“You’re a doctor?” Andy asked, frowning but following Parker through the door and into a small patient’s room.
“I’mthedoctor,” Parker answered with a grin. “What’s in the bag? Did you come prepared with your own pee sample? Because I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you’ll need to do one here anyway.”
“What? Oh, no. Uhm, Charlie said to give you this.”
Andy held out the bag and Parker snatched it, setting it on his lap and unrolling the crumpled paper. He looked down into the bag with curious eyes that widened, then a big smile split his face and he reached in, pulling out a poppy seed bagel. He held it to his nose and took a deep breath, sighing.
“A man after my own heart,” Parker said, biting into the bagel. He chewed, then began to speak again before he swallowed. “Don’t let Levi know you gave me this. He won’t let you eat them again if he knows.”
“What?”
“I’m not allowed,” Parker whispered, slipping the bagel around one of his prosthetic fingers like a wedding ring. He turned his attention to Andy and crossed his legs at the knee. “What brings you in today, Mr. Motel?”
Andy made an abbreviated sound in his throat, not sure what he was supposed to say. He knew why he’d come to the doctor, but he hadn’t quite made sense of Parker yet, and he had no idea how this man had a medical license, or why Charlie had willingly sent Andy his way.
“I just needed to get tested, you know. Standard stuff,” Andy answered.
“Right. Since this was a bagel and not a urine sample, into the bathroom you go.” Parker tossed him a cup and pointed toward the door. “Bathroom is at the end of the hall.”
Andy took the cup and stood, slinking out of the room and down the hall. He washed his hands, pissed, washed his hands again, and used the sharpie attached to a little string to write his name on the sticker, then he took the cup back to the room and set it on the edge of the sink.
Parker was on the same stool, but the bagel was gone and his cheeks were puffed out like a squirrel hoarding nuts. Andy likened Parker to more of a troublesome raccoon than a squirrel, but he kept that to himself. He didn’t know the man well enough to say anything like that.
He finished up his appointment and wandered out of the office, finding Brad and Charlie at the edge of the farmer’s market, talking with Fitz, the chief of the fire department. He continued to do his best to mold himself into the new, expanded family his brothers had made in his absence, even though he didn’t approve of the decisions they’d made.
Andy was here and his brothers were here, and this was the home he’d wanted, the home he’d chosen. So, much like he’d had to learn French, and tried to learn Greek on the long flight home, he had to learn the language of his family all over again.
He didn’t imagine they would approve of some of the things he’d done either, but he’d forced himself to be harder and colder, because if not that, he would collapse under the weight of the memories he’d locked away. So instead of being weak, he fought. He protected Brad now, because he hadn’t been able to do it before, and he corrected Cameron when Luke was too soft to do it himself.
Then he worried his brothers might not like him as much for this new version of himself, and he wondered if he was still getting it wrong. So he’d tried to find another way, a new way, where he was bold and strong, but soft when he needed to be. And that’s exactly what he was doing two Saturdays before Labor Day as he was busy rutting into his sheets, imagining the tight grip of Leonidas’s ass cheeks and thighs, when the phone in his room rang.
It was Theo on the other end, the last person he wanted to talk to, but he said Andy had mail, and his breath caught in his throat, ballooning into something that made it hard for him to breathe.
He’d spent so long hoping to hear from Leonidas, then hoping he didn’t hear from him, but now with this postcard—this precious postcard—in his hands, he didn’t know what to do. He didn’t understand what it meant, and he fingered the knit edges of his—of Leonidas’s—beanie and fled back to his room.
He’d smelled the postcard.
Held it to his nose, but it smelled like dirt and paper, not the man he was desperate for. The stupid thing didn’t even have a return address. It taunted him, nothing more than a postmarked memory of a life he’d never be allowed. Every ounce of progress he’d made since he’d gotten home flew out the window, and Andy shoved the postcard into his sock drawer, desperate to forget it.
In the days that followed, he tried to go on, because in the grand scheme of things, the postcard meant nothing and Leonidas needed to mean nothing too.
16
Leonidas
“You’re late.”Aeliana smiled up at him from her place in bed, her newborn son cradled against her chest.
“You got an early start on me.” Leonidas hesitated in the doorway.
“Come on, then.” She rolled her eyes. “Come meet your nephew.”
Leonidas had been home for one day. He’d aired out his apartment, slept for twelve hours, showered, then come straight to Aeliana’s house. Her husband, Alexandros, hovered near her bed, making heart eyes down at his wife and their son.
“He’s lucky yourpaterahad a good name.” Leonidas wrapped Alexandros into a warm embrace, patting him on the back in congratulations.
“Much better than Leonidas, yes?” Alexandros laughed. “My son is luckier than you were.”
Leonidas rolled his eyes.
