by David Connor
Getty’s hand was resting on Spencer’s shoulder when the bells on the door rang twice, once when Troy burst in, and again when Isabelle did. “I do want my father to be happy, and your brother too, I guess, just not with each other.”
“My brother is the shit!”
“To you, maybe.”
“To everyone with half a brain.”
“Now you’re calling me stupid? My GPA is higher than yours ever was,” Isabelle said.
“Good grades don’t equate to intelligence,” Troy countered.
“‘Equate to?’”
“Isn’t that how you’d say it?”
Isabelle huffed.
“Don’t make that noise at me!”
“Oh shut up!”
“Isabelle.” Her father tried to calm her.
“You shut up!”
“Troy.” Spencer tried with his brother as well.
“Please don’t disrespect my daughter, Troy.”
Oh boy. The fight was going tag team, it seemed.
“She’s being so unreasonable. The past is the past. Why the hell can’t people move on? And by people, just in case it isn’t obvious, I mean you.” Troy pointed at Isabelle.
“You don’t even know. All I ever heard my whole life growing up, every time my parents fought when they thought I was asleep, was my mom saying ‘Why can’t you look at me the way you look at Spencer?’” Isabelle got quieter after that. “I can’t get over it.” She glared. “It’s his fault they split up, and he doesn’t deserve to be with my dad now because of that!” With that, she stormed out, Getty running off after her.
“Go,” Spenser said. “Go make up with her, Troy. She’s right. If I was the source of all of that angst for her growing up, how can I blame her for not wanting to have me as a part of her life now?”
Troy shook his head. “It’s just one of those life things, man. It sucks, yeah, but you take what you got and do the best with it. She’s not that little kid anymore. Her parents aren’t going to be together either way, so…”
“That’s for her parents to figure out.”
“But…”
“And Getty and me… SpeGetty… that’s for us. Go talk to your girlfriend.”
Troy stubbornly stood there a few more seconds, and then left with a grunt. Just as the door slammed behind him, the furnace made a similar sound—a hideous one coming from something mechanical. A puff of gray smoke billowed from one vent, and then there was silence, no creaking pipes as they warmed the joint, no buzz of the fan that blew the warm air through the ducts. No heat.
The heating system, the mistake with the promotion, an ice storm on the way, a dozen wedding cakes to finish—or just eleven, because of one potential lawsuit. Then there was Kevin, whatever that was, plus a busted window the newsman blamed a homophobe for when it was Troy with a ladder. Add to that fan blades, mixer motors, the generator, and Getty and Isabell…
“Getty and me,”
Throw in Christmas baking, Christmas shopping, Christmas dinner, Christmas cards, the twelve gays of Christmas, and it suddenly seemed as if the things weighing on Spencer’s mind were literally piled on top of his chest. He felt lightheaded. The room was spinning. He couldn’t find his words or his breath. “The table… Reach for the table.” But he missed, and before he knew what was happening, the floor was coming closer. Alvin and the Chipmunks came on the speakers overhead. Alvin still wanted a Hula Hoop, and that was last thing Spencer heard, before everything went black.
Chapter 6
“I should probably be back at the shop,” Troy said. “I know he’d want me selling Christmas cakes and jelly rolls bright and early tomorrow, but frick, I don’t want to leave him.”
Spencer could hardly make out his baby brother sitting in the chair at the foot of the bed. “Troy.” Hs name came out barely a croak, one no one heard, apparently. There were two other people in the cubicle, which was probably breaking some sort of hospital protocol. One was Getty, for sure.
“Stay. I’ll head back in a few minutes.”
Spencer recognized his voice.
“He’ll want to see you.”
Spencer wanted to see Getty too.
“He’ll want to see you too.”
“There you go, baby brother,” Spencer thought.
“Is Isabelle doing okay?”
“She went up to maternity. Yes.”
“It was pretty sweet of her to insist on coming,” Troy said softly, looking at his shoes.
“You already knew she was sweet, Troy.”
“Yeah.”
“She cares about Spence, because she cares about you… and because she knows I care about him. And I know how great you are.” Getty had his arm across Troy’s shoulders. “And how great you are to my Tinkerbell.”
“Even when I mouth off?”
“Well… hopefully the arguments are few. I’m pretty stoked to have you as the father of my grandson.”
“Or granddaughter.”
“Or granddaughter.”
“I might like to get a look at those babies too… see what I’m in for… after Sleeping Homely wakes up.”
“It’s just sleeping.”
“From a sedative. Yeah. I have to keep reminding myself of that.”
A sedative that was making Spencer’s brain a little fuzzy. If it wasn’t Isabelle sitting beside Troy, who was it? “Turkey?”
“He’s awake,” Getty said.
Whoever it was, they were left alone when Troy bolted toward the head of the hospital bed. “Dude. How are you feeling?”
“Tired.” Spencer cleared his throat. “Really tired.”
“That’s what exhaustion is,” Troy said. “You’ve been working too hard, doing too much, Spenny. That’s what the doctor said.”
Then the doctor came in and told Spencer himself. “You’re dehydrated, hypoglycemic, with sinus tachycardia most probably brought on by anxiety. Your body had enough.”
“So what happens now?” Spencer asked.
“You rest. We pump you full of fluids for a couple hours, and you rest overnight.”
“Overnight? No. I have things to do.” Spencer went to sit up. “You just said nothing is really wrong.” His dizziness rather disagreed.
“That’s not what I said at all.” The physician was on the side of the dizziness. “You’ll want to lie back down.”
“See?” Troy gently pushed on Spencer’s chest, forcing back to the pillow. “Something is wrong. And it’s going to get worse if you don’t slow down. You know what this reminded me of?”
Spencer gave in and put his head back on the pillow. “It isn’t bad like that. The shop…”
“Will be just fine if we’re away a day.”
“A day? A day!”
“An hour or two,” Getty said. “We’ll open a little late in the morning, and then close an hour and come and pick you up. No big deal.”
“The cakes…”
“It’s a great thing you’re doing, Mr. Holiday,” the ER doc said. “But come on. Take a day off. You’ve got a good excuse.” He turned to Getty. “He’ll be fine—if he slows down a little bit. His blood pressure was extremely elevated when he got here, but it came down on its own. Avoiding stress is the best medicine right now.”
“No more stress. I promise,” Getty said.
“You got restraints on that bed, right?” Troy asked.
The doctor smiled. “Listen to your husband,” he said. “Or I’ll give your son permission to tie you down.”
It was a good line to exit on, and so the doctor did. When Spencer looked to his supposed spouse and offspring, Troy’s beautiful smirk and Getty’s grin made him feel better than any pharmaceutical could. Just for a moment, he actually forgot most of what had put him there. “Son...” He chuckled. “I always said you look like you’re twelve,” he teased.
“It’s not me, because I look young. It’s you, because you’re… you’re awesome.” Troy threw himself on top of his brother.
“Oomph. Goo
d thing I didn’t just have surgery.”
“Don’t scare me like that again.”
“I’m sorry.” The words were still strained under the weight of Troy atop him.
“No need for that. Just… take better care of yourself.” Troy actually kissed Spencer on the cheek. “I gotta take a whiz.”
“You act twelve too.”
“Bite me!” Troy stopped on the way out to kiss Getty on the cheek as well. “Be right back, daddy.”
“We could do worse,” Getty said, which had Troy nodding like a Bobblehead as he exited through the green and orange striped curtain.
“Any argument I’d have put up about not being old enough to be his father would kind of be diluted by the fact that his baby mama is your daughter.”
“Those three years between fifteen and eighteen—when you got Troy and then I had Tinkerbelle—they seemed an eternity when we were in high school. Now, they’re hardly significant. Three years… almost twenty… where did all that time go?” Getty sat on the side of the bed.
“Now you sound old.”
Getty’s smile warmed the room. “It’s funny the doctor thought we were married.” He stood.
“I always wondered how that would work,” Spencer said. “When my mother died… the night of the accident… I remember someone just asked my father, ‘you’re the husband, right?’ He said yes, of course, and no one asked him for proof. They just let us go in, even though she never knew we were there. And when he died, just last year. ‘You’re the son?’ ‘Yup.’ I didn’t have to show my birth certificate. With gay couples, they talk a lot about having to be married to even get in to see your spouse or something. I can see some hateful jerks, like the ones I’ve heard from on Facebook about the cake thing, if they were in charge, insisting to see a marriage certificate before they’d let me in to see you.”
“Me?” Getty asked.
“Someone.”
“I don’t mind you saying me.” Getty’s hand brushed Spencer’s bare arm. “I just wonder what’s wrong with me that the nurse won’t let you see me.”
Spencer had to smile. “Don’t worry. It’s nothing big. Nothing at all, really. A little bump from the ceiling fan blade that fell off and clunked you… something like that, I’d bet.”
Getty leaned down and straightened Spencer’s blanket. “I’ve got a hard head.” Their eyes met.
“I’ve got a dirty mind.” Spencer looked away. “Watch what you say.”
“You look tired.” Getty stopped just short of touching Spencer’s cheek.
“I only just realize how lousy I felt now that I’m starting to feel better.”
“Good to hear. But you still need to take it easy once you get out of here.”
“I started half of this stuff—the promotion—to make some bank for Christmas. I wanted to start putting money away for the baby, and maybe do something nice for Troy—a trip after the holidays. Now that everything went so crazy, I’m thinking… gym socks.”
“I’m not five.” Troy pulled back the curtain. “I’d rather have you than a trip to Barbados.”
“Barbados? I was thinking more like Atlantic City.”
“Wherever we’d have ended up, it’s not worth seeing you in a hospital bed. Or even worse…” Troy shuddered dramatically, his face scrunched up, and his tongue came out. “Seeing you in a hospital gown. Yuck! I saw things back there only you should be looking at, Gettysburg.”
“I kind of liked the view, myself.”
“Wait. What am I wearing under this thing?” Spencer looked.
“Geeze, dude!” Troy looked away. Getty didn’t. “You picked one hell of a day to go commando. I bet the nurses are still talking about it.”
“And saying only good things.” Getty had that lascivious look again.
The truth was, with everything else going on, Spencer had been lax with the laundry and had run out of underwear. He wondered if he should cop to it, but decided not to. “Listen… both of you. All I’m going to be doing for the rest of the night is sleeping. Why don’t the two of you go get Isabelle and go home?” Troy raised an objection in the form of a finger. At least it was the second, and not the third. “I’ll rest better if I know you are,” Spencer told him.
“Makes sense,” Getty said.
Troy rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “I guess.”
After hugs and a goodnight kiss on the forehead, Troy was ready to head off.
“Hey.”
Troy turned. “Yeah?”
“Who was sitting with you when I first woke up?”
Troy bit his lower lip in thought. “Isabelle?”
“No. She was upstairs already. I heard Getty say so.”
“Oh. Must have been dad then.”
“Huh? Dad?”
“I see him sitting with you sometimes too, especially when I’m tired or… buzzed.”
“You see dad when you’re drunk?”
“All the time. Well, not all the time. I don’t drink like I did in college. And I don’t have to be wasted to hear him anymore. He tells me you think you have to take care of me, but I should make sure to take care of you too.”
“Really?”
Troy shrugged.
“You really talk to dad?”
“No, stupid. Dad really talks to me. What do you think I am, nuts?” Troy leaned across to check his brother’s tray. He stole the brownie. “In dreams sometimes too.”
Maybe Spencer had been dreaming, though he’d have sworn he was awake.
“He wants you and Getty together too.”
“That so?”
“Yup. Later, Spenny. Sleep well.” The cheekiness went away then. “And get better.”
“I will.”
Getty came back in once Troy had gone. “Our son told me to kiss you goodnight.”
Spencer smiled. “He’s just following orders, he says.”
“What’s that?”
“Never mind. Just get out of here. The way things have been going, the whole shop probably fell down while I’ve been in this bed.”
“Then I’ll put it back up.” Getty was at Spencer’s side. “Goodnight, Spence.” He bent down and planted a quick kiss on the forehead. “See you in the morning.”
“Sleep well.” Getty lingered at the bed, and then at the door. Finally, he slowly walked away, and Spencer settled in for the night. He was about to drift off, when he heard the soft clearing of a throat.
“Mr. Holiday? Spencer?”
Spencer opened his eyes.
“I never know what to call you,” Isabelle said, standing just outside the curtain.
“Spencer’s fine.”
“I’m glad you’re okay, Spencer.”
“Thanks.”
“My dad and Troy are arguing over who gets to drive me home.”
“Sounds like them.”
“I just wanted to say…”
“Say what?”
“That. That I’m glad you’re okay.” Her hand never left her rounded tummy, holding dear, no doubt, to the life inside it as she spoke.
“Thank you… again.”
“It’s complicated.”
“What’s that?” Spencer knew.
“I’m sorry. My timing was bad. I shouldn’t have said what I said in front of you.”
“Your argument with Troy didn’t put me here. I’ve been in over my head since Halloween. It all caught up to me.”
“I’m still sorry.”
“Me too… for causing you any sadness… ever.”
“Thanks. Troy says you’re okay.”
“I’m fine. And you and Troy…,” Spencer managed without his voice shaking. “I want you to be happy. With each other.”
Isabelle rubbed her belly then. “Troy wants him or her to have a brother. He says little brothers are the shit.”
Spencer’s lips turned up all on their own. “True that.”
“And we won’t be that far away.”
The smile turned the other way. “Far away… from?”
“I see. When did all this happen?”
“Daddy went in for the interview a couple days ago. They offered him the job this morning.”
“Oh.” Old habits died hard.
“Well, I better get going,” Isabelle said.
“Safe travels,” Spencer told her. “Tonight… and when you move away. Though I’ll see you before then… I hope.”
“Thanks. Goodnight. Sleep well,” Isabelle said, just like her dad. Maybe it was their thing. Maybe he’d said it to her every night before tucking her in and then fighting with Kirsten over the specter of Spencer, the ghost that ruined their marriage.
Spencer didn’t sleep well, not as well as he’d hoped. When he was finally released just after 11 the next morning, he was more than ready to get out of there. “Come on. Hurry up. It’s almost noon.” He’d called Troy from his sickbed to talk him through the morning breads. “Stay there and run the place. I’ll take a taxi.”
“This doesn’t look like ‘relaxed,’” Getty had said upon his arrival. “And take a taxi my ass.”
“I’m all better. Clean bill of health.” Spencer shook the release paper in Getty’s face. “Let’s book. I’ve got a ton of stuff to do and I’m sure you do too. Is it snowing yet?”
Getty looked out the window. “I don’t see snow. Do you? Are you still high on something.”
“Ha-ha.” Spencer was at the door. He’d been dressed before it was light out, and then stripped half down to put on the clean underwear Getty had brought. Troy had done a load of clothes, apparently.
“Troy is on top of it all. He was at the shop at four this morning, even before you called.”
“How do you know?”
“Because so was I. Everything’s fine. Take your time.”
Spencer was still quite skeptical when he walked through the door to applause. To applause! “What the…?” The shop was packed—and warm. “We have heat?”
“Yup. Clogged filter. Five minute fix,” Getty said.
“Which left you plenty of time to pack,” Spencer mumbled.