Page 54 of Wedge

JJ’s is a rooftop bear bar near Denver General Hospital. No dance floor, no drag queens, just a quiet place for the two of us to catch up after Caleb’s shift. Where he found nurse scrubs with rainbow-farting unicorns is a mystery. We tuck ourselves into a corner table, with my back against the wall.

“He actually said that?” Caleb gasps.

I nod. “’I want to take care of you’. I couldn’t say no.”

“Killing me, A. Yeah, you can’t say no to that. That is primo Daddy talk right there. Guaranteed melt my pants and call me baby. Damn, Stevie, well done.”

He sips his beer as we look around the crowd. Mostly men in twos and threes, casual. T-shirts and ball caps with some flannel scattered around.

“How’s rotation going?” I ask.

He smiles. “Hard. But I love it. Nursing is my calling.”

“Have a specialty?”

“Maybe?”

“Care to share?”

“Pediatric oncology?”

I gape at him. “Kids with cancer?”

He nods. “Those brave little warriors need some light in their lives.”

I raise my glass of club soda to tap his beer. “You, my friend, are good for the soul.”

“Thanks, A. Love you, too.”

“You want kids of your own, Caleb?”

He smiles wistfully. “Need a husband first. But I don’t know, to be honest. Big commitment, bringing a tiny human into the world like Ben and Geoff. You?”

“I never thought I’d be in a place to do it. Don’t think I want babies, though.”

“Just skip the whole diapers and bottles bit? Adopt?”

A shiver runs over me.

“Foster, maybe.”

“World needs more good foster dads, that’s for damn sure.”

I think of the man who got me therapy and got me started golfing.

“For damn sure,” I agree. “I’m just getting an actual career going, though. Gonna be a long time before I’m ready for that.”

Caleb raises his beer for me to clink against. “We have time.”

It’s a Thursday night in week five, the kind where the wind is rattling the glass and the whole city looks cold. Stephen’s terrible at first, over-correcting every camera movement, walking Shepard face-first into a wall on the Normandy’s crew deck twice before he gets the hang of it.

“How do people do this for fun,” he mutters, finally getting himself pointed in the right direction. “I navigated Camp Lejeune with less confusion than this hallway.”

“You’ll get used to it.” I’m curled against his side on the couch, a blanket over our legs, and the screen’s glow flickering across the shelf where the little ships sit. The controller is in his lap since I ceded it after he asked for the fourth time to ’just try it himself.’ “Go talk to Kaidan. He’s by the med bay.”

He navigates over, mostly successfully, and pulls up the dialogue wheel, scanning the options with the focus of a man reading a tax form. “Okay. This guy. What’s his deal?”

“Kaidan. Biotic, good guy, kind of a boy scout. Very sweet, honestly. A little too sweet, maybe.”