Spencer found himself headed to Chad’s apartment feeling nervous and embarrassed for all that had happened between them. He thought about Lucy knocking on the door and her husband Chad. He felt guilty. They were good people.
It was one of those actions he couldn’t justify to himself but found himself doing to see the outcome, to see just why she had stopped by the apartment. He walked down the long hallway to their door and stopped in front of it. He could hear her inside talking to someone, possibly Chad or maybe their daughter.
There was one quick thought to leave it, walk away, and possibly never see them again but he knocked anyway. Three quick raps, he cleared his throat and looked down the hall to where there was a window and a fire escape. He had always found himself curious about fire escapes on buildings when he was little because he didn’t live in the city. He had lived in suburbia.
The door opened and Lucy stood on the other side holding Grace wrapped in a towel. They had clearly come from the bathroom because there was a sweet odor of soap. Grace smiled at him and he smiled back.
“Hello there,” Lucy said.
She pulled the door open and invited him inside. He said hello as he looked around the apartment. The place was a little less orderly than he remembered it.
“You just caught us getting out of the bathtub. Why don’t you let me take Grace to her room then we can talk.”
Lucy walked away not giving him an opportunity to disagree. He looked around their place but didn’t hear or see evidence that Chad was home. He felt worse for having stopped by, for bothering them. He wanted to tell Lucy that he needed to leave. He wanted to tell her he had only a few minutes, that he didn’t know what he was doing there in the first place.
When she emerged from the hallway looking to him with need he found himself disarmed of doubt and want. Instead he suddenly thought about what she needed.
“Chad has been really busy this week and I’ve been job hunting on the computer. We could really use the second income you know, just part-time like teaching or something.”
“Right,” Spencer agreed.
She began to move about the apartment picking things up, replacing things. He thought to join her, help her in some way, but he didn’t know where anything belonged. And he had arrived at the perfect time when Chad was out. He could be back any minute.
“So uh, you stopped by the apartment, downstairs,” he said.
“Oh right,” she said. “I don’t know what kind of scene I walked in on but I have to say that was the first time I saw a grown man in diapers who wasn’t pledging a fraternity.”
Spencer looked away to the window drapes, the window frame, he thought about the fire escape.
“Chad told me where you guys lived and I thought, I don’t know...”
“What?” he asked.
“Well, let me get you a glass of wine,” she said. She moved away to the kitchen before he could decline and she got out two glasses, retrieved a bottle from the fridge and carried it to the sofa where she sat. She signaled for him to sit in the recliner which he did.
“I don’t actually live there,” Spencer found himself saying. “Not that, I mean, I spend a lot of time there but I’m not, you know, I mean I’m gay but...”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “If you only knew.”
If I only knew what, he asked himself.
She poured two glasses of wine. He took one and she took the other.
“Chad doesn’t have many friends his age. He goes out drinking with guys from the force but most of them are older. They harass him a lot for being new and being young. He’s not enough of a hard ass for them. He told me about you guys and I don’t know it just seemed like maybe you could have something in common. He’s really a gentle soul. He reads books and I drag him to the theater. He says he likes it.”
“Uh,” Spencer said.
“He’s probably the gayest straight man you’d ever meet. He’s a what you call it? He’s a metrosexual.”
Spencer found himself at once insulted and humored by her words. He thought about what everyone would say. He thought about them spending time together. Do I have a play date? What could I do with him? I’d like to-- he forced the thought from his mind but it came back again as he thought of the man’s muscled arms-- he smiled.
“What do you think?”
“Sure,” he said. “We could give it a try.”
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