2. Ned
NED
Portland’s streets are lined with snowbanks, and Ned tries three of his usual spots in the city before he finally finds a place to park.
When he’s clambered onto the sidewalk, it’s as much a mess of salt and slush as the roads, but he starts jogging anyway.
He’ll care about his shoes later, and Baxter too, who is already asleep in the backseat, unperturbed by both the cold and Ned’s rush.
Right now, he’s focused on making it to Pat’s.
By the time he does, he’s sweating and his hands are freezing. It’s too hot inside, his fingers burning as he tugs his zipper, eagerly scanning the evening crowd.
He sighs as he comes up empty. Abbot’s not here yet.
“He’s on his way?” Ned asks Pat as he makes his way to the bar.
“Hello to you too,” Pat says. “Soon. He said he had a meeting.”
Soon. It’s been a month. By all rights, Ned should have been here already, and Abbot should have shown up, ostensibly to hang out with Pat, and Abbot and Ned should already be enjoying their stolen evening together. “How soon?”
“Bold question for someone so on time.”
“There was traffic. And I thought he’d be here already.”
“You think you’re annoyed with me, but I can see the truth. You’re so disgustingly happy with your life that it’s honestly hard to look at you.”
“I am not.” Ned pauses, considering. “Okay, I am. Did I tell you I got another paper accepted for publication?”
“Did you tell me? Hold on. Let me think.” Pat taps his chin. “Did you ever, even once, mention that you’ve had not one, but two papers accepted by journals? I can’t quite put my finger on the memory. I’m really having trouble figuring out if I’ve ever heard this before.”
“Two papers, and I’m seeing my wonderful boyfriend tonight. Who you said would be here by now.”
“He’s coming, I swear. And you’re also seeing your beautiful best friend, I might add.”
“Pat. It’s been a damn month.”
“And you can’t stand another five minutes?” Pat waves toward a guy waiting at the bar to order. “You take care of him, and I’ll go text Abbot again.”
“I’m not a bartender.”
“And I’m not a personal concierge, but look at me now.” Pat ducks into the back with his phone.
Which leaves the guy eyeing Ned and the pint glass Pat’s pulled out.
Ned sighs. Then he steps behind the bar and washes his hands. This is some sort of food service violation, he’s sure, but he can’t care over the botched surprise.
They’ll have to try again, an hour after Ned meant all this to happen. An hour that cuts into their already short time together.
At least they have tonight. They’d be waiting for the weekend otherwise and that’s too fucking long, Ned had decided, knowing Abbot was back from his trip and that another forty-eight hours really wasn’t bearable.
“What’ll it be?” Ned asks.
“The IPA,” the guy says.
It takes Ned a moment to locate the right tap, and when he passes the glass over, the guy asks, “How much?”
Like Ned has any idea. When was the last time he paid for a beer here?
Ever? He cranes to find a price on the chalkboard menu, and when he can’t, looks at Pat bent over his phone, thumbs tapping the screen.
Trust him to abandon Ned out here. I’ll get Abbot there right on time, Pat had promised, gleeful with his part in the scheme.
“It’s on the house,” Ned says, and since Pat’s being so generous tonight, he can buy Ned a beer too. Ned grabs a glass and finds the spout for the pale ale as the next woman in line approaches the bar.
“Free drinks,” he tells her, tipping his glass beneath the tap, his voice loud enough Pat can hear him.
“Whatever’s quickest.”
He hands over his beer and fills another glass for himself as she downs a series of healthy swallows, then presses the back of her hand to her mouth.
“Well that was certainly quick,” Ned says, impressed.
“Do you know of a spot to go dancing?”
Dancing? Even when Ned lived here, that wasn’t on his list of typical activities. He’d stuck to watching baseball and working, and in the year since he moved, his time in Portland has shrunk to Abbot’s house.
His bedroom, specifically. Where Ned ought to be already.
“You try Old Port?” he asks. “The neighborhood down by the water? Though on a Wednesday, I’m not sure anything would be open.”
“It’s not only Wednesday. It’s the middle of the damn winter.
” The woman sits heavily on the stool Ned usually occupies.
She looks tired. Polished, like she just came from the office, wearing a flattering blouse and with her dark hair in a sleek bob, but she’s clearly over whatever is happening with her evening.
Dancing, apparently, that she absolutely does not look in the mood for as she finishes a good portion of her remaining beer.
“You seem thrilled at the prospect,” Ned says.
“Tonight is the start of a marathon bachelorette party that extends through the entire weekend and stretches from Maine down to Boston.”
“Fun.”
“Oh, it’s absolutely not. The lovely maid of honor didn’t actually make sure there would be dancing, just promised it would happen. So I’m now fixing the situation.”
“Gotcha,” Ned says. “And you’re looking here? This place is mostly beer and wine, though Pat can whip up a mean spinach salad. It’s not exactly a nightclub.”
“Yes, food sounds amazing,” she says. “Can I get one of those while I pretend I’m doing something to help this disaster of a party?”
Good choice; Abbot really likes it, Ned nearly says.
He constantly has this knee-jerk reaction to bring up Abbot in every conversation, from the moment he wakes up to when he goes to bed.
He doesn’t need to embarrass himself in front of this stranger by going on about how Pat’s changed the spinach salad based on Abbot’s preferences—something about pickled onions—and that Ned doesn’t even like spinach, but he likes this salad because Abbot does, and, and, and—
He pokes at the computer screen until he’s fairly sure he’s managed to send the order to the kitchen, then refills her beer. Is he supposed to get her a clean glass? Probably, but he just tops it off and slides it back to her.
“A bachelorette? Need something stronger, too?” he asks.
“What I need is a spot to bring all the girls to eat, because said maid of honor did not in fact get a reservation for twenty people for tonight. So I’m fixing that problem and the dancing debacle, but it’s too cold to stand outside so I came in here and then you handed me a drink.”
Ned lifts his glass in a desolate toast. He can commiserate. He needs Abbot naked in bed right this very second, to erase the ages he spent in traffic and now waiting for a damn meeting to end. “Ned,” he offers.
She raises her glass. “Claire. Thanks.”
Ned glances at Pat. He misses him. Not like he misses Abbot and that searing joy he feels every time they see each other, just to be answered with the ache of saying goodbye again too soon.
With Pat, Ned misses the day-to-day fun they had living together.
Messing with each other has been reduced to texts and the odd visit when Pat’s in Boston, or Ned makes it up to Portland and he and Abbot manage to put on pants and leave the house.
This mid-week trip to surprise Abbot…well, it does have the added benefit of being a brief reunion with Pat, too. “As someone who definitely has the unilateral power to make this decision,” Ned tells Claire, “I can happily invite you to enjoy your evening here, if you’d like.”
She eyes him. “So that means you’re absolutely not allowed to?”
Ned laughs. He likes her, he decides. She’s quick to catch on and clearly appreciates a good beer.
If she can help him pull one over on Pat too, all the better.
“I’m definitely not, but the food here isn’t bad, and there’s plenty to drink.
And what else—dancing? I didn’t tell you this, but the phone controlling the music is that guy’s right there and he can totally be bought. ”
Claire follows Ned’s wave toward Pat, then looks around the space.
It’s probably not at all what she was envisioning, with its worn wood floor and the tables filled with Callahan students.
Ned can’t see it with anything but affection for this place he’s spent so much of his time, the stool she’s on where he normally perches, and that table over there where he and Abbot spent an evening sitting through trivia, back when they barely knew each other.
“Good nachos too,” Ned wheedles. “Pairs well with the spinach salad; take it from me.”
“Well, I’m not going to say no to nachos,” she says. “What’s his price? Like a venue fee? For the music and us crashing this spot with no notice?”
“Just the joy of me getting to tell him what’s happening. Pat!”
“I’m trying, okay?” Pat calls back.
“Let me see your phone.” Ned holds out his hands until Pat tosses it over.
Abbot sure is in a meeting, Ned sees as he scrolls through the texts. He glances at the door. But it doesn’t open, and Abbot doesn’t walk in like he should, so Ned swipes to the music app and hands Claire the phone. “Passcode is 102704 if you need to unlock it.”
“What is this? What’re you doing?” Pat asks.
“Claire, this is Pat. Pat, meet Claire. She’s bringing a bachelorette party over in just a few minutes and you’re hosting them.”
“I’m what?” Pat asks. “Wait, no.”
Ned claps his shoulder. “What did you say, Claire? Twenty people?”
“Twenty-one with my sister, the bride,” Claire says. “Fair warning; they’re loud. Lots of ‘Woo!’-ing.’”
“Wow, and that’s even your favorite, Pat. You’re welcome.”
“Are you serious? I knew about the second paper. Is this my punishment? The papers and the departmental baseball team you won’t shut up about. You can’t do this to me. You know I hate having bachelorettes here.”
“Wow, rude,” Ned says.
“Sorry,” Pat says. “I’m sorry.”
Claire raises her beer. “Totally fair.”
“So there you go, she hates having one too, so you two can bond over that. Say ‘Thank you, Ned.’”
“I hate you, Ned.”
“Be nice,” Ned says and then lowers his voice. “C’mon, she’s totally your type.”
Pat peers past him at Claire. His face flushes a little. “I do kind of hate you.”
“You love me,” Ned says.
“I have no shot with her.”
“Why not?”
“She looks like a real adult. Not that you know what that is, living with your parents.”
“I’d be hurt by that if I didn’t hear the cha-ching of my bank account every month from not paying rent somewhere. Did Abbot say when he’s coming?”
“After his meeting, like you just read with your own eyes. Apparently it came up last minute, and he’ll be here right afterward.”
An unscheduled meeting right at the beginning of the semester, at an hour when most of the faculty would be leaving campus? “Oh. I have to rescue him.”
“You have to not leave me here with a bachelorette party.”
“This has Chris all over it.” Ned drains his beer. “I’m going to stick Baxter upstairs, okay? I’ll come right back for him, but it could take a minute to pry Abbot free.”
“Ned,” Pat hisses. “What do I even say to her?”
“Tell her about my second paper,” Ned whispers back. “Claire? Pat’ll take care of you. Hey, Pat, she got a salad. I think I got her a salad. Get her a salad, would you? And nachos and another beer.”
“You are the most terrible thing that’s ever happened to me,” Pat says. “A bachelorette party? This is torture.”
“It absolutely is,” Claire agrees.
Ned hugs him, like he should have when he first got here. “I’ll be back in a few.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Pat mutters, but he’s already leaning across the bar to talk to Claire, his face quickly turning a bright red.
It’s still so cold out. Ned hurries against the bite of winter to grab Baxter from the car and hustle him into Pat’s apartment. “Don’t eat any shoes,” he tells the dog. “I’m bringing back our guy. You ready to finally see Abbot? Yeah, me too, bud.”
Ned checks the mirror before he jogs back down the stairs. Abbot will look like a million bucks, even at the end of a long workday, and Ned will have just run across campus.
But the other option is to delay even longer, and Ned gives that thought a hearty fuck no. Abbot’s so close, just a couple blocks away, and once more, Ned hurries out into the night, eager for him.