by Trina Solet
"Oh, yeah. That's the thing," Owen said. He didn't like what he heard, but he knew the girls would. "We have a plan, but first, a big breakfast at Lupe's. It's a waffle house down the street."
"I wanted to show off my pancake flipping skills," Dan said.
"Another time. I'll look forward to it," Owen told him but tried not to dwell on how much he looked forward to all the time he was going to spend with Dan.
When he was telling the girls the plan for the day, Owen said to them, "This is going to be a picture-taking trip. So get your cameras, and we'll take lots of pictures and send them to Grandma. And make sure you wear your teddy bear necklaces."
He knew his mom must miss the girls terribly. It would be good for her to see the girls having fun. He was going to shoot some video too, but Kostas warned him that they wouldn't have access to a good internet connection that often so Owen focused on photos.
The breakfast was more whipped cream than waffles for the girls. Afterward, they all piled into Owen's gray Subaru Outback and took a nice drive. The car was filled with the girls' singing, giggling, and squabbling. First, they stopped by the retirement home. There wasn't much of a chance that Dan's great-grandmother would be able to go to Beesley Gardens with them, but Dan still wanted to invite her.
A low, white building with lattice windows, Glen Meadows looked good from the outside and the grounds were very nice. Owen decided that he and the girls would walk around while they waited for Dan to see his great-grandmother. When Dan started to leave, the girls were not happy.
"Is he going without us?" Connie asked, alarmed.
"We want to visit the great-grandma too," Maggie said.
Owen looked at Dan for the decision.
"I think she'd like that. My great-grandma likes to sit with me in that little park." Dan pointed to a copse of trees with some benches under them and a small fountain in the center. "You guys can wait over there, and I'll bring her out if she feels up to it."
The spot by the fountain was shaded and serene. Connie walked alongside Owen while Maggie ran circles around the tiered fountain.
"Is a great-grandma better than a grandma?" Connie asked Owen. She was worried that Dan had won some kind of grandma competition.
"No. No one is better than your grandma," Owen assured her.
"Right," Connie agreed and smiled, happy to hear it.
Dan and his great-grandmother came toward them slowly. His great-grandmother wore a pink track suit and walked with the help of a walker. Her pink outfit and her white puff of hair endeared her to the girls immediately. They peered at her with smiles on their faces.
"She's pretty great," Connie said like she had decided that she was worthy of the name great-grandma.
The old lady turned to Dan and said, "I told you to get yourself a nice young man, and you went and got yourself a whole family." Her voice was croaky and a little breathless. Dan helped her to sit down on one of the benches. "And who is this young man with such pretty daughters?" she asked.
"We're not daughters. We're nieces," Connie said.
"That's our Uncle Owen," Maggie said.
Dan took over the introductions at that point. The girls approved of her name, Dolores. They chattered to her non-stop telling her about their grandmother, and she told them what to keep an eye out for at Beesley Gardens. After the girls took pictures of her, Dan walked her back, and the four of them went on to see some flowers and drink tea. Owen sighed at the prospect, but the girls were beyond excited.
Beesley Gardens had walkways that curved among the flowering plants. Ornate benches were found along the way. Some of them were framed by archways covered with flowering vines. The girls jumped up and down with excitement at seeing so many flowers. With autumn around the corner, there were more blooms in the two long greenhouses. To Owen, it was just a pleasant stroll, but the girls exclaimed over everything and took a million pictures. As the girls ran back and forth, Owen talked to Dan about his great-grandmother.
"She accepts you being gay. That's nice considering her age."
"After I come all this way to see her, she better," Dan said. "And anyway, she's totally doing it with this other old lady named Millicent."
"Even though she can barely walk?"
"What's walking got to do with it?"
"If you make me picture any of this..." Owen started to warn him.
"Got it," Dan said in perfect agreement.
As he and Dan walked, the girls ran ahead then back to them to make them look at different flowers. Owen made sure that they took pictures of each other, not just flowers, and he took some of them together. Every time he took a picture of Dan, he felt guilty. He was only taking so many pictures of Dan so Mom could see him with the girls, but he knew he was going to be looking at Dan in those pictures too often and too long.
Even now his gaze got stuck to some detail of Dan – his eyes, his mouth always ready to smile, his fingers as they brushed a leaf or a flower petal. To get his mind off Dan's physical presence and undeniable beauty, he thought about how well Dan was doing with the girls. They liked him, and he didn't let them walk all over him, which was a miracle.
"I half expected you to run screaming into the street once you had a taste of dealing with Connie and Maggie," Owen said, kind of impressed by his fortitude.
"Does that mean I don't need to look for another place to live?" Dan asked.
"No, you're officially hired. Tomorrow is Labor Day. I wasn't going to go to the office, but a sale fell through so we're back at square one. You'll have the girls all to yourself."
"I don't have classes. That works out great," Dan said.
"It does. I thought I might have to switch to working from home more after Mom was gone, but I can't show houses from there. It will be good to go out and earn some commissions. And it will free up Yolanda to do more selling too."
"Who was going to watch the girls before I came along?" Dan wondered.
"I would have hired someone eventually. Until then I had a plan in place for when I had to go in to work. Mrs. Luden was going to be taking care of the girls. She lives down the street. She's really nice, and they know her well, but she's old and those two wear her out."
"We're tough on her old bones," Connie quoted. She had just sneaked up on them from behind a big, sweet smelling bush with yellow flowers.
"Yes, you are," Owen agreed. "Mrs. Luden will be glad to hear that she's off the hook." He turned back to Dan. "I'll give you her information in case you ever need to drop them off with her."
"It's good to have a backup," Dan said.
"You'll be spending the day with Dan tomorrow," Owen informed Connie. Maggie was preoccupied, peering at a small shrub that had lost all its leaves but still had flowers. She looked very puzzled.
"We can go to the mall and have ice cream with sprinkles," Connie declared.
"You are not in charge. You will do what Dan tells you. Right?" Owen said, waiting for her to acknowledge his order.
Connie looked from Owen to Dan.
"You better," Dan told her. His voice was just stern enough to let her know he was serious.
Connie drew back a little.
"OK," she said, and Dan gave her a smile as she left.
"She's planning a mutiny. We'll both find ourselves locked in the hold," Owen predicted.
"I will not let that happen, Captain," Dan mocked him.
"I will find you tied to a chair when I come home," Owen said.
"Whoa. Are we talking about a completely different thing now?" Dan asked.
"No. We are still talking about your sad fate if you underestimate those girls," Owen said, determined not to be rattled by what Dan was implying.
Dan laughed at his dramatics. "I promise to be careful. Seriously, don't worry," Dan reassured him. He wasn't kidding around now. He could tell that Owen was anxious about tomorrow even if he did try to hide it. "If you want, I can call you on the hour every hour," Dan offered.
"Texts would be fine," Owen told him sh
eepishly.
"You're just being a good uncle," Dan told him with complete understanding.
Owen groaned inwardly. Already he knew he was going to get addicted to Dan, his looks, his smiles, his voice, his good nature. Dan's hand on the back of his arm gave him goose-bumps. Good thing he got a branch in the face when he turned without looking. It snapped him right out of it.
After Beesley Gardens, they hit some antique stores and had a messy dinner of ribs at a barbeque place with a great view of the orchards and strawberry fields. The girls had exhausted themselves on their daylong outing to Orchardville. It was no trouble getting them to go to bed that night.
After they were in bed, Owen went to his office with Dan, going over contact information and what to do in emergencies. When they were done, Dan still hung around as Owen sorted through the photos they all took and started uploading them. Half the time he was looking at some colorful blur and shaking his head. He could hear the girls' excited giggles and exclamations as each new flower came into view and they ran to get a closer look and take a bad photo.
"I see you smiling over there," Dan said.
"There are like three good pictures here," Owen grumbled.
"When they are happy, you're happy," Dan pronounced. "It's as simple as that."
"Stop seeing right through me," Owen said.
"Stop being transparent."
Owen did feel transparent when he was with Dan. There was no wall there like with most people. He felt like Dan understood him without any effort. Considering that they were only acquaintances until now, Owen had to wonder if he was only imagining a connection because he wanted one so badly. But even if a relationship wasn't going to happen, maybe they could be friends. Their mothers had been inseparable once. Owen's mom had just started in real estate and Dan's mom was the receptionist when they met. They used to go out all the time until Dan's mom got married last year and then moved away across the country. Thinking of that, Owen offered Dan some of the photos of him to send to his mom and his brother.
"Are you sending Kate too many pictures of me," Dan said as he looked over Owen's shoulder.
"She likes you, in case you haven't noticed," Owen told him.
"Your mom was always good to us," Dan said. "She found that house for us after my dad left, and we couldn't afford the mortgage on the old house. And she helped Mom find a better job. My mom wasn't as outgoing as Kate. Your mom encouraged her to go out and have fun after my dad left. Kate brought her back to life."
"Does that mean my mom is to blame for your mom meeting her new husband?" Owen asked.
"No. They met at the farmers' market while picking out cantaloupes," Dan said with a disgusted look on his face.
"And you've hated cantaloupes ever since," Owen guessed.
"All fruit. He is so uptight," Dan said with a sigh.
"My mom's new husband is definitely not uptight. If you put a gun to my head, I'll even admit he's a nice guy, and he makes Mom so happy."
"My mom seems pretty happy too, and Jason gets along with him so that's good. But I miss how it used to be. I mean, I want my mom to be happy, but it was nice when it was just the three of us."
"I know what you mean. Me and the girls will try to keep you distracted," Owen said but then thought it sounded kind of funny. "I mean the girls will."
"Don't try to slack off. You need to do your part too." Dan told him with a smile that shone out of his eyes and made Owen feel warm inside and tingly all over. If Dan only knew what he was doing to him.
*
After Owen was done sending the photos to Kate, they moved into the living room. Dan looked at some framed family photos along the way. Connie and Maggie's parents were in many of them. Their photos were often taken on exotic vacations. Dan remembered hearing that they were serious travelers. "They didn't live long enough, but they did live," his mother had said. Dan looked at a photo of the girls and saw their parents in them.
"Connie looks kind of like you and your brother, and Maggie is like her mother," Dan said. He was comparing the girls to the family photos of the Wakefield brothers as gangly, teenaged boys with their arms over each other's shoulders, and Owen's sister-in-law looking elegant and lovely on her wedding day.
"Maggie looks so much like her. Laura, her mother, was my best friend. She was so smart and had it together. I never thought she would go for a goofball like Mike. It never occurred to me to set them up. They knew each other for a while, and then one day Mike asked her out. I was getting ready to console him as he got shot down, kindly but firmly. But Laura smiled and said yes. I was floored. Mike was floored too." Owen stared off into the distance, seeing that fateful moment and smiling. His look slowly turned sad.
Now Dan understood what a monumental loss this was to him. To lose his brother was unthinkable, but Owen lost both his brother and his best friend. Dan had seen Mike less than Owen, or maybe he had just noticed him less. He was lanky and not as good-looking as Owen. Dan had gone to his and his wife's funeral with his mother. He remembered how cold it was that day and how pale Owen and his mom looked as they clung to each other like two drowning people.
"I heard they died in an avalanche," Dan said.
"They were on a ski weekend with friends. Mike and Laura went off where they weren't supposed to go. The beaten path was never good enough for them. Mike was the crazy, inept, adventurous brother. He loved trying new things, eating weird food, getting food poisoning. He was voted most likely to be eaten by a bear. You'd think no one ever told him he was a geek and not built for adventure, but I told him every chance I got. It was my job as his annoying little brother." Seeing Dan's look, he had to add, "I know I'm a geek too. But he was a megageek – comic books, action figures, comic cons, the whole deal. I keep it on the down low."
"If you say so," Dan said. "He sounds like he was fun."
"He was a fun big brother," Owen agreed. "What's your little brother like?"
"A baseball fanatic right now," Dan said with a grin as he thought about Jason's breathless enthusiasm about the game. "When he starts talking running averages and curve balls, my eyes just glaze over. That's when he punches me in the arm. I almost miss that. I told him, 'Dude, you know I'm gay. I can appreciate sports on only one level.'"
"We're on the same page there. Want to watch a game?" Owen offered jokingly.
"I was thinking locker room porn."
"I don't think we know each other well enough to be watching porn together."
"You have a three date rule for that or something?" Dan asked. He kind of liked where this conversation ended up.
"We were having a perfectly wholesome conversation a minute ago," Owen said.
"Hey, I'm responsible for only half the sexual tension in this room," Dan told him though he was ready to pin all of it on Owen.
"I don't generate sexual tension. I generate boredom," Owen claimed.
"With that body?" Dan looked him up and down, but Owen just shook his head like what Dan said was a joke.
That night, Dan went to bed happy even if he couldn't sleep. What a major change from his last job. Parking cars hadn't been so bad at first. Now and then, he got to drive some seriously cool cars, for a few minutes at least. He got to work with his friend Antonio, and most of the other guys there were OK. Too bad Keith had to ruin things for him.
When he quit that job, Dan couldn't have pictured where he would end up and what he would be doing for a living. Though, honestly, so far this didn't seem like work. It probably would once he had to take care of the girls by himself.
The thing that he couldn't wrap his mind around was Owen. He was living with and working for the guy he had fantasized about through most of his high school years. Was he lucky or what? Or what. He stood as much of a chance with Owen as he did when he was still a teenager. So far he had rebuffed or ignored every hint that Dan was interested in him. Being around him was going to be hell.
Even now Dan was torturing himself with images of Owen stripping down for bed. He had
gotten a glimpse of Owen's bedroom. It was more minimalist and modern than the rest of the house, but it wasn't stark. Dark colors and severe lines were mixed with plush fabrics and soft colors. That's where Dan pictured Owen as he took off his clothes next to that big bed. Since this wasn't the real, reserved Owen, why the hell shouldn't he sleep naked?
"That's right, strip all the way for me," Dan said. Closing his eyes, Dan moved his hand down his chest to his abs and then under the waistband of his pajama bottoms. Gripping his cock, he said Owen's name. Owen turned, stiff and ready to please.
"Make me come hard so I never stop dreaming about you," Dan said. As he stroked himself, he pictured Owen naked, leaning over him, ass high in the air, sucking him, moaning as his head bobbed. Then right after he came and started to fall asleep, Dan pictured the real Owen. Owen's dark eyes turned from sad to almost happy. His mouth was on the verge of a smile. The lips parted and Dan heard Owen's voice saying his name.
Chapter 4
The next morning was a little disorienting for Dan. Not just because this was only his second day in a new house, but also because he had been so intimate with Owen all night long. They kissed, they fucked. They even fucked on the beach. Then the beach turned into a giant terrarium, and people were watching them. Some obnoxious idiot even tapped on the glass. That was kind of weird as was looking at the real Owen, who knew nothing about any of this crazy stuff. Nope, the real Owen was all business as he told Dan what to do.
"There were a few things I was going to do today, now the honor of picking up my dry-cleaning goes to you," Owen said, producing his ticket.
"No problem."
"And I was going to do some shopping." Owen handed him a shopping list. "The pork is tonight's dinner. Put the other meat in the freezer."
"OK."
Owen smiled at him for some reason. He got some cash out of a box that was sitting on the kitchen counter and handed it to him.
"I think that will cover it. The girls will ask for everything, buy them nothing," Owen said sternly then he softened his stance. "You can buy them a treat, but don't overdo it."