-1-
Skylar Maxwell couldn’t remember the last time he’d been up this early.
A gaggle of preteen girls point and whisper as he goes through the automatic doors of the Anaheim Hilton. Sky knew (or at least hoped) they weren’t pointing at him, but at the designer shopping bags hanging clumsily off his arm after his half mile walk from economy parking to the hotel entrance.
He spots Nova at the hotel check in desk in a t-shirt screen-printed with an embracing Jack Skellington and Sally, black knee shorts with more rips than jean material and bright red sneakers. He scooped back his loose hair as he conferred with the front desk attendant over something on his phone.
Sky had always been kind of jealous of his godbrother’s effortless good looks. Pictures of himself at 16 were a travesty of acne, gangly limbs and awkwardness. He felt like a geriatric blustering mess in cargo shorts and t-shirt from a 2018 Long Beach Color Run.
“Hello, sir ,” the front desk attendant greets Sky. Nova looks over his shoulder and his face brightens. He dashes across the short distance to hug Sky.
“Yay! You’re here! Oh my god I’m so excited! I want you to meet my new friends but, wait--come here, come here, Melissa is showing me where all best restaurants are in the park. Melissa, this is my godbrother, it’s going to be his first time going to Disneyland too. Right ?,” Nova says with a touch too much excitement for 6:30 in the morning. His sky blue eyes dart suddenly to the shopping bags on Sky’s shoulder and his grin gets bigger. “Are these for me?”
Sky nods and smiles. “Happy birthday. These are from Eloise and her sisters and…mine is buried in here somewhere. They wanted to come but—”
“Come on, let’s show Dad!” Nova hugs him again and makes an excited sound as he waves goodbye to Melissa, the front desk attendant.
They walk through the hotel lobby to the dining room. The hotel was still over run with teens and preteens from the YouTube and social media convention that had ended the night before. Nova had wanted to come the con for his 16th birthday. Haley added the Disneyland trip on top.
Nova fills him in on all the panels, meet and greets and signings he’d attended and how Haley’s friend Maverick had gotten them tickets to a sold out concert event.
They find Haley in the dining room, talking into his earbuds while picking at an iced coffee and gigantic cinnamon roll. He looked relaxed and content.
Haley had called Sky two months ago when things started going around online about Harmony in case Maxwell’s sexual assault lawsuits got brought up and it came back on Sky in some way. Sky had heard some women talking about #HotNurseDad in his office’s dining hall but nobody had made the connection his father produced a lot of Haley’s material.
Haley breaks into a familiar, welcome grin as Sky approaches.
“Aww, Sky’s here, I’ll talk to you later, baby, I love you,” Haley says in a hurried voice into the earbuds before ripping them out. He jumps up and brings Sky in for a hug. “Look at you! It’s way too early to be sweating this much.”
“Parking lot was farther away than I thought.”
“I would have paid for valet, honey—”
“Oh, no. It’s fine. How’s Luce—he didn’t come?”
“You know Luce isn’t great with travel and stuff like this. We figured it would be better if he stayed to finish some of the major stuff with the condo for the big move.” Haley laughs and wraps his arm around Sky’s back. Sky was still getting used to the idea of Haley actually moving to the East coast. “I know this isn’t the Disney trip I promised you all those years, ago but close enough, right ?”
“OH MY GOD!,” Nova screams and Haley shushes him sharply but when he turns to look at Nova he lets out a “holy fucking shit” at the Louis Vuitton backpack, three Supreme hoodies, iPhone 11 and Airpods Nova had placed on the table.
“Eloise and Atsumi were really sorry they couldn’t come down,” Sky adds and Nova only nods as he tears into the only non-designer bag—which was from him.
“Awww, look, Dad this is so cute,” Nova hugs the plushie of the video game character Kirby dressed like Link from Legend of Zelda. He makes the plushie wave it’s sword at Sky. “Oh, also you should know Dad and I are going to make you go on all the roller coasters.”
Haley stands and gathers all the shopping bags Nova had discarded to turn the new iPhone on. “Nova, I need to give Sky something in the hotel room. Can you wait down here and then we’ll go to the park ? And send the girls a thank you.”
Nova gives him a distracted nod and Haley takes Sky by the hand to lead him to the elevators. He allows himself to be led, even though, at 6’3 feet, he’d been taller than Haley for most of his life.
“It was sweet of you to pick up the girls gifts. I know Malibu was out of your way—”
“Actually, Eloise was in my neighborhood last week getting her car custom painted…I guess she goes to a guy in Long Beach ? Her grandfather called me and asked if I would go with her so she didn’t get ripped off but she seemed to have it handled…I kinda think he’s trying to set us up…”
“He is,” Haley says flatly, stepping into the elevator. “Jean doesn’t realize how obvious he is. You should have seen the way he tried to throw Luce and I together. I’ll tell him to back off…I mean unless you like her ?”
Sky flustered.“I mean…I don’t know her that well. She’s cool. She and her sister are fun…but I don’t know….she’s only 22.”
Haley shrugs. “She’s not exactly a typical 22-year-old…I mean , she’s basically my boss.”
“Right. How is the new job going ?”
Haley sighs. “I just sit in meetings all day. It’s boring as fuck but at least we can keep our dignity in tact.”
A few weeks after Haley lost his nursing license, Eloise decided to get started on the foundation she was supposed to start with her inheritance. The Washington-Dory Foundation subsidized medical expenses for stroke patients.
She’d asked Haley to join the implementation team as a subject matter expert and he got paid a stipend for every meeting. She’d also contracted out the Fund’s website to Fallwater. Her sisters had done the same for their smaller charitable organizations.
After a few weeks of working on The Washington-Dory Fund, Haley and Luce had decided to donate their condo to the foundation.
There was a need for subsidized fully accessible lodging options for disabled people who traveled. Luce’s neurologist had put the word out to his patients and they had a new tenant arriving a week after they moved to the east
coast next month.
Haley unlocks a hotel room on the 14th floor and pushes it open with his hip. It’s a modest suite considering Sky knew Eloise covered the cost for Nova to be able spend his 16th birthday at the 4 day social media convention followed by a day at Disneyland.
“How has the trip been?”
“Surprisingly well. Nova had one little meltdown over me moving his toothbrush but he’s been good,” Haley smiles and picks up his suitcase. “…He mostly wanted to go to the convention by himself and meet his online friends. I was kind of sad at first but then I discovered the liquor store down the street and that this TV has Netflix.”
Before Sky can tell Haley how well rested he looks, Haley unceremoniously pulls a Cartier chronograph out of his suitcase. The longer Sky stared at it---an object that seemed to have been pulled out of another time--the more his chest tightened with the fear and anxiety he'd learned to hide. “That's...Wasn’t he…buried with this ?”
“No. Luce stole it off Maxwell.” Haley supplies. “Or so he says…we were cleaning out the basement for the new plumbing and I remembered it was down there. I never knew what to do with it and giving it to you feels right.”
The guilt Sky felt around Haley always sat just under his
skin. It starts to envelop him.
In the 14 years since Lansing found religion and had Haley named his godfather, they’d never talked about how their relationship actually began.
“I never apologized to you,” Sky says quietly.
“No—”
“I saw and heard how he treated you. How he hurt you. I knew it was wrong. We saw videos in class. But I never said anything…even when my teachers asked me. I could have done better—”
Haley frowns and puts a gentle hand on Sky’s cheek. “You were a child.”
“So were you,” Sky chokes. Haley had been barely older than Nova when he’d started dating his father. He’d always seemed so much older to him. “When I was in law school I got interested in meeting the mysterious cleaning lady who recorded Dad and got me out of there. LAPD had destroyed the file but I found a picture of the cassette tape someone used as evidence during the sexual assault case. There was a scratched out playlist on the B-side of the cassette. In your handwriting.”
Haley just looks at him, adjusting the complicated braided bun his hair was swept up in.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me you got me out ? That you saved me.”
“At the time I thought I was doing something wrong…I thought I could fix Maxwell and we’d live happily ever after. And by the time you and I reunited it just didn’t seem important. And it’s not. You turned out great and that’s all the matters.”
Sky considers the chronograph. This wasn’t the first thing of his father’s he’d gotten. When Maxwell’s parents died they’d left Sky the now high value Los Angeles residence where so much of the abuse had happened. His older cousins, who Sky barely knew, had been livid. He’d given the house over with no fight.
“I want to sell it…and split the money with you. Can I give you that ? Please.”
He knew Haley and his pride and he was probably sick of taking money from people but Sky owed him so much. Haley could probably get Nova's medication subsidized but the HIV meds and Luce's medication was probably in the thousands without insurance.
Haley nods and hugs him with a sigh. “Once we get settled in New York I want you to come visit. We’ll go get expensive facials or something. You know our door is always open for you. I love you.”
Sky nods, a tear escaping somehow. “Thanks. I love you too.”
“Don't cry,” Haley laughs and wipes the stray tear, just like he’d always done.
---
-2-
“Where are the letters ?,” Nova sits up in the passenger seat alarmed.
“I...don’t know.”
Haley had barely recognized the Las Vegas condo when he turned onto their block. They'd only been gone a week. After Disneyland, he'd decided on an impromptu two-day mini-road trip through Southern California, showing an uninterested Nova all the places from his youth.
The entire condo building had a fresh coat of
seafoam blue paint and a barred black security gate surrounded the property for
the reassurance of new tenants.
The metal letters that spelled Silver Hills, that had been atop the building since it went up in the late 50s, were gone.
Haley rolls down his window at the gate and types in the access code Luce had given him over the phone yesterday. The gate swings open and Luce is on the other side, sitting beside Haley's parking space as he pulls into the repaved and painted parking lot.
Haley barely has the car in park before he opens the door and jumps out the car. “What’s wrong, baby ?”
“Nothing—”
“Why are you out here ? It’s too hot—”
“I was waiting for you,” Luce explains flatly.
Haley’s lip quirks into a teasing smile. “Awww, did you miss us?”
Luce says nothing.
“We’ve spent weeks apart when you were in rehab—”
“It’s different being in the condo with you. It’s quiet…I kept thinking I heard you coming to bed in the middle of the night.”
Haley rolls his eyes as he leans down closer. When their lips touch he lets himself fall into Luce’s lap, and when he gives a small, innocent lip bite, Luce returns it by sliding his tongue fully into his mouth. Haley had put his tongue ring back in and rubs it suggestively against the roof of Luce's mouth like Maverick had taught him.
He'd miss their friends with benefits "situationship" as Maverick called it, but they'd agreed to stay friends. Maybe more if the distance worked.
“OH MY GOD!” Nova shrieks as he comes around the other side of the car, swinging a Disneyland bag on his wrist “That is disgusting, I’m right here--”
“Then go away,” Haley groans. He makes no move
to leave Luce’s lap but uses what
little willpower he had left to pull their faces apart.
“Did you have fun ?,” Luce asks Nova as he skips behind Luce and wraps his arm around his neck.
“Yeah, didn’t you look at my Instagram ? It's private so you have to log into the account I made you or you won’t see it. This is for you. Open it, open it!,” Nova prods. He waves the Disneyland bag in Luce's face and looks back up at the building. “Where are the letters ?”
“In the recycle bin. The painters couldn’t put them back up,” Luce explains. He pulls a medium size box from the bag and with Haley’s assistance, opens it to reveal a pale pink tie with a tiny pattern of silver Mickey Mouse ears. He stares at the tie expressionless. “Thank—”
“Nooo. You can’t just thrown the letters away!,” Nova pouts loudly. “I want one. Can I have one ? Can I go get one out the recycle bin before they take it?”
“Why ?,” Luce frowns.
“Because,” Nova whines in explanation. “I like, grew up here. I deserve a piece of it. Like, we're about to go someplace new and never come back and this place is like…part of my story. This is my childhood home. It's special to me. You don’t get it.”
“I grew up here before you did. Those letters are just pieces of metal probably covered in bird shit.”
Haley sucked in a breath to ease the pinch in his chest but his eyes got warm anyway. “Nova, go give Sara her souvenir.”
“Wait, can I have the lette—”
“Yes. You have 10 seconds before we start making out again.”
Nova rolls his eyes and runs up the stairs with little regard for breaking the wine glass set they’d bought for Sara.
Haley falls back into Luce’s chest
“I had the security cameras put up,” Luce says in a low growl when he hears the door to the unit close. His hands slide lower on Haley’s hips. “I can’t get you off out here anymore.”
Luce pulls him close to kiss him again and Haley shakes his head. A quiet broken sob escapes. “I’m not horny…. I didn’t want him to see me cry.” He smiles broadly as he wipes away tears with the back of his hand.
Luce adverts his gaze to the fresh pavement before looking back up at him. He wanted to just know these things but he didn't. “I don’t understand why you’re crying.”
“Because. We can’t move to the East Coast.”
“We have to, Lex,” he reminded him. “I paid for a year of rent on the data farm for the servers. All our shit is in storage and the new people are coming in three weeks…You told me to buy the plane tickets two days ago.”
“I now. But all I ever wanted was a family of my own and a home,” Haley says through tears. “And I just realized our son got to grow up in the same place his Dad. And his aunt and uncle. And I know it isn’t conventional but he was loved here. That’s special. This our home. It’s where we belong…We won’t have that on the East coast.”
“I don—”
“Did you know the shitty apartment building where we met is a brewery now ? And the place where Harmony Studios was is a Whole Foods ? Virtue's old studio is a spin studio. There is barely anything left of our relationship…except this place.”
“What the fuck is it with you two ? It’s a god damn building,” Luce kisses away at the tears on his cheek. “I hate change. You know that. But I know we’ll be together. And you’ll be happy and have your career. That’s home to me. That’s how I know this is worth it.”
Haley shakes his head. “I don't even know if it's worth it. Maybe I'm not even a good nurse, It's barely a career. I just picked the first job I saw—”
“Stop. You're a good nurse.”
“Gah, I’m being a scared little bitch. Cold feet.” Haley admits. He laughs to himself. And at himself. “I’m excited…I am. One more adventure.”
He stands up and pops the trunk, filling Luce’s lap with shopping bags from their trip and pulling the rolling luggage towards the wheelchair lift. As the lift ascends with both of them on it, Luce looks at the pink Mickey Mouse tie.
“Why did you let him get me this ? You know I hate ties.”
“I know,” Haley says walking to the front door. “It’s not for you to wear.”
1990
Balboa Pointe Apartments
San Fernando Valley, California
-3-
Minnow Dory was right.
Alex Haley was having the best day ever.
It started with a .99 cent store shopping spree, then al pastor tacos from El Toro and now he was driving Minnow Dory’s doorless yellow Jeep. Sure, he technically didn’t have a driver's license but Minnow had done seven too many afternoon tequila shots at El Toro.
“MY COUCH!,” she
shrieks when Haley swerves into their apartment complex. Haley
looks up and sees Minnow's older brother leaning over the garden-style apartment's awning. Next to him was another dark haired man and between them was the brightly patterned sofa Minnow had fawned over in the IKEA
catalog.
Jean waves, kisses his palms and sends invisible kisses over the apartment complex railing. Minnow stumbles out of the Jeep and runs around drunkenly trying to catch them. She stops mid sprint to gag, almost vomit an then swallows.
Haley had watch her do this swallow twice on the drive back home. “Come on,” He guides her up the stairs along with their copious .99 cent store purchases. “Hey, who is with Jean ?”
Haley recognized the man. He'd been leaving the Harmony payroll office with his (now spent) paycheck and seen the dark haired man smoking outside. Haley had assumed he was a new male performer and quickly walked past because he didn't want to get pulled into a variation of the “seriously, you don’t like titties ?” conversation.
“That’s Luce,” she slurs loudly. Minnow collapses into her knees at the top of the stairs and her face pales just before she starts gagging.
“Okay, up we go.”
Jean scurries down the hall to stand her
up. Despite her protests, he carries Minnow into the apartment fireman-style, side stepping over
the couch blocking their apartment door and leaving Haley alone with Luce Grace and the couch that he secretly thought was kind of hideous but couldn't say anything because Minnow was letting him live here now that he'd been kicked out by his grandmother.
Minnow had described Luce Grace as their socially awkward "kid brother" she was supposed to look out for while he was going to school in California.
But the man in front of him was just that.
A man.
Pretty blue eyes. Full dark hair. Hot.
So hot.
Haley was in
love.
But he was going to play it cool this time.
He would not be the blathering mess
he’d been in front of all of his equally hot scene partners.
He was 18 now. He lived with a roommate. He’d be mature.
He squints his eyes as if he was trying to recall yesterday. “I think I saw you in payroll yesterday—”
“Paperwork. Jean
got me a job doing security at Harmony.” His voice was flat and gravelly but also....a little shy ?
“Oh, I know.” Fuck. Did that make him sound like a stalker ? Minnow had mentioned the job but he hadn't connected this man was him. Before he can fully evaluate he is opening his mouth again. “I actually assumed you were one of the actors.”
“Uh, no,” Luce Grace
flushes embarrassed. Had he offended him ? He’d spent so much time with adult
actors he’d forgotten calling someone a porn star wasn't a fucking compliment.
Haley wanted to vault over the ugly sofa, scamper inside and hide in his room to reevaluate all his life choices until he died. But Minnow has said Luce would be in California for 4 years. 6 years if he got his Master’s. They'd run into each other again.
Time to restart.
He holds out his hand.
“I’m Alex. By the
way.” Shit. He'd gotten so lost in Luce's eyes, he'd forgot to introduce himself by his stage name. To late he had his hand out and he should probably shake it or say something or--
“Luce.”
The End
A/N
CP!Shawna: Ugh, did we really do that thing where you added a bunch of space to make the chapter longer ?
SHV: Yep, this way to the A/N >>>>