Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s Terry Junior’s idea to get a dog. His parents are doing that thing they do now sometimes, where they’re arguing without arguing.

“I just think a regular exercise routine would be good,” his mom says.

“Maybe I’ll train up for a marathon,” his dad says. Terry Junior thinks it’s supposed to be a joke, but his mom doesn’t laugh, and he doesn’t either, and his dad’s smile goes a little crooked.

Terry Junior stops poking at the salmon on his plate. “We should get a dog. Dad can take him for walks and stuff. That’s good exercise, right?”

His parents exchange a look.

Terry Junior gives all the reasons they should get a dog, copied out of a book he got from the library and a few suggestions from friends. Dogs need routine, which means everyone in the house needs routine, and walking a dog every day and playing fetch and stuff seems like more fun than doing whatever his mom was going to suggest.

It turns out it’s easier to convince them to get a dog than to actually get one. The animal shelter just has a bunch of Chihuahuas and other tiny yappy dogs, which nobody likes. Then his mom does some googling and finds this Petfinder site.

They end up on the couch together, Terry Junior in the middle between his parents, clicking through pages of dogs that live two hours or less away. There are all kinds of dogs, some that Terry Junior has never even heard of mixed in with regular ones like labs and huskies.

They’re about twelve dogs in when his mom laughs at the picture that pops up.

The dog’s weird-looking, with huge eyebrows, a gray beard, and dark eyes. He looks like someone’s grandpa who’s going to talk to Terry Junior about boring stuff, though the website says that he’s an adult and not old.

“He looks like a little old man,” his mom says, echoing his thoughts.

His dad smiles as he fiddles with his reading glasses. Terry Junior can tell his dad already likes the dog for making his mom laugh. His dad reads, “Ron is a miniature schnauzer. Knows how to shake hands. Likes the park. And he lives an hour away.”

“That might be worth a trip,” his mom says. She tilts her head, smiles at Terry Junior. “But Terry Junior should get a say. What do you think?”

Terry Junior squints at the dog. It’s not the one he would’ve picked, but when they look up schnauzers, he reads that they’re “high energy” and “protective of their owners”, which sounds good to him. He nods. “Yeah. He might be cool.”

“It’ll be like adopting my grandpa Thad,” his dad says, because sometimes his whole family agrees on something.

“We should look at the other dogs,” Terry Junior says hopefully. “Just in case.” Really, he just likes looking at all the pictures, but it’s probably good to have a backup plan. Or a backup dog.

They spend the rest of the night looking at dog photos and making fun of some of the weirder names.

Who names their dog Snookums?

Terry loses the rock, paper, scissors match that determines who gets to meet Ron. It’s not a problem, since it just means he gets a front-row seat to Terry Junior’s practice scrimmage instead, but he tells Samantha to send him a lot of cute photos.

She sends a Found the apartment! text but no pictures. Maybe Ron makes a better impression in pictures than in real life.

He starts idly scrolling through Petfinder again, checking to see if the backup dog they agreed on is still available, when he hears a yell from the field. He looks up in time to watch Terry Junior slip between the defenders and shoot.

“Yeah!” Terry yells, watching the beautiful arc of the ball. He knows it’s going in even before the goalie lunges too slowly. The ball hits the back of the net with a satisfying sound, as sweet to Terry’s ears now as it would be in a real game.

He gives Terry Junior a thumbs up when Terry Junior looks over at him. Then he texts Samantha.

Hey honey, were we barking up the wrong tree with the schnauzer?

It takes a few minutes before his phone buzzes in his pocket. Long story, but no dog. I’ll tell you all about it when I get home. Love you!

At the end of practice, Terry Junior makes a beeline for him, one of his teammates trailing close behind.

“Hey, Mr. Harker,” the kid says. Terry thinks his name is Nick, though it could be Nathan. He flips his hair out of his face and grins. “TJ promised me dog pics.”

Terry smiles back. “Sorry, I don’t think Terry Junior’s mom and the dog--” What’s that thing the kids are all saying these days? “--vibed.”

“Please don’t use slang, dad,” Terry Junior says, shaking his head as Nick shrugs and says, “Sucks.”

“Maybe we can all drive out to visit the next choice,” Terry suggests.

Terry Junior goes from looking embarrassed at his excellent grasp of preteen lingo to looking a little excited but trying to play it off in front of his friend. “Yeah, that’d be cool.”

“I wanna meet your dog when you get him,” Nick tells him.

“We’ll have a welcome party,” Terry says.

“Hell--” Nick checks himself with a sideways glance at Terry. “Heck yeah, man.”

Terry tries to resist. He does. But the pun escapes him anyway. “Or maybe I mean a paw-ty?”

Both kids groan.

Terry pulls into the driveway. The house is dark except for the front porch light.

“We beat her home?” Terry Junior asks.

“Guess so,” Terry says. When he checks his phone, he sees he’s missed a text that tells them to go ahead and get a start on dinner. He looks up from his phone and gives Terry Junior a smile. “Looks like we’ll have to fend for ourselves. What are you in the mood for?”

“No fish,” Terry Junior says immediately.

Terry laughs with a twinge of sympathy. He’s always been a fan of seafood, but having it twice a week feels like a little much, even if it’s what the doctor ordered. “Okay, kiddo. I think we’ve got ingredients for chicken stir-fry.”

Terry’s dropping dried apricots into the rice when they both hear the front door open.

“Smells good,” Samantha says, leaning against the kitchen door frame and smiling at them both.

Terry sets the dried apricots aside and goes to her. He clasps her around the waist and tugs her gently into the kitchen. “Give us five more minutes and it’ll even be edible. So no go on the dog?”

She dissolves into giggles, dropping her head to his shoulder. The edible joke was pretty good, if he says so himself, but not enough to warrant the laughter that makes her stomach jump against his fingertips. “I don’t even know where to start,” she says, the words muffled against his shirt. “There, um, wasn’t a dog.”

“Let me guess,” Terry says, grinning because her amusement is infectious. “The guy tried to sell you a possum?”

“Or a very big cat?” Terry Junior suggests.

“Or a short man,” Samantha says, her lips twitching.

Terry blinks. “Come again?”

“There wasn’t a dog,” Samantha repeats.

Terry keeps blinking. “Yeah, I got that the first time. So had he already been adopted--” He stops when Samantha shakes her head. He’s close enough to see her visibly bite her lip, obviously trying not to laugh again.

“No,” she says. “It-- he--” She stops and shakes her head again. Then she frowns and sniffs the air. “What’s burning?”

Both Terry and Terry Junior turn to look at the stovetop. “The rice!”

The rice is mostly salvaged, minus some burned bits at the bottom of the pan that go straight into the trash. Terry debates the likelihood of more burned food and pauses the Ron conversation until they’ve got food on the table.

They’re all sitting down before he says, “So no dog.”

“Yes,” Samantha says. “No dog.” She touches her wine glass but doesn’t drink, rubbing her thumb against the stem. “Actually, there was never a dog. Ron was trying to make new friends, you know, which is just so hard when you’re working full-time.” She gives Terry a look like she expects him to agree, but doesn’t wait for a response before she adds, “And he couldn’t find a friend finder app, so he used Petfinder.”

“....Mom,” Terry Junior says. “That sounds creepy.”

Samantha looks a little offended. “He’s not creepy! He’s funny.”

“I think you met a serial killer.”

“Terry Junior,” Samantha says, frowning at him. “We raised you better than that. He’s a very nice man.” She turns a look of appeal on Terry, who’s still trying to process everything his wife just said.

Terry clears his throat. The guy’s ringing all sorts of alarm bells, but at least this feels like a weird story Samantha can laugh about with her friends. “Ah. Well. Sounds like an...interesting guy.” He’s aiming for neutral, but Samantha seems to take his words for agreement, because her face lights up.

“Yes, he is!” She laughs again. “We talked for two hours about dogs and which one would hypothetically be the best spouse. He obviously chose the schnauzer, but I think I made a pretty good case for Newfoundland. My cousin had one as a kid, and he was really sweet. And then we tried to make a quiche together--”

“A quiche?” Terry Junior says. He twists in his chair and stares where the calendar is pinned to the fridge. “Mom, it’s April 3rd, not April 1st.”

“I know what day it is,” Samantha says, giving him a warning look. Then she brightens again. “Oh, he gave me his number so he could tell me how the quiche turned out! And he lives close to that new bakery I was thinking of checking out, you know the one that's just a little too far to visit on a whim?”

Terry studies his wife’s face as she speaks. Normally the excitement in her expression would make him smile, but instead he’s worried. He agrees with Terry Junior about all this. Not that he thinks this Ron guy is a serial killer, but he certainly doesn’t seem normal. And the whole Petfinder versus friend finder app explanation sounds fishy.

“I’ll come with you,” he says.

Samantha gives him a pleased smile. “Great! I think you’ll like him. And the bakery has pistachio macarons, your favorite. The doctor said you could treat yourself every once in a while.”

Terry makes a noncommittal noise at that.

Later, after he’s washed the dishes, read another chapter of Holes with Terry Junior, and brushed his teeth, turning over the thought of this Ron guy in his head the whole time, he hears Samantha laugh from the bathroom.

“What’s so funny?” he asks.

Samantha slides into bed, closing the vast distance to press a kiss to the corner of his lips that tastes faintly of her favorite mint mouthwash. “I was just remembering what Ron said when I asked him for an explanation.”

“What did he say?” Terry asks, curious.

Samantha’s eyes crinkle at the corners. When she answers, she pitches her voice slightly lower. “I told you I knew how to shake.”

Terry laughs despite himself. “Yeah, okay, that's pretty good,” he admits. He hesitates. This guy still sounds pretty weird, but Terry will check him out himself this weekend when they drive up to the bakery. He trusts Samantha’s ability to read people, but sometimes her compassion clouds her judgment.

“Glad you made a friend,” he says at last.

“Me too.”

“Turn left,” Samantha says a second before the GPS tells Terry in a British accent to turn. As he obeys both, she sticks her head out the window and smiles. “Wow, the photos don’t do it justice. The owners really transformed it.”

“They sure have,” Terry agrees, looking at the building. It’s hard to remember how it had looked as a hardware store. Now there’s dark blue and white paint, and a sign in the shape of a lavender macaron with the bakery’s name in a cursive mimicking of white frosting. Hopefully the macarons are as good as the bakery’s new design.

“Ron’s already inside,” Samantha adds.

“Right,” Terry says. He drums his fingers against the steering wheel before he turns off the car.

When they get inside, Terry glances around. Samantha had given him a vague description: short, glasses, mustache. He doesn’t see anyone like that, just rows of desserts and pastries and an inside as colorful as the outside.

“Hello. You must be Terry,” a voice says at his shoulder.

“Holy shit!” Terry says, a little louder than he means to. The woman behind the counter gives him a bland smile that means she’s annoyed. He smiles apologetically at her before he looks down.

He understands Samantha’s description now. Ron Stampler’s face is swallowed up by coke bottle glasses, a mustache, and a wide smile. There are some crumbs caught in his mustache, and he has a crumpled piece of paper in his hand. When Terry tries to read it upside down, he sees that it’s just his and Samantha’s names.

“Ron!” Samantha says, sounding pleased. She touches Terry’s arm, smiling up at him as she makes the introductions. “Terry, this is Ron. Ron, this is Terry.”

Terry instinctively reaches out for a handshake, only for Ron to blink at his hand like he doesn’t recognize the gesture. Before Terry can pull his hand back, Ron takes it and gives it a quick shake.

“You do know how to shake,” Terry says, remembering the joke that had made Samantha laugh.

Ron nods earnestly. “Yeah. My dad always said that handshakes can make or break you when you meet someone. So I practiced a lot. Um. On door handles because my dad-- but I think I did okay. The food here is pretty good. I was trying the samples.”

Terry’s absorbing the quick words when the woman behind the counter says, “Great, someone ate all the samples.” She shoots him a dirty look, and he tries to silently convey that he didn’t even know about the samples. He doesn’t think she gets it.

“I always try them,” Ron says cheerfully. He hums to himself, nodding again. “I guess you could call me Ron Sampler.”

Samantha laughs.

Okay, Terry will admit the guy’s got jokes.

“Any recommendations?” Samantha asks.

“Um, the blue ones were good,” Ron says vaguely.

Samantha and Terry look at the sample tray. There are no blue desserts. Another glance around at the displays shows that Ron could be talking about macarons or cupcakes.

“Well, speaking of samples, the website said they sold sample boxes, so I thought I’d buy one and we could try some of the flavors,” Samantha says. She gives them both another smile and heads to the counter, leaving Terry to try and not be obvious about staring at Ron.

So far he’s not pinging Terry as dangerous. Weird. Definitely weird. But not serial killer levels of weird.

“So,” Terry says. He hunts for something to say. “See the game last night?”

“What game?”

“Uh,” says Terry, who has only a casual interest in basketball and not much else and was banking on the fact that there’s always a game on to talk about. “Never mind. Let’s grab a table.”

“Okay,” Ron says agreeably.

They sit down. Ron just looks at him, either content to sit in silence or assuming that Terry's going to keep moving the conversation along.

Sports were a bust, and Terry's mind is temporarily blank. Samantha’s much better at small talk than he is. “...Got any hobbies?” Other than making up a fake dog on Petfinder to meet people, he doesn’t say.

“Oh, I have a lot of hobbies,” Ron says, straightening a little in his seat. “I watch a lot of birds. And um. I have been learning how to cook, if cooking’s a hobby. Maybe it’s not? It’s kind of a job too, just not my job. I work at a store. I’ve got a lot of cookbooks right now. Samantha helped me with the quiche, which was really nice of her. I tried making another one, but I forgot the milk so it was kind of a cheese pie instead of a quiche, you know? It didn’t taste too bad though. Do you like quiche?”

It takes a second for Terry to follow, his comprehension a sentence behind Ron’s words. Then he sighs. “I used to,” he says ruefully. The new quiches he and Samantha make with skim milk and fat free cheese just aren’t as good.

“What do you do?” Ron asks. He still has the crumpled piece of paper in front of him. He starts crumpling it more. “Hobby-wise, I mean. Or your job. I think Sar-- Samantha told me, but I forgot.”

“I’m an accountant,” Terry says.

“Right. I knew it had something to do with numbers. Or letters.”

“Most jobs do,” Terry agrees, amused.

“Most jobs do what?” Samantha asks as she sets a box down on the table.

“Involve numbers or letters,” Terry says. He stands up and pulls out her chair, watching as Ron starts to stand up, pauses, and then sits back down again. “Find some interesting flavors?”

“I think so,” Samantha says. She opens the box and it looks like she’s got half the colors of the rainbow inside. “Pistachio for you, red velvet for me, and then I went adventurous with Lychee Raspberry Rose, Lavender Lemon, Fudge Brownie, and Key Lime Pie.”

Ron leans towards the box, his eyes narrowed behind his glasses. “Terry, you’re, uh, a, a numbers guy. If there’s six flavors and twelve macarons and three of us, how do we split it all up, ‘cause these macarons look ready to get macked by me, Ron.”

Samantha laughs again. “I told you he was funny.” She’s smiling up at Terry, her attention focused on him, so it’s only Terry who sees Ron’s reaction: the startled little jump, the owlish blink, and the pleased flush in his face as he stares at Samantha like no one’s complimented him before.

Terry was smiling at the pun, but now he fights the urge to frown. Samantha might think she’s made a new friend, but if this guy has a crush on her, they’re both going to end up disappointed. He’s still trying to figure out how to handle it when Ron looks up at him.

Ron’s surprised smile grows. He widens his eyes behind his glasses, giving Terry a half-questioning, half-happy look like he’s asking for confirmation that she actually said he was funny.

It’s a guileless look. Terry doesn’t read jealousy in the guy’s expression. Maybe Ron really is just as excited to make a friend as Samantha is. Terry hopes so, anyway, for both their sakes.

He smiles back at his wife. “You did,” he agrees. He looks down at the macarons as he sits back down. It’s actually an interesting little math problem. There’s probably a way to split each macaron into three and make it come out evenly to get everyone an equal piece of each flavor, but the macarons are so small it’ll be tricky to do. “How about this? We split each macaron in half, everyone gets to try a piece, and then after we’ve figured out our favorites, we’ll buy another box.”

“I think that’s a good plan,” Samantha agrees.

“I’ll buy the next box,” Ron says.

Terry enjoys the taste-testing. It’s been a while since he’s had a dessert that isn’t low calorie and low sugar, which pretty much defeats the purpose of dessert. Plus Ron’s just as expressive eating the macarons as he is getting complimented.

The lavender lemon macarons end up being the least favorite of the group, but Ron jumps up with an order for pistachio and key lime pie for Terry, red velvet and lychee for Samantha, and fudge brownie and key lime for himself.

As he heads to the counter, Samantha says, satisfaction in her voice, “I knew you’d like him.”

“He’s--” Terry stops at the cashier’s incredulous voice.

“You’re paying with that?”

They turn and watch Ron set down a roll of coins, the kind you take to the bank for a deposit. “Gee, I’ve got another around here somewhere,” he says, rummaging around the pockets of his pants.

Terry chuckles. “He’s an interesting guy,” he admits. It’s the same thing he said the other night when he’d first first heard the Petfinder story, but this time he means it in a good way.

Maybe she hears the difference in his voice, because Samantha beams. “It’ll be nice to have a friend who’s not one of Terry Junior’s friends’ parents or work friends, you know? Not that they’re all not good people, but….”

“I know exactly what you mean,” Terry says.

“Here you go, ma’am!” Ron says, putting another roll of coins on the counter.

Terry Junior greets them with a cheerful, “So, is he a serial killer?”

He’s not sure how he expects his parents to answer. Okay, he’s expecting his mom to frown at him. He just can’t decide if his dad will say yes or no or maybe no but he was trying to catfish his mom, like an episode of that Catfish show Terry Junior watched at Nick’s house.

He definitely isn’t expecting his dad to grin and say, “Well, I hope not, since we invited him over for dinner next week.”

“...What?”

His dad looks a little sheepish. “I think you’ll like him.”

Terry Junior stares at them both, but they both look serious. “Did he hypnotize you? Is this a cult thing? Are we joining a cult? Mariah’s mom’s sister joined a cult, she told us--”

“No, he’s funny,” his mom says.

“Jeez Louise,” Terry Junior mutters under his breath.

His mom gives him a sharp look.

“I’m sorry,” he says, squirming on the couch, “but, like, he pretended to be a dog! On Petfinder! He was trying to catfish you or something, Mom, and I don’t--”

His dad chuckles. “Catfish? Dogfish, you mean.”

Terry Junior groans. “He’s gonna kill us.”

“Here, distract yourself from your inevitable demise with some macarons,” his mom says dryly.

They’re pretty good.

Chapter Text

Ron is ready for this dinner. Sure, he’s never been invited to someone’s house before, but he’s seen an episode or two on the old television set. He knows you’re supposed to bring a drink and compliment the house and the hosts. He thinks he’ll do okay.

“Hello,” he says as Samantha opens the door. He holds out the milk he bought for the occasion. “You should probably put this in the fridge because the car got a little warm.”

Samantha blinks. “Thank you. I’ll just….” She pauses. “Do that.”

“Your house is nice,” he adds. He cranes his head to admire the door, which is blue. There’s a wreath too, with a lot of red and pink flowers that he’s pretty sure are fake. He debates sniffing at them to check, but what if he’s allergic? He doesn’t want to sneeze at Samantha. “It’s very big.”

“Thank you,” Samantha says, smiling again. She steps back, turning and calling, “Terry Junior! I want to introduce you to Ron!”

Terry and Samantha are both pretty tall, so Ron isn’t surprised that Terry Junior is tall too. Ron sticks his hand out, his dad’s voice in the back of his head. Don’t look down, look them in the eyes and smile. You want someone to respect you, don’t give them some limp fish handshake--

“Hi, Tommy, I’m Ron.”

Terry Junior stares at him. “It’s Terry Junior. Like my dad?”

“Right,” Ron agrees.

Terry greets them with a call from the kitchen. “Hey, Ron. Glad you could make it! Honey, the casserole’s just about ready.”

“Good. Make yourself comfortable,” Samantha says. Ron’s pretty sure she’s talking to him. Then she turns. “Terry Junior, could you put out the silverware?”

Terry Junior nods.

Ron watches them both go through the kitchen door to where Terry’s standing at the stove. Samantha must forget Ron’s here or think the door blocks his view, because she puts her hand on Terry’s arm and leans in with a kiss to his cheek.

Ron looks at the table. He sits down in one of the chairs, then gets up again when Terry Junior comes in with a fistful of forks and says, “That’s Dad’s seat.”

“Oh, I didn’t see his name on it,” Ron says, turning to look and double-check that he didn’t miss something obvious. There’s no name. Maybe it’s like in school, where the teachers sometimes didn’t assign seats, but kids liked to sit in the same chair anyway and would get annoyed if you forgot and sat in theirs. "Where should I sit?"

"I don't know. Not there. Or there," Terry Junior adds when Ron chooses another seat. "That's Mom's-- you know what, just sit here." Terry Junior points at a chair.

"Thanks," Ron says.

Samantha sticks her head back into the dining room. “I’m taking drink orders. We’ve got wine, beer, sparkling water.”

“Oh, um. I didn’t know there’d be so many choices,” Ron says. “Is the milk off the table?”

“The milk?” Samantha repeats, looking confused.

“The milk,” Ron says, a little louder, in case he was mumbling like his dad always said.

“Oh,” Samantha says slowly. “I-- I think I have a carton already open. I’ll pour you a glass.”

Terry leans around her. “Hope you don’t mind the milk tasting like water. Skim is an acquired taste.”

He’s smiling like it’s a joke, and Ron’s about to laugh when he sees both Samantha and Terry Junior make a face like it wasn’t funny. He stops and says instead, “That's okay, buddy. Not every joke's a winner. I bet the next one will be great.”

“Uh, thanks?” Terry says, but he says it like a question.

The dinner’s good. Samantha and Terry are both really great cooks, and Ron enjoys his milk with the chicken casserole and some roasted vegetables.

“Samantha’s office has been nominated for Best Therapy Center in the county,” Terry says. He smiles at Samantha and reaches out to squeeze her hand. She squeezes it back and laughs softly when he adds, “Sure, it’s for the whole group, but I know who everyone was voting for.”

Ron’s surprised again, but there’s no way they don’t know he’s right here, they’re talking to him. Maybe they just like holding hands? It’s nice, watching them smile at each other. This is probably what marriage should be like, where both people are around and like each other.

“That makes sense,” he says. “Samantha is really smart. It didn't take her long at all to figure out I was the schnauzer.”

Terry and Samantha laugh.

It’s only once they’re done eating and Samantha is picking up plates that Ron realizes he’s barely complimented the house. He glances around, trying to figure out what else to say, and his gaze lands on the stairs and some picture frames.

When he goes over, he finds the first photo is of the whole family. Terry Junior’s wearing a uniform and looks pretty sweaty, so it’s probably after a game. He’s got a medal, so yeah, probably a game. Both Samantha and Terry have their arms around him, and they’re all grinning.

Ron follows the photos up, watching as Terry Junior gets younger with each one until the one at the top of the stairs doesn’t have him at all, just Terry and Samantha at their wedding, holding hands like they did during dinner. They look really happy.

He’s studying it when a voice behind him asks flatly, “Are you looking for the bathroom? ‘Cause there’s one downstairs.”

Ron turns. He blinks at Terry Junior, who’s got his arms crossed. “No.”

Terry Junior sighs like Ron didn't answer his question and said something weird instead. He mumbles something under his breath that sounds like “Gonna rob and murder us….” Before Ron can ask him to repeat himself, because he probably heard that wrong, Terry Junior says louder, “Mom and Dad are in the living room.”

“Oh,” Ron says. “Okay.” He gives one more look at the wedding picture before he goes back downstairs.

Terry and Samantha are sharing the couch so Ron sits crisscross in one of the other chairs. “I like all your photos. They're so organized. Like I was looking at your whole lives, but on a wall.”

“Thank you,” Samantha says, and he knows he said something right because she sounds pleased. She pats Terry’s knee. “I know most are of the three of us, but Terry is actually a bit of an amateur photographer.”

“If you mean I keep trying to take good photos of Terry Junior’s games, then amateur is the right word,” Terry says, amused. He tilts his head in Ron’s direction. “You’re probably better at photography.”

“Really?” Ron says doubtfully. “I don’t know about that.”

“With your birdwatching. You don’t take photos?”

Ron shakes his head.

Samantha gets to her feet. “I’m going to make myself a cocktail. Ter, do you want a glass of wine?”

“Sounds good,” Terry says. “How about you? There’s beer too.”

It takes Ron a second to realize Terry is asking him. That makes sense. He wouldn’t be asking Terry Junior. That would be bad, and Terry and Samantha seem like good parents. “Oh, um. No thank you? Beer tastes kind of bad, and wine gives me a headache, and cocktails aren’t….” He hesitates. Cocktails probably taste better, but his dad would’ve-- “Uh, I mean guys don’t like--”

“It’s 2017,” Terry Junior mutters from the corner.

Ron blinks at him. “Yeah.”

Samantha makes a quiet noise, like a hum. “How does a mocktail sound? I’ve got tonic water and I think we haven’t finished off the orange juice.”

“A mocktail?” Ron repeats. His dad never said anything about that. “That sounds pretty good.”

The mocktail is good.

He’s drinking it carefully when he realizes that maybe Terry Junior is being quiet in the corner because Ron hasn’t engaged him in conversation. He lowers his mocktail, remembering the photo of him in a uniform, and asks, “So, Terry Junior, you play a sport?”

Terry Junior looks up from his phone. Ron thinks he’s maybe surprised. “Uh. Yeah. Soccer.”

“Oh. I was never much of a sports guy myself, but you like it?”

“Yeah,” Terry Junior repeats.

“Terry Junior is the star of the soccer team,” Terry says proudly. “Center forward.”

“Oh,” Ron says, pretending to know what that means. He tries to focus as Terry keeps talking about Terry Junior playing soccer, maybe being good at scoring goals or stopping goals, but he keeps thinking about how weird it is that British people call it football. Actually, soccer uses feet a lot. He’s pretty sure that people aren’t supposed to use their hands, not like in American football where there’s a lot of carrying the ball around. Maybe it’s weirder that Americans--

“Ron?”

Ron looks up. Everyone’s looking at him. His stomach jumps a little, the way it does sometimes when he knows he should’ve been listening but wasn’t. “I was thinking about football.”

Terry Junior stands. “I’ve got homework. Night.”

“Goodnight,” Ron says, but Terry Junior just sighs and walks out of the room. Ron doesn’t blame him. He definitely doesn’t miss doing homework. “Boy, they must really be working them hard in school.”

He looks back in time to watch Terry and Samantha give each other a look.

“I’ll be there in an hour,” Terry calls.

Terry Junior makes a sound that’s probably agreement.

“The mocktail is good,” Ron tells Samantha. He takes a sip. “Very fizzy. And you can really taste the orange!”

“I’m glad you like it,” Samantha says, but she’s not looking at him. She’s staring at the living room door like she thinks Terry Junior will return. He didn’t forget his phone, though, so he’s probably not coming back.

Ron takes another sip. He’s definitely nailing this compliment thing.

“Well, that could’ve gone better,” Terry says once Ron is gone and Terry Junior is asleep.

Samantha hears everything unsaid in the words. She sighs, rubbing at the bridge of her nose. “Yes. He was so funny during the Petfinder meeting and then at the bakery, but--” She stops. Another sigh rises to her lips, but she swallows it back. “Maybe I was a little too eager for a friend who’s not a coworker or related to any of Terry Junior’s friends….”

She leans into the touch as Terry’s hand settles into the small of her back. He rubs small circles, quiet for a moment. “He is funny. Maybe he was just nervous? Or he doesn’t know how to talk to kids.” Another second of silence. “Or maybe he’s a friend you text recipes to and meet once a month for macarons. A bakery buddy.”

“A bakery buddy,” Samantha repeats, smiling. She nods. “Maybe.” She turns over the dinner in her head, resisting the urge to psychoanalyze Ron. He’s a potential friend, not her patient. Still, she wonders what he’s thinking as he hops between being funny and sweet to being rude.

She thinks for another moment. “Maybe we should give him a second chance with Terry Junior? Have him over for one more dinner.”

“And if he blows it, it’s bakery buddies?”

“Right,” Samantha says. She frowns. “Am I being too lenient? If--”

“Everyone deserves a second chance,” Terry says. He keeps rubbing circles into her back. Amusement creeps into his voice. “And even if he is a serial killer, I’m pretty sure we could take him.”

Samantha laughs. “That’s reassuring.”

He drops a kiss against her hair, so soft she barely feels it. Then he says, “You’re telling Terry Junior.”

“No, sir,” Samantha says, laughing again. “We are a team. We’re both telling him.”

“Okay, but only if I get to use the phrase bakery buddy.”

“Deal.”

The second dinner starts off better than the first. Ron brings milk again, though this time in a cooler, so Samantha actually puts it in the fridge instead of throwing it straight into the trash. That’s an improvement, isn’t it?

Terry Junior is dividing his time between the silent treatment and single word responses, but Samantha isn’t going to pressure him to talk.

“So, what are your plans for the weekend?” she asks Ron, smiling across the table.

Ron looks like he’s thinking hard about his answer, brow a little furrowed. “Probably watching the birds. I got some new birdseed that the guy said will bring all the birds to the yard. I want to see who will show up. ...I hope the feeder doesn’t get too crowded. Maybe I should get another one.”

“I’m sure they’ll learn to share,” Samantha says.

“Terry Junior and I are heading up to the lake early tomorrow,” Terry says. Samantha can hear the thread of excitement in his voice. He’s been working hard with tax season, and then Terry Junior has been busy with soccer and hanging out with friends, so it’s been a while since they’ve gone fishing. He turns and grins at Terry Junior. “Maybe we’ll catch something for dinner.”

“Yeah,” Terry Junior says.

Samantha frowns. She takes a closer look at him, registering his low voice as listless instead of unenthusiastic. His eyes are half-closed, his shoulders slumped. She leans around and places the back of her hand against his cheek. “You’re a little warm. Are you feeling okay?”

Terry Junior blinks at her. He tries to sit up straighter. “Yeah. Just tired.”

She feels his forehead. “I think you might have a fever. Let me go get the thermometer.”

“I’m okay,” Terry Junior says a little louder. “I’ll just sleep and I’ll be fine.”

He’s lying, but Samantha doesn’t understand why until his gaze darts towards Terry.

Terry’s mostly hiding his disappointment, but she can see and hear a shadow of it in the way he reaches out, tousling Terry Junior’s hair as he says, “Hey, if you’re not feeling well, it’s okay, son.”

Samantha goes to get the thermometer. She knows exactly where it is -- in their medicine cabinet from when she was still worrying over potential infections and making Terry check his temperature daily.

“Mom,” Terry Junior mumbles but obediently opens his mouth when she holds out the thermometer.

“One hundred point two,” she reads after a moment. She touches his cheek and smiles sympathetically. “Just high enough to be miserable, huh. Let’s get you another glass of water, maybe run a bath later.”

“Do you starve a fever or feed it?” Ron asks. He glances at Terry Junior’s half-eaten plate. “Um, if it’s feed a fever, then he--”

“I’ll be fine tomorrow,” Terry Junior protests.

Terry puts a glass of water in front of him. He tousles Terry Junior’s hair again. “I’m not dragging you out of bed. Sleep. You can come with me next time.”

“Exactly,” Samantha says. Then she registers what he said. “Next time?”

Terry looks slightly guilty. “Well--”

“You’re not going out on the lake alone,” Samantha says. She hears the sharpness in her voice too late to stop it. But the thought of him alone, miles from the nearest hospital, stirs up emotion in her stomach.

“I won’t be alone,” Terry says. The guilt’s replaced by something harder to read. “It’s a public lake and it’s supposed to be a nice day. There'll be plenty of people around.”

"Strangers," Samantha points out. This time she has control of her voice and it comes out even. “Who don't know--”

An unexpected voice interrupts her.

“Well, I’m not a stranger, I think, and I'm not busy, and I don't think the birds will be too mad if I wait a day to give them that new seed, so I could go. I don't fish, though--”

Terry brightens. “Look at that. Ron will go with me.”

Samantha gives him a long look, but shelves a conversation about him downplaying his health for another time, when Ron isn’t sitting here and Terry Junior isn’t looking miserable. She smiles, and it feels only slightly forced. “That’s sweet of you to offer, Ron. Are you sure, though? This is pretty sudden, and such short notice.”

“Yeah!” Ron says. “I mean, I didn’t have much planned anyway. Just the birds.” He glances around the table. “So why are we worried about Terry fishing alone? I mean, fishing can be dangerous, oh boy, tell me about it, but--”

Terry grimaces faintly. He taps his chest, slightly to the left of where the doctors had opened his ribcage. “My heart gave me a little trouble a few months back. Samantha just wants me to be careful.” Too careful, he doesn’t say, but Samantha can decipher it in the dip in his voice.

Samantha bites the inside of her cheek at the understatement, but Ron nods slowly.

“Oh, okay. My dad’s heart never gave him any trouble. He always said that I’d give him an aneurysm first.” There’s a beat of silence before Ron adds, like it needs clarification, “I didn’t, though.”

Terry Junior sets his water down hard enough that it thuds against the table. “Little trouble. Weird way to talk about weeks in the hospital,” he mutters under his breath.

Again there’s a faint grimace on Terry’s face, but all he says is, “Hope you don’t mind getting up before dawn, Ron. Best time to fish is early morning or sunset.”

“...Do we get to choose between morning or sunset, or….?”

Terry chuckles like Ron’s joking, but Samantha is pretty sure he’s serious.

Samantha gives Terry another look, this one hopefully communicating that they will discuss this later when they don’t have a guest over. Then she taps the edge of Terry Junior’s plate. “I know you’re probably not hungry, sweetheart, but try to finish your dinner. Then I’ll run you that bath.”

“Yeah, okay,” Terry Junior says, picking halfheartedly at his food.

Later, when Ron has gone home and Terry is preemptively packing the car so he can sleep in a little later in the morning, Terry Junior rests his warm cheek on Samantha’s arm as she lays next to him in bed and reads aloud the next chapter of Holes.

“You’re gonna send Dad to the lake with a serial killer?” he mumbles. He’s half-joking, half-serious as he blinks heavy eyes up at her. She hears the real question. Are you sending Dad to the lake with someone we barely know?

Samantha had hoped Ron would make a better second impression on her son, but he might’ve been feeling too sick to notice. “Ron is a little unusual, but I think he has a good heart,” she says. It’s a poor choice of words; Terry Junior’s frown deepens. She sets the book aside for a minute and cups his cheek. She meets his eyes and puts as much confidence in her voice as she can muster.

“Your dad won’t be alone. And there’s good reception there. We can text him and check in every once in a while. I’m sure he’ll want to make sure you’re not feeling worse.”

Terry Junior sighs so deeply she can feel it. His frown fades a little. “Yeah.”

It’s still dark as Terry drives the winding dirt path towards the lake. He keeps an eye out for animals, but the drive’s been quiet, with Ron asleep in the passenger seat.

Except when he glances over, he realizes Ron is awake and rubbing, not at his eyes, but at his mustache, like he’s trying to wake himself up or caught himself drooling. Terry chuckles. “I know it’s a little early, but we’ll get there just in time for dawn. Best time for--”

“Catfish, trout, and bass,” Ron says, still sounding half-asleep. “And other fish, but that’s what’s probably at the lake.”

Terry blinks. “Right. Didn’t realize you knew so much about fishing.”

“My dad sold fishing equipment,” Ron says.

“Oh,” Terry says, surprised, and then a little excited. He’d thought last night that Ron had volunteered just so he wouldn’t have to cancel his trip. But maybe Ron had wanted to go after all. He smiles. “Well, we don’t fish often enough to own anything fancy, but the poles will still catch a fish or two.”

Ron mumbles something under his breath.

“What?”

“Just, uh, looking forward to all the fish we’re gonna catch.”

“Me too,” Terry says cheerfully. His headlights catch the tail of something skittering off the side of the road and he refocuses on driving.

It’s shaping up to be a good day. They rent a boat without any trouble, and by the time they’re out on the lake, the sun’s just beginning to peek over the trees. The dawn paints the trees and the lake all kinds of colors. Terry loves getting out here early because it’s nature at its finest, and the two hours after dawn are prime time for fishing.

He tugs on his hat and texts Samantha to let her know that he and Ron got here safely, waits for the text back that says Terry Junior’s fever hasn’t gone up before he divides up the fishing gear. The poles are sturdy, despite being bought on sale a couple years back when he and Terry Junior made fishing a slightly regular thing.

Terry sort of figures Ron will be a talker, the way he was at the bakery and during both dinners.

But Ron’s actually quiet, studying his lure choices as Terry leans back and casts out his bait.

Terry’s hoping to catch something. It’s a nice day, they’ve got a good location, and he’s feeling lucky. Sure, it’s a fifty-fifty shot if he and Terry Junior catch anything most trips, but it’d be nice to bring something home.

When there’s a tug at his bait, he swallows back a cheer. “Think I got something.”

The reel jerks in reverse as the fish starts to fight. Terry’s instincts are to fight with it, but he knows he should let the fish wear itself out. He keeps the rod up and waits, watching the line unspool as the fish tries to flee.

“Feels like a big one,” he says, grinning as the fish gives a hard enough jerk that the boat rocks a little. “I might need your help with the net.”

Ron doesn’t say anything, but the fish gives another desperate yank on the line, and Terry concentrates on keeping the rod in his hands and not losing it overboard.

The fish is a fighter. By the time Terry gets it close enough to the boat that it thrashes on the water’s surface and he can see he’s landed a catfish, his shoulders are aching. He remembers the net. “Ron, can you--”

The boat rocks again, dipping low enough that water splashes over the railing and onto their shoes.

Ron grabs his arm. “Maybe we should cut the line.”

“What, for this guy?” Terry says, laughing in surprise. “We can’t let a fish beat us.” He reaches for the net himself, keeping an eye on the catfish as its thrashing gets a little weaker.

It’s slightly trickier without Ron helping, but he gets it into the net and up onto the boat. Then he leans back and stretches. His shoulder blades twinge, and he’ll probably be sore tomorrow if he doesn’t take a shower tonight, but he grins down at the still struggling fish. “I should take a picture. Terry Junior will want to see this.”

“Yeah,” Ron says. “Good, um, good catch.” There’s a weird shaky note to his voice.

Terry’s not distracted by the catfish anymore. When he turns, he sees Ron’s whitened knuckles as they grip the edge of the boat, the way Ron takes a deep breath. “You okay?”

Ron blinks at him. He straightens from a slouch. The shaky note’s gone, but Terry can recognize fake heartiness when he hears it as Ron nods quickly and says, “Oh yeah, buddy. Just, uh-- just--”

Terry frowns. Clearly he’s missing something here. “You don’t look okay. What’s going on?”

“I think the boat is defective, maybe,” Ron says. “We should row back to shore, make sure everything’s shipshape.” He nudges at the tiny pool of water at their feet. “Better safe than sorry, you know? So nobody falls overboard and drowns, like Dad did, or, uh, gets their feet really wet because wet socks are gross, am I right?”

It takes Terry a moment to pick apart Ron’s words. Then he leans forward so quickly that the boat rocks again. “Your dad drowned?”

“Yeah,” Ron says, bobbing his head. “Talk about wet socks! He was wet all over, heh.”

Terry stares.

“It was a long time ago,” Ron says. “So, should we check on the boat?”

“No, we--” Terry stops. He keeps replaying the bit where Ron’s dad apparently drowned. He resists the urge to send an SOS text message to Samantha and tries to think about how she would handle this. “We should check on you,” he says firmly. “Fishing probably brings up bad memories, right? Why did you come fishing with me?”

Ron blinks at him. He looks confused. “It was a different lake?” he says with a shrug, like that counts for something. “And it seemed like you really wanted to go, so…” He wipes his hands against his shorts and shrugs again.

“But why would you--” Terry cuts himself off mid-sentence. He doesn’t want to sound like he’s accusing Ron of making bad choices, even if he’s still boggling at the thought that Ron would set foot anywhere near a boat or a lake.

He’s talked people through strong emotions before. Sometimes being an accountant means you have to give someone bad news, like they screwed up their taxes and the IRS wants to ruin their life over it.

He says slowly, “Sure, I like fishing, but we don’t have to fish. The weather’s so nice we could just hang out.”

Ron nods. Terry waits a beat, but Ron doesn’t say anything.

“I’m sorry about your dad. That must’ve been tough.”

“Yeah,” Ron says, so soft that Terry has to strain to hear him. He bends to grab his abandoned fishing rod and respool the reel. Terry looks at his bowed head, the sunlight reflecting off his glasses to hide his eyes. Clearly Ron doesn’t want to talk about it.

Terry untangles the catfish from the net and drops it into a cooler. Time for a topic change. He unzips the snack bag. “I know I’m getting a little hungry. Want something?”

Ron looks at Terry for a second like he thinks it’s a trick question. Then he relaxes. “Okay.”

Terry grabs a bag of jerky for himself. He chews slowly as Ron wrestles with a bag of chips.

Ron eats chips like they’re sandwiches, stacking them in groups of three and then biting into them.

Terry lets him finish off the bag before he speaks again. “Terry Junior and I don’t spend the whole day fishing. We go hiking sometimes.”

Ron blinks. “Hiking?” he echoes, like he’s never heard of it.

“Yeah, hiking.” Even as Terry says it, he looks down at their feet and laughs ruefully. He’d probably get about a quarter-mile into the walk before his shoes started pinching. “Or maybe not. We didn’t exactly wear hiking boots.”

Ron nods.

Terry tries to think of something else they could do besides fish. “Birdwatching. You do that, right?”

“Yeah,” Ron says, brightening. “I’ve been watching that little guy for a while.” He points.

When Terry follows the direction of his finger, he realizes there’s a little brown and green bird flitting around a bunch of lily pads. “What kind is it?”

Ron shrugs. “No idea.”

“But you said you watch….” Terry begins trails off at Ron’s puzzled look. “Never mind.” Terry pulls out his phone. They can take some photos, maybe figure it out later. When he looks at his phone, though, he realizes he’s missed two messages from Samantha, sent twenty minutes apart.

Terry Jr’s fever is down to 99.3. How’s the fishing?

Terry Jr says to send photos if you’ve caught anything.

Terry glances up at Ron. He’s not sure how to sum everything up in a text message. He opens the cooler and takes a photo, then sends it back with a, Caught a catfish. We’re taking a break right now. Might do some birdwatching. Love you.

Sounds fun! Love you too, Samantha sends back immediately with multiple smiley faces and hearts.

Terry smiles at his phone, rubbing his thumb across the hearts before he tucks it away.

“Oh hey. Ducks.”

Terry looks up.

Ron is leaning towards the edge of the boat, focused on a family of ducks paddling by. A smile lights up his face, almost as bright as the morning sunlight gleaming off his hair. He braces himself on the trim, his lips moving silently as he counts the ducklings.

“You have a big family, ma’am,” he tells the mother duck, who ignores him as she glides by.

Something in Terry’s stomach flutters. Must be the rocking of the boat.

Chapter Text

Terry Junior walks into the house and tries not to groan.

“Hi, honey,” his mom says.

“Hey, Terry Junior!” Ron says, giving him a wave. “How ya doing, buddy?”

“Fine,” Terry Junior mumbles, because asking why this guy is at his house a third week in a row will just get a disappointed look from his mom. He makes a break for his bedroom, but of course Ron wants to talk.

“Well, did you, uh, have a good day at school?”

“It was okay,” Terry Junior says. He gives his mom a look of silent appeal, but she’s too busy putting a puzzle piece down with a pleased smile to rescue him. The puzzle’s almost finished, enough that Terry Junior can tell it’s supposed to be a picture of a beach. “Got some homework, so--”

“Oh boy, homework. Talk about something I don’t miss!” Ron does that chuckle of his that annoys Terry Junior. The guy’s just so weird. Terry Junior doesn’t know why he keeps talking to him. Hasn’t anyone told him that he doesn’t have to be friends with his friends’ kid? “Well, if you ever need some help, I did some tutoring and--”

“Nah, I’m good,” Terry Junior says quickly.

He escapes to his room, but even with the door closed he can hear his mom’s familiar laughter and the rise and fall of Ron’s voice. He can’t figure out what his parents like about this guy. Even his dad had come home thinking Ron was cool after the fishing trip.

Eventually Terry Junior gets thirsty. He takes one step out into the hallway and then freezes as Ron punches a fist into the air and gives a cheerful yell, sounding way too excited about this puzzle.

“Look at that beach! Guess you could say it’s as pretty as a picture, heh.”

Terry Junior’s mom laughs.

Terry Junior tries to slip past the living room where Ron and his mom are apparently admiring the finished puzzle. He’s almost to the kitchen when Ron picks up the puzzle and then splits it into two. He stares for a second, wrestling with his curiosity and losing.

“...Uh, what are you doing?”

Ron looks over. “Oh, hey. Sorry, did you wanna look at the puzzle?”

“Not really,” Terry Junior says. “But you’re kind of...breaking it.”

“Well, yeah,” Ron says, blinking at him. “If you break it back into pieces and then put the box away for a few months, it’s like a whole new puzzle!”

This guy is the weirdest.

“It’s a money saver,” Terry Junior’s mom agrees. She smiles at Ron like she thinks he’s smart. Then she checks her watch. “We could probably start another one before dinner.” She looks at the small tower of puzzles, some of which Terry Junior is pretty sure Ron brought over from his apartment, the rest brought up from their basement after being forgotten about for years. “We’ve got outer space, birds, the wild west….”

Ron is still looking at him.

“I guess that makes sense,” Terry Junior mumbles.

“Why, what did you think we should do?” Ron asks. He gives a little laugh. “Puzzles would make for a pretty uncomfortable carpet.”

“Uh, I don’t know,” Terry Junior says, slightly alarmed by how Ron keeps expecting an answer. Ron's still holding the split puzzle. A few pieces fall off. “Last year this girl in my art class mixed like three puzzles together and then painted it with something so she could frame it. Something like that, I guess?”

Ron’s eyes go wide behind his glasses. He stares, not at Terry Junior, but at the wall, his brow wrinkled like he’s trying to picture something. “Wow, Terry Junior, that’s a great idea!”

“Thanks?” Terry Junior says. It comes out as a question.

His mom beams. “Oh, Ron, you could hang up some of your favorite puzzles in your apartment.”

“Wow,” Ron says. “I didn’t even think of that!” He turns and gestures at Terry Junior. It takes Terry Junior a second to realize he’s moving his elbow like they’re standing side by side and he can nudge Terry Junior in the ribs. “Guess you get your smarts from your mom, eh, kiddo?”

Terry Junior narrows his eyes. “My dad’s smart too.”

“Yeah, with numbers.”

“No, with everything,” Terry Junior says. His mom frowns at him, but he doesn’t really care. He’s not going to stand around while this guy insults his dad. Just because his mom can’t see that Ron has a crush on her doesn’t mean he can’t.

Ron bobs his head. “Hm, I wonder if there are any puzzles for accountants.”

“Oh, is that what sudoku is for?” his mom asks, her disapproving look melting away.

“Maybe!” Ron says.

“I don’t think you have to be an accountant to like sudoku,” Terry Junior says.

His mom doesn’t seem to hear him. “Maybe I’ll buy him a book of them!”

“Mom, you can get them off the internet for free--”

“Another great idea,” Ron says cheerfully.

Terry Junior sighs. “I’m going to get a drink.”

“Oh, could you get me one too?” Ron asks.

Terry Junior stares at him. He has to be kidding.

But Ron just sits there like he’s just asked something normal. Like he lives here, his voice casual as he adds, “Water, no ice.”

Terry Junior looks at his mom again, but she’s got her phone out. When he reads her screen upside down, she’s looking at sudoku books on Amazon. He sighs. If he’s rude, his mom will notice.

“Okay,” he says reluctantly. In the kitchen, he takes a deep satisfaction in dropping a single ice cube into the water glass. He hands it over to Ron and looks at his mom with a pointed, “So when’s Dad getting home?”

“Oh, he’ll be home in twenty,” his mom says. “He’s picking up Chinese.”

She’s off by five minutes. Terry Junior pokes his head back out of his room as his dad comes in with bags of food and a grin on his face, bending to kiss his mom’s head. “Hi.”

“Hi,” his mom says, tilting her head up so that he can bend again to kiss her on the lips. They both get their usual mushy smiles and Terry Junior makes a face. “That smells good. Guess who came up with an amazing idea for Ron’s puzzles?”

“You?” his dad guesses.

His mom shakes her head. “Terry Junior.”

“Yeah,” Ron says cheerfully. He waves a puzzle piece around. “He came up with this great thing where you can frame puzzles!”

His dad looks around and spies Terry Junior in the hallway. He gives him a thumbs up, looking pleased. Terry Junior’s pretty sure Ron brainwashed his dad on that fishing trip. It’s the only explanation to why he’s totally fine with Ron now.

Terry Junior gives a weak thumbs up back. Then he closes his door.

He leans against the frame. He bangs his head against it, groaning.

“I just wanted a dog….”

It feels like Terry blinks and it’s June.

The summer arrives, intent on boiling all of San Dimas alive like it does every year. Terry gives in and buys an exercise bike so he can work out without melting in the heat. Samantha’s office wins the Best Therapist Office Award and they put the plaque up on the wall in her home office. Terry Junior graduates elementary school and another photo goes up on the wall.

And Ron becomes a semi-regular dinner guest.

It really is nice to have a friend they didn’t meet at soccer practice or a PTA meeting or work. Especially when Ron is willing to go along with Terry’s suggestions for hangouts. Terry’s not taking him back to the lake any time soon, but when Samantha and Terry Junior opt out of seeing a war movie Terry’s been looking forward to, Ron agrees to go. And as a bonus, he doesn’t give Terry a worried look for asking for extra butter on his popcorn.

The temperature still hasn’t dipped below the nineties by the time they get out of the movie.

“What did you think?” Terry asks. The car lot is across the street. He waits for a car to pass before they cross. It might be night, the sidewalk and streets lit only by a few lamps and starlight, but the heat still presses down on him like it’s noon. He plucks at his collar.

“I’m glad Private Morgan got out okay,” Ron says seriously.

Terry racks his brain, but can’t think of a character named Morgan. “Who?”

Ron blinks at him. There’s enough light that Terry can see he looks confused by Terry’s confusion. “The soldier who liked marmalade. I also like marmalade so I really felt for him, you know?”

“...Sure,” Terry says, amused. Trust Ron to get attached to some minor character Terry can’t even remember.

His car is parked under one of the lamps. He steps towards it, fishing through his pocket for his keys, when a guy steps around the car.

Terry gets a vague impression of blond hair, black shirt, and then he forgets even those small details as the guy pulls a knife. His vision narrows down to the blade in a clenched fist as the guy takes a step towards them. His fingertips brush his keys and then his wallet as he freezes.

The guy-- the mugger-- snarls, “Give me your mone--”

Ron slaps the knife out of his hand.

There’s a beat of silence. The mugger looks as surprised as Ron. They both stare down at the knife.

“Uh,” Ron says, sounding like the word is sticking in his throat. His eyes blink rapidly behind his glasses. “Um. N-no thank you?”

Then he bolts. His fingers pull at Terry’s sleeve for a second before he darts across the street.

Terry doesn’t wait for the mugger to recover from his shock. He turns and sprints after Ron, who runs and keeps running, past the movie theater and down the block.

Terry might have a good couple of inches on Ron, but Ron is fast. He runs, his head down, his hands clenched in fists against his chest like he’s going to spin and slap the knife out of the mugger’s hand again. Terry’s lungs start burning after a block -- he’s been exercising, but in a daily walk and stationary bike way, not in a full-out sprint way -- but Ron doesn’t slow.

It’s only when Terry stops, wheezing, and gasps out, “Ron,” that Ron stops.

“D-don’t think he’s following,” Terry says. His heart’s still pounding in his chest.

Ron squints past them. His fists relax. “Oh, good.” He doesn’t even sound winded.

“We should--” Terry takes a deep breath. “We should call the police.”

“Why? He’s not here.”

Terry pauses in the middle of reaching for his phone. “He might still be in the car park. Or robbing someone else who’s not, uh, going to slap the knife out of his--” The whole thing’s sinking in now. He laughs a little, incredulous, his heartbeat still beating fast in his ears. “How did you do that?”

“Do what?” Ron asks. When Terry makes a vague slapping gesture, he shrugs. “Oh. Uh. Just saw the knife and knew I didn’t want it near us.”

Terry laughs again weakly. “Me neither.”

Ron looks at him. “Are you okay?”

“Uh,” Terry says. He takes another breath, wipes at the sweat that’s partially from adrenaline and partially from exertion. “Yes. Just a shock. First the fishing trip, now this. Maybe you should choose the next thing. I’m not exactly batting a thousand here.”

When Ron blinks at him, he dials 911 and waits for the neutral tone of the operator to come on the line. “Uh. We were in the car park outside the movie theater and a guy with a knife tried to mug us. We ran but he might, uh, be there--”

The operator interrupts, quizzing him on the mugger’s appearance, if anyone was injured.

Ron just shrugs when Terry looks to him for help with the description.

“And you said that you saw a knife?” the operator asks.

Ron leans in towards the phone. “Yeah, I knocked it out of his hand.”

The operator pauses. “I see,” she says. Her professional tone stays steady, but Terry can imagine her expression. “And where are you both now?”

Terry glances up at the street signs but it’s Ron who takes the phone from his hand and gives their location. Terry takes the opportunity to bend over, his hands on his knees, the way Terry Junior sometimes does when his coach actually manages to wear him out in practice.

By the time Ron offers him the phone back, he’s got his breathing under control.

“They said to stay here,” Ron says.

Terry straightens with a sigh. “I’ll text Samantha.” He leaves it vague, that they’ll be late.

By the time they get back home, the front porch light is on and Terry Junior’s bedroom lights are dark. Samantha’s still awake, reading a book in bed. She sets it aside with a smile when Terry comes into the room. “How was the movie?”

“Good,” Terry says. He hesitates. His shirt is stiff from dried sweat. He drops it into the laundry hamper and changes into his pajamas. Then he sits on the edge of the bed and takes her hand, rubbing his thumb across her knuckles. “Not as exciting as what happened after it. So, everything’s fine, but--”

Samantha’s smile fades.

“Everything’s fine,” he repeats. “But Ron and I had a very brief encounter with a mugger.”

Her hand tenses in his. The fading smile vanishes. She sits up so straight that her pillow falls sideways off the bed. She doesn’t notice, too busy staring at him. “A what?”

“A mugger,” Terry says. “But it was fine! We ran. Well, we ran after Ron slapped the knife out of his hand.” Despite the alarm still in Samantha’s face, he can’t help but smile a little, remembering. “He didn’t even let the mugger finish demanding our money. Just knocked the knife away and we ran. It was like something out of one of those superhero movies Terry Junior likes.”

Samantha’s other hand rises to touch his chest. “You’re okay?”

He covers her hand with his. He lets her feel his now steady heartbeat before he repeats, “I’m okay.” He chuckles. “Definitely got a workout running a couple blocks.”

The joke doesn’t land. Or rather it lands badly, Samantha’s worried expression twisting into narrowed eyes and a thin-lipped frown.

Terry apologetically squeezes her hands. “Honestly, you should’ve seen Ron. I was ready to throw my wallet at the guy’s feet, and Ron just swings out and whacks the knife out of his hand. Like this!” He lets go of her hand to demonstrate, though he knows his reflexes are nowhere as fast. “It was amazing.”

When Samantha still doesn’t smile, he adds, “And he could give Terry Junior a run for his money with, well, running. Sprinted a couple blocks without breaking sweat. Maybe I should get some exercise tips from him.”

Samantha sighs and buries her head in his shoulder, her arms coming around him in a hug. He breathes in the familiar smell of her coconut conditioner and hugs her back. After a moment she says quietly, “I’m glad Ron was there.”

“Me too,” Terry agrees. “Not that I was planning on being a hero. I was about to throw my wallet at the guy’s face and run when Ron jumped in.”

Samantha makes a thoughtful noise. “I wouldn’t have thought he’d choose to fight when it came down to flight or fight.”

Terry knows that tone of voice. She’s donning her therapist hat as a distraction. He rests his chin on the top of her head, careful not to muss her headwrap. “Well, he seemed as surprised as the mugger, so I don’t think he expected it either. And we did run.”

She’s quiet for another moment. Then she says, “Let’s go to bed.”

That sounds like a good idea. He brushes his teeth and lays down.

When he gets under the covers, she curls up against his back. After the surgery, the doctors had told them he couldn’t sleep in the same bed until his chest had healed, despite Terry’s argument that a California King was two beds in one. Once the doctors had finally said they could sleep together again, they’d slept like this for weeks, her head tucked against his shoulder-blades and her legs twined with his.

Her arm is around him too. He takes her hand again, kisses the soft palm before he settles it back against his chest. “Love you,” he says, like always.

“Love you too,” Samantha says.

Terry is half-asleep when he remembers the mugger’s surprised expression. He laughs to himself, his chuckle ending in a yawn. “You should’ve seen the mugger’s face,” he mumbles.

If Samantha says anything, he's asleep before she does.

The one downside to summer, in Terry Junior’s opinion, is that no one wants to play soccer. He has soccer camp at the end of July, but otherwise most of his friends say it’s too hot and just want to play video games or wander around the mall instead.

When his dad isn’t working, he’ll practice with him, but it means a lot of days where Terry Junior just kicks a ball around the yard by himself.

He’s dribbling the ball back and forth and thinking about practicing some penalty kicks when Ron’s voice stops him dead in his tracks.

“Oh, hey, Terry Junior! Really kicking that ball around, huh?”

Terry Junior doesn’t roll his eyes, though he wants to. After almost four months, he’s still not used to how Ron tries too hard to talk to him, and Ron still hasn’t figured out that Terry Junior doesn’t want to be his friend. “Yeah.”

Ron looks around the yard. “Kind of hard to play by yourself though.”

“You think?” Terry Junior mutters under his breath. Then it actually sinks in that Ron’s here. He checks his phone and frowns. Why is Ron here? “Uh, Mom’s not gonna be home for another hour.”

Ron blinks. “Really? I thought we were meeting at four.”

“...No, she gets off work at four. But she has to get groceries.”

“Oh,” Ron says, and then just stands there, his hands in his pockets.

Terry Junior doesn’t know what he wants. To hang out inside for an hour? If it was anyone else, Terry Junior would probably let him, but it’s bad enough the guy keeps coming to dinner. Terry Junior doesn’t want him making himself at home while his parents aren’t here.

His parents will be disappointed if he makes Ron wait outside though.

He says reluctantly, through clenched teeth, “You can go inside if you want. I was just going to practice some penalty kicks.”

“Oh, thanks,” Ron says. He doesn’t move, though. “What are penalty kicks?”

Terry Junior blinks at him before he remembers that Ron’s a football guy. “Uh, sometimes the other team knocks you down or breaks a rule in the goalie box, so you get a shot at the goal where it’s just you and the goalie. So I wanted….”

He stops because Ron’s not listening, wandering over to the goal posts Terry Junior’s dad set up.

This is why Terry Junior doesn’t like him. His parents might think Ron is funny and nice, but he’s rude. He’s always doing stuff like this, asking questions and then just getting bored halfway through the answer.

The ball’s sitting in the grass at Terry Junior’s feet.

He takes a step back and kicks. He’s aiming for Ron’s shins, but he puts too much power in the kick. He watches in shock as the ball flies towards Ron’s face.

Crap, it’s gonna break Ron’s nose and Terry Junior’s going to be in so much trouble--

Ron snatches the ball out of the air.

He blinks down at it. “Wow, your dad wasn’t kidding. That was a big kick.”

“Uh,” Terry Junior says. His voice cracks a little, both from relief and surprise.

“Reminds me of dodgeball. I was always the last kid on my team.”

Terry Junior squints at him. Apparently he doesn’t realize what Terry Junior had just tried to do, because Ron’s grinning a little nostalgically. Terry Junior wavers between the relief that he didn’t almost hurt Ron and the urge to push his luck and kick the ball at Ron again.

Ron makes his decision for him, tossing the ball at him and saying with one of his annoying laughs, “Heh, maybe soccer would be more interesting if you could use your hands and your feet.”

“...Want to be my goalie?”

Ron’s mouth drops open for a second in surprise. Then he grins. “Sure!”

Terry Junior waits until Ron gets in goal, and then lines up his shot. Before he’d been angry, but now he’s really mad. He’ll show Ron how interesting soccer can be, knock the information right into him.

The ball’s even faster this time.

Ron still grabs it. Before Terry Junior can even blink, he tosses the ball back. “That’s two-zero, isn’t it?” he asks cheerfully.

Terry Junior has heard about people seeing red. He never really believed it before. He changes his plans. He’s going to kick Ron’s butt. He’s going to score so many goals and wipe that smile off of Ron’s face.

He sets the ball down and shoots again.

And shoots again. And again. Every time Ron’s there. Maybe Terry Junior's dad hasn't been exaggerating over the mugger story he's been telling everyone for the last month.

Finally Terry Junior figures out the trick. Ron’s fast, but he’s not tall. If Terry Junior can hook the shot into the top corners of the goal, Ron can’t jump high enough to knock the ball away. He’s lost track of how many shots he’s taken, but more and more start going in.

He’s just scored another goal, Ron’s fingers skimming the ball as it sails past and smacks into the net, when his mom says behind them, “Having fun?”

Terry Junior turns. Now that he’s not focused on scoring, he realizes his legs are starting to ache. Have they really been doing this for an hour? From the way his shirt is sticking to him, probably. He wipes at his face. “Uh.”

“Hi, Samantha,” Ron says. “I got here a little early, so Terry Junior let me practice with him!”

Terry Junior stares sideways at him, but he thinks Ron might actually mean it. He really didn’t realize how many of those shots were aimed directly at him? Terry Junior doesn’t know if he should be relieved again or feel guilty.

It ends up being a weird mixture of both, especially when his mom looks happy.

“That’s great,” she says, sounding really excited that they did something together.

“Yeah,” Terry Junior says awkwardly. “I should change before dinner.”

“Probably,” his mom says. As he passes her she brushes his sweaty hair away from his face and adds with a joking wrinkle of her nose and a little laugh in her voice, “And a shower.”

“And a shower,” he repeats.

He’s almost to the door when Ron says, sounding unconcerned, “I can’t feel my hands anymore. Oh, is that why you don’t use your hands in soccer?”

“That’s why goalies generally wear gloves,” Terry Junior’s mom says. When he looks back, she’s looking at Ron’s reddened hands. “...Let’s get you some ice.”

Chapter Text

Summer may be hot, but Samantha always regrets it when the weather begins the shift towards what passes for autumn in California. The end of summer means the end of summer vacation, which means less time with Terry Jr as he goes back to juggling school, soccer, and homework.

At least Terry Junior is settling smoothly into middle school. Not that Samantha had been too worried, but a transition into a whole new school can be difficult in unexpected ways. Especially since now Terry Junior has to get up earlier to catch the bus, which means he’s usually half-asleep at the breakfast table.

As she watches, Terry Junior drinks the last of his orange juice and starts gathering up his bowl, glass, and spoon. He pauses halfway to the sink. “Oh yeah,” he says like he’s just remembered. “The guys said they want chocolate cupcakes for the bake sale.”

He turns on the faucet before she can ask what he’s talking about. She exchanges a look with Terry, who lowers his newspaper and gives her a little shrug, clearly as mystified as she is.

“Bake sale?” she asks when he’s finished rinsing out his glass.

Terry Junior turns. He looks confused. “The PTA bake sale? The one tomorrow?”

“The one what?” Samantha’s voice rises a little.

Terry Junior looks even more confused. “I told you about it. They’re doing a bake sale to get new chairs in the auditorium.”

Samantha is still staring at her son when Terry coughs and sets down his newspaper with a rustling of paper. “I don’t think you did, son.”

Terry Junior’s gaze darts between them. Sheepishness replaces the confusion. He scratches at the side of his neck and twists his mouth into a few different shapes before he mumbles, “Um. I thought I did….”

“You didn’t.” Samantha’s already pulling up the school website on her phone. Just as Terry Junior said, there’s a calendar announcement for a six o’clock bake sale. She tries not to let her exasperation show. Everyone’s entitled to mistakes. “And how many cupcakes am I supposed to bake, exactly?”

“Uh.” Terry Junior mumbles something, sidling towards where he’s left his backpack.

Samantha gets a sinking feeling in her stomach. “How many?”

“Sixty,” Terry Junior says. Before she can process that, he bolts towards the front door. “Gotta catch the bus, love you!”

The door closes while Samantha’s still staring after him, too stunned to speak.

“Sixty seems like a lot,” Terry observes.

It takes Samantha a few seconds to pick her jaw off the floor. “Sixty. Who-- sixty? Who signed me up-- was it Jessica?” Jessica O’Connor is the current president of the PTA, and while Samantha tries not to let anyone get under her skin, Jessica tests her patience. It was one reason she skipped the last PTA meeting. Samantha can feel her blood pressure rising. “How am I supposed to--”

Terry touches her arm. She must look as frustrated as she feels, because he looks concerned. “Breathe,” he advises. One corner of his mouth goes up in a lopsided smile. “You can always buy some premade cupcakes from the grocery store.”

Samantha takes a deep breath, then slowly lets it out. She shakes her head. “Oh, Jessica would know. And then I’d never hear the end of it. I’m not dealing with a year’s worth of ‘I understand, some moms just can’t find that work-home balance’ pity. No, I’ll...I’ll go to the grocery store after work, see if I can somehow make four-- no, five boxes of cupcake mix taste homemade.”

Terry still looks a little concerned. “I can come back from Terry Junior’s practice and help.”

Samantha’s still frustrated, but she smiles at that. It’s sweet of him to offer when they both know Terry’s a cook and not a baker. She covers his hand with hers, closes the distance over their plates to kiss him. When she breaks the kiss, she feels slightly less frantic. “Thank you, but I’ll take my chances. Just bring me home some takeout.”

“From your favorite restaurant,” he promises.

Samantha frowns at the shelf, studying her options of cake mix and bouncing the shopping basket against her hip. Terry Junior had said chocolate, but there’s chocolate, dark chocolate fudge, devil’s food cake, and besides, she’s not sure if she should also bake a little variety like red velvet or--

“Hi, Samantha!”

Samantha breaks off from her thoughts, a little startled. When she turns, Ron’s standing there, his hand up in a hello. She smiles. “Hi, Ron. Thanks so much for bringing the muffin tins.”

“You’re welcome,” he says, smiling back. He glances at the cake mixes. “So what are we baking?”

“We?”

Ron blinks. “Well, yeah. You said you have to bake sixty cupcakes. I figured you’d need an extra set of hands.” He holds up his hands, doing a little gesture that could be jazz hands or just him waving his hands wildly.

“Oh, Ron, that’s sweet, but this is so much work. You don’t have to….”

Ron looks at her with a familiar expression, though it takes her a second to place it. It’s the same look he gave her when he volunteered to go fishing with Terry and she told him he didn’t have to. “I like baking with you,” he says simply. “Cupcakes and quiche can't be that different.”

Samantha laughs despite herself. “Well….”

Ron smiles at her.

“If you’re absolutely sure,” Samantha says. It will be easier, and more fun. She likes baking with Ron, who’s good at it as long as he doesn’t get distracted halfway through or skip a step or forget an ingredient. She still has a photo on her phone of that first quiche they made together.

When he gives her an enthusiastic nod, she turns back towards the cake mixes. “I’m doing mostly chocolate, but I thought maybe I should get some other flavors too. Maybe red velvet.” She sighs. “And I need to figure out how to keep these from obviously being cake mix cupcakes. Jessica will definitely notice that too.”

“Oh, I know how to fix that,” Ron says. “I hear that premade cupcake mix doesn't taste like it if you use butter and milk instead of oil and water. And if you add some eggs.”

“Really?”

“The lady I overheard while I was going over shelves seemed very sure!”

“It’s worth a shot,” Samantha says. She looks up at the cake mix. “I think we’ll do chocolate fudge, red velvet, and yellow cake. Could you go and grab some frosting-- a couple chocolate or fudge and then cream cheese?”

“Sure,” Ron says and heads further down the baking aisle.

She grabs six boxes, and then checks it off her list as well as adding butter and eggs.

When she looks up, she realizes that Ron can’t reach the frosting, because someone’s put them on the top shelves.

Ron has a foot on the second shelf, ready to climb, when she comes over. She says, “I’ll get them. I didn’t realize they were up so high, otherwise I would’ve asked you to get the eggs and butter instead.”

“I could’ve gotten them,” Ron says.

Samantha is amused by the mental image of Ron climbing up and down the shelf. His grocery store might not object, but this one probably would. She reaches up and grabs the frosting, dropping them one by one into the basket.

A cheerful voice comes from behind them. “Isn’t it handy to have a tall spouse?”

Both Samantha and Ron turn to look at a white-haired woman with a mostly full shopping cart. She nods further down the aisle where a man whose hair is streaked with silver is grabbing something from a top shelf and then gives them both a half-conspiratorial smile.

“Yeah,” Ron agrees cheerfully. As the woman pushes her cart towards her husband, he turns to Samantha. “So you and Terry know her?”

Samantha shakes her head. She’d debated correcting the woman, but she could tell that would’ve been a long conversation, and they really need to start baking as soon as possible. “I don’t think so.”

Ron nods slowly. “Wow, she must be a good guesser. She knew you had a tall husband!”

“Right,” Samantha says, amused. “Let’s go grab some eggs.”

“Okay,” Samantha says, looking at her kitchen. “We need a plan.”

Ron nods. “Can we bake a couple tins at a time, or will that mess up the cupcakes?”

“No, though if we do the three chocolate at once, the one on the bottom rack will bake slower.” Samantha checks the baking times on the cake mixes. Doing multiple ones at a time still means a couple hours of baking, and that’s not even getting to the frosting and decoration. Even with Ron there, it’s overwhelming. Sixty cupcakes is a little much to expect from one family.

She takes a deep breath. If she was talking a patient through these feelings, she’d advise them to break the whole thing down into smaller, more manageable tasks. She looks around the kitchen again. “I think we should do this in three batches. We’ll bake the second one while we wait for the first to cool.”

She sees confusion on Ron’s face and explains, “The cupcakes take a while to cool down. If we try to put the frosting on as soon as they’re out of the oven, the frosting will just melt.”

“Oh,” Ron says. He squints at the counter like he’s imagining it. “Yeah, that would be bad.”

“So let’s get the oven going and then start on the first batter.”

“Okay,” Ron says, not so much rolling up his sleeves as pushing his sleeves up past his elbows. Then he glances sideways at her. A hopeful smile spreads across his face. “Can we eat the leftover batter?”

Samantha shakes her head no. “The raw egg can cause salmonella.”

Ron’s face falls. He reminds her of the schnauzer he’d claimed to be, giving her sad puppy dog eyes.

“Ron, it’s dangerous.”

“But it tastes really good.”

“I don’t want to thank you by poisoning you,” Samantha says, but he just keeps giving her a sad look. She relents. “You can taste the batter, but then we’re washing the bowl.”

They set up the kitchen in stages. One counter is for mixing up the batter, one counter is for the cooling racks, and then the dining room table is covered in plastic and designated as the frosting station.

Soon, two dozen cupcakes are in the oven and the kitchen begins to smell of chocolate.

“That’s really good,” Ron says around a mouthful of batter. “These cupcakes are going to turn out great.”

Samantha bends to watch the cupcakes begin to rise. When she looks up, Ron’s got his fingers in the bowl again. “Ron!”

Ron blinks at her. He looks completely unrepentant. “What?”

“That’s enough batter,” Samantha says firmly, taking the bowl and putting it in the sink. He sighs as she begins to wash it, a quiet, disappointed sound that she pretends not to hear. “Wash your hands, and then we’ll wait a little before we start on the next batch.”

Ron licks at his fingers first before he obeys.

Samantha doesn’t know why she’s surprised. Terry and Terry Junior always try to eat the batter too.

Things fall into a rhythm. It’s still a lot of work, but with Ron there, it becomes doable. Samantha does the batter and Ron does the bulk of the frosting, assisted by a cheerful woman on YouTube showing him how to do cupcake frosting with a knife.

He’s taking it seriously. When Samantha pauses to wipe down the counter where some mix has spilled, she spies Ron’s intense look of concentration. He’s got his tongue sticking slightly out of the corner of his mouth, his eyes narrowed behind his glasses as he looks between his phone and the latest cupcake.

As she watches, his glasses start sliding down his nose. He instinctively reaches up.

“Hold on,” Samantha says quickly, grabbing his wrist before he can smash a half-frosted cupcake into his face. When he blinks at her, she plucks the knife from his other hand, setting it down on the counter.

Ron’s glasses slide a little further, but he doesn’t adjust them.

“Here,” Samantha says. She reaches up, carefully pushes his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose. His glasses are a little heavier than Terry’s reading glasses. She watches as his eyes grow large behind his coke bottle lens, magnified so she can see all his eyelashes as he blinks. “Is that better?”

“Um,” Ron says. “Uh. I think-- yes, uh--”

The oven timer goes off, loud and insistent like the cupcakes will burn if Samantha doesn’t snatch them out of the oven by the time it’s done beeping. The sound makes Samantha jump, and Ron too.

She grabs for the oven mitts. After shifting the cupcakes to the cooling tray, it’s a matter of pouring the last mix into the last tin and putting it in the oven. She sets the timer, relieved to be mostly done with the baking even though they still have a couple hours left with frosting all the cupcakes.

She turns back, ready to rejoin the frosting duty. Ron’s still standing there, looking down at the cupcake in his hand like he’s forgotten what he’s doing. She’s left a reddish smear of the red velvet on his glasses, she realizes.

“You’ve got some batter on your glasses,” she says, offering him a napkin.

Ron blinks at her. Then he sets the cupcake down. He squints, going a little cross-eyed before he finally slides the glasses down his nose to study the mark. “Oh,” he says after a moment. He gives a little shrug and a smile. “The red is nice. Better. Maybe I should keep it.”

“...Keeping raw red velvet batter on your glasses is better?”

“Yeah,” Ron says.

“If you want,” Samantha says, amused and confused.

They’ve still got a rack of cupcakes cooling and are making their slow way through frosting the second batch when the front door opens and Terry calls, “Smells good!”

“Good, you can buy one tomorrow,” Samantha says, wiping frost-stained fingers on her apron as Terry comes into the kitchen, with Terry Junior trailing behind. From the look the latter gives her, slightly sheepish and very apologetic, she suspects that Terry has explained exactly how much work she is putting into all these cupcakes. “And help with the frosting.”

“Sure. Is there any batter left?” Terry asks.

“No, she washed all the bowls,” Ron explains, still sounding a little disappointed about it.

Terry Junior stares around. “Uh. Wow. Sixty cupcakes is...a lot.”

“Yes,” Samantha says dryly.

“Anything in the oven, or can you and Ron take a break to eat?” Terry asks.

She looks around and sighs. Every counter is covered in cupcakes. And her stomach, now reminded of dinner, pinches at her. “Dinner is a good idea. Let’s eat in the living room.”

They eat on the couch and on the floor, off paper plates because Samantha is not washing any more dishes tonight. Terry kept his promise and ordered her favorite meal from her favorite restaurant.

“And here’s yours,” Terry says, passing a styrofoam box to Ron. “You didn’t answer the text on what you wanted, but you like Samantha’s meatloaf so I thought it was a safe bet.”

“Thanks,” Ron says.

Terry Junior keeps looking around at all the cupcakes. “How are you getting all these cupcakes to school?” He hesitates. “I know I have practice but Dad and I could leave early--”

“I can help,” Ron says.

Terry Junior’s expression goes blank. “Great. You have something on your glasses.”

“Oh, yeah,” Ron says, cutting into his meatloaf. Just like before, he makes no move to wipe off the red velvet stain. “Turns out baking is really messy.”

“Surprised you helped. Isn’t baking too girly for you?” Terry Junior’s voice is low, but Samantha hears the question clearly and the sarcastic edge. If he was skirting the edge of rudeness before, now he’s jumped over the line.

Before she can say anything, Ron nods quickly. “You know, that’s what my dad always said, but I’ve been watching some cooking shows. A lot of guys bake too!”

Terry and Samantha give each other a look. Ron doesn't mention his father often, but every time he does they like the man less.

Terry Junior doesn’t look impressed by Ron’s answer. Samantha is ready to intervene if Terry Junior continues to be rude, but Terry Junior just mumbles, “Right,” before he digs into his dinner.

Samantha swallows down a sigh. She does wish Terry Junior liked Ron a little more.

“How was practice?” she asks, steering the conversation to safer waters.

Samantha may still be annoyed at being volunteered to bake sixty cupcakes, but she’ll admit that bake sales are always a hit. The parking lot is already almost full and the bake sale still doesn’t officially start for another twenty minutes.

Sixty cupcakes will take several trips to bring inside, so Samantha and Ron grab the first two dozen and head in.

A half-familiar man is at the front door with a clipboard. Darren? David? She’s definitely seen him at the PTA meetings.

Samantha feels a little less bad about forgetting his name when he says cheerfully, “Hey! Darryl Wilson here, just checking everyone off the list. You’ve got cupcakes so that means you’re….” He scans his list. “Samantha Harker. You’re at the table with a purple tablecloth.”

Samantha nods. “Thank you--”

“Oh, Samantha. So glad you made it! We were getting worried,” Jessica says, appearing behind Darryl. “I hope you gave yourself enough to set up before the sale begins.” Her voice drips with exaggerated concern.

“We did,” Samantha says, forcing a smile.

Jessica’s gaze flicks towards Ron. Confusion raises her eyebrows. “And who is this?”

“Hi, I’m Ron, Ron Stampler,” Ron says.

“Hi, Ron,” Darryl says, smiling. He starts to stick out his hand and then drops it back to his side with a chuckle. “Guess you’ve got your hands full.”

“Ron,” Jessica repeats slowly. Then understanding smooths out her expression. She looks at Samantha. “Oh, yes. You’ve mentioned him at the meetings. Your...friend.”

“Yes,” Samantha says. “Now we do have sixty cupcakes to organize, so we should head in.”

“Of course,” Jessica says. Much to Samantha’s dismay, Jessica follows them inside. “Ron, it’s so nice of you to help Samantha out. I assume Terry is out of town?”

“No, he’s at soccer practice,” Ron says.

“Really?” Jessica says. She looks more surprised than the answer warrants.

“Yes,” Samantha says, setting the first tray of cupcakes down on the table. Someone, probably Jessica, has already put up a price list. Two dollars per cupcake, or three for five dollars. At least the prices are reasonable.

“So, do you live nearby?” Jessica asks.

“Not really,” Ron says. “Why, do you?”

Jessica opens her mouth, then closes it. “No, I just...I’m a little curious. Samantha has mentioned you, of course, but you’re still quite a mystery man!”

“Oh,” Ron says. “Well, you’re not a mystery to me, Samantha said--”

“We should get the rest of the cupcakes,” Samantha says hastily, glad that her skin doesn’t show her blush. She may have let a few unkind things slip while they were baking.

Thankfully Jessica doesn’t follow them. When they get back inside with the rest of the cupcakes, Samantha spies Jessica with a cluster of other PTA parents at one of the other tables.

It’s only as she and Ron start setting out the cupcakes that she does a quick cupcake count and realizes she’s left one of the trays in the car. “I’ll go grab the last tray if you can keep setting these up,” she says, smiling down at Ron.

“Sure! I’m pretty good at doing displays, if I do say so myself.” Ron pauses from setting up a circle of cupcakes in what looks like a repeating pattern of the three different varieties to smile back.

“It looks great,” Samantha agrees.

There’s a crowd gathering outside. It takes Samantha a little longer to get around them, though she’s amused by a few longing stares in the cupcakes’ direction. She nods at Darryl and gets back inside.

She passes by a blue tablecloth-covered table with a display of oatmeal sandwich cookies when she hears her name. She pauses instinctively, turning though it hadn’t sounded like someone calling for her.

“I just don’t get why she’d choose that guy,” Pete says. Samantha remembers him from the PTA meetings. He’s big into the football team and tried to convince Terry Junior to join. He shakes his head. “I mean, him? When she could have her pick?”

The man he’s talking to, Steve Masters or Masterson, shrugs. “Weird stuff happens after a heart attack. My brother had one and he got divorced a year later.”

“The brother that had a midlife crisis?”

“Yeah.”

“The one who bought a car that cost fifty grand?”

“That's the one.”

Pete snorts. “...Yeah, I don't think the heart attack was the problem. I’m just saying, if Samantha was going to cheat, why’d she choose a...is there anything lower than 1? A negative one?”

With that, everything clicks at once. They’re talking about her and Ron. They’re talking about an affair. Samantha almost can’t believe it, but Pete and Steve keep talking.

“He’s definitely a downgrade. But wow, even if her husband’s out of town, bringing this guy here--”

“No, that’s the thing,” Pete says. “Jessica said her husband’s at soccer practice with their kid! She asked, said they didn't even look guilty--”

Jessica. Samantha’s disbelief doesn’t disappear, but the whole ridiculousness makes a little more sense. She thinks of the way Jessica had paused before calling Ron Samantha's friend. She thinks of the probing questions about if Terry was out of town. Of course Jessica would look at them and assume affair rather than friendship.

Outrage chokes her. She wants to march up to the men and yell. She wants to find Jessica and tell her to watch her mouth. But a voice in the back of her head that sounds like a mixture of her therapist voice and Terry’s reminds her that shouting will just cause a scene and draw more attention to this nasty rumor.

She stomps to her table instead, fuming with every step. How dare people think she’s cheating on her husband. And how dare they insult Ron! She sets the tray down hard enough that the table rattles.

“Oh, hey, I’m almost done--”

Ron stops talking as Samantha grabs her purse, pulls out two dollars, and slaps them down on the table. Then she grabs a red velvet cupcake and bites into it. The sour taste in her mouth is replaced by cream cheese and red velvet.

“Well, now it won’t be in order, but if we’re buying cupcakes, I think I’ve got two dollars around here.”

Samantha, taking another angry bite, fishes another two dollars out for him.

“Thanks.” Ron gives her a pleased smile.

A negative one! When he’s a delight, and always ready to help her and Terry out. And his mustache makes him look dashing. Whenever he smiles, one corner of his mouth curls up first, almost disappearing under his mustache. And the coke bottle glasses just bring out his eyes. That’s not even getting into his wonderful sense of humor. Who else would have come up with the Petfinder joke? Ron is a catch, and anyone here would be lucky to have him.

“Attention, everyone!” Somehow Jessica has acquired a megaphone. Of course she has. Her voice fills the room. “We’ve got our very excited community outside, so let’s get started! Make sure to put the money you earn in the tin on your table, or else you’ll have our treasurer giving you some very disappointed looks.”

Ron had been unpeeling the wrapper from his chosen cupcake. Now he practically inhales it.

Samantha fixes a polite smile on her face as a crowd begins to stream into the cafeteria. A few people look around, spot her, and clearly remember the cupcakes, because they make a beeline towards her table. She puts the four dollars in the tin as Jessica says, “Welcome, everyone! We’re so glad you’re here to support our wonderful school!”

Samantha can’t wait to tell Terry what Jessica’s done now.

Terry checks his watch as he and Terry Junior head into the school. They’ve cut it pretty close, but there’s still about fifteen minutes left of the bake sale. He hopes there are still some cupcakes left.

They get into the cafeteria when Terry’s suddenly assaulted by a bunch of perfume. It feels like half of the PTA descends on him. He remembers now why he avoids the PTA with a vengeance. The PTA moms and a few dads have no sense of personal space. And while he’s willing to listen to concerns about his health from Samantha and Terry Junior, he doesn’t want to hear a word from anyone else but his doctor.

“Oh, Terry!” one of them coos at him, laying a hand on his arm. “How are you?”

Terry Junior gives him a sympathetic look.

He’s surrounded. Fighting a sigh, he tosses his wallet to Terry Junior. “If there are any cupcakes left, go ahead and treat yourself.”

“Thanks,” Terry Junior says, and escapes.

“We haven’t seen you at the PTA meetings in ages,” another woman says. Terry truly doesn’t know any of their names. “How are you holding up?”

“My mother sent me a heart-healthy cookbook, let me know if you want any recipes,” a third says. She’s looking at him so sympathetically that he might as well have gotten out of the hospital ten days ago instead of ten months. “I'm sure this is all such a trial.”

“I’ve been exercising,” Terry says, hoping that signals his heart is fine. Instead they all look even more sympathetic. “And I got a stationary bike. Working out without having to deal with the summer heat? Great.”

The one who mentioned the cookbook pats his arm. “You don’t need to prove yourself to anyone,” she tells him. He’s read a book in which a person’s voice throbbed with emotion, but he’s never known what that meant. Now he does.

“Um,” he says, taking a careful step back. “Thank you?”

“What Debbie means is that we’re all here for you,” says one of them, shooting the cookbook woman a sharp look.

“Thanks,” Terry says, though he really wants them all to mind their own business. The way they’re all acting, he’s had a second heart attack. He looks over their heads. Terry Junior’s reached the table; he can see him eating a cupcake. “Oh, Terry Junior’s waving me over,” he lies. “You all have a good night.”

They part slowly, reluctance in the movement.

There’s a sigh behind him as he escapes, and a carrying whisper that says, “Look at him! There’s no comparison!” before the speaker is shushed.

He gets away from them and then immediately has to dodge a guy’s flailing arms. The guy’s gesturing at a parent manning a table with slices of carrot cake, his cheerful voice so loud that it rings a little in Terry’s ears.

“Oh no, my boys, Lark and Sparrow, don’t go here. They’re at a great private school which is really big on the whole child-centric curriculum, but my wife and I believe in supporting our community and public education! I always vote for the tax levies that support public education. So if you could point me towards your vegan options, I will bring home some wonderful treats for my boys.”

As Terry weaves through the crowd and notices a few more looks, he begins to get the feeling he’s missing something. It’s a relief to get to Samantha’s side and wrap an arm around her.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he says, dropping a kiss to the side of her head. As she sighs and leans against him, he glances down at the table. Only four cupcakes left. “Looks like the cupcakes were popular.”

“Yeah,” Ron agrees, halfway through a cupcake. There’s a smear of dark chocolate on his lower lip.

Terry smiles. “Thanks for helping out.”

“It was fun,” Ron says cheerfully.

Behind them, someone says, “I thought he’d look...different.”

Terry feels Samantha tense under his arm. When he looks down at her, she gives a little shake of her head and a silent look that promises to tell him later, her mouth pinched at the edges and annoyance sparking in her eyes.

He drops another kiss to her head and asks, “So do I get a cupcake or not?”

Ron holds out his hand. “Two dollars.”

Terry looks around, spotting Terry Junior at another table, chatting with one of his friends. “Terry Junior has my wallet.”

“That’s okay. I’ll loan you the money,” Ron says magnanimously. “I know you’ll pay me back.”

Terry chuckles. “Thanks, Ron.”

Samantha pulls away from Terry to duck under the table and come back up with her purse. She takes out a five dollar bill and says, “Let’s just buy the last cupcakes and go home.”

Her smile is still tense. Terry can’t tell if her irritation is directed at anyone in particular, but he’ll bet dollars to doughnuts that Jessica is involved somehow. Maybe she insulted the cupcakes? But when he eats one, it tastes delicious, so it can’t be that.

“I’m ready when you are,” he says.

Samantha’s expression softens. She takes a napkin, wets it with her tongue, and then presses it briefly to the corner of his mouth. “You’ve got a little something,” she says, smiling.

If they weren’t in public, Terry would ask for a more personal inspection, but he settles for smiling back and concluding in a fake serious voice, “Cupcakes are a messy business.”

“Ew,” Terry Junior mumbles behind them.

“Don’t forget you owe me two dollars, buddy,” Ron says.

Samantha doesn’t get angry very often. Frustrated, yes, annoyed, sometimes, but genuine anger is a rare emotion on her face. And when she’s angry, she’s even more eloquent than usual. Honestly, Terry enjoys listening to Samantha furiously dissect people’s terrible personalities and watching her pace around and jab at the air with angry gestures.

He sits in bed now as Samantha paces around the room, her voice low so that she won’t wake Terry Junior, but no less angry.

For his part, he finds the whole thing a little funny. That anyone would think Samantha would cheat on him means they don’t know her at all. And Ron is a good guy. Terry might’ve worried about him having a crush on Samantha during that first meeting, but Ron just seems genuinely happy to be their friends.

He wishes Samantha found it funny. It’s a little less amusing when she seems upset as well as angry.

“Of course it was Jessica. That woman loves to make people miserable. She’d rather assume an affair than realize that men and women can be friends.”

When Samantha pauses, her lips thin and her eyes still sparking, Terry reaches out for her hand. “I think it’s been firmly established she’s the worst,” he agrees. “And that the only explanation on how she keeps getting elected is that the whole thing’s rigged. Or she’s got a lot of blackmail on people.”

Samantha smiles briefly. Then she sighs. “They were so rude about Ron. Calling him a downgrade….”

Terry chuckles at that. “If they’d seen him slap that knife out of the mugger’s hand, they’d rethink that.”

Three months is long enough that Samantha doesn’t immediately frown at the mention of the mugger. She just looks fond. “He’s a catch,” she agrees, squeezing his hand. “I mean, who else would be willing to help me bake sixty cupcakes at the drop of a hat? And practice with Terry Junior even though he’s not interested in soccer.”

Terry chuckles again. Terry Junior had been very surprised at summer camp when he’d realized that all the practicing with Ron had given him a few amazing trick shots. “And he’ll go fishing with you even if he’s not a fan.”

“I don’t know how someone hasn’t snatched him up,” Samantha says.

Her confusion mirrors his own. “It’s weird.” He guesses that Ron’s sense of humor might not work for everyone, and sure, sometimes he says something rude, but he’s got a good heart, and that’s what matters.

Then again, Terry’s a little selfishly grateful that everyone’s oblivious. If Ron was dating someone, he probably wouldn’t have put up that Petfinder ad to make a friend, and they never would’ve met him.

Ron’s their friend. Not a work friend you sometimes grab beers with and listen to them complain about the old ball and chain, not a parent friend who exchanges awkward small-talk because your kids get along but you don’t have anything in common. He’s their friend because he likes them and they like him.

“Oh, and he’s good at puzzles,” Samantha says.

“And he’s funny,” Terry adds, thinking of the way Samantha’s face lights up whenever Ron makes her laugh. “Nobody else would’ve come up with the Petfinder thing.”

Samantha smiles. “Exactly! He’s definitely unique.”

“He’s--” Terry says, and stops as a realization hits him, something he probably should’ve figured out months ago. Samantha and Terry might be each other’s best friends, just another spousal privilege Terry enjoys, but Ron is their best friend too. It’s nice.

“Well,” he says. “They’ll get bored of the gossip eventually.”

Chapter Text

Ron knows it’s Halloween. The store always gets a little busier selling chocolate and streamers and all the other spooky stuff. He’s not really a Halloween guy, though.

He guesses Samantha and Terry are, because their front yard is set up like a graveyard. There are a bunch of fake gravestones and a glowing green ghost that blinks in and out as it waves at Ron.

Ron cautiously waves back.

Then the front door opens and Terry steps out. He looks a little different, but it takes Ron a second to figure out why. He’s pretty sure Terry usually doesn’t wear a cloak. Maybe he’s cold? It’s only sixty-something degrees outside though.

“Hey, Ron. Did you not get my text to dress up?”

Ron blinks. He looks down at himself. He’s wearing his nicest outfit, the one he bought for a funeral a couple years ago when one of his coworkers died. “I dressed up,” he says. He's wearing a tie and everything. Then he realizes Terry sounds kind of funny. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Yes,” Terry says. The porch light illuminates his slightly puzzled face.

“I think Ron looks nice,” Samantha says, appearing in the doorway. She’s wearing something different too, a blue dress. “Though you stumped us both. Who are you supposed to be?”

“...Myself?”

Samantha laughs. He always likes making her laugh, even when he isn’t telling a joke. She leans against Terry, tilting her head up as she says, “I think we had a little miscommunication. Terry was talking about Halloween costumes.”

“Oh,” Ron says. He glances down at himself again. “I could go buy a costume and change?”

Terry smiles, his teeth shining weirdly in the light. “No, you’re good.” He gestures at himself. “I just threw on a cloak and these fangs. The fangs come in a dozen a pack, so you can have a pair if you want.”

Ron looks a little closer at Terry’s mouth. “Oh. I thought you looked different.”

Terry chuckles.

“Two vampires in the house?” Samantha says, fake gasping and reaching for her throat. “How will I survive? And without any way for Scotty to beam me up to safety!”

Terry grins, his vampire teeth still shining, before he sweeps Samantha up in his cloak. “I am afraid you’re doomed, my dear,” he says in a thick accent.

Ron can’t see Samantha, but he hears her giggle.

“Trick or treat!” several voices yell behind him.

When Ron turns, there’s a bunch of little kids staring up at him, their hands outstretched. He pats his pockets, but he doesn’t even have some gum to pass out. “I don’t have candy.”

Their expressions fall, and then brighten as Terry says, “But we do! Come on over, kids.”

There’s a small stampede to the door, a pause while Samantha compliments everyone’s costumes and Terry passes out candy, a shriek as Terry flashes his fangs at them, and then another stampede to the next house accompanied by excited yells and demands for more treats.

“Do you want to pass out the candy next time?” Samantha asks, appearing at his side. Her hair is bigger today, pulled up on top of her head and making her look even taller.

“Okay,” Ron agrees. He’s never done it before, but it can’t be that hard. When the next group of kids come up to the door, he starts handing out the candy.

“Uh, I want three pieces,” a little girl says, glaring at him. She waves around the piece of candy Ron just handed her.

Ron stares back. “Why?” The fangs are a little too big for him, sliding around in his mouth whenever he talks. No wonder Terry had sounded weird.

She stomps her foot. “Because Amanda got three pieces!”

The girl next to her, dressed like a mermaid, sing-songs, “Told you my costume is better.”

“It is not!”

“She’s bigger,” Ron explains. He guesses little kids don’t know these things. “Bigger kids need more food, so more candy.” When the girl gives him a blank look, he figures maybe the fangs are making it hard for her to understand him. He takes them off and repeats himself.

“That’s dumb. You’re dumb,” the girl mutters. “All the other grownups give us one piece!”

“Wow, that’s stingy of them,” Ron says sympathetically. Then he has to take a step back as the little girl kicks at his shins. She definitely doesn’t play soccer like Terry Junior. Her kick goes wide.

“Oh, hey, sweetheart,” Samantha says, crouching down between Ron and the little girl. “I know you're upset, but hitting him isn't the right thing to do.”

The girl glares. “He’s being stupid!” She’s got her fist clenched around the candy now.

Ron’s ready to step in if the girl tries to hit Samantha too, but Samantha reaches into the candy bowl and pulls out another two pieces. “Here. Have a good Halloween.”

“Okay,” the little girl says. The girl called Amanda nudges her. “Thank you.”

Samantha stands up as the girls trot off to the next house. She looks thoughtful. “You know, I never considered giving out candy based on size! It does make sense.”

Terry takes the bowl from Ron. He looks amused. “Maybe, but it won’t make sense to kids.” He’s really got the hang of his fangs now. He barely even lisps. “They’ll just see other kids getting more candy. Let’s stick with one piece each.”

“Oh, I guess you’re right,” Samantha says. She smiles at Ron. “It was a good idea.”

“It really wasn’t,” Terry Junior mumbles from inside the house.

“Oh, hey, Terry Junior,” Ron says. He looks at Terry Junior in his soccer uniform. “Oh, that’s too bad. They’re making you practice on Halloween?”

Terry Junior stares at him. “No. I’m wearing Lewandowski’s jersey.”

“Okay,” Ron says. He puts the fangs back on, then thinks to ask, “Shouldn’t you be trick-or-treating?”

“I’m eleven,” Terry Junior says, like that means something. “I’m going out with my friends after all the little kids are done.”

“Trick or treat!” new voices yell, and Terry steps around Ron to pass out more candy.

Halloween dinner tends to be quick, eaten between the constant chime of the doorbell.

This one’s no exception. At last count, Samantha has watched Terry Junior check his phone for the fourth time, waiting for the text that will say his friend’s dad is on his way so they can drive to one of the ‘best’ neighborhoods. Apparently there was a whole serious debate on how to ensure the best candy this year.

“I’m sure they’ll be here soon,” she says.

“Yeah,” Terry Junior says. He puts his phone down.

“Oh,” Ron says. He looks at Terry. “I almost forgot to ask. What are your cholesterol numbers?”

Terry pauses with a fork of broccoli halfway to his mouth. “They’re fine,” he says. A familiar wariness creeps into his expression, and he darts a glance towards Samantha, who tries to communicate with a shrug that she doesn’t know why he’s asking.

“No, the numbers. I want to see if I beat you.”

“Beat me,” Terry repeats slowly.

“Yeah! The doctor says I have high cholesterol. He wouldn’t say if I was beating his other patients though. Something about privacy? So I want to see who’s winning this cholesterol game, you or me.”

Terry blinks, and then laughs.

Samantha doesn’t. Worry twists her stomach.

“Got it mixed up there,” Terry says. “With cholesterol, it’s the lower the better.”

“That doesn’t sound right,” Ron says doubtfully.

Samantha studies Ron’s face. He looks fine, but so had Terry, who’d given her a kiss and a smile and left for work and then spent almost two weeks in the hospital and another month in a separate bedroom as his ribcage knit itself back together--

“How high is it?” Terry Junior asks. “Do you need to start taking medicine too?” He hasn’t laughed either, and Samantha’s distracted from her own worry by the way Terry Junior’s staring at Ron, jaw tight.

Ron starts to answer, then stops when Terry sets his fork down.

“Hopefully it’s not that high. But we’ve got plenty of heart-healthy recipes if you want them. Some of them even taste pretty good. Did the doctor say you need to start exercising? You could start jogging around your neighborhood more often. And you can always use my exercise bike whenever you’re here.”

Samantha listens with something like wonder. She was expecting another joke, the way Terry always jokes and dismisses concerns about his health, but while he smiles slightly at the pretty good tasting recipes comment, he’s giving good advice.

“You’ll miss butter, Lord knows I do, but olive oil and an oven can save most vegetables,” Terry adds. He turns to her. “Honey, can we put together a cookbook for him?”

It takes a moment for Samantha to find her voice. “Yes. I think that’s a great idea.”

“Just ask me if you have any questions,” Terry says. “Well, and your doctor.”

Terry Junior looks between his dad and Samantha. When their eyes meet, he makes a little face at her, half-smiling, half-frowning, like he’s surprised but happy too that Terry is taking everything more seriously than they thought.

“Okay,” Ron agrees. He pauses. “...Are you sure about the high cholesterol? It’s okay if you don’t want to admit I beat you.”

Terry chuckles. “Yeah. Pretty sure.”

Terry watches the weather channel like a hawk, but the storm that might cancel the hiking trip veers south instead. Which means Terry Junior is heading over to a friend’s house, and Terry, Samantha, and Ron are going on a hike with a couple of Terry’s coworkers.

“It’ll hit that sweet spot of the high sixties,” he says. He had the radio on, flipping between KSPC, which is playing something classical, and NPR, but now he turns the volume low to talk. He drums his fingers against the steering wheel as he takes the second to last turn for the park’s parking lot. “Perfect weather for hiking. Not too hot, not too cold.”

Ron nods. “Just right. Bet the bears like that.”

It takes Terry a second to put it together, then he chuckles. “Hopefully we won’t see any. We’ll probably find a lot of birds though.”

“And Terry brought his camera, so we can take some pictures.” Samantha sounds excited.

They pull into the parking lot, Paul already waving them over. “So this is the guy who saved you from the mugger,” he says once they’re all out of the car. He grins and nods towards Ron. “Paul Flenderson, good to meet you. We might ask you for a re-enactment of that mugging.”

“Hello,” Ron says. “And sure. I don’t have a knife on me though.”

Paul laughs. “Another time. Come on. Alice really wants to hike. Let’s get the introductions out of the way and get hiking.”

Terry doesn’t go hiking often, but he enjoys it. It’s far better exercise than jogging. The forest is green and alive even in early November. The air is fresh. He even enjoys the squirrels that scold them as they step carefully over knotted tree roots and rocks and make their way up the dirt path.

When a bird joins in the territorial yelling, Terry pulls out his camera. “Maybe we can identify some of these birds,” he suggests. He turns to grin at Ron and realizes that Ron’s no longer behind him. “...Ron?”

Samantha puts a hand on his arm. When he looks at her, she’s looking up, her expression amused and surprised all at once.

He looks up too, and almost has a second heart attack.

Ron has somehow silently climbed up the nearest tree and is now balanced carefully on a limb, almost face to face with a bird that’s so busy scolding the hikers that it doesn’t seem to notice the man crouched next to it.

“Ron, what are-- what are you doing?” Terry demands. The branch looks sturdy, but that doesn’t mean Ron should be up there.

Ron glances at him. He makes a little face, like he doesn’t understand the question, and then points at the bird and mouths something Terry can’t decipher. He doesn’t get down.

Samantha’s grip tightens on Terry’s arm. It’s mostly amusement in her face still, but there’s a thread of worry in her voice as she says, “Ron, I don’t think we’re supposed to climb trees.”

Terry snaps a few shots of Ron and the bird. Terry Junior won’t believe him and Samantha without some evidence. Then he glances up the path and realizes Paul and the others haven’t noticed what’s going on. “We’re going to fall behind if you stay up there.”

Ron sighs. The sound finally catches the attention of the bird, which seems to notice the human sitting an inch away from it. It scolds him even louder before it launches itself off the branch in a flurry of brown wings.

When Ron climbs down, he says, “I bet I could’ve touched that one.”

“What?” Terry doesn’t remember him doing this when they were at the lake. Then again, they’d been in the boat and hadn’t gotten very close to any of the birds. A laugh rises in his chest. Trust Ron to give bird watching a new spin. “Ron, there’s a reason it’s called bird watching, not bird touching.”

“Well I think my version is more accurate,” Ron says.

Samantha giggles. “I don’t know about that, but it’s certainly more exciting.”

They’ve all started walking to catch up when Terry thinks of something. “Do you bird watch like that with your feeder at home?”

Ron shakes his head. “There aren’t any trees. Besides, that’s not a challenge. I just sit on the balcony and they’re so busy eating that they never notice me. But sometimes I see a cool looking bird when I'm heading to work.”

Terry has a sudden vision of Ron halfway to the store, seeing a bird and launching himself up a tree trunk. This time he lets himself really laugh, Samantha a second behind him. After another second Ron joins in, though he’s got that head tilt that means he’s not sure what’s so funny.

Terry smiles. “Just when I think I’ve got you figured out, you surprise me.”

“I am, uh, an enigma wrapped in a riddle,” Ron says, then trips over a tree root. Without missing a beat, he adds, “A mystery man, if you will.”

Terry and Samantha both bend to help him back to his feet, Terry thinking as they do that Ron’s always going to keep them on their toes. With Ron as your best friend, it’s impossible to be bored.

As they walk, he checks his camera. Ron was sitting so still in the tree that the photos aren’t blurry at all. They catch his focused expression, the way he’s leaning forward, like he really is about to reach out and touch the oblivious bird.

Samantha grabs his arm again. He looks up, half-expecting to see Ron back up in the trees, but Samantha just says, “You were about to walk off the trail.” Then her eyes drop to the camera and she laughs. “I’m so glad you got a picture.”

“A picture of what?” Ron asks, and then leans over the camera before Terry can answer. He looks pleased. “Wow, I’m a pretty photogenic guy, huh.”

An emotion flickers across Samantha’s face. Terry knows she’s thinking about Jessica and the gossip. “Yes,” she says firmly and smiles. “You’re even cuter than Ron the schnauzer.”

The winding trail leads through trees to a stream. The water is clear, giving everyone a good look at the rocks and the fallen tree branches at its bottom, the tiny darting fish that flit along the slow currents. When Terry crouches and dips his fingers in, the water’s cold.

“Glad we didn’t get that storm,” James says. He fiddles with his glasses. Paul might have invited him along, but Terry knows him well enough to know he’s only here because his girlfriend Lydia wanted to come. “Otherwise it’d be harder to cross.”

“You’ll be fine,” Lydia says, amused, and grabs his hand. “And besides, wet socks won’t hurt you.”

James looks dubious.

After Alice and Paul cross, Terry turns to Samantha. He gives her a bow and a grin, and then offers his hand. “I’ll make sure your socks won’t get wet, honey.”

“My hero,” Samantha says, smiling.

He brings her hand up to his mouth, kissing her knuckles, before he starts to help her carefully across. The rocks are slick under their feet, and they both wobble, but there are no spills.

His boots sink a little into the mud on the other bank. Terry pauses for a second, then surprises a laugh out of her as he picks her up. He can’t remember the last time he did this, probably before the heart attack, but she still fits perfectly in his arms.

Her arms go around his neck. The surprise melts away to a smile that crinkles the corners of her eyes. She presses her mouth to his ear, her breath tickling his skin as she whispers solemnly, “My socks are grateful.”

He carries her a few steps to dry land and then sets her down again.

Samantha’s arms linger around his neck. “Thanks, honey.” She presses a kiss to his cheek. Then she steps back, further away from the stream, and turns. “Ron, do you need-- Never mind.”

Terry looks and sees Ron halfway across a few feet downstream, having found another set of rocks to use. He pinwheels a couple times, but doesn’t step in the stream. Finally he hops onto the bank and grins. “So, what’s next?”

“Next is crossing this stream three more times,” Paul says dryly.

“Why?” Ron asks.

“It’s how the trail works,” Alice explains.

“Sounds like somebody was pretty bad at making trails.”

The group laughs.

They cross the stream again without incident. Terry takes the opportunity to sweep Samantha off her feet a couple more times, even when it’s not necessary.

The next leg of the trail takes them to where people bring their horses to ride. They pause momentarily at the stables, where Lydia tries without success to coax a horse over to be petted and Terry takes a few more photos.

Alice is excited about a side trail. Though it’s a bit of a climb, Terry can see why. The path brings them out from the shadowed tree cover and into the sunlight and a field of yellow grass and a few flowers still in bloom. White and yellow blossoms dot the landscape, but Terry’s more distracted by the view.

He takes a couple pictures of the distant San Gabriel Mountains, then lowers his camera as Paul asks, “Want to have lunch here?”

There’s a chorus of agreement.

Terry joins in. It’s a cool day, but hiking uphill has worked up a sweat. He could do with a break and something to eat. He pulls out the picnic blanket he put in his backpack. He rolls it out with a snap of his wrist.

“Oh, that was a good idea!” Lydia says. Then she smiles as James takes off his jacket and sets it down for her.

Samantha sits on the blanket and starts pulling out the lunches from her pack.

“I brought some trail mix,” Ron says, sitting cross-legged next to her. He drops three different variety packs onto the blanket. “Since we’re on a trail and everything.”

“Cashews?” Terry says, looking at one of them. “You’re going to spoil us.”

Samantha passes out the chicken sandwiches and baby carrots.

Paul and Alice have unfolded some collapsible chairs. Paul almost tips his chair over as he leans towards the blanket and says, “Seriously, it’s nice to finally meet you, Ron. Terry talks a lot about you.”

Ron blinks. “He does? I-- I mean, sure, he does! I’m an interesting, uh, guy. ...What does he say?”

James snorts. He exchanges a look with Paul. “Let’s just say we’ve all heard that mugger story so many times we can recite it word for word.”

“Oh,” Ron says, still sounding surprised, but a little pleased too. His cheeks go red. “He told it a lot?”

Terry protests, “Not that much. They’re exaggerat….” He trails off as everyone looks at him, even Samantha, who gives him a fond little smile that reminds him of the time Terry Junior groaned and said he was tired of hearing that story. “It's a good story!”

“It was the first two times you told it,” Paul says, with a grin to show he’s joking.

Terry smiles back, but he can feel heat creeping into his face. He didn’t realize he’d told the story so many times that it’s become an office joke, like Paul’s tendency to hum Broadway tunes whenever he’s in a good mood and country music every time he’s frustrated. “Memorandum on the mugger story. Got it.”

“I can see why you like telling the story though,” Samantha says, reaching out to squeeze his hand. “It really was like something out of a movie.” She looks over at Lydia. “So, Lydia, I don’t think I know what you do.”

“I’m a dentist,” Lydia says.

Terry’s relieved when the conversation moves on.

“Do you know my dentist?” Ron asks. “His name’s Jimmy. Or maybe it’s Timmy. He’s always surprised that I’ve never had a cavity.”

“Never?” Lydia looks impressed.

“Nope!” Ron says. “I drink a lot of milk.”

“He does,” Samantha agrees.

“That definitely helps,” Lydia says.

“Did you grow up around here, Ron?” Alice asks.

“No.” Ron pauses and seems to reconsider. “No, I mean, yeah. I was born here? But my dad was a traveling salesman, so we, uh, moved around a lot. I guess I grew up in the car, mostly.”

"Oh, I bet it was nice to see the country with your dad,” Alice says.

“He was a real good salesman,” Ron says vaguely. “He always said he could sell fishing gear to someone who lived in the desert, that’s how good he was.” He takes a bite of his sandwich and then looks at it as he chews. “What did you put in it?”

Samantha looks surprised by the question. “Chicken, swiss cheese, and mayonnaise.”

Ron nods. “You should give everyone the recipe. It’s really good.”

“Thanks, Ron,” Samantha says, slightly amused. Mischief lights up her face. “Normally it’s a Harker Family Secret but recipes are meant to be shared.”

“Like the cookbook,” Ron says, nodding again. To the others he says, “Terry and Samantha gave me a healthy cookbook so I can fix my cholesterol. I’ve cooked most of the recipes and they’re all pretty great.”

Lydia looks rueful. “That sounds nice, but I’m not much of a cook. I set water on fire.”

“Yeah, the smoke alarm is really loud,” Ron says sympathetically.

“High cholesterol isn’t my trouble,” Paul says. “Turns out you can get allergies in your forties.”

Alice pats his arm. “I know you miss seafood, sweetheart.”

“I really do.”

The conversation turns in a familiar direction, everyone commiserating on their body’s inevitable betrayal now that they’re all in their forties. Terry worries for a second that Samantha might get quiet, reminded of Terry’s heart, but even she smiles and throws in a cheerful complaint about waking up with a stiff back.

When lunch is over, they pack up their picnic blanket and their trash and resume the hike.

Ron doesn’t climb any more trees, though he does wander off the path a couple times and return with vague descriptions of birds he spotted. One squirrel takes umbrage at their presence and pelts James in the head with a pebble. Terry’s legs ache after a while, but he’ll still take this over jogging any day of the week.

By the time they get back to the parking lot, it’s getting close to sunset, the sky beginning to turn pink and purple. Terry figures Terry Junior will beat them home from his friend’s house, and they can all have dinner together before they go to bed.

Paul claps Terry on the back. “He seems nice! Definitely not what I pictured when you described him knocking that knife out of the mugger's hand though.”

Terry watches Ron climb into the car. He remembers his first impression of Ron: glasses, a mustache, a smile, a weird guy. It feels like a long time ago. “Looks can be deceiving.”

Paul chuckles. “You’re telling me. See you tomorrow.”

“Pass along that sandwich recipe,” Alice calls to Samantha with a wink.

Samantha laughs. “I’ll email it to Terry. He can share it.”

Ron pops his head back out of the car. “Don’t forget to send it to me!”

“I won’t,” Samantha promises, smiling.

“Keep drinking that milk, Ron!” Lydia says.

Ron gives her a wave as Terry gets into the car. He’s quiet for a moment as Terry pulls out of the parking lot. Terry watches him in the rearview mirror, sitting cross-legged in the backseat and eating some of the leftover trail mix.

They’re on the highway when Ron asks, “Hey, Terry? Tell me the mugger story.”

Terry blinks. He searches Ron’s face, but Ron looks earnest. “...Ron, you were there.”

Ron bobs his head up and down. “Yeah, but I want to hear your version.”

Samantha laughs. “I can recite it too, so if you want--”

“Not you too,” Terry mumbles, but his lips twitch as Samantha smiles at him. He taps his fingers against the steering wheel. “Okay, fine. So you and I were walking out of the movie theater, and….”

Chapter Text

The first thing Ron sees when he opens his apartment door is the smile on Samantha and Terry’s faces.

He smiles back instinctively, even if he kind of wants to look over his shoulder and double-check that everything looks okay. He doesn’t want Terry to have to struggle with coming up with compliments, not when Terry and Samantha made it so easy for him to say how great their house is during his first visit.

“Hi,” he says. He clears his throat. “Uh. Welcome. Can I take your coats?”

“Hi, Ron,” Samantha says. Her smile widens as she steps inside. She looks around as she takes off her coat and hands it to Ron, like maybe she doesn’t remember what his apartment looks like. She did only see it while they were making quiche that time, so maybe she’s forgotten.

“The place came furnished,” Ron tells her quickly before she can compliment the furniture. That’d be pretty embarrassing for her, complimenting something that wasn’t his idea.

Terry chuckles. “Yeah, minimalist stuff doesn’t seem like your style.”

He shrugs out of his coat, and hands it to Ron, who holds onto both coats and wonders if he should put them in his closet or on the bed like he’s sometimes seen in movies. As he stands there debating, Terry holds up a box. “We brought dessert.”

“Oh, good,” Ron says, pleased. He’s even more pleased when he realizes it’s from the bakery. He really loves those macarons.

“They had a seasonal flavor. Pumpkin spice,” Samantha says. “We thought it’d be fun to try.”

“Yeah,” Ron agrees. He looks down at the coats. “Let me put these away. Um, I have cheese and crackers. And juice, because it’s made of grapes like wine, but tastes better. Help yourselves.”

He’s almost to his bedroom when he hears Terry chuckle again.

“I like the mugs.”

“Thanks!” Ron says. He’d found the mugs at a thrift shop a few weeks after he’d moved into the apartment, each one a different color but all with a funny mustache on them. He’s glad that Terry found something to compliment. He clarifies, “They didn’t come with the apartment.”

When he gets back from putting the coats up in his closet, Samantha looks a little confused.

“There are four mugs,” she says. It’s sort of a question, but not.

It takes a second for Ron to figure out why she’s asking. He looks down and realizes that he’s set it up so it looks like four people will be here, even though Terry Junior is at a friend’s and isn’t coming. “Oh, yeah. I didn’t know what color you wanted. I like the red one, but you can use that one if you want. You’re the guests!”

Terry passes the blue mug to Samantha, and then grabs the green one for himself, which leaves the yellow mug as the odd man out.

Ron takes that one away to the kitchen and brings out the grape juice. It’s cold from the fridge. When he sits down in his chair, he tries to think of what to say. Then he remembers why he invited them over. “Oh, yeah! There they are.” He points at the wall.

There, framed and held together by special glue, are the five puzzles he and Samantha have finished. They’re a bunch of different themes and all different colors, but Ron’s favorites are the outer space one and the one that’s fifty different birds.

“Terry Junior sure is one smart cookie.” Ron admires the puzzles again. Yeah, the birds puzzle is definitely his favorite. “I never would’ve found out about that Mod Podge stuff by myself, you know?”

Samantha and Terry both smile. “He’s so bright,” Samantha agrees. “We just got his first report card for the year, and he’s doing great. All As and Bs!”

“That’s good,” Ron says. He pours himself some grape juice.

Terry gets up and walks over to the puzzles, studying them. Ron’s waiting for a compliment or maybe for Terry to offer his favorite, but all Terry does is adjust one of the frames that’s slightly crooked and say, “Wow, you have a laidback landlord.”

Ron blinks. His landlord mostly ignores him since he pays his rent on time, but he doesn’t know what the guy has to do with the puzzles. “What about him?”

Terry gestures at the puzzles. “Just letting you put all those nails into the wall.”

“Oh, I didn't ask him,” Ron says. When Terry stares at him, he stares back, confused by the way Terry’s eyebrows go up like he’s said something surprising.

“Good luck with that,” Terry says with a little chuckle.

Ron’s about to ask luck with what when Samantha says, “Well, I think they all look great. The Mod Podge gave them a nice gloss. I think my favorite is the night walk in a park one. It looks like a piece of art!”

Ron looks at that puzzle again. It is nice. “Yeah. That’s a good one.”

Terry sits back down and reaches for another cracker. “I lost my first deposit myself. And my third, though that one wasn’t my fault. It’s not the end of the world.”

“Okay?” Ron says.

“I see you’ve got a few cookbooks,” Samantha says.

He realizes she’s looking at his bookcase. He’s got a couple cookbooks from the library. “Yeah. Found some good recipes.” Then he remembers he has the folder she gave him with all of her and Terry’s favorite healthy recipes. It’s up next to the cookbooks as well. He adds quickly, “Uh. Yours are good too. Like the chili!”

Samantha looks pleased. “The black bean and kidney bean chili? I like that one too.”

“We should’ve served that for Halloween. It has a spooky vibe,” Terry says. When Samantha gives him a look, he holds up his hands. “What? It’s good! It just looks a little funny.”

“You’re why we have the same food every Thanksgiving,” Samantha says, but she’s smiling, so it must be a joke.

“Sometimes tradition is good,” Terry says.

“The leftovers were great,” Ron agrees.

“We wished you could’ve been there,” Samantha says. She takes a sip of her juice, careful so that she doesn’t end up with a purple mustache. Sometimes Ron forgets to be careful and gets a purple tinge to his mustache, but Samantha’s too smart for that.

Ron realizes she’s looking at him, expecting a response. They were still talking about Thanksgiving, weren’t they? He thinks it’s really nice that they open up their house to friends and family for the holiday, and invite everyone to eat Thanksgiving lunch together. If the store hadn’t been open until three o’clock for holiday emergencies, he would’ve gone. “Someone has to be at the store for all the people who forgot to buy a turkey, you know?”

“Right,” Samantha agrees.

She exchanges a look with Terry, who says, “We do something similar for Christmas Eve.”

“That’s nice,” Ron says. He’s seen a few movies. He bets they’re going to make a gingerbread house and drink eggnog and stuff.

“We know you had to work for Thanksgiving but--”

“Oh,” Ron says, pleased and disappointed at the same time. “Uh. I work Christmas Eve and Christmas too.”

Both Terry and Samantha frown. “The store is making you work both holidays?”

“Well, lots of my coworkers have families. I don’t mind,” Ron explains.

He actually kind of likes working the holidays. It’s always satisfying to work out a schedule that lets everyone who wants to celebrate Christmas be with their kids. Sure, there’s always that one customer who’s mad that you’ve run out of pumpkin pies, but there are also those moms who give you a hug and some homemade cookies because you have one last can of cranberry glaze.

“So it’s usually me, and Joseph and Zivah on checkout, and then Chris on meat because he hates Christmas. Says he understands what the Grinch was all about. And then a couple people like me who don’t have anyone to celebrate with.”

He guesses that’s changed this year, now that Terry and Samantha are his friends. The thought makes him happy. He still can’t change the schedule this year, but maybe next year he can figure something out.

“It still doesn’t seem fair,” Samantha says. She’s still frowning. So’s Terry, actually, when Ron looks between them. “We thought we’d get to see you at Christmas at least.”

She’s disappointed, he realizes. Well, he thinks that’s what she’s feeling anyway. He knows sometimes he misreads people. Or maybe she’s mad? He hopes she’s not mad, though disappointed is pretty bad too. He crumbles a cracker to pieces between his fingers. “Sorry. I didn’t-- uh, I can’t really switch stuff around.”

Terry sighs. “Are they making you work New Year’s too?”

Ron hesitates. They’re both looking at him, and he thinks suddenly of school, when the teachers called on him and he didn’t have the right answer, or forgot which class he was in. He can feel the wrong answer forming in his mouth a second before he mumbles, “Well, I usually do….”

“They really shouldn’t make you work every holiday,” Samantha says.

“The store shouldn’t even be open on holidays,” Terry adds. “If people forget to buy a turkey, that’s on them.”

Ron doesn’t know how to explain that he usually volunteers. He’s never had people who want him around for the holidays. And it’s like a Christmas present, getting thank yous from his coworkers when they get off early Christmas Eve and can go to church or their grandmother’s house. He bites his lip. “Yeah. That’s capitalism for ya, am I right?”

They don’t laugh.

Ron should fix this. He needs to fix this. Samantha and Terry being disappointed in him feels awful, like the cheese went bad. “But uh. Um. How long is your Christmas Eve party? Maybe I could come later. Bring some eggnog. You probably already have some, but. Or apple cider. That’s kind of Christmas-y, right?”

Samantha’s sudden smile banishes some of his stomachache. “Oh, no one stays too late. Half of them have kids that will wake up for Santa at 6 am. The party usually goes until nine, nine-thirty.” She stops. Her smile fades a little. “Will you be too tired after work, though? Of course we’d love you to stop in, my friends really want to meet you, but--”

“I can,” Ron assures her. He tries not to watch her too closely, even if he’s measuring her smile as it widens again. “The store closes at seven.”

“Good,” Samantha says. “Don’t worry about apple cider or eggnog. We’ll just be happy to see you.”

Ron smiles at that, relieved.

Terry chuckles. “Well, presents wouldn’t be turned down.”

“Presents,” Ron echoes. He glances between them. Well, he has a couple of weeks to figure out presents. “I can do that.” Both of them keep smiling, and he slowly relaxes. He thinks about Christmas. “So, does Terry Junior still believe in Santa?”

He means the question -- he doesn’t want to ruin Santa for Terry Junior if he still believes in him, not like his dad telling him the truth about Santa when he was four -- but they take it as a joke. The laughter makes him relax more, even if he wasn't kidding.

“No, he figured it out a couple years ago,” Terry says. “Around the same time as the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy.”

“Oh, good,” Ron says. That’s one less thing to worry about. He glances around his apartment, trying to think of something else to talk about besides Christmas, now that that’s settled. His eyes land on the door to the balcony. “I should show you my bird feeder! I didn’t show it to Samantha when she came here the other time. We were focused on the quiche.”

“I’d love to see the bird feeder,” Samantha says, setting her mug down.

“All the birds will be asleep,” he reminds her before she can be disappointed, “but yeah, the balcony is nice.”

Terry grins. “If you can get close to birds in the wild, how close do you get to the ones at your apartment? I know you said they forget about you being there, right? Can you touch them?”

Ron nods. “Yeah. Though usually it’s the opposite. If you stay really still, they'll forget you're actually a person and land on you.” He plucks at his shirt and adds, “It’s nice, except sometimes you have to change your clothes.”

“Oh no,” Samantha says, but she’s laughing again. She stands up.

It’s a small balcony. Sometimes Ron will pull out a chair and sit next to the bird feeder, but there’s not room for much else. There’s probably not enough room for all three of them. It’s cloudy and cool, the temperature low enough that Ron gets goosebumps as he stands at the door.

“You have a nice view,” Samantha says, smiling as she looks out towards the woods behind the building. Then she leans closer to the feeder. She’s so tall that she’s already eye level. “Oh, it looks like you’re running low on seed. Should we put some in?”

“Yeah,” Ron says. “They’ll want their breakfast in the morning.” He retrieves the bird seed from the closet. He brings the stepping stool along automatically, but Samantha doesn’t need it.

She gets a look of concentration, biting her lip as she pours the seeds. She doesn’t spill a single one. Half the time Ron gets distracted and overfills or misses the feeder, and then he has to sweep up the seeds and try again, but Samantha gets it right on the first try.

Ron sees movement in the corner of his eye a second before Terry’s hand settles on a spot between Ron’s shoulder-blades. Ron freezes in surprise, his breath catching in his throat. He’s always surprised when Terry gives him a pat on the shoulder, even if he knows guys do it all the time and it’s not weird at all.

Terry’s hand is really warm, but it doesn’t get rid of Ron’s goosebumps. Actually, it must make him notice the cold even more or something because Ron feels a shiver go through him. Terry pats him once, twice, and then slings his arm across Ron’s shoulder. He doesn’t lean against Ron, but Ron can still feel the weight of him anyway, registering his height the way he notices Samantha’s.

“Why do I get the feeling we’re about to buy a couple feeders for our backyard?” Terry asks, amused. When Samantha just laughs, Ron feels an answering chuckle move through Terry.

“Uh,” Ron says. The surprise fades, but now he feels too warm. “Well, this birdseed is really good. So. I can write the name down if you want.”

Samantha smiles. “We’ll probably be feeding the squirrels instead, but yes, please.”

Ron plucks at his collar and then ducks out from under Terry’s arm. He goes to hunt down a notepad and pen. It takes him a minute, even though he’s got everything pretty organized. He still has to poke through a few drawers in the kitchen before he finds a pen that works.

When he gets back, Terry and Samantha have managed to squeeze themselves out onto the balcony, pressed against the railing so that they don’t knock into the feeder. Terry’s looking towards the woods again. Samantha’s got her arm around his waist, and Ron knows they like hugging each other, it’s nice, but maybe they’re also cold?

He’s thinking about getting their coats just in case when Terry turns his head towards the door. “Get any deer?”

“Uh. I don’t know. Maybe?”

“Well, at least they can’t reach this,” Terry says. He taps the feeder and sends it spinning in place.

“Probably not,” Ron agrees. “Unless they learn to use the elevator.”

Samantha laughs, and then shivers.

Ron says quickly, “You know what we should do? Eat those macarons. Inside. See how that Pumpkin Spice tastes. Maybe it’s more pumpkin, maybe it’s more spice. Get our, uh, Sherlock on. Or, uh, one of those mean chefs on TV. Except not mean.”

“Good idea,” Samantha says. She has a habit of tilting her head a little sometimes like a bird when she’s thinking something over. She does it now. “Hm, I don’t know what I like better, the pumpkin or the spices.”

“We’re skipping right to dessert?” Terry says. “I’m down. Don’t tell Terry Junior though.”

“Your secret’s safe with me,” Ron promises. This time he’s not caught by surprise when Terry grins and pats his shoulder again on his way back into the living room.

They all sit back down. The macarons turn out to be orange, and taste less like pumpkin and spice and more like pumpkin and cream cheese, but they still taste pretty good.

Ron nibbles at one, trying to make it last.

He’s going to have to figure out presents, he thinks, and then refocuses as Samantha says, “I asked the owner, and she said they’re probably going to do two flavors for Christmas. Eggnog and peppermint. Doesn’t that sound good?”

“Yeah.”

Most of the kids who come to the Christmas Eve party are a couple years younger than Terry Junior, but that’s okay. Everyone likes video games. Besides, most of the kids are so little that they’ll just sit and watch, half-eaten cookies in their hands, while Terry Junior and some of the older kids play Mario Kart.

Terry Junior has just wiped someone out in the race when he hears his dad’s voice rise above the other grown-ups in the living room.

“Ron! Glad you could come.” His dad sounds excited, and so does his mom when she says, “Hi, Ron! Everyone, this is Ron.”

Terry Junior rolls his eyes at the familiar weird chuckle. “Uh, merry Christmas Eve, everybody. Yeah, thought I’d be here earlier, just uh, had to help a few people who really stuffed it up with their stuffing, you know? But here I am.”

Terry Junior doesn’t get why all the grown-ups laugh like Ron is actually funny.

“I, uh. Where do I put the…?”

“Presents go under the tree,” Terry Junior’s mom says.

“Wait, let me shake mine,” his dad says, and everyone laughs again.

“You can if you want to,” Ron says.

“Maybe later,” his dad says.

“Dude, you lost hard,” Jeremy says.

Terry Junior blinks, and realizes he’s forgotten he was playing a game. He frowns at the screen and says, “Here, you can play,” and passes over his controller.

Then he gets up. He should close the door. Otherwise he's going to have to listen to Ron and his dumb jokes for the rest of the night. When he gets to the door, though, he’s not fast enough.

Ron, wearing a bright red sweater, looks over and spots him. A wide grin splits his face.

“Hey, Terry Junior! Merry Christmas Eve! Your present’s under the tree, buddy.”

“My present?” Terry Junior says blankly.

“Yeah,” Ron says. He points towards the tree.

Terry Junior can tell immediately which three presents are from Ron. The guy doesn't know how to wrap stuff. He’s used probably a whole roll of scotch tape, more tape than wrapping paper covering the presents. They’re awkwardly shaped, though it’s hard to tell if it’s from being wrapped wrong or because the presents themselves are weird shapes. One’s really tall and long, one’s medium and vaguely shaped like a box, and one’s smaller and thin, maybe a book.

Ron’s wearing an expectant smile.

Terry Junior feels a pang of guilt. It never crossed his mind Ron would get him a gift. “Uh. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome, kiddo,” Ron says cheerfully.

Why did Ron get him something? Maybe to butter up his mom, Terry Junior thinks, and then gets distracted by the fact that Ron still has his name tag on. Ron F. Stampler, Assistant Manager. “Uh, you’ve still got--” He gestures.

Ron blinks and then looks down. “Oh. Oops.” He fiddles with the tag for a second and then stops. “Maybe I should leave it on? So everyone can remember who I am. Heh, life sure would be easier if everyone just walked around wearing name tags, am I right? No more accidentally calling your neighbor Carl instead of Kevin for a year.” He pauses. Frowns. “...Or is it Kevin instead of Carl….”

“Uh huh,” Terry Junior says and closes the door while Ron’s trying to figure out his neighbor’s name.

Terry Junior flops back down on the bed, vaguely aware of the other kids focused on Mario Kart.

He’s resigned to the fact that his parents actually want Ron to stick around. He doesn’t get it -- they already have so many friends, why did they decide their very best one would be Ron? -- but it’s been nine months and Ron’s still around. But he really figured Ron would stop trying so hard to be his friend too.

He swallows down a sigh. Great. Now he’s going to have to write a thank-you card.

Hopefully the present isn’t too weird.

“Goodnight! Merry Christmas!” Terry calls, waving from the doorway as Samantha walks the last of their guests to their cars.

Well, not the last of their guests. Ron’s still here, though now that Terry thinks about it, he hasn’t heard Ron laughing or making a joke in a while. He looks around.

At first it seems like Ron has vanished into thin air. Then Terry spots the bright red sweater.

Ron’s tucked himself into the corner of the couch, an empty cocoa mug still in his hands, propped up by the leg he’s got pressed to his chest. He’s asleep, maybe, or close to it, his eyes closed and his shoulders rising and falling with every slow breath.

Terry wonders how long he’s been dozing. He should wake him up, but he hesitates.

“Oh,” Samantha says softly behind Terry. There’s a tinge of emotion in her voice and Terry turns to see her looking slightly guilty. “I wasn’t even thinking…. He must’ve had a long day. We should let him sleep.”

Her voice is low, but Ron’s eyelashes flutter and he jerks upright.

Terry jumps forward and catches the mug as it slips from his fingers. “Hey, Sleeping Beauty,” he says with a grin as Ron blinks owlishly up at them.

“Wasn’t asleep,” Ron says immediately. His voice betrays him, rough with sleep, and his body does too, a yawn making his mustache wiggle and his eyes shut again. Pink colors his cheeks and he gives a little shake of his head, like if he rattles his brain enough he’ll wake up.

“You were a little asleep,” Samantha says, amused, but worried too. “Maybe you should stay here tonight? Instead of driving home when you’re so tired--”

“Oh, no,” Ron says. He shakes his head one more time, unfolds himself so that he’s sitting normally, both feet on the floor. “That’s okay. I don’t have a change of clothes.” He smiles, some of the sleepiness disappearing from his face as he adds, “Christmas is for family, anyway.”

He says it the same way that he talked about not having anyone to celebrate the holidays with, offhanded and apparently unbothered. Terry still fights a frown. It doesn’t seem right. The idea of Ron working every holiday and then going home to an empty apartment makes him almost angry.

Ron’s gaze darts between him and Samantha. He sits up a little straighter. “But, uh, we could, uh, open our presents now? Unless that gets us on Santa’s naughty list.”

“I think Santa’s pretty busy tonight,” Samantha says with a smile. She goes to Terry Junior’s door and knocks lightly against the frame. “Terry Junior, we’re going to open Ron’s presents before he leaves.”

“Okay,” comes the muffled response.

Ron drums his fingers against his knee and smiles as Terry Junior emerges from his room. “Guess we’re all present and accounted for, heh.” He laughs his distinctive little laugh, clearly pleased with his own joke.

Terry laughs too. “Yeah.” He spots Terry Junior yawning. “Why don’t we let Terry Junior open his present first, since it’s already past his bedtime?”

“Good idea,” Samantha says. She reaches for the first of Ron’s gifts, the smallest one, and hands it over to Terry Junior, who blinks down at it like he doesn’t know what to do with it before he starts picking at the tape.

“It made me think of you,” Ron says quickly. He’s still drumming his fingers against his knee.

Terry Junior finishes unwrapping his present. It’s another framed puzzle like the ones Ron has up in his apartment, but of a soccer game in mid-play, a kid frozen in the middle of kicking a ball towards the goal. Terry Junior doesn’t say anything for a second, just looking at it.

“I couldn’t find one of a kid who looks like you,” Ron adds. “But I thought you might still like it? If you don’t, there’s always, uh, some room on my wall so, uh--”

Terry Junior actually looks up at that. He rolls his eyes a little, but Terry’s pleased by the slight smile that flits across his face. “You don’t take back gifts.”

“Right, I knew that. I’ve given plenty of gifts to plenty of people,” Ron says.

Terry Junior clears his throat. The smile fades. “Thanks. It’s kind of cool.”

Ron’s expression lights up.

“It’s a great gift,” Samantha says, smiling just as widely. “Really thoughtful, Ron.” She gives Terry a pleased look. He grins back. Ron’s definitely come a long way from insulting soccer during that first dinner.

He keeps grinning as he grabs his own present, a tall, thin package that’s very uniquely wrapped. It looks like Ron didn’t realize he could just roll out the wrapping paper and wrap the present that way. Instead he’s cut multiple pieces of paper and taped them together.

Taking off piece by piece reveals the box of a new fishing rod. The glossy picture is of a black and silver rod. Terry recognizes the name. The Vursa series is one of the best on the market, miles ahead of the one he bought himself. “Wow, this is….”

He looks up and finds Ron watching him, his gaze intent.

Terry searches for the right words. It’s a great gift, especially with Ron’s bad memories around fishing. “Thanks, Ron. It’s amazing. We’ll have to go back to the lake, make it a group trip this time. Terry Junior and I can do some fishing, you and Samantha can do some birdwatching--”

Samantha, who’s on his other side on the couch, nudges him in the shoulder. “My turn,” she says with a smile. Hers is a big box. She holds it in her lap as she peels away the scotch tape and tears away the paper. Immediately she gasps in delight. “A breadmaker!”

Ron’s still smiling now. He fiddles with his glasses, puffs out his chest. “You talked about wanting one, but you couldn’t justify getting it, so I thought. Yeah. Um. I kind of nailed it, didn’t I?”

Terry Junior makes a noise, like a snort.

“You did,” Samantha says, beaming. “Now open yours!”

“Wow, these are wrapped really nice,” Ron says when Samantha brings over both gifts. He smiles up at Samantha. “You did a great job!”

Terry chuckles. “Thanks. I like wrapping presents.”

Ron blinks. “Oh, you did them?” He sounds a little surprised.

Terry Junior makes another sound. He mumbles something under his breath that Terry doesn’t catch. When Terry looks at him, he’s walking back towards his bedroom, the framed puzzle in his hand.

“Yep,” Terry says.

Ron looks surprised for another second, and then nods. “You wrapped them like a professional wrapper from a store. No wrinkles at all!”

Terry’s done such a good job, apparently, that Ron doesn’t want to crumple the paper. He unwraps the first present slowly, inch by inch, his expression just as intent as it was watching Terry open his present. It makes Terry smile, watching him.

“Whichever present you like best, that’s mine,” he says, and chuckles as Samantha slaps him lightly on the shoulder and says, “Ignore him. They’re from both of us.”

The last of the paper is peeled away. Ron looks down at the gift. His focused look gives way to another grin. “Great,” he says happily. “Now I have two bird feeders! The more the merrier, am I right?”

“Well, it’s not just any bird feeder,” Terry explains. “It’s a camera too! It’s got a motion sensor inside, and the camera takes a picture any time a bird comes to eat. So you can see who’s been visiting while you’re at work.”

Ron’s eyes go wide behind his glasses. “Oh!” He draws out the word. He was happy before, but he’s excited now. His knee bounces and bumps against Terry’s. “That’s amazing.”

Samantha smiles. “We hoped you’d like it.”

“I really do,” he assures her. “I can’t wait to put it up!”

“Here, to go with the feeder,” Samantha says, smiling while she passes over the final gift. Ron unwraps this one even more slowly as she explains, “You’re so good at finding birds, we thought you might like to know their names.”

Ron looks over the two books, one a National Geographic guide on birds and the other identification book more focused on California birds, and nods. He opens one up, flips through it and studies the glossy photographs. “This is awesome. I've just been calling them like Mike and Sara.”

Samantha laughs. “Well, now you’ll know if Sara is a bluebird or a thrush.”

“Yeah!” Ron’s still grinning even as he yawns.

Terry and Samantha exchange a look. It’s already almost ten o’clock, and Terry knows he doesn’t like the idea of Ron driving home in the dark, with other people potentially tipsy on the road.

Judging by the slight furrow in her forehead, Samantha feels the same. She says slowly, “Ron, are you sure you don’t want to stay? We have a guest room.”

Ron shakes his head. “That’s okay.”

“Can you text us when you get home?” Terry asks.

“Sure,” Ron agrees, already back to flipping through one of the books. “Oh, I think Mike is a finch. That’s nice!”

Samantha relaxes slightly at his ready agreement. Then she stands up, picking up the breadmaker. Terry’s about to stand up and help, since it looks heavy, but Samantha gives a little shake of her head at him and smiles. “I’ll go put this in the kitchen and pack up some leftovers.”

Ron keeps looking through the book. He reaches for one of the last gingerbread cookies, one that Terry had tried to help decorate, which means it has a little too much frosting on it. Half the frosting gets on Ron’s mustache instead of into his mouth. He’s too focused on the book to notice.

Amused, Terry reaches out.

He gets his thumb on the edge of Ron’s mustache and starts to brush the frosting away. There’s a splotch of green at the corner of his mouth too, Terry’s eyes drawn to the new discovery as Ron twitches under his touch, his sudden breath ghosting across his skin. He looks at Ron’s lips, has the sudden urge to lean down and see if his lips are warm or cool or--

His brain stutters to a stop, stuck on that impossible thought.

When his mind does a hard reboot, he realizes that he’s in the middle of practically rubbing his thumb across Ron’s lips. The crazy impulse to kiss Ron like it was perfectly normal passes like a fever dream, leaving behind a flustered heat prickling the back of his neck.

What is he thinking? What is he doing? This is Ron.

He completes the gesture since he can’t do anything else. Then he leans back, gets some distance between himself and Ron’s mouth. He grabs another cookie, because he needs to do something else with his hands. He should say something, play everything off like it wasn’t a weird thing to do.

“Had some, uh, had some cookie there, pal,” he says, inwardly wincing at the weird hearty voice he uses.

Ron rubs his hand across his mustache. He’s quiet for what feels like forever, but is probably only a second or two. Then he says, “The price of having a mustache. It was a really delicious cookie, though. Great frosting to cookie ratio.” At least his voice sounds normal. Maybe Terry actually got away with this.

Terry makes a vague sound of agreement. He doesn’t trust himself to say anything else. He breaks the cookie into two, eats one of the pieces. Crumbs cling to his fingers and he brushes them away, trying to banish the crumbs and the lingering sensation of Ron’s breath on his skin.

That impossible thought feels less impossible with every passing second. It’s still ridiculous. He’s forty-two! That's too old to get a crush on his best friend. On his wife's best friend. It's not happening.

But he’s acutely aware of Ron sitting next to him, looking at another bird in the identification guide. And it’s hard to deny this feeling when it’s an echo of every time he wanted to kiss someone. His high school girlfriends. His college boyfriend. Samantha.

As though summoned by Terry thinking of her, Samantha emerges from the kitchen. She has an armful of Tupperware containers and enough food in them to probably feed Ron for the next three days. She sets them down on the coffee table. “Here’s lunch for tomorrow.”

Terry looks up, steadying himself with the familiar love that wells up just at the sight of her.

“Wow,” Ron says. He examines the Tupperware with unmistakable delight. “Maybe I shouldn’t bring this to the store tomorrow. All my coworkers might get jealous of me, heh, with my Christmas feast.”

Samantha laughs, and even Terry feels a weak smile tug at the corners of his lips.

When she looks at him, he tenses a little, wondering if she’ll see anything in his face, but she just tugs the second half of the forgotten cookie from his hand. She smiles at him, her eyes bright with mischief, before she takes a bite.

His smile is stronger this time. She didn’t notice anything weird. Why would she? Nothing actually happened.

“I’d better get going,” Ron says. “Got to be up bright and early.” He looks down at his presents. He touches the bird feeder box. “Maybe if I wake up even earlier, I can set this up! Give the birds a--” He stops, scrunching up his face, now clearly fighting the yawn. He yawns anyway, and Terry doesn’t watch him this time. “--Christmas present too.”

Worry clouds Samantha’s expression. She bites her lip. “We really would like you to sleep here. There are probably all kinds of people on the road right now, and it’s late, and you’re tired.”

Ron’s gaze darts between Samantha and Terry. He looks uncertain.

Terry hesitates. On the one hand, he needs some time to stomp out these ridiculous feelings. On the other hand, he also hates the idea of Ron driving when he’s half-asleep.

“Stay,” he says.

The uncertainty lingers for a second. Then Ron smiles, a slow, sweet smile that summons the hot prickling on the back of Terry’s neck. “Okay. You, uh, know what they say. Third, uh, time’s a charm. If you really don’t mind….”

Samantha shakes her head. “Of course we don’t! I’ll put the food back in the fridge.”

The food gets returned to the fridge, Terry finds a spare toothbrush and lends Ron his toothpaste, Ron yawns and smiles and disappears into the hallway bathroom.

Terry focuses on the regular routine of going to bed.

It quiets his thoughts to rest his hand on the small of Samantha’s back as she does her nightly hair routine and he brushes his teeth. The routine isn’t quite the same, though, not when Ron’s using his toothpaste and he’s borrowed Samantha’s. Mint fills Terry’s mouth, far stronger than the mint-tinted kisses Samantha gives him.

Ron’s mouth must taste of cinnamon now.

Terry flinches away from the thought and almost jabs himself in the cheek with his toothbrush.

Samantha gives him a questioning look in the mirror.

He pretends not to notice.

When they get into bed, Samantha curls up against his side. He wraps an arm around her, careful not to cling like he wants to. He presses his face carefully against her headwrap and murmurs, “Love you, sweetheart.” He steadies himself on that truth.

“Love you too,” Samantha says sleepily. She falls asleep between one breath and the next.

Exhaustion presses on him like another blanket. Terry tries to match his breathing to hers. That usually works like a charm, the best version of counting sheep. Tonight he can’t quite find the tempo. Every time he thinks he’s got it, the memory of the steady rise and fall of Ron’s chest knocks him off his rhythm.

Sleep is a long time coming.

When he finally does fall asleep, it feels like only seconds before a hand lightly shakes his shoulder. Samantha’s lips are warm against his cheek as she says, the affection sweet like a second kiss, “Merry Christmas, sleepyhead.”

He forces his eyes open. It doesn’t feel like he’s slept at all. His thoughts are fuzzy. He moves on instinct, sitting up and kissing her back. He ignores her laughing protest about her morning breath.

He feels more awake by the time she says, “Come on. I’ve got some coffee ready for you.”

Terry grins. “My hero.”

When he walks out of his bedroom, the memories of the night before smack him in the face. His stomach gives a sudden lurch, and then another as he realizes he’s going to walk downstairs and see Ron at the kitchen table.

It shouldn’t be weird. Ron’s been their friend for months now. He’s lost count of how many times Ron has sat at that table, talking about his week or asking Terry how the accounting business is treating him or making Samantha laugh. There’s nothing different about this morning, except that it feels different.

He has the sudden vision of Ron holding a cup of coffee and smiling over the rim of it towards them, so vivid that when he braces himself and steps into the kitchen, it takes a second for him to realize Ron isn’t there. He blinks. He looks around again, but there’s no sign of Ron. Maybe he's still asleep? But the microwave clock reads 7 o'clock.

“Where--”

Samantha’s arms go around Terry’s waist. Her sigh ruffles the hair on his neck. “I was up by six and he was already gone,” she says, sounding disappointed. “I hope he got enough sleep.”

Terry’s relieved, and then guilty about being relieved. He just needs a day or two to get his head on straight. He pats her hand. “I’m sure he did. We should text him a Merry Christmas later.”

“Oh, good idea!” Samantha says, voice brightening. “Maybe around noon, so he can see it on his lunch break.” There’s a pause before her chin settles on his shoulder. He can’t quite see her from corners of his eye, but he can hear the smile in her voice as she asks, “So what’s my Christmas present?”

Terry pushes thoughts of Ron away. He chuckles. “Me, of course.” He’s got a present tucked hidden inside her Christmas stocking, but he knows the answer will make her laugh, welcomes the feel of her muffling her giggle against his jaw.

“My very favorite present.”

Terry’s not thinking of Ron now as Samantha plays with the hem of his pajama top. He lowers his voice. “If Terry Junior’s not up, maybe you could unwra--”

There’s a loud groan behind him. Samantha doesn’t pull away, but she does stop playing with his pajamas as Terry Junior shuffles past them, giving them a look that Terry’s sure will be more frequent once he hits thirteen.

“Merry Christmas, kiddo,” Terry says with a grin.

Terry Junior sighs, and then smiles. “Merry Christmas.”

Chapter Text

It’s hard to believe it’s almost spring.

But the days are growing longer every week, which means that Samantha can set up a picnic in the backyard after work and the sun won’t set until six o’clock. Right now the sky’s streaked with pinks and oranges, but a few birds cluster at the feeders she set up after Christmas, getting some last minute dinner before it gets too dark.

She watches Ron watch them, his glass of lemonade forgotten in his hand. “Hey,” he says, delighted. “I think you’ve got a finch like Mike! Maybe they’re cousins. Or brothers!”

Samantha smiles. She and Terry exchange an amused look. Their phones both now hold a bunch of bird pictures, usually accompanied by an excited text telling them that Sara is actually Sam and is a bluebird. “Maybe they are,” she agrees.

Terry adds, “Does that mean he should be Martin?”

Ron looks thoughtful. “I was thinking Max, but Martin works too!”

“Remember, we’re trusting you to feed Martin and his friends this week,” Samantha says. For the first time in a couple years her and Terry’s work schedules have aligned so that they can do a family vacation during Terry Junior’s spring break.

“I put it on my work calendar to come over Tuesday and check on the feeders.”

“Aw,” Samantha says, touched. She looks at Ron’s serious expression and thinks about how she’s going to miss him. For a second the feeling’s so strong that her throat tightens. No emotion is invalid, so she tries to accept it, even if it seems a little silly. After all, spring break is only a week. They’ve all gone two weeks without seeing each other before, part and parcel of being an adult with work and responsibilities.

“Maybe you can figure out how to keep the squirrels away,” Terry says.

Ron nods slowly. “I can do that. Those squirrels won’t know what hit them.”

Samantha laughs, but Ron’s still looking determined. He’s clearly planning out a campaign against the squirrels constantly eating the birdseed from the feeders. “Don’t scare them too badly! I like them.”

“Well, that makes it harder, but I’ll try.” Ron gives her one of her favorite smiles, where his cheeks actually bump against the rims of his glasses.

“Thank you,” she says. She’s about to say she’ll miss the squirrels, but that pang from before hits her again. “Send us updates! Just remember about the three-hour time difference. And when we get back, we should think about doing something special for April.”

Ron blinks. “April?”

Samantha looks towards Terry, but he looks confused as well. She sighs.

“If this is about April Fool’s, uh, I don't really get it. But if you guys are doing it, I'm down to fool you once, fool you twice.” Ron waits a beat, and then adds, “...Or will I? Guess we'll find out, heh.” He chuckles at his own joke.

Samantha laughs a little. “I wasn’t talking about April Fool’s. The third is our anniversary!”

Terry frowns. “Honey, our anniversary is in July--” She sees the second the penny drops because he stops talking like someone hit a switch. He half-smiles, but he also looks surprised as he mutters, like he can’t quite believe it, “Right. It’s almost been a year.”

Ron glances between them. “A year….?”

“Since we answered your Petfinder ad,” Samantha says.

Ron’s eyes go large behind his glasses. Then he smiles again, even wider. “Oh wow. Time sure does fly, huh? What should we do? Go to the bakery? Or the dog park? Or--” He launches into a list of suggestions, some of which Samantha understands and others which seem a little out of left field but she's sure will make sense if he explains.

“Let’s think about it,” Samantha says. She wants to do something special. Go somewhere nice, maybe exchange gifts. She’s still got all of the photos Ron has sent her over the last year, even the quiche one. Maybe they can take a break from their puzzles and make a memory scrapbook.

“Yeah, we--” Ron stops again, but this time his eyes narrow. “You and I are gonna have a talk real soon, buddy.”

Samantha’s confused at the intensity in his voice until she sees where he’s staring. There’s a squirrel walking across the back fence, heading towards one of the feeders, its tail twitching as it goes. She swallows down a laugh.

She’s hit by that pang again when she puts the dishes in the sink and realizes by the stove clock that it’s probably time for Ron to leave. They’ve got an early flight in the morning, and there’s still some packing left to do once Terry picks up Terry Junior from his friend’s house.

She goes back to the living room, where they’ve all settled in now that it’s dark outside. Terry’s on the couch and Ron’s cross-legged on the chair, both with their heads bent over some of the brochures Terry picked up the last time they visited New Jersey.

“Six Flags is for Terry Junior and Samantha,” Terry says. There’s a familiar wry note in his voice, the kind he uses whenever he’s about to joke about his heart. “I’m only allowed on kiddie rides now.”

“Roller coasters aren’t that great,” Ron says. “I mean, I don’t really know myself, I’m too short to ride them, but they don’t look that fun.”

Terry’s eyebrows go up. “Too short?”

“Yeah,” Ron says. “I don’t think we’re missing that much.”

Samantha puts a hand on Terry’s shoulder and gives it a light squeeze as he looks up at her. “As much as I hate to admit it, we need to finish packing.”

“Right,” Terry says with a regretful little twist of his mouth. He takes off his reading glasses and gives Ron a smile. “Let us know how the negotiations with squirrels go.”

“Yeah, of course,” Ron says. The intense look briefly flickers across his face. Then he gets to his feet.

There’s nothing unusual about the gesture. Ron’s made it dozens of times over the past year. That’s practically become his chair. But the familiarity of it brings home the thought again that they’re so close to the anniversary. It’s been a whole year! Sometimes the fact that Ron hasn’t always been in their lives feels impossible.

Moved by emotion, she bends down and gives him a hug. “See you next week, Ronnie.”

The difference in height is just enough that his hair tickles her nose. She’s hoping for a return hug. Instead she feels the weight of him settle against her like she’s the only thing keeping him upright. She holds him, feels her stomach give a startled, confused flip as Ron practically melts in her arms.

Then he tenses. A second later he’s slipped out of her grip like a magician or a ninja. He takes a quick step back, then another. She has a second to see the rising flush in his face, his glasses slightly askew, before he mumbles, “Catch you, uh, later, uh, allig--”

THUD. Ron walks straight into the front door.

The impact rocks him back on his heels and cuts off his babbling.

Samantha should go make sure he hasn’t hurt himself, but her feet feel rooted to the spot.

It’s Terry who jumps up from the couch. “Ron, are you okay?”

Ron isn’t looking at either of them, one hand clamped to his forehead. The back of his neck is pink, his voice slightly breathless as he says, “Yeah, I’m okay. Just, uh. Should really let you get packing, uh--”

When he begins fumbling at the handle with his other hand, Samantha starts forward. Is he really trying to leave? She licks her lips, ignores the emotions twisting her stomach. “You could have a concussion. We should--”

“Oh no, I’m pretty sure I’d know if I had one,” Ron assures her. “I’m not seeing two of you! Well I see two of you, you and Terry, so I guess I don’t see four of you, heh.” He laughs, but it’s weak, a tinge of pain in the sound.

Terry gets to Ron first. He reaches out like he’s going to grab Ron’s hand on the door handle, and then plants his hand against the door instead. Worry creases his forehead. “That was a hard knock. Let’s get some ice on that bump.”

“I’m okay. Really. A door can’t knock me out, get it?”

Samantha tries not to crowd him as she attempts to get a good look at his forehead. Ron’s still got his hand up, but between his fingers she can see a red welt and a swelling bump. Is that blood? “Terry’s right. We have an ice pack in the freezer.”

When Ron still hesitates, Samantha touches his shoulder. She pulls it back as he twitches. Her stomach drops. She feels off-kilter, like she’s crossed some line she didn’t realize was there. She twists her hands together in front of her, resisting the urge to touch him again. Has she really not hugged him before? She can’t remember. “Please?”

“Okay,” Ron says slowly. “I’m fine, though.” He keeps up this protest even as they coax him into the kitchen and he sits down at the kitchen table.

Samantha presses a cold compress into his hand, careful not to let their fingers touch.

When he puts the ice pack against his head, she spots a small cut on his forehead. The blood’s already dried, but it’s still alarming.

Samantha dashes for her cell, charging in the bedroom, and returns to find Ron wiping at the condensation dripping off the ice pack and sliding down his nose. She holds up her phone. “Let me google concussion symptoms.”

Terry hovers by the table, frowning. “A kid got clobbered at the practice a few weeks back. I think I remember how to check for a concussion.”

“I don’t have a--”

When Ron stops talking, Samantha looks up from her phone to watch Terry take the compress from his hand. There’s concern and exasperation and something else in his voice as he says, “You have to leave it on there, not wave it around.” He puts his hand on the nape of Ron’s neck as Ron squirms and mumbles a wordless protest. “I know you said you weren’t seeing double, but are you feeling dizzy?”

Ron starts to shake his head, then mid-gesture thinks better of it and says, “No.”

Samantha starts to go back to her phone, but then Terry bends down. The strange note in his voice bleeds into his body language. Samantha finds herself studying him, seeing a tension in his shoulders that goes deeper than worry.

She can usually read Terry well, but for a moment he’s like a half-finished puzzle while he stares down into Ron’s upturned face.

He’s still cupping Ron’s nape. Samantha forgets about her phone, watching that hand. His thumb is curled gently behind Ron’s ear. Now it makes a tiny, aborted movement, like Terry was about to stroke Ron’s neck.

His thumb goes still. An emotion flickers across his face. Then Terry takes one step back, and another. His hands drop to his sides as he takes a deep breath. It’s only because she’s watching him closely that she sees the tremor in his fingers and recognizes the forced cheer in his voice.

“Well, your pupils seem normal. That’s, uh, a good sign.”

Everything clicks together. Samantha knows that look. It’s almost unfamiliar directed at someone else, but she knows love when she sees it on her husband’s face. Love and longing.

Samantha forgets to breathe. Her heart pounds in her ears, muffling Ron’s response.

She should be upset. She should be jealous or hurt or any number of negative emotions.

But instead she finds herself remembering the night of the bake sale, months ago. Terry, hiding a smile as she complained about Jessica’s insinuations. Her simmering outrage over the insult to her marriage and to Ron. Their mutual confusion that no one else can see how Ron’s a catch. The bone-deep certainty running that their marriage is unbreakable.

It still feels unbreakable. That certainty hasn’t been shaken.

She might be surprised that Terry might have feelings, but she knows that he wouldn’t act on them. And it’s not hard to see why he might fall for Ron. He’s funny and sweet and if she wasn’t happily married, she--

Her mind snags on that thought.

“Honey?” Terry says.

She blinks, realizing that both he and Ron are looking at her. She remembers the phone in her hand. She looks down. Her heart’s still beating a little fast. “The symptoms are confusion, slurred speech, changes to the eyes including movement and pupil size, coordination and balance issues, vomiting--”

“See? We’re all good,” Ron says.

“--fluid loss from the nose or ears,” Samantha continues, calming herself with the familiar routine of reading out a list of symptoms, even if it’s not the type of list she usually recites. “Loss of consciousness, headache, not remembering what happened, and seizures.”

“None of those sound like me,” Ron says. “Well, except for the headache, but this ice pack is pretty cold. It might be like an ice cream headache? Hey, when you get your tonsils out, you get ice cream. Maybe we should have some.”

Samantha doesn’t ignore her realizations, but she sets them aside for the moment, to be re-examined when she has time and privacy to understand them. She gives Ron a smile that feels mostly natural. “Nice try, but let’s do a few balance tests and then we’ll talk about ice cream.”

Ron passes the tests, and at his hopeful look Terry gives Samantha a slight shrug before he opens up the freezer and pulls out some ice cream. It’s Ron’s favorite flavor: vanilla.

Samantha eats hers slowly, gathering her thoughts. She dawdles until half of her bowl is just melted ice cream.

When Ron sets his spoon down, she clears her throat.

“Ron, before you go, I think an apology’s in order.”

Ron straightens in his chair, fumbling with his spoon. “It is? Uh. Yeah. Okay. I’m sorry for walking into your door. I hope I didn’t break it--”

Despite the emotions churning her stomach, she laughs. “No, no! Sorry, I should have been clearer. I feel like I overstepped a boundary by hugging you and I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, so if you….” She trails off, because Ron’s staring at her, unblinking. “Ron?”

Ron finally blinks. His face gets pink. “The hug was, uh, nice. You’re really good at them.” He turns to Terry. “Am I right?”

Terry smiles slightly. Samantha wonders how she ever missed the softness to his smiles. “She’s got a PhD in hugging,” he agrees.

“Huh, wonder what kind of classes you’d have to take for that,” Ron mumbles. Then he looks back at Samantha. He leans forward a little. “Uh, I liked-- it wasn’t the hug. It. You, um, you called me Ronnie.”

Samantha thinks back. “I did?” She doesn’t remember. She just remembers the way he went practically boneless in her arms. “If you don’t like nicknames--”

“No!” Ron says, loud enough that both she and Terry jump. He bites his lip. “I mean. It’s a pretty good nickname. Kind of rolls off the tongue, you know? So. So if you want to call me that it’s. Uh. Good? It’ll be nice to, it’ll be nice to have a nickname.”

“Okay, Ronnie,” Samantha says, testing out the name. Ron’s right. It does roll off the tongue.

Ron gives her a half-pleased, half-flustered smile.

Samantha’s phone, set down and half-forgotten beside her bowl, buzzes. When she looks down, she sees a text from Terry Junior.

Is Dad on his way? I thought he was picking me up at 8.

She twists in her chair and casts a look at the clock. She immediately texts back, Sorry, sweetheart. Ron hit his head and we were making sure he’s okay. Your dad will be there soon, as she says, “Terry Junior is wondering where you are, Terry.”

Terry blinks, and then looks a little guilty. “Right.” Now that she’s paying attention, she can see the way he hesitates for a second before he gives Ron a pat on the shoulder. “Take the ice pack home and put in your freezer. You should put it on the bruise tomorrow morning too. It’ll help.”

“Okay,” Ron says.

A few minutes later, Samantha is alone. Well, alone with her thoughts anyway.

Everything is fine.

So Terry thought he was over his feelings from Christmas Eve and it turned out he hadn’t quite stamped them out. It’s fine. He’ll handle it.

He focuses on the vacation. It’s been years since they’ve gotten out to New Jersey to see family. It’s good to see them, good to spend time with them face to face instead of through phone calls and video chats, good to go to Six Flags and watch Terry Junior enjoy himself even if Terry is regulated to the sidelines with rollercoasters.

If Samantha seems a little quiet during the week, that’s probably just his paranoia talking. She always gets jetlagged more than Terry and Terry Junior. She still makes a fuss over his brother’s dog, a Labrador puppy who spends most of the week trying to chew all of Terry’s shoes to pieces. It’s a good vacation.

When they get back to San Dimas, he throws himself into work. Tax Day is less than a month away, which means his firm is at its busiest.

Then Samantha asks, “Can we talk?”

He looks up from the file he’s brought home. Her face is unfocused until he takes off his glasses, but he still can’t read her expression when it’s brought into clarity. The unfamiliar expression brings the paranoia back. He sets the file aside slowly. “Of course.”

Samantha has something in her hands. She keeps turning it over and over between her fingers. It takes him a few seconds to recognize it as a thumb drive.

Terry watches the constant movement. “What did you want to talk about?”

“Ron.”

His stomach doesn’t sink so much as plummet. His throat gets dry, but he thinks he feigns confusion when he says, “What about him? Are we finally making plans for the friendship anniversary?”

Samantha gives him a little look at that. This one he recognizes. It’s a fainter echo of all the times he tried to avoid an uncomfortable situation or joked or changed the subject after his heart attack. “No. Maybe later. I have some thoughts about-- Hm.” She stops, bites her lip. “We should talk about the night before our vacation.”

Terry doesn’t think his stomach could fall even further, but it feels like it. Tension tightens his shoulders. She’s standing beside his chair, her hand resting on the back of it. He wants to get up and pace. He wants to sit very still and play it cool.

“Terry,” Samantha says. Her hand rises and rests against the nape of his neck.

It’s not the exact same as when he cradled Ron’s, but the parallel still makes him swallow hard enough that he knows she must feel it. She saw, he thinks. She saw and now she wants to talk about it. “I--” Even that single word catches in his throat.

“Terry?” It’s a question, but he can’t answer her.

Why didn’t he squash this ridiculousness back in December before he screwed everything up? He can’t imagine how she’s feeling. He doesn’t even know where to start with an apology and a promise that nothing happened. He--

“Hey,” Samantha says. She’s frowning now. Her hand squeezes his nape slightly. Her other hand sets the flash drive onto the table and then cups his cheek. “Ter. You’re okay, sweetheart.”

The worst part is that she sounds concerned for him, when she should be angry or betrayed or--

He gives a little shake of his head, but she holds onto him.

Samantha bends down to meet his eyes. “Terry. It’s okay! It's, actually, well--” A smile flits across her face, wide and warm and so unexpected that it knocks some of the panic out of Terry’s mind by dint of sheer surprise. “That’s why I wanted to talk about it.”

Terry takes a deep breath. If she can still smile at him like that, maybe things aren’t completely screwed up beyond repair. “Nothing-- nothing happened. I know what you saw, but I wouldn’t--”

He stops as she kisses his forehead. “Oh, honey. I know you wouldn’t. That was never a question. Take another breath, okay?”

He closes his eyes and obeys. His shoulders still ache from tension, but he breathes slightly easier.

“How long have you been feeling like this?” Samantha asks softly.

When he opens his eyes, he sees concern in her face. His mouth twists. The urge to deflect rises and then passes. “A while. I thought I was handling it, but….” He shrugs. “Apparently not.”

“I wish you’d come to me,” Samantha says. Then she gives her head a shake. “That wasn’t an accusation. I hope it didn’t sound like one. What I mean is that you can always come to me about anything. We’re a team.”

“I know,” Terry says. “This is just….”

“Really big,” Samantha says when he trails off. Again that unexpected smile forms. This time it lingers. “But your feelings are good and understandable. It’s Ron.” She kisses his forehead again while he processes her words and her smile and then steps back. “Can I show you my presentation? I think it will help.”

“...Your presentation?”

Samantha picks up her thumb drive.

Surprise has banished some of his panic. Now confusion crowds out a little more while he watches her plug the thumb drive into his laptop.

She leans over him, resting her chin on his shoulder as she pulls up a file aptly called presentation. “I worked really hard on it. I tried doing some research online, but it kept directing me to awful websites on how to cheat.” She wrinkles her nose. “So I fell back on the basics to a healthy foundation for relationships.”

“Uh huh,” Terry says, slightly mystified.

The first page is titled TERRY and seems to be a list.

“Devoted husband,” he reads once he gets his glasses back on, even more bemused. “Loving father. Compassionate. Loyal. Wonderful. Extremely hot--” He stops, blinking.

Samantha still has her chin on his shoulder. Her soft, rueful laugh ghosts across his cheek. “I may have included that one before I realized you were feeling guilt and a lot negative emotions about this.”

Terry makes a vague sound of acknowledgment, still squinting at the screen.

Samantha taps to the next slide. This one’s entitled RON.

Terry reads over this list silently. It’s similar in some ways to his own. Devoted friend. Funny. Unique. Enthusiastic. Magnificent mustache. The last one startles a choked laugh from him. “What is this?”

“First the slides, then questions,” Samantha says and goes to the next one.

This time Terry expects it to say SAMANTHA.

He’s still confused, but Samantha is standing behind him, smiling and occasionally laughing. Dread and panic is starting to ebb away, even if he doesn’t know where this presentation is leading. He reads over the ridiculously short list of her virtues.

Before she can go to the next slide, he clicks on the page.

“What are you doing?” Samantha asks, a tinge of surprise in her voice now.

“Adding modest, because I can think of a dozen other positive adjectives to describe you.”

He’s rewarded by another laugh. “Stop! I worked hard on this.” She clicks through to the next slide before he can finish typing. She’s now mode instead of modest, which is amusing right up until Terry looks at the title of this slide. DYNAMIC RELATIONSHIPS.

Relationships shouldn’t be static, he reads. All couples experience evolving needs and desires.

He shifts in his chair, enough that Samantha straightens a little so that his jaw doesn’t collide with the side of her face. He rereads the sentence, trying to make sense of it. Evolving desires? “Samantha--”

“Just keep reading,” she says. “I know it gets a little...therapist-y...but it was the only way I could figure out how to, well, phrase things.” For the first time Terry recognizes nerves in his wife’s voice. He remembers her earlier fidgeting with the thumb drive and wonders if that was nervousness too.

To have a healthy and successful partnership, a couple needs to communicate and be honest with themselves and each other.

Samantha takes a deep breath behind him. “Last slide.”

The final slide is a Venn diagram of three circles. The circles are labeled with Terry, Samantha, and Ron’s names. Terry can’t quite wrap his brain around it. He reads bits and pieces of the diagram -- Samantha and Ron’s overlapping circles including a shared love of puzzles -- but his gaze narrows down to the middle, which has all three names and two simple words.

Love and happiness.

Terry had a spy phase as a kid. Who didn’t? But suddenly he feels like a man who’s just been handed a cipher book to a secret code he doesn’t know or understand. His knees go weak. If he wasn’t sitting down, he would have sat right down on the floor.

He fumbles with his glasses. Then he turns and stares at Samantha.

She smiles, a nervous and excited smile. “I almost called it my Venn diagram of potential happiness, but it seemed a little wordy,” she confides. Then she bites her lip. “So, um. I...I think we should talk about feelings and desires and...what we both want.”

Terry keeps staring. He searches Samantha’s face. The sincerity in her expression rocks him. She means this. She saw him fight his feelings that night, thought about it, and made an entire presentation on why she thinks the three of them could work together.

He looks back at the screen, but the text blurs. This feels wrong. He remembers the looks and comments he got in college when people figured out he was dating a guy. Things are a lot better now, but there’s no way people will understand this.

And what would ‘this’ be anyway? All three of them squeezed together on the couch, holding hands as they watch movies? Ron naming every one of the birds in their backyard instead of the ones on his balcony? Samantha bending and giving Ron a hug any time she wants? Terry getting to lower his newspaper every morning and see the three people he loves the best?

It sounds wrong. It sounds too good to be true.

Terry’s chest hurts with how much he wants it, even if it still feels impossible.

His expression must change, because Samantha’s features light up. She reaches out, cups his face in her hands. He can’t tell if she’s trembling a little, or he is, or if they’re feeling so much that they’re both shaking.

“It makes sense, doesn’t it?” she says, smiling. Her thumbs stroke across his cheeks, a gesture she’s made hundreds of times before. He still savors it as she adds, “We both love him. We both want him to be part of this relationship.”

She says it so easily. Terry’s chest hurts even more, this time with love and wonder. How did he get lucky enough to marry such an amazing woman? He doesn’t trust himself to speak, just nods. But this moment demands an answer said aloud. He swallows.

The words come out slightly scratchy.

“Yes. We do.”

Samantha sighs, a relieved, happy sound, and leans forward to kiss him.

Then she pauses and laughs. “Oh! We’re going to have to think of something really special for the friendship anniversary!”

Terry kisses her back, a little dizzy with happiness himself. When the kiss ends, he grins at her.

“You mean you don’t have a presentation for that too?”

Chapter Text

Samantha sets down another puzzle piece in the wrong spot.

Ron squints at the puzzle, and then glances sideways at Samantha. Usually she’s great at puzzles, probably the best at them, though he’s no slouch either. She figures out the edges while Ron sorts matching colors for the middle. They make a pretty good puzzle team.

Tonight, though, she’s been slapping pieces down pretty willy-nilly.

Ron picks up the one she just put down. “That’s a center piece.”

Samantha blinks and then gives a little laugh. “Oh. It is, isn’t it?”

“Yep,” Ron says.

“Sorry, I think I’m just--” Samantha stops. She’s got another puzzle piece in her hand, but she just twirls it between her fingers like a coin. “Actually, Ron, we have an idea that we wanted to talk to you about.”

Terry looks up at that, a sharp, sudden movement. Ron can’t figure out if he’s surprised or confused or something else. He abandons his sudoku either way. “Yeah,” he agrees. He takes Samantha’s other hand and gives it a squeeze.

Ron glances between them. There’s a weird energy in the air. It doesn’t make him nervous, exactly, but he can’t tell if it’s good news or bad news. “Okay,” he says slowly.

“So you know we both like you a lot,” Samantha says.

Despite the strange energy, Ron grins. Making that Petfinder ad was maybe the best idea he’s ever had. It let him meet the two coolest people in the world. It’s weird to think of a time without puzzles or hikes or dinners. “I like you too!”

Samantha and Terry both smile back. No, they do more than smile. Their faces light up.

Ron’s clearly said something right. Maybe it’s good news after all.

“Good,” Samantha says. She’s still holding Terry’s hand. “And the thing is, we’ve been talking and we both realize that we really like you.”

“You’re our best friend,” Terry adds.

Samantha nods. “Our very best friend. And you’re, well, you’re more than that too.”

It’s like a word puzzle, but Ron’s never been very good at those. What’s more than a very best friend? Ron’s still trying to figure it out when Samantha leans forward a little, her smile still bright.

“Dinners and hiking and puzzles are wonderful, but we want to spend more time with you.”

Ron might not have solved the puzzle, but he smiles. That sounds great. Hanging out with Terry and Samantha is the best part of his week. He tries to think of what they could do together. “We could do a cooking class, maybe? If there’s one that’s not the same nights as Terry Junior’s practices. Or go to the Nature Center! Last time I got weird looks for going alone, but who doesn’t want to see cool animals? There’s Planet Rehab, too.”

“Great ideas,” Terry says. He’s still smiling, but maybe he’s got something in his throat because he coughs a little before he adds, “We can make it a date.”

Ron starts to laugh, but Terry doesn’t laugh at his own joke and neither does Samantha.

Instead Samantha bites her lip, her smile going a little lopsided. She looks at Ron so intensely that he has to fight the urge to find a mirror and see if there’s something on his face. After a long second, she says, “Yes. If you want it to be.”

Ron resists the urge to frown. He doesn’t understand the punchline. That’s one thing he likes about Terry and Samantha though. They’ll explain their jokes if he asks. “I don’t get it?”

Samantha and Terry exchange a look. Terry looks slightly rueful. “I guess we’re not explaining ourselves very well, huh.”

“Second time’s the charm,” Ron says encouragingly. “Okay, it's usually the third time, like in all the fairytales, but you guys can get it in two. I believe in you.”

That gets a laugh out of Samantha, even if it’s not as loud as her usual laughs. “Thanks, Ronnie.”

Ron gets the same jolt he did the first time she called him that. It’s so nice to have a nickname. He’s never had one before. It makes him happy and a little warm, like he’s sitting in a ray of sunshine even though the sun’s already set. He smiles at her, and watches her expression soften.

“So,” Samantha says. She bites her lip again. Then she smiles that lopsided smile as Terry squeezes her hand and says something under his breath that doesn’t make sense at all. Venn diagram of happiness? She takes a deep breath. “Maybe it’ll be easier to explain if we show you?”

“Okay,” Ron says. He gets up when she and Terry do, follows them up the stairs, past the family photographs and down the hallway. It takes Ron a second to realize they’re leading him to the bedroom he slept in on Christmas Eve.

It hasn’t really changed. Same covers, same pillows.

“We both like you so much,” Samantha says. “And we want to spend more time with you.”

Ron’s about to remind her that she said that already, but she takes a deep breath and keeps talking.

“We would like to go on dates with you.”

Ron almost laughs again, but Samantha’s still staring too intently at him for it to be a joke, even if it has to be one. He gives a little shrug. “I mean, I’m sure it’d be fun.” Everything with Terry and Samantha is. “But I'd be kind of a third wheel, huh?”

Samantha and Terry give each other another look. It’s like they’re having a whole conversation without him. When Samantha speaks again, it’s slowly, the way people do when Ron keeps missing the point. He feels his stomach twist with a mixture of embarrassment and frustration.

“No, Ronnie, we want to date you.”

Ron doesn’t get it for a second. Then he does. All the emotions churning in his gut disappear, replaced by alarm. He stares up at Samantha, who’s smiling at him, but now he can see the nervous edge to it. If Samantha wasn’t married, he’d be jumping for joy and wondering how he’s the luckiest man in the world, but she is.

“Oh, no, am I a homewrecker?”

The smile freezes on Samantha’s face. She looks confused. “What? No, Ron--”

“I don’t want to be a homewrecker! They wreck homes and they’re awful and your home is so nice and Terry Junior would be so mad--”

“Ron,” Terry says. He doesn’t sound mad. And he doesn’t look mad. Ron’s still anxious, but he feels a little less like he broke something when Terry smiles at him. “There’s no homewrecking.”

“We want you in our home,” Samantha adds, gesturing at the bedroom.

“Both of us,” Terry says.

Ron stares. Terry is the numbers guy, but Ron always thought he was pretty decent with them himself, being a good businessman. But this feels like he’s adding two plus two and getting twenty. Or like they’re both talking in Pig Latin. He never did figure out that language.

“Um,” he says.

Terry takes a deep breath. “We want to date you. Samantha and I.” He makes a small, jerky circle with his hand, gesturing at himself, Samantha, and Ron. “It would be all three of us together.”

“How,” Ron says. He can see the shape of what they’re saying now, but he still doesn’t understand it. His mouth feels dry. “How would it…?”

“We’d go on dates,” Samantha says, beaming at him. “And you can move into the guest bedroom, of course, though it wouldn’t be a guest bedroom anymore, just--”

She keeps talking, but a buzzing in Ron’s ears drowns out her words.

A buzzing, and a voice in the back of his head that sounds like his dad saying that it would’ve been better to be a homewrecker than whatever this is. He should’ve known finding two awesome friends was too good to be true. He just can’t figure out where he messed up. Was it at his apartment, when he showed them his puzzles and they argued about the holidays? Did they decide then that he couldn’t live on his own?

He can live on his own. He has a job, pays his taxes, feeds his birds, mostly eats the food in his fridge before it spoils and he has to throw it out. He thought they got that. He thought they understood him better than anyone else did.

“Ron?”

He blinks when someone says his name.

Terry and Samantha are watching him, frowns replacing their smiles.

Sometimes it feels like there’s a disconnect between Ron’s brain and his mouth. What he thinks comes out all wrong when he tries to say it out loud. This time his thoughts mostly don’t get lost in translation.

“I don't have to move back in with my parents. Or anyone else's parents!”

Samantha blinks. A furrow appears in her forehead. “Ron--”

“I don’t need to move into anyone’s spare room. I was doing fine! I was just lo--” The word catches in his throat. When he slept here Christmas Eve he’d thought the bedroom was nice, like everything is about their house, but now it seems smaller. The walls close in on him, and Terry and Samantha both look like he kicked the puppy he pretended to be almost a year ago, and he needs--

“I need to go. Um. Can I go? I want to go.”

There’s silence, except for the buzzing in Ron’s ears.

Then Terry says, “Of course,” and Samantha bites her lip and nods.

Samantha’s twisting her hands together in front of her. They both look so sad. Sad and disappointed, and Ron still can’t figure out where he screwed up for this to happen. He can hear the shaky note in Samantha’s voice when she says, “You don’t have to give us an answer now. Just--”

There’s a space between them now, a direct path to the hallway.

Ron slips through the gap.

He hunches in on himself, but they don’t stop him. They don’t say anything else, either. He can feel the weight of their eyes on him, though. He almost trips on the stairs and definitely fumbles with the front door handle, which keeps slipping out of his hand.

Finally he’s outside. He feels like he’s run a marathon. Each breath hurts.

He needs to think. He can’t think here.

Ron goes home.

Terry Junior’s not a little kid anymore, so his dad doesn’t read to him.

Instead it’s Terry Junior reading out loud a book they both want to read, a chapter a night. It’s fun. Sometimes his dad will help out with voices, but it’s mostly Terry Junior reading it. His dad’s really good at British accents. His mom joins in too every once in a while with the female voices, but they’re doing Lord of the Rings right now. Apparently there aren’t a lot of girls in that one.

Terry Junior focuses on the page and tries to remember how he’s doing everyone’s voices.

‘But it does not seem that I can trust anyone,' said Frodo.

Sam looked at him unhappily. ‘It all depends on what you want,' put in Merry. 'You can trust us to stick with you through thick and thin--to the bitter end. And you can trust us to keep any secret of yours--closer than you keep it yourself. But you cannot trust us to let you face trouble alone, and go off without a word. We are your friends, Frodo.’

Terry Junior keeps reading. It’s only when he gets to the end of the page and pauses at the song that he realizes his dad’s not paying attention.

Usually his dad loves making up the melody for Tolkien songs, even if sometimes they’re usually off-key. Tonight he’s frowning and staring off into space. Terry Junior’s not sure how long he’s been zoned out, but he’s obviously zoned out now.

“Dad?”

His dad gives a little start. “Oh. Sorry. I just-- I’m a little distracted.”

Terry Junior squints at him. His dad looks distracted, but he looks tired too. It’s been almost a year and a half since his dad’s heart attack, and everything’s good, but Terry Junior still feels that familiar twist of anxiety. “We can read this chapter tomorrow night. If you want to sleep.”

His dad takes off his reading glasses and rubs at his eyes for a second. The distant look leaves his face as he gives Terry Junior a long glance. One corner of his mouth turns up, though it’s not his usual wide smile. “I’m okay, buddy. Tax season.”

“Right,” Terry Junior says, but he starts watching his dad carefully. If something’s up, he wants to know.

The next morning, he realizes his mom is quiet too. He doesn’t get why until he catches her staring towards the fridge where magnets hold up a calendar. Then he sees the date and it clicks.

“It’s April 4th. Weren’t you going to do something with Ron yesterday?”

“Oh,” his mom says. She’s holding a mug of tea. She rubs her thumb against the handle. “Ron’s been a little busy.”

“Yeah,” his dad says without lowering his newspaper.

Terry Junior looks between them, but neither of them meet his eyes.

“Okay,” he says slowly. He waits for one of them to elaborate, like when they’re actually going to do the weird anniversary thing his mom’s been excited about, but his mom keeps fiddling with the mug and his dad stays behind the wall of his newspaper. There’s a weird tension, the kind Terry Junior remembers from when they used to fight without fighting over his dad’s heart--

The penny drops.

Terry Junior ducks his face behind his own glass of apple juice to hide his own expression.

Terry Junior has always known that Ron has a crush on his mom. It’s been obvious from the first night when Ron showed up with his gross spoiled milk and tried to sit in his dad’s chair. He never got why his dad couldn’t see it, but he just guesses his dad trusts his mom so much that he’s blind to Ron’s feelings.

He guesses Ron finally made his move.

Terry Junior starts to take a deep swallow of his juice and realizes he’s gritting his teeth so hard that he has to relax his jaw. He’s angry, he realizes. Angry that Ron actually thought his mom would choose him over his dad.

There’s a whole jumble of emotions in his stomach. He picks at his cereal, no longer hungry. Instead he’s irritated that it took this long and relieved that Ron finally screwed up and won’t be coming over anymore. And there’s guilt, too, for feeling relieved, because his parents are obviously sad that their friend turned out to be a jerk.

He unclenches his jaw again. His parents are sad, but they have other friends.

Good riddance.

Ron figures he’ll think better at his apartment, but he’s wrong. He guesses he’s wrong about a lot of things. Being in his apartment means he’s surrounded by stuff that reminds him of Samantha and Terry. The framed puzzles. The bird feeder. The cookbooks.

Even when he retreats to his own bedroom, his thoughts don’t settle. When he tries to sleep, he just sees their sad faces, remembers the bedroom offer like he can’t live on his own, thinks about what they wanted--

No. He doesn’t think about that last part. Or he tries not to, at least. If he thinks about that, he thinks about what his dad would think of Samantha and Terry, and that twists up his stomach.

He doesn’t sleep very well that night. Or the next night. Or the whole week, really. He’s tempted to call Beth May and ask for advice. But what if she told him he shouldn’t talk to Samantha and Terry anymore? He doesn’t want that. He misses them.

The days fall back into a familiar pattern. He makes breakfast, goes to work, comes home, feeds the birds, makes dinner, tries to sleep. It’s everything he used to do before he met Samantha and Terry, but somehow the hours feel longer.

He tries to hold onto the frustration about the bedroom. It’s easier to be angry about that. He’s never been good at staying angry, though. The anger sputters out like a car running out of gas. Now he can’t get away from the other thoughts.

Samantha and Terry want to date him.

He must’ve tricked them somehow or given them some weird signal. Or maybe he just misjudged them. One of the things he always liked best about them was how they both listen. They don’t mind that sometimes he doesn’t understand part of the conversation or he gets distracted. He likes that their conversations always feel like a good back and forth.

Or at least they did. The last conversation sits like a rock in his stomach. It was Samantha and Terry talking and talking and not giving him time to think, looking at him like he should have an answer right away for something crazy. He still doesn’t understand the dating thing. They want something that’s weird and wrong. If his dad was alive--

He doesn’t want to think about that, what his dad would say, the names he would call Terry especially. It makes him queasy. He just has to figure out how to fix this so everything will be okay and he can hang out with Samantha and Terry again.

Ron doesn’t know how to fix this. He can’t talk to Beth May, and he can’t talk to them, and he doesn’t have anyone else. He tries talking it out with the birds, tripping and fumbling over his words. They’re good listeners, but they can’t give him advice. They just eat their seeds and fly off.

Another week passes. Time seems to slow like a clock winding down. He’s so tired.

He messes up at work. Nothing big, but something small and stupid that gets him a disappointed look from his manager. It’s the final straw somehow, the one that breaks the camel’s back. Or maybe it’s a donkey’s back? He doesn’t know how a straw breaks anyone’s back. But he has to sleep.

His dad would drink, sometimes, to get to sleep. The stack of beer cans on the coffee table meant Ron could stay up late reading or watching TV without worrying about his dad getting mad over something that Ron did wrong.

There’s a bar that he passes on his way home to work called The Rock. He’s never gone inside, but he’s always liked the sign, a rock that flashes all the colors of the rainbow. It’s kind of pretty, except pretty’s probably the wrong word for it.

The sign switches from red to orange as he pulls into the almost full parking lot.

When he gets inside, the bar is crowded. Music is blasting from speakers so loudly that the sound almost drives all the thoughts from his head. Maybe that’s one reason people like coming to bars, so they don’t have to think. Ron really doesn’t want to think right now.

He slips through the crowd, skirting the dance floor where people are jumping around to the music, and climbs up onto an empty stool at the bar.

The bartender gives him a smile just like in the movies. She’s got a lot of tattoos, flowers blooming on her shoulder and the side of her neck. “A new face. Welcome to the Rock.”

“Uh, thanks.”

The bartender slides a laminated sheet to him.

It’s the alcohol menu, divided into sections. There’s a cocktail list.

The brief peace of the too loud music vanishes. Ron can almost taste the mocktail that Samantha made for him that first dinner, the ghost of orange flavor in his mouth. He swallows, his throat tight again, and sets the menu down on the bar.

“Ready to order?”

Ron doesn’t look at the bartender. He stares down at the bar surface instead. It's polished wood, and shiny with age. He can almost see his own face in it as he says, raising his voice awkwardly to be heard above the music, “Uh. I’ll just. Can I just have something, um, manly? Like something a real man’s man would drink if you, uh, if you know what I mean?”

There’s a pause. Maybe he didn’t say it loud enough? But then the bartender says, “Sure thing.”

The drink she sets down in front of him is almost a gold color. “A Manhattan,” she says.

Ron doesn’t know what that is, but it sounds like a guy’s drink. He takes a sip and almost chokes. It burns its way down his throat, strong and so bitter that his eyes water a little. He liked Samantha’s mocktail a lot better, he thinks. The sadness crowds in on him again.

He tries to drink some more, but the second swallow burns worse. He coughs. The bitter taste is stronger now. He rubs at his mouth like that will make it go away, but it doesn’t. How do people like this? This isn’t going to help him sleep, it’s just going to hurt his throat. And his stomach aches like the alcohol’s punching his stomach.

This was a bad idea.

“Can I have some milk?”

The bartender gives him a look. It’s one that means she doesn’t know if he’s joking or serious. “Milk?”

“If you want to get the taste out of your mouth, try a Shirley Temple,” a new voice, warm and cheerful, suggests. There’s a woman leaning against the bar next to him, flushed and sweaty under the lights, her hair curling wildly around her face like she’s been dancing. She gives him a smile.

“Uh, yeah,” Ron says, though he doesn’t know what kind of drink that is. Anything would be better than this Manhattan though. He’ll get the taste of it out of his mouth and go home. Maybe some chamomile tea will help him sleep. “I’ll get that.”

“And I’ll order another round, same drinks as before, please,” the woman says to the bartender, who nods.

The Shirley Temple mostly tastes like ginger ale. He drinks it slowly, relieved. Or at least relieved until he realizes this is probably a mocktail too. He wonders if Samantha knows about this one. The thought’s like another punch to his stomach.

“Still no good?” the woman asks.

“No, it’s-- it’s good, I just, uh….” Ron can’t figure out how to explain why he’s sad, so he just stops talking and drinks a little more of the Shirley Temple.

The bartender sets a couple drinks in front of the woman, but she doesn’t leave. Instead she smiles and offers her hand to him. “First time here? Welcome to the Rock.”

“Uh, yeah,” Ron says. “Hello.” He takes her hand and shakes it carefully like his dad taught him. He drops her hand. He doesn’t want to think about his dad, not while he’s sitting in this bar trying not to think about Samantha or Terry.

The woman gives him a look like she’s trying to read his mind.

“Is this your first time swinging?”

Ron looks out at the floor where people are still dancing. “That’s not swing dancing.”

She laughs.

He’s not sure why that’s funny, but he tries to smile like he meant it as a joke.

“If you’re nervous, everyone’s pretty friendly here,” the woman says. “Pat’s pretty good at keeping jerks out of the bar.” She pauses to sip at her own drink for a minute, something bright blue and pretty looking. Then she adds, “And if you’re new to the scene, there’s plenty of people around willing to offer advice. We all want everyone to have a good time.”

Ron guesses it is pretty obvious he’s new to bars. “Thanks.” Then the part about advice clicks. He can’t ask Beth May for advice, because if she says he shouldn’t talk to Samantha and Terry again, he’ll have to listen to her, because she’s one of the smartest people he knows. But he doesn’t have to listen to strangers, and maybe they’ll give him some good advice.

He fiddles with his Shirley Temple. “Um. I don’t need advice. But my friend--” He temporarily blanks on a name. “C-Conrad? Yeah, Conrad. Conrad sure could use some advice. He’s in a real pickle, you know?”

The woman nods slowly. She’s been leaning against the bar, but now she hops up onto the stool next to him, settles in like she’s ready to hear the whole story. “Let’s see if we can get Conrad out of this pickle,” she says. “What’s going on with Conrad?”

Ron licks his lips. It takes him a minute to assemble his thoughts.

“Conrad is best friends with this couple. They're great. Like, S-Sarah is so smart and the best at puzzles, and T-Tommy is a real good guy. And Conrad really likes hanging out with them, you know? He, uh, he really likes having a best friend, and having two is just, uh, it was like winning the lottery. Meeting them was the best thing that’s ever happened to-- to him.”

“But?” the woman asks when he stops.

Ron squirms on his bar stool. Even if this woman thinks he’s talking about his friend, he still gets nervous, trying to explain. “But. Uh. They asked him something and he doesn’t know, uh, what to do about it, because it's a little weird. Like people don't do that, you know? And he feels bad ‘cause they were so excited, but uh. It's not.... Uh. Normal? But they’re not bad people. They’re just-- they’re great, actually, and I don’t know why they want-- I mean, I don’t know why and neither does C-Conrad.”

“And what do they want?”

Ron’s mouth is really dry. He takes another gulp of his drink.

“They invited him on a date. Except not as a third wheel but as a-- a third person? Like a date for all three of them. If that makes sense. Maybe it doesn’t. It took me a while to wrap my brain around it, uh, after Conrad told me about it, I mean. They actually invited him on a lot of dates and, uh, asked him to move in.”

He should probably stop, because the woman will probably have questions, but once he starts explaining he can’t stop.

“He doesn't know what to do. He likes his apartment and he likes his birds and he doesn’t need them to take care of him, you know? He thought they knew that. He’s, uh, a grown man who can live on his own and do his own taxes, even if maybe T--Teddy could do his taxes a little better. And um, then there’s the. The dating thing, and he doesn’t-- that’s not something--”

Now he does stop because his throat is tight. “He doesn’t know what to do."

The woman doesn’t say anything for a minute. Then she lets out a sharp breath through her nose. “Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy that’s a lot,” she says. He can’t tell if she’s talking to herself or to him.

She finishes off her drink and sets it very slowly down on the bar. Then she holds up her hands. “On the one hand, falling in love with best friends is great! I fell in love with my best friend and it was wonderful. Still is wonderful. On the other hand, that's a whole lot. On the other-- no, too many hands. Hm. Okay. We can figure this out for you-- for your friend Conrad.”

“We can?” Ron asks hopefully.

She nods. A determined look settles onto her face. She’s still got her hands up. Now she holds up one finger. “So we have to look at the Big Question first, right?” He can hear the capital letters with the way she emphasizes the words. “Do you want to date them?”

“Um,” Ron says. The sound catches in his throat, but she waves that finger again.

“That’s the question, right? Well, unless you’re Shakespeare. Then it's to be or not to be. I guess tonight it’s to date or not to date. You have to figure that out. And sometimes it takes a while! My husband and I, we took time, but it was worth it.”

Ron waits, thinking she’s going to ask him again, his face hot, but she just stares past her finger, her face going soft and distracted. He twists on his stool, trying to work out where she’s looking. Probably at her husband, but there are so many people on the dance floor.

They’re still not swing dancing, but a lot of them are dancing really close together. Close enough that he can’t tell who’s dancing with who. It almost looks like people are dancing together in groups of threes and fours, but that can’t be right.

“So do you want to date them?” the woman asks. She makes a face. “I mean, do you think Conrad wants to date them? Because it’s okay if he doesn’t. And it’s okay if he does!”

It’s only now sinking in that the woman seems fine about the dating married people thing. He searches her expression. “It is?”

The woman nods fervently. “Of course! Some people have so much love in their heart, they need to share it with a couple of people. And some people--”

She keeps talking, but it’s Ron’s turn to get distracted. He feels like he’s been trying to figure out a puzzle but this whole time he’s been playing 3D chess like on that Star Trek show Samantha likes. Not that he knows how to play chess, but if what Samantha and Terry were asking is allowed, if his dad was wrong, then….

“So if he does, that’s definitely okay. That’s wonderful,” the woman says. “You just have to make sure the dating thing is for the right reasons!”

“The right reasons?”

The woman forgets that she finished her drink already and tries to drink it again. She makes a face and orders another one. Then she turns back to Ron.

“Well. You know. Sometimes people want you to be a Band-Aid, but you shouldn't be a Band-Aid! Band-Aids can't fit on two people at once, that's just silly. And people aren't Band-Aids. Don't be a Band-Aid! It ends bad, and somehow you end up being the bad guy and your nice shirt gets grass stains ‘cause it was thrown onto the lawn with the rest of your stuff-- anyway! If they want you to fix things for them, that’s bad. ...Is what I would say to Conrad. If he were here.”

She pauses, then sighs. “I really liked that shirt….”

Ron’s still processing stuff, but he’s also pretty sure the woman’s confused. “Sa--Sarah and Tim don’t need a Band-Aid,” he assures her. “I thought-- Conrad thought-- he’d messed them up, because they love each other so much and he thought he was a homewrecker and-- but I-- he’s not? He’s not. So that’s good.”

Coming here was a great idea, almost as good as the Petfinder one. Alcohol’s still awful though. His stomach hurts, but in a good way. It feels like he swallowed butterflies. He’s not a homewrecker, he’s-- He doesn’t know what the opposite of a homewrecker is called. There’s probably a word for it.

The woman nods, but she’s still frowning. “There was a second Big Question. What was it? It was...oh, homewrecker. Home. Right. Wanting y-- Conrad to move in is really fast. So.” She chews her lower lip for a second. “That’s a lot.”

“Yeah,” Ron agrees.

“You don’t want to be a Band-Aid. And you don’t want to be a unicorn.”

Ron blinks. “You don’t?” He always thought unicorns sounded nice in fairytales.

“No,” she says firmly. The bartender’s gotten her another drink. She waves it at Ron for emphasis. “Because then you have to watch out for hunters.”

“Oh,” Ron says, a little alarmed. “That sounds bad.”

The woman nods. “So you have to think really hard about Sarah and Tim, okay? They shouldn’t make you a unicorn or a Band-Aid. Or try to make you move in if you don't want to move in. Or tell you that you can't date anyone else if you want to date other people. Or ask you to keep it a secret.”

“Hm,” Ron says. “That doesn't sound right…” Now that he thinks about it, he doesn’t think they said he had to move in. Just that they wanted him to.

“And they have to let you have friends! They can't keep you all to themselves. No birdcages. No Band-Aids, no unicorns, no bird--”

“I like birds,” Ron says.

The woman pauses, blinks. Then she nods. “Birds are great! Cages are bad. Don't let them put you in a cage!”

Ron’s a little confused now. That’s a lot of metaphors she’s throwing around. Or are they similes? He never remembers the difference. But if she’s talking about the bedroom, he doesn’t think that was a cage. They let him leave when he wanted to.

She’s staring expectantly at him.

“I won’t?” he says, guessing at the right answer. She gives another nod, so he must’ve been right.

“A good relationship is a circle where everyone's equal. Well, sometimes it's a triangle. And sometimes, like for my friend Gabriela, it can even be a heptagon! I never know how she manages it, but, hm, not important for you, probably. Just, you have to make sure the shape works for everyone. You deserve a wonderful circle.”

Ron remembers Terry whispering to Samantha. “A Venn diagram of happiness?” Those are circles, aren’t they?

The woman blinks. Then she smiles. “Yes!” She tilts her head. “If I’d had a nice Venn diagram, maybe I would’ve bailed out of that relationship sooner. Just thinking about that dog is….” She gives a little shudder. “I like dogs! But not small, yappy ones that bite you, and don’t get in trouble for biting you because ‘she’s so small, she can’t really hurt you.’” She pitches her voice low, like she’s quoting someone, and shakes her head. “Es un montón de mierda.”

Before Ron can agree that sounds like a bad dog, she keeps talking. “And my shampoo! Stealing my shampoo and then acting all surprised when I asked about it. And don’t get me started on board game night. They always cheated! Always! But somehow I--”

She launches into more stuff about the couple, who sound like real jerks.

He’s glad Samantha and Terry aren’t like that. They would be great dog owners, for one thing. Samantha had asked some really good questions about the schnauzer before she realized that Ron was the dog. And they’re great at relationships. They're always making each other smile and they love each other so much. Even when they argue sometimes, like when Samantha gets worried about Terry's heart, it's not the bad kind of arguing. It's just them caring a lot about each other.

It’s hard to believe that they care about him so much that they want to date him. But that’s what they said. That they really like him and want to date him, and even if it feels too good to be true now that he knows it’s okay, he knows they’re not liars. They wouldn’t say it if they didn’t think they meant it.

Although that was two weeks ago. Maybe they’ve changed their mind. Maybe he took too long thinking about stuff. Maybe he should--

“Mi amor,” a voice says loudly.

Ron’s jerked from his worried thoughts in time to watch a guy stumble off the dance floor and almost flop into the woman’s lap, smiling widely at her. From the way she smiles back and wraps her arms around his neck, it’s probably her husband.

It’s nice. They're happy to see each other, like they've been separated for hours instead of minutes. Ron was already thinking of Samantha and Terry, but now he’s thinking about stuff like Samantha’s hand on Terry’s back, the way they lean against each other when they’re sharing a booth at the bakery or sitting on the couch together.

Ron pays for his drinks while the woman’s distracted.

Then he says, “Thanks for the advice. Um. For Conrad.”

The woman gives him a pleased smile. “You’re welcome. Just remember, no unicorns or birdcages or Band-aids, okay? Conrad deserves better.”

“Yeah,” Ron agrees, and leaves as another song starts playing over the speakers. When he gets out to his car, he pulls out his phone and realizes it’s low on power. He’s usually home and charging his phone by now.

He pulls up his messages. There’s a text from his manager, reminding him that Michaela is on vacation so scheduling’s a little tight. The last message he has from Samantha is just a smiley face after he texted her a photo of the new bird who’s been visiting the bird feeder.

He stares at the text long enough that the Rock sign goes through all the colors of the rainbow above him. He wants to text her and Terry so badly that his hands almost shake. But he’s got to decide some stuff first, like the nice woman said.

He puts his phone away.

Of all the birds that come to his bird feeder, Ron thinks Mike Finch is probably the best listener. Maybe that’s because he’s the only bird that doesn’t fly away when Ron goes to refill the feeder, but he also has this way of watching Ron that really feels like he’s listening.

Ron tells him the whole story, from Terry and Samantha to the woman at the bar who gave him some good advice. It feels a little easier to tell Mike. Probably because who is Mike going to tell? Other birds?

“So no birdcages,” he concludes. “That’s what the lady said. You probably agree with that one, huh, buddy? No cages for you. But, uh. Yeah. I still--” It was easier to tell Mike, but still not easy. He’s got sweat on the back of his neck and his stomach’s got those butterflies again. He sighs. “I bet you don’t have this kind of complicated life.”

Mike just tilts his head.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. It’s just. Um. The woman was so sure that people do this all the time, be married and date other people. I mean, it’s good, I knew Samantha and Terry wouldn’t want to something bad, but W-Willy wouldn’t--”

His dad’s name lodges in his throat. He knows his dad’s not here, that he’s gone forever, but he still gets an anxious prickle down his spine. He checks for exits just in case. He could climb to the downstairs neighbor’s balcony if he needed to, if his dad was in his apartment and mad about Terry and Samantha.

“What would you do, if, uh, Jerry Sparrow liked you?” he asks, trying to distract himself.

Mike gives a questioning chirp.

“Yeah, okay, I was, uh, trying to change the subject. You got me. It’s just…”

It’s easy to think of Samantha that way. There’d been a few seconds when she answered the Petfinder where he’d thought-- But then he’d found out she was married and that was that. Well until now.

But thinking about Terry is harder.

“I like Terry a lot, but he’s, uh, a guy. I mean, obviously. You’ve seen him. And yeah, he’s handsome. Like he could be in the movies or something. He and Samantha both could. They’re both bea-- But just because he’s handsome doesn’t mean I, uh. Even if anyone would be lucky to date him. Like maybe bird jokes and human jokes aren’t the same, but take it from me, he’s funny. And okay, I don’t know if he’s good at hugs, but he probably is? He’ll put his arm around my shoulders sometimes, and that’s nice. Really nice. Like so you can feel it but it’s not too tight so you can move if you want? I bet his hugs are a lot like that. He’s definitely good at holding hands. He and Samantha hold hands all the time--”

Mike chirps again, a little louder.

Ron blinks. He looks down and realizes he’s put down the bird seed. Instead he’s holding his own hands, fingers awkwardly entwined. His hands are a little sweaty. Terry’s wouldn’t be, probably. Otherwise Samantha wouldn’t like it when he does that thing where he rubs his thumb across her skin.

His stomach jumps a little, remembering, and Ron blinks again.

“Oh,” he mumbles. “I want to hold his hand. Oh boy.”

He remembers, suddenly, Christmas Eve, when he got some cookie crumbs on his mustache and Terry wiped them off for him. His mustache prickles with the memory. He untangles his fingers and rubs his hand across his mouth, but the feeling just gets stronger.

For the first time, he really thinks about what dating them would be like. Holding hands. Hugging. Maybe even kissing, though just thinking about that makes Ron sit down on the stepping stool, his face hot and his knees wobbly.

He licks his lips. "Holding hands is a good start. Yeah."

Then he remembers his dad. The excitement curdles in his stomach like milk that’s gone sour. If his dad found out about this, he’d-- It’d be bad. Ron takes a deep breath.

“T-Terry Junior would say, uh, it’s 2018, and uh, Willy w-wouldn’t say anything ‘cause he’s dead. So. Guess he can’t get the last word on all this, huh, Mike? Yeah. It’s okay.”

The giddiness doesn’t come back, though. He shouldn’t feel relieved that his dad can’t yell at him or Terry or Samantha. He should be sad about Willy. Otherwise he’s a bad son.

He rubs his hands together. Usually the warm friction makes him feel better, but today it doesn’t. Instead he starts thinking about the woman’s advice too. The stuff about how Samantha and Terry shouldn’t try to make him move in. What if they still think he can’t take care of himself? What if the bedroom is a dealbreaker?

The room hadn’t been a cage before, but it’ll be one then, and the nice lady was right. He’s like Mike Finch and his other bird friends. He’s not going to put himself into a cage, not even for the best people he knows.

He lets out a deep breath. “I guess I, uh, need to talk to them, eh, Mike?”

Mike hops closer, peering down from the railing, and gives a little bob of his head that’s probably a nod.

“Yeah. I need to talk to them.”

Chapter Text

Can we talk at my apartment soon?

It’s such a simple message, but Samantha still rereads it as though she might discover some second sentence if she just stares at it for long enough. She probably looks a little silly, huddled over her phone at her desk between sessions, but she can't make herself care about that.

She’s rereading it a third time when her phone buzzes in her hand.

It’s Terry.

Terry Jr’s sleeping over at Ulysses’ Friday night, right? We could talk then.

Before she can respond, he sends a second text. He might be on the other side of town in his office, but she can picture the expression on his face, the worried frown wrinkling his brow.

He wants to talk. That’s a good thing, right?

Samantha bites her lip. If Ron had texted them a few days after everything, she’d say probably. But it’s been almost two weeks. Ron re-establishing communication could be a good thing. Or he could be inviting them to his apartment because he doesn’t feel comfortable in their house anymore.

I don’t know. I hope so, she finally types out. I’ll text him.

Usually she and Terry can calm each other down when they’re upset. But for the next few days they’re an echo chamber of anxiety.

Terry has wanted to talk to Ron since about five seconds after Ron’s car pulled out the driveway. It was only Samantha saying they needed to let Ron have his space that kept him from texting Ron and trying to fix this. Now he wants to talk through contingencies, what they’ll do if Ron just wants to be friends.

They don’t talk about the worst-case scenario, though Samantha knows Terry’s thinking about it from all the little pauses in their whispered conversations in bed, the way he stops making jokes even with Terry Junior. What if Ron doesn’t want to talk to them ever again? What if they lose him as a friend too? The thought makes it hard to breathe.

The Venn diagram of happiness had seemed so simple.

By Friday, Terry Junior’s started to give them both worried looks, but he doesn’t ask. The concern in his face makes Samantha feel even worse. They were so excited about both loving Ron that they didn’t think about Terry Junior. His thoughts on Ron moving in is a moot point now, of course, but it should’ve been considered. Just one of the things they didn’t think through.

Samantha’s nerves feel raw from uncertainty by the time they get in the car.

When Ron opens his apartment door, she can’t help but try to read his body language. All she gets is nervousness, though, which could mean anything. His throat works as he says, “Um, hi. Come in.”

Ron doesn’t sit down when they do. Instead he stands there, shifting his weight restlessly from one foot to the other. “Do you. I can get some… I think I have juice? Or water. I definitely have water. If you want--”

“We’re fine,” Terry says. He always sits close to Samantha, but now he’s even closer, their shoulders and knees touching, the back of his hand brushing hers but not quite holding her hand. She can feel the tension radiating off of him, hears it in his voice.

Ron doesn’t say anything. He shifts his weight again.

Samantha finds herself second-guessing everything. Is it a good sign that the puzzles are still up on the wall? “What did,” she says. Maybe she does need some water. She’s so nervous that her mouth is dry. “What did you want to talk to us about?”

Ron bites his lip.

There’s another stretch of silence, in which Samantha forces herself to take a few slow breaths.

Then Ron blurts out, “I renewed my lease for three months.”

Samantha’s stomach sinks. He’s invited them to his apartment and practically the first words out of his mouth are an implicit denial about the bedroom. There’s no way that’s a good sign. She wants to take Terry’s hand, but she doesn’t know if that will make Ron even more uncomfortable.

“I showed you my apartment,” Ron says. He looks around at it, and Samantha does too as he says, still talking fast, “I thought you guys liked it. I thought… Um. I know how to live by myself, you know? I’ve been living on my own since I was eighteen. I don’t need, need any handouts or help, or any, any intervention.”

His voice wobbles a little, and a shadow flits across his face. There’s history there. He squares his shoulders, lifts up his chin. He doesn’t meet their eyes, but he looks in their direction as he says, “I don’t want to be your roommate. Even if--”

He stops. Bites his lip again. “So I renewed my lease.”

Samantha waits, but he doesn’t say anything else. She’d realized as soon as they’d made the bedroom invitation that it had hurt Ron deeply. She didn’t need years of being a therapist to understand that. He’d shut down, all the emotion and color draining from his face, his voice small as he asked to leave.

“Okay,” Terry says slowly. He takes a breath, like he wants to say something else, but doesn’t.

Ron rubs a hand over his mustache. His shoulders are still squared, and he still looks determined, but he crosses and uncrosses his arms, clearly just as nervous as he was when he let them into the apartment.

“So I renewed my lease,” he says a third time. His gaze darts between them. His next words come out slowly as he asks, “Is that. Uh. Is that a problem?”

“A problem?” Samantha repeats. She’s confused by the question and by the intensity in Ron’s gaze. He’s staring at them both like he’s trying to read their minds, almost vibrating in place.

Next to her, Terry leans forward. She can see a trace of confusion in his face, but he mostly just looks focused, like he’s finally figured out a way to fix things. He fumbles for Samantha’s hand and doesn’t so much hold it as clutch at it. “Of course it’s not a problem! It’s not a problem at all.”

Ron stares at him. He was vibrating before. Now it looks like he’s barely breathing, his entire body braced. “It’s not?”

Samantha’s heart twists a little, hearing that doubt. She squeezes Terry’s hand and says, “No, of course not. Ron, we….” For all that they’ve had weeks to figure out what they’d say to Ron if he reached out, she still feels like she’s flailing around for the right words.

Ron’s looking at her.

She doesn’t understand why them offering the bedroom hurt him, but her understanding doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. What does matter is that they hurt him. She leans forward too, still holding onto Terry’s hand. “We’re sorry,” she says. “When we suggested the guest bedroom, it was-- You live an hour away and we wanted to see you all the time, because we like you so much.”

He’s still looking at her, but she can’t read his expression.

She takes a deep breath. “But we rushed things. That should've been a discussion and we didn't ask you if that was even something you'd want. And we promise to do better. Even if it's just as friends, because we care about you no matter what.”

“Yeah,” Terry says. His agreement comes out a little rough.

Ron’s quiet for a moment. His gaze drops away from hers, and her stomach sinks a little lower. Then he rubs at his mustache again and asks in an unsteady voice, “D-did you still want to be something, um, besides friends? Even if I don’t move in?”

Samantha realizes that he’s looking down at their clasped hands.

Her stomach goes from sinking to leaping straight into her throat. She looks at Terry and finds him that he’s looking at her with the same sudden hope in his face. They’ve both been so worried that Ron never wanted to see them again that they haven’t really considered the best case scenario.

“We still want to date you,” Samantha says.

“If you want that too,” Terry adds.

Ron’s face goes pink, but he’s smiling when he looks up at them. “Yeah. I do.” It’s a slow smile, spreading across his face and lighting it like the sun coming up, and so happy that Samantha’s heart skips a beat.

His happiness is infectious. Her eyes prickle a little, and she blinks away tears. She wants to hug him. She wants to take his face in her hands and kiss him. But they already made the mistake once of moving too fast. Holding hands wouldn’t be too much, would it?

Samantha offers her other hand.

Ron takes it. It’s clumsy for a second, and then their fingers entwine. His blush spreads to the tips of his ears when he looks at Terry.

Terry offers his hand too.

Ron snatches it like he thinks Terry will pull away, so fast that it surprises a laugh out of Terry. Ron doesn't seem to notice, staring down at their hands.

Samantha doesn’t expect the small, satisfied look, or Ron’s half-muttered, “I knew you’d be good at holding hands.”

She has to hug him now. It’s only as she launches herself upright, tugging at Terry’s hand and pulling at Ron’s, trying to get them both closer, that she realizes she hasn’t accounted for hugging two people at once, or considered the coffee table in between them.

She bumps her shins against the table, hard enough that she winces and accidentally lets go of their hands.

Ron wobbles and then sits down with a dull thud onto the carpet. He blinks owlishly up at her, the satisfied look replaced by surprise.

Embarrassment warms the back of her neck. Well, that didn’t go as planned.

Terry chuckles. His hand settles on her hip, giving it a squeeze before he maneuvers them both around the coffee table. Then he offers Ron his hand again. His expression softens as he looks between them. “Let’s try that one more time.”

“Yeah,” Ron agrees, scrambling to his feet. “Um, try what exactly?”

“This,” Samantha says. This time there’s nothing in her way. She wraps her arms around Terry and Ron and pulls them into a hug.

Ron still fits almost perfectly in her arms, just like she remembers. And he leans into her grip the same way, with a shaky sigh breathed against her throat that floods her with a new heat.

This time, though, he hugs back, his arms clutching at her and Terry so tightly that he half-squeezes her breath from her lungs. And Terry is warm against her side, his arms around their shoulders. It feels exactly like she hoped, all the pieces fitting into place. She never wants to let go.

And neither do Terry or Ron, from the way they both hold on.

Samantha’s eyes are prickling again. It’s almost too much, all this happiness after so much uncertainty. She smiles when she feels Terry’s lips brush her hair, and opens her eyes in time to watch Terry look down at Ron, the same wondering happiness in his expression that she knows must be on her own, and then carefully lean down and kiss the top of Ron’s head.

Ron makes a little noise, like a squeak, and stares up at them. His glasses are slightly askew, but that doesn’t hide his wide eyes, or his bright pink flush. His smile is so wide it almost seems too big for his face. “Oh! Um. That was really nice. Still is nice. Um.”

He looks so happy, but overwhelmed too, blinking rapidly, his breathing unsteady.

Samantha’s pretty sure if she kissed him too, the way she wants to, he might spontaneously combust.

She makes a promise to herself for next time.

Then she has to take a deep breath again, overwhelmed herself at the promise of a next time.

It’s Ron’s idea to visit Planet Rehab, an animal sanctuary, for their first official date. He’d shown them the brochure and website, excited about the birds. There’s a starling that sings, and a sociable scarlet macaw that likes to ride people’s shoulders, and a golden pheasant that’s so striking it looks like something out of a fantasy novel instead of real life.

All of Ron’s research still hasn’t prepared them for the animals’ friendliness.

Terry has to swallow back a surprised chuckle when a colorful macaw lands on Ron’s shoulder and Ron freezes in place, even his eyes unblinking behind his glasses. The parrot preens Ron’s hair, and when Ron still doesn’t move, squawks out a demanding, “Kisses.”

“Um, we just met, buddy, maybe--”

“Kisses,” the macaw insists with an impatient ruffle of feathers.

Terry lifts his camera. He gets a shot of Ron’s priceless expression as the macaw nudges at his cheek.

He takes another while Samantha laughs and says, “I’ll give you kisses, Houdini.”

The macaw immediately hops over to her shoulder instead.

Terry’s still got his camera up. He watches an unfamiliar look dart across Ron’s face as Houdini rubs his beak against Samantha’s cheek and makes loud kissing sounds. It almost looks like jealousy.

Scratch that, it’s definitely jealousy, because Ron mumbles, “You know, I think Shakespeare is much cooler. Maybe we should go find him again, see if he’ll sing some more.”

Terry chuckles. There are other people around, so he doesn’t hug Ron like he wants to. Instead he claps Ron on the shoulder. “We still haven’t seen that fancy pheasant. How about we go look for that one? What was its name? Shang?”

Ron brightens. “Shang-Hai.”

Terry gets so distracted by Ron's smile that he doesn’t notice Houdini until there’s a wing slapping his ear and claws digging into his shoulder. “Son of a-- uh.” He pretends not to notice a mom’s accusing look as she herds her kids past. His hair’s too short for Houdini to really get a good grip, but the parrot certainly tries. “Let me guess. Kisses?”

“Kisses,” Houdini confirms.

Samantha tugs the camera out of his hands and snaps a picture of her own, giggling as she does.

“I think we should go find Shang-Hai,” Ron says loudly as Houdini’s beak pokes at Terry’s cheek.

Terry grins. Ron’s cute when he’s jealous. Then he winces when the macaw kisses him a little too hard. He’s sure Ron is a better kisser than Houdini, even if Terry and Samantha haven’t experienced it yet. It’s been all hugging and handholding, which is amazing, but maybe tonight when they walk Ron back to his door….

Terry clears his throat. It’s a hot day, the California April heat feeling like the middle of summer already despite it being cloudy. He feels even warmer and plucks at his collar before he nudges gently at the parrot. “That’s enough kisses, Houdini.”

Houdini blows a raspberry in his ear before he flies over to another group.

Terry takes more pictures. He wants to remember this entire day: Ron and Samantha holding hands as they feed Shang-Hai sunflower seeds, Ron’s focused expression as he carefully brushes the sanctuary’s alpaca, Samantha’s pleased smile as one of the cats curls up in her lap and monetarily falls asleep during their picnic lunch.

While they’re eating, Ron gives Terry an intent look. A now familiar flush creeps into Ron’s face. It’s not a surprise when Terry feels Ron’s hand steal into his under the table.

They finish their meal with the macarons Ron brought from the bakery.

There’s pistachio for Terry, red velvet for Samantha, and a new seasonal butterscotch flavor for Ron, who chews the latter thoughtfully and says, “Tastes just like those candies. Pretty good, huh?”

“Pretty good,” Terry agrees, giving Ron’s hand a squeeze. Next to him, Samantha smiles and rests her head on his shoulder for a moment. Ron finishes his macaron. His other hand goes under the table and from the way Samantha’s smile widens, Ron’s holding her hand too.

Terry sits there, content. It’s a pretty great date so far. He wonders what they should do next time. He bets bowling with Ron would be fun.

Samantha lifts her head as the clouds part. The sun’s bright, but not as bright or as warm as her smile when she exclaims, “Oh, let’s get a picture together before it gets cloudy again!”

“That’s a great idea,” Ron agrees. He gives her an admiring look, and Terry’s hit by another wave of affection as he adds, “You’re so smart.”

Samantha beams at him.

Terry tears his gaze away long enough to spy a group trying to set up a family photo a little ways away. The two youngest are chasing each other around in circles, dodging their mom’s attempts to corral them. He walks over and gives them a grin. “I’ll take your picture if you’ll take ours.”

The dad gives him a grateful smile.

A moment later they stand close together, Ron between them, their shoulders brushing.

Terry’s taken plenty of photos of Ron over the past year. He has them saved on his computer. The ones from the hiking trip where Ron climbed the tree. A few during the Christmas Eve party where Ron was half-asleep on the couch in his nice Christmas sweater. A probably ridiculous amount today alone. In those photos, Ron’s looks vary from focused to happy.

It’s only now as the dad calls out cheerfully, “Okay, say cheese!” and Ron’s smile freezes into an awkward grimace that Terry realizes that he’s mostly taken the pictures while Ron was focused on something else.

Terry can feel him sway in place before he whispers, “Uh, I never really took good school photos. I always blinked or looked the wrong way or--”

Terry and Samantha exchange a look over his head. He knows her features even better than his own, reads the same thought in the fond twist of her lips. They both drape an arm across Ron’s shoulders, a half-hug that makes Ron jump and glance up at them in surprise.

Terry grins down at him. He pitches his voice low so that his words will only be for Ron and Samantha’s ears. “Clearly before you grew that mustache, Ron. No man looks bad in a photo with that mustache.”

“It’s very dashing,” Samantha agrees, smiling.

Ron goes pink and pleased and a little surprised, the way he always does when they compliment him. He relaxes slowly under their arms. “It is, isn’t it? Hope you guys can, uh, handle the hotness, heh.” And there’s the smile Terry was hoping for, spreading across his face.

“We'll try,” Terry says. “Now say cheese.”

“Oh, right,” Ron says. He glances back towards the dad, who lifts the camera back up now that they’re all looking at him again. “Cheese!”

When the dad hands back the camera and heads back to his family, Terry pulls up the photo.

It’s a good shot. The sunlight’s hit them all just right so that it catches on Ron’s hair without hiding his eyes behind his coke bottle lens, and Samantha almost has her cheek pressed against Ron’s, her smile radiant and her eyes sparkling. Terry’s own happiness radiates off him too.

He brushes his thumb across the photo, tracing both Ron and Samantha’s smiles. “That’s one for the wall.” He doesn’t realize he’s said it out loud until Ron blinks up at him. “We’ll frame it.”

Ron’s eyes widen. He stares at the picture. “Can I have a copy? I’ll put it next to the bird puzzle. Hm, or maybe by the beach one? Or maybe I should put it in my bedroom so I can--” He stops. The back of his neck gets red, and it’s only Terry remembering that they’re in public that keeps him from instinctively touching Ron’s nape. “Um. It’d be nice to wake up to.”

Terry breathes in slowly at that, desire a hot spark in his stomach.

So does Samantha, whose voice is low and warm when she says, “That’s a wonderful idea, Ronnie.”

They’re definitely kissing Ron tonight, Terry decides as Ron smiles and keeps looking at the photo. Even if they have to do rock, paper, scissors to figure out who kisses him first.

Either way, he’s the luckiest man in the world.