Chapter Nineteen
Nick
I am so regretting having this ridiculous shindig at my location. Elijah has been hella stressed, so much so that I had to remind him that this is a super-huge last-minute favor, and that it’ll be okay if not everything is perfect. I may or may not have followed that up with a quick handie when I felt like he wasn’t getting my point.
Penny wasn’t able to find enough volunteers to help me move the equipment, but we weren’t really surprised by that. With Thane and Elijah’s help, we figured out how to Tetris everything up against one wall, leaving the rest of the space open.
Frankly, I was willing at that point to just throw some of our nicer tarps over the equipment and call it good, but Elijah was having none of that. Instead, he took inspiration for screens from a play he’d seen, and we just got finished stringing several lengths of spray-painted PVC pipe from the ceiling. We are currently festooning them with yards upon yards of a gauzy, semi-opaque fabric, which we will backlight tonight during the party to further obscure the gym equipment and show off the sparkly stuff in the fabric. Or so I’m told.
We also agreed that high heels on the rubber mats would be a really bad idea, so we’ve picked up all of the mats, essentially stripping the whole place down to the concrete. It has been a total pain in the ass, but many hands make light work, and our part is nearly done. If Elijah doesn’t fall off the ladder onto his fucking adorable ass, that is. He has this one pair of super-ripped-up jeans that he only uses for dirty work, and… yeah. They don’t even fit him well, but the way they hang off his hips and stack on the motorcycle boots Jules gave him… unh.
As Elijah finishes the last of the screens, Jules and a group of her friends show up, excited to begin. Jules, who has wanted to be a party planner since she was fifteen, runs a growing catering company, and I’m glad I got to throw a little business her way.
“I don’t know how I got roped into all of this.” I walk over and give my little sister a big hug.
She smiles up at me, and I feel the tension across my eyebrows relax. “It’s cute that you thought you had a chance against Penny.”
Truer words were never spoken.
At that point Penny walks in, and I notice something I hadn’t before. But it’s not the kind of question a guy asks a woman if he wants to keep his balls. She must catch the expression on my face because she laughs, a sound like bells. “Yes, Nick. That is a baby in my belly.”
Even though I’m a little miffed at all of the stress this is causing Elijah, a smile takes over my face, because babies make me happy. I walk up to her and give her a gentle, big hug. “Congratulations! When’s the little one due?”
“End of May.” Her face beams, and I catch Jules looking at her belly with a sense of melancholy. My beautiful, caring trans sister can’t get pregnant, and while her overall sense of dysphoria is low, this one thing has been incredibly hard for her to work through. I give her my best big-brother smile, knowing that, however it happens for her, she’ll be an amazing mother.
“Well then, I’m going to step out of your way and let the magic happen.” I give both Jules and Penny another hug and then head out toward the back.
Elijah is coming out of the locker room with an adorably disgruntled look on his face, so I take a detour and hook a finger into one of his faded, old belt loops. “Pssst. Wanna fool around?”
He sighs and pulls a list from his back pocket, biting the inside of his lower lip. “I can’t. The centerpieces are wilted, every tablecloth is white except for this one random-looking cream table cloth, and we didn’t think about whether or not we wanted buffet or table service. Jules doesn’t have enough people for table service tonight, and we didn’t get enough tables for a buffet. At this point we’re just going to bring in a trebuchet for the damned food and have people hold their plates in the air.”
His beautiful blues are swimming in tears, and I pull the list from his fingers, shoving it into my back pocket. “Baby, enough. I love that you are taking this so seriously, but you need to stop. Look at how beautiful everything is. You did this. You organized an entire gala in an unreasonably short amount of time with not nearly enough help, and Penny and the HVA are over the moon with everything you’ve done. And Jules has been doing this for a long time. We can trust her to figure out how to make it work.”
I pull him into a hug, and he buries his head in my neck, which makes me feel about ten foot tall. “Thank you. Sorry. I just want this to be perfect for the charity. Like, I just want to make sure that the vets know we care, y’know?”
“I do, baby. And they do.” I wait a beat and go for a smile. “Now how about I get you naked and do dirty, dirty things to you?”
He looks around, and seeing that I block him from everyone’s view, slides a finger into his mouth, sucking on it. “M’kay.”
I groan and turn him toward the door.
* * *
Elijah and I are fashionably late to our own party, and Roly’s eyebrows nearly hit his hairline when he sees us both walk in through the back door.
“Do I even need to ask?”
“It’d be better if you didn’t,” I smirk, patting him on the back.
“Sehene owes me five bucks.”
Elijah’s eyes go wide, but I wave it off. “Don’t worry about Roly. He’ll be cool, I promise.”
Elijah and I agreed that this—whatever it is—is best kept private, but I don’t think we’re doing a good job at hiding. Seeing Elijah in the tux that Jules went to prom in makes me want to shout it from the rooftops. Still, tonight is about the HVA, so I rip my attention from his ass and look at the space that used to be my gym.
Wow.
Jules and team have really outdone themselves. The tablecloths are somehow all the same color, they switched out the wilted centerpieces for a simple mix of hothouse wildflowers in mason jars, and the front desk has been transformed into a buffet table. Despite the gray, chilly weather outside, the space I consider my pride and joy looks like springtime. And yeah, I made fun of having a dance floor, but there are already a number of folks on it, having a good time dancing to one of Selena’s classic hits.
