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Age 13
TK’s face falls as soon as he sees him come around the corner, “I told them to call Mom.”
Enzo shrugs helplessly, “She was in a meeting, so she asked if I could come.” TK’s lips tighten, but he doesn’t say anything, and Enzo adds a little desperately, “They told her it wasn’t serious.”
He sees the way TK flinches before he tries to smooth his expression into indifference, “Whatever. Can we go?”
The baseball coach who’d accompanied TK to the ER turns to Enzo and says, “School policy means we have to treat any injury as serious, but they’re right, this is just a mild sprain to his wrist from trying to slide into second a little too enthusiastically.”
She looks at TK, who heaves a sigh like it’s taking all his patience to deal with these adults. “He’s my mom’s boyfriend. His name is on the list of people who are allowed to check me out of school. You can call to confirm.”
She does, and then waves a hand at TK, as if to say ‘he’s all yours, best of luck to you’. Enzo suppresses a sigh of his own and follows TK out of the ER.
He catches up to TK just before the double doors open to the sidewalk, “You want to stop for ice cream on the way home?”
TK gives him a disdainful stare, “Mom doesn’t let me have snacks this close to dinner.”
Enzo doesn’t blame TK for being pissy, he’s annoyed at Gwen himself. It’s barely been a year since he started dating Gwen, and only a few months since he moved in; it’s not fair to ask TK to accept him as a substitute parent this fast. He shrugs, “Good thing I’m not your mom then, isn’t it?”
TK raises his eyebrows, and he looks a little impressed. All he says is, “Ballsy.” Then, “I want hot fudge and peanut butter sauce.”
Enzo nods, “Obviously.”
Age 15
He takes one look at TK and swears. He turns to the Vice Principal who’s standing next to TK, “What happened?”
TK gives him a mutinous look, “Where’s Dad?”
Enzo glances at him, “Owen wasn’t picking up, and your mom’s out of town, so you’re stuck with me.”
He sees the hurt slide across TK’s face before he shuts it down. He’s getting better at that. Too good. “Dad must be out on a call.”
Enzo nods, because sure, probably. He’s more worried about why TK has a black eye, and his arm is in a cast. He looks at the Vice Principal and raises his eyebrows.
She clears her throat uncomfortably, “Mr. Stand says he fell.”
He turns to look at TK incredulously, “Seriously?” TK doesn’t say anything. Enzo raises his eyebrows pointedly, “You got a black eye, and,” he looks down at the cast on TK’s wrist, “a broken wrist from a fall?”
“Mr. Stand also has a cracked rib,” the Vice Principal adds, presumably in the interests of full disclosure.
TK shrugs, and it looks painful, “I’m clumsy.”
Enzo glances at the Vice Principal who looks like she’s buying this about as much as he is. She makes a sharp gesture and he follows her out into the hall. “What happened?” He asks again.
She looks frustrated, “He says he fell, and he won’t change his story no matter how many times we ask him.”
“But?”
“But, if I had to guess, I’d say that he got in a fight.” Enzo opens his mouth to protest, and she cuts him off, “I’m not saying he started it, but he definitely tried to finish it.”
He gives her a flat look, “And what are you going to do about it?”
She gives him an exasperated look in return, “There’s nothing I can do, unless he’s willing to tell us who did it.”
Enzo scrubs a hand over his face, “Fuck. Okay.” He glances at the nurse who’s arrived, “Is he good to go?”
The nurse nods, “As soon as you sign discharge papers.” He takes the clipboard she hands him and signs, and then takes a deep breath and opens the door to the room again.
TK looks studiously blank, and Enzo sighs, “I’m thinking we stop for ice cream on our way home.” TK looks surprised, and Enzo says, “What? It’s tradition.”
TK snorts, “Doing something once doesn’t make it a tradition.”
Enzo waves a hand, “Eh, fine, then we’ll make it a tradition.”
TK gives him a skeptical look, “I can’t tell if that’s pessimistic or optimistic.”
Enzo considers the question. “Realistic,” he finally offers and TK grins with what looks like honest amusement.
TK’s stirring the soupy remains of his sundae before he says, “They said I was looking at them in the showers.”
The look TK gives him dares him to say the wrong thing. But Enzo’s been doing this for a while now, and just asks neutrally, “Is there a reason you don’t want to tell your teacher that?”
TK relaxes minutely, and Enzo lets himself take a breath. “What would be the point?” TK takes in Enzo’s expression, “You think this is the first time this has happened?”
“I think I would have remembered if you’d come home with a cast on your arm before.” Enzo says evenly.
TK rolls his eyes, but allows, “Not to me, but to other gay kids. I fought back.” A high flush paints his cheek bones, “There were too many of them.”
Enzo leans across the table, “TK, you need to tell your mother.”
TK shakes his head vehemently. “I tell Mom and she’ll go scorched earth on the school.”
Enzo raises his eyebrows, “They put you in the hospital, you think they don’t deserve it?”
TK shakes his head again, “It won’t do any good. Mom will raise hell, and the school will make all the right noises, and nothing will actually change. And, at the end I’ll be the kid who got people in trouble.”
It’s a depressingly realistic take on the situation. Enzo sits back and considers TK, “Give me an alternative.” TK sits up straighter, and he amends hastily, “A reasonable alternative. Blowing up their lockers, for example, is not a reasonable alternative.”
TK looks thoughtful for a minute, like he’s considering the idea, and then shakes his head, “Too risky anyway. The wiring at school is old, and the odds are too high that even a small explosion could spark something and get into the plaster and lath and spread.”
Enzo suppresses the urge to cover his face and laugh hysterically, because TK is Owen’s child from head to toe, but somehow he’s the one sitting here. “So, what’s your plan?”
“I don’t really have one,” TK admits. “I just, I want to make them feel small, and scared, the way they try and make us feel.”
He gives TK a pained look, “I cannot believe the words that are about to come out of my mouth, but you have to be better than that. You can’t let them make you into someone petty, just because they are.”
TK looks outraged, “So, I’m just supposed to do nothing?”
Enzo sighs, “No, you’re supposed to tell your teachers and the principal and your mother, and let them handle it.”
TK scowls, “It’ll just make things worse.”
He doesn’t necessarily disagree. “Possibly. But, what is guaranteed is that nothing will ever change if nobody is ever willing to say something.”
TK eyes him, “Is that supposed to be motivational? Because if it was, you suck at this.”
“Noted.”
TK narrows his eyes, “I’m blaming you when this all falls apart.”
“I would expect nothing less.”
TK glares at him, but relents, “Fine. I’ll tell Mom. But, you owe me so much ice cream for this.”
Age 16
He’s alone in the room for the moment. Gwen and Owen are out in the hallway talking to the doctor, or possibly yelling at each other again. He doesn’t have the energy for it anymore, and doesn’t want TK to be alone when he wakes up.
It’s just past midnight, and they’ve been here just over two hours, but the night already feels endless. His eyes feel gritty, and the antiseptic smell of the hospital is seeping into his skin.
He realizes he’s watching the monitors almost more than he’s watching TK, because TK is too still. He’s never this quiet, not even in sleep, and Enzo needs the reassuring steady beep of the machines.
The doctor had asked about suicide, and he doesn’t think it’s true. But then, it’s not like he’d known TK was taking drugs, so maybe he just doesn’t want it to be true.
His mind keeps going around and around in circles. Had the bullying started again? Gotten worse? Had TK cared more about the breakup with Jason than he’d let on? Why hadn’t he told any of them? What else were they missing?
He shivers in the chill of the hospital air conditioning, and reaches out to tuck TK’s arm under the blanket, because TK always gets cold at night, always ends up cocooned in a nest of blankets.
“If you wanted ice cream, you could have just asked.” He says softly, hoping TK will wake up and roll his eyes, demand to know why Enzo’s there instead of Gwen or Owen, but TK stays stubbornly silent.
Age 20
He knocks lightly on the door before he pushes it open, not sure what he’s going to find on the other side. TK had been light on details when he’d called, and the whole way over Enzo held on to TK’s promise that he’s fine as a bulwark against panic. TK had said there was nothing for him to worry about, but it’s hard to forget the last time he was in a hospital room with TK.
TK looks up from where he’s sitting beside the bed of a kid who doesn’t look old enough to be in high school, let alone college. The slick knot in Enzo’s stomach unwinds a little at the sight. Despite the fact that he’d called, TK still somehow looks surprised to see Enzo. “Hi.”
He’s even less sure now why TK called him, and retreats to polite curiosity. He nods towards the boy in the bed, “How’s he doing?”
“Still unconscious. His parents are driving down from upstate somewhere.” He looks apologetically at Enzo, “They’re going to be a while. You don’t need to stay, I’m sorry I made you come all the way down here.”
Enzo shrugs and looks around for another chair, “You can always call me, you know that.”
When TK had called he’d grabbed his bag by habit, but he’s glad now because it means he can pull out one of the endless stacks of essays he needs to grade and settle firmly into the chair. TK watches him for a minute, and then seems to accept that he’s not going anywhere and pulls out his phone to read or play a game.
After a while Enzo looks up. “The nurse outside said you rode in with him in the ambulance?” TK nods. Enzo doesn’t add that the nurse had said that TK is pretty much the only reason this boy has any chance of waking up. TK seems fragile and wary, and he’s not sure if telling him that will do harm or good. “Do you know him?”
TK shakes his head, “Not really. He’s a freshman. His name is Derek, but I don’t think I knew that before tonight.”
Enzo tilts his head, curious, “How did you get involved?”
“It got around that I have EMT training.” TK makes a face, “Mostly people knock on my door and want me to look at their junk and tell them if it’s serious.” Enzo laughs at the look of disgust on TK’s face. “And, just I really want to tell them that if they have to ask, they should probably go to the health center anyway.” TK looks back at the boy on the bed, “His roommate came home and found him like this. I guess he didn’t want to get him in trouble, so he came to find me.”
“And you called 911.”
TK nods. He’s still looking at Derek on the bed, but Enzo thinks this time it’s so he doesn’t have to meet Enzo’s gaze. “He could be me. I couldn’t let him wake up alone here.”
It’s the kind of late that might as well be early morning by the time Derek’s parents arrive, looking frazzled and upset. TK talks them through what happened, and shifts uncomfortably with their gratitude, and ducks out of the room as soon as he can. Enzo follows, smiling at Derek’s parents and promising that he’ll tell TK how thankful they are.
He follows TK out to the main entrance and into the almost shocking quiet of the late night streets, and then down towards the cab stand on the corner. It’s late (early?) enough that they have to wait a few minutes for one to pull up.
Enzo finally asks the question that’s been circling in his mind all night, “You called me, not your mom or dad.” TK flicks him a sideways look, but doesn’t respond. He can’t help it, “Why?”
TK shrugs, “Dad wouldn’t say anything, but then he’d have spent the rest of the night giving me worried looks and hovering. Mom would have flipped out, and tried to get me to leave. I figured you wouldn’t make a big deal about it, and at the end you’d probably take me home and feed me ice cream.”
“Home?” He asks, a little disconcerted.
TK waves around them at the dark late night streets, “Where else is going to have ice cream this time of night?”
He swallows the comment that this is New York and somewhere is always open, because TK called him, and TK is asking for help, even if it is oblique, and it’s so rare that TK asks for the things that he needs. “I can’t promise that your mother won’t flip out a little bit when we get in, but I can promise that there’s Ben & Jerry’s in the freezer.”
TK shrugs, “That’s fine.” He waves back towards the hospital, “I just couldn’t cope with it in there,” He’s quiet for a minute, and then once they’ve given the cab driver the address he says hopefully, “Phish Food?”
Age 27
Owen calls him. “TK OD’d. Can you meet me at the hospital?”
“What?” But he’s already moving, finding his shoes, his keys, his wallet.
Owen sounds impatient, but it’s been years and he knows what Owen sounds like when he’s scared. “He asked Alex to marry him. Alex said no. I don’t know more than that.”
“Shit.”
Owen barks out an unamused laugh, “Exactly.”
“What hospital?”
“Queens Presbyterian. I’ll wait until you get here.”
“You’re not staying?” He’s too shocked to be judgemental.
Owen sounds defensive anyway, “I can’t. We had to break down his door. I need to go do damage control if he wants to have a job at the end of this.”
“Is Gwen there?”
Owen makes an impatient noise. “She’s in California. She’s trying to get a flight back.” Then, curiously, “You didn’t know that?”
Enzo winces, apparently Gwen hasn’t told Owen that they’re in the long slow process of splitting apart fifteen years of a life together. “Long story. I just got a cab. I should be there in 30 minutes, hopefully.”
Owen meets him in the waiting room, and points down the hall to TK’s room. He turns to leave, and Enzo grabs his arm, “He’s going to think you’re mad at him if you leave like this.”
Owen tenses as if for a fight, and then it’s like all his strings are cut, and he just looks tired and old. “It was so close. Another five minutes and we’d be having this conversation in a different part of the hospital.” He closes his eyes, “I’m not angry at him, I’m angry at myself. He told me he was going to ask Alex to marry him, and I didn’t tell him not to.”
Enzo makes a face, because he and Owen don’t agree on many things, but how much they don’t like Alex is one of them. “This isn’t your fault, Owen.”
Owen shakes his head, “I have to go. He’s down the hall.”
When Enzo pushes open the door to TK’s room he’s asleep, or faking it well. He looks pale and young and fragile against the stark white sheets, and Enzo wishes he could protect him from everything in the world that’s trying to hurt him. He perches on the edge of the bed. “Hey, kid.”
TK turns his head at his voice, “Dad called you?”
Enzo nods. “How are you doing?”
TK waves a hand around the room, “How do you think I’m doing?” Enzo raises an eyebrow and waits until TK sighs, “I feel stupid. I asked Alex to marry me, and he said no.” TK pauses and grimaces, “Actually what he said was, ‘I’m sleeping with Mitchell, I thought you knew that.’”
Enzo would bet any amount of money that Owen does not know that last part, because if he did Owen would be out looking for Alex, not trying to save TK’s job. He schools his face to mild distaste, and says, “Well, that’s gauche.”
TK stares at him blankly for a moment and then snorts with laughter until he’s crying. Enzo lets him cry on his shoulder until his tears fade into hiccups. “I really thought he was going to be it.” TK says finally, “I thought I’d gotten it right this time.”
Enzo cups the back of his head, “Can I admit now that I never liked him?”
TK pulls back to look at him, “Did you think you were being subtle about that before?”
He cracks a smile, “Okay no, but before I had to at least pretend to be polite about it.” He nudges TK, “Whatever I thought about him, you loved him, and there’s nothing stupid about that.”
TK gives him a tired look, and sits back against the pillows, plucking at the blanket. “Dad says he got a job offer in Texas to rebuild a station. He wasn’t going to take it, but now he says he’s thinking we should go.”
Enzo stills, but makes himself ask calmly, “Do you want to go?”
TK shrugs, “I don’t know, but I don’t think I can go back to the 252, not with everyone knowing. I feel like if I stay here, everywhere I go is just going to be a reminder of how much I fucked up.”
He doesn’t want to let TK out of his sight, much less out of this city. He realizes that TK is watching him from under his lashes. “Mom told me that you guys are splitting up.”
He winces. “I didn’t realize she’d told you already.”
TK shrugs, “I went by the apartment the other day, there were a lot of moving boxes, it wasn’t hard to figure out.”
He’s always hated the way TK walls himself off from the things he thinks will hurt him. His future relationship with TK isn’t something he’s discussed with Gwen, and he doesn’t know what she thinks is going to happen, but he can guess what TK assumes, and he’s wrong. “You know my mother’s going to tell you that moving to Texas isn’t a good enough excuse to miss Easter Dinner.”
TK’s surprise is there and gone so fast that if he hadn’t been watching for it he’d have missed it. He nudges TK, “What, you think you’re getting rid of us that easily? Once you’re a Jet, you’re a Jet all the way.”
TK narrows his eyes, “Didn’t you spend the entire drive home from Thanksgiving last year trying to convince Mom that Annalisa’s new boyfriend wasn’t part of the mafia?”
“One, no self-respecting mafioso wants Frank.” TK snorts. “And two, the Jets were clearly Irish mob, not the mafia. Did I teach you nothing?”
He can see TK gearing up to dispute this, and swallows down how much this is going to hurt, “Imperfect analogies aside, you should do what’s right for you.”
“I don’t know if it’s what’s right,” TK admits, “but I don’t think I can stay here.”
“I’ll take a raincheck on ice cream now, if you promise to find us somewhere good to go when I come visit.” He says lightly.
TK searches his face, like he’s trying to decide if Enzo is serious. Whatever he sees there makes his hand relax on the blanket, “Do I have to end up in the hospital first?”
“I would take it as a kindness if we could skip that part for a change.”
TK grimaces slightly, “Seems unlikely at this point, but I’ll try.”
Age 32
He hits answer without looking up from his computer, "Explain to me why nobody seems to understand the purpose of capital letters anymore? Every email is like reading a fucking e.e. cummings poem."
There’s silence on the other end of the phone, and he looks up, his attention narrowing, “TK?”
TK gives a hitched breath that sounds closer to a sob. “How did you do it?”
“Do what? TK where are you?”
He hears TK’s muttered, “shit, shit,” and then his voice comes back stronger, “I’m at the ER, Carlos got hurt.”
“What happened?” There’s no response, “TK, where’s Owen?”
TK takes a shaky breath, “He’s getting coffee. We were at a car accident scene, and one of the guys was drunk and he went after Carlos. We didn’t know he had a knife. He nicked an artery; we couldn’t get it to stop bleeding.” His voice breaks, “There was so much blood.”
“Breathe,” he orders. His phone dings with a text message. It’s from Owen.
/ Carlos got hurt. He lost a lot of blood. Call TK if you can, please. /
It’s the please that gets him. His relationship with Owen has always been one of necessity - they both loved Gwen; they both love TK. But, Owen only asks for help with TK when he’s afraid.
“TK, I need you to breathe for me. I need you to tell me you can do that.”
He hears TK take a shaky breath, “I’m here.”
“Where is Carlos now?”
“They took him up for surgery. I called his parents. I just, I need you to tell me how you did it.”
“Did what?” Enzo asks, honestly baffled.
“Every time I was in the hospital and you came to get me you were so calm, you were so you. I need you to tell me how to do that, because I feel like I’m losing it, and I need to be better than that. I need to be normal for him when he wakes up.” He can hear the way TK hesitates over the word when, and chose it deliberately instead of if.
“30 seconds,” he says, trying to keep his voice calm, although he can feel his nails cutting into his palm. He texts Owen / I’m talking to him now. How bad is it? /
There’s silence on the other end of the phone, “What does that mean?” And TK sounds a little closer to himself, a fraction less like he’s holding himself together with string and prayer.
/ Don’t know. The doctor hasn’t come back down to update us. They got here fast, and he’s young, but he lost a lot of blood. How’s TK? /
It is surreal to have Owen asking him that, when Owen’s the one standing in the same hospital as TK.
“When I would get a call from the ER,” he tells TK, “I would give myself 30 seconds to panic before I walked into your room. 30 seconds to imagine every worst case. 30 seconds to think, I don’t know how to handle this. 30 seconds to think, he doesn’t want me here. 30 seconds that were all my own to be selfish and scared.”
“And then?” TK voice is barely a whisper.
He wishes he could reach out to give TK something to hold on to. “And then I opened the door, and I tried to be what you needed, because I wasn’t the important one in the room, you were.”
There’s a long silence, and then TK says, “30 seconds?”
“30 seconds,” he agrees, “trust me, you can pack a lot of panic into 30 seconds.”
TK’s laugh is wet, but it’s real. “Okay. I think I can do that.” There’s a noise on TK’s end of the phone, “I have to go. Andrea and Gabriel just got here.” There’s a short pause, then, “Thank you.”
He texts Owen / Carlos’s parents just arrived. Keep me updated? /
He stares blindly at his computer screen while he waits for Owen’s response. / I’ll let you know as soon as we hear something from the doctors / there’s a pause and then / TK seems a little calmer. Thank you /
He doesn’t mean to fall asleep, but it’s his week with Charlie, and Charlie hasn’t been sleeping well so neither has he, and he’s exhausted. When he wakes up Charlie is cheerfully babbling in his ear over the baby monitor, and there’s a string of texts on his phone.
Owen / Carlos is out of surgery. Everything looks good /
TK / They just brought Carlos down from surgery. Now we wait. /
TK / Can I have 30 seconds for every time I walk into the room? /
Owen / Carlos woke up. Only for about a minute, but that’s expected. I think we can all relax a little /
TK / He woke up. We managed to talk his parents into going home, but Dad’s staying with me /
TK / You’re wrong, you know. I always wanted you there. /
( 1) Age 36 / Age 69
TK pokes his head around the corner of the curtain, “There you are.”
The nurse taking Enzo’s temperature looks up surprised, “TK? I thought you were off this week?”
“Hey, Katie. I am, but,” he gestures at Enzo and Charlie, “these belong to me.”
She frowns, and then looks at Charlie more closely, “Oh! Is this Charlie?” She smacks TK’s arm, “Have you been withholding pictures from us? Not nice.”
“Ow.” But TK’s smiling, and he says to Charlie, “Charlie, this is Nurse Packard. Katie, this is Charlie.”
She grins at Charlie, “Your brother talks about you all the time. I can’t believe I didn’t recognize you.”
Charlie looks less taken aback by this than Enzo is. He raises his eyebrows at TK, and TK rolls his eyes, “Katie, can you reassure my stepfather that you know me professionally, not personally.”
She looks confused for a minute, and then laughs, “Oh yeah, TK’s everyone’s favorite paramedic.” TK preens, and then deflates when she adds, “Because he always brings in leftovers when his husband stress bakes.”
But then he grins, “Yeah, that’s fair.” He looks at Enzo, “So, what happened here?
“Dad fell off the porch,” Charlie says matter-of-factly.
Enzo narrows his eyes at Charlie, “Traitor. I thought we agreed we would come up with a better story than that.”
Katie looks amused, “I have no comment on what happened, but it’s just a sprained ankle. Keep off of it as much as you can, ice, the usual. You can take him home as soon as I finish the paperwork.”
TK perches on the edge of the bed after she leaves, “I thought you were going to the zoo today, what happened?”
Enzo sighs, “Charlie’s right, I wasn’t paying attention and I fell down the porch steps.” He looks at Charlie, “I’m sorry I ruined the first day of our vacation.”
Charlie shrugs philosophically, because he is the most laid back child Enzo has ever met, although his standard for comparison is mostly TK, so possibly that’s not fair to Charlie or children in general.
“Maybe Carlos and I can take you tomorrow.” Charlie brightens. TK glances at the clock on the wall, “And, in the meantime, I think we have just enough time before Carlos gets home for the most important part of a visit to the ER.” Charlie looks baffled, “Ice cream sundaes, obviously.” TK turns to Enzo, “What have you been teaching my brother?”
“Charlie, so far, has never been to the ER.” Enzo says dryly. “I’m enjoying the novelty.”
---------------
“Stepfather?” He asks quietly as they walk slowly out to the car. “That’s new.”
TK gives him a sidelong look, “Not really. By my count it’s been about 24 years. Plus,” he adds with a dangerous grin, “it’s shorter than my mom’s ex-boyfriend slash baby daddy.” Enzo makes a horrified face at him, and TK laughs. He keeps his eye on Charlie, who’s skipping ahead of them, and says more seriously. “Carlos and I, we’re on the list for adoption.”
Enzo nods, because even before TK had told him, Gwen had called to ask if he knew anyone working in adoption law in Texas.
“It’s been making me think, about what kind of dad I want to be, about the things that were important to me when I was growing up, and I realized I don’t think I ever said thank you.
He looks at TK blankly, “For what?”
TK gives him a lopsided smile, “You didn’t have to, but you showed up every single time I called. You showed up when I was bitchy about it, and you showed up when I was a mess, and you showed up even when I didn’t call. I never had to wonder if you’d be there. I want my kid to be that sure that I’ll always show up if they call.”
It makes him stop, pulling on TK’s arm to get him to turn, “TK,” he starts and has no idea how to finish that sentence. “That’s not something you need to thank me for. You’re my kid, of course I showed up.”
TK gives him a quick glance before turning back to keeping an eye on Charlie, “You say that like it’s obvious, but you didn’t have to. It’s something you chose. And, I’m grateful, because I don’t know who I’d be without it.”
He has to clear his throat before he’s sure he’ll be able to speak, “Loving you wasn’t any more of a choice than loving Charlie.”
TK loops an arm around him in a quick hug, “I know, I’ve always known that, even if I didn’t act like it.” He gives Enzo a diffident look, “It’s why you’re the kind of dad I want to try and be.”
Enzo stops dead, stunned, and tugs on TK’s arm to get him to stop so that he can pull him into a real hug. He hears Charlie running back towards them, and squeezing between them, because he is a kid who firmly believes that all hugs should be group hugs. At eight Charlie’s really getting too big to be picked up, but TK swings him up so they can all be on equal footing, and if you’d asked him all those years ago when he was working up the courage to ask Gwen out, and trying to find a common ground with her resentful son, if this is where he thought he’d end up he’d have laughed. He hugs both of them to him tighter until Charlie asks, “Are we still getting ice cream?”
TK laughs and disentangles them so he can set Charlie down, “Yup. ER visits end in ice cream, that’s the rule.”
He hears Charlie ask, “Why?”
And TK’s response, “Your dad started it, so you’ll have to ask him - but after we order, because I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I can wait much longer for hot fudge.”
They both glance back at him, and he pushes himself into motion again, “I see what’s happening here, being ganged up on by my sons.”
TK and Charlie don’t look much alike, but their grins are identical when they look at each other, and nod in unison.