DECLAN AND I stood in front of an elevator inside Travis’s library. Lettering above it announced TEENS in all caps. To the right, a sign declared:
TEENS ONLY
NO LIBRARY CARD—
NO ENTRY.
“That doesn’t sound ominous at all,” Declan muttered. He fidgeted behind me. When Paeder and I had presented him with the idea of joining me on this excursion, he’d seemed more eager to spend another day alone at the hotel. His reluctance motivated Paeder to decide for him that he would come. On the drive over, I’d confided that I was dating the person who had invited us. His interest perked up somewhat at this but had ebbed the closer we got to our destination.
“Don’t be nervous,” I said. “I’m not abandoning you.”
He sniffed. “Bet you’ve said that before.”
I turned away from the elevator to give him my full attention. “Declan, if you want to go somewhere else and talk, we can. We don’t have to stay here.”
“You’d do that?”
“Of course.”
He straightened his shoulders. “It’s all right. We can stay.”
I pushed the elevator button. Nothing happened. I pushed it again. It still didn’t light up. Then I noticed there was a black swipe pad next to it. “Hold on.” I walked over to the circulation desk, where there was already an employee watching me. “Hi, I’m a friend of Travis’s. He invited me to visit him at the teen center today.”
“He has to take you down. Hold on.” She picked up the phone and paged him over the intercom. “You can wait by the elevator.”
“Thank you.” I walked back to Declan.
As we waited, the elevator opened and a gaggle of teens piled out. They plowed right into us and kept walking until Travis’s voice said, “Is that how we get off elevators?” Even with his height, I hadn’t seen him at the back of the group.
“Sorry,” the boys mumbled, mostly at him as they continued to ignore Declan and me in their rush. I thought they must be eager to get somewhere, but they only walked to the library’s entrance and congregated there until the woman at the circulation desk told them to quit loitering.
“So,” Travis said with a big grin, “welcome to the teen center!”
I didn’t know if hugging would be appropriate, so I shook his hand. He slid out of my grip, and I awkwardly followed as he led me through a more complex handshake involving fist bumping and finger wiggling. He offered a fist to Declan, and Declan smoothly went through the handshake I’d fumbled. “This is Declan. He’s my… nephew. I hope it’s all right I brought him? I know you said to, but….”
Travis raised an eyebrow. “Keelin, it’s a teen center. Of course it’s okay that you brought a teen.” He swiped his ID card over the pad next to the elevator and the doors opened again. “I can’t wait for you guys to see it. Let’s go!”
Declan cast me an uncertain but happy smile, which I absorbed with relief. He liked Travis. So far, so good. “Hey, man,” Travis said after we’d stepped onto the elevator, “there’s no eating or drinking in the library, so why don’t you let your uncle hold on to your cup so the other teens don’t give you a rough time?”
After looking down at his fast-food cup, Declan eyed me. “Don’t drink it.”
“Or you could finish it in the next twenty seconds,” Travis said. Declan accepted the challenge. When we got off the elevator, he dropped the empty cup into the trash. The doors had opened onto a spartan white room. At its opposite end, there was another room with gray carpeting, track lighting, and a sign that announced Meredith and Patrick Berry Center for Teens. After we crossed the entrance, we saw rows of computers, several tables, and a pair of sectional couches arranged in conversational nooks. Every seat had a teen in it. Hip-hop music blasted from another large room, where a pull-down screen showed a YouTube video playing. We walked past a row of windows looking into the room. A group of teen girls danced in front of the screen.
“Just a sec,” Travis said. He backtracked and stuck his head through the doorway. “Nia! What did I tell you about twerking? And Sheppard, change the song. I don’t want to hear that language down here.”
“What language? What’s he saying?” The girl Travis had scolded sauntered up to him.
Travis cocked his head in a perfect copy of her posture. “Nia. The language I’m referring to are the words he’s using that describe our GLBT friends.”
She wrinkled her nose. “What’s GLBT?”
“It means gay, Nia,” another girl, who seemed annoyed and eager to dance again, interjected.
“Nia, if I hear that coming out of this room again, I’m shutting the music down. Understand?” Travis said.
She sighed. “Fine.” During the conversation, Sheppard had been browsing YouTube. Every move he made on the computer appeared on the big screen. He started “Work It.”
“Is this okay?” Nia asked. She sounded ready to offer another challenge.
“This is perfect,” Travis said. Nia grinned at him, and the girls began to dance again. Travis backed out of the doorway.
“Sorry about that,” he said to us. “Come on. I want to show you the recording studio.” He walked ahead of us. I started to follow, then realized Declan was lagging behind, staring through the window.
“We don’t let the boys peep the girls while they’re dancing, Declan,” Travis said. “That’s why they’re all in the other end of the teen center.”
“What about the boy that’s in there now?” Declan asked.
“I mean we don’t allow the boys to put their noses against the window and stare. Sheppard is DJing for the dance program. If a boy wanted to go in and dance, he could.”
“Oh,” Declan said.
“So come on.” As we passed a small circulation desk, he stopped again. “Mr. Jean”—Travis pronounced it the French way—“I want you to meet some people.”
Mr. Jean got up from the cramped desk. He looked young, early twenties or less. If not for his tie, I would have mistaken him for one of the teens. “This is my friend Keelin and his nephew Declan. Jean is our youth counselor.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said. Jean shook my hand and glanced at Travis with undisguised bemusement.
“Keelin, huh?” Jean said. “So you’re him.”
“Uh, yeah?” I said. I wasn’t sure what was going on.
“Anyway,” Travis said, “come on over here and I’ll show you our setup—” I glanced over my shoulder as Travis put his arm around me to steer me away from Jean, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jean giving Travis an enthusiastic thumbs-up.
Declan mouthed “oh my God” at me. I just grinned.
“I take it I’ve been the subject of some gossip around here?” I asked.
“It’s not gossip if it’s true,” Travis said. “And I promise everything I’ve said about you has been true.” He pushed open a door into a small recording studio, which was split into an engineering side and a sound booth with a microphone and music stand. From the inside, we were at the back of the room where the girls danced, and another window looked into it. There was also a door that opened directly into that room.
In the darkness, I squeezed Travis’s hand. “So what have you said about me?”
“Just that you’re nice. And cute. And I’m starting to really like you.”
“Ugh,” Declan groaned. Travis let go of my hand and chuckled.
“I like you too,” I said. “So show me what you’ve got here. Do the kids record?”
“Some of them. We used to have a sound engineer, but we don’t currently. I let a few kids in who he trained. The rest we don’t—oh, hey, don’t touch.” Travis put his hand out to stop Declan, who had started sliding knobs on the soundboard.
“I know what I’m doing,” Declan said.
“He pretty much grew up in studios,” I said. Then to Declan, I added, “But ask first, okay, Dec?”
He grimaced but nodded. Someone knocked on the window. We turned to see one of the girls pressed up to the glass. “Nia wants to know who the new boy is,” she shouted.
“Tell Nia to mind her business,” Travis shouted back.
The girl looked disgruntled and retreated. She conferred with the other girls and returned a moment later. “Nia wants to know if the new boy wants to come dance.”
Declan looked at me and half shrugged. It was the most enthusiasm I’d seen from him all day. “He’d love to,” I said to Travis.
“Tell Nia she can come ask him herself,” Travis yelled. The girl left again, and finally Nia came forward. She pointed at Declan, pointed to herself, and then stared at Travis as she did a parody of the Mashed Potato dance popular in the 1960s.
“You want to go?” Travis asked Declan.
“Yeah, all right,” he said. Travis opened the door and let him exit into the room.
“He seems like a good kid,” Travis said.
“You can tell that from five syllables?” I asked.
Travis smiled. “I’ve been working with teens a long time. I can usually tell from fewer.” He grabbed a rolling chair from next to the soundboard and pulled another out of the sound booth. We pushed them both up to the window.
“I have to say, I am really impressed with how you interact with the kids. You’ve got a great balance with them.”
“It’s what I aim for,” Travis said. “They’re all good kids. Some of them just have a little more room for improvement. But that’s why we’re all here, to give them a nudge in that direction. Nia, last year, wasn’t even talking. She spent all her time cussing us out and throwing tantrums. She’s come a long way.” We watched for a few seconds as Declan stepped in line and joined the dancing.
“Your boy’s got some moves,” Travis said.
“He should, considering his paternity, although his dad isn’t much of a dancer.”
“Who’s his dad?”
I froze. Maybe I shouldn’t say anything, but it seemed stupid. It wasn’t a state secret who Declan’s father was. “It’s, uh, he’s Paeder Brogan’s son.”
When Travis didn’t respond immediately, my mind raced, thinking of what he might say. Why does he call you uncle? Why do you call him nephew? Why did he turn up on your doorstep in the middle of the night?
“Oh yeah, you mentioned his name at dinner. I don’t know why I didn’t make that connection. So Paeder can’t dance?” Travis said. “I wouldn’t have guessed.”
I grinned with relief. “So, who’s here today who can sing? Anyone who’d like to use the studio?” I asked.
“I can think of three. Do you think we can get Declan back from the girls before he makes a link?” Travis asked. “I’d love to see what he can do with the engineering aspect.”
“A link?” I asked.
“It’s what the kids call getting together, like dating.”
“Trust me. It’s not likely he’ll be doing that with any girls.”
“Gay?”
I nodded. “It’s why he called me. He wanted to talk about it, and I seemed like the best person to him.” Geez, could I sugarcoat it any more?
“I noticed he has an accent. Does he live in Ireland?”
I wasn’t sure what that had to do with anything, but I nodded.
“Who’s he here with?”
“His dad.”
This time when Travis stayed silent, I didn’t worry.
“So what I’m getting out of this is that Declan is gay, he doesn’t feel he can talk to his dad about it, but he’s in a situation that makes his need to talk about it so urgent that he turned up at your front door in the middle of the night.”
I blinked. “Are you magic?”
Travis continued, “Keelin, is he in a safe situation?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I mean is there any danger that you can anticipate from Paeder? I mean does Declan seem depressed?”
My mind reeled as one hundred terrible scenarios presented themselves. “No, no. I talked to Paeder today. He’s not happy with Declan being gay, but he’s willing to let me handle those conversations. He loves Declan.”
“And depression?”
“I don’t know—he showed up drunk last night. He said some stuff, but it wasn’t…. He mainly wanted a hug, you know? Some reassurance.”
“Of what?”
I glanced out the window again. Declan was smiling and laughing. My heart jumped. “That I hadn’t abandoned him when I left Ireland. That I still loved him, I guess.”
“You gave him that reassurance?”
I nodded.
Travis squeezed my hand. “Good.”
“You are scarily good at this,” I said.
He smiled. “Thank you. You know, he’s welcome to come here whenever he’s in town. We’ll work with him the same as the other kids.”
“I’ll let him know.”
Travis smiled. “Don’t tell him the ‘work with him’ part. We like to do that on the down-low. Most kids don’t even realize what’s going on until they find themselves having full-fledged conversations about their feelings.”
As I watched Declan through the window, I made a decision. I couldn’t start my relationship with Travis with this secret hanging over us. It wouldn’t be fair. “Look, there’s something I think you should know, but I need you to keep it to yourself.”
“You trust me?” Travis smiled.
“Paeder’s my ex. We dated off and on for several years. Mainly on. He’s the first person I ever loved.”
Travis blinked. “Wow. Okay. So, when Declan calls you ‘uncle,’ he means it.”
I nodded. “Declan doesn’t know, in case you’re wondering. Paeder is very much in the closet.”
“Okay. Declan know about Paeder’s sexuality at all?” Travis asked.
“I don’t think so. He just thinks Paeder’s homophobic.”
“Okay. I won’t say anything. Thank you for telling me.”
I grinned. “Thanks for being good about it. Can we get some kids in here now?”
Travis stood up. “Absolutely.” He opened the door and called a boy in. I spent the next hour coaching him and then two other boys on their vocals. Travis summoned Declan to run the soundboard. Nia and the girls watched through the window until Travis yelled at them to go back to dancing. He stayed in the engineering room with Declan while I worked with the boys in the sound booth.
The boy I was working with gave me a scant glance. “You’re Mr. T’s boyfriend?”
“Today I’m your vocal coach.”
“Yeah, but tonight….” He gyrated his hips and made a show of licking his lips. Before I could respond, Travis yanked the booth door open.
“Christopher, go home until you learn to talk to people.”
“I didn’t say anything!” Christopher protested.
“What’s the number one rule?” Travis asked.
“Mind your business,” Christopher mumbled. He slouched toward the door.
“You want to say something to Mr. Keelin first?”
“Sorry, Mr. Keelin.”
“That’s all right,” I said.
“Go home,” Travis said. Christopher trudged out.
“You sent him home for that?”
Travis turned his no-nonsense expression on me. A little thrill ran up my spine. I pushed down my hope that he’d do an encore for me tonight. “Yeah, I sent him home for that. Send them home often enough and they start to learn. Everything has consequences.”
I nodded. I’d learned that lesson a few times myself. “So who’s next?”
Travis squeezed my hip as he moved past me to open the studio door. “Jaeden! You’re up!”