36. Ned
NED
“Did you have dinner?” Abbot asks as he unlocks the door. “I have some leftovers I can heat up, or I can order something. I’ll pay for it. It’s fine.”
“Are you trying to distract me with the crunchy things?”
“That and the good noodles.” Abbot hangs up his coat, then takes Ned’s and settles it on the next hook over.
He fusses with them, and then his shoes too, and his keys and his watch and Ned’s about ready for him to take out the vacuum or maybe start dusting the baseboards.
Abbot’s fingers shift against each other, his thumb rubbing the tips of his nails.
Ned takes his hand. “Let’s sit down,” he says and leads Abbot to the couch.
There’s less to touch here, so Abbot picks at the crease in his pants and stares at a point on the coffee table. He looks like he wants to up and run away.
Ned can’t blame him. Hell, he’d go with him. Both of them could flee from this night of conversation and avoid the discussion entirely. Go back to an earlier version of their relationship when they didn’t have to deal with hard shit and happily stay there.
Or not so happily, maybe. They’d be letting issues that seemed small fester and build until that simplicity became an oil slick over the turmoil beneath.
This is better. Worse, too, but also the way forward.
“So,” Ned says gently when it’s clear Abbot’s not going to start talking. “If it helps, we can count up my overwhelming tower of debt again.”
“It’s not that bad.”
“My finances? They’re really not great. You don’t have to be polite about it.” Or pay for him, or do anything, except Abbot took in all that information with a calm equanimity, and Ned is still braced for the fallout.
But it’s apparently not coming. Does that mean Abbot is really just going to share his money with Ned? Yes, it sure seems like it.
The thought makes Ned’s head swim. So Ned just…
doesn’t have to worry about his bills anymore?
Abbot will keep the rug from being pulled out and Ned can work on paying off everything?
And then what? It’ll take some time, but Ned will be out from under his debt eventually.
So they’ll just live together and be happy, as simple as that?
No, because he knows life is anything but simple. Something will come up, and then another thing, and more after that, but neither of them will face it alone.
He leans in and kisses Abbot’s cheek.
Abbot pulls their gripped hands into his lap and looks down at them. Ned’s sure he’s finally about to speak, but Abbot lifts Ned’s arm.
“I’m extremely well off now,” Ned tries to joke, twisting his wrist to show off the watch. “Figured I’d dress the part.”
“That looks nice on you.”
It looked big, Ned had thought, weighing it in his hands before unstrapping his usual watch. This one was a little cold where the metal met his skin, a strange change from the plastic he’s used to.
But if he was ever going to wear it, now seemed like the time, a physical talisman to represent sharing a life with Abbot, to opening up a new future, as sure as the ring on his finger.
He’ll get used to it, he’s pretty sure.
“What did you do with my mother’s?” Abbot’s voice is soft, but not hesitant.
“It’s still in my desk.”
“You’ll keep it?”
“Of course I will. And we don’t have to figure out what to do with it right now.”
“Liesl,” Abbot starts, but then he sinks back into a long silence.
Ned leans forward to try to catch his eye. “She’d want it?”
“Oh. No. I meant…maybe she does.”
“We can ask her.” Ned squeezes his hand. “What did you mean?”
“She’s been rather frustrated with me,” Abbot says.
“Yeah, I got that.” Ned takes a breath and oh, this is uncomfortable as hell, but he has to adjust in this new way too. Not just to the watch, but to learning to ask, and when Abbot offers, to accept. “I really do want to come this summer. But I’d—yeah, I’d need you to get the ticket.”
“I will,” Abbot says like it’s that easy.
It is, to him. Ned swallows the protest that wants to rise through him. Okay. He’s going to Switzerland, on a ticket Abbot buys, and—and it’s going to be great. Better than great. A real vacation. A trip to Europe. All without worrying about money.
No, he’ll still worry. It’s what he’s best at, but the worst case he’ll conjure up and the jangle of nerves will be farther away, Abbot’s confident calm between Ned and any reality he’s so afraid of.
This damn man. Ned leans into him, resting his forehead on Abbot’s shoulder.
He stays like that until Abbot draws in a breath. “She’d like that,” Abbot says. “But she’s also upset that I, well. Perhaps you two can commiserate. That I don’t talk about our mother enough.” Abbot clears his throat. “Or at all, really.”
This is painful for Abbot. Ned can see it on his face and feel it in his grip. Both talking about his mom and talking about the fact that he hasn’t.
Of course it is. It’s different from every other time the subject has come up, Abbot pushing it aside or finding something else he needs to immediately do. To just sit here instead in the evening quiet of his house with an acknowledgment of all the years of careful silence.
“I’m sorry,” Abbot says, his voice a whisper.
“Hey.” Ned touches his cheek. “You don’t have to apologize.”
“I do. To you and to Liesl both. I didn’t realize how much I’d been hurting her, and I’ve done the same to you. So I am sorry. Very much so.” Abbot lets out a soft laugh.
Ned looks at him, surprised by the sound, then more surprised when Abbot stands up.
He doesn’t leave, like Ned is half expecting him to, like with those words he’s given himself permission to escape.
He just walks to the little table by his door, retrieves an envelope from its drawer, and holds it out for Ned.
“What is this?” Ned asks as he takes it. He knows, he realizes. It’s the envelope Beverly brought, with whatever cards or pieces of paper are filling it. It seems untouched since Ned last held it, though that’s hardly surprising for how Abbot’s looking at it like it could explode at any moment.
But Abbot draws in a breath, sits again, and softly says, “Open it.”
Ned does, half ready for something to jump out at him for all of Abbot’s nerves.
Instead, he finds a recipe for chocolate chip cookies, handwritten on an index card in a neat, looping cursive. Beneath it, another is labeled for chocolate mousse, and then eclairs and a galette and an apple pie and blueberry muffins.
“Beverly and my mother used to bake together,” Abbot says, staring down at the recipes as Ned goes through them. Clafoutis, macarons, madeleines, soufflés, crepes, and profiteroles. “They were roommates after college, and whenever Beverly visited us, they’d keep the tradition.”
“These are your mom’s?” Ned turns over a card for birthday cake, an underlined note in the corner: Henry no sprinkles! “You—you don’t like sprinkles?”
“Liesl used to pick them off even the portions that weren’t hers.”
“Oh. Gross.”
“Yes.” Abbot draws in a breath. “I’m not sure she remembers. She was a toddler, and thought all sprinkles were her personal property. My birthday cakes used to be rather pockmarked.”
“You know, I can probably arrange a sprinkle-covered cake for you. This great guy I know taught my daughter to bake.”
“The last time it happened, I insisted I was too old for a cake anyway,” Abbot says. “And my mother was—she was really very ill, but she made me another one, and—” He stops, his lips pressed tight.
Ned barely dares to breathe, watching Abbot’s chest rise and fall on shaky breaths.
“I think Liesl does have a point,” Abbot says eventually. “If I don’t tell her about that, or tell you, or tell anyone—my father was away at a conference. So nobody else knows that my mother made a second cake.”
“I do now,” Ned says, and dammit is he going to hold onto it. Carry it close, always.
“I don’t want to forget her,” Abbot says to his lap. “I’ve never meant to.”
“It’s hard,” Ned agrees. “Losing her. And carrying all your own guilt about it, too.”
Abbot doesn’t nod, but he doesn’t disagree either.
Ned lets him sit for a long time, rubbing his thumb over the back of Abbot’s hand, their knees pressed together, their shoulders touching.
“Can I ask you something?” Ned asks eventually. He thinks back over the past few weeks, picking apart what he knows and putting it back together. “Was your dad gone a lot? When you were growing up?”
“Some.”
“And when your mom was sick?”
“He had work.”
“Right. Hence Beverly coming to take care of you? He told me he wants you to be happy.”
“Did he,” Abbot says flatly.
“I think—I don’t know, but I think he probably feels like shit about that now. Being gone for work, and how it all happened with your mom and you.”
“It was his choice,” Abbot says in that same cool voice.
“Feeling powerless is really hard to sit with.”
Abbot just blinks, his jaw set.
“You two aren’t so different, you know. Two peas in a pod, you and your dad. Both of you are beating yourselves up that you didn’t do better back then, that you didn’t get things right, on some definition of ‘right’ that only you know and hold yourself to. Abbot, you were a kid.”
“I wasn’t. I was at university, I—I spent a lot of time with men who didn’t particularly care about me,” Abbot says softly. “Instead of being there with her.”
“I don’t think your dad could handle it either,” Ned says. “Which isn’t an excuse, but it’s maybe something to think about.”
Abbot picks at the tip of his index finger with his thumb.
“Beverly really cares about you,” Ned says gently. “She came all that way for you.”
Abbot blows out a breath. “I know.”
“I get it. She was your mom’s best friend?
Why do you think I’m so excited for Pat’s baby?
It’s going to be my new favorite person on this planet.
I’d do anything for that kid and it’s not even born yet.
You don’t have to go zero to sixty with Beverly, or dive into a bunch of hard topics.
We could get to know her, as adults and colleagues. Have her and Sandy over for dinner.”
Abbot licks his lips. “Where?”
“Yeah,” Ned says. “Um, a house? With a kitchen?”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m scared,” Ned says and isn’t that the honest, naked truth.
“I’ve chased a lot of men who weren’t interested in me,” Abbot says. “When you said you can’t or won’t live together—Ned, I’ve been here before. Wanting to move forward and it turns out I’m the only one who wants that.”
“No, no, no,” Ned says quickly. “But you get where I’m coming from, right? Living together means you knowing I’m good for maybe the cell phone bill.”
“A shared cell phone bill?” Abbot asks. “I wasn’t aware we were at the stage of combining into a family plan.”
Ned huffs a soft laugh and that feels better, this conversation taking a lighter turn.
“You really do want to live together?” Abbot asks.
“Yeah,” Ned says.
“And kids?”
Ned lets out a breath. “We’re going to stay together? Forever?”
“That’s certainly my intention.”
“Well, then yeah. If you’re in this, and I’m in this, let’s have kids. A bunch of them.”
“Nine might be excessive, if you’re aiming for a baseball team.”
“Well, we’d need a bigger house, for sure. I do like Steve’s. But we can keep looking, if you want. Get the inspection report, at least, so you know what you’re buying.” Ned pauses. Swallows. “We’re buying. And it has that whole other unit, which we’d have to deal with.”
“Claire’s looking for an apartment.”
“Oh.” Ned purses his lips. “That’d be interesting.”
“We could talk to her about it, at least.”
“We could,” Ned says slowly. “Front-row seats to whatever she and Pat are going to go through this next little while.”
“They’ll be alright,” Abbot says.
“You think so?”
“I think Claire is rather special, and Pat is aware of who he’s met.”
“Huh. Good. That’s good. I like her.”
“I do too.”
“So Claire, if she wants to think about that spot,” Ned says. “That and I’m sure Peggy thinks the video games come with the house, so I can’t wait for that conversation. But really, Abbot? You’re just going to pay for all of this? For me?”
“We’ll make a budget, together,” Abbot says. “Our bills, costs for the house, travel, all of that. If you want your own savings account, then of course have one separately. We could open an account together, too, that we can both access.”
“It’s all going to be your money in it.”
“But our life,” Abbot says. “It’s just numbers, Ned, and I rather like numbers.”
Ned sniffs and rubs his face. “Gonna calculate the p-value on having to shoulder our utilities and groceries and plane tickets all on your own?”
“Do you remember what a p-value is?”
“No,” Ned says and his voice cracks. “That’s why I need you.”
Abbot holds out his arms and Ned moves into him.
“So much of what I owe is from before I even knew you,” Ned says into his shoulder.
“I’m choosing you,” Abbot says. “And everything that comes with you. Peggy and the fact your parents will be over all the time, and your past, and Jen, and everything that’s made you who you are.”
Ned clutches him, returning the strength of Abbot’s hug. “My folks really will end up just walking right in, won’t they?”
“If there’s any financial reality I truly fear, it’s our avocado budget,” Abbot says.
Ned laughs and Abbot kisses his hair. “I love you,” Ned whispers. “It’s terrifying to let someone else take care of me and Peggy, but if it’s anyone, it’s you.”
“Ned, I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t want to. I wasn’t there for my mother, and I haven’t been for Liesl.”
“I don’t think you’d do that again,” Ned says.
“How do you know?”
“I don’t, I guess. I’m just—I’m trusting you. That you can be scared and still show up. Like I’m trusting that you won’t turn me and Peggy out.”
“That’s a lot of trust.”
“Maybe. Yeah. But we’re both in this, taking this leap.
Which I didn’t even know I was ready for, and maybe I’m not, but I’m here and you’re here, and we’re doing life together now, in a way we weren’t even a couple weeks ago.
And I trust you. I do.” Ned hears the fierceness in his voice.
“I’m not perfect, and I don’t expect you to be.
But we can deal with our own shit, and learn how to show up for each other. ”
Abbot draws in a breath that shakes. “I’m not sure I know how.”
“Hell, Abbot, me neither, not really, but I met this great guy. Met him years ago, but we’re just now getting ourselves together.
And I love the hell out of him.” Ned grips his hands.
“Abbot, this has been the best year of my life, and that’s even with living hours away from you.
You’re the one for me, so I’m going to do whatever it takes to figure out how to meet you with the best version of myself. ”
“I can try,” Abbot whispers. “I don’t know how successful I’ll be.”
“Let’s start with that and go from there.” Ned squeezes his hands. “We’ve got plenty of time to figure it out.”
Abbot tries for a small smile. “The rest of our lives, I suppose.”
Ned leans into him, everything that is warm and familiar and safe. “I can’t wait.”