Through Thick and Thin

by J. P. Oliver

  Once he’d disappeared, Lance kicked Travis under the table. “Really? Was that necessary?”

  “He needs to stay out of your business,” Travis replied. “What you do is your personal business.”

  “Yet you don’t seem to mind getting into my personal business. Weren’t you just lecturing me on my love life too?”

  “That’s different—”

  Matthew walked by them, papers in hand. Lance’s gaze followed him, wondering what he was up to.

  There was a kind of chalkboard set up right when someone entered the café, set up in the folding way so that it formed a triangle, with the two sides showing different things. The one facing people walking into the café usually said something about the specials, while the side someone saw as they exited had some kind of joke or pun—Matthew’s friend Jared, the owner of the café, made them up.

  Not today, though. Today, Matthew was writing on the board, looking at the papers in his hand. Lance waited to see what specials he would see, maybe some new kind of pancake, but instead when Matthew finished he then took one of the papers and taped it onto the board before pulling back.

  Lance dropped his fork. “No.”

  Matthew had written on the sign,

  Congratulations to Lance Berrett, voted Most Eligible Bachelor!

  The paper that Matthew had taped up was a picture of Lance that Lance vaguely recognized as being taken by Davis, back when Davis was taking that photography class to try and meet someone. The full picture was Lance sitting in between Travis and Jake. Travis had his arm around Lance’s shoulders, and Lance remembered that Davis’s timing had been stellar because Travis had just said something funny, and Lance was swinging his head from looking at Jake to looking at Travis—and in the process, of course, had ended up facing the camera with a smile on his face. Davis had snapped the photo right as Lance had been looking into the camera, before completing his arc and facing Travis.

  However, Matthew had cropped the photo, so that now only Lance could be seen. It actually looked pretty good, kind of like a headshot.

  Below that, as if to add insult to injury with this little joke, Matthew had added,

  Inquiries can be made out to Matthew, our Head Chef. Gentlemen only, please—sorry ladies.

  There was the sound of silverware crashing behind him and Lance knew that Travis had seen it too. “That son of a bitch.”

  “Don’t kill him,” Lance replied automatically, although he really, actually kind of wanted to see Matthew’s nose get broken.

  “If this is his idea of a joke—” Travis started, but Lance turned around and leaned in.

  “Don’t. Create. A. Scene,” he hissed.

  Travis looked like he was still seriously considering following Matthew into the kitchen and frying him. Lance leaned in a little more. “Don’t, Trav, I’m serious. If you make a scene about this, everyone is going to want to know why.hen they’ll find out what’s going on, and I’ll only be even more in the spotlight. This is clearly some kind of joke that Matthew wants to pull and we’ll only make things worse if we rise to the bait. Okay?” Lance could already feel panic rising in him at the idea of Matthew and Travis getting into a fight—the thought all but strangled him.

  The idea of men actually asking Matthew about him wasn’t all that fun either, but Lance would rather talk privately to Matthew about it later and get the sign taken down then have there be a hoopla over it. People still talked in this town and everyone would know about it before the day was over.

  As if to punctuate this, a few people came over and expressed their condolences to Travis about the house fire. Once they’d gone, Travis seemed calmer. Lance grinned at him.

  “Hey. Think about it this way—I’ll have Matthew owe me for weeks for putting me through this. We’ll be able to lord this over him forever.”

  “It’s a good picture of you,” Travis acknowledged. “You’re usually too shy for pictures.” He sounded oddly thoughtful.

  “Yeah, that was the one Davis snapped where I turned my head at the right moment. You made the joke about the penguins.” Lance found himself grinning at the memory. “That really is the stupidest joke ever, Trav.”

  “It is the height of comedic genius and I will not hear anything different,” Travis replied. “Here, I’ll show you.”

  Their waitress, a girl named Becky who’d served them before, came by to refill their glasses, and Travis turned to her and said, “Excuse me, would you mind helping me prove something to my friend here?”

  “Sure?” Becky replied, looking suspicious.

  “I have a joke for you.” Travis gave her that slow, lazy smile, the one that always made people melt. It made Lance melt, too, but he wasn’t ever going to admit that to Travis. “Two penguins are sitting in a rowboat in the desert. One of them says, ‘Where’s the paddle?’ The other one says, ‘Sure does!’”

  Becky stared at him for a beat, then said, “I’m not sure I get it.”

  Lance burst out laughing. “I told you! Stupidest joke known to mankind.”

  “It’s just not sophisticated enough for you,” Travis said, adopting an exaggerated offended look. He looked at Becky. “It’s a play on words. So ‘where’s’ is misunderstood as ‘wears’, as in ‘wears the paddle down.”

  Becky gave him a blank look. “Yeah I’m not sure I would call that sophisticated.”

  “You and the word ‘sophisticated’ are two things that don’t really go together.” Lance calmed down in his laughter a little but couldn’t keep the smile off his face. After a moment of struggle with himself to keep the offended look, Travis gave in and smiled back. His knee bumped Lance’s under the table to show he wasn’t really upset.

  Becky paused. “I’m sorry—I thought the sign said most eligible bachelor?” She asked. “I always thought that you two were…”

  “We’re not dating,” Lance said automatically, the smile sliding off his face. He could hear the weariness in his own voice and just hoped that Travis would think it was exhaustion over being asked the question all the time, rather than frustration at wishing he could answer that yes, they were.

  Travis, fortunately, was too busy glaring at Becky to pay any attention to what Lance was saying.

  “Oh!” Becky brightened up at once. “Well in that case, I have a cousin, he’s a really great guy, broke every girl’s heart when he came out a few years ago, if you—”

  “He’s not interested,” Travis all but growled.

  Lance glared at him. “I can answer for myself, thanks.” He looked up at Becky. “I appreciate it, but honestly, that was just a joke done by Matthew. You know how he gets. I’m not really looking for anyone right now.”

  Becky hummed but the glint in her eyes told him she didn’t quite believe him. “No problem! Let me know if you guys need anything.”

  “Another order of bacon?” Travis asked hopefully.

  “Not if you want to live past fifty,” Lance replied, giving Becky a look that said if she brought more bacon, he was going to… um… well, he wasn’t going to punch her or anything, but he’d do something.

  This was why Travis was the one who got into fights.

  Becky winked at Lance, letting him know she was on his side about this. “And you two wonder why everyone thinks you’re dating,” she said, laughing, and then turned away to help another customer.

  Travis, for once, didn’t just laugh it off or ignore it. He seemed to actually be thinking about what Becky had said. Lance felt his gut tighten and twist. If Travis thought too hard about this, he’d think—

  Well, what would he think? Surely he couldn’t ignore that when everyone thinks you’re dating, there has to be a reason for it. Something beyond just the fact that they spent time together. Lance was seen just as much with Davis as he was with Travis, and nobody had ever accused them of dating.

  Maybe this was a good thing. The possibility hadn’t occurred to Lance until now. He’d been so full of fear that Travis would somehow, in sharing space with
him, discover how Lance felt. But what if this was the push that Travis needed to finally get his head out of his ass?

  There was the joking ‘most eligible bachelor’ sign, and their living together, and of course now Becky reminding them that people always assumed they were dating until told otherwise. Maybe all of this was the universe finally working in Lance’s favor, instead of against him like he’d thought.

  Maybe, just maybe, this would help Travis to finally get a hint.

  8

  What the fuck was Matthew thinking with that goddamn sign?

  Seriously. What. The. Fuck.

  If this was his idea of a joke, then it definitely wasn’t funny. Travis tried not to brood about it, because Lance seemed willing to brush it off, but seriously, the moment he got the chance, he was going to have a good long talk with Matthew about interfering in other people’s lives. Maybe that had worked in Matthew’s small hometown in Georgia, but it wouldn’t work here. People appreciated their privacy...especially Lance.

  Lance seemed perfectly okay with dismissing it, though it could be an act to make sure Travis didn’t go back to the kitchen and yell at Matthew the way that he wanted to. He knew that Lance had never been the kind of person to appreciate attention. He liked privacy. Couldn’t Matthew have done this to, say, Davis, who loved attention and was actively looking for a date? Lance broke out in a sweat if it looked like a guy was even so much as thinking of flirting with him.

  He steered the conversation towards work and what to do about the fire, and for a bit, he thought that he’d fooled Lance into thinking that he was okay. After they’d paid the check and were preparing to head out, Lance said, “I know something’s still on your mind.”

  Travis sighed, then jerked his head at the sign. “What do you think’s on my mind, genius?”

  He couldn’t explain the strange twist in his chest whenever he saw that sign. He could sort of explain why it was upsetting—calling the shyest guy in town the most eligible bachelor just seemed thoughtless and a way to get him unwanted attention—but that was all intellectual. This odd, possessive feeling that made his breath catch in his throat, he didn’t understand that.

  Lance sighed. “Listen, this’ll all blow over faster if we don’t make a big deal out of it.”

  But people might actually take it seriously, Travis thought. Someone might actually ask you out.

  He didn’t know why that was so upsetting to him. Sure, someone might ask Lance out. It wasn’t like Lance was the type of guy who disappeared the moment he got a boyfriend—cough, Davis, cough—or had to then drag that boyfriend everywhere like they were glued at the hip—cough, Jake, cough.

  If Lance did get a boyfriend, Travis was sure that Lance would still make time for his friends. He wouldn’t force the boyfriend on them too soon or insist that everyone like him immediately and bring said boyfriend to every single get together. Lance was the most thoughtful of their friends that way. It was, Travis suspected, part of why Lance was shy. Part of it was just not wanting tons of attention on him, true. But Travis thought it was also that Lance didn’t want to say or do the wrong thing and upset someone or make them think less of him.

  How could anyone who had just met Lance—who had just seen the picture on the chalkboard—know any of that? They’d probably want to impress Lance and do some big romantic gesture, and they’d be half right, because Lance did like romance, but not somewhere public, and this person would inevitably do it somewhere public, and Lance would be embarrassed, and…

  And would they know that Lance needed things taken slowly? That he needed to build up a friendship, in a way, before he was comfortable with doing proper dates? That the first few dates would probably be lazy movie nights on the couch with pizza and that the person probably wouldn’t even get to third base until five dates in?

  No, they wouldn’t know any of that, they’d just go straight for the conventional dating and the conventional romantic gestures, and they’d expect sex by the third date at the latest, and it would all be a disaster, and Lance deserved better than that.

  It was all kind of giving Travis a panic attack and he really wasn’t sure why.

  Protectiveness, he reasoned. After all, who’d been the one to pick up the pieces of Lance’s heart in high school after Luke? And who’d helped Lance through his breakup with his one college boyfriend, that bearded football player who’d cheated on him?

  Travis might have broken that guy’s nose, but Lance didn’t know about that and hopefully never would.

  So yeah, if Lance’s heart was going to get stomped on yet again, Travis was going to be the one that had to help him through it...not that Travis minded helping him through it. Honestly, those times after a breakup when Lance was actually leaning on Travis for support… it was twisted, sure, and probably not at all emotionally healthy, but Travis treasured those times because it felt… right. It felt as if Lance should always be looking to Travis for support in that way.

  Not that Lance wasn’t capable of standing on his own two feet or anything…

  Travis had completely lost where he was going with this.

  It was probably a good thing, because Lance was looking at him like Travis had grown a second head. “Trav. Hey. You okay?”

  “What? Yeah, sorry. You ready to go?” Travis gave Lance his most charming smile and hoped that Lance wouldn’t pry any further, not when Travis himself didn’t even know what was going on in his own head.

  “Yeah, sure.” Lance eyed him suspiciously. “You just look like you’ve run smack into a wall.”

  If only he knew. “Sorry, I got lost in thought.”

  They exited the café, and Lance let out a long-suffering sigh. “Trav, you don’t have to lie to me. I know what this is about.”

  Travis seriously doubted that, since how could Lance know what was going on in Travis’s head when Travis didn’t even understand himself what was happening?

  “It’s about talking to your dad, isn’t it?” Lance bumped his shoulder gently against Travis’s. “Look, we should really just talk to him and get it over with. I promise it’s not going to be as bad as you think.”

  Travis couldn’t even begin to handle the rush of relief that swept through him. Lance was thinking about something else entirely—and then he realized what Lance was talking about.

  Ah, shit. Lance was right. They should just get this whole thing over with. “Okay. Yeah. Sure. We can…walk there...or something.”

  Lance sighed. “Let’s walk there. Okay? And along the way, I will remind you that despite what you seem determined to think, your dad does not think that you’re a disappointment.”

  “It’s not that.” Travis tried to keep his voice from slipping into a growl. He hated discussing this sort of thing.

  The thing was, his mom had died when Travis was too young to remember her. He felt, honestly, like he was the only one who didn’t miss her. He missed more the possibility of what he could have had, the way that poor kids wished they were rich. His older brothers had missed her though. Travis was pretty sure they felt her absence more than he did.

  The biggest thing when it came to the loss of his mom was that Dad never remarried. Never even looked at another woman, or so Luke’s dad had said, back before the crash. Bill, the former sheriff, was also a friend of Dad’s and agreed. Without a mom around, Travis had kind of grown up… well, ‘wild’ was how Lance had once put it.

  Talking about feelings? Not really something his dad did, so it wasn’t something Travis did. Cleaning up after yourself? As Lance had just learned, not really a habit that Travis had been taught.

  Really, it was a wonder that any of Travis’s brothers had managed to find women willing to put up with them.

  He couldn’t put his finger on what exactly it was about him, the youngest, that had spawned the accompanying feeling of not measuring up. He’d been called ‘runt’ by his brothers, but he knew it was just their own stunted way of trying to give him a fond nickname. It just felt like every tim
e he did something, Dad would tell him how to do it better next time. Like the way he’d handled things hadn’t been good enough the first time around. Travis never saw Dad talking to Rick, David, or Earl the way that he did to him.

  It wasn’t like Dad was ever outright mean or anything, and God knew he wasn’t abusive. It was a subtle thing that wormed its way underneath Travis’s skin, but he couldn’t figure out how to get it out or how to talk about it.

  Lance gently steered them around the corner, away from his apartment and towards the older end of town, where Travis’s dad lived. Most of the group’s childhood homes were on the same side of town, although both Travis and Lance had taken up residence on the other, newer side of town when they’d moved back after college. Jake, who hadn’t gone to college, was living on the same side as they were, but Luke was in the old side of town since he lived in his parents’ place.

  It wasn’t a side of town that Travis went to often. Despite having grown up on these streets, he didn’t often walk them. Poker nights were at his place, movie nights were at Jake and Matthew’s, football was in the park, and other than that, they all just met up at Joe’s. It meant that he’d come to associate going to this neighborhood with seeing Dad.

  He didn’t realize he was tensing up until Lance was nudging up against his side. “You’re stiff as a board.” He smiled encouragingly at him. “C’mon, I’ll be there, like a buffer.”

  Travis flung his arm around Lance. He remembered that he’d been able to do that in high school as well and had freaked out internally at the thought of Lance growing to the point where Travis could no longer comfortably fit Lance under his arm. He was secretly glad—although Lance wasn’t—when Lance ended up being the shortest of their group.

  “You really don’t have to do this. What kind of man is scared to talk to his dad about a house fire where everyone was okay and nobody was hurt? I mean it’s more embarrassing than anything else.”

  “Maybe that’s why,” Lance said. “If it had been, say, a gas leak and you’d been in danger, there’d be no reason to worry about his reaction. Your dad loves you and would be concerned about you, and it wouldn’t be anyone’s fault. This is somebody’s fault though, and in a way you probably feel like it’s yours, and it’s a little ridiculous, and so you feel like there’s room for ridicule.”