Chapter Text
It isn’t a bad apartment. He’d lived in worse, anyway. It had two bedrooms, which was one more than his last and two more than every apartment before that. The landlord was nice if a little too friendly, there was laundry on site, his neighbors seemed nice if a bit nosy, or at least the ones he’d met already.
Slight downside? It was on the ground floor, and the path around the building went right past most of his windows.
But! It had a little sliver of concrete patio outside, and the landlord let him stick a table and chairs there, which meant he could sit outside in the warm months. Have a little beer, read a little book. Think his little thoughts.
And he’s got lots of thoughts, here, now he’s got space enough to think them. He’s on this new positive kick. Gratitude journal, morning meditations. Things of that fucking nature. Figuring out What Makes Ed Happy.
Breakups are fucking stupid.
But his therapist tells him the move is a good thing, that he’s making the life he wants rather than scaffolding it up around someone else’s.
No scaffolding here. He’s a free-standing building now, Ed Teach is. Blowing in the fucking wind.
He talks to himself a lot, now. Sings in the shower. Eats popcorn for dinner more than he’d readily admit, but it feels weirdly like self care, so he allows it. He laughs more, even with nobody to laugh with.
“Sounds fuckin’ miserable,” the adorable little salt-and-pepper gadfly bartender at his walkable beer joint had sneered last week.
“You just said you live alone, too!”
“Yeah, but I don’t have to listen to your fuckin’ thoughts all day. Also I don’t live on Main Street in this shithole touristy death trap town. Fucking gift shops everywhere.”
Which, okay, fine, maybe fair. It’s a weekend town, and that comes with a very real set of pitfalls, sure. But the thing is, the weekend is only two days long, and the other five it’s like living in fucking paradise. He can be at this bar at 7PM on a Thursday and not have to watch a zillion fucking tinder dates around him. He can see a movie during a slow day and share the 30-seat theater with one other person. It’s got an arcade bar and a really fucking great ice cream shop and a cocktail bar for when he’s feeling schmancy and a used bookstore and a record shop. He’s in Ed-flavored heaven, little treats all over.
It fucking rules. Fuck Izzy and his sloppy pours and his perma-sneer. He doesn’t know what Ed had to go through to get here, to admit leaving the city was the life he wanted. The life he needed to be able to grow. No more 2AM bar closing weeknights, no more Oh I don’t usually but just this once cocaine bumps in the bathrooms, no more walking down the street feeling like every person was living a better, happier, richer, younger, freer life than him. He drinks less, he spends more time outside, and he has a stupid little cat to follow him around all the time.
He could hear himself think. He had a whole extra room for hobbies and shit, a stand-up punching bag in the corner for when he needed to get it out of his system, a sewing machine he was, admittedly, still learning how to use, an acoustic guitar he could noodle on while watching TV at night. All the shit he couldn’t do in his and Jack’s cramped one-bedroom.
Fuck that place.
And fuck Jack.
For once in Ed’s messy, serially monogamous life, he’s happy to be alone. Happy to sit here on his little makeshift patio with its little teal metal table and chair set and put his feet up and he can fucking breathe, and that’s leagues more than two years ago Ed or jesus fucking christ three years ago Ed could dream of, cocooned as he was in Jack’s mercurial affections, wondering each night whether Jack would call for a funeral or a hitching.
Jack would cheat and Jack would leave and Jack would beg and lie his way back and Ed would let him because Jack could never aspire to be as mean to Ed as Ed was to Ed, and that was a lesson he learned very gradually and painfully over the course of their too-long relationship.
Fucking JACK. This is the part he hates. The reliving. The relitigating. The fights he has with nobody in the shower. Jack’s fucking voice in Ed’s head. Enough.
He gets up from his little teal table set and goes inside. He breaks off a chunk of the pot chocolate bar that sends him into space with dutiful precision. He sticks to edibles because if he had a vape pen he’d never spend another moment sober for the rest of his life, and he is TRYING with all his might to leave behind a life of Excess and embrace one of Enough. He is trying to leave behind a life of habits and embrace a life of choices.
He’s done a lot of surviving. Now he’s trying to live, is basically the point.
Two hours later and he’s been reading the same page for 20 minutes but keeps getting distracted by the new buds on the tree by the path, and the high-pitched squeaking of the baby birds in the eaves of the house next door. It’s spring and the seasons are different here, brighter and greener and more fragrant and more alive. The groundhogs are out and so are the squirrels and a hawk swoops lazy circles overhead.
He’s in the slipstream. That lazy, easy high the edibles give him. He sips at the one beer he allows himself most nights. It’s cold and just sour enough to make his gills contract and his mouth salivate. He closes his eyes and feels the still-warm sun on his bare ankles. It’s a perfect spring day.
“Hello,” says the strangest voice Ed’s ever heard, jolting him out of his reverie, sending his heart speeding into chaos.
He opens his eyes and he’s staring straight at a stuffed animal in the shape of a human person. It is bald with a tiny hat and too-big eyes and it wears a blue shirt and a name tag that says Jeffy in the sort of scrawl normally reserved for words written in blood.
A puppet, he realizes several seconds beyond when it would have been appropriate to respond.
He blinks slowly, hoping the apparently sentient puppet will be gone, but it isn’t, it’s still there, perched on—okay, that’s way better—a young boy’s arm, he’s, I dunno, sevenish? Ed’s bad at that, and also the young boy is hiding behind the puppet, and the puppet is so big? Why do they make child-sized puppets for child-sized children? What kind of name is Jeffy? Ed can’t handle this, he can’t talk to children on his soberest day, much less right after the weed chocolate splatted in his empty stomach like a fucking paintball, and—
“What is your cat’s name,” the kid says, or rather makes Jeffy say, its horrible mouth opening and closing spasmodically. The kid’s voice is sort of like a robot voice but could also be the voice of a two-pack-a-day smoker if the two-pack-a-day smoker was sevenish years old and holy fuck what the fuck Ed is sweating out of his face—
And this is the worst question this kid could have asked because the cat’s name is—well,
“David,” Ed says, and the kid instantly steps closer because Ed was talking so soft the kid couldn’t hear, or maybe the puppet couldn’t hear, and now the puppet is less than a foot from Ed’s face—
“What? I—“
“DAVID,” Ed yelps, just to stop that fucking voice and Ed is going to have a panic attack sitting on his little patio because this kid and his puppet and—wait a minute don’t kids usually come with parents or guardians or other adult people around them to—
“Jeffy calls him Oswald. I call—Jeffy calls him Oswald the Lucky Cat. Do you know why Jeffy calls him Oswald the Lucky Cat?”
And Ed does … not. He does not know that. He searches the furthest reaches of his mind and there are no Oswalds, no lucky cats, nothing.
“Because of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit,” the kid—the PUPPET, Jeffy, says, and Ed’s so confused because his cat now has four names, the real one and the one he puts on the vets forms and this kid gave it two more fucking names and what does a lucky rabbit have to do with this, is the kid gonna cut off his cat’s foot and let the puppet wear it as a fucking necklace what the fuck—
“Do you know who—“
“Louis!”
Another voice shouts, a very intense doppler effect telling Ed its owner is jogging around the building, hopefully to find this kid.
“Louis, god, there you are, I was cleaning out the back seat and I thought you—oh! Hello! Louis, are you bothering this man? Is he bothering you? Louis, my goodness give him some space,” the man says—tall, blonde, slim, arms.
He drops the two duffel bags he’s holding and ushers the boy away as a girl comes around the corner. Slightly older, skinny like the man, great hair like him too.
“Don’t be weird, Louis,” she says without looking up from her gameboy in the meanest, crispest, cut-glass pre-teen voice Ed’s ever heard, and Ed’s never been more scared in his life.
“Alright, Alma, let’s just—you know what, Alma, take the keys, upstairs, both of you.”
She rolls her eyes and snatches the keys. Her brother skips dutifully behind her— puppet in front and leading the way—as they head for the stairs.
“And give him some juice, too!” The man shouts over his shoulder, and neither of his children respond.
“I’m so sorry about that,” he says. “I hope Jeffy there didn’t scare you too much. It’s his new obsession, the puppet. Can’t tear it away from him. You know how kids are with their phases.”
Ed shakes his head very slowly.
“Ah, so none of your own then. Well, anyway, the phases are very intense. Comforts them, I think.”
The man glances just briefly down at Ed’s feet on the other chair. An entire moment passes before Ed realizes he should take them off of the chair and offer it to him. He does, moves the chair to the other side of the little table and watches in silent awe as this glowing epiphany of a man sits carefully atop it, legs crossed neatly. He’s so put together Ed feels like a gum wrapper ground into the sidewalk by comparison.
“I’m Stede,” he says, offering a hand and all of his gleaming teeth. “Stede Bonnet.”
“Ed,” Ed says. “Ed Teach. Sorry if I was being weird just now, I’m a little, well, ya know.”
“Oh, are you unwell?” The genuine concern is so touching, but, god—
“No, no, I just meant I’m…” something—maybe the starch levels in this man’s shirt— tells Ed that miming smoking a joint will not convey his point. “A little uhh. Stoney baloney, as they say.”
The man blinks, and then he honest-to-god giggles. “Well, I’ve never heard it put that way before.”
“Me neither,” Ed says with a wince, because nobody says that? Literally who has ever said that? Where this particular terminology came from and why it entered his mouth right now is a question Ed will be asking himself for the rest of his life because—he has a for real, beamed-into-his-brain vision of it, or more like a series of visions, so clear they might as well be memories—Stede will be telling the story of how they met for a very long time, in the sunshine wearing shorts in the park, or screaming it over the music at a bar, or standing tall in a suit—
“I like it. Stoney baloney,” he says with a chuckle, snapping Ed back from looking forward to his memories.
“Do you… live here?”
“Ah, yes! Upstairs. Unit 3, right above you. We just moved in this month. Or, I did. This is the second weekend the kids are here, so we’re all still getting settled.”
Okay, so… divorced.
“Divorced,” he confirms. “But for the best. Or at least the best for me. Jury’s still out on the kids, I suppose! You’ll have to check with their therapists in a few years.”
He says it with a cheeky sort of grin and Ed doesn’t know whether he is allowed to laugh but he really wants to, because it’s a joke, right? A funny little joke? His turmoil only lasts a moment before fading because he is staring at the perfect two-day stubble in Stede’s dimple and the tilt of his shoulder and the goddamn circumference of his neck. The craftsmanship of him, like his clothes were tailored this morning, like every day some elves wake before dawn and cobble him some new fucking shoes. He’s a bright yellow Lamborghini of a man and Ed’s an old Chevy on cinder blocks. There is no way this man is straight and he’s Hollywood hot but like, slightly off-piste, just off-piste enough to make him even hotter, crooked mischief grin, pale eyes, pink dusted tawny, and Ed’s golden golden gone.
“And, wow, that sounded atrocious! Please know I was joking, I’m still processing this whole thing myself. Poor taste.”
But Ed laughs, because now he knows he’s allowed to and also because he can’t stop it. It catches, and Stede laughs too, a fluttery thing that echoes around the empty spaces in Ed’s heart.
“Well, nice to meet you, Ed, I don’t want to—“
“Who is Oswald?” Ed blurts, the only thought he can form to keep the chatter going. Stede’s a song he’s only just heard and he wants it on repeat until he figures out every chord progression and every bit of haunting dissonance, until he memorizes the key change at the bridge where it fucking soars.
“Os … oh! Yes, Oswald. Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. An old Disney property he found online and went head over heels for. Another of his phases.”
The cat himself, knowing he’s being talked about, appears in the window beside Ed’s face, fur pressed against the screen, lowering himself slowly into loaf position.
“Ah! Yes, there he is! Louis is rather fascinated by him, I have to warn you. Has the whole house referring to him as Oswald. Or, her. Sorry, what’s the cat’s name? Perhaps that’s easier.”
“Oh, uh. I told Louis his name was David, because that’s his government name.”
“His … government name?”
“Yeah, like at the vet and stuff?”
“But that’s … not his real name?”
“Dickfuck.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Dickfuck. His name. He. The cat,” Ed says, face heating, heart speeding. He’s barely following this conversation because he’s staring at all the gorgeous asymmetry of him, the unexpected angles and subtle expressions. The tiny muscles around his eyes that promise mischief.
“Dickfuck,” Stede repeats, that sly grin, that secret dimple.
“Dickfuck,” Ed says, holding back a giggle for all he’s worth. “Sorry it’s just. It’s so good when I have to yell at him and so bad when I have to say it to anyone else.”
“Ah. So you live alone then?”
“Yep. Me and Dickfuck.”
Stede snorts now, head ducked and palm flat on Ed’s table, rings hitting the metal with a thud. Ed laughs too, but gets lost somewhere in the midst of it, a few molecules of Stede’s cologne finding their way across the ocean of blue table between them. Clean and fresh, linens in the sun. Little particles of him for Ed to inhale.
“Do you, um. Can I get you a beer?” Ed says, hoping, hoping.
“Oh, thank you but I should, erm.” He gestures with his head at the stairs.
Ed’s brow wrinkles. He doesn’t understand.
“The kids, you know, I should probably—“
“Oh my god the kids!” He’d forgotten them entirely. “Yeah, you should totally…”
“Yeah. But it was lovely meeting you and, erm, Dickfuck—“ and here they have to pause for another giggle fit, “and I look forward to, well, seeing you around again.”
“Yeah, mate. You too.” Ed watches his backlit silhouette ascend the stairs and then runs inside the apartment and locks the door so fast he leaves a cartoon dust version of himself at the table.
Ed’s got his hair up in a towel and he’s got a toothbrush in his mouth and he’s got music on and he’s in a pretty good mood. It’s Friday and it’s warm and work is over and he got his stupid little jog in for his stupid little health. Shower was perfect and his favorite sweatpants are clean and soft on his tired legs. He’s got nothing on the calendar this weekend and he’s got some cheesy mystery from the library ready to roll and he’s got a four-pack of some fruited lactose sour bullshit beer that tastes like a fucking milkshake and he’s about to have a very chill afternoon.
The sun’s out late again, which gives Ed something like the will to live another week or so. He figures he’s got about an hour until it’s too dark to read. He spits and rinses. He pops the towel off, combs some product through his head with his fingers. He forces himself to put the shit away, hang the towel. Part of this whole thing, taking care of his space.
Being on the ground floor helps, because he’s got windows on every side, and the path is so close. The cat likes the windows open, and Ed likes to keep the cat happy, which means everyone can see how Ed lives. So he channels the stubborn bastard part of himself and keeps the fucking place tidy.
Towel folded and hung and straightened, little regiment of hair products standing guard in the medicine cabinet next to his deodorant, he turns, steps out of the bathroom and—
“JESUS FUCKING—“
And then it registers. The unholy thing pressed against the window opposite the bathroom and staring at his cat is Jeffy the goddamn puppet.
“Hello Oswald. Or I guess I should call you David now,” the puppet says through the screen.
Ed’s gotta hand it to this kid: it’s somehow just as creepy when Ed’s sober. He goes over to the window and the cat takes the opportunity to bolt from the puppet and out of the room.
“Hi Ed,” Jeffy says. “Sorry I scared you.”
“It’s alright, kid. Maybe not so close with the puppet next time, okay? I think it f— messes with Di— David.”
“Louis?” And there it is, that harried dad intonation, that slightly frantic undertone of a man trying with all his might to keep it together, so at odds with his appearance.
“Louis! Come—Ed, I’m so sorry,” he says, also pressed against Ed’s screen now. “Louis, you must be more respectful of Ed’s privacy, it’s rude to look into people’s windows.”
“But you’re doing it right now,” Louis chirps in his normal voice, a perfect imitation of his older sister.
Ed laughs.
“Yeah, pervert,” Ed says.
“What’s a pervert,” Louis says with a frown.
“Oh, god, I shouldn’t have said—“
“It means you’re weird and gross,” Alma says, breezing past, face in her gameboy.
“Alma!” Stede shouts.
“I am not! I am NOT,” Louis shouts, taking off after her.
“I was saying DAD is weird and gross,” Ed hears Alma say before their voices disappear under the stomping of their feet up the stairs.
Stede shakes his head, but Ed can’t stop laughing.
“Ed, again, I’m so sorry about that.”
“S’fine. He likes the cat, I get it.”
“At the risk of violating my own rules about peeping tommery here, I have to say, your place is lovely!”
“My—oh, uh. Thanks.” Ed looks around. It’s a mishmash of vintage stuff in weird textures, lots of velvet and leather, plush rugs, lots of purples. Cool art he finds or buys. It’s not really any one style, Ed just knows what he likes, and what he likes tends to sort of hang together in an eclectic 70s goth chic sort of way. It suits Ed, even if he’s not sure anyone’s called it ‘lovely’ before.
It feels good because Ed’s been working really hard on What Makes Ed Happy lately, that’s been the whole thing with the therapist and the move and the cat and, yeah, the velvet couch with the satiny throw pillows and it’s nice to have someone notice, particularly someone as together as Stede seems to be. A tidy cool place Makes Ed Happy, and it’s something he never got with his miserable slobby exes. So yeah. Feels great, actually.
Ed turns back around and Stede jumps, averts his eyes like he’d been staring.
“Anyway,” Stede says, already moving out of frame, “have a wonderful evening!”
“Stede! Wait,” Ed says. He doesn’t know what he’s gonna say but he has to say something. Ed jerks his head toward the front door and bounds over. When he yanks the door open, Stede’s there, frozen halfway to the stairs, eyes fixed at some point below Ed’s face, almost pointedly not looking at him. Ed’s confused for a beat, and then a drop of water from his hair rolls down the skin of his back and—
Ed plasters a smile on his face and tries not to telegraph the fact that he has only just now—standing in a cool sliver of late-day sun before god and three squirrels and Stede fucking Bonnet—remembered he’s been shirtless the whole time.
“Does he, uhh. Louis, does he want to meet the cat?” Ed blurts.
“Why, Ed, that would be wonderful! I’m sure he’d love it. But I don’t want to bother you now, you seem, well, somewhat indisposed?”
“What? Pffffft, it’s, I mean, psssshh—“
His hair is wet against his back and it’s chilly enough that his nipples are absolutely getting hard and his pulse races as he tries to decide whether it’s better to pretend this was on purpose and stand here like it’s no big deal or admit this was an accident and go get a fucking shirt but he doesn’t get a chance before—
A door opens at the top of the stairs because of course a door opens at the top of the stairs and two feet begin their stompy descent and with Ed’s luck it will be—
“Hello, Ed. Even for you this is a bit forward, don’t we think?”
Ed rolls his eyes. Of course! Of course.
“Lucius Spriggs, unit 5. And you must be the person I have to thank for,” he swirls his hand in Ed’s direction, “all this.”
“Stede,” Stede says, shaking his hand, cheeks going bright pink. He points above his head. “Unit 3.”
“Ah, you’re right below me! Nice to get to top occasionally, especially for two gorgeous men like you. Although don’t tell Pete or we’ll never make it out of the house again.”
Stede crinkles his brow like he doesn’t get it and at this point all Ed can do is fucking laugh.
“Anyway, Stede, enjoy whatever this little seduction ritual is, he doesn’t do it for everyone,” Lucius says. He blows a kiss over his shoulder as he skips off toward Main Street.
Stede grins and stares pointedly at his shoes, and Ed feels bad very suddenly.
“Okay. Wait right there,” he says. “Don’t move!” Foot in the door, he reaches behind him and grabs a random hoodie from the front hall closet and pulls it over his bare torso. He catches himself in the old gilt mirror as he turns back to the door: the word HOLE in a big red heart, of course, of fucking course.
When he finally steps fully outside, Stede’s leaned casually up against the side of the stairs with his feet crossed and his hands in his pockets like the smoky be-suited protagonist in a noir film of Ed’s dreams. Ed can’t fathom it, a newly single father in a pressed jacket and a shirt with buttons. Wrinkles must just slide right off him.
“Sorry, I’d just gotten out of the shower, and Louis scared the shit out of me, I didn’t realize—I mean I wasn’t trying to—“
“Oh, Ed, please, it’s your house. No need to apologize on my account,” Stede says, smile warm.
“Okay, well. I only wanted to say, if the kids want to meet the cat, maybe, uhh. I dunno, you wanna all come over tomorrow? I can cook dinner?”
Stede’s body sort of heaves itself off the pole so fast he has to steady himself with an arm out.
“Oh! I—“
“Not that you have to—“
“I suppose we would have to eat—“
“Like it’s a super no pressure thing, I—“
“I think we’d be delighted to—“
“I know your time with them is—“
“HE ALREADY SAID YES,” Lucius’s distant scream from halfway down the block informs Ed.
It’s like a bit they don’t mean to do. They both stop speaking and open their mouths, Lucius’s words hanging in the air. They laugh at the same time, the same shy huff. They look down in perfect synchronicity.
And they both start speaking again in unison.
“Well, since you asked so nicely—“
“Is six a normal time to—”
Stede smirks so hard he has to lean into it like an animated Disney prince.
“Fuck’s sake,” Ed says, scrubbing a hand down his face. He’s smiling so big he could flag down aircraft. “Okay I’m gonna talk and you’re not gonna talk. If you and the kids are free tomorrow at 6, I’d love to make everyone dinner so they can hang out with the cat a while. If burgers are okay, I could make those? I can go all out, homemade fries and everything. Don’t eat meat often myself, but I figure there’s no kid who’ll turn that down.”
He's not gonna say yes because what kind of lunatic accepts an invite from a half-naked stranger who's scared of a puppet?
Stede blinks. Tilts his head.
And yeah, he fucking smiles.
And then Ed starts to get a little nervous. A car drives by blaring a Pat Benetar song, for worse or for better, we belong. It fades to silence as the car speeds off. Ed feels his shoulders sag, his grin slide down to a stunned nothing. All that lovely rhythm between them, gone as soon as Ed said something real.
“Stede you—I mean, if you don’t want to you can just say no?”
“I can’t say anything, you told me not to talk.”
“I said you could talk after I talked!”
“Edward, I distinctly remember you saying I was not to speak.”
“Okay, well,” Ed says with an exaggerated eye roll, “uh, offer rescinded, because I can’t imagine having to deal with all four of you at once.”
“There are only three of us.”
“I was talking about Jeffy.”
Stede holds it together for a triumphant two seconds before he dissolves into laughter, folded at the middle, hands on his thighs.
“That f-fucking puppet, mate,” Ed gets out through giggles. “I can’t believe you sleep in the same house as that thing!”
“It’s so fucking creepy,” Stede says, gasping, having to stop every other word. “Kids are so fucking creepy, Ed.”
Ed’s bent in the doorway, head pressed to the frame. Tears run down his cheeks. It takes a full minute for it to subside.
“Alma’s sort of veggie,” Stede says, wiping his eyes. “When she remembers.”
“Lucky for her I’ve got some veggie burgers in the freezer.” He made them himself, but he won’t brag about it yet.
Stede steps in, still shaking off the last of the fit. He places a firm, warm hand on Ed’s shoulder.
“Thank you for the invite. It’s been … difficult. And I appreciate it. And I can’t wait,” he says.
“I can’t either,” Ed says, already starting to feel the sweet-hot zing of twenty-four individual hours of precious anticipation.
Stede nods, retreats.
“And I promise to wear a shirt,” Ed calls before shutting the door.
He hears Stede snort from halfway up the stairs.
Lunatic.
—
It’s good. Part of his this whole new Ed-centric life phase was forming friendships that meant something, friends of his own, not tied to whatever neanderthal he was dating. Get some kind of net under him for when his next inevitably bad relationship goes tits up.
He could have a crush on Stede Bonnet. That was allowed, it was in the rules. It wouldn’t kill him. It didn’t have to mean anything. Might even be a good exercise for him, to have a crush, to hold it, to refuse to mold his life around it. Also, he's got kids. He won't have time for Ed's chaotic bullshit. It's good. Fine, he thinks.
And then it’s dark and quiet, and he’s moving things from one shelf to another because suddenly everything about his place is fucking bothering him, like, has that shelf always looked so cluttered? Has that space by the door always seemed so dead? Does the bath mat smell weird?
He puts some games under the coffee table, just in case. He takes down two of the more explicit pieces of art, hides the vintage porn books he finds at thrift shops and flea markets. Dusts.
He hangs an old tapestry over the electrical panel. He switches the chair blanket with the couch blanket, and then changes his mind and puts them back. The timer goes off for the brownies he whipped up.
He pulls them out of the oven and turns the timer off. The clock says 2AM.
“Fuck, he says to the cat, perched on the counter, head tilted in silent question.
He pours a whiskey. Takes it to bed. He’s supposed to be paying attention to all this shit that happens in his body, not living from the neck up like he has for forty whatever years.
So he closes his eyes. Breathes. Exhales.
He feels absolutely sick with nerves.
Fuck.
—
The doorbell rings just after Ed pulls the onion rolls out of the oven. Yeah, he went all out. Yeah, one of the things that Makes Ed Happy is cooking for people. No, he’s not even gonna mention it, just gonna serve ‘em. He did it for himself. FOR HIMSELF.
He hangs the apron on the hook on the fridge. He hits play on the playlist he spent all morning on, a mix of his normal sultry depressed murmuring crap and some more upbeat stuff the kids will probably know and like.
It’s less than he was going to do, okay, he looked in the mirror and took the proverbial one thing off: he didn’t light candles and he didn’t wear eyeliner and this is just a casual chill dinner party with some new friends two of whom happen to be children.
He yanks open the door and forces himself not to flinch away from the goddamn puppet. The cat has no such restraint, though. Dickfuck takes one look at Jeffy and yeets himself under the chair in the living room.
“Hey, uhh, Louis, I think the cat’s afraid of the puppet,” he says. “While you meet Di-David, s’okay if I hold onto it here?” He nods toward the coat rack.
Louis shakes his head in the negative and heads for the couch. He plops the puppet down and slumps down beside it. Alma, who is already on her knees, crawling under the chair, is talking to Dickfuck in a baby voice. As soon as she gets a hand on it, Louis forgets the puppet and joins her on the rug, nervous behind his sister. They’re just being kids, but they slide into his apartment so easily, like it’s no big deal, like they own the place, touching his stuff, asking questions.
Ed watches the scene unfold from inside a cloud of Stede’s cologne. Alma coaxes the cat out. Picks it up. Louis pets it now, less afraid than he was. Alma carries it like a baby to the couch, and Ed silently commends the cat for being amenable to this kind of handling. Alma plops down, Louis lands beside her, and the cat takes one look at the puppet and wrenches its body out of her arms, over the back of the couch, and out of the room. Ed realizes a smile has lifted his whole face out of its anxiety scowl. He feels suddenly wistful, homesick for someone else’s life, homesick for an idea.
And then he looks at Stede. Dark denim, robin’s egg sweater, a palette of all those blues that catch your eye in nature because they’re so rare. He stands with his hands behind his back. His eyes are the color of the mountain in spring.
But he looks stiff, still standing in the entryway. “Sorry, mate, can I—“
Then Stede takes his hands out from behind his back. The left one holds a bouquet of tulips wrapped in butcher paper. The right one holds a frosty cold bottle of white wine.
“Stede, you didn’t have to do all that,” Ed says, taking both from them, cradling them gently, afraid this whole delicate thing will shatter in his clumsy hands.
“I wanted to,” he says simply, which makes Ed wonder why nobody’s ever wanted to before.
Ed gets the flowers in a big mason jar which is the closest thing he has to a functional vase but it works perfectly. He feels slightly self-conscious about his lack of vase. He doesn’t know, but he gets the impression that Stede has the correct item for every occasion. Different stemware for red and white wines. Soup tureens. Things of that nature. Ed’s always been a sort of hodgepodge guy, takes what he finds, keeps what he uses. He wonders briefly if he should be more intentional about it all. Make choices about shit.
The silence lasts a beat. Ed’s about to ask what he can get everyone when Alma shouts, “ED HAS A SWITCH?”
And so they never actually listen to that playlist.
—
The kids get Mario Kart going, with a little help from Ed on the remotes. He’d been so nervous the kids would be bored at his place he’d forgotten all about his video game habit, and the fact that, technically, video games were also for children. He drops the remotes on the table and leaves them to it because they certainly seem perfectly at home.
And then he’s slicing onions, trying to get out of his head while Stede chats about the spring weather from his perch on the stool at the breakfast bar. Ed realizes, because he is being Good and Paying Attention to his Fucking Stupid Body, that he feels a little sheepish about the whole thing in a way he wasn’t anticipating. It’s sort of him and Stede over here, and the kids over there, and he isn’t sure what to do with the split because his instincts tell him to flirt like the devil.
“So,” Stede says, snapping him out of it, “how long have you lived here, Ed?”
“Oh, coming up on three years, I guess.”
A shriek punctures the ongoing banter from the couch and Louis bursts into tears.
“Hey, hey!” Stede says. He goes over and drops to his knees before them. “What happened?”
Alma flings her arms to her sides and rolls her eyes with weapons-grade drama.
“He keeps losing and he’s mad.”
“She keeps beating—hic—beating me on purpose!”
“Well, DUH,” Alma says, and Ed has to turn his head toward the sink so they won’t see him laugh.
“Okay, well, yes, Louis, Alma has a point. Everyone tries to win, don’t they?”
The kid nods, sniffles.
“And you’re frustrated because you’re not as good as her yet. Alma, wouldn’t you be frustrated if you kept losing?”
“Yeah, but I wouldn’t be a baby about it.”
“Oh, you weren’t crying when you messed up at your basketball game last winter?”
She looks down.
“Both of you look at me. Louis, it’s okay to cry when you’re frustrated.” He takes the kids chin in his gentle hand. “It’s also okay to ask Alma for help if you want to get better. Alma, if he asked, would you help him learn?”
“FINE,” she says dramatically, “here, look.” She takes the controller from him.
“When you go into a hard turn you have to press this before, it makes you skid and you stay on the track thing.”
Louis is still sniffling and gulping.
“Louis,” Stede says. “This is very serious, I need you to stop all that laughing.”
He giggles instantly. “I’m not laughing, I’m ANGRY,” he says, still giggling.
“Now this is ridiculous, Louis, it’s no time for laughing!”
“I’m NOT LAUGHING,” the kid says, shrieking with glee.
Stede pats their knees, leaves them to it. His smile leads the way back to his seat at the breakfast bar and Ed keeps right on chopping like he never stopped.
“Sorry about that.”
“S’okay,” Ed says. “Neat trick.”
“Heh, yeah. I dread the day that trick stops working, lemme tell you. Sure I can’t do anything?”
“Oh, no, just finishing up some toppings. Figured they might like building their own.”
“Very experiential!”
“A little snacktivity.”
Stede laughs. “Delightful. They’ll love it, I’m sure.”
A peal of laughter rings so loud Ed checks to see the windows haven’t shattered.
“Well, they seem to have moved on pretty quick there,” he says, shoulders up around his eyebrows.
“You know, it’s my favorite thing about them?”
“Oh?”
“When they need to cry, they cry. When they want to scream, they scream. You sometimes have to tell them not to, because we do live in something of a society, but I often find myself, erm. Well. Wishing I had the courage to express my emotions so freely.”
Ed’s whole body softens as he takes this in. If he could do this right now, what would he say? Something like, I’ve never wanted to impress someone so fiercely and I’m pants-shittingly scared I’ll scare you off trying to.
Or: I feel things around you that are completely new and my brain won’t tell me if I’m allowed to like it or not.
Or: Stay, all of you, here, with me, forever.
There it is. That ancient codependent in him rearing its head. Ed shakes it off. He knows better.
—
“Alright you two, pause time,” Stede croons, and they leap off the couch with two thuds.
At the table, they do cartoon eyes. Ed went all out: There’s bacon and three cheese options and ketchup and mustard and onions both raw and sautéed with mushrooms and mayo and sliced pickles and lettuce and tomato and steak sauce and the special white sauce his mother taught him before she died. The fries are fresh out of the oven and as salty and perfect as Ed hoped they’d be. He’s got little spinach salads for everyone, so everyone gets a vegetable.
“Ed this is amazing,” Stede says, eyeing the spread.
He shrugs. “I like to cook.”
“Kids, say thank you to Ed.”
“Thank you, Ed,” they say in exaggerated kid annoyance unison and start piling stuff on their burgers.
Ed and Stede hang back and let them make theirs. Louis sticks his whole hand in the little dish of pickles and plops a big mass of them on his burger.
“Louis! There’s a fork right there. Now all the pickles will taste like fingers,” Stede says, grabbing Louis’s vinegary finger and pretending to take a bite. Louis giggles and Stede reaches over and spreads the pickles out for him.
“Pickles are friends, not lovers,” Ed quips automatically.
“What does that mean?” Stede asks with a sneer.
“I used to work at this shitty burger joint as a teenager. Sorry. This awful burger joint. Had this miserable regional manager guy who’d come around during busy hours and breathe down our necks about everything he thought we were doing wrong. He was always up our—always on us about the pickles, it was his pet peeve.” He mocks the smarmy voice of his old grandboss. “Pickles should be friends not lovers. Meant they should be near each other but never touch.”
“Like you and mom,” the kid says softly.
Stede turns fucking purple. “Yes, Louis, your mother and I are good friends,” he mutters.
Ed gives him an elbow to the ribs and Stede tries to smile around the grimace.
The kids wolf down their burgers and don’t touch their salads and get right back to the Switch with their fries in a little bowl Ed gives them. After that, Ed opens the wine Stede brought.
—
“So, where are you from?”
“Oh, here and there, moved around a lot.”
“Well, you’ve got to be from somewhere, right?”
A grin. “Sure, fair enough. I was born up here but don’t really remember living here. Moved to the city pretty young, for mum’s job. Moved a ton after that. Pretty much every year for a while, wherever the rent was cheap and the work was good…”
…
“Get some great storms up here, with the mountain and all. I live for it.”
“The RAIN? Really? With your hair?”
“Yeah. Love it. I dunno mate, like, what’s better than the sound of it. The excuse to lay low. You light some incense, you drink some fancy prick whiskey—sorry, fuck, I mean, god, I’m not used to being around kids, I’m such an as—a jerk.”
Stede almost chokes on his wine. “You can call yourself an asshole. They have iPads, Ed.”
“Yeah, I already know how to swear like Ed,” Alma calls while still mashing buttons. They’re onto Smash Bros now. “Asshole. Crap, shit, fu—“
“ALMA,” Stede half laughs half chokes, failing to sound even remotely authoritative or parental. Louis is laughing so hard he has to mash his face into Ed’s couch cushion, crushing Jeffy beneath him.
“Okay, but if you’re gonna do it, you gotta do it right,” Ed says. “There’s an art to it. You can’t just spew a string of them for no reason, okay, they lose their potency.”
“That’s what Dad does” Alma says.
Ed turns to Stede and he’s looking at his feet. “Does he, now?”
…
“…and then, I dunno, he died, and it was like… like a bell jar just lifted right off of me. I hadn’t even known it was there.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. I probably shouldn’t be telling you all about my awful dead father on our first—on the first time we—“
“Oh, trust me, mate, I get it,” Ed says, rescuing him. “My dad was a mean bastard too, but in a different way. I feel almost lucky listening to you talk about yours. At least mine was obvious about it. At least my dad walked into the room and announced himself to be a bastard. Yours sounds way more devious. Like he wanted you to internalize it without him having to outright say shit. I’ve had exes like that, it really fucks—messes you up.”
“God, Ed, you’re so right. By the time I realized I wasn’t the problem I had about five minutes before he carked it. Might have been nice to realize when I was younger. Might have lived more.”
“Eh, yes and no, has it’s downsides too. You still get that thing inside you that says you’re the bastard. One time, when I was 26, I was dating this real piece of—work named James, and we were out at his club, and …”
…
“Really? Pies, Stede?”
“I prefer my desserts to be fruit-forward! Cake is just cake, it’s all too sweet, it’s all the same. With pie, at least you get more seasonal variety, you get more funky tartness, more acidic surprises, things like that.”
“So you like an emotionally complicated dessert.”
“And what’s wrong with that? A little enrichment with my sugar delivery? Why, what’s your favorite dessert?”
Ed stands and dramatically whips the tea towel off the plate of three layer brownies.
“Oh, Ed, they're gorgeous. See, I bet those have all kinds of emotional complications! There’s salt on the top. I bet at least one layer is dark and bitter.”
“Like my soul.”
This time Stede does choke on his wine.
“Yes, Ed, like your soul,” he says, coughing, giggling.
“Guess we have to share, though. Hey—“
“Ah ah,” Stede says, hands out, eyes wide. He presses a finger to his lips.
Is he really gonna eat all the brownies and not share with his kids? Maybe Ed was gravely mistaken. Maybe he’s let a cruel, selfish man into his home.
But then he jerks his head over his shoulder and Ed sees that the game is on pause, and the TV is dimmed out, halfway to shutting itself off. He leans over to see Alma passed out on the arm of the couch. Louis is drooling on her leg with the controller still in his hand.
“Wow,” Ed whispers, awed. “Before dessert and everything.”
As Stede pulls Ed’s couch throw over most of Louis, Ed’s aware of something warm and sad sticking in his throat, that same ache from before, that sad, lonely thing. And he can see it clear as fucking crystal: rain pounding on the roof, incense smoke curling toward the ceiling, something bubbling away on the stove. These two, passed out on the sofa, Ed and Stede slow dancing to something silly in the kitchen, hushing each other’s giggles. It feels, he realizes with a sick whirlpool of grief—safe.
Nothing about this evening feels the way he thought it would. But then, he’s never dated a guy with kids before.
And he still hasn’t, he reminds himself with an eye roll because they are decidedly, resolutely, unwaveringly not dating.
“Come on,” Ed whispers.
There’s a couch in the office-slash-guest room, a foldout thing Ed bought when he still suffered from the delusion that friends from his old life might visit him up here. He makes them a little spread on the low coffee table: two plates with brownies, the wine, the glasses.
“So,” he says softly, once they’re settled, “what brings you up here? Sounds like your life is back in the city. Said it’s been a difficult time, the other day?”
“It’s true.“ He looks a little sad.
Divorce, he explains. An inability to walk down the street without dodging ghosts of his old life and all his failures, he explains. Wanting to be close enough for the kids, but far enough away for himself, he explains. Not knowing whose needs to prioritize where.
“I’ve sort of … well, been stuck, Ed. My whole life down there was defined by my least healthy relationships. My father, Mary, my old bosses. I want to do better. I want to find … I guess, the best parts of me? Try to define my life that way.”
And damn if that wasn’t the entire thing Ed walked into therapy for. Different specifics, sure, but the broad strokes? Man.
“I sorta get it,” Ed says. “Wasn't married, but my last relationship blew up so hard I was basically thrown here by the explosion. It was three years ago but it feels like five minutes sometimes, even with all the therapy and shit. Always wound up with party people, immature dickheads who hurt you then accuse you of being sensitive. Couldn’t keep friends in my life because I was too busy putting out relationship fires and decompressing from fights to be any use to anyone. Barely knew who I was anymore. Took a year of being alone before I realized if you don’t take yourself seriously, no one else will.”
“Hm,” he says, seeming to rotate it around in his head. “I think you might be right, Ed.”
His eyes drop and Ed realizes he’s got a hand on Stede’s knee, like it just sort of migrated there without his input.
“God, mate, I’m so sorry, I’m—I’m just an affectionate guy, I didn’t mean to—“
He goes to pull his hand away, humiliated, doesn’t even know if this guy’s gay.
He makes it about an inch before Stede’s closes over it and slowly, god, fucking softly, replaces it.
“It’s fine,” he says. “It’s nice.”
The brownies sit there, untouched. A little bit of sweetness in the air.
“I think I’m on a similar journey, Ed. Trying to figure out what I want and take it seriously. It’s difficult stuff, especially if you learn early and often to put yourself down. But …don’t answer if this is too personal, but … does it ever get lonely?”
His first impulse is to make a joke. With tits like these and a right hand? And he could, he could flirt and bat his eyelashes and get Stede to follow him to bed—okay, maybe not tonight, but soon—and for a while he would think he was filling the void but eventually he would wake up alone and jealous and terrified and realize he never actually fills the void, just obscures it for a while until the high wears off, and he’s really really trying not to do that.
Also—and he takes no pleasure in this revelation—it’s what Jack would say.
For most of his life, he resisted being earnest. Thought it meant shutting off a part of himself, or something. Sitting here, though, his hand warm on the meat of Stede’s thigh, Stede’s kids snoring on his couch, it changes shape in his mind. He can hold it, for now. The jokes can wait. Backfilling seriousness into a clown relationship has never worked, square peg round hole and all that. In this moment, for just a flickering beat, he can picture the reverse. He can picture showing his heart up front. Saying this is who the fuck I am. The clown shit will keep.
“Can do,” Ed allows with a smile. “Some nights I’m here and it’s like, wow, okay, don’t wanna drink, don’t wanna go out, don’t wanna play video games, don’t wanna read. All I wanna do is, I dunno, lay in bed with my head on someone’s chest and listen to them breathe. I’ll start to feel really sorry for myself, but then I stop, and I take a deep breath and I try to think of something that Makes Ed Happy. And I take a bath or go for a walk, and … it passes.”
“Wow,” Stede says, hushed and earnest, eyes wide and damp. “Are you happy?”
Now that’s a tough one, and it’s getting closer to the center of that jawbreaker than Ed gets even on his own, sometimes.
“Sure,” he says slowly. “At first it was painful all the time, thought I’d die alone in a puddle of my own piss or something. Now, most of the time. I’m happIER, I have moments of blinding fucking bliss that this gets to be my life, working from my cute apartment and hanging out with my stupid cat and cooking for my nice neighbor and his kids. Sometimes it feels like something’s missing, but then it always did in the past, too. At least now I like myself more.”
“Hm,” Stede says thoughtfully, tilting his head. “Sounds nice, I think. Slow, honest progress. Sometimes I feel as though I have to make a whole new life overnight. Maybe that’s … too much pressure. Maybe it can take its time.”
“Exactly. I dunno, sometimes it’s sort of nice to be lonely. Bittersweet. Plus,” Ed says, wicked glint in his eye, “with tits like these and a right hand…”
Stede chokes, smacks him on the shoulder.
“You menace,” Stede says, smile lit up like a county fair.
And that’s it, round peg square hole. Drops right in like magic. Proof of fucking concept.
“Nah, I’m kidding around. It’s weird, being around you and those guys out there, it’s like. I spent my whole life instinctually avoiding stability, stillness. Thought it would change me, or mean I’d given up. I thought it was for other people, more normal people, who knew how to do life. Thought I was too messy. But being here with you, hanging out with a couple of rad kids, it’s … really nice. Feels right.”
He freezes.
“I mean. Not that we’re dating or anything,” he adds hastily. ”I just meant—“
“I get it, Ed,” Stede says kindly, giving Ed’s hand a squeeze. “I’m still healing and so are you. Seems like we have a lot to learn from each other.”
“I think we do, Stede,” he says, squeezing Stede’s knee right back.
And then nobody says anything for a minute. It’s weird, because they both just said this isn’t a thing, the timing isn’t right, and yet Ed can feel it right between them, the world’s biggest invisible question mark, the most important game of chicken he’s ever played. Stede’s smile fades like a dream and his eyes never leave Ed’s and he could, he knows it, he could—
“Wanna do something weird?” he asks instead.
And that’s how they wind up sitting on the living room rug, backs against the couch, controllers in their sweaty fists, flying down Rainbow Road, volume turned low, trying not to laugh too loud and wake the kids. Stede’s practically upside down as he leans physically into every turn, trying to keep Princess Peach in her little car on the skinny corner, his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth in evidence of his deep concentration. He’s working so hard, but—
He’s a full lap behind. Ed finishes the race and just watches him with his mouth wide open.
“Mate,” he whispers, “sorry but you are fucking just. Comically bad at this game.”
“I’ve had wine,” he whispers, mashing buttons, getting airlifted back onto the track for the 20th fucking time.
“Nah, mate, this is like. Fatal. Like I didn’t know it was possible. Like there should be a law—“
Stede skids off the track inches before the finish line and Ed loses it, it’s over, he keels over sideways, fetal, whole body shaking to keep from making noise.
Stede snorts, tosses the controller, and it lands on the floor with a thud.
“Dad?” Louis says, gritty with sleep. “You have to skid into the turns.”
And Ed laughs loud enough to wake the block.
“Are you gonna make dad gay?”
Ed spits coffee all over the book he’s reading and all over his table but not, thankfully, Louis’s puppet.
“WHAT?” Ed chokes.
“I dunno, Dad said in the car you don’t have a wife because you’re gay and—and you hang out together and so I just though maybe that was why, and—“
The puppet’s mouth is moving and Louis is slipping between his own voice and Jeffy’s and Ed is in, god, just, so far over his head here.
“That’s not how it works, idiot,” Alma says, sauntering around the corner, face in a graphic novel. “Hi, Ed.”
“Hey kid, good to see you.”
”Oh, hello, Edward. Not how what works?” Stede says cheerily, bringing up the rear, and everyone goes silent.
Ed stops wiping coffee off the table and raises a brow. He’s not going down for this.
“Louis? You wanna tell him?”
“Well, it’s just that, because you moved here, and but mom doesn’t live here, and then Ed became your friend and I thought, I thought it was because Ed made you—and so I was asking Ed if—because Ed said, the other night, he said that—“
Ed sees the instant it dawns on Stede. Stede’s whole face goes cartoon aghast, mouth open in horror.
“Alright, that’s enough, upstairs, now,” he barks, shooing Louis toward the stairs. “I’m just—sorry, I just have to—“
“Go,” Ed says, and god damnit if Ed doesn’t feel his stupid little heart do a flip.
Later there’s a knock at his door.
“Oh, hey Stede, what’s up?”
“Is it a good time?” He asks with a wince.
“Course. Come on in.”
“Got them a Switch,” he says, hands clasped behind his back.
“Excellent,” Ed says, unsure what this is all about.
“They threatened to leave me for you if I didn’t. Said they’d sneak down while I was in the shower and claim squatter’s rights.”
“How do they even know what that is,” Ed says with a frown.
“They know everything and nothing. It’s infinitely fascinating.”
That secret smile, when he’s shy.
“Ed, this is sort of embarrassing, but I wanted to, erm, apologize. For Louis, earlier. I hope he didn’t make you uncomfortable.”
Ed laughs. “Takes more than that to throw me, mate.”
“They’re rather fascinated with you, and of course they are, why wouldn’t they be, you’re—well, that’s not the point, the point is, they’re going through a lot of big life changes right now and I accidentally threw them for a loop in the car, and I felt I should thank you for being gentle with him about it.”
“Kids are kids, man, I get it.”
“I’m sure you do, but … well, not sure I do.”
Ed isn’t sure what he means on a micro level, but on a macro level, yeah.
“Wanna talk about it?”
“I only have a minute, I told them to text me if they need anything,” he says, gesturing toward the phone clutched in his fist. He sits at the table where Ed was doing the crossword in the local paper like some kind of sexy retiree.
“Ed, you’re obviously, erm. Queer? On some level? Right?”
Ed smiles. He nods. On some level.
“Well, you’re the first adult they’ve spent any time around that talks about it openly, and I just wanted to have a talk with them about it, and they made assumptions about me, and believe me, I’ve corrected the record, they know you and I aren’t—well. I thought you should know, is all, and again, thank you for being … kind, about everything. It’s all very new and complicated and, well.”
“Doesn’t seem complicated to me, mate. Seems like a weird time, and your kids are trying to put things together. It’s no big deal.”
“Thank you, Edward. Really.”
“I mean, also,” he says, “who could resist having a queer sexual awakening around me? I’m a siren, a god-like bisexual incubus, a living breathing deadly sin, a—“
“Alright, alright,” Stede says, looking down at his hands on the table. “Very funny.”
“Oh, babe,” he says, hand on Stede’s knee again, “I didn’t mean to tease you. I was making a joke about my stupid ego, all the hair and tattoos and leather and shit, nothing more. Promise.”
“I feel rather silly about it all, Ed. I’m just. Well, I’m not ready to—“ He waves his hand meaninglessly.
“Hey,” Ed says, deadly serious now, taking both of his hands. “I’m sorry I hurt your feelings, mate. I just meant they can be as fascinated with me as they like. I enjoy them and their weird questions, even if I ruined my t-shirt spitting coffee all over it.”
“Really?” He says with a grimace.
“Really. You guys wanna come over again tomorrow night? How about pizza this time.”
“Ed, you don’t have to keep doing that.”
“I want to. I like cooking. It Makes Ed Happy,” he says, imagining his therapist’s smug fucking face. “I like hanging out with you. I like, I dunno teaching Alma how to swear.”
He smirks. “Her mother is so very grateful for those efforts.”
“Listen, they’re gonna learn anyway, they might as well learn how to do it right,” he smiles. “You’re doing me a favor. I—well, it’s sad, but, I haven’t always been a great person. At the moment, I, uhh, don’t … have any friends.”
“I’m your friend,” Stede says immediately, embarrassment forgotten in the midst of Ed’s confession. He squeezes Ed’s hands and, inexplicably, Ed wants to cry.
“Tomorrow at six,” he says, looking Ed dead in the eyes, daring him to rescind the offer, daring him to soften the ask. “Dinner.”
“Tomorrow at six,” Ed says. “Dinner.”
—
And then it’s six and he can hear their little voices through the open windows before they knock and this time? This time he braces himself to get a faceful of Jeffy the puppet before he yanks the door open.
“Hello Edward,” Jeffy says in the voice of a creaking boat, and it worked, Ed can exhale through it, he can smile at Jeffy’s weird thumb face and say hello.
No such luck for Dickfuck, though. He makes a heroic dash for the bathtub, where Ed guesses he’ll remain most of the night. Little coward.
He feels the puppet brush his trousers as it rounds the corner toward the couch.
“Oh no you don’t,” Ed says. “Tonight you’re helping. You two are gonna be my sous chefs. Leave the puppet on the couch and come on over.”
Ed has overthought this, of course. Spent half the night overthinking it. Felt like if he just fed them and handed them controllers again, Stede might start thinking Ed was using his kids to get closer to him. Which he wasn’t doing, but he wasn’t NOT doing it, either. Then he thought of a bunch of shit they could all do together and felt like he went too far in the other direction, like Stede would think maybe this stranger was getting way too eager to get to know his kids, and start getting suspicious Ed was trying to turn them into a viral TikTok, or collude with them to steal Stede’s identity or something.
After going round the whole fucking bend and back again, it had dawned on him that being an only child, and, well, never getting to be a fucking kid, he really didn’t know WHAT they would want or like, didn’t know what was a normal level of enthusiasm. His heart had hurt a bit, realizing he was more afraid of them than they were of him, like Stede’s kids were coyotes or something.
So he’d done some breathing and some fucking journaling and had a fucking whiskey and really? It wasn’t about the kids, was it? Because the kids liked him. Stede said as much. And Ed had fun clowning with them. They like video games, and they liked telling stories and getting out of breath in the middle of them, and they liked, I dunno, fucking puppetry.
It was Stede he wanted to impress. Stede was the mystery. It’s Stede who made his fucking heart hurt because it felt so goddamn easy with him and his goddamn stupid kids and Ed had sworn off dating and Stede hadn’t said he was gay, but he also hadn’t said he wasn’t.
Stede was the fucking coyote.
So, fine. Act like it’s off the table. Chill with the kids. Do what feels right. Have them help with pizza. Let fun clown Ed make the calls and not bitter depressed overthinker Ed.
“What’s a soup chef?”
“He didn’t say soup chef, dummy,” Alma sneers.
“Oh yeah? You’re so smart, what did I say?”
“I dunno,” she giggles.
“Thought so. I said SOUS chef, s-o-u-s, and it means you’re my assistants. First rule of sous cheffing is you don’t get to tease Louis for not knowing stuff.”
“FINE,” Alma sighs, dropping dramatically into a chair.
“I know stuff.”
“Like what?” Ed says, already regretting it.
“I know how to grow potatoes. I learned when I was an old man.”
Ed blinks. He looks at Stede. Stede blinks. He looks at Alma. Alma blinks.
“What are you talking about, you weirdo,” she says.
Ed knows already that old man potato farmer Louis will be tonight’s sleep paralysis demon. Probably looks like Jeffy, actually. Weird bald head and beady eyes and—nope, enough of that.
“Alright you two, wash your hands, then in here. Let’s go.”
He’s got the dough all risen, he’s got the sauce cooked, he’s got the stone heated, he’s got the toppings all chopped, it’s mise en fucking place city.
“What can I do?” Stede asks with a smile as his kids elbow each other at Ed’s bathroom sink.
“My least favorite job,” Ed says, handing Stede a cheese grater and a hunk of mozzarella.
“Just happy to be included!” he chirps, getting to it.
He places all the toppings around one of the pies.
“Okay, gremlins, this one’s yours. That half,” he says to Alma, “is yours, and the other half is yours. Go nuts, but remember: if it has too much sh—stuff on it, it won’t get all crispy and good in the oven, so use less than you think you need of everything.”
Alma gets to work showering her half in vegetables—onions and peppers and mushrooms and olives. Ed likes her style, knows what she wants, goes right for it.
Louis, though, seems hesitant.
“What do you like?” Ed asks him.
“I dunno,” the kid says with a heavy sigh. “I think I like … EVERYTHING.”
“What’s your favorite? What do you always ask for when we order?” Stede prompts him.
“PEPPERONI!”
“Now, I’d wager you put some of that with some mushrooms and onions and you’ll have yourself a delicious slice,” Ed says.
Alma’s already done by the time Louis starts. He picks each thing carefully, as though there’s a perfect onion size or shape, or the platonic ideal of a mushroom. He places them evenly atop the cheese, nudging things left or right when they’re too close, like he’s doing an art project and not making dinner. He moves through each vegetable, pausing to ensure he’s satisfied before moving on to the meat. Ed feels something swell in his chest, something fierce and protective, something ancient and sweet, something that feels an awful lot like—
“Pepperonis are friends, not lovers,” Louis says softly, placing them between bits of veg.
“What did you just say?”
“They’re like pickles,” Louis says, very seriously, looking at Ed. “Right?”
“Yeah kid. Just like pickles.”
And he can’t see it now, but somewhere down inside he knows it’s coming. He knows the night will end with the four of them on the living room floor smashing pixels of go-karts together, cat watching warily from its bed. He knows somewhere down inside that the kids will hug him sleepily as they leave for the first time and it will make him feel sick with misplaced longing. He knows he’ll stop Stede before he steps out the door, jacket fabric between his desperate fingers, and say, hey, wanna get together this week, the implied just us left unsaid.
And he knows, okay, he knows it’ll be a mistake and he’ll say it anyway and Stede will say yes, because he’s starting to get the feeling that whatever he asks, Stede and his gorgeous brood will simply smile and say: yes.