18. Abbot
ABBOT
Ned’s in a meeting when Abbot gets back to the house, his voice rising from where he’s sitting at his computer. Likely talking a student through transitioning to another university, how they’ll transfer their credits, what their future might hold.
And ours? Abbot wants to ask Ned.
“Hi,” Ned says when he’s done, greeting him with a smile. “Glad I got to see you before I have to run over to campus.”
Abbot can’t help but let his eyes track over Ned. The sheer physicality of him catches Abbot’s interest all over again, the width of his shoulders and how he carries himself when he walks with such easy confidence.
He smells good too, stepping close, his fingers running along Abbot’s arm and sending a tickle down his spine.
The attraction Abbot felt when Ned first walked into his classroom all those years ago hasn’t faded.
Nor has the visceral comfort Abbot feels in his presence, which he only learned about last fall.
He’s found he is more himself when he’s around Ned, and that being himself is entirely, wonderfully easier.
Surely that’s more important than anything else, isn’t it?
“Claire sent in some bloodwork and said you’ll hear back soon,” Abbot says.
“Thank you.” Ned leans in to kiss his cheek. “How much was it?”
“I paid for it.”
“I’ll pay you back.”
“You don’t have to, it’s fine.” Everything is fine. Just a different type of fine than he really wants it to be, is all. “Ned…”
“Yeah, this morning was weird, wasn’t it?”
Abbot nods, relieved that at least about this, they can agree.
Ned grimaces and rubs his palms up and down Abbot’s arms. “We’ll figure all this out,” Ned says. “Whatever Beverly needs from us is one thing, but we’re good, right?”
“Right,” Abbot agrees. Are they? Yes. Of course they are.
But, he can’t help but linger on. But Abbot’s ready to settle down too.
He had been ready with Louis, and now he’s ready with Ned.
Maybe more than he thought he was. A house together.
A family. Not seeing Ned here at his parents’, but having a household of their own.
A place they both call home, and with it the decision that if they don’t have kids right now, they will soon.
Not in a couple of years and certainly not in five. Not to begin that life together half a decade from now, but to have it well underway by then.
Abbot draws back. “I should get going. The traffic.” He could find an excuse to stay, but…he wants some time to think.
Which he doesn’t need. Because everything is fine.
But still, the idea of driving the highway, a typically interminable experience for how often he’s driven it and how it keeps him from Ned, suddenly seems inviting in its monotony.
Abbot pulls out his phone to see if he’s even right about needing to avoid traffic.
Ned leans in to look at his screen. “You get anything from Newbury?”
“Not yet.”
“Would you check?”
“I’ll get a notification when I do.”
“Please?”
Abbot swipes to his email, but no, he hasn’t received any new messages.
Still, Ned points at his phone. “What’s that?”
“From Sandy.” Abbot taps the email to bring it up. “House listings.”
“Oh.”
“She said she can meet next week. Wednesday? I could come down in the afternoon.”
“Wasn’t I going to come up to you next weekend? Do we still even need to do this?”
“Do what?” See each other? Abbot reels slightly, staring at him.
Ned waves at his phone. “Look at these places?”
Oh. Yes. Abbot is just addled. On edge after today, worrying over nothing that needs to be worried about.
“Liesl’s landing on Thursday, so I was going to be down here anyway.
I can teach remotely. My students won’t mind.
” They won’t at all, not for the chance to sit in their pajamas in the comfort of their dorms.
Not that they don’t just wear their pajamas to class anyway, but that’s beside the point.
He offers Ned a smile. “I can skip book club too, if I’m down here early.”
Ned returns it, though it fades just as quickly. “But we did it, didn’t we? We met with Sandy. Now we’re just waiting to hear from Beverly. You should call her. Or at least email, right?”
“It’s only been a day. And I think Beverly was asking for more than a short discussion with Sandy to bring to HR.”
“Would you call her?”
“Now?”
“Just to follow up? You know, a thanks for meeting with us. You did already email her that, right?”
Abbot locks his phone and slips it back into his pocket.
“Abbot. You didn’t? Not even a quick thanks to her yesterday after we left?”
“We said as much in person.”
“Yeah, but sending an email afterward—you have to.”
“Then you can.”
“It’s different coming from you,” Ned says, his voice rising. “You set up the meeting. And she knows you already, and wants you to work there, so can you please just—”
“It’s fine.”
“It’s extremely not fine. What else am I going to do if Newbury doesn’t work out?”
“I don’t think a difference of one email—”
“It’s only one quick email. Please?” Ned ducks to the side, catching Abbot’s eye. “You can’t avoid her if we work there.”
No, Abbot can’t, which is a problem he’ll deal with some other time. Later, as fall approaches. It will be fine. She’s a dean of the college, not exactly his new department chair.
Though she’ll stop by his office. Pop in to ask how his day is and want to chat. Offer to have him over for dinner, or to take him for a coffee, or a walk around campus to catch up.
Chris did much the same when Abbot started at Callahan. Still does, though less frequently than in the beginning, bringing him over to his house and serving a table full of food like he was determined to see Abbot stuff himself.
But Chris talks. And talks. About anything and everything, a constant chatter Abbot allows because it takes up so much space in the room that he doesn’t have to contribute.
And Chris doesn’t ask questions. He simply lets Abbot be.
I think you’ll really love Callahan, Chris said all those years ago, coaxing Abbot with the open position at a university so far from Geneva.
Unspoken was its location on the East Coast, its proximity to Boston’s airport, the understanding that Abbot could fly back whenever he needed to.
An accommodation Chris silently extended, one of the few things he’s ever been quiet about.
Abbot doesn’t want to work for Beverly. She’s not the same as Chris, not at all.
“Who is she?” Ned asks.
“You met her.”
“Who is she to you?” Ned steps closer. “Do I need to dislike her too? Because that might be good for me to know up front, and frankly, she seems like a lovely woman.”
How to possibly explain? She is lovely. Abbot thought so when he was little, looking forward to her visits for how the house filled with her and his mother’s laughter.
The treats they baked together, how he was allowed to stay up late, the gifts she’d bring him.
How even his father smiled, warmed by the antics of his wife and her best friend.
No, he can’t. Not in a way that makes sense, because he can still barely sort it himself. His delight in Beverly, and how quickly he came to dread her visits, how her presence meant his mother couldn’t be at home with him, because she was in the hospital.
His assiduous avoidance of that fact. That place. Even now, he can barely allow his mind to touch those memories. The last thing he wants is to speak about them to Ned.
“I don’t dislike her,” Abbot finally manages.
“What you said is that you don’t know her well, and that you hadn’t seen her in a while.”
“I haven’t. And I don’t.” Not really. He’s not lying.
He’s not telling any truth either.
Ned knows too, because he sighs. “Okay. Listen. You never want to talk, but this time, we can’t just sidestep it. This is both of us, and it’s my job, so I have to have Newbury work out.”
“It will.” Of course it will. Beverly will bring Ned on as faculty, and Abbot will—he’ll—
Deal with all of that another time.
“It won’t if I don’t have a clue what’s going on and you’re not talking. Not to me and not to Beverly. Abbot, please. I have Peggy.”
Peggy. There are leftover cups of bronnti crème in the refrigerator, and surely Peggy will ask for one before dinner and another after. She negotiated one with her breakfast this morning, sticking her finger in the cup to get all of the custard out, while Ned implored her to please use her spoon.
Abbot won’t be here tonight when she wheedles Ned into extra desserts.
He’ll be back in Portland, eating alone in his silent kitchen.
I don’t see why the details matter, he wants to say, but Ned will push.
He’s different from other men Abbot’s been with.
He cares, which is entirely inconvenient right now.
And he’s looking at Abbot with frustration clear on his face.
Abbot considers simply leaving and the relief in that, and the aching hollowness that will follow like a whip when he sits in his car knowing he walked out on Ned.
Yes, it was easier with men who didn’t care about him, because he didn’t have to care, either. He’s eschewed that option with Ned, and by doing so, backed himself into this corner. He might be able to stand here silent, but eventually he’ll have to say something, or—
Or, when it’s Ned, feels entirely too painful, a discomfort that’s nearly worse than summoning words, or at least equal to it.
“Beverly was my mother’s friend,” he finally manages.
There. Simple enough.
Ned nods, his eyes softening. Then he stands there, just watching.
Waiting, Abbot realizes belatedly, for more. Abbot doesn’t want to say more. He wants to get in his car, turn it northward, and start driving.
“So, can you work for her?” Ned asks finally. “Will you be okay?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Yes, this seems very fine,” Ned says. “Abbot, hon. You don’t talk about this stuff, and I’m completely left in the dark—”
“I just told you—”
“No, you told me about Beverly. You didn’t tell me anything about yourself.”
“I did.”
“I want to know about you.” Ned grips Abbot’s hand. His fingers are warm, and his thumb moves over Abbot’s knuckles.
Abbot wants to tug his hand back, but he imagines the hurt that will fill Ned’s face and forces himself to hold still.
“Can you tell me how you’re doing, having her suddenly back in your life again?”
It was always sudden. Beverly flying in while his mother underwent a surgery, a round of treatment, a stay in bed for far too long. His father at work, and Beverly in the kitchen when Abbot came downstairs in the morning, waiting for him there after school.
He can’t share that with Ned. Not the strain of those days, the confusion and fear, the…
I know it’s scary to see your mom with all the IVs and monitors, but Henry, if you’d just visit her—
No, he can’t tell Ned that. Ned, who is always so there for the people around him, so damnably present like he is right now, refusing to budge and showing up for his daughter, his family, and now Abbot, when Abbot could barely bring himself to do the same.
He can picture the fall of Ned’s face if Abbot told him anything about those years, the man he was then, the choices he made. He pulls his hand back. “I should go.”
“Abbot.”
“Please,” he whispers.
“Yeah.” Ned rubs the bridge of his nose and Abbot’s skin is cold without his touch. “But we need to be able to talk about this. You need to. And I know it’s hard, but Abbot. It’s me. You can talk to me, and I want you to talk to me, alright?”
Abbot nods, just to get Ned to finally fall silent.
“So can you say something?” Ned presses.
“I’ll email her,” Abbot says. “Today.”
Ned looks far from satisfied, but he says, “Thank you.”
“And I’ll ask her what the next steps are, too.”
Ned offers a small smile. “That means a lot.”
“And we’ll meet with Sandy next week?”
“Yeah,” Ned says on a sigh. “I guess.”
“You don’t want to?”
“I want a job next fall,” Ned says. “So yes, we’ll meet with Sandy, if that’s what Beverly needs from us.”
You can have a great relationship and not have a future, Claire had said.
No. He and Ned have one. They’re fine. And—and Abbot is suddenly sure that if he presses on the topic of a house, Ned will push back about Beverly, and they’ll keep this conversation going, to its downward detriment.
So Abbot says simply, “I’ll email her too.”
Ned nods. He looks tired.
The thought of the highway pulls at Abbot, but he can’t leave like this. “Ned…”
“Yeah.”
Abbot relaxes when Ned holds out his arms. He steps into him and hugs him back. They can come together and agree they won’t say goodbye with this distance between them. They never have, and they won’t start today.
“I love you,” Abbot whispers into Ned’s neck.
“I love you too,” Ned says and squeezes him. “Thank you for taking Baxter.”
“I was happy to.” He breathes Ned in like he always does in these moments, as if by imprinting the memory solidly enough, he can bring Ned with him when they part.
It never works. The hug ends, and the kiss they share does too.
“Drive safe,” Ned says. “Text me when you get there.”
“I will.”
Ned offers a smile Abbot tries to memorize before he has to walk away.
Sometimes you just know, Claire had said.
Know what? Abbot should have asked, because he’d have answered that of course he knows Ned is the one, but it feels altogether more complicated than it used to, as they begin to pick apart exactly what that means.