Archive of Our Own ^beta

It’s not like Alex means for it to happen. He’s just lying back, the porn playing on in the background, the girl’s huge tits bouncing around even behind his closed eyelids, her pants turning into breathy moans, and he’s into it, he swears he is, but then the guy moans and—

“What the fuck,” Alex hisses. His eyes shoot open, but he refuses to look downward, where his erection has suddenly gone from drowsy to alert and ready.

Subtly, he looks back to his phone screen. The pair are going at it, the guy balls deep and the girl still on hands and knees. She’s making a lot more noise than he is—that’s how Alex likes it—but upon further inspection, it’s the guy that he has a better view of. He worries that’s why he chose the video.

Alex stares at the pair as they edge closer to climax. He still has a grip on himself, but he holds his dick with only the tips of his fingers as if holding it in place, chastising it. Onscreen the girl is arching upward, exposing that gorgeous dip in her lower back and revealing the dimples where Alex used to place his thumbs when he did this exact same move at BMS. Her breasts are swinging pendulously, her hair falls long and sleek around her shoulders, her mouth is open and gasping and—

The guy comes inside her and keens out one long, low moan, and the sound goes straight to Alex’s dick.

“God damn it,” Alex mutters to himself and pries his hand from his dick like it’s on fire. He’s supposed to be relaxing, not whatever this is. Or has been, since at least before graduation.

“Girls,” he says, half to himself and half to his stubborn dick. “I like girls. How they feel, how they sound—hell, even how they taste. Girls!”

As if to prove a point, he goes to the next tab of porn he loaded. The girl is Latina this time, a favorite of his. The guy he’s never seen before, but he’s blond with enormous shoulders, and—

“Wait.” Alex frowns and taps the next tab. The girl is one of those just-turned-eighteen stars whom everyone knows is really in her thirties. The guy has blond hair and a wide chest and—

Alex’s eyes widen. He hits the next tab.

Blond guy.

Blond guy.

Wide shoulders.

Blond.

Abs for days.

Blond.

This one’s a football player, for fuck’s sake.

Alex slams the phone onto the bed beside him and throws his head back down on his pillow. His ceiling is yellowing and flaky, the best he can afford on his salary. Going from one of BMS’s top players to a high school gym teacher was a bigger blow than he expected it to be. His only compromises were that he took a coaching position and he stayed in town instead of moving back to Wyoming. He questions now how great that latter decision was. Living on the fumes of his old clout hasn’t gotten him far with the new batch of underclassmen. But to be sunk down to this, being nearly ready to jack off to memories of the captain who tormented him for years—well, the thought should depress him more than it really does, if his boner is anything to judge by.

“Just one normal thing,” he mumbles as he squeezes his eyes shut. “One normal thing, that’s all I ask. No drugs, no weeknight benders, no Goat House. Just leave me girls.”

As if his life really and truly hates him, his phone starts to vibrate. He looks at the screen on instinct and mutters to himself, “Oh shit.”

How did he get this number? Does he have some sort of radar that picks up when people are thinking about him? Alex thinks to himself as he scrambles for something, anything to cover up his lower half. He comes up with his one spare pillow and smothers his erection with it, realizing only belatedly that, dude, this is a bed, you have blankets. And he’s not doing a video chat anyway.

He answers just before his phone goes to voicemail. “What.”

At first, he only hears breathing on the other end. Then, from his freshest nightmares, he hears, “Moran.”

Despite himself, Alex swallows. “I said what, Thad.”

“What, you busy banging some sloot”—Alex never understood why he thinks that word is a thing—“to say hi to an old buddy?”

“‘Buddy’ isn’t really the word I’d use to describe…” The Goat House’s explosion flashes before his eyes. “Never mind. If this is really just saying hi—”

“But you aren’t, right?” Thad pauses expectantly. He has to clarify. “Banging some sloot. Right now.”

Alex’s fingers flex over the pillow covering his crotch. Oh, he wishes. “No, not right now.”

“Oh.”

Alex shuffles himself into a better position. He’s not sure what tone Thad is using, or even if he means to be using it. “So what, you got bored dropping off the face of the earth? How’d you even track down this number?”

“Harmon gave it to me.”

“And Harmon can’t give you whatever else you need right now?”

“No,” says Thad so abruptly that Alex momentarily pulls the phone from his ear. He places it back just in time to hear the five words that promised the most pain of his entire university career.

“I need your help, Moran.”

Alex groans and closes his eyes and considers himself—in nearly every sense he can think of—truly and deeply fucked.

“So when’d she show up.”

“Maybe a night or two ago.”

“You don’t remember?”

“Oh, like you remember everything, Moran?”

“I think I’d remember finding a fucking baby on my doorstep, Thad.” Alex thrusts a hand to the infant girl in her car seat, trying to keep his voice to a low hiss so she doesn’t wake up. “You got a vasectomy, though, right? She can’t possibly be yours.”

“Of course I got a vasectomy! What am I, an idiot?” Thad is doing a worse job than Alex of keeping his voice low. “I got it right out of high school from my uncle Vincent!”

“Your uncle?”

“Yeah, he’s a tattoo artist. Same dif, right?”

“As what? A vasectomy doctor?” Alex folds his arms tighter to keep from rubbing his eyes or slapping some sense into his former captain. He’s long past knowing more about Thad than he wants to know, but Thad still finds ways to surprise him. “Do you even know who the mom is?” he asks.

Thad frowns. Alex hates himself for noticing how long it takes for Thad to flip through his mental Rolodex of girls he’s slept with, girls who might have produced Thad’s offspring. (Alex suppresses a shudder. Thank god he’s always used condoms.) Alex’s own list probably exceeds Thad’s, all considered, hindered only by the fact that Alex will willingly bang a girl more than once. Thad usually refuses. Come to think of it, that might be the trouble now: how do you remember a one-time girl from at least nine months ago?

“My best guess is the floozy in Cabo,” Thad says finally. “Asian chick. Tiny tits, but great mojitos once you get past all the mint.”

Alex rolls his eyes that a girl’s bartending skills make it anywhere into Thad’s assessment. “Well does she have a vendetta against you or something?”

“Pfft, no,” Thad snorts in that way he always does whenever Alex makes sense. “Sloots love me, always have.”

“And I guess one loves you enough to just”—Alex holds both his hands out at the baby—“drop this on your doorstep, huh.”

Thad looks at the baby like he’s just realizing it’s here.

“So what do you want me to do about it, anyway?” asks Alex. His voice drops a little despite himself. He’s genuinely curious what magic Thad thinks he can summon.

“I just…don’t know what to do.” Thad is still looking at the baby, who mumbles a little in her sleep. She has dark hair, probably Thad’s clue as to her mom, but her face is shaped as much like Thad’s as can be apparent on someone with baby fat.

“I don’t know if you know this, but I don’t actually have a kid.”

“Yeah, Harmon said.”

“Just how much did you talk to Harmon about me?”

“I want to call her Oxana.”

Alex blanches and stares at Thad. “You fucking do not.”

“What? She’s the most important woman in my life. It’s an honor, Moran!”

“No, this”—Alex doesn’t know how often he has to point to this kid—“this is the most important woman. Girl. Thing. Now!” Only after he finishes does he see Thad hesitate. “Unless you want to…?”

“Do you think I should get rid of her?” asks Thad, more softly than Alex was anticipating.

“I mean, can you even take care of her?” It occurs to Alex that he doesn’t know what Thad does for work, or even whether he works. He doesn’t know anything about this guy’s life after he decided to fake his own death in the explosion that took the Goat House three years ago.

“I make hourly and commission,” Thad croons. “And I know all kinds of shit about babies.”

“Alright, so what’s she sitting in right now?”

Thad scoffs. “Well duh, she’s in a…a…caaaaaaaaar…”

“…Seat?”

“Seat!” Thad looks triumphant, which immediately turns to spite. “I told you, Moran, I got this.”

Alex looks between him and the kid. He nods. “Well,” he says, finally at normal volume, “if you do, then you do. Me, I’ve got things to do with my Sunday, so if you’ll excuse me—” He makes his way towards the door of Thad’s apartment.

“WAIT!” Thad calls, halfway to the shrill cry Alex knows so well. He’s interrupted by a second, more piercing cry from his daughter, who begins wailing as if she’s been bottling it up.

Thad springs to the door and grabs Alex by the bicep. “I don’t got this, Moran,” he whimpers. “Tell me what to do.”

Alex’s shoulders drop. He should have known it wouldn’t be this easy.

“Well first,” says Alex, wrenching his arm free from Thad and making his way back to the car seat on the kitchen table, “you have to acknowledge the kid.”

“They don’t just cry it out?”

“I mean, maybe? But that sucks for the kid.”

Thad shrugs, but he looks troubled. “Worked last night.”

Alex stares at him for a moment before unfastening the baby from her car seat and…shit. How old is this kid? Does he have to support her head? Do they have bones in their neck yet? Do they, like, grow bones for that? Or is it a muscle thing? All he knows is babies need their heads supported, and Thad’s looking at him with wide eyes and waiting for instruction that Alex really doesn’t have.

“Heeeeeey, you,” says Alex to the baby. Screw it, he’ll hold the head. “Shh, it’s okay,” he murmurs. You’re supposed to cradle a baby, possibly, probably, but he has no idea how to maneuver the kid like that without dropping her. Maybe she’ll like lying against his chest. Slowly, slowly, he places her head on his collarbone, one hand on her back and one supporting her bottom. Her bottom feels squishy.

“Did you change her?” he asks Thad.

“I just got her, why would I change her?” Thad asks. The answer seems automatic. He’s staring at the two of them, Alex and the unnamed baby, with eyes that are getting wider and wider.

“Thad, you gotta change her diapers. Babies need diaper changes.”

Thad blinks. “Pfft. I knew that.” He pauses. “Um. Where do you get diapers?”

Alex looks at Thad, and then back down at the kid. The baby is still crying, but less now, as if at least one of her problems has been solved. She’s so heavy, but she feels so small. Alex catches a whiff of her, all mildewy and soft things.

“You’re gonna need all the help you can get, huh,” says Alex. He’s talking to the kid, but Thad perks up as if Alex has personally granted him a wish.

Thad is talked into naming her Olivia. It’s Donnie who suggests it, in the group chat that the BMS-stars-turned-poker-night-group reluctantly creates to include Thad. Donnie says it’s a name from Shakespeare, but Alex is nearly certain Thad chooses it because of how similar it looks to the name of his pocket pussy.

Also, nicknames.

“Liv needs this,” says Thad, coming up from behind Alex and tossing a mobile with ducks into the shopping cart. It’s the weekend after Alex was first summoned to Thad’s apartment, and Alex has finally convinced Thad that his daughter needs more than her car seat and a blanket to survive. They’re now at the baby store.

“I thought she was Livvy?” asks Alex, nonchalantly glancing at the girl in question. Her visit to the pediatrician on Wednesday confirmed her not only as Thad Castle's biological daughter, but as three months old. This is apparently past the age at which babies start smiling, and she does it now. It looks gleeful, as if she and her father are trying to gang up on Alex with her ever-changing names. She has his dimples.

“Come on, doesn’t Liv Castle sound great?”

“It sounds like Thad Castle,” Alex groans. He pulls the cart into the next aisle. “You need a high chair.”

“She needs a car seat and a high chair?”

“You can’t keep her in the car seat forever. Otherwise she’s gonna grow up in it, like a turtle shell or something. Get a high chair.”

“Who made you the expert on babies?” Thad scoffs, but even so, he’s already pulling out a box of the cheapest one.

Alex looks at him owlishly. “You did. You know I don’t have to be here, right?”

“Yes you do, I drove you.”

“No, you pulled up to my apartment and honked your horn like the blonde girl in Mean Girls and said we were going shopping.”

“And you took forever to come out, god.”

“I wasn’t—whatever. Look, you just need a crib and we’re out of here. And probably some more formula, since this is like, the formula store.”

Thad nods. He’d noticed the diaper bag and formula that had come with his daughter, but had somehow failed to realize how quickly formula disappears. Alex is grateful that at least Thad started off knowing that babies need to eat, even if being changed is a new concept.

They pick up their remaining items and report to checkout with a cart nearly bursting with baby items. The cashier, an older black woman, raises an eyebrow.

“Typically we see people shopping for these things before the baby comes,” she says.

“Yeah, well,” says Alex, pushing the cart back and forth as Thad places items onto the conveyor belt. “Who among us hasn’t had a few surprises along the way.”

“She’s cute,” says the cashier, trying to make amends. “Just adopted her, did you?”

“Something like that,” Alex mutters.

“China?”

“Do you always ask this many questions?” he snaps. “I mean, I know this place is all about babies, but just. God.”

“Sorry sir,” the cashier says. She keeps her eyes down as she scans the merchandise, and Alex glowers at nothing while Thad crams everything into bags and puts them in the cart. Finally, the cashier pulls up the total, and even Alex winces.

“Will that be cash or card?” the cashier asks.

“Who carries that much cash?” Alex mutters as Thad steps forward. “Card,” he says in that high-pitched voice that means he’s trying to be brave.

The three—four including Liv—stand there silently as the machine reads Thad’s chip pin, and then a beeping sound interrupts them. “Looks like that didn’t go through,” says the cashier. “Would you like to try again?”

Alex can tell from the cashier’s expectant look and Thad’s aghast expression that that’s not going to happen. Fuck it, he wasn’t planning to eat until payday anyway. “Try this one,” says Alex, lifting his sole credit card from his wallet and plugging it into the machine before Thad can try to stop him.

“Moran, you don’t have to—”

“Yes I do,” says Alex. He won’t look at Thad, only at Liv, who’s occupying herself by drooling over one of her fists.

“That all checks out, then,” says the cashier as she pulls out a receipt longer than Alex’s arm. She circles a survey link at the bottom and hands it over. “You all have a nice day now.”

Alex wheels out into the parking lot, and it takes Thad a second to follow. “I’ll pay you back,” he says.

“You better.”

“I had that covered, you know.”

“Sure looked like it.”

“It’s just until I get my next paycheck.”

“I know.”

“I swear, Moran,” says Thad, and he steps between the cart and his car, looking at Alex like he’s trying to communicate something. “I got this.”

“No shit you got this. Because you know what happens if you don’t?” Alex glances at the baby in front of him, her feet wiggling under her blanket and her head tilting away from the sun. He doesn’t feel like finishing his own thought and instead unbuckles her car seat from the cart.

“You think I’m an idiot, don’t you?” demands Thad. He’s already remotely unlocked the car doors, so Alex breezes past him to put the baby in the backseat.

“No,” drawls Alex, “I just think you have no idea what you’re doing.”

“I have a job! I have an apartment! And now I have all this shit”—he holds up the box of diapers he’s currently about to pack into the trunk—“and you think I’m not ready!”

“Ready? You call this ready?” Alex shuts the door more gently than his tone conveys. “This stuff doesn’t make you ready. Are you gonna be ready when she’s crying all night? Or when she starts teething? Or like—when she gets her period?”

Thad’s face blanches, like that’s a reasonable possibility in the near future and not an example Alex pulled out of his head in desperation.

“You’re not ready, and I’m not ready, but the difference, Thad, is that I don’t have to be.” Alex throws his hands up, and his voice goes up an extra octave against his will. “This isn’t my mess! But now you’re making it my mess, just like you always do, and guess what, Thad? I have a life! I have a—a great life, and you’re not my captain anymore, and now—now I don’t have to drop everything for you. Okay?”

Alex doesn’t realize how close he’s gotten to Thad until he finishes. They’re standing nearly chest to chest, barely a breeze between them, and Alex can look up and see nothing but Thad’s increasingly broken face, feel his body right there, close enough to touch. And okay, maybe there’s another reason Alex wants not to be dragged into this. Maybe he’s had all the exposure he can take of Thad Castle for a while. For the rest of his life.

“Okay,” says Thad in a small voice.

Alex stumbles over whatever he was about to say. “Drive me home,” he says instead.

Thad returns the cart, and then he does.

“Good on you, Alex,” says Harmon at the next poker night. “It’s about time someone stood up to one of his hare-brained schemes.”

“Raising a kid is a hare-brained scheme?” asks Donnie. He doesn’t look up from his shuffling, like he’s already at peace with their former captain’s new reality.

“Yeah, like is he gonna make some money from the kid, or…?” Sammy takes a sip of his beer and tries to wink at Alex. He does this a lot, like he’s trying to assert his position with the cool kids by invoking his best friend since elementary school. As if they’re the cool kids anymore, as if they’re not hanging out in Harmon’s basement because he’s the only one who has a basement.

“I think he’s just gonna raise her,” says Alex. He crosses his arms and drinks from his can. He doesn’t feel like humoring Sammy today, though he knows he’ll owe him for it.

“Yeah, that’s how it starts,” says Harmon, “but you’ll see. One day it’s raising the kid, the next it’s teaching her how to lie to the cops and stash drugs in a football and throw it across the border.”

“Is that real?” asks Sammy.

“Saw it in a movie once,” Harmon replies coolly. Alex knows in fact that Harmon saw it on the news, same as Alex did, and Harmon was the one to laugh and mention that he knows the guy who threw the ball. There’s a reason Harmon can afford a house with a basement, and it doesn’t involve the straight and narrow.

“I dunno,” intones Donnie, “maybe he’s actually serious this time. The guy’s not that much of a dumbass.”

“Wanna bet?” scoffs Alex. “He thought a bottle of formula lasts like two weeks. And you only need to change a diaper like once a month. Like you need to change kitty litter.”

“There’s that,” says Donnie. “But there’s also the fact that he needs attention.”

“I don’t get it,” says Sammy. “Don’t babies need attention?”

“Sure. But imagine it from the kid’s perspective. He’s gonna be her entire world. Everything she does, everything she knows, she learns from him. And he’s definitely the sort of guy to run his mouth about how he thinks the world works.”

The four of them suppress varying shudders at the table. For some, the memories are of hazing; for Donnie, it’s most likely Thad’s attempts to gift him with guys in a misguided show of support. Thad’s mind works in ways none of them want to contemplate.

“So then what I wanna know,” says Harmon, “is why he’s decided Alex is gonna be his new sugar daddy.”

“What, you want the job?” asks Alex.

“You know I like to provide,” says Harmon breezily. He keeps alluding to hidden bank accounts storing the majority of his drug-selling fortune, and Alex can’t tell how much of it is bluff. “But all he wanted to know when he called me was, ‘Where’s Alex, where’s Alex, where’s Alex.’”

“And also whether I’m ‘banging any sloots’, I guess,” Alex adds.

“I mean, when aren’t you?” Sammy raises his hand for a high-five. Alex returns it slowly and feels like a liar as he does. He hasn’t dared let anything touch his dick since he got that phone call.

“Yeah, that too,” says Harmon. “Fortunately, we’ve all mellowed out a bit since BMS.”

The other three at the table stare at Harmon. “Fortunately?” Sammy eventually pipes up. “Harmon, I don’t know if you know this, but those were the best years. Of our lives. And they’re over. Like, now we hang out in your basement.”

“What’s wrong with my basement?” Harmon sounds offended.

“Where are the hot chicks? And dudes?” Sammy adds for Donnie’s benefit.

“The beer doesn’t taste all that great these days either,” adds Donnie.

“The parties used to be crazy,” Sammy carries on, “and now crazy is just when I fall asleep here and Alex has to drive me home.” He slumps back in his chair. “Face it, guys. We’re past our prime.”

“Sammy,” says Alex, “to be fair, I don’t think you ever had a prime.”

Sammy punches him in the arm, but he does grin a little. Alex feels only marginally better. “Past our prime” has struck a chord. What does he have now besides poker nights with the teammates who didn’t make it big? An easy job, true. An apartment. And once he gets a handle on himself, he’ll be back to using the shit out of his Tinder. The profile pic is still of him in his Goats uniform, grinning like a hero. He doesn’t change his profile much, doesn’t like to look at it. But that’s not the point, is it? Until the DMs he gets start to skirt around his uniform and go on to his hobbies. He knew his hobbies at BMS: drinking, having sex, and getting by just enough to ride the wave of football glory. Now, here in Harmon’s basement, he’s coming up short.

Donnie deals and Alex studies his cards. He can barely concentrate. Minutes into the game, he speaks up.

“So say, hypothetically, that Thad decides to raise this kid.”

Harmon raises an eyebrow. “I don’t think it’s all that hypothetical anymore, but alright.”

“That’d be a pretty long commitment, right?”

“I mean hypothetically, you’d be looking at eighteen years. Maybe sixteen if she’s a looker.”

“And in those eighteen years, Thad is the only influence she’s going to have?”

“Wouldn’t she also have, like teachers?” Donnie asks. “And daycare people? Who’s even watching her while Thad is at work?”

“And that’s another thing,” says Alex. “Thad works these really weird hours as a car salesman.”

“I thought they just worked normal days?” asks Donnie.

“They have shifts, and I guess they can go over depending on how things are going. My schedule’s way better than his anyway. Off season I can get home around three thirty, and I get summers off and all that.”

“Where exactly are you going with this?” asks Harmon.

“Nowhere. I’m just saying, like, doesn’t the kid need some sort of stability?”

“What, like you?” Sammy scoffs. “Alex, buddy, you’re living fast and young. You don’t have time to, what, watch over Thad’s crazy hellspawn? There’s too many chicks out there to bang!”

Alex slumps over a bit and wraps a hand around his drink. “Yeah, well, like you said. I might be past my prime on that one.”

Sammy looks like he’s going to object, but Donnie shushes him before he can. “Is that really how you feel, Alex?”

“I mean. Sometimes. That could change.” Alex snorts to himself. “Maybe a picture of me with a kid will soften up some of the girls on Tinder.”

“Or make them think you’re taken,” Harmon adds. “Look, Alex, are you tryin’a talk yourself into helping Thad? Because I just wanna make sure you’re doing this for the right reasons.”

“Like what?”

“Like because you want to help the kid.”

Alex scoffs. “Well I sure don’t want to help Thad.”

Harmon folds his arms. “You sure helped him a lot in college, whether you wanted to or not. You sure this isn’t some kneejerk thing? You don’t have to go along with this. You’re free now.”

“Free to what, Harmon? Reheat spaghetti in my microwave? Go to teachers’ union meetings? Jerk off every night?”

“Oh my god, is this just blue balls? Look, Alex, there are better ways to relive BMS than to—what, raise a kid?”

“Well maybe a lot of my time at BMS was about going along with Thad, okay?”

The table stares at him. Sammy has gotten so wrapped up in the conversation that he’s placed his cards on the table face up.

“Maybe…” Alex is fumbling his words. “Maybe it’s the one thing I can still do these days. BMS doesn’t get me much anymore, but Thad’s always going to be a needy idiot, and now there’s an even smaller, needier version of him out there. Maybe I can stop her from being an idiot on top of that.”

Harmon, Donnie, and Sammy all look at each other. Sammy, having known Alex the longest, seems to have been elected to speak. “Look, buddy,” he says quietly, “if that’s what you want to do, we’re with you. Just…as long as you want to do it, right?”

Alex takes a long drink of his beer and doesn’t respond. He doesn’t honestly know whether he wants to go back to playing along with Thad’s craziest idea yet. He just can’t see himself doing anything else.

His notice to Thad is a simple “text me your schedule”. That’s all he needs to do. From then on, his phone buzzes at least once an hour with messages from Thad. Most are practical things, updates to his schedule and questions about childcare that he could very well google himself. A few are memes and screenshots from Reddit. Alex ignores those. He’s in this for the kid, and that’s his mantra.

He starts picking Liv up from daycare at three thirty on weekdays, unless he has a teachers’ meeting or another coach guilts him into taking over a baseball practice. He lets himself into Thad’s apartment and keeps them both entertained until whenever Thad’s shifts end. The secretary who manages his schedule thinks he’s picking up his niece, and she reminds him that once football season starts at the end of summer, Alex will have to work something else out. But in the meantime, he has every reason to leave school the minute his students do.

Everything except an excuse for his coworkers.

“Where are you going,” asks Mary Jo about two weeks into this arrangement. She blocks his way to the parking lot with her hands on her hips.

“…Practice?” he tries.

“With your car keys?”

“Hey, there are school keys on here too.”

“Yeah, and they work on all the doors behind you.”

“…Yup.”

“Talk to me, Alex,” she says warningly. Noticing a swarm of students about to run them over, she pulls them to the side of the hallway.

“Look, I don’t think it’s any of your business—”

“Any of my business? Alex,” she scolds, “you found an official reason to leave early. That automatically becomes my business.”

“Not this time.” Alex tries to dodge around her and is only half disappointed that it doesn’t work. He’d have to face her interrogation tomorrow, anyway.

“Tell me.” She’s gone past the tone that she uses as the you-can-trust-me approachable health teacher, and has jumped straight into I Am a Teacher territory.

“I…may or may not have adopted a kid.”

“Like legally?”

“Like I pick her up from daycare and take care of her until her dad comes home.”

Mary Jo looks at him skeptically. “I didn’t know you could take care of a kid.”

“There’s a lot of google involved. I call bullshit on whatever that Dr. Spock guy is saying, though.”

“How’d you even find a kid?”

“It’s Thad’s.”

Mary Jo’s eyebrows raise, and Alex is ready for the onslaught of questions about Thad’s life choices, but instead he hears “Alex, Alex, Alex.”

“…What?”

“I knew this day would come. I knew it. I had it, and now you’re having it. God, I’m psychic.”

“What? What am I having?”

She leans closer to him to allow them a bit of discretion from the nearby students. “Your bisexual awakening.”

“My what?” Alex yelps and jumps away. A few high schoolers look at him and snicker. Great. The last thing he needs is for a bunch of teenagers to think he can’t even handle standing next to the health teacher.

“Bisexual, Alex,” Mary Jo repeats. “You know, like how I thought I was a lesbian but then we had that awesome threesome—”

Alex covers her mouth and shoves her into the nearest unoccupied hallway. He hisses each word: “I am not bisexual. I like girls!”

“So adopting Thad’s lovechild is just, what?”

“Being a decent person. Getting out early, let’s talk about that!”

“Alex,” she says pityingly, as if he’s the one who doesn’t understand. “I’ve known you for almost as long as I’ve known my brother. You don’t do effort. And this kid? Lot of effort. I’m just saying, it must really sweeten the deal that you get to be around Mr. Rocks-for-Abs all day—”

“That’s not what—” Alex inhales deeply. “Okay, fine. I may be having a small problem getting my libido to focus. But this is different! This is a kid, and making sure there’s not another tinier, female Thad Castle walking around this world. I for one think that’s a public service. I should get a parade!”

“I can’t do a parade, but I could throw you a killer bachelor party,” says Mary Jo evenly. As humiliating as these past few moments have been, at least it looks like she’s had her say. She leans back into the wall. “Go, Alex. Go woo the man. Use the kid if you have to.”

“I…don’t know what to say to that. Thanks, I think.” Alex starts to walk away. Over his shoulder, he adds, “And let’s never have this conversation again!”

Mary Jo just snorts.

For all Mary Jo’s expectations and the poker group’s jabs, the routine that Alex and Thad fall into is lackluster. Alex picks up Liv, comes back to Thad’s house and puts on a cartoon for her, feeds her and makes dinner for himself, and leaves within five minutes of Thad coming home. He passes on information from the daycare center when he has to and keeps a shopping list on Thad’s fridge when he gets tired of making the same sandwiches. Thad never repays him for all the baby stuff he bought, but he also doesn’t charge grocery money, so Alex figures it works out in the long run.

The gradual change is how Alex treats Liv. At first he handles her like she scalds him on contact, lifting her only to bring her from the car to the TV or the TV to the crib. He stays in the same room as her most of the time, but that’s it. But it gets boring, coming up with ways to entertain himself when the TV can only play kid-friendly stuff and he can’t drink. After a few weeks of ignoring the same cartoons while scrolling on his phone, Alex takes matters into his own hands.

“This,” he says, holding up the DVD case, “is Star Wars.”

Liv gurgles up at him.

“Yeah, I know, it’s not exactly Die Hard. But my parents let me watch it as a kid, and now, you’re gonna watch it. But more importantly, I’m gonna watch it, and we’re not gonna see any more of”—he gestures to Peppa Pig on the TV screen—“this.”

When he inserts the DVD and Peppa Pig disappears, Liv looks like she’s going to cry. But then the opening scroll comes on, and Alex sits beside her bouncing chair on the floor, and suddenly she’s having a good day again.

“Yeah, I thought so,” scoffs Alex. “We could have been doing this the whole time.”

It takes him maybe ten minutes to realize that Liv couldn’t care less about Darth Vader’s purge of Princess Leia’s ship and the droids she hides her message with. Her tiny arm is reaching in his direction, as if to hold onto his shirt.

Alex leans his arm towards her experimentally.

She grabs his sleeve with a triumphant coo.

“Hm.” Alex turns her chair so that she’s facing him. She’s too young to turn her head yet, but it’s clear that’s what she wants to do, because when she faces him her eyes light up.

Despite himself, Alex feels a little pleased. “Oh yeah? Much better than your dad, huh.”

Liv is bouncing all of her limbs at once, as if trying to propel herself forward.

A dusty thought breaks through Alex’s brain. A lot of the baby websites have all kinds of fluff about cuddling, and while he’s always considered that to be Thad’s job…well, it can’t matter that much who she gets it from. Maybe she needs it. Maybe it’s good for her brain chemistry or something. And who knows, maybe Thad’s the way he is because he wasn’t held enough as a kid.

Alex feels a little bad about that thought, and in atonement he unclips Liv from her seat and lifts her up. He sets his back against the couch and curls up his legs so he has a makeshift upright surface to prop the baby against. Liv is heavy in his lap as she leans against his legs, and she starts to squirm and babble. She looks like all her baby dreams are coming true.

“Uh huh,” says Alex, deciding to humor her baby talk a little as he watches the movie. “Yup. No kidding.”

Before he knows it, the credits are rolling, and Liv has talked herself into fatigue. Alex is just thinking it’s about time for her dinner when the door unlocks and Thad walks straight into the living room.

He takes in the sight before him—Alex on the floor, curled up and face to face with his drowsy daughter—and smirks. “Having fun?”

“How often do you play with her?” Alex asks by way of aversion.

Thad rolls his eyes. “She can’t even hold a spoon, Moran, how is she supposed to play?”

“Not with toys.” Alex slowly lifts Liv onto his chest. “I’m not a scientist, but I think you’re supposed to actually, like, hold babies.”

“That counts as playing?"

“I think so. It develops their brains or some shiiiii—stuff.”

Thad raises an eyebrow. “You can swear around her, you know. I do all the time.”

“Yeah, well, the point is to teach her how to be normal, not a mini you.”

Thad doesn’t even look hurt by that. It must have been a good day. He makes his way to the fridge instead. “Well, whatever your point is, I guess you’re done for the day, aren’t you, Moran?”

Alex suddenly feels indignant. He stands up carefully but purposefully, still holding Liv, who’s stirring as she comes closer to her father’s voice. “What, are you dismissing me? Like a servant?”

“Well you sure leave like one.”

“Not always.”

“Stay for dinner then.”

“…Sure. What’s dinner?”

Thad pauses. “Mac n cheese,” he blurts out, trying to sound like this was a plan and not an improvisation. Alex decides to let it slide.

“Fine. I’m going to put on Empire.”

Thad sees the DVD on the table before he can question further. He hands it over wordlessly.

Alex takes a bottle for Liv from the kitchen and leaves Thad to his cooking, watching the beginning of Empire Strikes Back as Liv chugs her dinner. He feels odd knowing that Thad is there in the kitchen where he can’t see him, and that for the first time he can remember, he’ll be getting a non-takeout meal that he didn’t cook himself. It feels oddly domestic. But then again, Alex thinks with a quiet laugh, doesn’t this whole arrangement.

Thad emerges fifteen minutes later with two bowls, and Alex motions for him to wait as he burps Liv. Once she’s burped and settled back in her chair, Alex takes the bowl and only just realizes how closely Thad has watched the whole thing.

“You’re getting good at that,” he comments, as if to himself.

“Yeah, well, hopefully you are too.” Alex takes a bite of mac n cheese. It tastes…gritty. “Thad.”

“Hm?”

“Did you…add milk to this?”

“I can read a label, Moran,” Thad asserts between bites.

“Then what’s the gritty thing.”

“Salt. Aren’t you supposed to add salt to noodles?”

“I mean, yeah, maybe when you first put them in the pot.” Alex looks between Thad and the bowl. “You make this a lot?”

Thad takes another mouthful in lieu of answering.

Alex plays with the noodles for a few more minutes before Thad starts to get offended. “What, you don’t like my cooking, Moran?”

“Alex.”

His answer surprises both of them. Alex decides to roll with it.

“I’m in your apartment almost every day. I take care of your daughter whenever you can’t. You buy groceries for me, and let’s not forget how we knew each other before we ended up in this situation. You can call me Alex.”

A pause. Then Thad snorts. “Come on, Moran. We might be out of BMS, but I’m always gonna be your captain.”

Alex sets down his bowl. “I’m done.”

Thad starts. “But you didn’t even finish—”

“I’m done.”

“What?” Thad calls after him as he grabs his keys from the kitchen counter. “Was I wrong?”

“Yes, Thad,” says Alex, swiveling around to face him on the couch. “You’re wrong. I personally think you were wrong the minute you decided to fake your death in the Goat House fire, but you know what, I’ll give you that. But the guy who called me asking what to do about Liv? That wasn’t my captain. That was a very scared Thad Castle who owes me big.”

Thad sneers. “Oh, so it’s about money. Well I got your payment, and also—”

“Oh my god, Thad, it’s not about money.” Alex rakes a hand through his hair. “It’s about how you decide you need my help every time you’re in over your head, but the minute I try to, you know, help you, you put up this big show about how you’re my captain and you’re in charge and you know what you’re doing. And you know what? I don’t have time for that.”

Alex turns around. It’s too warm for a jacket, and he already has his keys, and his hand is on the door when he hears:

“Don’t go.”

Alex’s shoulders hunch, but he turns around all the same. Thad’s legs are underneath him like he’s one second away from standing from the couch. His bowl is forgotten beside Alex’s.

“I don’t know what to do when you’re not here,” Thad admits.

“I’m not here most of the time,” replies Alex, trying to be cool.

“So you see the fucking—uh.” His eyes flicker between Alex and Liv, who’s still invested in the movie. “So you see the problem.”

For the first time since he met Liv, Alex sees the fear in Thad’s eyes. He hasn’t stopped to consider why that fear hasn’t resurfaced until now. Part of him is flattered that Thad places that much trust in him, but another part is still angry. He still deserves some credit for giving up so much for a guy he now owes nothing to.

Maybe Thad is belatedly putting that together. “Alex,” he says. “At least stay until Empire is done.”

Alex purses his lips together, just to give Thad something to squirm over. He hates to admit it to himself, but he decided the moment Thad said his name.

“Alright,” he says, “but you have to hold her.”

“How?”

“I’ll show you.”

They sit side by side on the floor, and Alex shows him how to ease into the same position that he and Liv spent the afternoon in. Thad looks more at his daughter than the movie, while Alex stares at the screen and thinks very hard about anything other than Thad’s thigh against his.

“This is ridiculous,” Alex whines to Mary Jo in the teachers’ lounge a few weeks later. “I just need a date.”

“Dates don’t erase attraction, Alex.”

“Not helping.”

“Just saying.”

“Do you know anyone who’s looking for a fling right now?”

“Alex, I know you hate to hear it, but I lost as many connections as you did the day we graduated.”

“Not even like a former cheerleader?”

Mary Jo licks the hummus off a carrot stick. “I guess there’s one,” she admits. “Sarah. She had a boyfriend through most of college, so I guess you didn’t pay much attention to her.”

Alex vaguely remembers long blond hair and a high-pitched voice. “Yeah, probably. Think she’d be interested?”

“Dunno.” But she’s whipping out her phone, so ready to get going, one of the things Alex thought he loved about her before he realized she was more of a sibling. Awkward thing to express after having a drugged-up threesome with her, but what can you do. They’re cool now, and that’s all he asks for. He needs someone to snark with during staff meetings and parent-teacher nights.

“So how’s Liv?” Mary Jo asks once she’s finished the initial message.

“Good so far. Thad’s started playing peek-a-boo with her like, every day, because it’s one of the only things he knows how to do. She seems to like it, though, and it’s a lot better than before when she’d just be in front of the TV all day.”

“And Thad, how’s Thad doing?”

Alex eyes Mary Jo. He’s feeling a disturbing undercurrent of “bisexual awakening” right about now. “I think that’s enough about Thad,” he counters. “What about you, how are you?”

“Oh, good.” She examines her fingernails. The index and middle fingernails are filed down again, which means Alex can accurately predict her next sentence. “I got a new girlfriend.”

“Oh yeah? How’d you meet her?”

“Same as you,” she says teasingly. “I adopted her lovechild.” She gets up just as the warning bell rings; Alex doesn’t have enough time to get properly indignant.

Instead, he calls after her retreating form, “That’s not funny!”

It takes a few weeks to set up a date with Sarah, with Mary Jo as intermediary the whole time. Alex almost wonders if she’s hiding something from him about this setup, but he’s not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. In the meantime, spring turns to summer, school lets out, and Liv is released from daycare into Alex’s care. But not without one parting present.

“Sick?” Alex repeats as Thad wrestles his blazer on in the doorway. “Like the flu, or?”

“A cold,” says Thad. He has the bags under his eyes that he used to get only from weekend marathon parties, and even then, these are worse. “She’s been crying all night. I only just got her to sleep.”

“Did you get any medicine?”

“Yeah,” says Thad, and the certainty with which he says it makes Alex raise his eyebrows. “The doctor says she needs it three times a day and also a lot of liquids, but otherwise she’ll be fine.” His eyes briefly catch Alex’s, and Alex can see for the first time how worried Thad is. He probably has never had to care for anyone beside himself in his life. “I think,” he adds.

“Well…I got her now,” says Alex.

“I know,” says Thad. He pauses, looking like he’s forgetting to do something, or knows he should do something but doesn’t. Instead he reaches past Alex to grab his keys. “I’ll see you at four,” he says, and shuts the door before Alex can say anything.

Alex spends the morning watching Netflix absently while listening to the baby monitor. At eleven Liv decides she’s had enough of sleep, and Alex goes to fetch her from the crib.

“Hey, hey,” he says soothingly. If Thad looked exhausted, Liv looks worse, covered in snot and face red and scrunched. He hoists her up and sets her on his chest. “Looks like it’s about time for your meds anyway.”

He escorts her to the kitchen, prepares a bottle of formula, and looks around for the cold medicine. He finds it on the counter beside the fridge. It takes him a few minutes to figure out that they’re saline drops and they go in her nose, and double that time to actually insert them. It’s almost a relief to start feeding her.

Once she’s fed and burped, he considers putting her in her chair or in his lap, but seeing her this tired makes her strangely tired himself. It’s only noon on the first day of summer vacation, and he’s earned a chance to lie down, and Liv looks like she could use it too.

So he lies on his back, and lays her so that they’re chest to chest.

Babies aren’t that hard, he thinks as he keeps one hand on her back to hold her steady. They just need to, what, be touched? Fed? Changed? He doesn’t know why Thad was panicking so much. Liv’s a good baby.

This is the last thought he has until four hours later, when he wakes up to find Thad standing in front of the couch, staring down at him and putting away his phone.

“What?” Alex asks blearily. He’s expecting another sort of jibe about how much fun he must be having, but instead he gets divertive Thad.

“What what?”

“…Never mind.” Alex feels Liv’s forehead with the hand that isn’t already on her back. “Her fever hasn’t changed.”

“Is that good?” Thad sits cross-legged on the floor in front of the couch. Alex hasn’t seen his face so close and so open in a while. Thad’s hair has grown out a little, and he’s developing little lines around his mouth.

“I dunno,” says Alex. “We can google it.”

Thad hands Alex his phone from the table, but doesn’t make any attempt to reach for his own phone in his pocket. He seems content to stay where he is, watching Alex take control of things.

Alex unlocks his phone and is met with a new message. “Oh. Hm.”

“What? Is it bad?”

“No, I just—Mary Jo messaged. I have a date tomorrow night.”

Suddenly Thad’s eyes can’t quite focus on him. “Oh.” Then, with more conviction. “Great. Good for you, Mor—Alex.”

Alex raises an eyebrow at Thad as he opens his web browser. “You okay?”

Thad laughs that overly loud laugh he uses when he’s hiding something. “What? I’m totally fine. Someone’s gotta keep living the sloot life, right?” Before Alex realizes it, Thad is reaching to take Liv from his chest. She stirs and whines and doesn’t stop even when she’s settled against Thad’s collarbone. “Shh,” Thad says, rocking her. “You don’t want to be with him anyway. He’s got a date.”

Alex sits up. His chest feels cold where Liv was. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What’s what supposed to mean, Moran? You got a date, that means you’re done here, right? Gotta go—I dunno—wax your armpits and shit. Put on cologne.”

“You wear cologne,” Alex says, furrowing his brow. He almost doesn’t notice how he’s back to being Moran.

“It’s for work!” Thad’s voice is an octave away from his infamous panicked screech, but then Liv decides she’s going to be awake now and beats him to the punch. Both Thad and Alex wince at her newfound lungs. Thad begins patting her back and rocking her in a tandem that hypnotizes Alex and momentarily makes him forget why they’re fighting. Not that he really knows in the first place.

“…I’ll be here tomorrow,” he says. He’s not sure if he means that as reassurance or a warning.

Thad nods in understanding. “I have work at ten.”

“I might just ask her to meet me here,” says Alex. “If that’s okay.”

“Sure,” says Thad. His voice is inching up in tone again. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

Alex isn’t sure why he wants his date to meet him at Thad’s house. Car-wise, it doesn’t make any sense. On the drive home he comes up with the reason that he doesn’t want to leave Liv until he absolutely has to.

The next morning he wakes up with a sore throat and curses. He makes his way to his sparse medicine cabinet and notices the immediate lack of cough drops. “No, no, no,” he mutters to himself, feeling around for them as if they’re just invisible. Finally he decides to take a sip—just a sip, he’s driving soon—of Jack for his throat before he showers and heads off to Thad’s place.

“You’re not sick too,” says Thad when he hears Alex greet him in his scratchy voice. He asserts it like it’ll make it true.

“You’re telling me,” says Alex. He tries to get past the miniature foyer and into the living room, but Thad blocks the entry with his arms. He can’t have played football in ages, but he’s still toned as hell. Alex attributes his staring to the oncoming cold.

“You might be contagious,” Thad asserts.

Alex blinks at him. “She got me sick.”

Thad stutters, but holds firm. “Then you might get sicker.”

“And when did that ever stop you?” Alex ducks under his arm and makes his way to the couch. He checks that the baby monitor is working and then flops down, stretches out, and turns on the TV.

He leans his head back to see Thad staring at him. “What?” Alex asks. “My dad kicked me off his Netflix.”

Thad examines him another moment. He leaves without another word.

Over the course of a morning, a sore throat turns to sneezing and sneezing turns to mucus. Alex suspects he caught a combination of whatever Liv has and whatever his students were suffering under through final exams. All he knows is it progresses fast, and maybe it’ll leave fast too. He’s got a date.

Having nothing else to lose, he and Liv spend another day chest to chest, watching whatever Alex feels like putting on that won’t scar a kid for life. Around three he stumbles on a football documentary and tells himself he’s watching it for research—part of his summer work is to start coaching for the football season in August—but ends up staring more at the players than their tactics.

In his cold-induced haze, he doesn’t have the energy to repress himself. He knows football, and loves it too. It reminds him of good times, of winning kisses from girls and doing drugs with his team and partying with a reason to celebrate. Surely, he thinks to himself, surely his fascination with football-type guys is just nostalgia in disguise.

Behind him, the front door unlocks, and Alex frowns. Thad only went to work five hours ago; he’s not due back until seven, the same time as Alex’s date arrives.

But there’s Thad, Alex confirms as he slowly, slowly lifts himself up while balancing Liv on his chest. He’s got a shopping bag dangling from one arm, and he’s carrying cups and boxes from the BMS diner that used to serve sandwiches named after him.

“Hey,” says Alex groggily. “Thought you had work?”

“I took a sick day.”

“Oh god, not you too.”

“I’m not sick,” Thad says. He doesn’t look at Alex and instead sets what he’s carrying on the kitchen table.

Alex gingerly lays Liv back on the couch and stumbles over just as Thad is opening the first box from the diner. Blueberry muffins. His favorite.

Alex looks between the box and Thad. Thad finally meets his eyes.

“So I might. Maybe…owe you. Just for you getting sick,” Thad amends quickly. “The other stuff, that was all you, I didn’t make you do anything.”

“Uh…huh.” Alex looks at the rest of the diner bag. “What’s in the cups?”

“Soup.”

Alex laughs breathily, and the sound surprises both of them. “What?” Alex says. “You’re bringing me soup when I’m sick?”

“It’s for me,” says Thad, but neither of them believes it. Alex isn’t sure he’d be able to hear the truth anyway. “Besides, that’s just lunch stuff. Here’s the real payback.” Thad opens the shopping bag beside the food to reveal a Nintendo console and three new games.

“It stays at my place,” Thad warns, like he thinks Alex is going to get any bright ideas. “But you’re saving me a shitload—a ton in daycare money, so…I can do this much.”

Alex examines the box before looking back to Thad. He’s really more of an Xbox guy, but the fact feels distant and irrelevant. Thad knows he likes video games. Thad bought video games. Alex was satisfied just to mooch off a free Netflix account and whatever is in Thad’s fridge, but this is a step beyond: this is considerate. What’s more, Thad seems to count on him being around to play it, to make it worth his while.

Alex can refuse it. Can say he’ll bring his own, or make him return it. But—and this is the part where this situation really sinks in—he can’t foresee any future where he stops coming, or where he’s not around to use it. And he’s not quite ready to voice that commitment yet.

Still, the temptation is there. Alex grins minutely. “We can try it out. I might have some game requests in the future.”

Something in Thad’s face relaxes, and he shoves Alex with one hand. “Oh fuck off, Alex, like anyone can resist Mario Kart.”

The two of them eat lunch while watching a sitcom Alex doesn’t pay any attention to, and then Thad wrangles the new console into his TV setup while Alex feeds and medicates Liv. By the time he sets her down in her crib for a nap, the Mario Kart menu is dancing merrily on the screen and Thad has already chosen an avatar.

“Don’t think just ‘cause you’re sick that I’m gonna go easy on you,” he says as Alex settles beside him on the couch.

“Don’t think just because I’m sick I’m not gonna kick your ass,” Alex snarks back. Something in his chest is coming loose, and it’s not a cough. He has coked-up memories of challenging Thad to assorted games at the Goat House, but those feel like another time, a different context. His college self would be horrified by how excited Alex is to do this. His college self, Alex thinks as he selects Princess Peach, needs to shut up for once.

They play until well after sunset, Thad shouting excitably and Alex wiping his nose on his sleeve to let himself keep racing until the finish line. Liv mercifully sleeps through it all. Alex wins the slim majority of the games, but Thad isn’t far behind on nearly every race. Alex didn’t realize how much he missed video games, or lazy afternoons spent glued to another person’s side. Or listening to Thad’s screeches of victory and feeling his shoulder bump against him as he tries to veer to the side along with his car.

The doorbell rings, and Alex checks his phone. He has three missed texts from Mary Jo, and another two from an unknown number. Sarah.

Thad figures out who’s at the door a moment after Alex does. His face crumples in on itself just for a moment before he punches Alex on the arm. “Go bag her, Moran.” He gets up and wanders into the kitchen before Alex can say anything.

Alex stands up slowly—the cold is catching up to him now that he’s no longer distracted—and sees his reflection in the TV. He didn’t shave this morning, and he probably needs another shower. He wouldn’t be surprised if he looks as bad as he feels, which is increasingly worse. She has to understand that, right? He has a cold. It’s no one’s fault.

He runs a hand through his hair and steps up to open the door. There she is, all slender and long limbs. He remembers her, in particular asking about her boyfriend while checking out the cleavage afforded by her cheerleader uniform. He’s respectful of limits, but he likes when they’re not there. She must remember that too, but she smiles at him easily enough.

“Heeeey,” he says. Thad can’t see him from the kitchen because the mini foyer’s walls prevent it, but he can probably hear everything. Alex steps outside and closes the door behind him. He doesn’t bring his shoes.

“Hey,” says Sarah. She caught a glimpse of the living room and its two-player setup before Alex closed the door. He sees that realization in her knowing expression. “Ready to go?”

“Actually, uh,” he says, “I’m not feeling so good.”

“You’re not sounding so good either,” says Sarah with a wan smile. “Pretty sudden.”

“Yeah, well, you know,” he says with a shrug. “Babies.” He then blinks, trying to suppress his alarm. That isn’t information he wants to start a date on. But Mary Jo must have mentioned something, because Sarah just smiles and rolls her eyes.

“Yeah, that checks out,” she says. They stand there awkwardly.

“Look, I’m sorry,” says Alex. “I should have texted or something. It just started this morning. Do you want to reschedule?”

“Actually.” Sarah bites her lip, and god Alex misses that sight, misses how his dick would respond to it. “It’s probably best we just cancel.”

“Ah.” Alex nods once. “Your ex message you, or?”

“No, no. Just my girlfriend might have something to say about it.”

Alex startles.

“Mary Jo,” Sarah clarifies, as if that makes things any better.

“You’re Mary Jo’s new girlfriend?” Alex’s brow can’t possibly furrow more. “Then…why is she setting us up?”

“She had this idea that I’d be your worst date ever.” Sarah is repeating this matter-of-factly, like she’s already discussed the stupidity of this with all her friends and Alex is just the next willing ear. It’s a tone similar to how he talks about Thad. “Like, anything you’d say you like, I was supposed to like the opposite, and if you even mentioned BMS I was supposed to—”

“Okay, I don’t need the details,” Alex interjects. “Did she, uh. Did she say why?”

“Something about your bisexual awakening.”

Alex rubs his eyes. “Oh god.”

“I think it’s kind of sweet, actually,” says Sarah, and the earnest way she looks at Alex suggests she really does. “She says she called you and this baby daddy guy for a while. I guess she just wanted to make the point that you have something pretty good.”

“What I have is a second job that doesn’t pay me anything.”

“It looked like you were having fun in there,” she says, raising her eyebrows at the closed door that hides the new video game setup.

“I mean but that’s—he says that’s payment. Also, I’m sick. I have to use pity points while I can.”

“Either way, I don’t think there’s anything more I can do.” Sarah smiles softly at him and kisses him on the cheek. “Feel better, Alex. Maybe you and me and Mary Jo can get drinks sometime.” She dismisses herself and walks down the porch steps to her car, leaving Alex several seconds to register that he’s just been kissed, that he barely felt it, and that he’s not even getting a first date, let alone a second.

He lets himself back in.

“Forgot your shoes, eh, Moran?” Thad calls from the kitchen the moment the door opens.

“I’m not going,” Alex calls back.

Thad ducks around the corner and stares at him with wide eyes.

“I’m sick,” Alex clarifies. “And like, she has a girlfriend. It wouldn’t have worked anyway.”

He expects Thad to have a follow-up question about the girlfriend, but instead he watches Thad’s shoulders fall. He looks…relieved.

Alex could very well tease him for this, but he’s had too many surprises in the past five minutes, and also he’s been standing up for way too long. He brushes past Thad and blows half the contents of his nose into a tissue.

“I hear Jack works as good as NyQuil,” Thad mentions, as if he’s happy to have a topic change.

“Yeah, I had a bit before I came here,” Alex mentions.

Thad looks scandalized.

“A bit,” Alex stresses. “I don’t drink and take care of your kid.”

“You could start. How would I know?”

“How would you find another babysitter?” Alex retorts levelly. Thad pauses and seems to give up on the train of thought.

“I have some Jack in the cabinet,” he says instead.

“I know,” Alex says. He belatedly adds, “But I have to drive home.”

“That never stopped you at BMS.”

“One, I lived in the same place I drank. Two, I pay for my own insurance now.”

“Then stay here.”

Alex raises an eyebrow at him. “I know I take a lot of naps on your couch, but I think eight hours straight might actually break my spine.”

“Then use my bed.”

The words surprise them both. Alex examines Thad, whose face is suddenly turning red with some unnamed emotion. “Like,” says Alex carefully, “with you in the bed, or—”

“What?” Thad yelps. He lets out a series of forced laughs. “Stop joking around, Moran. What am I, a gay guy? I’ll take the couch, where’s the Jack?”

He retreats into the kitchen and fumbles around his own cabinets as if he’s forgotten which one holds the liquor. Alex watches him carefully. He can do this. It’s just a favor, one of many Thad owes him. He can drink free Jack and stay the night, and he’ll go home in the morning and sleep off this cold, and that’ll be the end of that.

Thad pours a Jack and Coke and a mojito for himself and offers the former to Alex. Alex accepts it and sips it preliminarily, and in the time it takes him to drink an eighth, Thad has already drank half of his mojito.

“Careful,” Alex warns. “I’m not the one who’s getting up if Liv starts crying again.”

“Shut up,” Thad says after an exaggerated smack of his lips. “You know how rarely I get to do this these days?”

Alex lets the comment sit. He supposes that means Thad doesn’t drink with Liv around, or at least when he’s the only person around her. Which means he can either drink at work, or he’s just not drinking. Alex supposes he hasn’t thought about it and decides not to for the rest of the night.

They go back to another round of Mario Kart because Alex doesn’t feel like learning one of the other two games, but Thad wins and Alex decides he’s done with games for today anyway. Instead he hands the remote to Thad, who lands on a marathon of Harry Potter movies. Alex sips from his Jack and Coke and takes a second when Thad offers it, and they spend the night in companionable silence, Thad occasionally mocking one of the characters for their accents.

Alex wakes to find the TV off and Thad moving away from him. “Wassat?” Alex slurs. He’s not drunk, just sick and exhausted.

“You fell asleep,” says Thad quietly. Alex is about to ask how that happened when he sees the wet marks on Thad’s shoulder. He’s not sure whether he drooled or just leaked snot on him, but either way he feels a belated surge of embarrassment.

“Sorry,” he mumbles.

“S’not your fault. Heh, get it? Snot.” Thad has clearly had more drinks than Alex has for him to be making puns. He looks at Alex, who’s sinking back into the couch cushions. “Time for bed.”

“I’m not Liv,” Alex protests. “Don’t need reminders.” But he doesn’t stir from the couch.

“Do I have t’carry you?” Thad asks.

“You’re too drunk for that.”

“Oh yeah?” Thad comes at Alex in a blur, and Alex half thinks he’s about to be tackled before he realizes, no, Thad’s just hoisting him over one linebacker shoulder, and Alex is suddenly and irrevocably awake. His arms flail uselessly, trying to touch anything but Thad’s ass—which is right there, damn it—but his sinuses immediately fill with mucus and he gets a headache that makes him groan all the way down the hallway, past Liv’s room, until Thad opens the door at the end of the hall and shoulders him off onto a queen-sized bed.

Alex lies where he’s dropped, staring at Thad’s back as he stumbles around the room, apparently looking for spare clothing. His walls are bare, like Alex’s own, but his clothing appears to be in piles on the floor rather than tracing an explosion pattern. A few beer cans and his beloved Oxana sit on the bedside table, and only the wardrobe in the corner is covered in photos, most of them of Thad but some of the team or his dad or his (still extremely hot) half-sister.

Alex does a double-take of the bedside table. There’s a photo there after all, propped up against Thad’s alarm clock as if he hasn’t yet found a frame for it. It’s the photo of Thad and Alex and the guys holding Harmon’s enormous joint of weed, the last remnant of the football field Thad built (singlehandedly, he’d say, but Sammy finds a way to work complaints about his free labor into every poker night so far).

“Where’d you get that picture?” he asks Thad as he closes his wardrobe clutching what appear to be old sweats.

Thad doesn’t have to ask which one. “We all got a copy, didn’ we?”

“I think mine went through the wash. By accident.”

“Classic Alex. Washing things.”

Alex lets that one go. He half expects Thad’s clothes piles are actually laundry piles, if the baby clothes mixed in is anything to go by. “It was a good game.”

“Yeah.”

“I guess I never thanked you for making it happen.”

Thad tosses the sweats onto Alex’s belly and retreats into the connected bathroom. “No one did.”

“It was worth it, right?” Alex calls after him.

He can see Thad paused in the doorway. “No shit.”

This seems to be all the conversation Alex is able to make. He changes from jeans to sweats while still lying on the bed, all the while catching glances in the bathroom mirror of Thad brushing his teeth. By the time Thad has gone through his routine and visited the second bedroom to check on Liv, Alex’s eyes are already half closed.

“You gotta get in the bed, genius,” Thad snaps at him, and lifts the corner of the duvet near Alex’s head to prove his point.

“I don’t hafta do anything,” Alex responds, but he rolls himself towards the open spot and wiggles himself under the covers regardless. This is doubtlessly Thad’s bed because it smells like his cologne and musk and other things he doesn’t feel like naming. He sighs and wraps the covers around himself.

“Yeah, I know that,” Thad mutters.

“Wha?” Alex has already forgotten what he said.

“Just go to sleep, Alex.” Thad stands there for a moment or two as Alex lets himself relax. Satisfied, Thad steps towards the door.

“Wait.” Alex sits up blearily. “Where’re you going?”

“Couch. Like I said.”

“Thad.” Alex says. “This bed is enormous.”

It’s not really. It’s not a king. But it’s just right for two people, and Alex wasn’t lying when he said he couldn’t sleep on that couch. It seems unfair to make Thad do it instead.

“’m being a good host, god.”

“I’m not a guest here, Thad.” Alex reaches over and lifts up the duvet corner on the other side of the bed, just as Thad had done for him. “Get in.”

Thad looks at the empty space and pointedly not at Alex. He swallows. “I’m not a—”

“Don’t you dare say gay guy. I fucking know you’re not.”

Alex isn’t sure why that’s the most assuring thing he can say, but it relaxes Thad just enough to let him step up to the bed and peel back the covers. He purposefully keeps two feet of undisturbed blanket between himself and Alex.

They settle in silently. A few minutes pass before Alex thinks he hears Thad say “g’night,” but by then he’s almost completely fallen asleep.

Alex wakes up three times over the course of the night. The first time he wakes up sneezing and realizes Thad’s room has no tissues. He pads down the dark hallway and brings back the tissue box from the kitchen table, blows his nose, and goes back to sleep. Thad is still on his side of the bed, making no noise.

The second time, Liv starts crying. She slept through most of the afternoon and evening, and now the wee hours of the morning are her limit. Alex feels more than hears Thad groan and pry himself from the covers, as if he’s done this a thousand times. He probably has, Alex thinks groggily before he falls back asleep.

The third time is an hour or two later, judging by Thad’s clock. Alex wakes when Thad treads back into the room and falls onto the bed so hard Alex bounces up a little in response. He groans and rolls over with his back to Thad.

He doesn’t mean it as an invitation. He doesn’t even think Thad registers it as one. But whatever the intent, Thad pulls the duvet back over himself and proceeds to wrap one arm over Alex’s torso and one leg over his waist, and presses his face into the back of Alex’s neck.

Alex’s eyes fly open.

They’re fucking spooning.

The alcohol must have worn off because now he’s wide awake, blinking into the darkness and feeling Thad’s breath through the small hairs on the back of his neck. He’d bet his next paycheck that Thad didn’t mean to do this. He couldn’t have. Alex is just another body in his bed, a floozy he can cozy up to. It’s instinct for him.

He’s not even hard, Alex assures himself, as if Thad’s dick is the problem and not his. He must be underestimating how much he’s blue-balling himself, because even despite his cold he’s getting half hard from contact alone.

Think about Sarah. She looked hot, right? God, what was she even wearing tonight? Alex hadn’t gotten a good look. It must have been light, it being June and all. And cleavage, she had great cleavage.

He spends a few minutes trying to recollect his memories of Sarah before figuring that this probably isn’t the best way to shut his dick up anyway. He tries shifting away from Thad’s grip, but Thad only mumbles something and pulls Alex back towards him. He’s trapped.

Alex spends so much time thinking about how to divert his libido that before he can come up with a solution, he falls back asleep.

Alex wakes up a fourth time, officially, to a drooling baby staring him right in the face.

He startles awake, and Liv only giggles as if he’s just performed some amusing trick. She may be feeling better, but Alex is feeling worse. His head aches with a probable sinus infection, and his throat feels like he hasn’t drunk water in a year.

“Well at least you’re fine,” he grumbles to Liv. She only claps her hands and follows his face as he sits up.

Thad walks in and Alex squints at him. “Do you always put her in your bed in the mornings?”

“Only on special occasions,” says Thad, but then he revisits the meaning of that sentence and shakes his head. “I had to distract her while I was making breakfast.”

“I could have rolled over and crushed her.” He closes his eyes. Sitting up is hard.

“You don’t really move when you sleep.”

“Not when I’m being pinned down, no.”

Thad pauses. “It wasn’t personal. I was checking on your fever.”

“Sure. Whatever. Look, you have any Tylenol?”

“Maybe.” Thad makes his way to the bathroom. He mentions over his shoulder, “I have pancakes.”

Alex nods and flops back onto the bed. Liv reaches toward him, and Alex reaches one arm out and scoots her against his side. “How’d she sleep?” he asks.

“Woke up in the middle of the night, but just because she was hungry. I think her fever broke.” Thad emerges from the bathroom and tosses a pill bottle onto Alex’s chest. It bounces off and would have rolled onto Liv if Alex didn’t catch it in time. Alex opens the bottle and is about to dry swallow, but belatedly notices Thad holding out a glass that he’s clearly drank from already.

“Thanks.” Alex sips a bit for the pill and then drinks half the glass besides. “I don’t think the Jack helped.”

“Jack always helps.”

“Not with colds, apparently,” Alex sighs, but he doesn’t feel like arguing about it. Thad takes Liv from the bed the minute Alex stands up, and the three of them make their way down the small hallway to the kitchen. Thad has made way more pancakes than the two of them can eat, potentially to feed them all day. Alex just feels like going home.

“Anything good on?” Alex gestures to the TV he can see from the kitchen counter. It’s on commercial.

“A Friends marathon,” says Thad.

“How about on ESPN?”

“It’s off season.”

“I know, but sometimes they have good commentary. And it’s kind of my job now.” Alex loads a plate with two pancakes. Thad doesn’t seem to have syrup, but he has whipped cream, and Alex sprays it on liberally.

“What, commenting on football?”

“No, coaching. They give teachers summer homework, can you believe that? I thought I was off scot-free. Not that it’ll affect Liv until August, though,” he adds to Thad, who looks increasingly nervous. He sits on the couch and reaches for the remote. Thad springs from the kitchen, Liv in one arm, and grabs it first.

“What’s wrong with Friends?” he yelps. “I like Joey!” In his arms, Liv does her baby version of a frown, seemingly wondering at the change in tone.

Alex raises an eyebrow slowly. “Okay, we can finish this episode. Just let me see what’s coming up and—”

“I don’t have ESPN,” Thad says breathlessly.

“You have cable but no ESPN?”

“Damn it Alex, I don’t want to watch football, okay?”

Alex blinks. The BMS photos all over Thad’s wardrobe seem to indicate otherwise. “What do you mean?” he asks.

Thad sighs and flops onto the couch, and runs his fingers through Liv’s fine hair. “I…just don’t wanna watch it anymore.”

“Like NFL, right?”

“Like anything.”

“Even BMS games?”

Thad won’t look at him. “If I do…and if people recognize me, and ask me about it…I want them to like. Think I have better things to do. Than keep up with that.”

“…But it’s football.” Alex turns to face him, pancakes forgotten in his lap. “That was your life. You did everything for it. Even some things I wouldn’t have done.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” Thad is looking at the TV now. “Just drop it. I’m a lot better off like this.”

Alex looks between Thad and Liv, who is staring into space and blowing spit bubbles. “If you have her,” Alex says slowly, meaning Liv, “that’s your…what? Your next big thing?”

“She's the only thing,” says Thad so quietly that Alex almost doesn’t hear it.

Alex eats his pancakes and they watch Friends in silence. The food and Tylenol do him well, but after two episodes Alex announces he needs to go home. Thad looks like he wants to object, but swallows it and nods. Alex doesn’t realize until he leaves that he’s still wearing Thad’s old sweats, which are a size too big for him.

He picks up some medicine and instant soup and comes home to a quiet apartment. It always is quiet, he supposes. He lies in his own bed and tries to imagine how he’d be spending his time if he didn’t have Thad and Liv to commute to. He has no illusions that he’d work any harder at coaching or teaching. Hooking up has turned into dating, against his will, and that’s harder too. Really all he has, all he still enjoys is football. He was hired for his name and the expertise he supposedly has, and while he doesn’t plan to work nearly as hard as everyone thinks he will, at least he doesn’t shy away from the game entirely like Thad plans to. At least he still keeps that part of his identity. No, what he shies away from these days is sex, the thing that made football truly worthwhile.

And why? Because he’s developing some sort of weird football kink? Or because he’s informally adopted somebody else’s baby? Or maybe, weirdly, it’s a combination, something to do with Thad.

Alex knows what he would do if Thad Castle hadn’t reentered his life. So before he lets the NyQuil take him, he turns the notifications back on on his Tinder.

There isn’t another sleepover after Liv and Alex get better. There isn’t even another video game tournament. Alex spends the entire month of June and half of July babysitting Liv, attending coaches’ meetings, and going out on Tinder dates. He even has to bow out of poker night a few times, and he takes no small pleasure in informing the guys why.

The dates don’t blow his mind, but that’s not where he needs to be blown anyway. At first he goes for the sort of girl he might have gotten at BMS, the hot chicks majoring in things he’s barely heard of. But then he figures out that out of college, these are the girls who are looking for commitment, or who at least can’t look past his “gym teacher” status to the coaching he’s about to do.

So he lowers his standards, and that’s when he starts having fun. BMS-grade chicks may not be into him anymore, but there’s a whole score of girls who never even got to breathe his air in college. Girls who studied nonstop and were late onto the dating scene, girls locked down with boyfriends who dumped them at the first sign of a career, girls who cared nothing about football but could appreciate the body needed for it. Alex isn’t there to have things in common with them. He’s just in it for some dinner and some road head and to see where the rest of the night takes them.

He sleeps with two of his dates, once each, and they’re both great. They moan in all the right places and go as many rounds as he can handle. But after, when their heads are lying on his chest as they rest, Alex can’t stop thinking of the sheer number of bodies he used to be surrounded by. It’s so much easier to excuse himself from a harem than it will be from this date. He leaves both of them gently, but he leaves all the same.

He says nothing about his dates to Thad, but he thinks he knows anyway. Thad comes home as punctually as he can and makes a point of showing off all the amazing things Liv has learned how to do, as if Alex hasn’t just spent the day with her. So far it’s just how she can now hold up her own head and reach for things instead of just flailing towards them. Alex would be lying if he said he didn’t find Thad’s and Liv’s ecstatic fascination with each other amusing. And kind of cute.

The image of Thad grinning at Liv in Alex’s arms—at Alex by proxy—leaks its way into his head just as Alex is driving his date (and third hookup contender) back to her place. He must be making a face about it, because the girl asks him what’s wrong.

“Nothing,” he says, shaking his head.

“Hm,” sighs the girl. She scoots over to lean herself against him as he drives. Alex has never in his life had a car with a center console, and he won’t start for this exact reason. He thinks this to himself in self-congratulation as he wraps an arm over her shoulder in return.

His phone rings from his cupholder.

“You need to get that?” the date asks. She tilts the screen back to see who it is. “I’m guessing it’s someone from work.”

“Oh yeah?” Alex maneuvers his arm from around her and picks up. “What’s up, it’s Alex.”

“Well duh, I only text you every day.”

Alex startles. It’s Thad.

“I’m kind of in the middle of something,” he hisses into the receiver, glancing sideways at the girl. She’s pulling down the sun visor to check her makeup in the mirror.

“It’ll be quick, I promise. You know how Liv’s six months old now?”

“…Yeah?”

“So I wanted to get the team back together to celebrate—”

The bottom falls out of Alex’s stomach.

“—But then guess what? The guys totally saw it coming and planned it all themselves!”

Alex’s mouth flounders uselessly for a moment, and his date finally reads the air enough to be concerned. “H-how do you know?” he asks. He could swear he never mentioned Thad’s address, and Harmon would have mentioned something to Alex before he heard about it from Thad.

“Your buddy Mascot”—“Sammy,” Alex hears him whine in the background—“came over to give me the invitation!”

“Sammy?” Alex yelps. No, no no no. These two worlds absolutely cannot meet. Alex who takes care of the baby and Alex who drinks and does drugs and gets road head cannot overlap at any point, or else reality will implode. But he can already hear “Lemme talk to him, give ‘im here” and has only seconds to prepare himself before his best friend’s voice fills his ear.

“Alex! Hey buddy.”

“Sammy. Sammy, how did you find him, how did you even—”

“Ah ah ah, a best friend never reveals his secrets. But it could have something to do with Mary Jo, who maybe told your school secretary she needed to bring you something, which is true, only it’s me who’s—”

“No Sammy, why are you here—I mean, there.” He pauses. “Did you see the baby yet?”

“See her? I’m holding her! I’d make her wave at you if, you know, my arms weren’t occupied. And if we were on video chat.” A brief quiet, and Alex can just imagine Sammy making a face to her. “She’s a little whiny at first, but she’ll love me. She has to, right? After all, I’m your best friend!”

This “best friend” stuff is being laid on a little thick, even for Sammy. Alex gets the sudden guilty feeling that Sammy feels left out. Of what, though, he couldn’t say. “Look, you’re right, I should have brought you to see her or something, it’s just—”

“No no, I get it, you gotta keep up your lifestyle and all, I heard all about it.” Alex rolls his eyes. “So anyway, the guys and I were talking at the last poker night, and it’s the last time half the old team is free before training ramps up”—Sammy’s talking about Larry the BMS coach and Radon and Craig, who are in the NFL now—“so we thought, why not have a little shindig? Just the whole bunch of us, right?”

“But Sammy. With Liv?”

“What can I say, Alex, she’s a little charmer! The guys are gonna love her.”

“And what about Thad,” Alex hisses.

“Well he’s the captain, right? Not to mention her dad. But that’s the beauty of it, Alex! I’ve decided, completely my own original idea—okay, maybe a bit of Mary Jo, but—once the party really starts ramping up, she and I are gonna babysit Liv! But don’t get your hopes up, I’m only doing this once because your birthday’s coming up,” Sammy adds, as if Alex is about to interject. “Besides, it’s about time I spent some quality time with my goddaughter!”

“Goddaughter?” Alex chokes on the word.

“It’s on the twentieth, and you better be free, man, because I can’t tell you how long it took me to get Radon’s schedule to sync up—”

“Look. Sammy. Not that I’m not…grateful and all, but what’s…why?” Alex is at a loss for words. He’s driving completely on autopilot; he may in fact have missed a stop sign a few roads back. His date can’t ignore his ruffled feathers any longer and has moved beyond grieving for their lost sex to browse Tinder for a last-minute hookup.

“Because it’s been ages since we last saw you, and you always talk about this kid and we never meet her, and if we have to bring Thad too, then so be it, man.” Sammy says this all in a rush, and fresh guilt mixes with fear in Alex’s stomach like rum and ecstasy, like a toxic combination. He’s been giving so much time to his arrangement with Thad and his own libido that he’s let Sammy feel neglected. Possibly even the other guys too.

“Sammy, you know how much I owe you a bro-down? So much, man. I love you, buddy, but this—this”—he gestures over the dashboard at nothing—“is not the way for us to reconnect. It’s kind of the opposite, actually.”

“That’s the thing, Alex.” Great, now Sammy’s in his I-know-better voice. “This thing just isn’t about you anymore. It’s about you and Thad, and this freaking adorable little baby. I swear she has your eyes, Alex.”

“I…don’t think that’s how that works, buddy.”

“Well I beg to differ. Twentieth, Alex, six sharp at Harmon’s place.”

“Six is a little early, isn’t it?”

“If we want to get Liv toured around enough, nah, it’s perfect. See you then, buddy!” Sammy hangs up before Alex can try to interject again.

“Who was that?” his date asks.

“Work,” Alex chokes out. He misses her turn and has to circle two blocks around. He doesn’t say another word the rest of the way.

The day of the party arrives. Alex knocks on Harmon’s door in his typical BMS attire: jeans and a tight-fitting shirt with rolled-up sleeves. The one bit of control he has over tonight is that he doesn’t have to come with Thad. God knows what kind of message that’s going to send to the guys.

“Alex,” Harmon greets him as he opens the door. “You’re just in time. Thad just showed up.”

“Oh yeah?” Alex raises an eyebrow and steps inside. “I thought he wasn’t the sort to show up early to his own party.”

“Times are changing,” says Harmon. “Even without the kid.”

“How much of the team is here?” Alex asks, but what he really means is, how many people have seen Liv?

“Go downstairs and see.”

Harmon lets him see himself down and picks up the phone to call for pizza. Halfway down the stairs, Alex stops and surveys the scene. The second-string guys haven’t arrived yet, but nearly everyone he knows well is present and pregaming with red solo cups. With Thad and Liv seated in the center of the melee and everyone chatting around them, it looks like an odd case of Animal House meets The Hangover.

Despite himself, a lump forms in Alex’s throat. He didn’t realize how much he missed this until he had it back.

Sammy is the first to see him. “Alex!” he calls, and the rest of the room looks up and cheers. It’s not half the hero’s welcome it would be if there were more girls than Mary Jo present, but Alex grins like he just threw a touchdown and bounds the extra steps down to the basement. Craig hands him a can of beer, his favorite brand.

“How’s the big leagues, man?” Alex asks by way of thanks.

“Nowhere near as interesting as the stuff I’ve been hearing about you,” Craig says. Being in an actual functional relationship has changed him; he’s developed the ability to sound sly.

“Pfft, that’s all rumor,” says Alex. He cracks open his beer and his eyes stray to Thad, who’s watching him with a weird sort of satisfaction, as if Alex had completed something just by arriving. Alex is probably imagining things. “I, what, I make the kids run in P.E., I coach a bit after school, I watch a shitton of Netflix—”

“Look Liv,” says Thad loudly from halfway across the room, “look who’s here.” Liv turns and squeals at Alex, and beside him Craig snorts into his beer.

“Shut up,” Alex snarks at him. But with Liv bouncing all her limbs in motion, trying to get closer to him just from Thad’s lap, he feels less embarrassed. So much so that he takes the three strides across the room and picks her up from Thad’s lap.

“D’ja miss me?” he asks Liv, who smiles gummily at him. Around them, most of his former teammates are suppressing smiles. Alex tries to tell himself it’s all in good humor; they’ve just never seen this part of him, and now they have.

“What, so she lets you hold her?” Radon is standing beside him before he knows it. No greeting, as Radon does. “Man, I’ve been trying for fifteen minutes to get her to even wave at me.”

“Maybe you need to start babysitting her too,” says Alex, although he knows there’s no way it will happen. Radon’s coach is tougher than most, and his team is half a continent away. Sammy wasn’t kidding about working around his schedule.

“Nah, no way I’m sticking around to raise this bastard’s kid.” Radon claps Thad’s shoulder twice. “Figure I’d leave that to you, right Moran? You getta be someone else’s problem solver now.”

“Am I ever gonna get away from that title?”

Nobody answers him; Thad instead decides to stand up between them. “Did someone bring mojito supplies?”

“Whoa,” says Alex, “don’t you still have, like, a daughter here?”

“Yeah, but you got her now,” Thad purposefully doesn’t look at him. He looks like he needs a drink for reasons other than thirst. He sets off for the booze table before Alex can protest.

Mary Jo comes up beside him and shakes Liv’s pudgy foot. “It’s okay,” she says, “we’ll give it another hour and then I’ll take her.”

The hour flies by. Alex and Mary Jo take turns circling the room with Liv in their arms, introducing her to assorted teammates as they trickle in. Nobody is brave enough to make any comments to Alex about his rumored role in her upbringing, but he gets quite a few raised eyebrows at the fact that he’s the one carrying her around and not Thad. Wherever Alex is, Thad seems to be on the opposite side of the room. He laughs loud and fake every few minutes, but as one cup of booze turns to two and two to three, his laughter becomes sincerer.

Alex tries to catch his eye every so often, but Thad is either trying to keep his back to Alex or very intensely staring at him when he thinks Alex isn’t aware. It becomes a weird game, one only Mary Jo seems to pick up on.

“Screw him, Alex,” she whispers to him when Alex starts looking at Thad more than Donnie and Harmon in front of them. For once, she seems not to have the word “bisexual” in mind. “It’s basically your party too.”

“But what’s the point of having his daughter here if he’s not going to show her off himself?”

Mary Jo shrugs. “It’s been a while for him. Just show him what he’s missing.”

Alex has no idea how to do that. He decides that the only way he can try is to pretend Thad isn’t here, so he does. He interjects into Donnie’s and Harmon’s argument about whether you can take antidepressants with alcohol—Harmon deals in drugs, but Donnie’s a pharmacist—and excuses himself when it gets more heated. The second-string guys give him a better reception, and Liv is passed from lap to lap. Everyone is surprisingly considerate about having alcohol nowhere near her, and he doesn’t even realize there’s no tobacco around until Evans lights up a cigarette and Harmon is immediately halfway across the room telling him to take it outside. Alex pulls him aside to thank him the next chance he gets.

“What kind of host would I be to expose her to that shit?” Harmon sounds offended.

“I didn’t mean it like that.” Alex looks down at Liv. “You wanna hold her?”

Before Harmon can respond, Sammy gives up tapping on his beer can to get everyone’s attention and shouts instead. “Hey! It’s present time, dickheads!”

“Yeah, dickheads!” Thad calls from the couch. He’s not nearly as drunk as Alex has seen him, but he’s on his way. “Give me my presents!”

“They’re her presents, asshole,” says Harmon, gesturing to Liv. “Now get over here and take her.”

“Nuh-uh,” says Thad, but he can’t seem to think of a reason to back himself up. Alex rolls his eyes and walks Liv over himself.

“You gonna be okay?” he asks warily. Thad looks worse up close.

“I can handle my own kid, Alex.”

“I thought you didn’t drink around her.”

“I barely had anything.”

“Oh yeah? How much?”

“Come on, Moran, he’s fine,” says Radon, sitting beside Thad. “And I gotta go first anyway, so hurry it up.”

Alex sighs, deposits Liv in Thad’s lap, and sets off to get a fresh beer. He stands near the booze bar beside Craig, close enough to look relevant but far enough to establish some distance. It’s not his party. It’s not his kid. And he’s fine with that, but the fact that it’s Thad’s party seems to be getting to Thad’s head and turning him into the jerk he was back at BMS.

Let him, says Alex to himself. Maybe his affection for Liv was spilling over to Thad, and this is the reality check he needs. Let him see Thad surrounded by adoring fans and witness how any affection Thad might have for him flies out the window.

Sammy brings presents from the coat closet one by one and places them at Thad’s side, so Alex can’t guess how long it’s going to go. Radon gives some gear from his team—Alex forgot they made proper jerseys for babies—but what surprises them all is that somehow Radon snuck in a BMS goat plushie amid all his new team’s swag. Liv takes it and gnaws on its ear, and Radon beams.

“I don’t know how any of you bitches gonna top that,” he crows and unlocks his phone for a picture. “This gonna be my new screensaver.”

The rest of the guys give assorted BMS gear and baby items, and sometimes both at once. Craig gives diapers. Donnie gives a new blanket. Harmon gives some DVDs of kids shows that “will make you feel like you just smoked a bowl on E,” he murmurs to Alex, as if this is supposed to compensate for how boring babysitting can be.

Larry is one of the last people to give something, and he offers it to Thad instead of Liv. “I couldn’t find the right wrapping for it,” he says as Thad rummages around in the gift bag. “The box it came in didn’t seem right.”

Thad pulls out a football covered in signatures. Only Alex sees Thad’s face falter. Larry is still coaching for BMS, and Alex can take a wild guess at who signed it.

“It’s from the new team,” says Larry. “Coach and everyone signed it too. They say to stop by whenever, because they have some more presents of their own when you’re ready.”

“Coach?” Thad’s voice cracks. He looks like he’s remembering something that used to be good but has since soured. “Coach knows?”

“He says…” Larry clears his throat. “He says he can’t wait to meet the newest Goat.”

“Wait,” Alex interjects. The eyes of the room turn to him, but he looks only at Thad. “Doesn’t Coach know?” When Thad doesn’t answer, Alex presses. “I thought you… Don’t you tell him everything?”

“I didn’t want—” Thad cuts himself short. He seems to have forgotten for a moment that he’s not acknowledging Alex unless he has to. He turns to Larry instead. “Thanks, Larry. Now where’s the babysitter? Because it’s time to get this party started!”

The rest of the guys hoot and raise their drinks. Someone turns on music, and Liv looks immediately uncomfortable at the volume. Mary Jo cuts her way through the crowd and whisks her from Thad’s lap. Alex is only just behind her on instinct.

“Can you get the presents?” Mary Jo asks Alex, seemingly not even surprised that he’s there. “I have to go find my brother.”

She leaves with Liv, and Alex sits beside the presents and starts scooping them back into bags. On the other cushion, Thad is still staring at the BMS football.

“Didn’t want what?” Alex asks. His voice is lower than he expected.

Thad’s head snaps up to look at Alex. “Didn’t want him cramping my style, duh.”

“Your…parenting style?”

“Duh!” Thad’s voice hikes up an octave. “Don’t you remember the Cougar and her kid? Coach didn’t even raise the kid! He doesn’t know anything about this!”

“What, and I do?” Alex finds his own voice rising too. “Don’t you like, idolize Coach and everything he does? You could have been getting his help the whole time!”

“No!” he hears from the staircase. “Mary Jo, no—no no no god, there’s chicks, Mary Jo, I don’t wanna go! Nooooooo!” Sammy cries as he’s thrust onto the arm of the couch beside Alex. Behind Mary Jo’s looming form, Alex can see strippers descending the staircase. It must not have been pizza Harmon was calling for.

Thad jolts up as if he’s been struck by lightning. “Later, losers,” he says and springs from the couch. He grabs a bottle of alcohol as he passes the table without seeming to read any labels.

“Take the presents and say goodbye to Alex,” Mary Jo says. She’s taken on a false cheerful tone, possibly for Liv, who still looks upset about the commotion around her.

“Alex! Alex, I’ll get you anything for your birthday, anything else, just please, lemme—”

“Dude, I never told you to leave,” says Alex, hands up. “You can stay, that’s fine by me.”

“But not by me,” interjects Mary Jo. “You volunteer me for babysitting, I’m taking you down with me.”

“I’m the older brother,” whines Sammy. “You can’t do this!”

Mary Jo uses her free hand to yank Sammy from the couch by his hair.

“Buddy, save me!” Sammy calls before he’s shoved in the direction of the stairs. Mary Jo swivels around and points a finger at Alex before he can protest. “You’ll thank me for this,” she says. She sweeps up the gift bags with one hand and escorts Sammy and Liv up the stairs in a matter of seconds.

Alex feels a small pit of sadness in his stomach as he realizes that not only is his best friend being forbidden from what looks to be the start of a kickass party, but he didn’t get to say goodbye to Liv. It’s a small thing, he knows, and it isn’t really his territory, but he always manages something. He feels better knowing that she knows he’ll come back. He likes being normal to her.

The sadness ebbs away as Larry sits beside him and hands him a solo cup filled with amber liquid. Alex drinks half of it. “Was I going too far?” Larry asks him once he’s finished. “With the football?”

“I mean, I don’t know,” says Alex.

“You know more than I do,” says Larry. “You spend every day with him, don’t you?”

Alex raises an eyebrow at his tone. He doesn’t sound jealous. More resigned, like Larry knew this moment was coming and now it’s finally here.

“He’s always wanted your help,” Larry begins.

“Yeah, I know. The guys keep telling me that.”

“No, but. He never wants anyone else’s help. Maybe Coach’s, if it’s football, but otherwise he likes to pretend he knows everything.” Larry stares after him. Thad is seated in the same chair he was with Liv when Alex first arrived, but instead of a baby in his lap, it’s a stripper. Sort of a weird perversion there.

“Well he doesn’t,” says Alex. “Even before Liv, he didn’t.”

“I know. But you’re the one he lets see it.”

“Larry, I didn’t ask to adopt his kid or whatever.”

“You volunteered, the way Harmon and Donnie tell me.”

Alex opens his mouth to retort but finds he can’t. He did volunteer, and as much as he’d like to say the reason is Liv, the deepest part of him—the part he thought he closed with the football-themed porn tabs—knows that’s not entirely true.

“Just take care of him,” says Larry. He pats his knee. “I’m past all that now, but someone has to. Might as well be you.” He leaves while Alex is forming a reply, which dies in his mouth.

“Why does everyone think we’re together?” Alex hisses to himself. He knows that’s how it looks, but can’t anyone give him the benefit of the doubt? Doesn’t he get to just be a good person? Instead he gets to feel naked, like everyone’s already guessed a secret he can barely acknowledge and absolutely cannot let be true.

He chugs the rest of his cup and sets off to the booze bar to refill it.

He sidles up behind a dancer as she gyrates in the middle of the room. She’s not hot but she’s firm and flexible, and more importantly, she and now he are right in Thad’s line of vision. Let him see. Let him catch a glimpse of what Alex does when he’s not indulging in Thad’s needs.

Thad sits stock still, and then as if in response, he smashes his mouth against the stripper on his lap.

Someone taps Alex on the shoulder and hands him an unlabeled pill in a plastic baggie. Just like at BMS. Alex takes it and chases it with whiskey. He hollers and grinds himself against the dancer, who leans back and runs a hand up his thigh in response.

The music volume increases, the party ramps up, and Alex loses himself to both emotional and literal ecstasy. This is what he was missing. The thumping bass, the thrumming blood, the hot breath against his skin, the shots and games and mutual thrill of exchanging glances with guys he knows like his own family, getting high and drunk and laid in that deliciously sinful way that transcends everything. The chorus just like at BMS runs itself on loop in his head, and every time it gets too loud he chases it away with another drink or another clap on the back of his former teammates. He’s here to finally enjoy himself, not to let nostalgia creep in.

The only new thing, apart from the fact that this isn’t the Goat House and the chicks aren’t coeds, is the way he can feel Thad’s presence in the room. He’s not always visible in the throng of dancers or pockets of guys doing drugs and playing games, but just like at the beginning of the night, Alex knows where he is and seems to orbit opposite him. As the drinks blur together and he stops discerning one stripper from another, he seems to feel Thad’s eyes on him more than he doesn’t. But every time he looks back, Thad is occupied.

Eventually Alex gets sick of it and ventures upstairs to find someone to distract himself with. He’d take a stripper, but he’s really hoping for a teammate to hang out with. He finds two of them in the first bedroom door he opens. It’s Harmon and Donnie, with Harmon rutting himself more into the mattress than into Donnie and Donnie sloppily feeling up his ass.

Alex stares with eyes the size of hubcaps and slams the door shut.

“How long has that been going on?” he asks Craig, whom he runs into as Craig leaves the bathroom.

“What?”

“Harmon and Donnie.”

“I dunno. A month? Two?”

“They’ve been fucking nonstop for two months?”

“Oh, you meant tonight? Why, d’you need to talk to them?”

“Not that bad.”

“C’mon,” says Craig, wrapping an arm around his shoulder and steering him down the hall. “I need a partner for beer pong.”

The beer pong table is back downstairs. Alex ducks under his arm. “You go on without me. I gotta piss.”

Craig looks at him. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah.” Alex’s voice cracks. It sounds surprisingly like Thad’s. “Just. Gotta piss.”

“I’ll wait,” says Craig, and he folds his arms and leans against the wall. Alex doesn’t move toward the bathroom. “Is it Thad?” Craig guesses.

“Ohhhh my god.” Alex rubs his eyes. “Why is it always Thad?”

“That’s just how it looks,” Craig says, holding up both his hands. “I’ve been away a while, I get that.”

“I’m just so sick of hearing about him. Everyone’s like, ‘you two are joined at the hip’, but. We’re not. Like, he’s a real dick whenever it’s not just us.”

“And when it’s just you?”

“Fuck off.”

“I’m serious.”

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Well what do you want to talk about?”

“I just want him to stop treating me like…like…”

“Like you’re a nanny?”

“I wanna ask him about when we shared a bed.” The answer startles Alex as much as Craig.

“…What about it?” Craig looks like he has a lot more questions than that.

“Everything got weird after that. Like I started dating again and he’s like, ‘Oh, look at Liv, she can grab stuff now!’ and it’s like he didn’t even spoon me and—”

“Wait, he spooned you—”

“And now he’s like staring at me but I can’t catch him doing it and—”

“Alex, you shouldn’t be telling me this.”

“Well who else can I tell?”

“Thad.” Craig suddenly looks more tired than drunk, like he wants this to be over. “Look, talk with him, don’t talk with him, it’s not my business. I’m gonna go play beer pong. You let me know if you can come.” Craig turns around and stumbles down the hallway, and Alex watches him go. He stays thirty seconds longer until he realizes he can hear Harmon panting and Donnie moaning, and retreats into the kitchen. He finds company with Radon and some teammates Radon knows better than he does, and drinks half the amount they drink in an hour as they chat.

When he feels his high dying down, he goes back downstairs. Thad’s on the far side of the basement by the booze bar, but they lock eyes the minute Alex can see him.

“Thad,” Alex says by way of greeting as he comes beside him to pour a drink. He doesn’t know where the drugs are, and given Harmon’s preoccupation, he’s not going to ask. So he could use another shot of whiskey, or five.

“Alex,” says Thad. His voice is deeper and his pupils are dilated, like he’s inhaled something funny. But Alex has seen him when he’s high and when he’s about to bang someone. He’s not high. His hip brushes against Alex, and Alex shifts away automatically. Just the one touch ramps up his heart rate.

“I wanna talk,” he says. May as well put the adrenaline to good use.

“About what?” Thad is much too close.

“About the—when I was sick.”

“Yeah.”

“I stayed over.”

Thad hums.

“…That.”

Alex finally looks up from the shot he’s poured to find Thad barely an inch away from him. The intensity in his eyes keeps him pinned: unable to step away, unable to lean in. There’s a new depth in their breathing, as if they’ve been running drills out on the field. But they haven’t. Thad smells like sweat, true, but also like booze and strippers and him, and Alex can’t do anything but stand here and breathe him in.

“Upstairs,” Thad says, and Alex doesn’t have any better ideas.

Alex walks up first by Thad’s direction, feeling like he’s about to be tripped or attacked. Instead Thad only veers them into the second bedroom—how does he know not to enter the first?—and closes the door and—

Grabs both of Alex’s shoulders and pulls him against his chest and seizes the base of Alex’s head and grinds their lips together and—

Alex’s mind goes blank and his chest fills with some emotion that threatens to drown him. His body reacts without permission, without even considering whether it needs permission, only grabbing Thad’s torso and running his hands up and down and he’s so firm and he’s here and they’re kissing and—

Alex pries his head away from Thad’s. Thad is looking at him with half closed eyes and swollen red lips, like they’ve done more than kiss, like they’ve done everything.

“What was that?” Alex whispers.

“I thought.” Thad swallows. He’s quickly coming back to himself. “I thought that was what you wanted to talk about.”

“No, I mean—well I. Wanted to know why you were so weird after the bed thing. But also. Like. During.”

Thad uses the hand still on Alex’s shoulder to push him away. It’s only a tiny distance, but the air between them feels cold. “During.”

“Did you mean to spoon me?”

“Yes,” he says before he can change his mind.

“Was that all you wanted to do?”

“…Heh. Ha. Yeah, that was all. Don’t compliment yourself—” But then Thad sees Alex’s eyes sharpen with a glare that says don’t pull that shit, and reconsiders. “But like. Whatever I could get, you know?”

“Is that just your catchphrase when it comes to me?”

“Look, I dunno, Alex, I’m just trying not to fuck up here.”

“What exactly do you call fucking up—”

Thad kisses him again. Alex is less shocked this time but still surprised. He’s attracted more to Thad in two kisses than he’s been to the past two months’ dates combined, and he hates himself for it, but he also figures there’s no escaping it at this point.

“I don’t like guys,” he says when they break apart for air.

“Me neither,” Thad replies. They can both feel the counterevidence.

“So you don’t like this, then,” dares Alex, and he grinds their erections together.

Thad groans like he’s in heat. “Hate it,” he says, and buries his face into Alex’s neck. Alex tenses, but not from discomfort. He remembers Thad’s sleeping breath on the back of his neck, but this time he and Thad are conscious, and Thad is inhaling him like he needs his scent to live, and Alex hasn’t experienced anything so hot since before graduation. Possibly since ever.

Thad leans on him so much that Alex stumbles back blindly until he collapses against the bed. Once they’re horizontal Thad props himself up so his face is over Alex’s, and Alex’s peripheral view becomes nothing but biceps. So many times he’s stared at them, and Thad must have figured that out, because he smirks at Alex as if he’s one of his sloots. “Like what you see?” Thad slurs. He might be drunk or high or some combination of that, but Alex thinks for one amazing minute that he’s drunk only on seeing Alex stare back.

Alex responds only by running a palm over one muscled arm, and he doesn’t think he’s doing anything special, but it must have some effect because Thad’s lower half dips over him in a momentary loss of control. Their lips find each other again. Their breathing is growing faster, their bodies closer, and somewhere in the unseen corners of his mind Alex gets an idea and brushes his spare hand against Thad’s waistband.

Thad’s eyes snap to Alex’s.

“Problem?” Alex asks. He expects his voice to squeak, he’s so scared that he’s doing the wrong thing, but it comes out low and breathy.

Thad shakes his head wordlessly. Alex slips his fingers under the waistband and down until he finds what he’s looking for.

As he works his hands over Thad, one over his arm and the other over his erection, Thad’s eyes close and his head arches. His lips move as if he’s praying, for what Alex isn’t sure. He’s happy—something beyond happy, beyond satisfied, fulfilled—just to watch Thad’s face as he goes, but then Thad’s pelvis ducks down and grinds against Alex’s and his hand might be trapped but the pressure is just what he needs, and the next thing he knows they’re rutting against each other, panting and heads back, and as they get closer to the edge Thad presses his face back into Alex’s neck and starts to bite and lick and suck and Alex gasps and comes first, and Thad shudders and spurts into Alex’s fingers only a moment or two later.

Thad’s dead weight falls on top of Alex, and Alex pushes him off out of self-preservation. He keeps his hand in Thad’s boxers as he recollects himself. Months, years of sexual frustration over this man and here they are, heaving deep breaths into the few inches of space between them on Harmon’s guest bed.

Eventually Alex decides he needs his hand back and wipes what he can on Thad’s boxers before pulling his hand out. Thad watches his hand as he brings it up to lie beside his other one, and the urge passes over Alex to lick his hand clean. To get the last traces of him off, to savor it.

It’s that thought that strikes into him the reality of what he’s just done.

“I’m not bi,” he blurts out.

“I didn’t say you were,” mumbles Thad.

“I’m not your nanny.”

“I know.”

“I can stop anytime I want."

That catches Thad’s attention. His eyebrows raise and then furrow. “Would you?”

Alex laughs dryly. “Stop? Or want to?”

“Neither. Both.” Thad frowns.

“Well I mean. Now we’ve confirmed what everyone else is thinking.” A swelling of panic rises in Alex’s chest, and he gulps it back down. “We’re gay for each other, or whatever.”

“Whoa, when did we ever say the g-word?” Thad props himself up on one arm. Now he's the one who’s panicking.

“‘The g-word’? Do you even hear yourself?” Alex sits up fully. “I can at least say ‘bi’, the least you can do is be able to say ‘gay’.”

“I’m not gay.” He leaps off the bed and stares at Alex with wide eyes.

“What’s this, then?” Alex thrusts up his hand, where the cum is still drying. “This doesn’t look straight to me, Thad.”

“I’m not gay!” Thad screeches again.

“Shhhhh!” Alex looks frantically at the door. “Do you want to announce it to the whole team?”

“Uh, yeah! That’s the point, Moran!”

“Would you fucking stop with Moran, Thad?”

“Well would you stop fucking, Alex?” Thad lets out a dry laugh. “I know what this is! You were trying to seduce me!”

“What? You kissed me, Thad, that’s a pretty fucked up sort of seduction—”

Thad reels back as if Alex has smacked him. “I’m not fucked up, you’re fucked up.”

“Really?” Alex snaps back. “Well let’s review, shall we? Let’s see, I’ve never shot a threesome porn movie, as much as you tried to make me. I’ve never faked my own death. I’ve never given up football, does that sound familiar? And oh, let’s not forget, I’ve never been stranded with a lovechild from a botched vasectomy, and even if I did, I’d at least have the decency not to rope in a guy who doesn’t want any part of this! That all sounds pretty fucked up to me!”

All the fight in Thad deflates from his shoulders. He looks at Alex with wide, shellshocked eyes. “You…don’t want to…”

“God, Thad, why would I?” Alex stares disbelievingly at Thad. Has he not made this clear? Have they not fought about this exact thing? “You think I wanted to spend all my time being your babysitter? Or get shit about it from everyone else? Or from you?”

Alex sees that the more he speaks, the more upset Thad seems to be. What was he imagining, exactly? That they’re one big happy family? No. Alex babysits and humors Thad and goes home. And he’s stupidly attracted to him, but now…now that’s done with. He’s gotten it out of his system.

Alex stands. “Okay, fine. We both got what we wanted. We don’t have to do this anymore.”

“You don’t know what I wanted.” Thad means to spit this at him, but it comes out indignant and small.

“Attention? Free labor? Another fan? Take your pick.”

Alex leaves Thad standing in the middle of the bedroom. He guesses Harmon is either passed out with Donnie or back in the basement, and he places his money on the latter. He needs a pick-me-up. He doesn’t have anything pressing to do tomorrow.

His phone rings while he’s watching cable on the couch. Alex doesn’t look at the screen before answering, perhaps his biggest mistake.

“Moran, what the hell have you done to Thad?”

It’s Coach. Alex should startle, but he doesn’t. He’s overwhelmed with confusion. He’s out of school now; Coach’s reach shouldn’t extend this far. “Hi Coach,” he says in lieu of answering his question.

“‘Hi’? Screw your ‘hi’ and cut the bullshit, Moran. I’m sitting here at my house minding my own business when Thad Castle bangs on my door looking like someone shit in his pocket pussy, hands me a baby, and says I’m the last person he can trust anymore.”

Alex can’t breathe for a moment. Play it cool. Coach can’t possibly know to call him about it. “Well that sucks for him, Coach, but I don’t see what that has to do with me—”

“You think you’re the first person I called?” Coach snorts. “Don’t flatter yourself. You’re the second. The first person I called was Larry, who may have told me who might have caused Thad’s latest little problem.”

“So you want a babysitter?”

“I want you to explain to me how exactly you ripped Thad’s bleeding heart from his chest and tore it to pieces in front of him.”

“I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh really? Does this”—Coach holds the phone away from him. Alex can hear tinny screaming in the background, the kind only a baby can make—“sound familiar? Because that’s more or less the sound Thad would have made if he could raise his voice above a whisper. And when I started asking who else could take care of his spawn and I got to your name, he shrieked, Moran.”

“He…uh, he shrieks a lot, Coach.”

“Moran. Spill it. Thad’s your teammate, your family, and—”

“Well maybe I don’t want him as family anymore, Coach!” Alex’s voice has spiked without warning. So much for playing it cool.

“Oh yeah?”

Alex tries to exhale his entire lungs and runs his spare hand through his hair. “Maybe I just…want him.”

“Yeah, well he wants you too, so make nice.”

“Not anymore he doesn’t.” It takes a second for Coach’s tone to sink in. He should be more surprised that Coach claims to know anything about what Thad wants, but instead he’s reeling at Coach’s nonchalance over the matter. “How would you know, anyway?”

Coach snorts. “I wasn’t born yesterday, Moran, and I didn’t meet Thad yesterday either. He’s a selfish, self-centered asshole who doesn’t know what he wants, but he usually makes it pretty clear without meaning to. Which is why you’re going to be the one to find wherever he ran off to and bring him back to pick up his goddamn kid. Because you know what’s gonna happen if you don’t? I’m gonna rip your balls from your pussy and I’m gonna shove them—”

“Coach.” Alex has known Coach for ages. He got him his current job at the high school. He cares, Alex knows, but he also works himself up into bluster that Alex really doesn’t have to take anymore. “Thad’s not my problem. He never was.”

“You made him your problem. And I know why.”

“Yeah? So you probably know why everything fell apart.” He gets up from his couch and wanders into the kitchen to make cereal.

“I’m not talking about whatever drugged-up sex you two probably had at some point.”

Alex is listening, and a little surprised that Coach guessed it on his own. “Oh?”

“You made Thad Castle your problem because you’re a good person, Moran.”

“I’m a gym teacher, Coach. Not exactly your star alum.”

“I didn’t say a great person. I said a good person.” On the other end of the line, Coach shifts his phone into a better position. “You’re a lazy son of a bitch, but at the end of the day, you come through. Kicking and screaming sometimes, but you do. That’s why I gave you the captaincy when Thad wasn’t around. You may not want to win the game—hell, you don’t even want to start it—but you see the value in your team.”

Alex snorts. He pours milk into the cereal bowl and stirs.

“That’s not a good person to you?” Coach retorts.

“Good people do good things. I don’t do things.”

“And this kid is?”

“I sit on a couch with her, we eat, we watch TV. I’d be doing that at home anyway.”

“But you’re not. And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll start thinking about why.” Coach hangs up with a click.

Alex stares down into his bowl of cereal. It’s not even mushy yet, but he realizes he’s not hungry anymore.

Why do people start talking about Liv whenever they want to make a point about Thad? Why do they expect that she’s some big weakness to him? Sure, Alex cares about her, same as he would if, say, Sammy had a kid. He likes how easy it is to spend time with her, once he’s googled everything. But even on the days where it’s tough, where she’s crying or he realizes they’ve been skipping over something she actually needs, it comforts him to know that there’s always Thad to blame or complain to or hand her off to.

That must be how Thad feels about Alex. The sex was just…another thing. They’re done with that now. And the video game marathon, staying over for dinner—just Thad’s ways of trying to keep Alex’s attention on him. Which is why it hurts Alex, the more he thinks about it, to think that’s all Thad was doing.

So now Thad abandoned Liv. It’s only temporary, right? He’ll come and get her. She’s the last source of attention he has now that Alex is…what? Not coming anymore, he supposes. It’d be too awkward. But he heard Liv over the phone, screaming her head off in the hands of Coach, whom she’s never met and is probably terrified of. That isn’t fair to her. It sucks for her. Thad’s panicking, so he gets to abandon her whenever he feels like it? Fuck that. This is why Alex is over him.

Alex grabs his car keys before he can change his mind. He leaves his uneaten cereal on the counter.

He means to drive straight to Coach’s house, but he makes his way to Harmon’s doorstep without knowing how. Harmon opens the door looking tired but not bleary.

“Alex. Here to help clean up?”

“Actually, I need to borrow you.”

“Yeah? Just lemme find my shoes.”

Alex holds the door open while Harmon wanders around his foyer looking for the left shoe to match his right. He’s relieved that Harmon doesn’t ask any questions, just prepares himself to go. Harmon is the least judgmental guy Alex knows, and he needs that so badly right now.

Which is why he immediately facepalms when they get into his car and the first thing out of his mouth is, “So, you and Donnie?”

Harmon raises an eyebrow. “What about us.”

“I, uh…sorry I walked in on you two last night.”

“Oh. Don’t worry about it, happens all the time.”

Alex wonders if that’s true. “You’re gay?” He really does wish he could shut up. He’s with Harmon to avoid judgment, not hand it out.

“Alex, my sexuality has gone every which way depending on the time of day, the drug of the day, and the alignment of shit in the sky I can’t even see. I like Donnie, and that’s about all I know. There doesn’t have to be anything else to it.”

“That sounds…simple.”

“Sure takes a load off. So where’re we going?”

“Coach’s.”

“Coach?” Harmon eyes him. “You need some fatherly advice all of a sudden, or?”

“More like he already shouted it at me over the phone. And now I have to go pick up Liv from him.”

“Huh. Any reason I’m coming along?”

“I don’t think I can be alone with him right now.”

Harmon nods and looks out the window. Alex taps his fingers on the steering wheel.

“It’s not because of Thad,” he blurts out.

“Whatever you say, man.”

“Quit the sarcasm. It’s not.”

“That wasn’t sarcastic. I believe you.”

“You’d be the first.” Alex’s hands on the steering wheel grip tighter. “Everyone thinks I’m with Thad. Even Coach, he told me to go out and find him wherever he’s hiding, like I’m his—boyfriend or something! But we’re not. God, how did you and Donnie get to avoid all this shit when you’re actually together?”

“When did I say we were together?”

“What?”

“It’s just a thing we do.” Harmon is still staring out the window. “I take something, or he takes something, or we drink something, and the next thing you know we’re having something close to sex. I don’t complain. I’ll take what I can get.”

Alex remembers an eerily similar thing Thad said last night about him. “Is that all this is?” he asks.

“All what is?”

“Life after BMS. Just…taking what we can get.”

“I think that’s just life. But I dunno, could just be our own stupidity.”

A beat. Alex suddenly, achingly wishes he had a beer in his hand. Back when he was at BMS, the cops would have recognized him and offered him another. Now he’d probably get his license revoked.

“Look, Alex,” Harmon says suddenly. “I think there’s something you need to hear that no one’s told you for a while, so I’m gonna say it. Okay?”

Alex raises his hackles. “I am not in love with—”

“You don’t have to do this.”

“…What?”

“You don’t have to do this. You’ve been saying it this whole time, and you’re right. You don’t have to pick up Liv. You don’t have to go to Thad’s house anymore. You don’t even have to return his texts. You can turn around right now and we can go snort some coke and play blackjack, and nobody will blame you for it.”

“Yes they will. The team will.”

“Who?”

“Larry. Craig. Uh, Radon loves babies, he’d be pissed.”

“Fuck ‘em. S’not their call, what you do with your free time.”

“Thad would blame me.”

“Have we not established that Thad is a self-absorbed dick? Who cares what he thinks?”

“I—hm.”

“You what?”

“I care. A little.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. We already…okay, it wasn’t sex, but the sexual tension is gone now. At least for me. So there’s no real reason for me to care anymore, I guess.”

“Fair enough.”

They drive in silence a little longer.

“I notice we’re still going to Coach’s.” Alex nods. “What’re you gonna tell him?”

“I don’t know.”

“You still gonna pick up Liv?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m sure Thad will—”

“You know what drives me crazy about Thad?” Alex interjects. “You know what’s been killing me this whole time? He keeps agreeing with me when I say I can leave anytime, but he never tells me to go. And then he—he just treats me like I’m always going to be there, like he doesn’t see how much shit I get from everyone for this.”

“He takes you for granted.”

“He takes me for granted! And I thought like, after this party, maybe he’d realize just how much he relies on me and—I dunno, maybe he’d thank me.”

“That’s all you want? Thanks?”

“I mean. Yeah, doesn’t that sound right?”

Harmon is quiet for a moment. “I think you want what I want,” he says. “Which is bullshit, because I think neither of us thinks we’re gonna get it.”

“Oh yeah? What’s that.”

“A label.”

“No. Do not start with me about labels. Mary Jo keeps thinking I’m turning bi or something, and—”

“Not that label, you think I want that either? No, not a label, but like—some sort of certainty about what you and the other person are. Like me, I know Donnie’s gay, and I know I like Donnie. But there’s just…it’s like in math, where you try to make the two numbers add up, but they don’t. You have one thing and you have the other, but somehow the numbers pass right through each other.”

“So my numbers are that Thad has a baby, and I need his Netflix?”

“Your numbers are, you’re attracted to Thad, and Thad wants you around.”

“No he doesn’t.”

“I haven’t seen that man in years and that is the one thing I’ve been able to figure out about him since I last saw him.”

“Yeah, but he only does because he wants someone to go along with his—”

“Crazy schemes, yeah, I know, we’ve hashed this out and beat the dead horse and all that. I just think…well. He knows what he wants but he won’t say it, and you don’t know what you want.”

“I know what I want.”

“And it is?”

“We’re here,” says Alex. He pulls into Coach’s driveway. Jon-Jon is already coming out to greet them as Alex parks. Harmon still has his mouth open like he’s ready to call Alex out on the diversion, but closes it and opens the door.

“You better get in there fast,” Jon-Jon says in lieu of greeting. “Either Marty or the baby is about to blow a gasket, and I don’t know which.”

Alex and Harmon let themselves into the house and follow Liv’s cries to one of the living rooms. She’s in the same car seat as when Alex first met her, and her face is crimson and scrunched. Tears are streaming down her face. That’s new.

In that moment, Alex has eyes only for her. “Hey, hey.” He makes shushing noises and unbuckles her from the seat. She’s still crying, but it turns less piercing as he picks her up. She’s gotten big enough that he can hold her on one hip, but she looks so pitiful that Alex treats her like she’s three months old again and rests her head against his collarbone. He sways them from side to side and—before he can even realize he’s doing it—he brushes aside a bit of her hair and kisses her on the top of her head.

Harmon lets himself look around while they spend the next few minutes waiting for Liv to calm down. Slowly Alex turns in place, still swaying, and sees Coach slumped on an ottoman, holding his head in his hands.

“It took you long enough,” he growls when Liv’s cries have diminished to whimpers.

“But I came,” says Alex. “Doesn't that make me a good person?”

“Just a good parent,” says Coach. “Not that I know anything about that.” He pulls himself up from the ottoman and goes to pour himself a drink from his crystal decanter. “Any news on Thad?”

“Not my priority,” Alex snarks back. “Figured I’d put one headache ahead of another.”

Coach raises an eyebrow at Liv and then at Alex. Liv may have given him a headache, but Alex certainly doesn’t treat her like one. Behind Coach, Harmon decides to help himself to a glass of whatever is in the decanter, and toasts Alex with a wink.

“So what’s your plan?” Coach demands.

“Don’t have one.”

“You’re gonna have to find him.”

“It doesn’t have to be me.”

“Yeah, but it’s going to be. I don’t know what relationship you two have anymore—”

“That makes two of us.”

“—But you’re gonna have to sort it out. You’re adults now, and if I learned one thing about adults with kids, it’s that you don’t let the kids get caught in the crossfire.” Coach leans his head back and downs the amber liquid in one swallow. “Now you two go break up, or get together, or hire a different nanny, or whatever, but you do it like men.”

“Wise words, Coach,” says Harmon. “That’s just what I was trying to tell him.”

“That is literally nothing like what you were trying to tell me,” retorts Alex. Liv chirps questioningly and he goes back to rocking her.

“I’m sure we could psychoanalyze you too, Tedesco,” says Coach, “but right now I’ve just been relieved of one screaming mess, and I’m not going to take on another until I’ve had at least three more of these.” He sets the used glass beside the decanter and breezes past the two of them. “I don’t care what you do now. I’ve said my piece. Just get out of here, and take her with you when you go.”

Alex, Harmon, and Liv stand alone in the living room. It’s easily larger than Alex’s own apartment, and he feels like even though Coach has retreated into another part of the house, he can still see them. He doesn’t like it.

“Let’s go,” Alex says, setting Liv back into her car seat. She immediately waters up again, but Alex momentarily grasps her baby hand and she calms.

“But I haven’t finished yet!”

“Uh, boys.” Jon-Jon peeks his head into the room. “I figure now’s as good a time as any, seeing as Marty probably doesn’t want you around for a bit, but I hope Larry mentioned we have some stuff of our own for that baby girl.”

“I’m having kids. Right now, immediately,” Harmon says. His lap is full of bags of clothing, most of them in orange and white and blue. “You know how much money I could sell all this shit for? And Coach is just giving it away!”

“I thought money wasn’t a problem for you?” Alex says. He glances in the rearview mirror, where Liv is waving a cloth doll while nestled in her new Goats-themed car carrier. The old one is in Alex’s trunk beside at least ten bags of toys and clothes and formula.

“I mean shit, I can buy a house, but you see the setup Coach has? No man, I got a ways to go before I can drink anything as good as the bourbon he keeps lying around.”

“Focus, Harmon. If you were Thad, where would you go?”

“Coach’s place, duh.”

“He already went there to drop off Liv. He probably wanted to be alone.”

“I dunno, his apartment?”

“Too easy. He was never in his room whenever he threw a tantrum at BMS. But where’d he go?”

“Strip club?”

Alex envisions Thad with a face not unlike Liv’s, red and scrunched and streaming with tears, as he tosses money onto the stage. It’s not outside the realm of possibility, but… “Maybe that’s the backup.”

“Hell, I dunno, Alex,” Harmon whines. “Seems like every time he was upset he’d just go downstairs to the Goat House and yell for mojitos and make us all hear about it.”

Alex slaps the steering wheel. “I know where he is.” He turns to Harmon. “Can you watch Liv for a bit?”

“Oh no, I ain’t getting roped into this any more than I already am. Besides, I don’t know shit about taking care of babies. How do I know I’m not gonna squish her?”

“See, now if I were faced with this dilemma, I’d think this would be a great excuse to call Donnie.”

“…Yeah. That could work.”

Alex parks illegally on campus, hoping that his legacy status will spare him. He trudges across the quad, past the academic buildings he set foot in maybe three times over four years, and finds where he’s looking for. They’ve cleared away the debris, but they haven’t built anything over it. He can still see the foundation in the grass if he squints.

Thad is standing over it like it’s a grave. His back is to Alex.

Alex steps up to stand beside him, an arm’s length away.

“This is where it all went wrong,” Thad announces. He looks like he’s been crying, but his voice is clear.

“Yeah?”

“I shouldn’t have let it burn. Or I should have gone down with it.”

“For all we knew, you did.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t. And then I lost my team and I knocked up a floozy in Cabo, and now I sell cars to pay for a baby my best bro hates.”

“I don’t hate Liv.”

“You hate me. I guess you always have, though.”

“Not always,” says Alex quietly. Thad finally glances at him, but then looks back at the remains of the Goat House.

“This was the last place we were cool. Where everything was cool. And then I gave it up chasing the NFL, and now it’s gone.” Thad jams his hands into his pockets as if trying to search for something to toss on the grave. He takes a shaky breath. “And now…and now I can’t even get a beer without Liv staring at me, and I can’t go to a BMS game without wanting to throw up, and I don’t even have sloots, Alex.” This seems to be the breaking point, and Thad makes a high-pitched sound as his lip wobbles. “Not even sloots.”

They both stand there for a moment, Thad trying not to cry and Alex trying not to panic. Alex tentatively reaches out to pat Thad on the shoulder, but it’s too close to other places he’s recently touched. He puts his hand in his pocket. “We’ll get you some sloots, Thad,” he says instead. “There were some last night. Or I can show you how to use Tinder.”

“That’s not what I mean. I don’t want sloots.”

Alex gulps. “Yeah?”

“I don’t even get to be straight anymore. On top of everything else I already lost, my bro-V card is gone now. Do you know how shitty that is?”

“I know exactly how shitty that is.” Alex turns to face Thad and tries to suppress his glare. “In fact, I can even one-up you. Because somehow nobody cares that you have a kid now, because you’re the one who knocked up the girl. But the minute I decide to be a decent person and help you—help Liv—I’m the one who gets all the shit. So yeah, finding out I’m attracted to guys at the same time as everyone starts calling me Mom? Not great.”

“Who called you Mom?” Thad glares back. “I’ll kick their asses.”

“Well there’s—” Alex frowns. He doesn’t actually remember. Maybe nobody said it. Maybe that’s just what he kept calling himself, sardonically. It's just the reaction he thought he’d get. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. What matters is—”

“No it does matter,” Thad interjects. His hands are coiling into fists, and he seems to already be running through a mental list of names. “Nobody gets to call you that, Alex. I might be shitty about repaying you, but I can at least shove my hand so far up their asses that—”

“Whoa, whoa,” says Alex. He pauses. “And…uh, you do realize how gay that sounded, right?”

Thad’s expression falters for a moment, and Alex braces himself for another shriek about his sexuality. But instead Thad smooths his face into something less readable and looks Alex in the eye. “Maybe I am.”

“…You’re not really. What about your sloots?”

“Bi then. Or pan. I didn’t want Coach to know,” he says suddenly, as if some burning memory has popped up in his brain. “That’s why I didn’t call him when Liv showed up.”

“What does Liv showing up have to do with you liking guys?”

“Because I only thought of calling Coach once you’d already come over.”

“You mean…” Alex squints. “But you called Harmon first.”

“Yeah. Asking for you.”

Alex has a sudden memory of Harmon’s impression of Thad: Where’s Alex, where’s Alex, where’s Alex? His shoulders slowly fall, and he shifts his stance. He wants to be as stable as possible for the question he’s about to ask, because he’s shaking to think of the answer he might get.

“Thad,” he asks. “Why me?”

Thad takes a deep breath.

“Because we do everything together,” he replies. “Because I spent three years without you, trying to be without you and the guys and the coeds and all of them. And I could mostly do it. But then Liv was at my door and freaked the shit out of me, and I knew I had to keep her, but it was like. When was the last time I felt good about doing something crazy? And it was always with you.” He takes another breath, as if he’s preparing for the second part of a long speech, but then he only says: “And maybe it was time to stop kidding myself.”

“About what?”

“About guys. But mostly about you.”

“What about me?”

“Look, don’t make me say it, Alex. I don’t know what it is. It’s not love.” Thad immediately winces, as if Alex is going to storm away for that confession. “But it’s not just sex either.”

Alex frowns and nods. “I don’t think it’s love. But we’re kind of on the way.”

“So why do you keep getting mad at me?”

Looking at Thad and his blue eyes and his lost expression, Alex finally pieces it together. He doesn’t want a label yet. He doesn’t even want commitment, not in the sense of eternal pledges and vows. “I just wanted you to want me around for the right reasons.”

Thad shuffles his feet. “Like what?”

“I dunno. Not because I’m convenient.”

“You’re good with Liv.”

“Not that either.”

“You’re a good guy?”

“God, next.”

“You’re a good kisser.”

Alex pauses. He’s far from blushing, but something in his stomach tugs at that comment. “Closer.”

Thad steps forward like Alex gave him an instruction. “I wanna kiss you.”

“Now, or just in gen—”

Thad presses their lips together there, in front of the ruins of the Goat House. If the first time was sudden and the second time was a diversion, the third time is hesitant. Alex could almost call it sweet. His chest swells with that same unnamed emotion he gets whenever Thad comes close.

They break apart, and Alex rests his forehead against Thad’s while Thad curls his fingers in the belt loops of Alex’s jeans.

“You can’t keep cutting me off like that,” Alex murmurs, but he’s not really angry.

“Sorry,” Thad breathes. “I’ll work on that.”

“Will you?”

“If I have to.” Thad pecks his lips again. “I like seeing you when I come home.”

“Gay,” Alex laughs before he can stop himself.

“I’m gonna own this gay thing though,” says Thad. He pulls away so they can properly look at each other. “They’re gonna have to make a new pride flag for me. They’ll put my face on it. I’m gonna get my picture in the dictionary next to ‘gay’, and it’ll just say ‘Alex Moran’ in the definition.”

Alex snorts and finds his hand and squeezes it. It grounds them both. “Coach says we have to solve this like men,” he says.

“What are we solving?”

“I dunno. Why’d you leave Liv with Coach?”

“Oh. I didn’t know what else to do. I thought you weren’t gonna talk to me again.”

“I’m talking to you now.”

“So it’s solved then.”

“You can’t do that to her,” Alex says in warning. “She was screaming her head off when I showed up. If we fight again—god, we’re probably going to—you can’t run away like that. You’re not Goat House Thad anymore.” He gestures to the patch of grass beside them. “Goat House Thad didn’t have a baby to deal with.”

“Goat House Thad also didn’t get to kiss his best bro.” Thad swoons forward like he’s about to do just that, but he remembers Alex’s complaint about cutting him off and stops himself just in time.

Alex raises an eyebrow. “Did he want to?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah?” This time Alex is the one to move forward. The thought belatedly occurs that the Goat House isn’t exactly a secluded area. Coeds and current BMS football players and who knows who else can see him and Thad, and probably recognize him too. But then his eyes flicker back to Thad, who’s watching him with a mixture of hope and barely suppressed awe. He swallows in anticipation, and his Adam’s apple bobs in his throat.

Screw it. The bisexuality has awakened, but there’s no need to call it that yet. There’s no need to do anything other than what he’s already doing, what he wants to do.

“Well,” Alex says as his lips brush against Thad’s. “Now you can.”

Five months later

“The big game is tonight, right?” asks Mary Jo as Alex stumbles into the teachers’ lounge.

“Yup,” Alex responds. He locates the coffee pot and pours its contents into his portable mug. He hasn’t washed the thing in days, less because of laziness and more because the season has been neck and neck, and tonight’s their last shot to make it to the playoffs.

“Sammy says he can’t make it,” Mary Jo informs him.

“Oh.” That means Liv won’t be coming to the game either. Since August—barely a month into his and Thad’s new undefined relationship—Alex has had less and less time to see Liv because his school’s football season picked up. He still comes over for dinner and even rearranges his schedule to make time in the mornings, but recently the most extended contact he has with her is when Sammy brings her to football games and sits just behind the coaches’ table in the stands.

“It’s probably for the best,” Alex says as he takes a sip of the coffee. It’s lukewarm, but it’s what he needs. “Tonight’s supposed to get really cold or something. It’d be bad for Liv. I’ve got the guys putting thermals over their thermals. Hopefully it won’t mess with their grip.”

“Relax, Alex,” says Mary Jo. “They’ll be fine. Anyway, Sammy’s really bummed, but he also needs the job interview so—”

“Believe me, I get it. I’ll text him good luck. I’m sure he’d love to be back in the mascot business anyway.”

“You know, it’s funny,” says Mary Jo right as Alex is about to leave. “The first time he babysat Liv, he was whining the whole time. Now he can’t seem to get enough of her.”

“Well, you did drag him away from a Goat House-style party, complete with strippers.”

“Yeah, but I did that for you, Alex. Do you really think you could have hooked up with Thad the way you did if Sammy had been on your ass all night?”

“You know as well as I do that I wouldn’t let Sammy anywhere near my ass to begin with. I love him, but not like that.”

Mary Jo rolls her eyes. “You know what I mean. You still owe me drinks for that.”

“Well you owe me Sarah’s schedule. I may as well see the date I could have had.”

“What does that matter anymore?”

“You’re a cheaper drunk when your girlfriend is there.”

Alex ducks out of the teachers’ lounge before the red pen Mary Jo throws can hit him. He spends the rest of the day in meetings with the other coaching staff, putting together a strategy. Alex may have gotten in on the golden wings of Coach Marty Daniels, but he’s still the youngest coach they have and he has a lot to prove.

He finds himself frowning over the latest charts for the wrong reasons. He shouldn’t be so upset that Liv isn’t coming, but the more he thinks about it, the problem isn’t really Liv. It’s Thad. Thad asks him about work, but no more than is polite, and he hasn’t come to a single game. It’s the one line he draws: he’ll talk about football, but he’s too scared to go near it. Too scared he’s going to feel like he’s missing out, or past his prime, or whatever else.

Alex gets it. He does. He looks at his players, barely younger than Alex himself, and thinks about the life they have ahead of them, the opportunities that are now behind Alex. But then he sees Liv and Sammy in the stands, both waving at him and cheering, and he thinks that things may not be great, but they’re good. He wishes Thad could join in on that, but not enough to call him out.

He’s invited to dinner with the coaches and texts Thad as much. He gets back a thumbs up emoji. He isn’t sure what he was expecting. He eats his sandwich and drinks his beer and banters, while all the coaches try to ignore the stakes they were fretting over all afternoon.

Alex carpools back to the stadium. It’s new, since the school striving to be the high school equivalent of BMS. It strikes him as a little dumb to build this stadium since there’s a perfectly good one on the campus across town. But then again, Coach Daniels has never liked to share. And maybe Alex needs his own turf anyway.

He sets his papers up on the coaches’ table beside the field and heads to the locker room. The head coach, his boss, is more amiable than Coach, but he still knows how to whip the football players into warriors out for blood with one good speech. Alex folds his arms and listens. He’s done all he cares to as a football player, but there are dimensions to the game that he still wants to understand. For all the work it entails, it’s nice to know there’s progress he can make.

The players sprint out onto the field and Alex and the other coaches saunter behind them. The crowd’s cheers echo across the field, and Alex knows they’re mostly here for the players, but he allows himself a moment to think the crowd remembers who he is and why he’s here. He smiles and walks back to the coaches’ table to wait for the captain to huddle the team and convey the strategy, when he hears:

“A-lex! A-lex! A-lex! Whoo!”

Alex swivels around to see none other than Liv and Thad sitting in Sammy’s usual seat. Liv is bundled in boots, a hat, and her new Goats onesie, complete with a hood shaped like a goat’s head. Thad wears nothing but his work clothes, a jacket, a scarf, and a grin.

Alex beams. He doesn’t know what prompted the sudden change in Thad’s heart, but he frankly doesn’t care. He abandons his post and strides to the stands. He plants both hands on either side of Thad’s waist and swoops down to kiss Thad as hard and as long as he can before they need to breathe again.

Liv squeals as she’s pressed between the two of them. Alex pulls apart to give her some breathing space, but his hands are still on Thad’s shoulders, propping him up.

“Did you know you're an awesome boyfriend?” he says breathlessly. He's never labeled their relationship before. It feels firmer than a love confession, and scarier too.

Thad freezes. He recognizes the wording as much as Alex does. “Yeah,” he says finally, as his smile slowly grows to be even wider than it was a moment ago. “I was kind of hoping so. Hey, guess what?” he says as he hoists up Liv. “Did you know Sammy’s been calling this her kid costume? Like a goat kid? How did we miss that?”

Alex snorts a laugh. “You’ve got a lot to catch up on, Thad.”

“Moran!”

Alex swivels around. The other three coaches, including his boss, are looking at him with various degrees of amusement. Anxiety spikes in him as he realizes that not only his coworkers but half the stadium saw that kiss. It’s the first time he regrets being a relatively well-known hire. But nobody seems to mind. Scattered people applaud, but most people seem focused on the teams as they huddle into formation.

“Get back here,” Alex’s boss calls with a bemused smile. “We got a game to win!”

“We’re probably gonna be on the kiss cam,” Thad mutters to him. He’s still smiling.

“It’s a high school, they don’t have a kiss cam,” says Alex. He pecks him on the lips once more and kisses Liv’s head for good measure before he pulls himself away from two of his favorite people. “Stay here, okay? I’ll see you after the first quarter.” He jogs back to the coaches’ table, looking over his shoulder as he takes his place beside the field.

“Go kick their asses!” Thad calls after him. Then, more quietly, but still loud enough that Alex can hear and grin about, as his chest fills with the emotion he’s been getting to know for years and now, finally, has a name for: “We’re not going anywhere.”