"Daddy," Bailey shrieked before running towards Nate and jumping into his arms. "I'm making Granddad a boat," he exclaimed.
"You are? All by yourself?" Nate asked, trying to match his enthusiasm. He carried Bailey towards the boat and stood looking at it, standing next to Abel.
"No. Silly. You're so silly sometimes. With my granddad and Abel! He's Emma's brother, but he's not vegan. Did you realize that Abel was Emma's brother? I didn't know this whole time!" Bailey said in awe.
"Of course I knew. Don't you think they kind of act the same? Next time you see them together watch how they stand, it's exactly the same." Nate looked at Abel, who was smiling brightly but keeping his eyes on the wooden structure.
"I did notice that! But I didn't know it was because they were brother and sister! He builds boats for money. That is much better than what you and Papa do!" Bailey said.
"That's true, but is it cooler than what Emma does? Who do you think has the coolest job? Emma, right?"
"I don't know. I like Emma very much and I like all her crazy food. But I think boats are cool too. Abel? Abel, I have a question for you." Bailey shouted as Abel turned around, his handsome face bursting with a wide, bright grin. Nate thought that he felt his heart come to a dead stop for a second.
"Yes, Bailey?" Abel asked.
"I told you to call me Bay," Bailey replied. "All my friends call me Bay. People only call me Bailey if they want to tell me off."
"Okay, Bay. What can I do for you?"
"Do you think your job is cooler than Emma's? I can't decide. Emma has her very own café and makes dinners that are very strange, but you get to make boats all day. Both of them sound pretty good! Do you know what my dad does? He just sits at a desk all day typing and saying bad words at the computer! That's much less cool." Bailey shrugged, rolling his eyes.
"Obviously I have the coolest job. I don't think there's even any competition."
"I think you are right. But you should be vegan and then you would be even
cooler
. Emma always says that there is nothing cooler than being kind. Do you know that all meat is animals? It's so crazy!" Bailey paused for a second before starting again. "What is going on with you two? You seem strange. Shake hands," Bailey said his eyes visibly darting between the boat, Nate, Abel, and Bernard.
Abel extended his hand towards Nate, who in turn shuffled Bailey a little so he had a spare hand to shake it. Nate felt a shock as his skin came into contact with Abel's, something sexy and satisfying and almost soulful. "It's nice to see you again, Nate. I was thinking about you last night."
"It's nice to see you too, Abel. I was thinking of you too," Nate said, his hand still lingering on Abel's. Nate could feel calluses and rough patches on Abel's skin, which somehow made him seem even sexier. He could feel some of his nervousness dissipate as he looked into Abel's eyes and a flash of longing ran across his spine. Hearing Abel's voice brought back the memory of them riding in the car the day before, the lingering mental audio of Abel's admission of love.
"You were?" Abel asked. Nate could feel Abel's grip tighten so that the flesh of their palms was tight together. It was secretly, discreetly thrilling.
"Bailey, why don't you go and speak to Granddad about the boat? It looks like he might need some help. That way I can talk to Abel for a minute. We have some things to talk about." Nate shuffled Bailey's weight so that he could put him on the ground.
"Okay." Bailey beamed and ran through the grass before leaping on his granddad.
Abel and Nate watched as Bailey ran away and stood in silence, looking at the horizon. The sky was crystal clear, the blue of baby-boy blankets and clothes. The sun was bright and cheerful, a slightly watery yellow that warmed everything. The quiet chirp of birds hummed in the background and the tall, thin trees that lined the garden's border were soaring and proud. The whole thing looked like a children's storybook. Nate inhaled the fresh scent of nature; he still wasn't quite used to the lack of gasoline fumes. Abel stepped to the side slightly, so that his shoulder touched Nate's. Nate's stomach tightened in reaction to the pesky butterflies winging around inside.
"I'm sorry about yesterday. Emma got me all confused, and I was in the car next to you, and I was just feeling all sorts of things that I haven't really felt before. I know that what I said was inappropriate and I don't want you to think that I was trying to take advantage. I understand that you're not in that place," Abel said, still looking ahead.
"I'm
not
sorry about yesterday. I mean, you're right. It's not the right time, but it meant a lot to me that you felt like that in the moment. It's never a bad thing to be told that someone cares about you."
"It must have been so confusing for you. I wanted to be your friend, but I ended up ambushing you," Abel said, his voice dripping with regret. Nate didn't know what to do; his body wanted him to hold Abel's hand and tell him that everything would happen the way that it was supposed to. He wanted to run into the distance with Abel like the end of some romantic comedy, but he knew that was the coward's way out. Nate couldn't afford to be a coward this time. He needed all the things that he had been through to make him a better person; the heartaches had to mean something, because Nate wasn't willing to accept that they hadn't helped him to grow into somebody better.
"I didn't feel ambushed, I promise you. To be honest, I wanted to hear you say those words. They made me feel good and I really like you, but I wouldn't be bringing my whole self to the table. You know that, right? I'm not in a position to give you my all. And you don't deserve to live like that. Being more invested in someone than they are in you is a lonely existence—believe me."
"I can't even imagine what you're going through at the moment. You're a really strong, resilient man and I really admire you." He kept his face forwards, not even glancing at Nate as if looking into Nate's eyes would be too painful.
"I think you should stop talking, or my head is going to blow up like a balloon and I'll become even more insufferable than I already am.
"I lied in the car earlier. I heard some of what Emma said. And she's right, you know. You do deserve a little happiness. You deserve a lot of happiness, and jumping into a relationship with a wreck with a son is not the way to get that."
Nate couldn't quite make sense of the emotions buzzing through him; his body was telling him to jump into something fun and sexy with Abel, but he still felt hurt and insecure. It was as if his feelings were at war with his instincts and neither was winning. "You don't know me. I'm needy and I have huge expectations and I don't think I'm all that good at letting people love me. You should find some nice guy who doesn't have any baggage. Trust me."
"I don't mind baggage," Abel pleaded.
"You should. You should want more for yourself than being the person picking up the pieces of something that you didn't even break in the first place. It's my job to pick up the pieces of myself. I have to own that now. I think that a part of being a good parent means looking after yourself too. Baggage sounds okay, but the reality is that it just weighs you down." Nate sighed sadly.
"I think you're selling yourself short. You're a pretty great catch, baggage and all," Abel replied lightly, changing the tone of the conversation.
"Oh, I know that. Have you seen my legs since I started running? I look like I did when I was, like, twenty. And your sister's cooking has taken years off me. When my friend Cici comes to visit, she'll love it. You don't have to worry about my self-esteem. I don't feel unlovable—well, not all the time. I have my blips. But I want you to go and have fun. You did the hard bit. You forced yourself to be truthful—you should run with that now."
"Can I take you and Bailey on my boat this afternoon? No pressure, no commitments. I know how that sounds. But it's really none of that. I just think that Bailey would love it. And I promise I won't make you hike up a mountain and open all your emotional wounds in front of me."
"If you promise—because Bailey already thinks I'm the world's biggest idiot. I
do not
need to fall over in front of him. I don't think that I would ever live it down." Nate laughed.
"I'd save you again. You know, purely platonically," Abel added.
"See, therein lies the problem. Being saved by someone else is only valuable if you saved yourself in the first place. And I don't really know how to do that yet." Nate felt the warmth of the sun caress his face. He looked down at Bailey and his dad and couldn't help but smile.
"Good use of therein," Abel replied.
"I'm telling you, I'm the Shakespeare of faux self-help memoirs. I even know how to use the word heretofore," Nate said, full of sarcastic pride.
"I know. I bought one."
"No! Why didn't you film it? Did the cashier look at you strangely?" Nate asked.
"No. I made a big deal of buying it for my niece—you know, the ginger one that doesn't exist," Abel said.
"Oh, yeah. Isn't her name something like Little Orphan Annie? Do you want your money back?"
"That's the one! I actually really liked it. You write really well. But it made me sad. I couldn't really relate to anything that you wrote; I don't know what it's like to try really hard at being the right person for someone. I've never really had to compromise. I've never trusted someone with my whole life. Sometimes it felt like a laundry list of things I've never experienced." Abel sounded like he was getting lost in his own thoughts.
"It's different for everybody, and I left a lot of stuff out. I left a lot of the struggle out. It'll happen for you—have seen your face lately? You are the stuff that Lifetime movies are made of. If Lifetime was super gay. It
will
happen for you, and it will be great and awful and the best and the worst."
"How do you know if something is right? If it's worth fighting for?"
"I don't think that you get a whole lot of choice in the matter. I don't think you can really help yourself from fighting for something that feel like it was meant to be. I think sometimes it takes longer than you'd like and there are more hurdles than you originally wanted to jump over—but if two people are supposed to be together, they can beat extraordinary odds. You just have to give it time." Nate realized that he was being selfish: he was asking Abel to wait around for him without explicitly asking him to wait around. The idea of being with Abel scared Nate, but the idea of Abel with somebody else was equally painful.
"So you're saying… if you think something is right, you owe it to yourself to stay and fight?" Abel asked.
"Umm. Yep. Or. Umm, of course waiting and fighting for somebody means that your closing down your other option and putting your life on hold. I wouldn't want somebody to fight for a lost cause. I don't know. You shouldn't listen to me. I can't even decide what to have for breakfast most days. Ask me an easier question," Nate said, flustered and trying to make sense of his own thoughts and feelings as he spoke.
"Okay. Easier question, let me think. Boating! This afternoon. Are you excited?" Abel beamed a beautiful, distracting smile.
"Oh. No. Not at all… I hate boats. If I liked boats, I think that my father would at least say good morning to me. I'm doing this for Bailey. And this might make me an awful parent, but I'm kind of hoping he hates the water so that I don't have to do it again. I already have to watch football games," Nate said.
"You hate boats? Did you suffer some massive head trauma?" Abel asked, arching his right eyebrow.
"I could ask you the same question. Boats are boring. It's a fact. The government has funded all sorts of research into it," Nate added.
"Well, I could talk about boats all day," Abel said.
"Just because you
can
do something doesn't mean that you
should
."
"I'll turn you onto the boater's way of life yet," Abel promised.
"No, you won't. You'll talk to Bailey and I about boats, and I will yawn and wish I was somewhere else until we finally hit dry land, where I can make some stupid excuse to leave just so I won't have to hear another thing about boat construction."
"Okay, as long as I'm with you," Abel added.
"I'll be there," Nate replied. "Anyway, you should get back to the boat building; I don't think Dad knows what he's doing." Nate nodded towards his dad, who was looking at the boat quizzically and scratching his head. Bailey was copying his granddad exactly.
"Okay. Bye. See you later," Abel said.
As he watched Abel descend the stairs, Nate knew that something had changed inside of him; he heard it happen like the unlocking of a door in the distance. He scanned his body in search of the new feeling until he found it and understood what it was. It was the feeling of self-control. Nate no longer felt that he was at the whim of forces beyond his control. He felt, for the time in a long time, that he knew what he was doing. There were still things that hurt deeply, actions that he couldn't forgive, words that he wished he had said, and plans that he felt stupid for not putting in place. But he knew that he had found something, stumbled upon it the way scientists discover amazing things out of failed experiments. The feeling fell over him like a blanket. He trusted himself and knew, for certain, that he had been a good dad and was going to continue to be a good dad.
Nate spun on his heel and ran towards the house. He felt like he had moved a mountain. When he was certain that he was out of view of everyone, he pumped his fist in the air and spun around in a circle. He had to let the happiness out of his body, the giddy excitement. He felt his cheeks burning with the smile that was plastered across his face. He heard Kenny Rogers from the kitchen and felt like it was a soundtrack to the moment, like in a film. Nate wanted to be cautious and careful, but he couldn't help feel excited. Like a new chapter in his life was about to begin. He knew that he would soon be pulled back to earth—he couldn't escape Joshua or the things that were plaguing his worried mind for long—but he knew that he could handle them now, and that felt like cause for celebration.