LoveHarley: I hope so
LoveHarley: I won’t be able to come with Simon, though. Is that okay?
xVerity: Of course it is, Harley. While we’d love to meet Simon,you’reour friend. We’re excited to seeyou.
TeenDad2: xV’s right, you know
TeenDad2: And if you’re here for a while, then we can still plan another weekend or dinner during the week or something where we all get to meet him
xVerity: Saturday at around one works best for us. @Gwynning, @TeenDad2, @LoveHarley, does that work well for you?
TeenDad2: Yup!
LoveHarley: Sure, one sounds great :)
Gwynning: I’ve been summoned. One is fine, xV. Can you remind me where you live again?
Gwynning: Also, I’m looking forward to seeing you again, Harley. The last time we met I was a little less than sober. It’ll be great to remember our conversations this time
LoveHarley: LOL
LoveHarley: Gwynn, you’re amazing. I can’t wait to see you, too :)
While xVerity provided an address, Harlow remained at the table a little longer, allowing himself some time to enjoy the way the conversation had made him feel. These men, once strangers, were his best friends, and in all the little things they did, they proved it again and again.
Seven years ago, Harlow’s world had been turned on its head and gutted of meaning, but the Single Dads had helped him find purpose in the upside-down, not because they’d coached him through therapy sessions or held his hand on the tough nights in the first few years when he’d lain in bed, too numb to cry, but by virtue of being themselves. Every candid moment shared and every moment of laughter or sorrow had shown Harlow that life could go on.
Gwynn, TD, xV, and Knot had brought joy to his life at a time when Harlow was convinced he’d never feel it again. All these years, afraid to lose them, he’d hidden the truth from them.
No more.
All of them bore their secrets. There were parts of life not meant to be shared with friends or aired out on a chat program for the world to see. That was fine. Harlow wouldn’t pry their secrets from their chests—but he was tired of concealing his own.
Prickling with exuberant excitement—the kind that made him want to laugh loudly and deeply for no reason at all—Harlow pushed back from the kitchen table and went to look for Evie. He found her in Shep’s room, its broken door open, seated on the end of his bed. She’d pulled the tunic she wore over her knees, creating a little Evie tent, above which she listlessly scrolled through her phone. The deadened, haunted look in her eyes was unsettling, but the moment Harlow cleared his throat, hoping to address it, Evie startled, and the look disappeared. She dropped her phone on the bed, screen down, which Harlow recognized as a defense mechanism—whatever she’d been looking at, she didn’t want him to see. He knew, because he did the same thing.
Like father, like daughter.
“Dad!” Evie yelped. “I… I didn’t see you there.”
“Boo.”
“I… I figured it was okay that I sat in Shep’s room, because the door is wide open and it’s broken so it won’t latch, anyway, and all Shep is doing is playing video games. See?” Evie pointed across the room to the computer desk against the wall. The math and science textbooks had been moved, revealing the monitor. Shep, hunched over in his chair, headset on, piloted a space marine across the outside of a shuttle. In the distance, a flash of light reflected off something that looked suspiciously like black chitin—sleek and powerful, heavily armored—before that something scurried off at an inhuman speed and disappeared. Despite the glossed, insect-like exoskeleton, the way the thing moved reminded Harlow of a cephalopod.
If Shep had heard Harlow, he didn’t acknowledge his presence. He was wholly engrossed in his game.
“Um, yeah, that’s fine. Thank you for keeping the door open.” Harlow crossed the room and sat beside Evie. She made sure to nudge her phone away from him. Something was going on, but until she brought it up, he wouldn’t push. After their earlier conversation, he trusted her to be open with him when it was necessary. “I won’t stay long. All I want to do is ask you a question.”
Evie squinted at him, her lips pushed together suspiciously. “Oookay. Spill. What is it?”
“Are you still bored?” Harlow grinned, barely able to hold back the same, uninhibited laugh that he’d first felt in the kitchen. “Because I need your help with something, and I have a feeling it’s exactly the kind of excitement you need to get you through the rest of the week…”
* * *
On a sunny Saturdayafternoon at a quarter past one, Harlow pulled up to the curb and parked his rental car beneath the shade of a catalpa tree. Across an immaculately kept lawn and beyond foundation-lining shrubbery was a large cliffstone house. Bronze house numbers had been affixed to the facade by the door, confirming Harlow’s GPS hadn’t led him astray—he’d made it to xV’s house.
Harlow turned off the engine and took his phone from his pocket. He sent a message to the general chat.
LoveHarley: @Gwynn, @TeenDad2, @xVerity, is everyone already there? Am I the last to arrive?
