The Family We Make

by Dan Wingreen

  “Why not?” he asked, pouting.

  “Because that’s a question you even have to ask.”

  Connor raised an eyebrow and stepped fully into the room, revealing the design on his shirt—a picture of Bigfoot with the words I Believe written under it—and the blue and black plaid pajama pants he was wearing.

  “You let me eat Nutella for dinner.”

  “Lunch. And it was one time. And you’re not supposed to tell people I did that,” he added, shooting a nervous glance at Tim like his entire opinion of Spencer was based on whether or not he let his son eat a Nutella meal. The whole thing, the way Spencer and Connor interacted, the warmth that spread through Tim at being included—however peripherally—felt so achingly familiar despite the fact they’d rarely all spent time together. Joining in on the banter felt like slipping into an old, comfortable sweater.

  “How much Nutella?” Tim asked.

  “A spoonful,” Spencer said.

  “The whole thing,” Connor said at the same time.

  “Judas!” Spencer accused, though even facing away Tim didn’t miss the tiny smile tugging at his lips.

  “I have no idea what that means.”

  Spencer let out the most overly dramatic sigh Tim had ever heard. “I suppose ’tis the bane of all teachers of the literary arts to be saddled with uncultured sons who—”

  “Oh my God, stop!” Connor covered his ears and backed out of the room. “Fine. No candy. Just stop talking. God, you’re so embarrassing.”

  “Who,” Spencer continued, getting louder as Connor quickly stomped down the hall, “knows not even the most basic of references to famous betrayers! Woe betide me! My own flesh and blood, and he’s gone.”

  Tim chuckled, and Spencer gave him a quick grin before standing up in a single fluid motion. He hesitated then, his grin fading into something more uncertain and apprehensive. His expression cleared almost immediately, and if this had been any normal night, Tim might have been able to convince himself he’d imagined it altogether.

  “Come on,” Spencer said, turning away. “Let’s see if we’ve got anything to eat.”

  Tim followed him slowly, his thoughts churning a mile a minute. Those thoughts finally settled down while Spencer was bent over searching through the fridge. Which meant Spencer’s ass stretching out a pair of tight sleep pants while he muttered darkly about potatoes would forever be the backdrop to Tim realizing he was a little bit head over heels for him.

  Tim was less startled by this revelation than he probably should have been. His breath barely even caught as he realized what all the strange little moments he kept feeling actually meant. Part of him wanted to panic and another part wanted to run, but they were very quickly overridden by the rest of him that just sort of settled. Like a large part of himself had been in a state of constant upheaval, and only now could it finally start to get back to normal. None of this made any sense to Tim—surely he would have noticed if he was that out of sorts, right?—but he couldn’t deny he was more relieved than anything else. As much as he might have sworn off romance after Rudy, he knew himself enough to know he’d fall for someone else eventually. When he let himself think about it, it was only long enough to send up a barely voiced prayer that his next crush would be something he could handle: someone who wasn’t as bad as Rudy. Like a low-ranking Mafia member or a refugee from one of those hate churches that protest funerals. Having his heart settle on Spencer was like opening the squishy present on Christmas morning and, instead of socks, finding it filled with lottery tickets.

  He wasn’t quite sure if he’d win anything yet, but he couldn’t deny being kind of eager to find out.

  They did have stuff to eat, as it turned out. Spencer’s freezer was filled with almost nothing but steak, and while Spencer cooked three of them up on the grill out back, Tim and Connor hung out in the kitchen until dinner was ready.

  “How does your dad have fifteen steaks but no pizza?”

  “Don’t even get me started.”

  The meal, when it was ready, started off slowly with Spencer and Connor tiptoeing around each other like wary animals as if they hadn’t just been joking around less than a half hour ago. Thankfully, it didn’t take long until the conversation became less stilted, and they fell back into their usual patterns.

  “We who are about to die, salute you,” Connor muttered, poking his slightly burnt strip steak with a fork. Spencer gave his hair a yank. “Ow!”

  Their easy, casual banter sort of set the tone for the rest of the evening, much to Tim’s surprise. This was the most domestic situation he’d ever been in with both Spencer and Connor, and he found himself completely fascinated by the way he could see all the different facets of their relationship at the same time. They spoke in inside jokes and references like friends. They bickered like siblings. Spencer took care of Connor like a father, and Connor sought out that care like a son. Sitting in the small Kent Family kitchen around an even smaller kitchen table, Tim saw the entirety of Spencer and Connor; not in glimpses and snatches but in all its intoxicating fullness. It felt like gazing into a living version of a Norman Rockwell painting, updated for the modern age, and he couldn’t help holding the memories of his own family over the living picture in front of him. His mother, while supportive and caring, had never really understood Tim or his needs, and she rarely understood his sense of humor. His dad had always been a little distant, more interested in his job and his own life than Tim’s. He wasn’t neglectful, and Tim knew his dad loved him, but there’d always been a wall between them, and the only thing that changed from day to day was whether that wall was made of cellophane or brick. As much as he loved his parents, he’d never been as close to them as Connor was to Spencer.

  Tim might have been envious, new revelations aside, except he knew both of them now. Connor was his friend and…charge, he guessed would be a good word. Not Little Brother, with its implications that the only thing tying them together was a voluntary program at a youth center, and definitely not little brother with the capital letters removed and a whole different relationship implied. It made Tim more than a little uncomfortable to think of being related to Connor that way even if only as a label or a way of explaining their relationship to other people. Oh, he’s like my little brother, he could say, ruffling Connor’s hair and getting the same annoyed glare the boy turned on Spencer when he did something similar. But Tim wanted something different. He wanted what they already had. Friendship, with an added layer of responsibility placed on his shoulders by Spencer’s trust. Spencer was his friend too: as close to him as anyone ever had been with an added layer of something deeper. Something that had been there for a while, hovering in the background of their friendship and flitting out every now and then like a hummingbird trying to grab Tim’s attention. Something terrifying and thrilling all at once. Even better, they both treated Tim like a friend. It would have been so easy for them to fall into their normal dynamic and leave Tim on the outside looking in, but they each made an effort, separately and together, to pull Tim into their orbit and keep him there.

  Tim felt like he belonged with them. Like he was wanted.

  He hadn’t felt this way in a very, very long time.

  *

  “Of course it’s a Christmas movie!” Spencer said, continuing the argument he and Connor had been having ever since they all finished dinner. “I can’t even believe I have to say that to my own son of all people.”

  “Oh my God, the melodrama.” Connor rolled his eyes. “Just because a movie happens on Christmas doesn’t mean it’s a Christmas movie!”

  “Yes, it does!”

  “No, it doesn’t!” Connor looked mortally offended. Tim had to hide a smile behind his glass of cream soda. Connor always threw everything he had into any argument he was a part of, no matter how silly. It was completely adorable. “That’s…ugh! So, do you think Gremlins is a Christmas movie then?”

  “Gremlins is a Christmas classic.”

  “I can’t believe yo
u. I thought people who graduated college were supposed to be smart.”

  “That was your first mistake,” Spencer said easily. “Your second was assuming I was going to let this Christmas blasphemy slide in my own home.”

  “You’re the worst…”

  “Also,” Spencer went on, “just being set on Christmas isn’t the only reason why either of them are Christmas movies. They both incorporate aspects of traditional—”

  “Oh my God.”

  “Of traditional Christmas movie themes, while at the same time updating and adapting those themes for the genre change in question—action and comedy-horror respectively.”

  “This should be good.”

  “It will be,” Spencer agreed. “Gremlins is actually nearly a thematic equivalent to It’s a Wonderful Life where the protagonist makes a potentially life-altering mistake, in this case intending to commit suicide compared to feeding the mogwai after midnight, and then, through a personal struggle—seeing how the world would be if he never existed compared to having to save the town from the gremlins—they both come to realize their lives aren’t as bad as they once thought and learn to appreciate what they have. Classic Christmas movie moral.”

  “I can’t believe this is happening.”

  “And Die Hard,” Spencer continued, obviously warming up to the subject, “is basically a shot-for-shot re-imagining of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Except, instead of his heart growing three sizes, Alan Rickman gets thrown out a window and falls thirty stories to his death.”

  Tim imagined the silence that fell over the kitchen then was only slightly louder than the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust. And speaking of nuclear… Connor’s face had turned a shade of dark red Tim had never seen on a person before. He braced himself for the explosion.

  Then Spencer’s lips twitched, and Connor let out the loudest groan Tim had ever heard.

  “You are such an asshole!”

  Spencer burst out laughing. “You’re so easy!”

  “I hate you.”

  “No, you don’t, kid.” Spencer’s laughter dimmed into a fond smile. “You said it yourself.”

  “I was obviously lying,” Connor grumbled.

  “Nah, you’re pretty bad at that. I would have noticed.”

  Connor muttered something under his breath but didn’t seem too interested in protesting any further. “At least you’re not really trying to convince me Die Hard is a Christmas movie.”

  “Oh, no, it totally is,” Spencer said. “It’s just not the Grinch. It’s its own unique take on the Christmas genre.”

  Connor turned to Tim, a pleading expression on his face.

  “Please tell me you don’t agree with this—” He flailed his hands around as he struggled to think of a word. “This—”

  “Of course he does,” Spencer said before Tim could answer. “Tim is smart.”

  “Tim has taste and common sense, which means he can’t agree with you.”

  “Tim can also answer the question himself,” Tim put in, amused.

  “Yeah, Dad. Let Tim answer.”

  “Yeah, son. Let him answer.”

  They both turned identical expressions of expectation toward Tim. Or, almost identical. The expression on Connor’s face made him resemble an eager puppy, completely precious and in desperate need of being petted. The one on Spencer’s face…well. Tim couldn’t actually say how his expression was any different, but it made Tim’s chest tighten and his stomach flip. He ignored the feelings—he didn’t really need the confirmation at this point, but it was still nice—and gave Spencer his best apologetic smile.

  “Sorry,” he said, “there’s no way Die Hard is a Christmas movie.”

  “Yes!” Connor punched the air. “I told you.”

  Spencer quickly smothered a smile before putting on the most overly exaggerated expression of shock Tim had ever seen.

  “I invite you into my home, I cook you food that I bought with the fruit of my labor, and this is how you repay me? With treachery?” He shook his head. “This must be exactly how Han felt when Lando turned him over to Darth Vader.”

  Tim didn’t even try to hide his smile. “Wasn’t Lando the one who invited Han to dinner, though?”

  “Exactly. How. Han. Felt,” Spencer said, nodding once as he finished.

  “That makes no sense,” Connor said. He went to take a drink, saw there was nothing left in his glass but ice, and then shrugged and started eating a half-melted ice cube.

  “That makes no sense,” Spencer said, pointing at Connor’s glass with a shudder. “My teeth are aching just watching you.”

  Connor grinned and then very loudly crunched his ice.

  “Ugh.”

  “Eating ice is actually really bad for your teeth,” Tim said.

  “So is candy,” Connor said. “And yet…” He pointed at the medium-sized ziplock bag on the table next to Tim, filled with his portion of the Halloween haul; all grape Pez, of course.

  “Candy isn’t gross,” Spencer said, reaching over and grabbing the glass out of his son’s hand before he could fish out another cube.

  “Hey!”

  “Go on,” he said. “You’ve got a whole bag full of candy in the other room. Take it up to your room and put yourself into a sugar coma.”

  Connor gave him a suspicious glance but didn’t waste any time getting out of his chair and scrambling away. Even then, Tim found himself basking in the family atmosphere that filled the air in their narrow house when they weren’t fighting.

  It was an atmosphere that subtly changed once Tim realized he was now alone with Spencer. And from the way Spencer began fidgeting with his utensils, he must have felt the change too.

  “So, uh.” Spencer cleared his throat. “I should clean this up.”

  He gathered up his dishes, then Connor’s, and put them in the sink. Tim picked his own up and followed. When Spencer turned away from the sink, he seemed surprised to see Tim standing right behind him.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Hello,” Tim replied.

  Spencer stared up at him for almost a full minute. Tim barely let himself breathe, worried even that much noise would send Spencer running. The last thing he wanted was for things to get awkward between them. Not after the wonderful night they’d been having.

  “Hey…” Spencer said breathlessly.

  Tim smothered a laugh. “The sink is behind you,” he said instead, gesturing with his dirty plate.

  Spencer very slowly closed his eyes and groaned out loud. If he’d been watching, he would have seen Tim smiling fondly down at him. The Tim of a year ago would have been certain he was reading the signals correctly. That Tim would have stepped a little closer and brushed past Spencer just slow enough so he’d know it was deliberate to test the waters. Only recently had Tim learned to be hesitant and unsure of himself, and he was both grateful and resentful of that as he carefully stepped around Spencer and put his plate and glass in the sink.

  When Tim turned around, Spencer had disappeared. Tim let out a small, disappointed sigh.

  What are you doing?

  He shook his head, partly in disgust and partly in amusement, before walking back over to the table and gathering up his bag of candy. He fully expected Spencer to pop back in and usher him out the door, so he was surprised when he left the kitchen and found him standing down the hall in the entryway to the living room.

  Their eyes met for barely a second, but Tim didn’t need eye contact to feel the way the air between them had changed. Spencer ran his fingers nervously through his messy curls and took a deep breath.

  “Are you leaving?”

  Tim froze.

  “You don’t have to,” Spencer continued quietly, very carefully not making eye contact. “If you don’t want to. You could…stay for a bit.”

  The words were almost an exact mirror to those Spencer had spoken the last time Tim was here, but the emotion he detected in every line of his body, the way that emotion seemed to charge the space between t
hem with meaning, was unmistakably different. Tim had no idea what to do. The smart thing, the responsible thing, would be to leave. To thank Spencer for dinner, shake his hand, and walk out the door. He’d go back to his tiny apartment, sit on his lumpy secondhand couch, and eat his candy alone. It might even be comforting. A taste of the old familiarity he’d settled into before meeting Spencer. Maybe he’d even down some NyQuil, something he only now realized he hadn’t done in weeks, for old-time’s sake. No thinking, no feeling, no trying to figure out what the hell he was going to do about the fact that when he saw Spencer, slightly flushed and timid, so very obviously putting himself out there in a way Tim couldn’t pretend to misunderstand, all he wanted to do was kiss him.

  And there was the terror he’d been expecting earlier. Except, maybe terror was the wrong word. Apprehension, maybe, mixed with a generous helping of good old-fashioned guilt. Staying was the most irresponsible thing he could do. He wasn’t fully over Rudy, that was painfully obvious given what had happened earlier when he was out with Connor, and this wasn’t just some guy he’d met in class or at a coffee shop. Spencer was a twenty-eight-year-old man with a teenage son who Tim was supposed to be helping—counseling, really, for all that the center tried to avoid the word whenever possible. No matter what Tim’s feelings were, no matter how many times he’d woken up with half-remembered dreams of how Spencer felt in his arms, or the way he could see whatever confidence Spencer had gathered crumbling to dust with each second Tim didn’t say anything, it would be beyond stupid to consider staying.

  Tim had never been happier to do something stupid.

  “Do you have any movies?”

  “That’s okay, I’ll see…you…” Spencer trailed off. “Oh.”

  Oh.

  Now Tim’s confidence began to waver.

  “Should I leave?”

  Spencer shook himself. “No. No! I. Um.” He licked his lips and then let out a short laugh. “No. Definitely not.”