out of his pants pocket and unlocked it, scrolling to his text messages. There was Jules’s latest. Fucking goddamn shit...
He sent his husband back a text bubble filled with hearts.
And then he wrote: Please let me know if I can help in any way.
I won’t drive, I promised you I wouldn’t, but I could Uber to you, if you think my being there might help.
Sometimes the celebrity factor helped enormously, and sometimes it really didn’t. In LA, it could go either way.
He kept going: Also I just got a calendar reminder that punched me in the face and I think maybe you got the same one.
I’m so fucking sad, and I know you are, too, and I just want to say that it’s okay that we feel this way.
But if it’s all right with you, I’m gonna stop protecting you from my feelings now because I don’t think that was helping either of us, so heads up when you get home because I’m a hot mess.
Robin hesitated, thinking he should probably read it through and rethink it all again, but Todd used his big fucking stupid thumb to hit send.
“Motherfucker!” Robin said. Or maybe Todd said it. Hard to know.
But then, almost immediately, three little dots appeared in the text thread—Jules was typing. He didn’t write a long paragraph, he just fired off a steady stream of texts that appeared rapidly, one after another.
I love you
We’re finally done with this fresh hell thank god
Sam’s driving
Home soon
Sam ordered Chinese
He’ll drop me and pick it up
I got a calendar notification that was yeah
Please don’t ever pretend you’re okay when you’re not, and I promise I’ll do the same
I’m so fucking sad too and it is hard to deal with it so sometimes it’s easier to just stay numb
Oh, babe...
Or to get angry and then go numb
I’m so mad at the entire world
Like Clem load your shotgun mad
Belle used to say that and I get it now
Belle was one of Jules’s high school friends.
His second high school, in his mother’s hometown, where he and she had moved right before his senior year.
Jules had so many friends from all parts and walks of his life, it was sometimes hard to keep them straight, but Belle and Tom and Hobbit and Sadie and what’s his name were unforgettable.
Well, almost. What was his name, the guy who’d joined the DEA.
..? He’d been working in Vegas, but was living in Palm Springs now. ..
Sometimes the anger is all I can feel and that scares the living shit out of me
The constant texts finally paused, giving Robin a chance to type back: It’s okay to feel angry. I’m angry, too. And I bet if you ask Sam, right now, “Are you angry?” he’d say “Fuck yeah.”
Three dots, then... But I can’t remember what I used to feel instead of this constant soul-crushing all-consuming rage and sorrow
Hope! Robin sent his text back immediately because the answer was so obvious, to him at least.
He kept going: Jules, you’ve always been the embodiment of hope, for me at least, from the very first moment I met you. Hope and an openness to see the good in everyone and everything.
He started texting Jules-style, sending his messages out in bits and pieces so that Jules wouldn’t have to wait for the stupid dots of something’s-coming. Why do you think you have so many friends?
And friends where I tend to go “Whoa, *he’s* your friend? How did *that* happen?”
It’s because you go in, open to anything, without judgment, completely believing everything will work out, and work out well.
That’s 100% hope.
In the face of a world that’s filled with bullshit and cynicism.
How do I get that back Jules’s text came in right when Robin was sending his last one.
You let yourself heal, Robin typed, and you live one day at a time for a while. Robin had a great deal of experience in living one day at a time, one moment—now—at a time.
What if I can’t get it back again came rapid fire as Robin hit send.
Robin was certain: You will.
“But what if I can’t?”
Robin turned to see Jules standing in the doorway to the living room. He hadn’t heard the car approach, or the front door open, he’d been so intent on their text conversation. But now he put his phone down and sat up.
You will or even If I could live through rehab and all these years of recovery, you can and will survive this was not the answer Jules needed to hear yet, even though Robin believed in his heart that it was true.
“If you can’t,” he evenly told his husband, the love of his life, “I’ll love you anyway.
And we’ll just keep on giving you lots of.
.. of... sunshine and water and fresh air.
Because even when a fire destroys an entire forest, and it’s all completely blackened and dead, even when nothing’s survived, there’s always some bird that flies overhead and shits out a seed into the ashes.
And it takes hold and grows—and yeah, maybe it’s different from what was there before, but sometimes it’s even bigger and stronger and more beautiful than it ever was. I’ll be your bird if you need me to.”
“Shitting in my ashes,” Jules said, laughing a little despite the tears that Robin could see brimming in his eyes.
“We really should’ve put that in our vows,” Robin said as his own eyes welled with tears. Todd, thank God, was finally gone. “It was a missed opportunity.” He held out his hand for Jules to either pull him up off the floor or to join him down there.
But Jules didn’t take it. Instead he stayed where he was.
“Robin, I’m so so sorry because I know you want this so badly, but I don’t want to try again for a baby.
Not right now—but God, a giant voice in my head is screaming not ever.
The idea of nearly killing another woman is a huge part of that never, but I’m also really struggling with the idea of bringing a child into this horrible, fucked-up, cruel-as-shit world.
I know you’ve been waiting for me to get over it, to bounce back, but I don’t.
..” He started to cry. “I don’t think that I can. ”
“Oh, babe, it’s okay,” Robin pushed himself off of the floor and Jules must have run toward him, too, because they met in the middle in an embrace that nearly knocked him over.
“I’m so sorry,” Jules just kept saying. “I know you want this so badly but I just can’t...”
“It’s okay,” Robin said again. “We have time. We can wait. And hey, maybe it won’t stay horrible and fucked up and cruel-as-shit forever.”
“But if it does...”
Robin pulled back to look down into the eyes of this man he loved with every cell in his body.
“Then we’ll be Uncle Robin and Uncle Jules.
We have Ash and Haley and Billy and Charlie and—jeez, there’s so many of them.
And we’ll get a dog or two and I’ll love every minute of my ridiculously long and happy life with you whether we have a baby of our own or not. ”
“I don’t want to do that to you,” Jules whispered.
“Do what?” Robin said. “Share my ridiculously long and happy life?”
“Robin,” Jules said. “What if my not right now really does become a permanent never?”
“What if it doesn’t?” Robin countered. “But hey, even if it does, I’ll just be over here quietly shitting into your ashes, always and forever, because sooner or later, something’s gonna grow.”
“Quietly?” Jules asked.
“Yeah, I heard myself say that, too,” Robin admitted. “Let me revise that to quietly and or sometimes-slash-mostly not so quietly.”
Jules laughed, but then started to cry again.
So Robin did the only thing left to do.
He held his husband close and let him grieve.