by Amy Lane
“Okay,” Hank said, leaning forward moodily and resting his forearms on his knees, holding his beer between his palms. “Here’s the thing. Alan and I were going to move in together—find an apartment and everything—so we could stop having to listen to his roommate have sex when she thought we were gone. So I came home to tell my mom that I was gay, I was moving out, and all those sleepovers hadn’t been just to watch movies, and as we get there, my sister Amanda hauls ass out of the house screaming, ‘Because you’re a bitch and I hate you!’”
Justin squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them again wide. “And you said there wasn’t going to be any drama.”
“Yeah, well not on our part. For once, Alan kept his mouth shut, and we go into the kitchen. Mom’s cracking open a new bottle of whiskey and pouring herself a giant glass, and she looks up at me and says, ‘Yeah, what?’”
“Oh dear.”
“Yeah. Anyway, Mom’s sort of formidable—big woman, wide shoulders, don’t-fuck-with-me jaw—and she scared the holy hell out of Alan, and he reached for my hand and I squeezed it to let him know it was all right. And Mom, she just raises her eyebrows, plonks down on the kitchen chair, and starts downing the whiskey like it was iced tea.”
“What’d she say?”
“Well, first I said, ‘Mom, this is Alan, my boyfriend, we’re moving in together,’ or, you know, something to that effect, and then Mom polishes off her giant glass of alcohol and says, ‘Fucking lovely. You’re gay, your sister’s pregnant, and I’m moving to fucking Reno. Feel free to send me a postcard, Henry, I’ll be really happy to hear from you.’”
Justin was scrubbing his face with his hands by then. “Oh, Henry, I’m so sorry.”
Hank shrugged. “What for? It didn’t matter. She was still my mother. She’d just had enough of Amanda, that was all. Mandy’s boyfriend was a real loser, and Mom dared to ask—just ask, mind you—if maybe raising a baby alone was more than a high school senior could manage, but Mandy was freaking stubborn. Mom apparently had been planning the move for months. She’d sprung it on Mandy that morning, and Mandy came back with ‘I’m pregnant’ and then….” He shrugged.
“Then you walked in, and your little bomb wasn’t hardly a fart in the wind.”
Hank laughed a little and shrugged. “Drama,” he said pragmatically. “Like I said, it’s overrated.”
“Mmm…” Justin said, but it wasn’t a dissenting sound. “I hear you—but you know little girls like some drama, right?”
Hank thought of Josie, fast asleep in her new room. “Yeah,” he sighed. “I know.”
“So, you and, uhm, Santa—you’ve got the hookup? Christmas is in three weeks, you know.”
Hank had to laugh. “You mean the house not being decorated? Yeah. Well, I’m taking Monday off. The social worker is coming at nine, I’m dropping Josie off at daycare after that, and then it’s all about Christmas shopping. I figured when that was done, I’d get Josie early and we could decorate.”
“Are you getting a tree?” Justin asked, his expression avid, and Hank could tell he was excited about this just because it was Christmas.
“Tomorrow,” Hank said, smiling. “I was going to go to a lot with Josie.” He hesitated, and then asked shyly, “Did you want to come?”
Justin’s smile was so damned bashful Hank almost wiggled in his seat. “Very much, but I work tomorrow.” Justin perked up. “I’m off Monday, though! I’ve got a final at nine, but I can meet you back here in time to go Christmas shopping. Can we do that? Then I can come back and help you decorate.”
Hank laughed, because Justin had just invited himself over and insinuated himself into Hank’s plans and his day and his life, and Hank had no impetus to say no.
In fact…
“Hey,” he said shyly, “do you, uhm, want to see what I was thinking about getting for her?”
Justin sat up perkily and nodded with so much force his hair flopped back and forth off his forehead. “Yeah! Yeah—absolutely.”
Hank got off the seductively comfortable recliner and yawned outrageously. “I’m sorry—I didn’t realize that was coming. I hope—I mean, I know you called your mom and everything, and you’re welcome to stay later, I just….” He flushed. “I don’t want you to stay here if you’re bored or anything.”
Justin’s smile was sweet and wicked. “Well, Hank, it’s not like you’re my first sleepover.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. My best friend Shelia in high school used to have me over all the time.”
Hank made the time honored fishhook gesture, to indicate that Justin had caught him fair and square; then he walked around to the other side of the coffee table so he could get into the locked drawer next to the place mats. He felt Justin’s presence there acutely, and just as he’d jimmied the drawer open (the lock had long ago ceased to be functional) he felt a tentative hand on his backside.
There were not enough letters in the language to describe the sound that came out of his mouth.
“You like?” Justin asked, and Hank pulled in a breath that felt like water.
“I’d be lying if I said no,” he confessed, thinking he should move. Justin’s hand got a little more personal, curling around Hank’s cheek and squeezing, and Hank let his breath out on a little grunt. “But.” He swallowed. “See, Josie really loves you, and if you decide this is a bad idea and disappear….” Justin’s hand slid away, the fingertips lingering for a moment.
“I get it,” Justin said, his good humor intact. “Drama.”
Hank grabbed the stacks of marked up toy catalog in the drawer and crab-walked away, moving to the less personal space of the recliner.
“I appreciate it,” he mumbled, unable to look Justin in the eyes. Then Justin giggled, and he had no choice. “What?”
Again, that wicked look from that gamine face. “You act like I’m not going to try again, Henry. Look, I may be relatively inexperienced, but I’m not giving up after one grope!”
“But I’m a dick!”
Justin said “pfft” and waved his hand. “And I’m a drama queen. I mean, I’ve been behaving, but you and I both know I’m gonna snap sometime soon and you’re going to have to decide if I’m worth all that trouble!” He smiled, wiggled his shoulders, and crossed his legs before placing his clasped hands on his knee. “We’re just going to hope that by then, I’ll have made myself indispensable enough that you’ll decide I really am.”
Hank couldn’t help it. In fact, he was coming to realize that he could never help it around Justin. He laughed.
“Okay, drama queen,” he said, smiling with everything in his body. “Are you gay enough to shop for a four-year old girl?” He offered Justin the catalog from the coffee table.
“Omigah! Are you really getting her that? Of course I can shop for that!” Justin was fawning over the picture that Hank had marked, and Hank didn’t have the heart to tell him that his drama queen was already rearing its pretty little head.
“Well, I want to see it in the store first,” Hank said, chewing on his lip a little with uncertainty. “You know, sometimes the pictures look so awesome, but you see it in real life and it’s just tacky. But I figure if we go check it out on Monday, if they don’t have some of the stuff I want in the store, we can get it online.”
Justin nodded his head, looking suitably impressed. “But that’s not the only thing, right? I mean, I know, all little girls want one of these!” And with that, he pointed out a little plastic vanity table that Hank hadn’t seen at all.
They stayed up half the night. They picked out toys to check out at the store for Josie, raided the cupboard for Ho-Hos (which Hank kept in the back, for those really, really bad days), talked about workout regimens and Justin’s plans when he finished college. They giggled over old crushes and bad mistakes—Justin’s first boyfriend who was now married, with the second child pending, or Hank’s first blowjob, given in a movie theater and discovered by a very unimpressed usher. (“So you still can’t go to that Regal in
Natomas?” Justin asked, and Hank had to admit that no, he was still blacklisted.)
Hank didn’t remember when he stopped talking, but he woke up around three in the morning because the hand under his chin gave out and he fell sideways. He looked to see Justin stretched out on the couch, his head resting uncomfortably on the arm, which was a surefire way to fuck up your neck. Hank went to the closet and got a spare pillow and an afghan, and came back to make the poor guy more comfortable. He covered Justin up to his chin with the afghan, trying hard not to look at his plump lips and the fading freckles on his cheeks, and then shoved his arm under the surprisingly solid shoulders and slid the pillow under his head. He pulled back for a moment and was arrested by the open eyes, blinking sleepily at him.
“Aren’t you going to kiss me goodnight, Prince Charming?” Justin slurred, and Hank was just tired enough, just happy enough from the best evening he’d had in he couldn’t remember when, to place what he thought was going to be a chaste peck on Justin’s oh-so-kissable mouth.
Justin opened for him, though, and Hank slid into his waiting, wet mouth with ease and heat, and a surprising, gut-wrenching hunger. He slid his hands up to frame Justin’s face, and Justin took his position on the bottom and took over, clasping Hank’s forearms with urgency. Hank finally pulled back, panting, and rested his forehead against Justin’s; he was trying not to start groping the guy under his shirt.
“Oh, thank God,” Justin breathed. “I’d built that up so big in my head, I was starting to doubt it could live up to that picture.”
Hank pushed his next breath out on a laugh. “That was a total and complete surprise,” he said. “You could knock me over with a feather.” Justin kneading his swollen groin was unexpected enough to make him stand up and yelp.
“But first you’d have to pound nails with your penis.” Justin smirked, but his eyes were closing in spite of his smile. “Night, Henry. I told you I’d try again.”
Hank very carefully maneuvered his hips out of Justin’s reach and bent down and kissed his forehead. “Night, Justin,” he said softly. “I’m sort of hoping you’ll keep on trying.”
Justin giggled a little, even as Hank turned off the lamp and left him sleeping in the darkened room.
Prima Donnas and Princesses
JOSIE woke him up early enough that he sat up in bed, disoriented, still wearing the Henley shirt and the sweats he’d had on when he'd kissed Justin goodnight.
“Uncle Hank!” she told him, her eyes wide and her jaw jutting out like she was angry, “Somebody highbacked my room!”
Hank blinked a good five or six times and finally figured out what she talking about. “Don’t you like your highbacked room?” he asked. What time was it? It took him a moment to make sense of the numbers on the clock, and when he did, he fell back against his pillows, squinting against the light coming from her hallway. “Great googly-moogly, angel—it’s five in the morning! You usually sleep until seven!”
“The smell woke me up,” Josie said, her cheeks scrunched. “The color is pretty, but I don’t like the smell!”
Oh hells. The smell. “It’ll go away in a few days. It’s the paint, Josie. Is that the only thing you don’t like, or can I go back to sleep now?”
“Why did you change my bedroom?” she asked, and Hank rolled to his side and looked at her.
“Because you hated the bed, and you didn’t feel like you had a place and I just wanted you to like living here.” Oh God. Now he was whining.
“I never had my own bed before,” she confessed. “I used to sleep with Mommy.”
Hank sighed, wondering if Justin had already gone. Probably. Hank dimly remembered him setting his phone’s alarm before they’d both fallen asleep talking.
“Do you want to climb in with me?” he asked, beyond proprieties, and Josie nodded.
“Can you hug me too?” she asked, her voice tiny. “I rode the motorcycle ride lots yesterday, and I keep thinking I’m still moving.”
Hank grunted and scooted over. “Yeah,” he sighed, caving in. “Go ahead.”
“No, Uncle Hank,” she told him. “Closer. Mommy let me hold her hand.”
So Hank did, wrapping his arm around her little chest and holding her tight, like nothing was going to get her, and she raised her little hands to pat his hand where it lay. In a few hours, he’d deal with his disappointment that she didn’t love her room, but right now, he forgot about what he was supposed to do according to the good book of parenting, and went with what made her happy. It was like Justin, he thought muzzily as he dropped back into sleep. That much spontaneous human happiness just could not be a bad thing.
AFTER they got the Christmas tree, they set it up in the corner of the living room. Josie was surprisingly willing to put off decorating until Justin came over, which was probably the only reason Hank had the fortitude to wait.
After that, they spent the day quietly: grocery shopping, doing laundry, cooking some mac and cheese and a crock pot of soup to put in little containers in the refrigerator, the better to eat during the week. In the afternoon Hank made some more cookies and let her put the sprinkles on again, and she didn’t complain. After she washed her hands, Hank heard her talking to herself in the bedroom. When he peeked in, she was sitting cross-legged on her new bed, playing with her dolls. It wasn’t loud or dramatic, but it was extremely, almost painfully gratifying. Yes. Hank had finally done something right.
In the evening, after dinner and a bath, he pulled her onto his lap and turned on a Christmas special (Shrek The Halls, of all things) and they sat and watched it together. Her eyelids started to droop (and, for that matter, so did his) when she said a curious thing.
“You’re like Shrek, Uncle Hank.”
“Yeah?”
“All grumpy sometimes. And Justin’s like Donkey.”
Hank laughed like she wanted him to. “Shrek’s a nicer guy with his Donkey,” he conceded. He’d been thinking about Justin all day. The sound of his laughter, his animated voice, all of the flamboyance and, face it, fun had filled in all the quiet moments, whether he’d been there or not.
Hank wondered if a day like this one—peaceful and relaxed and perfect—might not be even better if Justin would be there to laugh in all the empty spots.
“Yeah,” Josie said, her head drooping on his shoulder. “Justin could be like Mommy, and be fun. And you could be Uncle Hank, and be safe.”
Hank opened his eyes. Safe wasn’t really a dirty word, was it? Hank had grown up with not particularly safe—his mother had worked and he’d been the one getting Amanda dressed and walking her to school. There had not always been enough to eat, and sometimes a place to sleep hadn’t always been a lock, either. His mother had tried—every day, she’d tried—but she had ended up dour and grim. Her drama tended toward the cynical, and sarcasm had been her armor against disappointment.
Fun and safe. It was like a super-hero duo, right?
Hank was falling asleep with Josie too, but still, he waited until the special was over before he picked her up in her Dora the Explorer pajamas and put her to bed.
“Think you can sleep here all night, Bunny?” he asked, tucking her new comforter under her chin.
“As soon as it feels like mine,” she mumbled. But she didn’t crawl into his bed that night, so that must have been progress, right?
THE next day, as he fidgeted under the gimlet eye of the social worker, he hung on to that.
“So she has her own room and her own bed,” the social worker said, ticking things off handily on a triplicate form. “And your job at the bank has checked out—you’re doing really well financially.”
She glared at him and, given the grim financial climate, Hank managed a sheepish sort of smile back.
“You really are,” the social worker said, cocking her head. “So the judge is going to want to know why the mother couldn’t stay here?”
Hank looked desperately at Josie (who was playing on her bed again, ignoring the social worker in spite of her re
peated attempts to get Josie to talk) and gave a nod to get the woman out of the room.
She was a short Hispanic woman in her fifties, and Hank got the impression that nobody had given her a damned thing. Ever. Not even for her birthday. Well, Hank had grown up through birthdays like that too, and the one thing that he’d given himself was the promise that when he got to be the grown up, he would have it all together, and he’d done okay that way. No boyfriend check on his list, but other than that, he had the job, he had the kid, he had the house, and he was barely twenty-six. This woman could damned well cut him a break by not bringing up the “big drama” that he and Josie had tacitly agreed not to talk about.
They got out to the hallway and the woman said, “Okay, so why didn’t you offer this sweet setup to your sister?”
Hank glowered. “Because Amanda didn’t ask, okay? There was no asking, there was only leaving. Do you think if she’d asked, I would have said no?”
Mrs. Ramirez fluffed her dyed black hair and raised a sculpted eyebrow. “So why wouldn’t she stay here?”
Hank sighed. “I like rules,” he said, feeling like a six-foot three-inch dick. “I like knowing where my next paycheck is coming from, and having the dishes washed after they’re dirty. I like going to bed around the same time every night and knowing the people in my life are going to be right where I left them when I wake up.”
Now both eyebrows were up. “That sounds like a perfect environment for a child.”
“Well, it was for the four-year-old,” he said shortly. “I think the twenty-year-old was tired of those rules, and so she did what lots of children do and ran away.”
Mrs. Ramirez nodded. “Fair enough. So, you want to make this situation permanent?”
