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“Dad. Stop the car.” Benny tried to keep her voice steady, but it wavered upward.
“I’m on the highway,” Emmett said, his voice not even sort of steady.
“Pull over. That’s what the shoulder is for,” Benny said. “Please. Dad.”
Emmett’s hands were clammy, and he couldn’t slow down his breathing. It kept coming in short, shallow, gasps, blackening the edges of his vision. Somehow, barely able to hear Benny’s voice through the panic, he managed to pull the van over to the shoulder and put it in park.
Cars and trucks zoomed past them, creating pockets of air that rocked the van. Emmett grabbed the wheel tighter with his slick hands.
Benny kept asking him if he was okay. Kate started crying.
Emmett closed his eyes and tried to slow down his breathing. Tobey had told him there was a senses thing that helped a lot of people during panic attacks. Five things he could see. Four things he could touch. He reached out for Benny in the seat behind him, and she grabbed his hand. He listened for something other than fast-paced vehicles.
Finally he felt better. Not completely normal, but better. “What am I doing?” he asked. “What was I thinking?”
“Don’t ask that, Dad, that’s what made you panic in the first place,” Benny said.
“I know, I know, I just...what the fuck am I doing?”
Benny was shocked into silence.
They were on the outskirts of Chicago. It was too late to turn back now. Why hadn’t he thought this through last night, when he was packing a diaper bag to take his two daughters and leave the only home he had known to meet his boyfriend in the big city?
Tobey didn’t know they were coming. They had been texting for the past two days, had sort of made up over the phone, but Emmett hadn’t said anything about his plan. He was afraid that Tobey would be so embarrassed about his family that he would talk Emmett out of it.
Now Emmett was talking himself out of it, complete with full blown panic attack on the side of I-94.
There had been a few hours, when he woke to find Tobey and Cosmo gone again, that Emmett wasn’t sure he would ever see them again. He had thought that their first fight had broken them and Tobey had given up. Why should he stay? The house was a money sink, the school was homophobic, and Emmett was too scared to even hold his hand in public. Emmett deserved to be alone.
But then Cosmo had texted Benny, and Tobey had called him and explained everything. And Emmett decided he was done sitting around waiting for things to happen to him, waiting for Tobey to come back. And even though Tobey sounded blasé about his mother’s death, he couldn’t be fine. A good boyfriend would be there for him. Just like his family and Megan’s family had been there for Emmett when Megan died.
Finally Benny gathered the courage to speak again. “Are you going to be okay? Cosmo texted they just got to Fiona’s. His dad’s already drunk. We need to hurry.”
Emmett tried to imagine Tobey drunk.
“I mean Timmy, his real dad,” Benny clarified. “I mean not real. His fake dad.”
Emmett gave a choked half laugh at Benny’s explanation and took one last deep breath. “Okay. I’m all right. Can you, um, pull up the directions for Fiona’s?”
“Sure thing,” Benny said. She patted Kate in the car seat beside her. “Don’t worry, Katie, you’ll see Daddy soon.”
~
“Your destination is on the left.”
When Emmett pulled up to the apartment complex, he wanted to ask Benny if she was sure she had the right address, but of course she did. Tobey had always said that he was the most put together of his family, but he hadn’t really connected that it meant that his family would look like this.
The apartment was all fading blue paint, cracked concrete, and slipping shingles. None of the cars in the lot looked less than ten years old. After a minute he picked out Tobey’s truck at the far end, which honestly didn’t look much better than the rest, but it was like a faded, comfortable beacon in this industrial maze of smog. Even in this cool weather, a group of people in tank tops and flip flops stood around a small charcoal grill. And Emmett had to admit it smelled pretty good, especially after hours in the van with just Cheetos and Monster energy drinks.
“B202,” Benny read off her phone. She looked out the window and pointed up. “So maybe, those guys?”
Emmett followed her finger to a different group of people, all in different shades of black and brown clothing, overflowing across a second-story apartment landing, most of them smoking. And in the middle of them, he realized with a fresh attack of panic, was Tobey. He was wearing his Cubs cap and dirty jeans and an oversized jacket and was holding a canned beer, looking like he had never left the inner city.
Benny was already unbuckling Kate. People were watching them with mild interest. Emmett was not a hoodie person, but he was glad he had thought to grab one. It made him feel much less conspicuous as he hunched into it and led the way toward the stairs. Kate screeched at Benny, indicating she wanted to walk rather than be carried. Therefore, the two girls followed at a much slower pace.
Tobey was already coming down the stairs. He had lost the beer. “Oh my god, it is you,” he said. “I thought I was imagining things. I have been wishing so hard that you were here.”
“And here we are,” Emmett said.
Tobey vaulted down the last three steps and pulled Emmett into a hug. Emmett hugged him back tightly, burying his nose and lips into the crevice between his jacket collar and his neck. He smelled the same.
Tobey let go after only a few seconds, but it was so that he could kiss him. He kissed the same too. Emmett almost pulled back before he remembered that this wasn’t his town and nobody knew him here or that he used to be married. He leaned into it hungrily, grabbing at Tobey’s jacket and hair.
“Dada!” Kate screamed, finally catching up to them and recognizing him.
“You guys are acting like you haven’t seen each other in like a year, it’s gross,” Benny said, trying to sneak past them and up the stairs, but Kate grabbed onto Tobey’s pant leg.
Emmett reluctantly let go of Tobey with one last peck and let Tobey lift Kate into his arms, but he reached around her little body to touch Emmett’s waist. “Hi, Kate, I missed you.”
“Dada,” Kate said.
Now that kissing wasn’t really an option, Emmett decided it was time to talk. “Tobey, I’m so sorry about the school thing and Williamson. You were right. I can’t let the same thing happen to our kids that happened to me.”
“No, I’m sorry,” Tobey returned quickly. “I shouldn’t have expected you to shake off thirty years of negative conditioning just because you’re my boyfriend. And I shouldn’t have left without saying goodbye. I’m sorry.”
Emmett leaned forward to hug Tobey again, squishing Kate in the middle, but she didn’t seem to mind. “I love you.”
“I love you too. I missed you,” Tobey said. “I’m so glad you came.”
Every memory of panic washed away for good. “You should have asked me to come.”
“I was deployed, on a dangerous mission overseas, I couldn’t ask you to—”
“You totally could. You should have. I’m your boyfriend, not a soldier.” Emmett gave a small laugh. “Maybe you aren’t as perfect at this relationship thing as I thought.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!” Tobey said, laughing too. “Come on, I’ll introduce you to the friendlies. Or enemies. You can decide.”
Benny had already made it upstairs and was on the patio sharing a bag of chips with Cosmo and a Latina girl their age.
“Ah, so, that’s my cousin’s daughter, Carmen,” Tobey said, nodding to the girl. “Carmen, where’s Fiona?”
Carmen shrugged.
“Hey, Emmett,” Cosmo said, waving with a hand full of Doritos. “Glad to see you made it.”
“You knew he was coming?” Tobey said, accusingly.
Cosmo shrugged. “Benny asked for Fiona’s address. I didn’t question. Can I have a pop while you’re up?”
Tobey was about to reply when he yelped and turned around. Somebody had poked him in the shoulder blades and was now laughing. “Who’s your friend?” the person asked.
Emmett could see instantly that this must be Timmy. Maybe a long time ago he looked identical to Tobey, but now they had only basic resemblance to each other. Timmy was gaunt to Tobey’s muscled frame, and his eyes looked hollow and restless. His hair was longer and duller, and when he smiled he was missing a tooth. He also had lots of tattoos that were revealed with his sleeveless t-shirt.
“Emmett, Timmy,” Tobey said tonelessly. “Boyfriend. Brother.”
“Nice to meet you, Emmett,” Timmy said, holding out his hand.
Emmett shook it but didn’t reply. He could feel Tobey tensing up next to him.
Timmy touched Kate’s hair. “And who’s this? You knock somebody up while I was locked up? I told you you’d get into girls eventually.”
“This is my daughter,” Emmett said. “Tobey is very gay. Still.”
“Huh. Well. She’s cute,” Timmy said. “I need another beer. Cos, go get me a beer.”
Cosmo pointedly ignored him by asking Benny about the drive.
“Uh huh, your parole officer is going to love how you’re handling yourself,” Tobey said. “When do you go back?”
“Can’t get rid of me fast enough, can you,” Timmy said, draping himself over Tobey’s shoulders.
Emmett expected Tobey to throat punch his brother, but he stood, statuesque, accepting the treatment. So Emmett leaned over and kissed Tobey on the cheek. “Show me around? Where’s Fiona?”
“I’d love to,” Tobey said. “Get your own beer, Timmy. See you later.”
“Okay, okay, I can take a hint.” Timmy pulled himself off Tobey and swaggered back into the apartment.
“I am so glad you’re here,” Tobey said. He glanced at Cosmo to make sure he wasn’t listening. “I’m so sorry about Timmy. If that loser had known that our mom dying would have gotten him out of prison for a few days, he would have had her offed years ago.”
“Don’t worry about it. I would much rather talk about the fact that you told me you loved me.”
“Oh, did I say that? I don’t recall,” Tobey said, his face turning red.
“You totally did.”
“Well, it might be true,” Tobey said. “I notice you said it first.”
“But I said it like weeks ago. Were you asleep and didn’t notice?”
“Yeah...anyway, can we not make a big deal out of it? I love my boyfriend. First time that’s happened, ever, but no big deal. Okay?”
Emmett smiled. “Okay. Sure.”
They held each other for a moment until they were jostled by a drunk couple on their way out the door.
“Let’s go get something to drink,” Emmett said, feeling very overwhelmed and red in the face from kissing Tobey in public.
“Booya,” Tobey said.