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Pete gets the idea from Tennyson.
Well. Not really. But he does get the idea when he’s blearily trying to make sure all of Tennyson’s homework’s been done for the next day and there’s a lunch packed and ready to go for him and they weren’t in charge of the class hamster (once Pete forgot they were in charge of the class hamster; he’s never doing that again). Pete’s learned, over many years of this single-father business, that everything’s got to be ready to go the night before, because neither he nor Tennyson are great at mornings.
And he’s saying, “No, Tennyson, you’ve got to, like, not get chocolate all over the worksheet, God, we’re trying to pretend for Mrs. Gilbert like I only feed you fancy organic foods from farmers’ markets,” when Tennyson says, “Oh, yeah, Dad, I need Valentine cards.”
Pete pauses in trying to scrape chocolate off of Tennyson’s math worksheet using the power of prayer, basically, since he has no better ideas. He looks at Tennyson. He says, “What?”
“Valentine’s,” Tennyson says matter-of-factly. “It’s this day when people who have girlfriends and boyfriends give gifts to the people they love.”
Pete doesn’t think about the fact that Tennyson thinks he’s so pathetic he needs to have courting rituals explained to him. He files that away to consider at length later with a glass of wine in hand. He says instead, “I know what Valentine’s Day is. Who’s your girlfriend and/or boyfriend, though?” He’s vaguely hurt Tennyson hasn’t mentioned anything until now.
Tennyson rolls his eyes at him, as put-upon as only an eight-year-old can be when confronted with the stupidity of his father. “No,” he says. “Dad. We don’t do it like that in third grade, we’ve got to get cards for everyone so no one feels left out.”
That makes sense. That makes total sense. Pete’s brain is always tired at the end of the day, it takes a second for things to tumble into place. “Right,” he says slowly. “So you need Valentine cards.”
“Yup.” Tennyson is clearly very happy Pete’s finally got the point.
“When the fuck is Valentine’s Day?” Pete asks blankly. Dates, man. Totally not his strong suit. He’s got other strong suits, okay?
“February 14,” Tennyson replies readily.
No, I know, but when is that? Pete wants to ask, but he’s so alarmed over how little familiarity Tennyson is prepared to believe he has with Valentine’s Day that he doesn’t say it. He puts Tennyson to bed and looks at the calendar and it’s the day after tomorrow.
***
The selection of Valentine cards is dizzying. There’s a whole wall of them. Here’s the thing: Pete thought there would be a lot of confusing things about being a dad, but he thought that those things would mostly attack during babyhood, before Tennyson could communicate with him, and now he’s learning that, actually, it’s never going to get any easier, is it?
Pete calls Patrick, who answers with a distracted-sounding “Yeah?”
“It’s never going to get any easier, is it?” says Pete.
“Huh?” says Patrick.
“Fatherhood,” says Pete.
“I don’t know, you’re the resident expert, so, if you say so.”
Patrick doesn’t sound the appropriate amount of sympathetic. “I’ve got to get, like, Valentine’s cards.”
“Are you seeing someone?” asks Patrick. At least he sounds genuinely curious.
“No,” Pete says. “In fact. It’s been so long since I had a date for Valentine’s Day, Tennyson felt like he had to explain Valentine’s Day to me.”
Patrick laughs.
“That’s not funny!” Pete exclaims.
“It’s a little funny,” says Patrick.
Pete picks up a pack of Paw Patrol Valentine cards, then puts them back. Tennyson is too old for Paw Patrol, and now Pete’s going to have an emotional meltdown over how quickly kids grow up, right here in the Walgreen’s aisle. “Maybe I should get a date for Valentine’s Day.”
“Try Tinder,” says Patrick, “I hear that’s good.”
“Are you on Tinder?” Pete asks. The thought had never occurred to Pete. Patrick can barely use his phone, Patrick using a dating app is like hearing that Julius Caesar was on Twitter, and also, Pete’s prepared to be very offended if Patrick didn’t ask for help with his profile.
“Oh, yeah,” Patrick says, “all my very hottest dates come from Tinder.”
“Do they?” says Pete, thunderstruck.
“No, Pete, I’m joking, I need Tennyson to explain Valentine’s Day to me, too. What are you doing right now? You seem out of it.”
“I’m buying Valentine’s cards,” says Pete. “I’m in Walgreen’s. It’s hell. Do you know how many cards there are? Also Tennyson is super-old and pretty soon he’s going to go to college and leave me all alone.”
“What the hell?” says Patrick. “I still don’t even know who you’re getting a Valentine’s Day card for.”
“Tennyson’s class, I don’t know, they’re all dating each other or something.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s not what’s happening.”
“Patrick, pay attention, I’m having some kind of existential crisis in this Walgreen’s.”
“Listen, being in a Walgreen’s is enough to send anyone into an existential crisis. I was in the middle of a song when you called. Do you need me to have this incomprehensible conversation with you any longer, or can I go back to doing our job where I make us a lot of money?”
“Quick question: Avengers or Star Wars cards?”
“Pete, they’re for Tennyson, get him Harry Potter.”
“Oh, you’re right,” Pete says. This is why he calls Patrick for these things.
***
“Hi, Patrick!” Tennyson shouts, barreling through Patrick’s front door like he owns the place.
Patrick is sitting on his couch with his Mac on his lap and headphones over his ears. He glances up at Tennyson and pulls the headphones off and says, “Hey, Keats, how are you?” Patrick, who hates nicknames but has always called Tennyson an entire variety of them, from the very beginning. He says it’s to mock Pete for choosing such a pretentious name for his kid, and also to praise him for not calling his son Cumming.
“I’m going swimming!” Tennyson calls over his shoulder, already outside heading toward the pool.
Patrick looks at Pete. “What are you doing here?”
“We’ve got thirty-two fucking Valentine’s cards to fill out, did you think I wasn’t roping you into that?”
“Lucky me,” says Patrick, closing the Mac.
“You’ve been working all day anyway. Come outside, don’t hide in here like a vampire.”
“I burn,” Patrick says. “It’s this thing that happens when—”
“Oh, please, the sun is practically setting, you can stay in the shade, I’ve got to watch my kid in the pool.” Pete gestures, and on cue Tennyson cannonballs in.
Patrick sighs and gets to his feet and follows Pete outside.
Pete’s already settled on a chaise longue in the sun, near a shady seat for Patrick. He tosses the box of Valentine’s cards on the table and pretends he’s going to work on them soon. He looks at Patrick and says, “Hey, I had a merch idea.”
“Sounds good to me,” says Patrick, because Patrick takes zero interest in merch and leaves that up to Pete. Instead, Patrick is concentrating on taking his socks off, like that takes a great deal of effort. Pete watches him, amused, until Patrick looks up at him. “What?” he asks defensively. “You made me come outside.”
“It’s great,” Pete tells him. “Your toes need to roam free every once in a while.” He looks at Tennyson in the pool, practicing flips.
“I like my toes to stay attached to my body, not wandering,” says Patrick, but he wiggles them.
“Dad! Dad!” Tennyson shouts, “Watch!” and executes a backflip off the side.
“Jesus,” Patrick murmurs, “he is definitely your kid, he’s got no fear.”
“He’s eight, and I’m trying really hard to make sure he’s got nothing to be afraid of.” He raises his voice so Tennyson can hear. “Awesome, kiddo!” Then he says to Patrick, “Anyway, we’ve got a million pool safety rules, he knows to only do that in the deep end and to jump away from the side and to never do it when I’m not watching, and we’re off-topic, which was.” He glances back at Patrick. “My merch idea.”
“Yeah, sounds good, Pete, whatever, you know I don’t care.”
“We should have Valentine’s cards. Like, Fall Out Boy Valentine’s cards.”
“That’s great,” Patrick agrees placidly.
“I want them to have little naked you and me on them.”
Patrick lifts his eyebrows. “You’re not selling naked pictures of me.”
“No, like, drawings,” says Pete.
“No naked drawings, either,” says Patrick.
“No, like, we’d be cupids,” says Pete. “So we wouldn’t really be naked.”
Patrick looks at him flatly. “We’d have diapers on?”
“Exactly!” It’s always so nice when Patrick gets his ideas.
Patrick shakes his head a little and says, “Go for it, whatever you want.” He looks at the pool and says, “Yo, young Wentz, watch how close you are to the side.”
“Got it, Patrick,” Tennyson calls back cheerfully. When Tennyson was born, Pete tried with the Uncle Patrick thing, he really did, but the thing is, Tennyson has got a million uncles, he’s only got one Patrick, just one person whose name he heard without the uncle so much out of his dad’s mouth, Pete’s constant litany of Patrick, Patrick, Patrick, so that when Tennyson learned the word he’d simply never heard it with the “uncle” attached, and Pete’s kind of glad it worked out that way. Things have a way of working out, he thinks.
Tennyson is saying, “Patrick, Patrick, count how long I can hold my breath!”
“Oh, God, I don’t like this game,” Patrick says worriedly as Tennyson submerges, and then starts counting, “One, two…”
Pete grins and texts Andy and Joe. Yo, I think we should sell Valentine’s cards with us as cupids. Patrick’s in.
“Thirty,” Patrick says, “okay, that’s enough.” He stands up and Pete’s sure he’s about to go pull Tennyson above the water but Tennyson leaps up at just that moment, gasping for breath and delighted.
“How long, how long?” he demands.
“Forty-seven,” Patrick lies easily.
Tennyson’s eyes are wide. “That’s a new record. Dad! Did you hear? New record!”
“I heard,” Pete says, and looks at Patrick. “Forty-seven?”
“Oh, stop, it made him happy,” says Patrick, blushing.
Pete’s phone buzzes. Joe texting back, Patrick’s always in. Who’s going to buy notecards with us in diapers?
They’ll be drawings, Pete replies.
“What are these Valentine’s cards you got?” Patrick asks.
Pete hands him the box and says, “Patrick, you are not fully appreciating how one-hundred percent depressing the Walgreen’s was.”
“I’ve been to Walgreen’s before,” Patrick says. “Have you never been to Walgreen’s before?”
“It was like vultures had descended upon it. Chocolate hearts were ripped open in the aisles. There was one sad, sorry card trampled on the floor. It said on the front ‘You Are Perfect.’ It was some kind of…really emo poetry.”
“Just your kind,” Patrick says.
“Ha ha,” says Pete. “Do Tinder with me.”
Patrick drops the box of cards he’d been opening, and the cards go all over the patio. Some of them flutter into the pool.
“Patrick!” shrieks Tennyson. “Those are for my friends!” He starts splashing all around the pool trying to retrieve the floating cards.
Patrick says, “Sorry, sorry, your dad’s a lunatic,” as he tries to pick up the scattered cards.
Pete leaves them both to it, searching for Tinder in the App Store. “The thing is,” he says, “I don’t want to do Tinder alone.”
“No, I think that’s the point, Pete, like, you do Tinder and you find someone to go out with, you don’t do Tinder in a buddy system.” Patrick is hissing, like he doesn’t want Tennyson to overhear.
Pete leans over and snags the phone Patrick left on his chair when he went to go pick up the cards and navigates to the App Store. He’s nothing if not helpful. “What do you want your Tinder name to be?” Pete asks.
“Pete,” Patrick protests, and scurries back over to him, making a grab for his phone.
“HotGinger? SexVoice? What do people call themselves on Tinder? Jesus, when did we get so fucking old?”
“I’m not joining Tinder,” Patrick says, grabbing his phone.
“Why not?” Pete challenges.
“Because I’m fine. Because I’m married to my music.”
Pete rolls his eyes. “Patrick.”
“Because I’m not meeting someone online.”
“That’s how everyone meets these days.”
“So I guess I’ll just never meet anyone. I know everyone I’m ever going to know and it’s all good. I don’t need to meet any more people. In fact, I’d like it if I could know a few less people.”
Pete sighs and looks at Tennyson in the pool. He’s made a pile of soggy Valentine’s cards on the side. Pete supposes they’ll give those to the kids Tennyson likes least. Pete says, “You’re a very grumpy old man. You’ve been a grumpy old man since you were seventeen.”
“Yes,” Patrick replies, and then, after a moment, “You should do Tinder, though. If you want.”
“I don’t know,” says Pete, and sighs again.
There’s another moment of silence. “Are you…lonely?” asks Patrick. “Like, you shouldn’t be lonely. I don’t want you to feel lonely.”
Pete looks at Patrick. “Are you lonely?”
Patrick looks at Pete. Patrick looks at Tennyson. Patrick looks back at Pete. “Not even a little bit,” he says.
***
Tinder dating is boring. He hasn’t even gotten past the profile part. Choosing a photo is annoying.
Pete calls Patrick, “Tinder dating is annoying. I have to pick a fucking photo. Literally a photo that’ll make people want to fuck me. It’s so much.”
“Look,” Patrick says. “Put down the phone. Go meet someone the old-fashioned way.”
“What way is that?” Pete asks.
“I don’t know. You, like, go to a bar or something.”
“Oh, my God,” says Pete, “have you ever picked anyone up in a bar in your entire life?”
“No, someone got me famous before I was legal drinking age and as a result I’ve never gotten to actually go to a bar like a normal person.”
“Yeah, someone,” says Pete, “oh, boy, what a travesty has been perpetrated upon you.”
“Fuckin’ A,” says Patrick. “What’s this all about? Are you lonely?”
“I don’t know,” sighs Pete, and looks at the ceiling. “I don’t know the answer to that question. I think that I think I should be. Right? I haven’t gotten laid in… Christ, I should care more about the fact that I can’t do that math, right?”
“I don’t know,” says Patrick. “I really don’t. Like, if you don’t care, then who says you have to? Fuck all of that, what do you want?”
“I think it’s like…FOMO,” says Pete.
“This is a chronic problem you have,” says Patrick.
“I know. But it’s just like…what if I think I’m happy but I’m not really happy, I just thought I was happy because I didn’t actually know what happiness is. Like. Riddle me that, Patrick Stump.”
“I think it’s way more likely you’d miss out on the happiness you’ve got because you’re too busy looking for something else,” says Patrick.
Pete considers. “That was a very wise statement, Trickster. I’d swipe right on you.”
“Yeah, go to sleep,” Patrick says, and hangs up.
***
Patrick shows up with pizza and Tennyson greets him like he’s some kind of conquering hero, like Pete never buys him pizza or something. Pete would be offended except he’s also utterly delighted Patrick showed up with food.
“Thank you for saving me from being a parent who actually has to come up with a plan to feed his child,” Pete says.
“Anytime,” Patrick says wryly.
Patrick and Tennyson sit at the breakfast bar and eat pizza and Tennyson tells Patrick all about the state of Missouri, which is the project he’s working on now. Pete leans against the counter and eats his own pizza and watches the two of them. Tennyson’s a towheaded blonde kid and doesn’t look much like Pete and sometimes Pete thinks you could mistake Patrick for his father, their fair heads bent together, different shades of golden shine.
And then Tennyson hops off his chair and rushes into the other room for his pre-bedtime game of Fortnite and Patrick says in wonder, “He’s so you,” and Pete doesn’t know how to take that other than with ridiculous pride, because Tennyson’s a miracle, and if he’s even a little bit like Pete then that’s more than Pete deserves. “Also,” continues Patrick, carrying their dishes over to the sink, “I knew, like, nothing about Missouri, so that was very helpful.”
“Helpful for what? When are you going to need to know facts about Missouri?” Pete knows more about Missouri than he ever wanted to know.
“You never know,” says Patrick.
“You haven’t needed to know any facts about Missouri so far in your life,” Pete points out.
“You should be more supportive of your kid’s education,” says Patrick.
“Why are you here?” Pete asks curiously. The drop-by-unannounced thing is much more Pete’s style than Patrick’s.
Patrick says, “Okay, look, I’m in,” like he’s confessing a great secret.
“In…trouble?” Pete guesses, confused. “Why? What’s the matter?”
“No, in,” says Patrick, and hands Pete his phone.
Pete lifts his eyebrows and looks down at it and blinks. “Hang on, is this a Tinder profile?”
“Yes. I’m in.”
“You made a Tinder?” Pete shrieks. “And you didn’t tell me?”
“Like,” says Patrick, “I’m telling you now, aren’t I?”
“Your Tinder name is Patrick.”
“Yes. That’s my name.”
“Patrick, you can’t use your real name on Tinder!”
“Whatever, no one’s going to recognize me, see, I didn’t wear my hat or my glasses in the photo.”
He didn’t. The photo is… It’s a fucking hot photo of Patrick. Pete is horrified. Patrick’s going to get a lot of action on Tinder. Pete is…horrified Patrick’s going to get a lot of action on Tinder? Pete stares at Patrick’s hot Tinder photo and tries to decipher that reaction.
“Pete,” Patrick prompts, and Pete supposes he’s supposed to say something.
“You should have…” he croaks, and comes up with nothing to say, and tries again. “You should have…”
“Okay,” says Patrick, taking his phone back. “Whatever. I’m sure the profile’s fine. It’s not really, like, whatever. The point is. Now you make yours.”
“Huh?” says Pete stupidly, staring at Patrick. Patrick’s not wearing a hat because Patrick doesn’t when they’re not performing, but he is wearing glasses because Patrick needs them to see, and his hair isn’t done in whatever fancy way he chose for the Tinder photo, it’s just, like, Patrick’s hair, swept messily and inexpertly off to the side, it’s like… “Where did you get that photo of you?” he asks.
“The Tinder photo? I don’t know. Some hatless photoshoot from something.”
“It doesn’t look like you,” Pete says, and it’s suddenly a fucking tragedy, like, Patrick should be a hot commodity on Tinder because he’s Patrick, because he looks like Patrick, Pete is standing here in his kitchen having some sort of internal Schrodinger debate about if a Patrick is a hot Patrick if he’s not a recognizable Patrick, or something, wait, that probably wasn’t Schrodinger, he was the guy with the cat.
“Yeah, that’s the point, I don’t really want anyone recognizing me, it’s going to be a mess if I’m recognized.” Patrick looks chagrined by this possibility.
Pete doesn’t know what to say, he genuinely doesn’t.
Patrick says, “What about you, do you want to be recognized or not?”
“Huh?” says Pete again.
“I could see it both ways, like, you, everyone likes you, they’d all be swiping in the right direction, whatever way that is, if they knew it was you, but maybe it’d be more meaningful if you met someone who didn’t know who you were. What do you think? I can help you pick the right photo,” Patrick offers, looking expectantly at Pete.
Pete stares at him, thinking about Patrick’s Tinder profile, Patrick’s Tinder profile. “What are you talking about?” he says.
Patrick tips his head. “Your Tinder photo,” he says slowly. “Weren’t you the one who wanted to do Tinder? Because you’re lonely? Because Tennyson’s dating everyone in his class and thinks you don’t know what Valentine’s Day is? Or something?”
“Right,” Pete says dazedly. “Yeah. Yes. I said that, didn’t I?”
Patrick knits his eyebrows together. This creates a furrow of a frown that is so familiar to Pete, Pete loves it so fiercely, Pete thinks, That furrow is so cute, you’re depriving everyone on Tinder of that furrow, change your photo to one that shows off that furrow. Pete thinks, Jesus Christ, if you show that furrow to anyone else, I’m going to die of jealousy. How is Pete holding so many contradictory thoughts in his head all at once? This is a Schrodinger issue, he thinks wildly. This is Schrodinger Patrick, in a box, and if Pete lets him out he’s going to have to make a fucking decision about…something.
Patrick says, “I thought this was what you wanted. I don’t want to be on Tinder. I’ll delete it if you want.”
“No,” Pete hears himself say stubbornly, and that’s him making sure Schrodinger Patrick’s box is still locked, can’t let him out of the box. “No, totally, Tinder, awesome idea, I’m a genius, let’s pick a photo for me.”
***
Pete’s supposed to be tucking Tennyson into bed. Tennyson says he’s too old to be tucked into bed but Pete has vowed he’s going to tuck Tennyson into bed until the day he goes off to college, which Tennyson is horrified by and Pete doesn’t give a fuck that he’s horrified because he swears to God, just yesterday he had a sleepy toddler who didn’t want to sleep alone ever and Pete couldn’t wait to get a whole bed to himself and now he’s got a fucking eight-year-old who doesn’t want to be tucked in, like, parenthood is wild.
Tennyson’s talking about Patrick and Missouri as he clambers into bed. “Patrick says that he didn’t even know Missouri was called the Show-Me State, can you believe that, I had to tell him all about it—”
“Patrick’s joining Tinder,” Pete interrupts suddenly, and then screeches to himself internally, What the fuck, Pete!
Tennyson furrows his little brow at Pete. An eight-year-old furrow. It’s not as intense as Patrick’s furrow. Pete can keep a catalog of the number of brow-furrows sent his way by people over his lifetime. He says, “What’s that?”
“It’s a dating app,” Pete says irresistibly, because apparently he’s not going to stop fucking talking to his kid about this.
“Is this about Valentine’s Day?” Tennyson asks, pulling the covers up over him. “Because we learned all about how it’s a commercial holiday invented by consumer culture to make us spend more money.”
“I knew I approved of Mrs. Gilbert. Hang on, if she knows Valentine’s is just a capitalist scam, why did we have to buy the cards?”
“Just because it’s a capitalist scam doesn’t mean it’s not nice to tell people that you like them, Dad.” The wow, are you stupid is implied. “Are you going to join Tinder?”
His eight-year-old probably should not be asking him this question, he’s probably doing some bad parenting here. “Do you want me to join Tinder?”
“Well, then you could have someone for Valentine’s Day.”
“Valentine’s Day is over.”
“It happens every year, Dad,” Tennyson says, rolling his eyes. “Oh! Maybe you and Patrick can go out together next Valentine’s Day, that would be good!”
“Yeah,” says Pete, strangled. “That would be so good.”
“Night, Dad,” Tennyson says, and promptly turns his back on Pete, ready to fall into the welcoming embrace of slumber.
Pete’s got no such embrace waiting for him. Pete activates his fucking Tinder profile and spends the night sprawled in bed swiping left endlessly because everyone is awful.
***
They’re working. This means Patrick is doing a million things at once. Pete is swiping left on Tinder and saying every once in a while, “It needs to sound more like I feel when I eat smores by a campfire.”
The producer they’re working with lifts her eyebrows, but Patrick says, “No, I know what he means, he’s right,” and gets back to work.
Really, Patrick’s writing a good song, Pete likes the shape of it a lot, it needs better words in the bridge but he can make it work, and all of Pete’s attention is taken up with how monumentally awful Tinder is.
So he says that. “Tinder’s the fucking worst, huh?”
“What?” says Patrick vaguely, distracted. “What do you think about this?” He plays a reworked version of the bridge.
“Eh,” says Pete, because that’s what he thinks about it. “Tinder. It’s awful. I haven’t seen a single person I’d want to date.”
“Oh,” says Patrick, still fiddling with the board. “I’ve got a date on Friday.”
Pete fucking falls out of his chair. He was tipping it backward, so it’s not like the chair had four legs on the floor and he fell out of it, so maybe it could be more embarrassing than it is, but it’s still pretty embarrassing, and the sound engineer rushes over to him to help him up, asking if he’s okay. Patrick glances over at him with a raised eyebrow but turns back to his music, because nothing is as interesting as his music when he’s in the zone.
“I’m fine, I’m fine.” Pete flaps his hand around to get people to stop fussing over him. He’s actually not fine, he fell hard and he’s going to have a hell of a bruise tomorrow, but that’s not important right now. He goes over to the soundboard and leans against it nonchalantly, looking down at Patrick. “You’ve got a date on Friday?”
“I do,” Patrick replies, adjusting the equalizers.
“From Tinder?”
“No, from the coffee shop I go to all the time.”
“You picked someone up in a coffee shop?” Pete is astonished. He has known Patrick for almost twenty years and Patrick has never picked anyone up in a coffee shop before.
“No.” Patrick huffs in exasperation and looks up at him from under the brim of his hat. They’re in a recording studio, with new-ish people around him. Patrick’s in hiding mode. “Who picks someone up in a coffee shop? Obviously from Tinder. You’re being too picky. You’ll never get a date for Valentine’s Day at this rate.”
“Valentine’s Day is, like, a whole year away,” Pete says.
“Eleven months and two weeks,” says the sound engineer, because apparently she’s the fucking helpful sort.
“Yeah,” Pete says sharply. “Got it. Thank you.”
“Let me see your phone,” Patrick says, holding his hand out for it.
“What?” says Pete, handing it over. “Why?”
“Because.” Patrick swipes over it. “You’re never going to be able to focus until you get your Tinder virginity out of the way.”
“My what?” yelps Pete.
“He’s right, you know,” says the sound engineer.
Who the fuck is this sound engineer? Pete glares at the producer because he thinks the producer brought the sound engineer.
Patrick says, “This one. She’s cute, right? I like her teeth.” He holds the phone out to Pete.
“You like her teeth?” says Pete, but they’re cute teeth, actually, he can see what Patrick’s saying.
Patrick swipes right.
“There you go.” He hands the phone back to Pete. “I hope you and Ethel are very happy.”
“Her name is Ethel?”
“She can’t help what her parents named her, and people named ‘Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz III’ probably shouldn’t throw stones. People who named their son ‘Tennyson Kerouac Wentz’ especially shouldn’t throw stones.”
“Ethel is definitely a fake name,” Pete grumbles. “You just got me a date with a fake-named woman.”
“I only swiped right. To get an actual date you’ve got to be charming during the messaging part of the exchange.” Patrick gives him a look, like he thinks Pete can’t be charming.
Pete frowns at him. “I’m very charming. I charmed your parents into letting you go out on the road with me when you were still just a kid.”
“Yeah, don’t use that as your primary example of your charm, that’s alarming.”
“You’re ungrateful.”
“I’m very grateful,” Patrick replies calmly. “I just swiped right on Ethel for you, as an expression of my gratitude.”
“Do you want me to get you a latte?” Pete asks, resigned to his life with an ungrateful Patrick.
“I would love a latte, thank you,” says Patrick.
Pete taps a finger against the brim of Patrick’s hat and mutters, “Brat,” at him.
Patrick smiles, quick and sweet, and Pete goes to buy him a latte.
***
The song, at the end of the day, is a very good song. Patrick is beaming with joy over it and Patrick is so hyper-critical, such a perfectionist when it comes to the music, that his joy is beautiful to see. His stupid Tinder date is going to take one look at him and keep him forever, Pete thinks. The way Pete took one look at him and kept him forever. Or tried to. Or something.
“The words are so good,” Patrick’s saying as Pete walks him to his car. “They’re always so good, but they’re really, really good, so thank you.”
“The music’s better,” Pete says. “The music makes the words better.”
“It’s, you know, just us. Just how we work. I can’t wait to see what Joe adds to it. This is kind of my favorite part, it’s like Christmas.” Patrick looks so, so delighted.
Pete stares at him. He’s got his hat off now and the sun glints off his copper hair, impossibly bright, Pete’s got to look away.
Patrick says, “Don’t you have to go pick up Tennyson at school?”
Pete says, “Where are you taking her?”
“Who?” asks Patrick.
“Your Tinder date.”
“Oh,” says Patrick, blushing furiously. “It’s a… It’s a him.”
This is like the moment when you open an ancient Egyptian tomb and realize you’re going to be cursed forever, slapped across the face with some dormant piece of magic that you can’t avoid anymore now that you’ve opened Schrodinger’s fucking box, to mix a couple of metaphors. Pete’s mouth is so dry he can barely say, “I… I didn’t know…”
“Well, you never really asked,” Patrick says primly, opening his car door, “and anyway, is it a big deal?”
Pete knows all of Patrick’s tells, especially Patrick’s nervous tells, Patrick’s stage-fright tells. Patrick would pull the brim of his hat down over his forehead right now if he was still wearing it. Pete says hastily, “It’s not even a little bit of a big deal. Like. You know what I mean. I mean. Good for you. If that’s what you want to—This is sounding condescending. I don’t mean it to—Good for you. Awesome. What’s his name?”
“Brian,” says Patrick.
“Brian. Very cool. He sounds cool. Brian’s a cool name. Pretty cool. This is incredibly cool.”
Patrick looks pained. “Can we not—Can you not have a freak-out about this? I don’t want this to be a big deal. Please don’t make it a big deal.”
“I am totally not,” says Pete. “This isn’t a big deal at all.”
***
“This is the biggest deal ever,” Pete says. “Like, there has never been a bigger deal than this. What the fuck am I supposed to do with this information?”
Tennyson’s abandoned soccer ball, rolling around in the passenger seat of the car, has nothing useful to say to him.
“Fucking fuck,” Pete mutters, and taps his fingers on the steering wheel uselessly. He’s waiting for Tennyson to get out of school on this leafy, bucolic California street and he’s get to pretend that, like, Patrick Stump isn’t going to get his dick sucked by some idiot named Brian on Friday night.
“Because,” Pete says to the soccer ball, “if you were on a date with Patrick Stump, you would, like, definitely suck his dick, let’s be honest.”
And the thing is. The thing about this is. If a guy is going to suck Patrick Stump’s dick, it really feels like it ought to be Pete, like, twenty fucking years, you’d think he’d be at the top of Patrick’s dick-sucking list and he’s never even been fucking asked.
“What the fuck, Patrick?” he says to the fictional Patrick in his head, and drops his forehead against the steering wheel.
If he’s being honest—which ordinarily he strives never to be—then, yeah, okay, Patrick had no reason to believe Pete wanted to be first in the dick-sucking line because Pete himself did not know he wanted to be first in the dick-sucking line until the moment when he opened the Schrodinger’s box and out stepped a hot Patrick whose dick he really wanted to suck, like, that had been unpredictable, okay? Wasn’t that the whole point of Schrodinger’s theory? The unpredictability? And now he was ancient-Egyptian-tomb-cursed to just long for Patrick Stump’s dick while Patrick married some guy named Brian he met on Tinder because Pete had a meltdown in a Walgreen’s over fucking Mrs. Gilbert’s insistence that Tennyson buy Valentine cards.
“This is all Mrs. Gilbert’s fault,” Pete moans. This is the unavoidable conclusion.
His phone buzzes, and he reaches for it with foreboding. It’s probably going to be Patrick, sending him a photo of Brian. Look how hot Brian is, and he’s never a dick to me and he’s going to make me breakfast in bed every morning and be helpful when I’m writing songs and not poke me in the arm thirty-seven times because he’s counting how many times he can do it until I snap at him, we’re going to be very happy together.
“Fucking Brian,” Pete proclaims darkly, and looks at his phone.
It’s not Brian. It’s a mock-up of the Fall Out Boy Valentine card he asked for. They look as ridiculous as Pete could ever have hoped.
Joe texts, Well, that looks as ridiculous as Pete could ever have hoped.
Andy replies, Pete and Patrick are mutually assured destruction.
Pete blinks, and then scowls. How dare Andy imply that he and Patrick are destruction, like, how dare Andy be on Brian’s side. What the fuck is that supposed to mean, Andy? Pete texts furiously.
There’s a moment, and then Andy texts, ????, and Joe texts, Whoa, what the fuck, Pete, he’s talking about the card.
Pete looks back at the notecards, and sure enough he and Patrick are aiming their arrows at each other. Which doesn’t exactly make Pete feel any better about anything.
Pete calls Andy and says, “I’m so sorry,” when Andy picks up.
“You doing okay?” Andy asks mildly, because Andy’s been in a band with Pete Wentz and Patrick Stump for a really long time now.
“No,” Pete croaks. “Patrick’s dating some guy named Brian.”
“Is he?” Andy says slowly. He sounds surprised.
“Yeah, he’s gay, I guess. Or maybe bi? To be honest, I didn’t clarify, like, whatever, that’s not important, Brian is important.”
“I honestly don’t think Patrick’s gay or bi,” says Andy.
“Then why’s he dating a guy named Brian?” asks Pete miserably.
“He’s dating a guy named Brian? Really?” Andy sounds so dubious. “How did they meet?”
“On Tinder,” Pete complains. “I made Patrick get a Tinder. I’m such a fucking idiot.”
“Pete, where are you?” Andy asks.
“I’m in the car waiting for Tennyson to get out of school.”
“So you’re sitting in your car having a meltdown because Patrick met a guy on Tinder?”
Pete considers. This seems like an accurate summation of his current situation. “Yes.”
“And have you told Patrick you’re having this meltdown?”
“Why the fuck would I tell Patrick?” asks Pete.
“You are a fucking idiot,” Andy sighs.
***
It’s late and Pete can’t sleep. That’s not unusual, of course, Pete’s never had an actual sleep pattern. Of all the things Tennyson inherited from him, that is, thankfully, not one of them. So Tennyson’s sound asleep in his room and Pete’s wide awake swiping left on Tinder and hating himself because this is what it’s come to, Patrick’s met a guy on Tinder and he’s going to leave Pete and have a whole other life and Pete’s going to be all alone swiping left on Tinder endlessly in the night. Pete’s in the kind of mood that he knows he should call Patrick about, but he can’t call Patrick about this mood because then he’ll have to say, You were a Schrodinger Patrick and now you’re not and now I’m cursed.
Pete swipes left, left, left, and suddenly, shockingly, amazingly, astonishingly…he’s on Patrick’s photo. The stupid ridiculously hot photo Patrick put up on Tinder and got Brian to swipe right on. Pete looks at it for a very long moment, this face he’s spent all these years looking at, memorizing, blatantly adoring. Pete reaches a finger out and swipes right.
Then he makes himself put the phone away, because what was even the fucking point of that, what is he doing.
The phone buzzes next to him on the bed, and he looks at it reflectively, and then he pounces on it.
It’s a Tinder message from Patrick. You should be asleep.
Pete doesn’t want to ask why Patrick is awake hanging out on Tinder. What the fuck, if Patrick is up late Tinder-flirting with the entire fucking planet, then Pete should definitely be in on it, why isn’t he good enough to Tinder-flirt with? Can’t sleep, let’s stay up and Tinder-flirt until I get tired.
Fine, Patrick replies. What are you wearing.
Pete looks at the message. Patrick’s probably teasing. It sounds like it could be a tease. This could all just be a joke. Pete types back carefully, What do you want me to be wearing.
There’s a very long gap until the next text from Patrick. It lasts at least a hundred years. Pete holds his breath until he can’t anymore. He’s about to type another text but he doesn’t know what it would be when Patrick’s reply finally arrives.
It’s late, and I know you, so I bet you’ve just got boxers on, no shirt.
He’s right, of course, because Patrick does know him. Pete takes a picture of the tiny baby Yodas running all over his boxers. They’re the least sexy boxers of all time. This is exactly what he would be wearing the night he decided to try to naughty-text with Patrick.
As he’s taking the picture, another reply from Patrick comes in: They’re Star Wars boxers, I bet.
“Asshole,” Pete says fondly, and sends him the picture.
And Patrick’s reply comes back: Take them off.
And Pete’s heart stops. This could be, maybe, possibly, a commentary on how awful the boxers are, but…but Patrick loves Star Wars and the baby Yoda boxers are cute and if Patrick wants them off him then maybe…maybe Patrick just wants them off him.
In which case Pete would not be able to take them off quickly enough. But Patrick’s not even there to see. What a fucking waste. Pete writes back, You first, just to see what they’re doing here.
Patrick writes back immediately, Done, and Pete gets so very hard so very fast he’s dizzy with it.
“Fuck,” he says out loud, and tries to think of the last time he wanted anyone as badly as he wants Patrick, right this instant, right here in this bed. He lets out a shaky breath and writes, You should be here. Right now.
***
He almost doesn’t think Patrick’s going to come, but then he does. Pete’s sitting in his baby Yoda boxers by the window so he can see the car pull into the driveway, and then he’s up and opening the door immediately, only partly because he doesn’t want anything to wake Tennyson and mostly because his dick really, really wants to see Patrick.
Patrick’s a fucking wet dream with his Batman pajama pants and his Bowie t-shirt and his hair askew, every which way, like his hands have been all over it. “Look,” he says harshly, “if you’re kidding around here then just tell me and it’s fine and we’ll never talk about it again, but if you’re not kidding around can you just fucking kiss me already?”
Pete kisses him already.
Patrick makes a noise like a sob and melts into him, kisses him back hungrily, and Pete kisses him in gulps, this mouth that sings all of his words for him, these beloved lips that form the feelings of Pete’s soul. Pete kisses with his silver tongue and lets Patrick’s gold spill into him, fill him up.
“Oh, Christ,” Patrick gasps, when Pete pushes him up against the door and bites at his clavicle, sucks a line of kisses along his neck. “You fucking idiot prick,” he says, but he sounds giddy as he says it, his hands bunching in Pete’s hair to keep him close up against him. “I’ve wanted you to shove me up against a wall like this for twenty fucking years, oh, fuck, do not stop what you’re doing, right there, keep doing that.”
Patrick’s commands are nonsensical because Pete’s doing too much to know what Patrick’s talking about in particular, he’s kissing and touching all over but Patrick is encouraging with yes and yes so Pete does everything he’s ever wanted to do, or as much as he can standing against his front door.
“I didn’t know you…” Pete mumbles, gets distracted by the curve of Patrick’s ass, tries again. “I didn’t know you liked guys.”
“I don’t.” Patrick sounds so, so fond. “You idiot. I don’t like anyone but you.”
Pete pauses, lifts his head up, looks down at Patrick, flushed and well-kissed, beaming at him. “Patrick, that’s…” The door to Schrodinger’s box slams firmly shut in his head, with this Patrick—this undeniably hot, undeniably wanted, desperately craved Patrick here, outside, real. No uncertainty anymore. “That’s so good, because I don’t like anyone but you.”
Patrick’s smile is blinding. “Take me upstairs,” he says.
Pete takes him upstairs. Well, that sounds smooth. Pete hastily drags him up the stairs, stumbling over them, and Patrick laughs, and Pete says, “Shh,” and swings him into his bedroom, and then Pete locks the door, which he has never done since having Tennyson, but, well, Pete’s sure Tennyson’s going to have a lot to say in therapy as an adult about growing up with his dad but Pete doesn’t want the first night he had sex with Patrick being interrupted by an eight-year-old to have a starring role.
Pete pushes Patrick onto the bed and Patrick goes, grinning, laughing, sighing when Pete stretches out over him, rucks his t-shirt up so he can get his hands onto Patrick’s warm skin. He probably should have taken Patrick’s t-shirt off before getting him horizontal. Whatever. Planning. He can do that next time around, when maybe his dick will nicely leave his brain a little blood to think with. As it is, he’s so very hard and it’s an immeasurable relief to rub a little bit of friction against Patrick, and Patrick gasps and jerks and mumbles, “God,” and pulls Pete’s hair when he kisses him.
Pete’s trying to do something to get Patrick out of his pants but Patrick keeps stuttering his hips, pushing their cocks sloppily together through all the layers of fabric, and Pete wants wildly to feel him but it’s hard to make his hands work when Patrick keeps doing that.
“Fuck,” Pete says thickly, dropping his forehead to Patrick’s shoulder and grabbing at his hips to try to keep him still. “Don’t—” he gasps. “Jesus—Give me a second.” It’s been twenty years of foreplay, Pete thinks, he can’t handle much more.
“Touch me,” Patrick says desperately, squirming in his grip. “Pete. I want you to touch me. Please. Please. I want—I want—”
“Shh,” Pete murmurs, swallowing down Patrick’s begging, which is going straight to his beleaguered cock who is like, What the fuck, buddy, could you get us off here? “I know,” he says. “I know.”
He means this to be soothing nonsense so he’s unprepared for the flurry of activity this provokes from Patrick. “No,” he snaps, “you don’t know, you do not know.” Pete’s so startled by this reaction that it gives Patrick room to sit up enough to pull his t-shirt off. “For twenty years you are the only person I have wanted. Do you get that? The only one. Literally the only one. I’ve tried so hard to want other people.” Patrick is wriggling out of his pants and under every other circumstance but this one Pete would have been watching raptly but he’s listening to Patrick’s speech. “Like, everyone else just wants other people, it’s cool, everyone on a tour is getting laid left, right, and center like it’s supposed to be this grand, massively exciting things, oh, wow, sex, isn’t it so great, and you know what, Pete? It’s not that fucking great, okay? It’s just fucking biology, it’s like, going around saying how cool breathing is, I don’t get it, okay, I don’t get why people are willing to do the stupidest, most ridiculous things to have sex with another human, I have never understood it, I have never…” Patrick suddenly runs out of air and heaves a deep breath. He is so glorious and gorgeous, naked in Pete’s bed, flushed and rosy, lips bitten with kisses, rubbed with the burn of Pete’s heavy stubble, eyes glittering. “You, I want. You, I really, really want. Let’s have sex now, I really want to have sex now.”
Pete stares at him. “Yeah, we’re, like, totally going to do that, I promise, hang on, I can’t, like, think right now, so like, I don’t know, are you asking me to prove to you that sex is pretty great?”
Patrick laughs. He looks so happy that Pete feels like he’s fucking glowing. “Sure,” he says. “If that’s how you want to interpret it.”
“That’s not how I want to interpret it,” Pete says incredulously, “that’s a lot of fucking pressure.”
“Pete,” says Patrick, heavy with a smile, and pulls him into a kiss. Patrick kisses him all the way down to the bed, stretches out over him, so delicious and warm, so very perfect, Pete skims his hands down all that skin bared to him and as soon as he gets his scheming brain functions back he’s going to strategize how to keep Patrick in this bed for the rest of their lives. “I just want you,” Patrick is saying into the kisses, “I only want you.” He gets Pete out of his boxers, takes Pete in hand.
Pete groans and says, “Patrick, can you promise me that if I fail to rock your world right now you will still give sex with me another try when I haven’t been—” Patrick shifts to line them up so, so perfectly, Pete throws his head back to get out from Patrick’s kisses because he just needs a little bit of air, he’s going to die of how good this is—“oh Jesus fuck,” he babbles, “it’s been like twenty years of foreplay, I just, fuck.” He puts his hands on Patrick’s hips blindly, digging in with his fingers.
“Pete,” Patrick gasps into his ear, “just let me—just let me—that’s so—you’re so—oh, my God—”
Pete doesn’t know where he finds, would never have been able to predict, the reserves of willpower that drag up from inside the depths of him, but he uses his grip on Patrick’s hip to push him back, still him, like a pause button on the proceedings, teetering just on the top of the crash over the waterfall.
Patrick makes a keening sound and scrambles against his hold.
“Hey,” Pete says, surprised by the harshness in his tone. “Open your eyes and look at me.”
The tone seems to startle Patrick as well, because he stops struggling and does as he’s told, blinks his eyes open, looks down at Pete.
Pete smooths his sweat-dampened hair down, runs his fingertips over the freckles on his cheeks. Patrick looks dazed and desperate, wide-eyed. “Look at you,” Pete breathes. “Just fucking look at you.”
“I can’t,” Patrick manages. “I’m looking at you.”
This is going to change everything, thinks Pete. I can’t wait, thinks Pete. Patrick falls back into place against him, and Pete arches up to meet back into their rhythm, and the spiral builds again, tightens around them, and Patrick doesn’t look away, Patrick is looking directly into Pete’s eyes when he comes, when he says Pete’s name, and really, honestly, Pete would wait twenty years for that all over again.
***
Pete’s trying really hard to be a good host, fretting about if the sheets are clean enough to sleep in, is Patrick cleaned up enough, is he going to be cold. Patrick’s very quiet considering how vocal he was during the sex and Pete’s freaking out panicking that he’s rethinking everything, that he’s going to turn to Pete and be like, Well, I didn’t enjoy that very much, either, and Pete’s okay with that, they can find a way to work with that, but Pete’s not okay if the follow-up’s going to be, Guess I’ll go try again with someone else.
Pete stands by the bed and says awkwardly, “Do you want to stay?”
Patrick, who’s been staring at the ceiling making noncommittal responses to all of Pete’s questions, focuses on him then. “Do you want me to leave?”
“No,” Pete says honestly. He gets into bed because he can’t bear to have this conversation outside of a cocoon of blankets. “I never want you to leave.”
“I feel like I’ve left you too many times,” Patrick says thoughtfully.
“You’ve never left me,” Pete says.
“What I said before.” Patrick inches closer. Pete watches the emotions in those kaleidoscope eyes. “It’s not like I… I mean, I don’t think there’s something wrong with me. Like—”
“Patrick, there is not a single thing wrong with you, you’re perfect.”
He watches relief ease Patrick into the pillows. “Yes, you’ve always thought that, but I thought you might, like… I don’t know. Maybe there might be something wrong with me. I’m weird in some way.”
“And I’m not?” says Pete.
“You would hook up with people—everyone would hook up with people—and all of you seemed to get something out of it, like, I don’t know, it seemed fun when all of you did it, and it’s like I could never figure out how to get there, like, I always wanted to ask how you stopped feeling so lonely, I’d have an orgasm with another person and I would feel so alone. You asked me the other day if I was lonely and all I could think was that no, I’m not lonely with you and with Tennyson in my life, like, the loneliest I’ve ever felt was when I had a person who wasn’t you in my bed, that was the worst, I hated the way that made me feel and so I… Like, I don’t know, that’s what makes me weird, I guess, but I didn’t need to find random people to have sex with, I don’t need to have sex, I just… I don’t need it the way other people seem to need it.”
Pete takes a moment to absorb that. “How do you feel now?”
“About sex?”
“Not really. I honestly don’t care how you feel about sex, like, however you feel about it is fine with me. What I don’t want is for you to feel lonely. So. You had an orgasm with another person, do you feel alone?”
Patrick blinks. Patrick shakes his head. “No,” he whispers. “I don’t feel the least bit alone.” He bites his lips, then admits, “I actually just feel really happy.”
“Me, too,” says Pete.
***
Patrick is historically worse at mornings than Pete and Tennyson are. When Pete’s alarm goes off Patrick grumbles a curse at him and Pete says, “You’re too late, I’ve already been cursed,” then kisses his cheek, and then pulls the blankets up over his head so he can go back to sleep. He is indeed a sleeping lump taking deep, even breaths when Pete comes out of the shower.
Pete stands by his door for a long time looking at the lump of Patrick in his bed and thinking, It took you twenty fucking years but you finally got it right. Then he unlocks it and steps into the hallway and closes it behind him and goes to wrestle Tennyson out of bed and into his uniform.
Tennyson is miserable and grumbly the way he always is in the morning but he’s not too sleepy not to notice Patrick’s car parked in the driveway. Blocking them in. Oh, fuck. Pete turns back inside and finds Patrick’s car keys abandoned in the corner of the foyer. By the time he gets back into the driveway, Tennyson is looking thoughtful.
“That’s Patrick’s car,” Tennyson says.
“It is indeed. He’s letting us borrow it to take you to school, get in.” Pete unlocks the car with a little electronic chirrup.
“How come?” Tennyson asks as Pete slides into the driver’s seat.
“How come what?”
“How come Patrick’s letting us borrow his car?”
“Because he’s a nice guy.” Pete backs out of the driveway.
“But why can’t we take our own car?”
“It’s, like, so broken,” says Pete. “Like, the most broken car in the history of broken cars.”
“Really?” Tennyson sounds dubious. “How did that happen?”
“Little dude,” says Pete, looking at him in the rearview mirror. “Like you understand cars suddenly?”
Tennyson does not look suitably chastised. “How’d you find out the car was broken?”
“Huh?”
“It was fine when you picked me up at school yesterday.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Pete denies. “It was making that horrible sound, don’t you remember?”
“Nope. What’d it sound like?”
“It sounded like, you know, like this.” Pete makes some kind of really awful wheezing sound.
“That sounds like whooping cough,” Tennyson says.
“How the fuck do you know what whooping cough sounds like?” asks Pete.
“The internet,” Tennyson says.
“You are a weird kid,” Pete tells him.
“You’re a weird dad,” says Tennyson. “So Patrick slept over last night. So what?”
So what indeed, thinks Pete. “Um,” he says. He concentrates on pulling the car over into the line of student drop-offs. Then he twists in his seat to say, “What if Patrick sleeps over every night?”
Tennyson scowls. “Oh, well, that’s not fair, you always tell me I can only have one sleepover a week.”
“Because you’re a kid. This is a grown-up perk.”
“When I’m a grown-up, I’m going to have my best friend sleep over every night,” Tennyson vows darkly.
He looks surprised when Pete laughs. “Kid,” he says, “I can honestly hope for nothing better for your future.”
***
Patrick is barely awake when Pete gets back from school drop-off. By barely awake Pete means that he’s a sitting-up lump on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, drinking coffee. He doesn’t have his glasses on, so he stops squinting at the talk show on television to squint at Pete when Pete walks in.
“Tennyson says we can have a sleepover every night as long as we promise that we get enough sleep because he doesn’t want to live with grumpy people.” Pete drops onto the couch next to Patrick. “I told him I can’t make any promises,” he says, and he smiles, and he kisses the sleep-warm skin behind Patrick’s ear.
***
“Dad!” Tennyson shouts from the kitchen. “I need Valentine cards!”
“Oh, fuck,” says Pete, putting the novel he’s reading face-down on his chest. “When is Valentine’s Day?”
Tennyson shows up in the doorway, frowning. “Did you forget again? You can’t forget Valentine’s Day now that you have Patrick!”
Pete looks up at Patrick from where he’s comfortably settled with his head in Patrick’s lap. “Patrick,” he says, “what if I forgot Valentine’s Day?”
Patrick is reworking some of Pete’s lyrics, notebook balanced on the arm of the couch. He scratches out a word and draws an arrow to another part of the page, and says calmly, “I already bought the Valentine cards, check on the shelf in the pantry, Lord Byron.”
Tennyson goes running off, and Pete sits up indignantly. “You show-off.”
“Oh, stop it, you didn’t forget Valentine’s Day, you made a reservation at that Japanese place downtown ages ago.”
Pete gasps. “You fucking spy, how do you know that, that was a secret.”
“You literally sent the reservation confirmation email to fob at falloutboy dot com. That is our email address. Like, all of ours. Joe and Andy also know our Valentine’s Day plans.”
“Oh, wow, I did do that,” Pete realizes.
“Just so you know, you’re the worst, like, I can’t believe you’ve managed to keep anything a secret from Tennyson ever.”
“What secrets?” Tennyson asks suspiciously, coming back into the room.
“No secrets,” Pete says, elbowing Patrick’s stomach. “Patrick’s an asshole.”
Tennyson plops onto the floor in front of them and considers them closely, then makes a grand announcement. “I just want you to know, it’s been almost a year now, and I’ve decided to allow this.” He gestures to encompass Pete and Patrick on the couch together.
Pete is amused. “Oh, have you? Thank you very much.”
But Patrick sounds touched when he says, “Thank you, Tennyson, that makes me very happy.”
Tennyson beams and then gets up to give Patrick a hug.
“I never get hugs anymore,” Pete protests.
Tennyson gives him a hug but Pete can tell it’s just begrudging.
“Go get ready for bed, you little gremlin,” Pete tells him affectionately, and kisses his hair.
“Don’t let it go to your head,” Patrick says as Tennyson runs out of the room, “but you’ve got a great kid.”
“Thanks for being so great with my great kid,” Pete says, and means it. Honestly, who knew this parenting thing could be better with a partner. No wonder people gave that a try.
“Thanks for my romantic Valentine’s Day dinner,” Patrick replies.
“We haven’t had that yet.”
Patrick lifts one shoulder in a shrug and goes back to the lyrics. “My mouth might be too busy after dinner to say thank you.”
“Was that a filthy proposition?” Pete asks gleefully. “I hope it was.”
“Dad!” Tennyson shouts from upstairs. “I don’t have any clean underwear!”
“You definitely do!” Pete shouts back, and then thinks. “Oh, fuck, he might not, it was my turn to do laundry this week, wasn’t it?”
Patrick rolls his eyes but says nothing.
Pete rolls off the couch to go upstairs to deal with the impending laundry disaster. When his phone buzzes in his pocket, he barely registers it, and he doesn’t remember it buzzed until he takes it out of his pocket when he’s getting ready for bed and notices the new Tinder message. Tinder. He totally fucking forgot to delete that, because he’s never opened it since the day he Tinder-flirted with Patrick.
He opens it now just because he’s curious, and he’s glad he did, because it’s a Tinder message from Patrick. Happy Valentine’s Day, it reads, and the photo accompanying it is of their cupid notecard, Pete and Patrick’s cupids taking aim at each other.
Pete smiles and heads into the bedroom to rock Patrick’s world.