Work Text:
I. KINDERGARTEN
“Art, buddy, I’m lovin’ the look, but I think we should probably make these match.”
Arthur frowns. His big blue eyes drop to his feet. There’s a sneaker on one foot and a cowboy boot on the other. Alex watches him mull it over. His son is many things: sweet, smart, curious, introspective. He’s also predicable as hell. Alex feels himself mouthing the word when Arthur looks up at him again and asks, “Why?”
“Well, for one thing, I don’t think they’ve got any horses at school.”
Arthur’s frown deepens. “Why?”
“They don’t fit in the building.”
“Why?”
Alex lets head drop against his chest. He’s smart enough to know that this is a losing battle. His thighs are also starting to burn from all of the crouching. “That’s one of the world’s big questions, my man. Come on. Let’s get your other sneaker.”
He stands and ignores the way that it makes his knees crack. Christ. He was really hoping that he could make it to forty before he started feeling like a crypt keeper. Everything was on track until he met Henry at thirty-two and they decided to speed run white-picket domesticity together. Not that he regrets a single second of it, of course, but shit. No wonder his dad went grey so young.
As if summoned, Henry appears from around the corner, dressed in one of his boring navy suits and so much anxiety that Alex is surprised that he can’t see a raincloud forming around his head.
“Maybe I should call in,” Henry says in lieu of a greeting. He fiddles nervously with his wedding band. “Shaan would understand.”
“Baby. It’s kindergarten, not a launch to the moon.” He steers Arthur towards the shoe rack in the foyer before the little boy has a chance to make his escape back upstairs. “We’ll be fine.”
Henry frowns. It’s a funny sort of deja vu. Alex plants a kiss on his cheek and pats his ugly tie.
“We already did this,” Alex tells him, which is true. They spent all evening the night before negotiating Arthur’s first day of school. That’s a generous way of putting it, of course: Alex is way better at debate, and Henry makes at least three times his annual salary, and he’s due for what Alex can only imagine is a mind-numbingly dry presentation for a quarterly business whatever at nine, so, obviously, Alex is on drop-off duty.
“Sneakers, bud,” he adds when he spots Arthur eyeing a pair of yellow galoshes.
He hears Henry sigh. “I’m sorry,” his husband mumbles at the same time that Arthur echoes yet another “Why?”
“Don’t be sorry. Don’t take that off,” he says in quick succession, giving both of them the same hairy stare. Henry’s shoulders sag. Arthur glares and tugs his laces loose. “All of this is non-negotiable.”
“You’ll call me if anything happens?” Henry asks sullenly.
“Nothing is gonna happen.” Alex drops to a crouch again and holds out one hand in Arthur’s direction. “Gimme that boot.”
“No.”
Alex shuts his eyes. Henry stifles a laugh. Alex shouldn’t grin. He peeks open one eye and watches while Henry looks down at the both of them with so much affection that he can feel it all the way in his toes.
“I love you,” Henry says.
“Yeah, yeah, you old sap. I love you too.”
- - -
Milton-Saylor Academy is the sort of place that a younger Alex would have absolutely eviscerated. It’s located in an old, distinguished building in the middle of Manhattan, secured away from the rest of the world by a genuine wrought-iron fence, as if the multi-year waiting list isn’t sufficiently convincing in its dismissal of The Common People.
It’s nothing like the public schools of Alex’s childhood. And sure, those schools had their own problems, from a lack of funding to a questionable attachment to a certain sort of American history that left a lot to be desired, but he turned out alright. He fought his way into the Yale law program, for chrissakes, no silver spoon required.
And he doesn’t love that the Academy requires a uniform for grades one through ten; nor is he super crazy about the student body’s demographic breakdown; and it took every ounce of his own self control to grit his teeth through the admissions interviews, when the Headmaster (the Headmaster) kept on calling their son Arthur Fox without the Diaz at the end.
But he’s also not stupid. This is how the world works. He was Alex Claremont for years, even to members of his own family who always resented his mom’s first marriage, and there were more than a few people during his brief stint in law that relished in referring to him as Alex Diaz as if it meant something.
He also knows that the fact that Arthur has two fathers isn’t necessarily going to make his life any easier. So Alex swallows his pride and dedicates himself single-mindedly to demolishing every barrier he can that stands between Arthur and whatever he wants to one day become. The obvious first step is an education, which means that Arthur is going to get the best goddamned education in the eastern seaboard.
“Ready, buddy?” he asks when they arrive at the front gates.
Arthur shrugs. The kid is a bit of an enigma. He’s got all of Henry’s sensitivity paired with Alex’s brass-ball courage. This is another reason why it was the right decision for Alex to take on First Day duty. He was never really concerned that Arthur would get cold feet, but Henry is another story. There are a few teary-eyed moms lingering around the school’s front yard who seem to share the same affliction.
Alex shoots one of them a commiserating smile while he shepherds Arthur to the front door. She gives him a funny look in return. He knows immediately that it has nothing to do with Arthur’s cowboy boots, even if they don’t pair so perfectly with his little green polo and his khaki shorts.
Well, shit.
Here’s probably the bigger problem.
Not that he thinks it’s a problem. He knows what bad marriages look like, which is why, beyond all doubt, he knows that he’s got a good one. He and Henry are great parents. Arthur has excelled beyond all of his milestones by a solid precocious year. They make good money and live well. By all objective metrics they are nailing this shit, and Henry has always looked the part, with his designer suits and perfect hair, but Alex never has, because Henry is a blue-blooded corporate executive with a fancy accent and Alex is a half-Mexican tattoo artist who wears his professional expertise quite literally on his sleeves.
He’s not going to feel sorry about it. He likes how he looks. Henry has certainly never lodged any complaints about the ink or the occasional titanium stud. And maybe the craziest part about all of this is that, biologically speaking, Arthur is Alex’s son. Turns out that all of the Claremont sought its revenge after both Alex and June came out dark-eyed and dark-haired. Arthur has Ellen’s sandy blond hair and her blue eyes, too, but as it so happens the average person isn’t so interested in Punnett squares when they spot Alex and Henry and their son out together, two thirds of the trio virtual twins while the remainder is decidedly not.
And look, it’s not like Alex is trying to make a point. He dressed himself conservatively that morning in a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. He’s not going to wear a tie or anything, especially not with most of the other parents decked out in overpriced athleisureware, but it’s not like he rolled up to the Academy in leather pants and nothing else.
“And who do we have here?” a voice interrupts. Alex looks up from the snoozing Snoopy on Arthur’s backpack to realize that they’ve arrived at some sort of check-in desk. A woman dressed in a neat navy cardigan looks at him expectantly. He smiles and keeps it there when her eyes dip, fittingly enough, to his bare throat, where he’s got Arthur written across his jugular in loopy calligraphy.
“Arthur Fox-Diaz,” he says, tousling his son’s hair. “Ms. Johnson’s class.”
“Ah,” the woman answers knowingly. She sidles around the desk to approach Arthur, bending forward to meet his eye-line. It melts some of the ice that’s formed in Alex’s chest. “Kindergarten! You’re lucky, Arthur. Ms. Johnson is one of my favorites. Are you looking forward to your first day?”
Arthur raises a shoulder. “I guess.”
Alex swallows back a snort. “He can be tough to impress.”
“Well, we’ll try our best to meet his expectations,” the woman replies with a smile. She stands and nods at the desk. “If you could please fill this out? To confirm emergency contact information, pick-up details, et cetera. After that I’ll show you both to Ms. Johnson’s room.”
“Sure. Hold on, bud,” Alex says, snagging Arthur by the strap of his backpack before he wanders off. “We gotta take a look at this first.”
“‘Kay.”
“Here,” the woman assists, sliding a clipboard towards him with a tidy grid pinned on the top. Alex quickly scans the headers: Parent/Guardian Name (Afternoon Pick-Up), Child Name, Home Phone, Office Phone. There’s a long list of Elizabeths and Rebeccas and Rachels with a few Kayleighs and even a Myrtle making an appearance. He adds Alex Fox-Claremont-Diaz to the end of the list, the pen scraping with each hyphen. They’d decided to spare Arthur the full surname. Alex, on the other hand, savors the opportunity to take up all of the space.
“Is that mom?” the woman woman asks while he finishes off his contact information. Alex summons all of his patience and reminds himself that his name is technically gender neutral.
“That’s me,” he replies.
The woman blanches. The schadenfreude is honestly a little satisfying.
“Dad,” he adds, to really put a point on it.
“Right. Yes. Of course.” She clears her throat and gives the clipboard another look-over, as if he’s written some sort of world-breaking equation in between his cell phone number and the extension for Henry’s desk phone. “Well. Shall we head over to Ms. Johnson’s room, then?”
Alex shoots her another winning smile. “Sure. Lead the way.”
- - -
“Look, man, you’re the one who put the kid into prep school,” Liam drawls. He pivots on his stool and dips the needle of his tattoo machine into a thimble of black ink. “I don’t know what you were expecting.”
“What school?” Cassie asks. She’s one of Liam’s regulars. Both of her arms are covered in his textbook-perfect American traditional pieces. Today he’s adding a schooner to her left thigh. She sits like a stone while Liam pulls another line, her attention fixed on Alex while he pouts on the nearby couch.
Alex has come to know Cassie well enough since he rented a seat in his studio to Liam, himself an old high school buddy who was more or less responsible for luring Alex into the business after Alex’s spectacular post-grad burnout. Alex closed his books shortly after Arthur was born, sticking to a curated list of his own devoted clients so that he could make his segue into a part-time house-husband. It made sense to let Liam fill in the quiet afternoons that once packed Alex’s studio hours. He likes how full-circle it is, too; Liam is probably the best friend that he’s got, other than Nora, and he’s responsible for some of Alex’s oldest and ugliest stick-and-poke tattoos— and some of the bisexuality, too, for that matter.
“Milton-Saylor,” Alex replies. Cassie whistles.
“Shit. You must charge a lot more than he does,” she says, nodding at Liam. Liam laughs.
“Nah. His husband is loaded.”
“Oh,” Cassie replies with an earnest admiration. “Good for you.”
Alex shrugs. Liam isn’t wrong. It’s not why he married Henry, of course, but it’s still a certifiable fact.
“Did Artie do okay?” Liam asks. Alex doesn’t bother to hide the way that his chest puffs with pride.
“He was so ready for me to leave,” he says, laughing, taking to his feet again to wander towards Liam and brandish his phone. A picture of Alex and Arthur is pulled up on the screen, taken by Ms. Johnson (who, incidentally, Alex liked, primarily because she didn’t bat an eye at his knuckle tattoos or the fact that he wasn’t of the fairer sex) in front of a cork board covered in rainbow-colored action verbs. Arthur is demonstrating one of his usual dreamy smiles. Alex admittedly looks a bit weepy.
“I barely bribed him into telling me goodbye.”
“Geeze, what a heartbreaker,” Liam says with a grin. “I like the boots.” Alex tips the phone back to admire his ridiculous son. “What about Henry?”
“He’s a total mess.”
“Of course he is.” Liam hunches over for a second before he leans back, wiping away ink with a discerning eye. “Poor guy.”
“Hey. I’m the one who has to walk the WASP Gauntlet twice a day for the next ten years of my life.”
“Literally a prison of your own making, dude.”
“I heard that they serve duck confit for lunch,” Cassie interjects. “Is that true?”
“For what we’re paying them, they fuckin’ better.” Alex wanders along the wall, gaze dragging across the familiar flash and framed awards. “I dunno. It’s no Austin High, man.”
“You’re the only one who liked that school,” Liam replies matter-of-factly. “Not all of us were prom king.”
Cassie snorts. “No way. Prom king?”
“And homecoming. The guy was a total jock.”
“So were you!”
“I was the gay kid on the lacrosse team. Not the same thing.”
“I’m married to a man, Liam.”
“Yeah, and when you were seventeen you were convinced that I jerked you off as proof of our platonic friendship.”
“Wow.”
“Okay, Cassie, enough out of you,” Alex drawls. She laughs hard enough that Liam has to stop and tut at her to keep still. “All I’m saying is that if one of the teachers calls me a nanny or something I am going to lose my shit.”
Liam hums and glances over his shoulder at him. Alex frowns. He knows that look. Nora uses it a lot on him, too. It never fails to get under his skin. “What?”
“Listen,” Liam replies lightly. “Consider this advice from a former outcast. Sometimes the more you blend in, the better everything goes for you. Artie is gonna do fine at that school as long as you don’t go on some vendetta in the meantime.”
Alex narrows his eyes. “I don’t go on vendettas.”
“You staged a sit-in at SeaWorld when you were fourteen.”
“I’m not gonna go on a vendetta.”
“Uhuh.”
Alex throws himself back onto the couch. He stares into the ceiling, willing away the crease between his eyebrows before it’s liable to leave a permanent mark.
“I’m gonna charm the shit out of them,” he decides finally. He hears Liam make a disbelieving sound.
“Good luck.”
“I’ve got great luck,” Alex shoots back. Liam can’t deny that one.
“You’re crazy,” he concedes.
Yup. Probably that, too.
- - -
There’s a guard stationed at the front gate. Conceptually, Alex doesn’t like that this is necessary; practically, he appreciates the security. Currently, it’s turning into a bit of an unexpected problem.
“Can I help you?” the man asks him curtly. A few moms are milling around the fence line, chatting while they wait for the clock to chime three o’clock. They have not, Alex notes, attracted the guard’s attention.
“No, thanks, I’m good.”
The guard hooks a thumb into his belt. He looks pointedly to the street. Alex gives him a pearly-white smile and turns back to his phone.
Hot Henry ClubV
I’ll be finished with the call by 3:15pm at the latest.
He smirks at the screen and replies:
babe u dont need to clarify
im not gonna go to ur office @ 3 in the morning
“Sir.”
Hot Henry ClubV
Please text me when you’re in the lobby.
“Sir. This is private property.”
Great. Awesome. Alex pockets his phone and plasters on another one of his mother’s winning politician smiles.
“It sure is.”
“If you don’t have any business here, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“This is my son’s school,” Alex replies evenly. He gestures over at the growing crowd of parents in the event that this is the guard’s first day, and he has perhaps teleported here from another planet, and does not yet understand the concept of picking up a child after class. One of the moms catches his eye. She frowns and tightens her grip on what he’s relatively certain is a bonafide Birkin.
Fuckin’ spectacular. Really stellar.
The bell— in its own bell tower, because of course the Academy has a bell tower —begins to toll. Alex hears the growing roar of gleeful children from inside.
“Look, man. What are we doin’ here? You want to see my banking statement?”
The man frowns. He doesn’t look convinced. Whatever. Alex is great at staring contests. He’s incurred a lot more willful bodily harm than this.
“Apá!”
That complicates the whole standoff. He instantly turns at the sound of Arthur’s voice, falling into a reflexive grin when he spots him standing in a neat line behind Ms. Johnson in the yard. Arthur is waving one hand at him vigorously. He’s gripping onto the hand of another boy— a skinny, freckled, red-headed kid —with the other one.
“Hey, kiddo!”
Alex offers the guard a final smile (try me, blowhard he sincerely hopes he conveys) before he slowly turns his way towards the yard. Some of the moms give him a wide berth, but he otherwise makes it to Arthur’s class without any further resistance.
“Mr. Fox-Diaz,” Ms. Johnson greets him, which isn’t exactly accurate, but he’s not going to correct her on it. Points for effort. “So good to see you again.”
“You too. How’d it go?”
“I’m certain that you’ll be unsurprised to hear that Arthur here had a wonderful first day. He was exceedingly well behaved and made fast friends with everyone.”
“Aw, that’s great. You have fun, Artie?”
Arthur wanders a little closer, still dragging the red-headed boy in tow. “Uhuh.”
“Yes, you had fun?” Alex prods.
“Yes, I had fun,” Arthur answers with a huff. He swings his arm, shaking the poor boy up to his shoulder. “This is August. We sit next to each other because we’re both As.”
“Hi, August,” Alex replies. August stares up at him with wide, green eyes. “It’s nice to meet you.”
August quickly looks to his feet and uproots a clump of grass with his toe.
“August was a bit unsure of everything this morning, but Arthur did a very good job of making him feel welcome,” Ms. Johnson offers gently. She shoots Alex a thankful smile when the two boys are too distracted to notice.
“He’s a natural diplomat,” Alex tells her. She laughs and nods, evidently already knowing this to be true. “I’ll just go sign him out?”
“Yes, if you wouldn’t mind,” she replies, nodding at a woman stood at the steps leading up into the school armed with a yellow clipboard. “Safety protocol, you know.”
“Sure. Escúchame papito,” he says, the two words blurring together from how frequently he says them, “I’m gonna go sign you out and then we’ll head out, okay?”
Arthur shrugs. He’s already fully invested in teaching August how to tie a blade of grass into a circle. August watches with quiet reverence. Alex might be biased, but it’s pretty freaking cute.
Alex trots over to the woman at the door and does as he was told, fishing out his license when directed and otherwise signing off the end of Arthur’s first day without any fanfare.
“Okay, bud, you ready to go?” he asks when he makes his way back to the thinning herd of Ms. Johnson’s kindergarten class. Arthur scowls at him.
“August’s mom isn’t here yet,” he says, as definitive as a court judgment.
“Oh,” Alex replies. He smooths out his surprise and crouches when he notices August’s lower lip begin to wobble. “Right. You want to hang out a bit?”
“Yes,” Arthur answers, which honestly sounds a lot more like duh. Alex fights a grin.
“Cool. Okay.” He leans backwards to sit cross-legged in the grass. “Why don’t you guys tell me about your day. What did y’all get up to?”
“We talked about the rules, and we got our seats, and we looked at the bathrooms,” Arthur informs, each task explained with the same gravity. Alex nods along.
“Nice bathrooms?” he can’t help but ask. Arthur, predictably, shrugs.
“Ours are nicer.”
Alex snorts. “Don’t be an elitist, buddy.”
“What does that mean?” August suddenly pipes up. His voice is barely a whisper.
“Uh,” Alex starts. Arthur interjects, “Someone who thinks they’re better than everybody else.”
“Thanks, Artie. That’s correct. Let’s also not call anybody that, okay? It’s not very nice.”
Arthur wrinkles his nose. “You said it.”
Shit.
“And you say it to Daddy all the time.”
“Well, context matters, buddy.”
“What does ‘context’ mean?” August asks. Jesus Christ. At least he’s inquisitive.
Arthur rubs his nose along the length of his arm— which is gross, and also reminds Alex that he needs to follow up on getting him into the pediatrician’s office about his seasonal allergies— and then he simpers, “What it means when we say things.”
August frowns. Yeah, it’s probably a bit of a circuitous definition, but Arthur is five and half years old, so Alex wagers that he gets a pass.
“August!”
The little boy’s head whips around. “Mom!”
A woman dressed in a handsome skirt-suit jogs into the yard. She has August’s fiery red hair. Hers is long and curly. Some of it has fallen out of how its was originally styled, frizzed strands sticking to her brow.
“I’m so sorry,” she puffs at Ms. Johnson, hunching over slightly while she catches her breath. “There was a delay on the blue line and—”
“It’s quite alright, Ms. Murphy.”
August’s mother winces. To her it clearly is not.
“I left with plenty of time, I,” she stops with the shake of her head. Alex watches while she composes herself, sucking a deep breath before she turns in her son’s direction. “August, baby, how was it? Did you have a nice first day?”
August shrugs. Alex cups a hand around his mouth so that nobody can see him smirking at his son’s contagious mannerisms. August’s mother glances down at him for a second, her expression softening before she trods over to join their circle. She sets aside a leather messenger bag and carefully sits, navigating the width of her skirt on the way down.
“I’m Erin,” she says with the jut of her hand. Alex knows an olive branch when he sees one. He takes her hand and shakes it, swallowing up her slender fingers in his own black-and-white palm. “August’s mom. Obviously.”
“Alex. That’s Arthur,” he says, nodding at his son.
“Hello, Arthur,” Erin says. “It’s so nice to meet you. Is this your first day, too?”
Arthur nods. “Yes.”
“Lovely. Are you two in the same class?”
Another nod from Arthur. “We’re the As. And Annie. And Allison.”
“Andrew,” August peeps. Arthur looks slightly affronted by his own omission.
“And Andrew,” he repeats seriously.
“I see,” Erin says. “That sounds like a lot of new friends.”
Arthur offers her another ambivalent wiggle of his shoulders. August’s lip trembles again. Alex is starting to catch on to a bit of a trend. Erin seems to sense it, too.
“Well, you boys had a good time together, didn’t you?”
“Yep,” says Arthur. August looks over at him shyly. Some of the tension bleeds away from Erin’s expression.
“That’s really good, Auggie.” She rubs a hand across her son’s back. “Are you ready to go home? Say goodbye to Arthur and his father, okay? You’ll see them again tomorrow.”
August fiddles with the strap of his backpack. “Bye,” he mumbles finally, eyes flashing up for a millisecond in their direction before he’s looking back at his feet again, his mother carefully maneuvering him to stand and then to spot at her side.
“Goodbye!” Arthur replies. It’s got a bit of his father’s RP in it, for some reason, which is objectively hilarious.
Erin catches Alex gaze while he stands. Thank you she mouths. He offers her an easy smile.
“See y’all later,” he says. Then he picks up Arthur’s backpack and slings it over one shoulder, reaching out for Arthur to grab his hand. “Okay, buddy. Let’s go annoy your dad.”
- - -
“I can’t believe the guard gave you trouble,” Henry huffs.
Alex watches him pace from the comfort of their bed. He stretches, quietly enjoying Henry’s soft froufrou bedsheets while he scratches an idle hand across his bare chest.
“I can believe it,” he says with a yawn.
“It’s ridiculous. We should tell someone.”
“Oh, yeah? Is that what we’re doing now, getting someone fired for hurting my feelings?”
Henry shoots him a bemused stare. “What if Arthur was with you and he had the impression that he wasn’t welcome there?”
“Then he’d get a lesson on uniformed douchebags which, honestly Hen, he’s gonna need to learn.”
Henry deflates. “He’s in nursery school.”
“Yeah, well, look. That’s just how it is. Quit it, baby,” he adds with a sigh. “You’re gonna walk a hole into the rug. It was fine! He loved it.”
“There’s no reason to send him to that school if it’s simply going to make him ignorant,” Henry replies.
“He loved it,” Alex repeats. He pats Henry’s side of the bed. “C’mere.”
Henry lingers by the far wall for a minute longer, chewing on his bottom lip hard enough to make Alex wince before he finally admits defeat and slinks to the bed.
“I’m sorry,” he says after he’s wedged himself under Alex’s armpit. He traces one of the roses inked on the underside of Alex’s forearm. “I know that you can look after yourself. I don’t mean to be patronizing, I just… I won’t put him through another bloody Eton, Alex, I won’t.”
“Look, I get it. I can’t believe I’m sayin’ this, but just give it a chance. His teacher is great. He’s already making friends. I mean, shit, we could send him to Hogwarts and I think he’d still turn out fine.” Henry huffs. Alex plants his lips on the crown of his head. “He was literally chaperoning his classmates. He’s incredible. Give him some credit.”
Another deep sigh. Henry presses Alex’s palm to his lips. “He’s gotten it all from you, you know.”
“No way,” Alex replies with a lopsided grin. “I was a huge pain in the ass when I was his age. Plus, you’re the one who keeps on reading him the dictionary to put him to sleep at night.”
Henry sputters with laughter. “What are you on about? I do not.”
“Total Encyclopedia Britannica,” Alex says, which is halfway to a joke that he’s honestly a bit too tired to finish. He cranes his neck forward and nips Henry’s ear. “He’s great. We’re great. Stop worrying.”
“Oh, but without that who am I, really?” Henry offers. Alex bites him a little harder. “All right. Enough. You’re right.”
“Say that again.”
“Absolutely not.”
Alex laughs and heaves Henry sideways, savoring his surprised inhale once he has him on his back beneath him.
“C’mon. We’re really good at this. Let’s see if we can make another one.”
“You’re ridiculous,” he laughs, and then he kisses Alex which, quite frankly, undermines his point. Alex is magnanimous. He doesn’t hold it against him.
- - -
II. FIRST GRADE
“Leia, darling, please,” Henry begs. “Don’t do this.”
Leia regards him dispassionately. She gurgles, and kicks her legs, and then she unceremoniously tips over the bowl of Cheerios, holding his gaze while the cereal bounces and rolls across the kitchen floor.
“Brutal,” Alex says. His husband crouches next to the high chair and rests his head against the little table with a groan.
“She’s done this on purpose,” he mumbles morosely. Alex laughs and pads over to the pair in his socked feet. Leia brightens and babbles, waving her pudgy hands in his direction.
“She can smell your fear, Fox. Hey there princesa. Hello. You’re makin’ a mess over here. Yes you are. You’re breakin’ Daddy’s spirit, huh?” Leia giggles. Henry sighs and sags sideways, weight falling against Alex’s thigh.
“You can do this, baby,” Alex promises. Henry makes another woeful noise. The thud of their son’s footsteps climbing down the stairwell interrupts any further encouragement.
Arthur appears in the kitchen. He recently insisted on a haircut to match Henry’s tapered style. Paired with his grey-and-navy school uniform and a recently acquired pair of glasses, he looks like a miniature accountant. It’s adorable, and probably also inevitable given Henry’s general influence, but also a bit ridiculous.
“Hey papi. You ready for the zoo?”
Arthur climbs into his chair at the kitchen table and wastes no time in digging into the pile of pancakes waiting for him. “Yes,” he says around a mouthful. “I made a list.”
Of course he did.
“Oh yeah?”
Alex gives a final consolatory pat to the side of Henry’s neck before he pulls away and leans over his son, snatching a blueberry from his plate and popping it into his mouth.
“Pa,” Arthur protests. Alex snorts and sticks his finger in Arthur’s ear. The boy attempts to cloak his giggle with a yowl. Leia cackles.
“What’s on this list?” he asks, tossing himself into another chair.
“The exhibits,” Arthur tells him, regarding Alex like he’s an absolute moron. “I don’t want to miss anything.”
“Pretty sure there’s a set tour, bud.”
Arthur frowns. “But I want to see the red panda.”
“You will,” Alex says. It’s not like he’s privy to the agenda, but the Central Park Zoo isn’t very big, and he has no doubt that each member of Arthur’s field trip group will be champing at the bit to see the fluffier residents. Honestly, Alex is kind of excited, too, which is one of the reasons why he volunteered to chaperone. “Unless he’s on vacation.”
“Pandas don’t go on vacation,” Arthur sniffs.
“How do you know that?”
Arthur mulls over the question. Henry orbits the table, returning to Leia with a fresh bowl. She blows a raspberry at him. He blows one back. Alex is struck by the sudden urge to marry the beautiful blond dork a second time.
“Where do they go?” Arthur finally counters.
Alex scrambles to pull together a pun and fails. It’s a black mark on his fatherhood. Terrible. He leans across the table to steal another blueberry.
“West Palm Beach,” he says, which is just absurd enough to make Arthur screw up his nose at him. “Hurry up. We’re gonna be late.”
- - -
As far as field trips go, the Central Park Zoo is low on the list of extravagance as it relates to Milton-Saylor’s usual excursions. It’s close enough to the campus for the kids to walk, which is why Alex and a handful of other parents have been recruited to serve as chaperones. They’re peppered along the group’s neat lines, two assigned to each grade, spanning from Arthur’s year to the lankier kids in grade four.
As is usually the case, Alex finds himself the lone man amongst the Mom Squad. He looks as out of place as he always does against the sea of LuluLemon and diamond tennis bracelets and slicked-back pony tails. He greets them all by name anyway. Spite is one hell of a motivator.
Thankfully the divide hasn’t spread to the kids. Arthur is already launching himself away from Alex’s side when they arrive at the Academy gates. His fellow first graders greet him with whoops and yells. He makes a beeline to August, who’s lingering alone under the shade of an oak tree, and drags the boy into the middle of their social nucleus like its the easiest thing in the world to do.
“Alex!” a familiar voice calls out.
“Hey, Erin,” he greets August’s mother. She trots over to him with the same relieved smile that must all over his own face, too. “I didn’t know you got roped into this.”
“August has been talking about it for weeks,” she says, pausing to rub in a swirl of sunscreen on her pale arm. “Something about a blue pigeon… I don’t know.” She laughs and shakes her head. “They’ve got grizzlies in the middle of New York and my son wants to see pigeons.”
Alex likes August. It’s hard not to. Everybody roots for the underdog. It helps that Erin, an overworked account executive in her late thirties, is genuinely friendly, and is in possession of a particular brand of sarcasm that cuts through all of the usual Academy bullshit like a bowie knife. As a single mother without a divorce to bond over she’s always been on the fringes from the rest of the Moms, too.
“Must be some pigeon,” he replies. Erin snorts. “Uh, you’ve got somethin’,” he adds, pointing at the corner of his mouth. Erin scrubs at her own instinctively and groans when she pulls back her hand.
“Oh, my God. Those bitches,” she simmers, whispering the expletive under her breath. She rubs the back of her hand across her lips. “I was talking to Megan Tucker for fifteen minutes. I swear to God, I could be walking around with a knife sticking in the back of my head and they wouldn’t say a word.”
“Yup.”
“Chocolate croissant,” she explains to him next, rubbing her fingers clean against the side of her denim shorts.
“Wow,” Alex replies in mock-offense, palming his chest with a wince. “And you didn’t bring enough to share?”
“I know. Tyrannical. Oop, here we go.”
They both turn and listen as one of the Academy teachers patiently informs the yard full of antsy children of the rules for the day ahead. It’s a hot day already. Alex no longer has the wherewithal to dress himself like a beekeeper for the benefit of the Mom Squad’s delicate sensibilities. Today he’s in a pair of shorts and a black cotton t-shirt. He slapped a big, knee-sized bandaid over the assless chaps on the pin-up tattooed on his right bicep, however, so it’s not like he’s aiming to scandalize. The poor cowgirl got the same treatment on the other side, her head barely peeking over the bandaid’s pink polka dots.
Megan Tucker and a few of her cronies continue to glare at him from across the yard as if he didn’t even bother to try. He smiles and waves at them. Megan stiffens. She redirects her attention to the first brigade of school children now breaching the Academy gates.
“She is the wo-orst,” he says in sing-song. Erin laughs and nods her head.
“I’ll give you as many croissants as you can eat if you push her into the seal exhibit.”
“Deal.”
- - -
“Okay, bud, close your eyes,” Alex says. He’s clenching the temple of Arthur’s glasses between his teeth. Arthur interprets the muffled instructions well enough. He squints his eyes shut and waits patiently while Alex applies another layer of sunscreen on his face. They’ve only been under the sun for a little under two hours, but his son already looks a shade darker, finally paying a little credence to his second surname, if only under ultraviolet duress.
The filmy sunscreen disappears. Alex keeps tweaking Arthur’s nose until he catches on, and opens an eye, and scowls at him.
“Quiddit!”
Alex laughs and hands his glasses over. “A’right, go on. Terrorize some chickens,” he says, pointing Arthur back in the direction of a peacock currently wandering the botanical garden in which the class has been released. Arthur makes some displeased noise about his father’s improper taxonomy but he trots off all the same, attracting the attention of a trio of boys who follow after him like ducklings.
“You’re a good dad,” Erin observes.
Alex squeezes another blob of sunscreen onto his arm— he’s got twenty grand worth of ink to protect, after all, he’s not about to ignore reapplication instructions — and shrugs off the compliment.
“He’s a good kid.”
“Ergo the first point,” Erin points out. Ergo. He’s got to introduce her to Henry. They’d get on like a house fire. “How’s your little girl doing?”
“Incredible. She said her first word the other day.”
Erin brightens. “Oh my gosh, really? That’s amazing. What was it?”
“Bollocks,” he informs her with immense pride. Her face falls. She breaks into laughter.
“You’re serious?”
“Dead serious,” he says, grinning. “Henry has been working from home since his parental leave ran out. Best idea he’s ever had. It’s like the gift that keeps on giving.”
“Oh, my God, I love that.” Erin shakes her head with pleased disbelief. “I don’t think I’ve ever asked you — how long have you two been married?”
“Eight years,” Alex says, running a quick count in his head to be sure. “Nine in December.”
“That’s really great,” Erin says, voice simple in a way that proves that she means it. “Did you meet here in the city?”
He nods. “Yeah,” he says, and then he adds, because he’s always been guilty of a little oversharing, and because Erin has been known to motion at the memory of a wild set of years in her twenties as well, “The official story is that we met at a coffee shop, but it was actually leather night at this grimy club over in the Village.”
“Oh,” Erin laughs, mouth open around a smirk.
“Yeah. Poor guy. He was so in over his head.”
“That’s perfect,” Erin decides. Alex smiles. As it so happens, he agrees with her.
“What are they doing?” she suddenly asks, breaking from the topic at hand to point at a group of the boys. Arthur is at the lead, gesturing at them to spread out into a line. Alex and Erin both watch transfixed as the boys slowly herd a giant blue bird out from the bushes towards a set of benches where August is waiting for them, still as a marble statue.
He and the bird stare each other down. The boys creep a little closer. The bird ruffles its feathers. It hops a few feet forward. August gingerly sinks into a crouch. He holds out a hand. The bird squawks. It bobs its head. August waits. Finally the bird scrapes closer and pecks at his extended palm to nibble a handful of pellets. They can hear August’s thrilled giggles from across the garden.
“Huh,” Alex manages. “Blue pigeon.”
III. FIFTH GRADE
There are three unrelated ten year old boys in the brownstone and they are all, for some reason, obsessed with Henry.
Alex can’t really blame them. It would be a bit of a pot-and-kettle thing to do. And he also understands, conceptually, that to the boys (August, Malik, and Colin) Alex himself is old news. He still drops the kids off to school most mornings and is the one to pick Arthur up after soccer practice. At this point he’s played chaperone to a few school events and has been practicing his baking skills for over a year in anticipation of a potential bake sale and any associated opportunities to really rub it in the Mom Squad’s faces. He might be covered in more tattoos than a Hell’s Angel initiate, but he’s essentially a part of the scenery, now.
Henry, on the other hand, is a giant posh novelty dressed in a sweater vest and swoopy movie-star hair. He’s crafted himself a long weekend to properly celebrate Arthur’s tenth birthday and therefore has no way to excuse himself from some sort of fighting game marathon on their son’s Playstation. The boys have trapped him in the middle of the couch in the living room, watching raptly while Malik pummels his character against a variety of zany backdrops, two boxes of pizza half-demolished and forgotten.
“Oh, bugger—” Henry yelps, raising the controller in the air as if it’s simply a question of physics instead of dexterity that’s led to his mortifying 0-6 kill streak. Colin is hunched over in laughter, absolutely thrilled by every low-level expletive that they’ve managed to coax out of Alex’s husband.
“Dad— no— the square button—” Arthur attempts helplessly.
“They’re all bloody circles!”
Colin is howling. Leia— who has been in full limpet mode for the past few weeks —clutches tighter onto Alex’s leg.
“Boys are loud,” she pouts. Alex rubs her shoulders.
“I know, baby girl. C’mon, let’s go eat their ice cream.”
“Okay.”
He hunches forward to scoop her up and balances her on his shoulders, careful to navigate the hallway and a particularly low-hanging chandelier on the way into the kitchen. Both Arthur and Leia have grown into quiet, introspective children, but where Arthur’s belies confidence, Leia’s has already begun to fray into a more earnest anxiety. It was impossible not to be reminded of August when he dropped her off to her own first day of kindergarten— but unlike August, who still looks a bit out of place in every room, she has no Arthur of her own to navigate the school on her behalf.
It worries Henry. Alex reminds him that Henry was no different when he was a little kid, which unfortunately makes the whole situation worse (I was a complete wreck, Alex!) until Alex promises him that being a little different doesn’t mean that she’s doomed.
“Strawberry or chocolate?” he asks her, depositing her on the kitchen counter while he turns to the freezer.
“Chocolate.”
“Excellent choice.”
Leia bangs her heels against the drawers. “Whip cream,” she adds after a moment of additional consideration.
“Oui, chef.”
He’s just finished off the perfect whipped cream swirl when the doorbell chimes.
“Huh,” he says, and then he snatches up the bowl of ice cream and deposits it in Leia’s lap along with a spoon. “Eat that, princesa. Don’t move.”
He waits until she digs in to trot into the hallway, eyeing the security monitor hung on the wall. There’s a man in a Burberry scarf waiting on the front stoop, his finger already hovering over the doorbell for a second press.
“Is there someone there?” Henry yells from the living room. “Oh, Christ, you’ve got me again,” he yelps afterwards. Malik bellows victoriously.
“Yeah, I’ll get it,” Alex calls back. He nearly heads for the door before he remembers his daughter and a potential sticky mess. She’s already scraping her bowl clean when he finds her again. “Okay. Game face. Let’s go scare him off.”
They travel together into the foyer. Alex unlocks the door and creaks it open on chime number three. Jesus Christ.
“Hi.”
The man stares back at him expectantly, as if Alex is the one on the other side of the door. He’s got an expensive looking coat to match the scarf. A few stray snowflakes are melting on his shoulders.
“Hi,” he replies gruffly. His eyes drop from Alex to Leia. It seems to throw him off a bit. He looks up to Alex again and squares his shoulders. “I’m Michael Tucker.”
“Okay.”
“Michael,” a second voice hisses like an echo. Alex glances over the man’s shoulder to spot a woman stood in the sidewalk. He would recognize that tight ballerina bun anywhere. It always makes his forehead hurt to look at it. Megan Tucker. Mom Squad Mother Superior. “Stop it.”
“Colin’s father,” Michael adds. Alex nods. He can believe it. The man has the boy’s same unlucky pug nose.
“Okay,” Alex repeats. “Is everything okay?”
“Michael.”
“No,” Michael replies. His delivery makes Alex suddenly regret letting Leia tag along. Shit. He glances over his shoulder into the foyer and draws in a deep breath. “I’m here to take him home.”
Megan’s boots clack against the pavement. She hovers at the bottom of the stoop, leaning forward to continue whisper-yelling at her husband.
“You are not.” She looks up at Alex with a face that he’s never seen her wear before. He doesn’t know if he likes the discomforted helplessness better than her usual scowl. “I’m sorry, Alex. Don’t listen to him. We’re leaving.”
“Everything all right?” Henry’s voice suddenly interjects. It’s both a relief and a massive complication. Alex is pretty good at reading people. Michael Tucker might as well be a billboard. He looks like he’s got a good set of lungs on him, too, but like hell Alex is going to just stand around and let him make a scene during his son’s extremely low-key and family-friendly birthday.
“Yep,” Alex chirps brightly. He turns on his heel and nudges Leia in Henry’s direction. “Peachy. Hold on a sec. Be right back.”
Henry frowns. “Alex—”
“All good, baby.” He shoves on a pair of slides from the nearby shoe rack and is out through the door before Henry can stop him. It’s cold outside, but it’s not like Michael’s ratcheting consternation suggests that he’s got the patience for Alex to go fetch a hat and gloves. He crosses his arms over his sweater and paints on his sugariest smile.
“Okay. What’s up, man?”
Michael laughs under his breath and shakes his head. “My son is not going to spend the night here.” He gestures behind Alex. Megan shoots him a withering stare. Alex looks backwards at the facade, just to be sure: yep, still the same multi-million dollar brownstone. Nothing more nefarious than Henry’s holly wreath. The dog-shaped topiary—dressed recently in a red Santa hat —might as well be a call to arms.
“Why’s that?”
“This isn’t up for negotiation,” Michael snarks. “Am I going to have to call someone?”
“Oh, my God, Michael.”
Michael spins on his heel, shoulders raising to the bottoms of his ears. “Quiet,” he snaps at Megan. “You could have handled this from the start, and you haven’t, so now I’ve got to get involved.”
Alex grits his jaw. This is a losing battle. He’s not stupid enough to think that he can solve two thousand years of bigotry with one big crappy marriage scooped on top. “Great,” he relents. “Fine. What do you want to tell them?”
“What?”
Alex gestures backwards at the door. “Dead grandma? Lost your dog?”
“I— What? No.” Michael turns a little redder. “Just tell him to come out here. Now.”
“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” Megan gasps. Alex feels a wiggle of pity sprout in the middle of his chest.
“Believe it,” Michael snarls.
Awesome. His neighbors will love this. Alex leaves them to it and turns to crack open the door. Henry hovers right where he left him, a worried look creasing his brow. It darkens when he catches Alex’s eye.
“Can you tell Colin that his parents are here to pick him up?”
Henry’s expression slackens slightly. Alex watches the muscle in his jaw tighten.
“Just… Say it was an emergency,” Alex quickly adds. Henry’s righteous indignation is going to do jack-shit to improve the situation. Alex is not going to add Dads got into a fistfight with a Republican dickwad to Arthur’s birthday memories.
“Right,” Henry replies stiffly. “Just a moment, then.”
“Thanks.”
Henry gives him a final long look before he turns and stalks down the hall. Alex glances back at the snowy stoop.
“Uh,” he says, because even he has a limit on this bullshit, and this is certainly testing it, “do you want to come in and wait?”
Evidently the risk of contracting homosexuality from their foyer is not as great as the eminent threat of frostbite. Michael huffs and finally nods before trudging forward up the remaining stair. He has the decency to scuff his shoes against the doormat, at least. Megan slinks behind him and doesn’t meet Alex’s eye.
Alex finds some satisfaction in the notion that their home is expensive as shit. He had some big feelings about it when they first made the move from Henry’s more modest apartment after they got married, but the airy floor plan is exceptional at shutting Michael up now. Alex finds himself discovering a new appreciation for crown moulding while he listens to a murmured conversation in the living room. A few minutes later Colin is scuffing his heels to meet them, a sleeping bag slung over his shoulder. His confused frown makes Alex’s heart ache.
“Colin,” his father greets him sternly. “Come on.”
Megan gives the boy an overdrawn smile and takes him by the shoulder to steer him towards the door.
“Uh,” Colin says in a small voice.
“Tell Mr. Fox-Claremont-Diaz thank you for a nice evening, Colin,” she tells him, which is a bit of a shocker; Alex wasn’t aware that she was familiar with one of his surnames, let alone all three.
“Thank you, Mr. Fox-Claremont-Diaz.”
“You’re welcome, buddy. Thanks for coming. You’re welcome any time you want.”
Michael grunts and swigs open the door. The cold night air seems to suck everything else out of the room. Alex gives the boy a final wave before closing the door after them. He doesn’t bother to look either parent in the eye.
- - -
Arthur finds him a few hours later when Alex is busy helping Leia get ready for bed. He watches to make sure she hasn’t scoffed down her toothpaste before he looks into the mirror to catch his son’s eye.
“Everything okay, bud?” Alex asks. Arthur leans against the open doorframe and fixes him with a stare that feels a lot deeper than ten years old.
“Why did Colin have to leave?”
A handful of excuses tumble through Alex’s head. For some reason it makes him think of his own father: stilted dinners at the lake house, half-truths shared over the phone.
“Because his dad is a dick,” Alex says.
It wouldn’t be Henry’s answer. Henry grew up in a house like this one. He had his own battles to fight, sure, but they never lived on his skin like fluorescent paint.
Arthur frowns. He nods.
“Okay,” he says.
“I’m sorry,” Alex tells him truthfully. Arthur chews on his lip. Another nod. He shuffles forward, socks skidding against the tiles, and throws his arms around Alex in a sideways embrace.
Shit.
Alex blinks as rapidly as he can. He clears his throat and presses his hand against the back of Arthur’s head, hugging him against his chest for a second longer before he releases him.
“Hey. Okay. Gimme a few more minutes and then we’ll head down to pick a movie, yeah?”
“Okay.”
Alex ruffles his hair. “Love you, kiddo.”
“Love you, too,” Arthur replies, maybe still young enough for easy affection; or maybe mature enough to keep it even now that he’s getting a little older.
Alex surreptitiously scrubs at the corner of one eye and turns back to the mirror once Arthur has plodded out into the hall. Leia looks at him through the reflection. She’s got a dreamy, thoughtful look on her face.
“Dick,” she finally tests aloud. Alex bursts into a fit of laughter. These freaking kids.
IV. EIGHTH GRADE
“Run that by me one more time,” Alex says. They both pause to watch one of the boys on the opposing team line up and then miss a goal.
“There you go, Colin!” Megan roars. Colin hunches in the middle of the net. The kid hit an impressive horizontal growth spurt recently. It’s no wonder that their rivals haven’t managed a single shot. “Well done! That’s what I like to see!” She then turns at the waist and says, in an entirely different register, “That harpy is telling everyone in a twenty block radius that you’re sleeping with Erin.”
When they were packing up for the game that morning, Alex had a brief and fleeting impulse to fill their thermoses with something a little stronger than cocoa. He didn’t, of course, because he’s a tax-paying adult who takes daily multivitamins and has developed a genuine interest in crosswords, but shit, if it isn’t a tempting idea now.
“I know,” Megan continues, profoundly affronted on his behalf. “So I told her, ‘Becks, he’s gay’—”
“I’m not gay,” he says before he can stop himself. Megan frowns. She’s come a long way since her spectacularly gnarly divorce, but he’s really not got the spirit in him to explain the nature of queer identity while his ass goes numb on a set of rickety bleachers. “Nevermind. Don’t tell her that.” He scrubs a hand across his face. “This is a monster of your own creation, you know.”
Rebecca is one of Megan’s proteges who has since usurped her position at the head of the Mom Squad now that Megan has been disgraced by her messy separation and a few overdue revelations about her own behavior. Colin remained one of Arthur’s close friends throughout the divorce. A few shared playdates reintroduced her to Henry, who discovered that she has an encyclopedic mastery over art history, and now, somehow, Henry and Megan have a standing monthly lunch date at the Met. She might technically now qualify as one of Henry’s best friends.
Stranger things have happened, Alex supposes, although he can’t come up with any examples now. He takes a swig of hot cocoa.
“I know,” Megan answers morosely. “But I never said anything about you and Erin. I mean, my God, it’s the twenty-first century. Men and women can have friendships without screwing one another. Look at us! No offense.”
Alex snorts. “None taken. Listen, just… Don’t worry about it.”
“Well, I don’t think that it’s right,” Megan huffs. She crosses her arms. “They’re already so nasty to her. As if she doesn’t have enough to juggle, doing everything alone.”
He shoots her a stare which he hopes comprehensively communicates you did the same thing until you found yourself doing it all alone, too. To her credit she appears appropriately chastised.
“Fine,” she sighs. “I won’t get involved. I just thought that you should be aware that it’s going around.”
“Thanks,” he says, although he’s not entirely sure what he’s supposed to do with the information. God. He dealt with less drama when he was in middle school.
Another wave of cheers passes through the bleachers when one of the boys on the Academy team sinks a goal. They both clap, and then Alex waves when Arthur looks up from the field at him. Arthur isn’t the star player by any stretch of the imagination, but he does well enough, and, to no one’s surprise, he thrives in the team atmosphere.
He’s also got a gaggle of eighth grade girls cheering him on from the sidelines, which is objectively both concerning and amusing as hell.
“You’re going to have your hands full,” Megan observes when Arthur trots along the length of the field to a rush of girlish squeals.
“Yep,” Alex groans.
“Were you like that when you were his age?”
“No way,” Alex laughs. “I think I was three feet tall in eighth grade. Very not cool.”
“Poor Colin,” Megan replies more quietly. “Apparently he asked Lily Meyers to the winter formal and she laughed at him.”
Alex winces. “That’s rough. He okay?”
“Well, what he told me is that your son has decided that all of the boys should just go together as a group and not worry about having their own little dates, which has relieved a lot of the pressure, as you can imagine.”
“Really? He didn’t tell me that.”
“That’s what Colin said.”
Alex laughs and shakes his head. “Jesus.”
“He’s a good kid, Alex.”
“Sometimes I think that he’s an alien.”
Megan laughs. “Yeah, yeah. Just take the compliment. You better get ready for the rest of it. That kid will end up President one day. Don’t forget about us little people when it happens.”
“Yeah,” Alex sighs, a little worried by the gravity of the prediction while he watches his son help an opposing team member up from the ground and pat him on the back. “No doubt.”
- - -
Alex is lost in his own misery combing through a new patch of grey hair when Henry finds him in their ensuite bathroom. His husband wanders aimlessly for a moment, removing and then refolding a hand towel from the linen closet while Alex watches him through the mirror. He looks a little shell-shocked. It is profoundly weird.
“You okay, babe?”
“Hm? Yes. Of course,” Henry says with a jolt. He stops fiddling with his assortment of overpriced face lotions and seems to finally take stock of Alex’s presence in the room. “Those look fine, you know.”
“I look like my dad,” Alex corrects him bitterly.
“Your father isn’t an ugly man.”
Alex scoffs. He pulls back a handful of curls with his palm, eyeballing his hairline cautiously. “This has been a pretty long con if you’re gunnin’ for him.”
Henry hums. That’s enough to make Alex turn and face him properly.
“Hen,” he tests more seriously. “What’s up?”
“Oh. Nothing.”
“Uhuh.”
“Rather. Well.” He scratches his jaw. “I’ve just had an interesting conversation with Arthur.”
“Yeah?”
“I believe he’s just come out to me.”
Alex accidentally knocks his hairbrush into the sink. It clatters against the porcelain basin.
“What?”
“As heterosexual,” Henry clarifies slowly. “Apparently he’s given it quite a lot of thought and has come to conclusion that he’s interested in girls. He’s told me that he’ll keep me apprised if the situation changes, but that he’s rather certain that it won’t.”
“Oh, my God,” Alex laughs. A somewhat hysterical smile breaks across Henry’s lips. He shrugs. “What— does he have a girlfriend?”
“No. He’s said that he’s content with prioritizing his studies for now.”
“Oh my God,” Alex repeats helplessly. He drags a hand across his face. “We are so gay. Was he, like, worried about it?”
Henry shakes his head. “I don’t think so. I asked him if he’d told you, and he said that he hadn’t, but that he didn’t mind if I mentioned it to you. Honestly it seemed less revelatory to him than the weather. But you know how he is. He’s such an open book about everything.”
“Jesus.” His heart sinks. He’s gone over the basics of sex and puberty with Arthur a few times, now, but it felt pretty theoretical when it was in Powerpoint deck form. “Shit. Do we need to get him condoms? He’s so young!”
“I don’t know. I think that’s likely a bit premature, but maybe we should. Christ.” He shuffles forward and sags bonelessly into Alex’s embrace. “I don’t think I’m ready for high school, Alex.”
Alex hums. “We could pull him out of school. Put him to work on a farm.”
Henry snorts. “Brilliant idea.” He buries his nose into Alex’s neck. “Do you reckon we can freeze Leia in time?”
“I’ll look into it, baby,” Alex promises.
V. SENIOR YEAR
Alex is in bed half-heartedly scrolling through news headlines when he hears it. It starts with a click that could be explained away by the old hardwood floors. He glances over at Henry when it builds into a creak and then a set of muffled voices. Henry frowns and sets aside his book, his reading glasses sliding down to the tip of his nose. If Alex wasn’t relatively certain that they were being burgled he would kiss the living daylights out of the man.
“Shit,” Alex mutters instead. “You hear that?”
“It could be the neighbors,” Henry starts. He’s whispering, which probably means that he doesn’t believe a world of what he’s just said. They both leap out of the bed when something squeals across what sounds to be the foyer floorboards. Alex yanks on the nearest pair of sweatpants— Henry’s, too long in the leg, shit —and flings open their bedroom door.
“Alex!” Henry hisses after him.
“Sh-shh,” another voice calls out from downstairs. “Oh my God, August, shut up!”
Alex stumbles over his own feet and comes to a stop at the head of the stairs. He presses his hand against his hammering heartbeat, taking a second to catch his breath before he reconfigures his brainwaves from How to Gut a Home Intruder with an Umbrella into Disciplining Drunk Teenagers for Dummies.
“You are so dead,” is what he comes up with. Arthur freezes. August wobbles sideways and collides with the coat rack. The boys both curse and fumble with it until it finally teeters back upright. “What the hell are you doing? You’re supposed to be in your room!”
“Uh, hi, Pa,” Arthur slurs at just the same moment that Henry thunders onto the landing brandishing a particularly thick book. “Da-aad,” their son adds with an intonation that is, honestly, probably earned.
Alex is not going to concede that point. He slaps a hand over the light switch. All four of them wince and groan for a second before Alex remembers that he has to murder his son, and then he gets on with stalking down the stairs.
“How the hell did you leave without me noticing?” he asks, barely managing his whisper. The last thing he needs is for Leia to wake up and learn a thing or two. “Where’d you go?”
“Nowhere!” Arthur insists.
“Nowhere,” Alex echoes incredulously. The boys both look like they’re wearing goddamned lipstick, which is just confusing enough for Alex to look a little closer and realize that it’s actually probably wine, which explains why they smell like a vineyard. Of course his son got wasted off of red fucking wine. “Eyes up here, August,” he adds when he catches the kid gawping at the piercings on his chest because— no, for fucks’ sake, he’s not fucking dealing with that right now.
“Sorry, Mr. Clare—” he hiccups “—munteeaz. Fox.”
Arthur snorts.
“Not helping, malcriado.”
“Please don’t tell my mom,” August blurts. Alex pinches the bridge of his nose and briefly wonders if he can just go back upstairs and leave the two teenaged inebriates to figure everything out themselves.
“I am absolutely telling your mom.” August whimpers. “Both of you. In the kitchen. Now.”
He grabs Arthur by the arm and steers him in the right direction before he collides with the coatrack for a second time.
“Oww. Stop!”
“Ya no chingues, güey.”
“What’s that mean?” August manages in the worst stage-whisper that Alex has ever heard. Arthur giggles.
“Nope!” Alex deposits both boys at the kitchen table and then storms towards the sink, fetching them both glasses of water with what he hopes is clearly violent intent. “Where did you go?”
“Jesus! Malik’s house. It’s not a big deal,” Arthur snaps.
“His parents not home?”
His son takes a suspiciously long drink of water.
“Arthur.”
“No.”
“You idiots clean out their wine cellar?”
Another sip. Alex’s eyes narrow.
“Is that a hickey?”
“Oh, my God! Stop!” Arthur tugs on his collar. “We didn’t do anything! It was like, ten people. And it wasn’t a big deal. Everybody went home at, like, twelve-thirty. It’s not even that late! You and Dad are still awake!”
“What part of this is supposed to be compelling?”
“The part where I’m basically eighteen and I’m going to be in college in less than a year. It’s not like you didn’t do the same thing!”
“I wasn’t in the middle of New York,” Alex points out. Also, he absolutely does not want Arthur doing what he did at seventeen. That goes double for Henry. Triple, actually. He scrubs a hand across his face. “This is not a debate, Art.”
“I’m not debating.”
Somewhere a horrible chimera of Raf and both of Alex’s parents are laughing at him in retribution. Alex lets his shoulders sag.
“Enough,” he sighs. “Both of you. Go to bed. We’ll discuss this tomorrow. Drink that.”
The boys both listen to that one, at least. He scowls at them while they finish off their glasses.
“This isn’t over,” he promises when Arthur stands and makes a wobbly step towards the hallway.
“Okay. Okay,” he mutters. “Fine.”
“And brush your teeth!”
“Fine!”
August stands. He hits the table with his hip. The empty glasses wobble. He curses under his breath.
“Goodnight, Mr. Fox-Claremont-Diaz,” he mumbles, head bowed demurely when he slinks past. Alex sighs.
“Goodnight, August.”
- - -
“You’ve chewed them out properly, then?” Henry asks when Alex finally makes it back into their bedroom.
“I mean, I started,” he grumbles venomously. He leans back against the door and lets his head clunk against the wooden panels, willing away the headache that’s started to take root behind his eyes. “Did Leia wake up?”
“She did,” Henry informs him. “And shared a very creative list of options for appropriate punishment.”
“Great.”
Henry laughs under his breath. “Oh, it didn’t sound too terrible,” he says after a quiet moment. Alex squints at him.
“Not you, too.”
“Some of this has to be expected.”
“He snuck out! Malik lives in Gramercy Park!”
“You’ll remember that I survived London relatively well.”
“Babe. I’m not going to congratulate him for stealing a couple a grand worth of fuckin’ Cabernet and crawling through the city in the middle of the night.”
“That’s not what I’m saying. Here. Just. Sit down, Alex.”
“No way. I’m camping out downstairs.”
Henry snorts and shakes his head. “Love. Get in the bed.”
“…Fine.”
He shuffles into the bed and makes a show of settling himself under the duvet.
“I think it’s very good of you to be concerned,” Henry tells him evenly.
“Uhuh.”
“Even if you are a bit of a mother hen.”
“I am not a mother hen,” Alex mutters.
Henry tuts and pats him reassuringly on the stomach. His hand then strays to his waistband.
“Are these mine?” he asks, amused, pulling at the elastic.
A new noise downstairs distracts Alex from his reply. He and Henry stare at each other. He dares Henry to speak first.
“Well, if they’re attempting it a second time then I suppose there’s no hope for them,” Henry allows.
“I swear to God,” Alex growls. He swings his legs over the side of the bed and stalks back into the hall. The slight creak of a chair and sniffle leads him into the living room. He reaches for the overhead light switch but stops when he registers another sniffle and then, more definitively, a sad little whimper.
“August?” he asks the shadow at the far end of the couch. It lurches and then curses in a suspiciously familiar voice. Alex frowns. He steps further into the room and clicks on one of the lamps. August blinks wearily at him in the dim lamplight, scrubbing his cheeks with his pajama sleeve.
“Sorry,” he mutters. “I— Sorry.”
Oh, hell.
Alex draws in a deep, fortifying breath and then takes a seat on the other end of the couch.
“You okay?”
August nods his head. His lower lip wobbles. He sniffs and rubs his nose against his wrist. “Yeah.”
“You feel sick?”
“Not really.”
Alex raises a brow at him. “Uhuh.”
“No, I— it was just a few glasses of wine, Mr. Fox-Claremont-Diaz. I know we shouldn’t-a snuck out, but we just listen’d to music and, um.” He sniffles. “It wasn’t anything big.”
“Okay,” Alex says, because he’s obviously not going to grill the poor kid under the present circumstances. “Get some sleep, August.”
“I don’t… I think I want to sit here a bit, first, if that’s alright.”
“You and Art fight?”
“What? No, no,” August says, quickly shaking his head. “No, I just—” his voice cracks. “I just think…I don’t know,” he croaks.
Recognition dawns over Alex. Karma is a slow-moving train wreck. It’s got the words THE LIAM THING painted on each boxcar. Fucking hell.
“Oh, August.”
The boy hugs himself across the chest, lips trembling. A dam has broken. Alex watches helplessly.
“I don’t know,” August repeats in a thin, miserable whisper. “I don’t want Mom to worry. She always worries about everything. And it’s stupid. It doesn’t even matter. In a couple of months I’m gonna be in Ithaca, and he—”
August’s mouth snaps shut. It’s not like it matters how that sentence ends. Alex thinks about his son, who has grown into a handsome, easy-going, well-liked young man who is, above all other things, endlessly good. He also thinks about the little blue-and-purple bruise that the genius failed to hide under his shirt collar and knows, somehow without any doubt, that it has nothing to do with August, and also matters a whole hell of a lot to him.
Fuck. Alex should’ve made Henry deal with this round. He is not the right sherpa for this gay Everest.
“August. Look,” he starts, scratching his scalp. “Parents worry about their kids. It’s a law of nature. Nobody can change that. It never goes away. Hell, my mom still calls to make sure I’m eatin’ alright and she’s in her seventies.” August doesn’t laugh, but his face goes a little less pinched, which Alex is willing to accept as a victory. “Which is also why I’m pissed that you two decided to galavant across the city. And I have to tell your mom about it, man—” August hugs himself a little tighter and glances at his toes “—but she’ll get over it. I promise. You can’t repeat this to Art, but y’all having a wine and cheese night is not the end of the world.”
August sniffs. Alex fights the urge to sigh.
“All that said,” he soldiers on. “There is nothing that you could tell your mom about yourself that would make her worry. She loves you like crazy and I assure you that all she wants is for you to be as happy as humanly possible. And she’s gonna wanna know what’s going on in your head so that she can be on your team to figure everything out. Trust me. This is when everybody does this shit.” He gestures broadly at himself and then at August in a way that he hopes isn’t too pointed. “It feels like a total disaster while it happens, but it ain’t.”
August huffs.
“And listens,” Alex adds more gently. “None of us are goin’ anywhere. I have no doubt that you’re gonna have an amazing time upstate with all of that scenic waterfall bullshit, but Henry and I will always be here if you ever, you know… want to talk about anything.”
August’s face crumples. He knocks all of the wind out of Alex when he suddenly lurches forward and tosses his arms around him.
“Thank you, Mr. Fox-Claremont-Diaz,” he sniffles.
Alex gives him a pat on the back and does his best to ignore the snotty spot that’s spreading across his bare shoulder. Christ.
“You’re welcome, August,” he sighs. “You’re alright.”
1: GRADUATION
“I’m never going to do that,” Leia grumbles.
Yeah, right. The kid just skipped a grade to finish out her freshman year. At this rate her GPA will rival her brother’s in no time.
Alex dabs at his eyes and listens to Arthur deliver another familiar line in his perfected valedictorian speech before he turns to his daughter and whispers, “You better start failin’ PE.”
Leia crosses her arms. Ellen tuts and pats her granddaughter’s thigh.
“Listen to your brother, sugar,” she says.
He sounds great. It’s an absolutely surreal experience. Alex might have been in his same position when he was eighteen and starry-eyed, ready to escape from Texas and make his mark on the world— but he was different, too, a little less confident, a little more sharp around the edges. Arthur takes on everything with an easy gait. Alex is proud, and a little devastated, and honestly totally bewildered that he had a role in making the young man behind the podium. Their surrogate must have been a secret Einstein.
Henry is gripping his hand so hard that he might rearrange a few knuckles. Evidently the feeling is universal.
Alex clears his throat and tears his gaze away from Arthur for a second to take stock of the room around them. They’re in the Academy auditorium. It’s got so many gilded frescoes in it that it might as well be the Vatican. That’s something else that’s a little different from the sun-baked football field at Austin High.
A flash of green eyes catches his attention. Erin Murphy waves at him from a few rows away. He waves back with his free hand and then grins when she manages to successfully mime a series of hand gestures to convey, how the hell did your son get so smart? He shrugs. She smiles and shakes her head. There’s a little rainbow enameled pin attached to the collar of her killer Chanel suit. It glitters under the dimmed auditorium lighting. It’s sweet and heartfelt, just like everything else she does, whenever she isn’t busy roasting one of the Rachels.
A honking snort makes him look sideways to watch while Megan No-Longer-Tucker wipes at her nose with a tissue. She locks eyes with him at the apex of his screwed-up scowl. She laughs silently at him, cupping her hand to shield it from the rest of the audience before she shoots him the bird. Afterwards she turns it into a thumbs-up sign.
The rest of the auditorium remains face-forward, listening with an array of charmed smiles while Arthur finishes out his speech. Alex doesn’t think that anyone has ever looked at him that way before. Most of the Mom Squad still regards him with an uneasy disdain. Their numbers have only grown now that he’s got Daughter-Moms to contend with, too, especially since Leia has taken on the habit of tailoring her school uniform with safety pins and studs and all sorts of other sharp things to make her distaste towards authority known.
Whatever. Alex finds it hard to care. His kids are incredible. In two months he’ll be dropping Arthur off at Harvard. Leia will probably rally an anarchist upheaval before she gets to her Junior year. Henry still looks like a fucking movie star. He’s pretty sure he can guilt trip him into retiring soon.
Anyway. Frank Sinatra once said, “The best revenge is massive success.” Maybe the guy was on to something.
Arthur leans forward and finishes off his speech. The room erupts into applause. Alex claps until his hands go numb and can’t help but think that, well, shit, he’s always fuckin’ loved doing things out of spite.