Page 103 of The New Place

“Go on,” Abbot says. “I have some emails.”

“Yeah,” Ned says. “That’s what you said.” Ned gently shuts the door behind himself.

Abbot’s laptop is downstairs, and he very much doesn’t want to go get it. He sits on the bed, listening to the silence. When his thoughts start to wander, he picks up his phone.

It’s frustrating to do any real work on it, but he might as well. Ned won’t return for some time, Abbot’s sure. Peggy needs him tonight, and Abbot knows something of wanting a parent’s attention, worried at their distraction, and the fear of his own unimportance.

23

NED

Baxter jumps into the backseat of the car with all the enthusiasm of a dog who fully believes he’s on his way to the park, not the vet.

“I’m sorry,” Ned says when they pull into the parking lot. He reaches back and touches Baxter’s head, trying to soothe his whine. “I’ll be back for you this evening, alright?”

Baxter huddles against Peggy’s booster seat. Ned has to kneel on the backseat to lift him out of the car, trying to keep salt from staining his pants and too much dog hair from sticking to his jacket.

It’s a lost cause. He’s still picking his coat clean as the receptionist checks Baxter in.

“And we’ll take your payment for today up front,” he says cheerfully.

Ned could just use the credit card information Abbot left on file here. He pulls out his wallet, not without Baxter’s same reluctance. How much? he doesn’t ask, like if he doesn’t know, the total won’t be real. But he has to sign the receipt all the same.

He stares down at the number. Slowly, he looks at Baxter huddled against his legs, then at the guy behind the desk. You’re kidding, he wants to say. No way can a dog cost this much.

Baxter had him up twice last night, unaware of the tension of trying to sleep through a pretend engagement and Abbot’s clear emotional exhaustion—plus whatever it’s called when he stonewalls any mention of his mother. Grief. Refusal to admit he even knows what the word means. A wall of misery he won’t let Ned behind, determined to be steadfastly unhappy alone.

But Baxter had been urgent to go out, leaving Ned to carefully lift himself from the mattress and fumble in the dark. Back inside, Baxter had been just as determined to gulp down his entire bowl of water, and he had treated his dinner and his breakfast the same way, like he’d never been fed a day in his life.

Ned scrawls his signature on the receipt. It’s just another addition to the balance he’s carrying on this card. He’ll pay it off. Eventually.

Just like Baxter will be completely fine, because Ned can’t handle the thought of any alternative.

“Is Claire around?” Ned asks as he passes the receipt back.

“She’s in later today,” the guy says.

Ned would have liked to see her, at least pass Baxter over to a friendly face, but he hands the leash to this stranger, guilt mounting in his throat as Baxter’s big brown eyes plead with him.

“Be good,” Ned says as cheerfully as he can as Baxter’s led into the back, his feet slipping against the floor as he tries to stay with Ned.

The drive to Adams feels as baleful as it has these last few weeks, Boston’s winter icy and gray and the campus unnaturally quiet. Even with the shitty windy weather, it seems there should be more people around, not as if campus has emptied out in anticipation of the school closing. Probably everyone is huddled inside, but it feels too abandoned as Ned hurries from his car, the wind biting through his jacket.

He needs a warmer jacket. And a healthy dog. And a higher credit limit and a job with a future and, and, and.

He sighs as he settles behind his office desk. He needs a lot of things. A break from this situation he and Abbot have put themselves in, to start. Somewhere quiet they can go and sort through the mess they’ve made, a day or two to just be normal and to feel the steadiness of their relationship coursing under everything they’ve heaped on top of it.

And maybe Ned could gather himself too, if they had a bit of time to themselves. Shake off this thick, oily feeling of picturing his credit card bill next to the bright shine of Abbot’s car, that house they looked at, Abbot’s life.

Engaged. Sure. Nobody in their right mind would tie their life to Ned’s, so it’s a good thing this is all for show.

But they won’t get the time they need, because Charles is flying in today with Liesl, and in no uncertain terms invited Ned out to dinner, Peggy in tow.

Liesl will be the same ball of excitement she was on the phone. And Charles?

Ned needs a lot of things, but mostly to not have to show up to a dinner with Abbot’s family while feeling and probably looking like the absolute mess he is.

He pulls his head up at the tap on his door.