“Every daddy needs a little spot of his own,” he said with a smile.
I turned quickly to open the shed, suddenly a little embarrassed. I fidgeted with the knob, then pulled it open. Daylight shone down on the stacks of boxes, advertisements for superhero movies, and two life-sized Trolls that I had almost forgotten about.
“Oh wow.” Asher stepped forward. “Damn, Franklin. How tall is that lady in green?”
“Six feet,” I mumbled, scratching the back of my head. “Her name is Poison Ivy.”
“Oh yeah, from Batman. I remember her.”
“Right.” I sighed. “She’s made out of Legos.”
“I know,” he said with a chuckle. “Cool.”
I relaxed a little as Asher turned to the pile and started poking his way through it. He seemed to hit a perfect middle ground of curiosity, not so interested in the stuff that he slowed down to study it all, but not one bit judgmental or dismissive, either. Instead, he treated the collection with care and respect, moving things around with surprising grace.
For some reason, that felt like he was respecting me, too.
“It should be sunny all day,” I said, turning to the sky. “Maybe we could drag everything out first and then organize as we put it back in?”
Asher said something into the shed, and when I turned back, he was bent over a box. Without really thinking, my eyes landed on his backside. My gaze trailed along his thighs and lingered on his ass, both curvy and firm in his jeans. The denim looked worn, especially where it hugged his cheeks. My breath hitched in my throat a little, and heat tingled my groin as I watched his hips sway back and forth and studied the waistband of his boxer briefs…
I caught myself staring, and, with a startle, I turned away, directing my eyes back toward the yard.
“What’s that?” I said, measuring my voice.
“Just saying the yard should work,” he answered.
What the hell are you doing, Franklin?I scolded myself. Now only had I just creeped on a much younger guy who was working for me, I had let my eye wander from Rory. He wasn’t a jealous guy, I knew, and he wouldn’t be possessive of anything like that. But still, it wasn’t like me to go checking out some other man’s ass.
I shook my head and reasoned that I must have been overly tired and a bit stressed with everything going on. The last thing our family needed was some silly man my age getting delusional and thinking the hot young handyman was hitting on him.
“Great,” I replied, pulling myself back to reality. “Thanks, Asher.”
“No problem,” he answered. “And hey, Franklin?”
“Yes?” I said, swallowing nervously.
“Nice Furbies,” he said, lifting a pink and a blue critter in the air, then adding a wink for good measure.
RORY
I stood at the stove, flipping burgers while Frankie showed Ava around the house, reintroducing her to a place she had known only through a few vacations and one Christmas. I could hear him talking at about a hundred miles a minute, trying to tell her every little fussy detail and the history of every object. A part of me wished I were walking with them so I could stroke his back and help him calm down.
But then again, being the uncle who made her favorite meal was a pretty good role, too.
A few of my colleagues had made comments about Frankie and me being dads, but we didn’t feel that was the right word for our family. If Ava decided she wanted us to be her fathers one day down the road, that would be her decision, and of course it would mean the world to us. But for the time being, I definitely felt like an uncle.
Ava was still learning about me, just like I was still learning about her.
As Frankie’s family, though, I felt a natural urge to protect her. When Frankie had been a child, his parents had treated him and his sister horribly. They demanded two perfect children, and Frankie’s geeky habits, lack of coordination, and sweet temperament made him a failure in their eyes. Years later, of course, those exact same things made me fall in love with him.
Once they realized he was gay, the rejection was complete and total. When I had first met him, he believed those lies himself, and it had taken all of my love to show him his own worth. Now that we were grown, it seemed only right to extend that love to someone who needed it.
“Ta-da!” Frankie announced, entering the kitchen while spreading his arms wide. “And that’s the tour!”
Ava nodded. “Cool, Uncle Franklin,” she said in her monotone, then dropped down to the dining table. Even with her long hair in her face, I could see the dark eyeliner underneath her eyes, and when she brought her hands up to lay her head on the table, I noticed that she had even more silver and black bracelets on than the last time I had seen her.
A love so deep,I joked to myself,it shines through the night, no matter how Goth.
