CHAPTER SIX
When Elliot opens the front door on Saturday evening, it takes him a moment to realize it’s Mark standing there, not the Chinese takeout guy. It’s such an unexpected turn of events that his brain can’t seem to catch up.
“Listen, man, I hate to ask,” Mark says before Elliot can even think of saying hello, “but Wade isn’t really comfortable with anyone else yet like he is with Sammy and I…” He trails off with a huff, shaking his head, looking for all the world like a man stricken. Elliot stares at him.
“What’s up?”
Mark winces. “I kinda have to go to this event in Denver? It’s an overnight thing. Last minute.”
Ah. Not quite a social call, then. Elliot smiles past the slight twang of disappointment in his gut.
“No problem, man. He can stay here.”
“You sure? I feel like a dick asking when we’ve only hung out a few times, but there’s no one else I can really ask—”
Elliot waves him off, and in return, Mark looks behind himself and gives a jerk of his head. Wade appears out of the shadows, stepping into the light of the porch, carrying a bulging bag, blanket, pillow, and all manner of miscellaneous things. Elliot blinks.
“Is he moving in?”
“He likes his home comforts,” Mark explains, somewhat apologetically.
Sammy comes to a sudden, skidding halt behind Elliot and breathes, “Dude. I got the DLC.”
Wade’s eyes go wide as saucers. “Not the—”
“Yep.”
“Ohmygod.”
Together they go sprinting off into the house, Wade almost bowling Elliot over with his stuffed pillow. Elliot stares after them, then turns back to Mark.
“I’m guessing that’s good,” he says. “You want a coffee before you shoot off?”
“I’m actually running late. Should’ve hit the road a half hour ago, but someone,” he says, directing his raised voice into the depths of the house, “couldn’t find any matching socks.”
“No one cares if the socks match.”
“I do,” Mark says, so close to adorable petulance that Elliot feels an overwhelming surge of affection for him. They look at each other, Mark’s eyes twinkling like he knows, and Elliot has to clear his throat to push past the moment.
“All right, well, safe trip I guess. Don’t worry about a thing here. I’ll load them up with sugar and give them unrestricted access to Netflix. It’ll be fine.”
It comes out of nowhere, so abrupt and purposeful that Elliot’s breath knocks clean out of his chest. One second Elliot’s standing there, making one of his inappropriate jokes—the next, Mark’s hugging him. A gratitude thing probably, but the reason doesn’t really matter. Mark’s hugging him. Physical contact, shoulder to thighs.
“Oh—okay,” Elliot says, voice losing itself somewhere en route to his mouth. Every single ounce of his focus is pinpointed on not letting him put his hands somewhere awkward.
Mark seems to have no such reservations. He hugs big and hard and all-consuming, tucking Elliot into his vast frame and enveloping him with huge arms and heavy warmth, the scent of him catching the edge of Elliot’s desire and making him press in, just a little. It is, for one blissful, stuttered heartbeat, entirely perfect.
Then Mark pulls away, his face resembling a tomato. “Sorry,” he says, stuffing hands in his jacket pockets. “That was weird. I don’t know why I did that.”
Elliot, after a swallow of fortitude, says, “Dude, I’m a hugger. It’s all good.” Because maybe if he normalizes it, makes it all casual and no-big-deal, then maybe…maybe Mark might do it again sometime.
“All right,” Mark says, followed by a cough. “Sorry.” He’s having a hell of a time meeting Elliot’s eye; meanwhile, Elliot can’t seem to remember how to breathe in his usual rhythm. “Um. Okay. Bye.”
Then Mark’s gone, leaving Elliot alone on his doorstep, sighing into the darkness.
* * * * *
Chinese takeout and some movie about blowing shit up has Elliot and the boys gathered on the sofas a half hour later. Elliot’s about a third of the way into his chow mein when he loses his chill.
“So what would you and your dad usually be doing on a Saturday night?”
He figures, if nothing else, it’s a harmless enough question.
Wade slurps a noodle into his mouth and grunts, “Pretty much this.”
Right. Elliot likes that, weirdly. He doesn’t really know why. “Does he go out a lot?”
“Nah,” says Wade, missing his mouth with a piece of sweet and sour chicken, smearing a glob of it across his chin. “He says he doesn’t really know anyone here anymore. Just you. And one of his cousin’s is here, but I’ve not met her yet.”
Huh. Elliot makes a show of casually spooning some egg fried rice onto his plate, staring at the TV like he’s only vaguely interested in the conversation. “He doesn’t date?”
“Don’t think so. There was Linda for a while.”
That has Elliot dropping all pretenses and whipping his focus back to Wade. “Oh yeah?”
“I think she was his girlfriend,” Wade says, with a shrug that almost has him upending his can of Coke balanced precariously on the couch arm. “They hung out a lot. That was ages ago, though.”
Elliot opens his mouth, but Sammy—until now silently stuffing his face in the armchair—says flatly, “Dad. Stop being weird.”
“It’s not weird to inquire after your friend’s parents,” Elliot says, desperately trying not to blush.
“It is when you’re asking about his dad dating.”
“Oh, he’s totally cool with you being gay,” Wade says, completely missing the point.
Elliot stares at him. “You’ve talked about it.” The realization hits him with a mess of confusion and intrigue. Wade and his father have had discussions. About Elliot. About Elliot, and the intimacy of his sexuality.
“He wanted to make sure I understood it or something,” Wade mumbles around a lump of barbeque beef. “That it wasn’t weird.”
Elliot looks over at Sammy, finds the kid gazing back at him, something cautious in his eyes—a mutual understanding of how this could go. How it’s gone far too many times before. Sammy swallows, visibly, dryly.
Elliot looks back at Wade. “Is it weird?”
“You being gay?”
“Yeah,” says Elliot carefully. “Your dad being friends with a gay man.”
He feels like both he and Sammy are both holding their breaths.
“No?” says Wade. He shovels a mountain of rice into his mouth and mumbles disgustingly around it. “My old teacher was a lesbian.”
“Oh,” says Elliot, glancing back at his son—watching him take a breath, in a way he should never have to do. “Cool.” Elliot nods, goes back to his food, the two emotions warring heavily in his chest—pain for his son, who’s had to go through so much for the sake of Elliot living his true self. And a weird sort of delight at knowing he’s been a topic of conversation in the Kade household. Both have his chest tightening, for wildly different reasons. “That’s cool. I just, you know—it’s not that I’m—”
“Dad.”
“Okay, sorry.”
* * * * *
The banging on his front door at gone eleven that night has Elliot, for one wildly hopeful moment, thinking Mark’s come back early. But instead, with the door dramatically thrown open before he can reach it, he finds himself—not for the first time—wishing he’d taken back Lucas’ key when he kicked him out.
“I throw myself at your mercy, dear husband.”
Elliot rolls his eyes and turns back to head towards the kitchen. “What have you done now…”
“He was beautiful,” says Lucas, following him. “Blond. You know how I like blonds.”
Painfully so. “Hmm.”
“Body crafted by god himself. Anyway, I gave him a taste and now I think he’s camped out in my hall.”
“You found yourself a stalker,” Elliot drawls, followed by a snort. He grabs a half-empty bottle of white wine from the fridge and a couple of glasses.
“I was ignoring his calls and texts. His emails. His Facebook messages.”
“Jesus.”
“But he didn’t take the hint,” Lucas says morosely, accepting a glass from Elliot and downing half its contents in one gulp. “I’m at a loss.”
“And now he’s waiting for you outside your apartment.”
Lucas looks at him then, all beseeching eyes and adorable pout. Then he belches. “I’ve got nowhere else to go.”
“You’ve got plenty of places to go,” Elliot says flatly, raising his eyebrows with pointed significance. There are probably a hundred different beds he could snuggle into tonight, and have himself a little fun as a bonus.
“But nowhere with quite as much sympathy, my beautiful one-and-only.”
Elliot, once again, rolls his eyes. “I have literally no sympathy.”
“Then tell me you’ve got more wine. Samuel!”
Sammy staggers into the kitchen, bleary-eyed from too much gaming and junk food, Wade faithfully trailing behind him like a shadow. “Pops,” greets Sammy, heading for the pitcher of water on the counter.
“Who’s your friend?”
“This is wade,” Sammy mumbles, jerking a thumb over his shoulder in Wade’s general direction. Then he says, “Bye,” grabbing the two tumblers of water and elbowing a blank-faced Wade back out of the room.
Lucas raises an eyebrow. “Wade?”
Elliot, clearing his throat, mutters, “Um. Yeah. New school friend.”
The second eyebrow shoots up to join the first. “The new school friend?”
And okay, yeah, there’s really no point trying to be cagey about this. Not that there’s any reason to, either. So he huffs and says, “I’ve actually got something for you,” and heads to where he’d tucked away the signed Polaroid picture.
“Is it more wine?” Lucas asks hopefully. When he receives the picture, he stares at it for a moment before looking up at Elliot, wholly unimpressed. “You couldn’t get a nude?”
Elliot snatches the picture off him and stuffs it in a drawer. “When are you gonna settle down?”
“When I’m dead.” Dramatic as ever, but not a lie, either. “We both know I’m not suited for that.”
Elliot’s about to say At least you gave it a good go but it’s not true, so he stops himself. No one who cheated from day one of marriage can ever say he gave settling down a good go.
“What about you?” Lucas asks. “I know how much you crave the happily-ever-after.” He says it with a grimace of distaste twisting his mouth.
“No prospects right now.” As depressingly true as ever.
There’s a pause, and then: “None?” Lucas fingers open the drawer, slides the picture out. “Hmm?”
“He’s straight,” Elliot snaps, grabbing the picture back off him and going a brilliantly hot red.
Lucas raises an eyebrow. “Did he tell you that?”
“He had a kid. With a woman. By inserting his actual penis into that woman’s actual vagina.”
“Don’t be vulgar,” Lucas grumbles, face scrunched up. “And bisexuality exists, you know.”
“Whatever.” It’s a possibility he’s not allowed himself to think about, lest he start spending his time alternating between furiously jerking off in the shower and—more likely, given his soppy heart—staring into space, daydreaming about handholding and picnics and Sunday morning hugs.
“Besides,” he says, turning away to put his glass in the sink, his stomach twisting, “he’s not my type.” Which only earns him a snort from his husband.
“Baby, he’s everyone’s type.”
If Elliot could release a dreamy sigh right now without being mocked, he would. Instead he tuts loudly and most disapprovingly, and grabs a dishtowel, rubs at the surface around the sink in an aggressive attempt to dodge the subject.
Lucas seems to get the message. “Can I sleep in the spare room?” he asks then, which is obviously what he’s been angling for since he showed up. And Elliot does sigh now, but for a wholly different reason.
“If you must.”
He receives a smacking wet kiss to his cheek and an affectionate butt cheek squeeze. “Don’t feel me up in my sleep.”
Elliot huffs a laugh, throwing the dishtowel at his husband’s head. “Your virtue is safe with me.”
“So that’s where it went!” trills Lucas, then wafts off to bed, wine bottle in hand.
*
FROM: Mark
are you awake
TO: Mark
Something wrong?
FROM: Mark
i’m so fucking bored here. and i want my own bed
TO: Mark
Can’t you just leave?
FROM: Mark
i need to deliver this copy by 6 a.m. can’t waste time driving
TO: Mark
You’re wasting time talking to me
FROM: Mark
you’re my distraction
TO: Mark
You don’t need a distraction right now
FROM: Mark
that’s my choice to make :p tell me something
TO: Mark
What?
FROM: Mark
i don’t know. something personal
TO: Mark
Are you like this with everyone?
FROM: Mark
no
TO: Mark
I don’t know how I’m supposed to take that
FROM: Mark
does it make you uncomfortable
TO: Mark
I can’t be the only person you’ve got to talk to. You must have hundreds of friends across the country
FROM: Mark
you’re the person i want to speak to right now
TO: Mark
What do you want to know?
FROM: Mark
your love life
TO: Mark
We agreed not to talk about that
FROM: Mark
i didn’t
TO: Mark
There’s nothing to tell you
FROM: Mark
nothing?
TO: Mark
Unfortunately.
FROM: Mark
how long’s it been
TO: Mark
Too long. Why do you want to know?
FROM: Mark
because i’m bored and curious
TO: Mark
Go finish your work
FROM: Mark
one day i’ll get you to tell me all your secrets ;)
TO: Mark
You’ll be disappointed
FROM: Mark
doubtful