“That’s fine,” I said. “And if you have more questions later, Ava, just let me know.” Annabel had raised Ava around all different kinds of families, but I still wanted to give her plenty of space to react and form her own opinions as she encountered new ideas.
“Nope,” she said, turning back to her comic book. “Just, like, why don’t you and Uncle Rory have a boyfriend? It sounds cool.”
My mouth snapped shut, and Ezra giggled. “Yeah, Franklin,” he teased. “Sounds cool.”
Maybe it was the multiverses trying to tell me something, actually, considering how loud the message suddenly seemed.
I returned to work, taking a spot behind the counter so that Clark could go on his break. Ava and I chatted for a while, our conversation coming much more easily as we found some shared ground in the comics she had started reading. When she got tired of my jokes, she went back to flipping throughThe Magnificent Ms. Marvel, and my thoughts drifted to Asher.
Rory had deposited him at his apartment a few nights before, and we’d all been texting pretty consistently since then. Asher insisted that he needed a little time to clear his head and to be with his sister, which we understood. But since things had shifted, it felt confusing to keep him at a distance and to act like things could still be casual.
Rory and I knew we had to wait, and that he would come to us. But that didn’t stop my heart from reaching out, the need to care for him already awakened.
ASHER
I sat at the bar across from Lilith, twirling a whiskey glass against the wood. “You don’t think I’m a traitor?” I asked. “What if Daryl dies without me?”
Lilith sighed, then rubbed the top of my head, mussing up my hair. “You can choose to be happy, kid. You know that’s an option, right?”
The light directly above us kept flickering. It was early in the evening, so the Steel Rose was pretty much empty. Lilith had that same crappy ‘90s rock music on the stereo that she’d been listening to my whole life, but I was pretty sure no one at the bar actually cared about the music.
“I guess I’m just still pissed at Daryl,” I said. “For all of it.”
She nodded. “I’m pissed at Daryl, too. You know he felt like my little brother, when we were growing up.”
“You tried to keep us both safe,” I said.
“I couldn’t always,” Lilith said, then poured herself a little more whiskey. “But I did what I could.”
“So why is it okay for me to just walk away from him?”
She threw back the shot. “Because Daryl wasn’t good to you, Asher. You might have relied on each other to stay alive when you were young, but I saw him change over the years. He made one bad decision after another. Maybe his parents had something to do with it. Maybe he was spoiled by all the money they made or damaged by how cruel they were. I don’t know why, but he turned worse and worse. And you, Asher, you always just keep trying to do better.”
I puffed air out of my nose, then threw back my own shot. “I did what I could,” I said, repeating her phrase.
“And what you do is good, Asher. Trust me.” She grinned, then scooped up the whiskey glasses and set them behind the bar. “Sometimes you act like a doofus, but your heart is always in the right place.”
I laughed, then shook my head. Lilith knew me well enough not to push it after that. She gave me time to clear my head and let the steam out my ears. Instead, we passed the time with a couple games of darts and another shot of whiskey from behind the bar.
Thank god for sisters.
The next day, I headed over to the shed to finish up the project while Franklin and Rory were gone, off at Ava’s oboe recital. Franklin and I had the installation right around the corner and a promise of more work in the weeks after. As I poked around with the last of the shelving and made sure we had all the cutouts and props from the packing list, I was satisfied we’d be all set to go.
With every day that passed, I felt like I had a little more breathing room. Daryl didn’t try to call me, and with the hours ticking by, I was less jumpy, a little more able to think straight.
More like the guy Franklin and Rory saw, and less like the mess I used to be.
We had a date that night, and they had invited me to stick around after I finished work. The plan was that they would drop Ava off at their cousin’s place. Then we’d all grab a casual dinner before heading back to my place. The first time seeing them after everything that happened at the hospital, I felt a little shy, but mainly just eager for another chance to please.
Instead of waiting, though, I scribbled a note that I would be right back and jumped in my car. Something about what Lilith had said the night before was stirring in me.
She was right, of course. It was fucking annoying, but she always was. It wasn’t just okay for me to walk away from Daryl. It was okay for me to want something more, too.
“Hi, Lilith, I’m getting in the shower!” I hollered as I entered the apartment. Moving fast so I wouldn’t be late, I scrubbed myself clean, washing all the sawdust out of my hair and working up a lather around my balls and back along my hole. Moaning softly, I felt the water spray my face and almost slipped into another Franklin and Rory sandwich fantasy…
I snapped out of it, then grabbed a towel, drying off on the way to my room. I found my nice shirt and pants and tracked the tie down from the spot it had found beneath the bed. Rushing into the living room, I waved them at Lilith. “Where’s your ironing board?”
“Jesus, Asher, at least some boxers, please?”
