“But—”
“No. You need a break. You can’t keep working all the time.”
I shove my hands in my pockets, but the movement drags slippery fabric over my naked dick, reminding me—as if I could forget—of the until-very-recently-also-naked man in my bedroom. “Dad. I’m not—”
“No. We’re taking the afternoon off.” He sits down on the couch, sets his feet on the coffee table, and points at the TV. “Where’s your remote?”
Oh. My. God. Why? Why is this happening? And on the best day of my life, no less.
“Um, hello?”
I whirl, and Nash is standing there. He’s back in all his clothes, and even his hair looks freshly combed.
Oh my God. I have to pull a chair out from the dining room table because my legs no longer hold me up.
“Oh, hello,” my dad says, like Nash has been there all along. Then his bushy eyebrows scrunch together, and I can practically hear the brain cells grinding as he looks from Nash to me, then beyond us to the hall—the hall that only leads to my bedroom—and back again.
Kill me now. Problem solved. I will never again have to answer an annoying client phone call or debate whether the cost of sending something to collections is worth what I’m going to have to pay to the bank in interest on my line of credit. I will never again lose a single night’s sleep because I will be sleeping forever, buried underground, dead from the embarrassment of the day my dad nearly walked in on me eating out my not-boyfriend.
My much older not-boyfriend.
As Dad and Nash face off, I have the sudden sinking realization of how this looks. Nash, with the silver at his temples and along his jaw. My dad, who started going grey while I was still in high school and whose hair is basically now in a race to see if it will all fall out before the grey manages to take over what’s left.
Time has a funny way of slowing down when you freak out, which means I get a chance to do the mental math that reassures me that, in fact, Nash is closer to my age than he is to Dad’s. The difference is only a couple years, but those few hundred days are critical for my peace of mind.
“I’m sorry.” My dad gets to his feet, nearly spilling his beer. “I’m intruding. I didn’t realize you’d have company.”
I go to tell him heisintruding, but all that comes out of my mouth is this guttural squeaking noise.
“No problem.” Nash puts a hand on my shoulder. “Brady and I were—” He glances at me, and for a second, the panic that thrums through my veins is clear in his grey eyes too.
“Want a beer?” I say helplessly. “Dad brought MGD.” My dad has been drinking big label American beer my entire life. We have a million and one amazing local breweries in Toronto, but he likes what he likes.
“I should go. I’m sorry—” My dad looks mortified.
“No! Stay.” I put my hands on his shoulders, much the way I did minutes ago with Nash, and guide my dad back to the couch. “I forgot the game was on. We love baseball, don’t we?” Do we? I don’t know if Nash has any interest in sports at all. He likes movies, yelling at me on the phone, and coming his brains out on my dick. What else do I really know about him? And should I refer to us aswe? What are we? My dad’s going to think we’re dating, and I donotwant to have to explain how we’re not dating. We just fuck—a lot—even though I’m still pretty sure I’m in love with a man who could basically be the generational liaison between my baby boomer father and me. Oh, and he’s divorced and has kids, but I’ve never met them and probably never will, because—once again—we’re only here for the fucking.
“Yeah.” Nash opens two cans and passes one to me with a meaningful glance that I, unfortunately, am incapable of interpreting. Is he cool? Pissed? Silently trying to tell me that I am going to owe him a week of blow jobs and sexual subservience to make up for this fiasco? “Love the Jays. How are they doing this season? I’m Nash, by the way.” He shakes my dad’s hand with all the confidence he brings to his persona at the office. I stay where I am, because now I’m thinking about sucking Nash off and lying face down on my bed going, “Please, sir, may I have another?” while he stands over me with a paddle.
Jesus, I am perverse, and my father is here and...
The awkwardness lingers in the air for a while longer. Nash puts on a brave face and tries to chat up my dad, while Dad kind of perches on the edge of the couch, ready to steal second at any moment or make a break for the door if Nash or I give any indication that we might start taking our clothes off. I swallow half the can of beer in a single gulp and cheer way too loudly when the Jays score a homer.
“Foul ball,” my dad says.
“Oh.” I put my arms down. “Well, it looked like it could be fair from here.”
My dad gives me this look that says he is not buying a single second of my bullshit and we are going to have a serious conversation before he sends me to the principal’s office after class. Then, recognizing the responsible adult in the room, he turns and says, “So, Nash, what do you do?”
If Nash isn’t a sports fan today, he has been at some point in the past. He and my dad spend the next few hours talking stats and sharing memories about back in the day when the Jays won back-to-back World Series. I was still in diapers when it happened, so while I know the names, I can’t talk about them with the same reverence that my dad always has. Nash can, though. I don’t know if that makes the afternoon better or worse.
We drink my dad’s beer, and slowly we all relax. The Jays even win, but by then we’re all slumped back in our seats, the earlier awful awkwardness mostly forgotten.
“You should have seen this one,” my dad laughs, pointing in my direction. “We signed him up for little league when he was seven or eight. No hand-eye coordination. Didn’t manage an on-base hit once over the entire summer.”
“Hey!” I say indignantly.
Dad’s cheeks are pink as he grins at me. “Are you saying you did?”
