His grandmother regarded Trevor with an extremely unimpressed expression despite her excitement when he’d informed her Sky was there. Trevor had left Sky next to the pile of blankets that Sky had of course kicked off during the night, and taken Ellie out of the bedroom with him in order to find his grandma and clear the air, but he probably should have waited until his grandma’s morning coffee had really hit her.
She clutched the mug in one hand, still in her robe and slippers, her gray and silver bedhead adding to her wearily exasperated attitude.
“So you’re back with Sky.” She wasn’t asking. But Trevor supposed Sky wouldn’t have flown down here for a visit otherwise, not in her eyes. And she was right, anyway. “What about G.G.?”
“What about G.G.?” Trevor echoed innocently.
His grandma put her mug down to cross her arms and sigh. “My daughter did not raise a cheater.”
“No one is cheating. I told you that.” Trevor wanted some coffee too now, so he got some, digging out the honey to add to it.
Her grandma watched, looking mystified at this, but then holding out her mug for a trial.
“Everybody knows about everybody,” Trevor assured her after they’d both had some caffeine and clover honey. “Although Sky showing up last night was a surprise. A good one, but a surprise. The rest… we’re working out.”
“Is this a gay thing?” she asked. “Will Sky want breakfast?”
“No.” Trevor went for the harder question first. “But maybe, right now, queer people are more welcoming to things like this, nontraditional families and everything.” Trevor wasn’t awake enough to think that through. “And yes, Sky is going to eat.” Trevor would ensure it. “He likes fruit, whenever he manages to remember to get any. In fact, nothing too sweet for breakfast unless you’re in the mood for it. I might take him into town. Do you have anything you need me to get while we’re out?”
His grandma harrumphed but turned toward the refrigerator. She paused once there. “So… you’re sure no one is cheating?”
“Cross my heart.” It was childish but Trevor was still dopey from the high of yesterday.
“And you and Sky have worked out your silliness? He knows how you feel? You know how he feels?” His grandma peered at him, eagle-eyed.
Trevor was going to blush. He could feel it. She made it sound so obvious. “Yes. The rest of it, the long distance… we’ll work on that.”
“And you won’t hurt G.G.?” she pressed, cradling a carton of eggs. “He was just starting to come out of his shell.”
Precious hermit crab, Trevor thought fondly, then pulled himself up and drank more coffee to help him focus.
“Now you’re on Team G.G.? Yesterday, you thought he was a homewrecker,” he pointed out.
His grandma narrowed her eyes and put the carton down on the counter hard enough to make Trevor worry about the eggs. “Brian Trevor, this is not a laughing matter. People can break. They can be hurt.”
Trevor nodded to acknowledge that, then considered the surface of his coffee for several moments. “When I reheated the lasagna for G.G., it dried it out a bit, but he still ate it and said he liked it.” So had Trevor. For a first effort, it had been surprisingly good, if sort of less-than-ideal looking. “I like G.G. A lot. I could love him, maybe, with enough time. If I knew him more. Sky knows that. He thinks my heart is understimulated with only one person to love.” He looked up. “I think they would get along. But I guess we’ll find out about that. Will that be okay with you?”
His grandma tapped her fingers on the egg carton, sitting with what Trevor had said. He loved that she did that.
“I am not the rest of the family,” she murmured at last, almost begrudging. “That’s why we do well together.”
Trevor smiled widely. “That’s true.”
She tapped the carton again. “I’ll make breakfast for us, and then for Sky when he wakes up. And you’ll go out with Ellie while I feed him. I don’t want you around while we talk.”
Trevor straightened in alarm. “Grandma.”
“I want to make sure he’s okay with it.” She gave Trevor a stern look. “I believe you, and Sky is a clever thing. But his family won’t think to look out for him, so I will.”
“I love you, you know,” Trevor managed once he could breathe again. His grandma made a hmph sound as if unimpressed, but looked distinctly pleased. “Are you going to do the same for G.G.?” Trevor couldn’t help but wonder. “He’s older, but his family, excuse me for saying it, don’t give a shit about him.”
His grandma raised her head to frown into the distance for several seconds. “I should talk to G.G. anyway,” was her final decree. “Send him over at some point, would you?”
Trevor nodded, though resolving to warn G.G. first. G.G. was a skittish poodle and Trevor’s grandma was steel on the inside.
“I’m glad you’re thinking of them. You think of others a lot. Mom acts like,” Trevor paused because he didn’t have a nice way to say what he’d realized, “she acts like that’s weird. As if it’s dangerous, or you’re only doing it because you’re… uh… lonely, I guess. And you need to be protected from it.”
“Hmm.” Was his grandma’s initial response to that. “What do you think about it?”
“I think that she doesn’t know how much that includes you taking care of her and everyone else in the family.” Honestly, Trevor didn’t know how his grandma, and his grandpa for that matter, had resisted the urge to tell his mom off for sticking her nose in, worrying over stuff without trying to understand it first, and being condescending and then pretending that she wasn’t. “How you live your life isn’t hurting anyone, and if someone asks for too much from you, well, I’m here to help. She probably thinks I should stop you. But she also thinks it’s embarrassing that her youngest is an unemployed artist. Well, that is embarrassing. I don’t even know why Sky is….” Trevor shut his mouth. He tried again. “You don’t need to be protected, anyway. Not from that. You’re very good at boundaries—in a good way! That’s a compliment.”
His grandma’s eyes narrowed. But instead of challenging that, she said, “This is another reason I need to talk to Sky… and G.G.”
Trevor didn’t follow. “What is?”
“The rest of the family isn’t going to approach Sky—or G.G.—to give them the… what do they call it? The shovel talk?”
“Grandma!”
“But I will,” she sailed on, ignoring Trevor’s squawk. “Your parents, bless their hearts, love you and think whatever they think about you, but I love you and actually know you. That’s why Sky will listen to me. Hmm. G.G. seems reasonable, but between me and Sky, we should be able to get him on board if he isn’t at first.”
Trevor reared back. “I don’t need that. I, well, I can’t say I know what I’m doing, exactly, but I don’t need that. I’m not the useless child Dad thinks I am.”
“Did he say that?” His grandmother tossed her head. “Get me the phone.”
“Grandma, no. No, he didn’t say that.” Trevor hurried to assure her while glancing around for her phone to hide it. “But he thinks it. They all do. You know, loser, dreamer Trevor. Squandering his talent, no sense or head for business. It’s clear.”
“And yet, someone like Sky thinks you’re wonderful and would come all the way down here to see you, and be kind to your interfering grandmother…”
“Sky adores you,” Trevor interjected.
“And G.G., who doesn’t talk to anyone if he can help it, talks with you.” His grandma paused there, as though possibly remembering that G.G. and Trevor didn’t just talk. “And you got Nancy to let you help her with her house. And I haven’t kicked you out yet—and I could have, no matter what my children want. You know, I planned to talk to your boys about their feelings and then about you, but I see I should have talked to you first.”
“My boys?” was, unfortunately, the response that Trevor heard himself saying before anything else he should have sputtered over.
His grandma put her hands to her cheeks. “What else am I supposed to call them? Really, you can’t go around doing these things without at least providing the correct terms or etiquette.”
“No, yeah,” Trevor agreed, and then had nothing else to say. He drank more coffee.
So did his grandma. “Now,” she declared with finality after caffeine had been ingested and they had both had a moment to recover from honesty and weirdness, “get the bread so I can make toast. And a mixing bowl for the eggs, please.”
Trevor came back from a shorter-than-usual jog to Sky and his grandma on the couch, with Sky doing her nails. Sky had brought her some polish colors because she’d missed getting her nails done. Trevor hadn’t realized. It hadn’t even occurred to him as something to do.
He dropped a kiss into her hair and then did the same to Sky before going off to shower. It was technically a day where Trevor ought to get work done. But he sent off a few emails while sitting through Sky’s turn in the shower, then went out to run errands with Sky in tow. Sky was, likewise, also using his phone for work stuff, but shook his head and smiled brightly whenever Trevor asked if he needed to get back to something or to use Trevor’s “office” for a while.
They got more groceries, following his grandmother’s list, and an iced coffee for Sky that he drank while they sat at a table outside and discussed things that it was best Trevor’s grandma not hear. They hit up Bakery Rosemont on the way home.
Trevor delivered a custard Danish to his grandma while she flipped through her recipe collection, noting that she’d pulled out a few cards already. Possibly the desserts to impress and hopefully silence his mother at the next family dinner.
“Buttering me up,” his grandma said while sliding the pastry closer.
“We’re going over to see G.G.,” Trevor explained. “The pastries are more to butter him up.”
Sky, enjoying his second croissant, coughed, spilling crumbs over his clothes. “You told her? How much did you tell her?”
Trevor ignored that and started sweeping some of the crumbs into his palm. “I texted him that I was stopping by early. But I thought if I mentioned that Sky will be with me, G.G. would dash back into his cave and we’d never see him again.”
“This is not inspiring much confidence, Brian Trevor.” Despite saying that, his grandma returned to digging through her recipes and then added, “But he probably would. Will he be calmer about it by this summer? He’ll have to be if he comes to the family picnic, even as your friend.”
Her tone implied the air quotes impeccably.
Trevor stopped gathering pastry bits. “Is that definitely happening?” He got a knowing stare. “Ah. Well. I will invite him as the date approaches, but I doubt he’ll go. At least not this year.” A relief for both of them, really, since Trevor was the center of enough family drama at the moment. But by next year, Trevor would have been helping his grandma run regular family events for a while… taking them over, more than likely. “Ah,” he said again, realizing that if he was in charge of gatherings and in possession of his grandma’s recipes, the family would be in a weak position to argue with him. About anything. “You’re a schemer at heart, Grandma.”
Sky cackled. The two of them must have discussed her plans for Trevor before this.
Trevor looked at Sky. “You’re invited too, obviously. If you can make it.”
“About that,” Sky said, reaching into the pastry box for one of the chocolate croissants and biting into it without warming it first. “The thing about my job is that it can be done from anywhere, which I think all this has helped prove, but some people in the company are traditionalists. So I’ve been trying to demonstrate to them how much I can get done without ever seeing any of them in the flesh.”
Trevor closed his hand around a bunch of crumbs. He exchanged a glance with his grandma before turning to Sky. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
Sky looked smug even while shrugging. He spoke with his mouth full. “I will have to attend certain events, either at that office or different ones around the country, but yeah, I don’t need to be there most of the time.” He swallowed in a way that appeared painful. “It will take a few more weeks for official permission, but, like, I make them money, so they might drag their feet, but I don’t think they’ll say no.”
“And you didn’t mention it because you were still trying to ease me into the idea of you visiting, much less staying.” Trevor wasn’t guessing. He and his grandma traded another look. “I already told him I love him. He’s just a worrier,” he informed her. Sky gasped and then had to go get water to help him deal with the crumbs he must have inhaled.
His grandma flipped down a card that said Berry Trifle in her handwriting. “You can never say ‘I love you’ enough.”
“Hear that, Sky?” Trevor called sunnily to him. “In case you didn’t: I love you.”
“You make things so difficult,” Sky croaked back at him.
“And you’re going to get G.G. to say this to you too?” His grandma slapped another recipe card on the table: Pineapple Upside Down Cake. “What’s your plan for that?”
“Introduce him to Sky,” Trevor said sincerely, waiting while the room went still and both his grandma and Sky stared at him. G.G. wanted Trevor, but Sky was special, so special that he drew in other special people. “Then be good to him. He might not ever be in love with me, but he should at least love me. Love us.”
Something—Sky—bumped into Trevor’s back and stayed there, with what felt like Sky’s forehead pressed against him.
“I realize I barely know G.G. but there’s something there,” Trevor told his grandmother softly. “It’s not too much to want that. Is it?”
Sky shook his head.
“Why do I feel like you would do exactly the same even if you didn’t live with me?” Trevor’s grandma remarked, clearly not expecting an answer. “Though you might have spent longer getting to this point.”
“You’re a great person to learn from,” Trevor answered, sincere about that too.
Sky made a strangled noise. “You really told her everything?”
“Well, not everything.” Trevor reached back to get one of Sky’s hands and then pulled Sky’s arm around him. “I thought you two talked.”
“Yes, but not….” Sky squeezed him tight. “You probably think G.G. isn’t already gaga over you too.”
“If you two don’t mind, I have things to do, and you have somewhere to be.” A card labeled Tiramisu Shortcake went onto the pile of potential desserts for Trevor to learn. It looked complicated. Maybe Trevor could ask G.G. for help with it, have him over for a nice afternoon to please his grandma, who was currently nervous for him and trying not to be. “Don’t stand that poor boy up.”
“‘Poor boy,’” Sky scoffed but shut up when Trevor’s grandma raised her eyebrows. “Yes, ma’am.”