4. Ned
NED
Newbury University, handed on a silver platter to Abbot. Damn. Damn.
But Abbot just stands there as the silence stretches. And stretches.
“So are you new to the Boston area?” Ned asks to fill the gap where Abbot should be saying thank you.
“Oh, no, I grew up just outside of the city,” Beverly says, apparently happy to make small talk and not comment on Abbot standing stiff as a board, his thumb pressed so hard to his index finger that his nail bed is turning white.
“Well, you know all about the particulars of Cambridge versus Boston, then. I grew up in the city, and I still live there, actually, just across the river from Newbury.” Just across it and then away from the water a good many blocks.
A neighborhood where the houses are reasonably sized, not the monstrosity of mansions that surround Newbury University and sit on that riverfront property near it.
This Beverly person is really something, to be a dean there. Of the entire liberal arts college, too. Trust Abbot’s father to have a friend of this caliber.
“Good old Newton girl myself,” Beverly says.
“Not the Newton Tigers. I lost too many games to them growing up. High school baseball, mostly. That was pretty rough.”
Beverly offers a soft smile. “I actually went to boarding school.”
Ah. She’s that type of family from Newton.
Of course she is. Ned should’ve guessed.
“Well, good thing then, because I was definitely not at all responsible for finally beating you guys in football. More of a soccer guy myself, for a fall sport,” Ned says lightly.
He smooths his hand down Abbot’s back to see if any of the tension has eased.
No, not a bit. Who the hell is this lady? Friend of the family, Chris had said, and she came bearing a job offer and an envelope Abbot had stared at like it was a ticking bomb.
Though any conversation with a mention of Abbot’s father heads into dire straits sooner or later. Ned turns to Chris to give Abbot another minute to come back to himself. “Chris, how are you?” Ned asks. “Haven’t seen you in a minute. You have a good holidays?”
“Absolutely lovely, but just so nice to be back to the semester. How are you? How’s work? And how’s little Peggy?”
“Not so little anymore. Halfway through first grade.”
“Already?”
“I can’t believe it.”
“You find a place yet? You were looking for one, right?”
Ned keeps his smile fixed right where it is. Beverly here went to boarding school and just landed at Newbury, that university that has sat across the river Ned’s entire life, lording over the city from on high. She definitely never moved back in with her parents as an adult.
Though finally having a real paycheck, not the pittance he was paid for his graduate stipend, goes a long way toward easing the tickle of embarrassment that creeps up his spine. “Still with the folks.”
“Tough market?” Chris asks. “I imagine it’s a headache trying to find anything.”
“Real tough,” Ned agrees, like he’s even looked. Everything is expensive as hell, and for the first time in a good long while, Ned’s actually making a dent in his student loans.
And his credit card bill. And his car payment, too. And, and, and—yeah, a dent. A small one.
“Bev’s wife is a Realtor,” Chris says. “What do you think? Will Sandy have any leads for Ned?”
Free ones, Ned should specify. That would have to compete with already having space for Peggy and permission for Baxter, full furnishings, utilities included, and some damn good home cooking.
Yeah, Ned’s got it made living with Mom and Dad, even if he doesn’t want to admit it. “Oh, don’t worry about me,” he says.
He’s saved from having to scrounge up another comment to keep the silence from swamping over them again by a soft tap at the door.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Steve says as he eases the door open. He pauses on the threshold, looking curiously at Beverly. Probably wondering if Chris really scheduled his meeting with the faculty and then told an old friend to sure, stop on by at the same time, why not?
Welcome to Callahan, Ned thinks and grins at Steve. “We were just commiserating about the Boston housing market,” Ned says.
“Sandy, Beverly’s wife, is getting started selling properties in Boston,” Chris says. “They just moved up from Georgia.”
“Always a favorite topic,” Steve says. “Chris, your faculty are amazing. Just got to chat with everyone. Such a great chance to meet them all. Thank you.”
It’s been minutes, barely, so what Steve means is that everyone scattered to the wind as soon as Chris left, and Steve isn’t going to put up a stink in front of his potential new colleagues by delaying them from their evening plans.
Yeah, he’ll fit in great here. Bummer that he’s leaving Adams, but he’ll do well with this crew at Callahan.
“How wonderful,” Chris says. “Steve, do you know Beverly? Bev, this is potentially our newest hire, and Steve, this is Beverly Jones, recently of Newbury University.”
“And familiar with realty, I hear,” Steve says. “So nice to meet you. Now let me ask: If I list a house I absolutely don’t want to sell, what’re the chances I won’t get the door knocked down with offers flooding in?”
“These days?” Beverly asks. “From what I hear, get ready to receive some flower bouquets and gift baskets full of fancy jams.”
“See, that’s the problem right there. Apparently, we’re putting my grandmother’s place up for sale this spring. And by we, I mean my siblings, their spouses, and my wife. I think we should keep it and rent it out, but I got outvoted.”
“It’s going to fly as soon as you list it,” Beverly says.
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Steve says.
“Well, you won’t want to be saddled with property all the way down in Boston when you’re up here,” Chris says.
“Yeah?” Steve asks, hope clear on his face.
“I’d love to have you, certainly,” Chris says. “So why not celebrate? Bev’s coming over for dinner, and surely you’ll join us.”
Us. Chris is looking at Ned and Abbot too, not just Steve.
Oh hell no. Steve might have to play nice to land this job, but Ned drove up here with a particular goal in mind, and that’s spending as many hours in bed with Abbot as he possibly can before he has to leave in the morning.
Dinner with Chris and Susan and this Beverly?
And with Abbot so quiet and uncomfortable?
That’s a big No thanks. “So kind of you,” Ned says with all the enthusiasm he can put into his smile. “But we can’t make it tonight. I’m so sorry.”
“Join us for a drink, at least,” Chris says. “Henry, you have to hear about Newbury.”
“Newbury?” Steve asks.
“I’d really love to talk with you about the opportunity,” Beverly says.
She’s expecting him to say yes. Clearly. To the conversation and to the job both. Of course she is: it’s Newbury University. You don’t just say no to that. Or stonily ignore it like Abbot is doing.
“It was really so great to meet you,” Ned says and sticks his hand out to Beverly, hoping if he does it with enough gusto, she’ll go along with it.
Thankfully, she shakes his hand again, so he can turn the momentum to Chris before any more invitations come, each harder to slip out of than the last. “A drink would be great, but my dog is stashed at a friend’s place, and I have to pick him up before he chews too many sneakers.”
“Just bring him over with you,” Chris says, and damn, this man never makes anything easy, does he?
But Ned is well-versed in all things Chris.
“I would if I didn’t need to catch up with this guy too, while I’ve got a chance.
Steve, we’ll walk you out?” As excuses go, it’s a shitty one, since he can see Steve at the office.
But Ned pulls Chris into a back-slapping hug that serves as a definitive goodbye.
Better to cap this conversation right here and rescue Steve along with Abbot.
Which is generous of Ned, really, when he’s losing his best pitcher.
Ned catches Steve’s eye as he steers Abbot toward the door. Don’t blow this, he tries to convey with a silent look.
“Absolutely, new campuses are always a maze,” Steve says as he catches on. “And are we talking batting order?”
“We need to discuss the bullpen, if you’re trying to jump ship.” Ned ushers him and Abbot down the hall ahead of him.
“I love the idea of a baseball team,” Chris murmurs behind them.
“You know, at some point you and Peggy are going to have to put down the recipe book, and she’ll finally have to teach you how to hit a ball,” Ned says, slipping his hand into Abbot’s.
Nothing. Barely a faint squeeze against his fingers.
Thanks for offering a surprise job at a world-class university people spend their whole careers aiming for, Abbot could have said to Beverly.
Ned glances back, half sure Chris will lob another invitation after them, or that Beverly will loudly retract her offer in the face of Abbot’s response to her generosity.
Though, no. Abbot knows her, and she knows his family, and so she knows how he is, clearly. How he clams up and takes time to emerge from his shell, and she’s not fazed by it.
“Steve, you can’t up and leave Adams,” Ned says when they make it outside. “What the hell, man?”
“Listen, you absolutely weren’t supposed to be here tonight. Not that I’d figured out how to avoid the boyfriend-to-boyfriend news pipeline. But you aren’t supposed to know about me interviewing at Callahan, alright?”
“I thought you were happy at Adams. And Jess was too.”
“We both are, but the wife says we gotta go, so we gotta go. Look, can you forget everything about this? It’s already so awkward. Spousal hires always are, and I really don’t need the entire department knowing I have a foot out the door.”
“I won’t tell anyone at work. But why? Just up and leaving? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Jess found a great position up here.”
“Jess has a great position.” Ned squints at him in the wash of light glowing over the campus paths. “Callahan isn’t the place for her research. Adams is a better spot for her.”
“We’re feeling like Portland is the place to be.”
“Your entire family lives in Boston. Jess’s too. Nobody moves away from free childcare.”
Steve smiles, but it’s weak. “We want a bigger yard.”
“So move out to the suburbs.”
“Too long a commute.”
“Adams lets us work from home,” Ned counters, and then he presses, because this is fishy as hell. “Why are you possibly leaving?”
“Just a new job. Seems to be going around, yeah? That Beverly is at Newbury now?”
“Yeah, and she offered Abbot a position.” Ned turns to him. “That was wild.”
“She what?” Steve asks. “At Newbury? Oh shit, Henry. That’s incredible.”
Ned jostles Abbot’s hand, swinging it between them to get his attention. “You are going to take it, right?”
“No.”
The word is crisp in the cold night air, a puff of white breath forming at Abbot’s mouth and hanging there before dissipating as the syllable does.
“No?” Steve asks.
“It’s Newbury,” Ned says. “Nobody turns down Newbury.” Nobody up and gets offered a position at Newbury, except Abbot just did.
Of course he did. It’s Abbot. Another grant?
Ned had asked just a couple weeks ago when Abbot had been awarded even more funding, coming off having a paper accepted for publication over the summer in Sociology Review of America.
He’ll be invited onto his next panel soon enough, or he’ll be the keynote at yet another conference, or he’ll write the foreword of a book that will absolutely end up a seminal sociology text. Of course Newbury wants him.
“I’d rather be at Adams,” Abbot says. “With you, Ned.”
“With me?” Ned tries to catch up to whatever spot Abbot’s brain has jumped ahead to.
He’d want Steve’s job, if Steve really leaves?
At Adams, of all places? There are universities, and then there are universities.
Ned hadn’t known the difference when he’d applied to college, mostly caring how much each application fee was and what he could get in financial aid.
Now, after all this time in academia, he grasps the full picture.
Newbury was always out of his league, as a student and now as a professor.
But not for Abbot. Not even a little.
“Hon,” Ned says.
“I’m not interested in Newbury.”
“Everyone is interested in Newbury,” Steve says. “And Henry, if you want to be in Boston, I’d take it.”
Ned squeezes Abbot’s hand. “You’re not going to Adams when you could be at Newbury.”
“I’d really prefer to be at Adams,” Abbot says in an I’ve already decided this tone.
Once, that had made Ned’s jaw clench. How fucking presumptuous, he’d thought of this man for all the years before he really knew him. Now, he hears the discomfort behind the words, the sharpness that shortens Abbot’s tone when his mind is a million miles away.
Ned sets his hand on the back of Abbot’s neck and draws him close to kiss his temple.
This is what he wanted on the drive up here tonight.
The scent of his skin, his hair, the waft of laundry detergent from his clothes.
To be close to him and enjoy their time together, not deal with a sudden maze of new jobs and Abbot standing stiff and unhappy in the cold dark.
“Let’s go get a drink,” Ned says. “I gotta get Baxter anyway.”
“I should be heading back,” Steve says, pulling out his phone to check the time.
“Nope,” Ned says. “I saved you from Chris. That means you’re getting a beer with us.”
“I shouldn’t.”
“I will bench you.”
“You really love our baseball team too much.”
“You don’t get to duck out without an actual reason,” Ned says. “C’mon. Why are you really leaving Adams?”
Steve sighs. Quickly, he checks his phone again, then unlocks it and taps out a quick text. “One drink.”
Ned pulls his out and hunts for Jess’s number. We’ll get him back to you soon, he writes.
He’s sworn to secrecy, she responds immediately.
Oh, so there is a secret. Ned’s hunch was right. He steers Steve down the path toward Pat’s. “One beer. And my treat, even.” He can absolutely pry the truth out of Steve over the course of a beer, and get Abbot back to himself too.
And then Ned is going to take Abbot back to his house and finally put their month apart behind them.