Page 175 of The New Place

“Ned, if she’d said she hated Portland and wanted to move home, would you have left Callahan halfway through your doctorate and gone with her?”

“I—” Yes, he tries to say. He absolutely would have. Right?

“That’s what I’m talking about. She had to choose to stick it out with you, or you had to choose to leave Callahan for her,” Dad says. “Either of you could have, but you didn’t. And I don’t blame you or her, kid. It was the right thing in the end for you to part ways. But with Henry? You’ve been choosing him every day since you got together, and you’re still choosing him now, so don’t up and stop, okay? Cause he isn’t going to either.”

“Jen didn’t tell me she didn’t like Portland until ages later,” Ned says. “How could I have known, when she didn’t talk about it?”

“That’s why you gotta ask. And when they give an answer, you have to listen.”

“But—”

“It sounds like Henry’s given you his answer. He wants to live together, and he’ll make that happen financially. And he’s chosen Peggy, and Baxter too, the hairy lump,” Dad says. “So either you have to let him do what he wants, or you have to ask him to be okay with waiting for you to get your half of things together. Whichever it is, Ned, you two have to decide, so you’ve got to talk about it.”

Ned stares at his fingers knotted so tightly his knuckles have gone white. I don’t want to talk about it, he nearly says. He absolutely doesn’t. To face Abbot in his nice clothes and his paid-off house and fancy car and admit that a year into working, Ned’s barely scraping by? That all grad school has given him is more debt and a salary he has to stretch thin to cover his bills?

“Is this how you and Mom have been married so long?”

“Nobody said marriage is easy,” Dad says. “But it is worth it, with the right person.”

The right person. Who is Abbot, but Ned needs time. He needs months and even years he’s not going to get. He’s not ready, so far from it that ready doesn’t even feel in sight. Though…

He closes his eyes. He felt like this once with Abbot. Stumbled into dating him and found it to be the best thing he’s ever done. And this similar forward fall? Abbot will catch him, if Ned allows him to.

He pulls in a deep breath. He wants to avoid this conversation with Abbot entirely.

But he wants Abbot more. Their relationship, and their future, too.

35

ABBOT

Abbot sits at his desk as the hour ticks later and later, until the last bell has rung across campus and the last footsteps have made their way down the hall, the door slamming on the stairwell.

Then he waits longer still, editing a paper that doesn’t need to be edited, adjusting slides for a presentation he’s given half a dozen times.

How do you get so much done? Ned asked him once, and it’s like this: alone in his office because the solitude of his house is worse. Working so late into the night that he’s tired enough to fall asleep when he returns home, since he has no other way to fill his time.

He should get a cat. It would at least be something to return to, when he’s moved to Boston. A reason to leave campus if something more than a houseplant depends on him.

And a balm for not having Baxter living with him, and Ned too. The cat, Abbot can say, to explain to himself why of course Ned doesn’t spend more than a few nights with him, if that.

Or maybe he can watch Claire’s and Pat’s baby. They’ll surely need a break. He could hold it and read to it, and they could enjoy an evening out together, or simply a chance to sleep.

Likely, he’ll just continue to work. He’s filled his life with academia for years, and that doesn’t have to change, even if his job and the city he lives in does. He’ll write more articles and apply for more funding and take the lead on more research groups, letting time pass with the too-bright shine of his computer screen until Ned deigns to see him next.

He takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes, pressing hard like it will relieve the strain. He’s not tired yet, and if he goes home he’ll toss and turn in bed. But he’s exhausted in a deeper way than a night’s sleep can fix.

He needs a vacation, perhaps.

Which he’d have to take alone.

Well, he’d have plenty of time to work during it, at least.

He puts his glasses back on, looks up, and blinks. “Ned?”

“Hey.” Ned’s face is flushed, his eyes bright. “Can I come in?”

Ned doesn’t need to ask, but he’s still in the doorway and only at Abbot’s nod does he move forward. What is he doing here? And so late? “Are you alright?”