by M. A. Hinkle
Cathal sighed deeply. “So that means I can’t wear my NASCAR jumpsuit? I’m crushed, absolutely crushed.”
“Or your shirt that says ‘fuck the patriarchy.’” Damon pulled into Cathal’s apartment’s lot, surprised he’d managed to make it there without killing them.
Cathal’s voice was very quiet. “I put that in Era’s coffin.”
Damon looked over—he couldn’t help himself, even though he was sure he’d only see Cathal’s blank expression. But in Cathal’s eyes, just for a moment, was a depth of pain and emptiness Damon never thought he’d see anywhere but in his own mirror.
And God, Damon wanted to shake him and say, We could miss her together. Instead they were missing her alone, and maybe that was making Cathal equally as miserable. But why wouldn’t he admit that?
Then Cathal shook his head and let out a breath. “Anyway, I’ve got better obscene ones, although they’d only make sense to my fellow gays. I’ll see you there, then.”
“Wait.” Damon tried not to say it, but it came out anyway. Cathal looked over, his eyebrows raised and expression pleasantly empty. “Why…why do you want to come?”
Cathal blinked. Then he shrugged again. “You got me into the damn cooking shows. And, anyway, I know if I don’t go, I’ll get the blow-by-blow from Felix, which means I’ll be confused and unsure who won, no matter how long he talks about it. Faster to cut out the middleman.”
Damon returned his eyes to the steering wheel. “Oh. Well. Yeah. See you there.”
Cathal was out of the car before Damon could blink. Damon let his head fall backward. “You’re an idiot,” he told the ceiling.
Fifteen: Don’t Mess With T-rexes.
WHEN DAMON’S ALARM went off on the morning of the competition, he only sort of felt like throwing up, so he considered that an achievement. Felix woke up right away when Damon called for him, looking cheerful even though he’d been up late endlessly practicing a variation of one of his latest songs. Damon would have scolded him, but he hadn’t been able to sleep anyway.
Cathal, of course, was not nearly as perky.
“You look like you’ve been hit by a truck,” said Felix when Cathal got in the car. “You didn’t actually get hit by a truck, did you?”
Cathal rolled his eyes. “No. Then I would be in the hospital. I made the mistake of going clubbing with a friend last night, and I am not built for that anymore.”
Damon glanced at him skeptically. “I thought that’s what you’d have been doing the whole time since you left,” he said when Cathal raised his eyebrows.
“Nope. Your boring ways have rubbed off on me. Also I had work to do, but still.”
“Since when has work ever stopped you from chasing every available piece of tail?” Damon didn’t mean to ask. He couldn’t even tell if he was upset. Yes, the thought of Cathal out there taking home every man who looked at him sideways hurt, but so did the thought of Cathal sitting alone in his apartment.
“First of all, that’s secondhand knowledge from Era. You’ve never been clubbing with me, so there’s no way you could know my ratio of nights out to one-night stands. And second…” Cathal shrugged, looking out the window. “Maybe I’ve decided that seeing how many notches I can put on my bedpost isn’t as interesting anymore. They start blurring together after a while.”
“Can we please stop talking about Cathal’s sex life?” said Felix, pulling a face. “I’m trying to get used to sex as a thing I could maybe actually do at some point and not, like, something gross on TV.”
Damon hit the brakes with perhaps more force than necessary.
“I said maybe!” Felix yelped, catching himself against the front seats since he’d been kneeling on the cushion. “I don’t know yet. But I thought that was implied with the boyfriend thing!”
Damon stared blankly at the red light.
Cathal coughed into his fist. “I think your father is trying to express that he’d prefer a bit more lead-in to that idea.”
The car behind them honked, and Damon realized the light had turned green. He stepped on the gas, and his brain trickled back into his head. “That was it, yeah.”
Felix blushed, rubbing his ear. “I didn’t mean to be that blunt. It’s not like that’s anywhere in the conversation yet. But, you know, it’s more of a possibility than when I was single, and I’m trying to wrap my head around that idea.”
Damon let out a breath, and Cathal snorted. “You shouldn’t be upset, Damon. It gives you something to think about besides the competition.”
“Since when were you the optimist?” Damon muttered.
“Since whenever it pissed you off, just like always. I’ve got to get my cracks in now. I won’t be able to distract you for the next however many hours.”
“Six,” Damon said, pulling into a parking space. A local news station truck was there, as well as a car with the talk radio station logo on the side. Damon tried not to notice. “They do the competition, and then the TV crew comes back and edits everything together. Then they ask everybody for interviews and stuff. That’s what George says, anyway.”
“So then why in the name of David Bowie’s sacred spectral form are we here so early?” Cathal demanded. “I only agreed to this because I thought they’d have to ask you a bunch of stupid questions first.”
Damon shrugged, even though he knew the answer. He was not telling Cathal that he had to get his makeup done. There was nothing wrong with men wearing makeup; he’d spent a good portion of the last three months watching his son get caked in glitter. But Cathal would have much too much fun with the information. Better to not give him the entire morning to think of jokes. Hopefully, Cathal would take pity on him.
Yeah. Like that would happen.
WHEN CATHAL AND Felix approached the bleachers where the audience sat, George’s daughter Evie waved them over. “Hi, Felix!” She patted the spot beside her. Felix sat down tentatively, and Evie latched onto his arm like they’d been best friends forever. Cathal stifled a laugh at the sight and tried to make himself relax, even though he felt like a cat rubbed with a wet hand. Coming here had been a stupid idea, yet there was nowhere else he wanted to be.
Cleon approached them, and Evie scooted over to make space for him. “Daddy, you came!”
“I still don’t think this will do us any good, love, but since you wanted me here…” He looked back to Cathal and Felix. “Hello, you two. Good to know we won’t be alone.”
Evie kissed her father on the cheek and then tugged on Felix’s arm. “C’mon, I want you to meet Heather’s stepson. He plays guitar.” Felix let himself be led away.
Cleon sat, and Cathal moved next to him. “So how’s the quest to woo George going?”
Cleon winced. “George and I have—reconnected, but I’m worried Evie is taking it too seriously. George is keeping me at arm’s length, and for good reason. I was an idiot.” He sighed. “But that’s life. You never know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone, eh?”
“I don’t believe in clichés,” said Cathal reflexively.
AFTER MAKEUP, HAIR, and other personal violations, the hosts said the contestants could get up and walk around. Damon didn’t have to look hard for Felix. As usual, he was bouncing in his seat, waving to get Damon’s attention.
“That must be useful. You never have to worry about losing him.” George stopped short, and Damon bumped into his back. He didn’t have to ask what had George’s attention: Cleon was sitting next to Evie.
Heather came up behind them. “Okay, why are you two blocking the—” She pushed Damon aside—she’d missed her true calling as a linebacker—but then also froze. “You invited him?”
“Obviously not,” George snapped back, his eyes still on his ex. “Evie said she wanted to bring someone, but I assumed she meant one of her friends.”
Heather made an irritated noise. “Someone needs to tell that girl she is not in a wacky romantic comedy.” She sidled alongside him, her tone softening slightly. “Will you be okay?”
George shook himself, but it wasn’t a no. He took in a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “The crowd drops away once we start working. I’ll forget he’s here.” He narrowed his eyes. “And I’m going to win.”
Heather clapped him on the shoulder. “Yay for bitterness!” She shoved him. “Now move your ass. My wife is here and I want a good luck kiss.”
George still didn’t move, so Damon gave him a gentle push. “I’m with Heather on this one,” he said, putting on the best smile he could under the circumstances.
“Heather’s wife won’t kiss you,” said George. “She’s a one-woman kind of girl.” But he got out of the way.
Felix bounced up out of his seat and threw his arms around Damon’s neck. “You’re lucky you’re so skinny, or I couldn’t pick you up,” said Damon, hugging him back. “And you saw me an hour ago.”
“Yes, but Dad hugs are best hugs!” Felix replied. He released Damon and plopped back down on the bench.
“Hi, Mr. Eglamore,” said Evie brightly, moving to block Cleon from view.
“Oh, no you don’t, young lady,” said George, coming up behind Damon. “You do not get to talk to Damon to avoid talking to me.”
Damon put his hands in the air. “Not here.”
“Oh, Dad, don’t worry, she’s trying to make them like each other again,” said Felix in a not very subtle whisper. Luckily, George had taken Evie aside, leaving Cleon sitting alone on the end of the bleachers.
Damon blew out a breath. “You’re not the one who has to hear about it all the time.”
Felix scooted next to Cathal, who was engrossed in his book. “You never tell me the interesting stuff, Dad.”
Cathal did not look up. “This from the boy who was complaining of hearing about my sex life.”
“Yeah, because that’s sex. This is love.” Felix drew out the word and clasped his hands underneath his chin. When neither of them responded, he huffed. “You guys don’t appreciate this stuff.” He got up to sit by Cleon.
“He is really the weirdest kid,” said Cathal, his voice warm.
Damon sighed. He started to reach up to run a hand over his hair but remembered the death threats from the makeup guy and put his hands in his pockets again.
Cathal’s lips twitched. “Look at you all prettied up.”
“I feel like I fell in a sandbar. I don’t know how drag queens do this.”
“Well, they don’t usually have facial hair.” Cathal looked him up and down. Suddenly, Damon was glad of the makeup since it hid his blush. “Anyway, I think it’s a nice change. You look like an officer and a gentleman, instead of some hobo we pulled out of a back alley to audition for a Lifetime movie.”
Damon had been prepared to roll his eyes, if not to make a good comeback, since he could never match Cathal at it, but Cathal… Cathal sounded almost like he had when he was talking about Felix. Fond. Pleased. Happy to see him.
Damon blinked. But before he could figure out a way to change the subject, because there was no way he was making an ass of himself by saying something about that, the announcer called them all up for a final huddle.
AT LEAST ANOTHER half hour of setup preceded the actual beginning of the competition, but Damon didn’t remember any of it. As far as he was concerned, he was staring at Cathal’s weird, fond, soft smile, and then he was standing next to George, and the host was calling for them to start.
George and Damon went into action immediately. Damon stacked sheets of cake around a dowel to hold them in place, and George whipped around him, applying a thin layer of buttercream frosting to cover the crumbs. When the stack was five feet tall, George started sculpting the T-rex head out of Rice Krispy treats, and Damon turned his attention to decorations.
Heather, for her part, was sculpting dinosaur feathers. Damon barely saw her; his entire attention was fixed on his creations. He’d thought he could do this in his sleep—he’d woken up from dreams about making terrified tiny mammals fleeing the T-rex, but now that he was here, he felt fumble-fingered and stupid. It didn’t help that the host was walking around with a close-up camera, taking a look at their work and asking questions.
George was fine the first time the host came by, asking him about the scope of their project and their concept. Damon had never thought of George as particularly suave, but he had to admit, George played well for the camera. He looked fresh-faced and handsome.
Most of all, he looked confident, and Damon tried to take some of that for himself.
AROUND THE THREE-HOUR mark, George finished sculpting the head, and he climbed the ladder to apply it. Damon stopped to watch—he’d seen enough shows to know the whole thing could fall apart at this point. No matter how carefully you balanced everything, cake wasn’t stone.
But the head was fine. The cake was steady. Now it just needed some final carving touch-ups and then the coating of feathers.
George adjusted the head and narrowed his eyes. He turned to say something, leaning off the edge of the ladder right as Heather backed away from the table of feathers to face him.
The ladder clattered, and there was an awful thud.
Damon was next to George before he even thought about it, running through his CPR training, but George was breathing, though he had a nasty cut on one side of his head.
Before Damon could see anything else of the damage, the host pushed past them, followed by the EMTs who had been eating donuts in the background the whole time.
Damon got out of the way. He almost bumped into Heather, who was standing next to the fallen ladder. Damon righted it and touched her shoulder. She jerked away, her face stark white.
More EMTs came in, wheeling a gurney, and they all worked together to lift George onto it. They wheeled him off, and the host called for all the teams to come back together.
He said a lot of stuff about how they could stop the competition and do it again another day, and how they didn’t want to force anyone to keep working if they were stressed out. Damon wasn’t listening. He had plenty of experience with accidents, but that didn’t mean his presence had helped. If he hadn’t agreed to do this, George would have bowed out, and he wouldn’t have gotten hurt.
The host said something, and Damon realized everyone was looking at him. He glanced at Heather, but she had a stiff expression; she wasn’t going to answer any questions.
“Could you—” Damon’s voice was a hoarse croak. He cleared his throat. “What did you say?”
“We’ve decided it’s your team’s call whether or not to continue,” said one of the other competitors. “None of us got hurt, so we can keep going, but we know that was your team leader, and we don’t want to keep this up if you guys feel like you can’t go on without him.”
Damon’s at Heather again, despite himself. She was looking at her shoes now. He cleared his throat again, and her eyes flicked up to him. “What do you think?”
Heather’s hands clenched into fists. Then she nodded.
Damon cleared his throat a third time, as though that would make talking to a bunch of strangers any easier. “We’ll keep going.”
The host nodded. He said a bunch more things, but it was directed at the crowds and the cameras, and it sounded like white noise anyway. They rewound the timer to the point before George’s accident, and the teams returned to their workstations.
Damon started for his modeling chocolate again, but Heather grabbed his arm. “What are you doing?” she whispered. Her voice was as hoarse as his. “Get up there and finish that damn T-rex.”
Damon blinked. “I—I thought you were going to take over.”
Heather just looked at him.
“I can’t do that,” Damon stammered, glancing at the cake.
“Yes, you can,” said Heather, “and even if you couldn’t, you would do it anyway, because I am not taking care of it after what happened.”
Damon swallowed. But she was right. Even though she had much, much more experience, Heather was shaken—she couldn’t be trusted to climb the ladder, mu
ch less handle a carving knife.
Damon took in a breath and blew it out. Then he headed up the ladder as the host counted down again to restart the timer.
DESPITE DAMON’S CLAIMS, Cathal could tell he was skilled: he worked slowly, but most of the work had already been done, and all his cuts were precise and clean.
Heather smoothed a final coat of frosting over the cake. She and Damon worked around each other like they had been doing it for years, never getting in each other’s way.
Damon had always known his way around a kitchen, but Cathal had never seen him work with other people. Damon worked smoothly, all hints of nerves gone. His voice was quiet and calm, and Heather relaxed when he spoke. Even when the fondant cracked as Heather spread it on, he didn’t lose his cool; the clock was ticking, but he hardly seemed to notice.
Cathal felt his heart swell as the dinosaur took shape and realized it was with pride. Even though he had no right to feel proud of Damon, it felt so good he couldn’t even be mad at himself. He’d sabotaged that because he was an idiot, and he was paying for it a thousand times over.
But what could he do at this point?
His own voice echoed in his head. Just talk to him.
God. He really was desperate if he was considering that.
DAMON THOUGHT HE was going to throw up all over the cake, but his nerves disappeared once he started working. Well, not really. But—there was too much to do to think.
Actually, it reminded him of working in the kitchen, of walking in the door already two hours behind even though no one had even turned on the lights yet. Of barking orders and taking every moment as it came. He didn’t miss having that feeling every day of his life, but right now, it sharpened him.
The second the carving was finished, Heather was at his side, passing him feather after feather. And the world narrowed to making straight lines, ensuring there were no gaps, moving slowly down the dinosaur’s body until he could step off the ladder and work with his feet on the floor again. He couldn’t tell if they were finishing everything they wanted to do. Only George had the whole scope of the project in his head, and Damon hadn’t paid too much attention because it freaked him out.
