She’s not your replacement, he answered, not for the first time, never amused by that joke.
Sky said nothing to that. Trevor thought about wishing him good night. He didn’t, in the end. But he did send him a close-up picture of himself squished into Ellie’s little bed to curl around an ecstatic Ellie.
Sky responded with a round red heart.
Chapter Six
Trevor got up the next morning and found a grocery list waiting for him on the kitchen table. It was not their usual sort of list and not his regular shopping day, but his grandmother must have been up early watching a new cooking show. He and Ellie went for their jog, then he showered before heading out to shop as requested.
He was surprised again when he came home and found his grandmother already in the kitchen, where she recruited Trevor into food prep, to try again to make him a better cook. Trevor would have complained but paying attention and actually trying was a refreshing change in routine.
Then his grandma said, “Is Sky still eating those noodles you made me try?”
She had not enjoyed her cup of instant ramen, although she had researched real ramen with interest afterward.
Trevor snorted. “Yes. Sometimes I can get him to add vegetables to them, but for that he has to have the vegetables on hand first.”
“You know,” his grandmother said, in a tone that should have warned him, “if you could cook, you could make sure he eats right. The thing about men,” she paused and looked vaguely embarrassed, although, like Trevor, she was not an easy blusher, “somemen,” she corrected herself, “is that you need to woo them through their stomachs.”
Trevor was so proud of how smoothly she’d referred to Sky, as opposed to how his dad sometimes still hesitated over it despite being introduced to Sky with the use of he/him, that Trevor decided not to contest anything else she’d said, except to remind her that he and Sky weren’t dating anymore.
His grandma stopped what she was doing to look Trevor up and down with her eyebrows raised high. “Okay,” she said at last, shaking her head. “But you can still cook for him. And for other men too, if you can find any as patient as that one. Anyway,” she went on, grumbling, “who am I going to pass my recipes on to? Your mother? Save me from that fate.”
“Grandma!” Trevor objected with delight. But there was no better reason to finally accept the cooking lessons.
Except maybe one.
But that was no longer under discussion, unless he counted his grandmother reminding him to thank Sky for her extremely bootleg-looking DVD “Best Of” set of some Swinging Sixties spy show that she and Sky must have talked about over email.
It was only when his grandmother got out the 1980s CorningWare dishes with glass lids that she used to take food to events or to grieving family members that Trevor understood that the extra cooking was about more than giving him lessons.
He might have complained to her about G.G.’s situation too much the night before. But G.G. had looked a mess and clearly must not have family or friends close by for him to call on in his time of need. Trevor could only imagine the horrors if G.G. had gotten seriously ill in that house all by himself. And who knew how much blood he’d lost in the first place by taking the time to clean up the kitchen before going to the hospital.
His grandmother had listened to all of that with an unhappy expression and tutted several times when Trevor had gotten to the part about all the pet stuff clearly meant for more than one spoiled kitty.
Still, Trevor was caught off guard when he came back into the kitchen after pulling some weeds and playing with Ellie in the backyard and his grandmother cornered him by the fridge. She put a glass lid over a cooled dish of half-Cheesy Cauliflower Rice Casserole and half-Cheesy Potato Casserole “in case G.G. was carb conscious and wanted options” and placed the dish in his hands.
Trevor was red in the face and sweaty, as well as wearing the hat he wore in the garden which saidPoint Pleasant, WVin big, blocky letters, and in smaller script above it, only obvious from very close,Mothman ate my ass in... with a silhouette of Mothman in the background.
Trevor had forgotten the “ate my ass” part the first few times he’d put it on to garden, and by the time he’d remembered, his grandmother must have seen it already and chosen not to acknowledge it. She wouldn’t be pleased about him wearing it out now. But making a big deal out of changing to go see G.G. would make his grandma suspect something was up.
Nothing was up, but her thinking something was would make the nothing more obvious.
Or something. Trevor was a little overheated.
But, dirty and probably smelly, he headed over to G.G.’s with the gift of a double casserole.
He was prepared to wait a while for G.G. to come to the door but not for the sight of G.G. looking significantly more mussed and rumpled. He had managed to change his t-shirt but his eyes had deep shadows beneath them. Trevor guessed the strong painkiller had worn off.
“If you need something, I can do a grocery store or pharmacy run,” Trevor said instead ofhelloorgood afternoon. The grocery store delivered but delivery times could be later than people wanted, depending on demand.
G.G. blinked several times. He focused briefly on Trevor’s hat, then on the rest of him, then his face. “You want to go to the pharmacy for me?”
Want towas not the phrasing Trevor would have used. Not out loud.
“I’m willing. You know. Neighbors.” He cleared his throat in such a cartoonishly fake way that he felt like a Muppet. Kermit, specifically. “My grandma likes you, and I really do go to the pharmacy all the time anyway. For her, I mean. Not me. Not yet. I’m only twenty-eight, though age and disability come for us all, right? No way to pretend otherwise without being ageist and ableist.” Trevor was not normally inclined to talk too much without alcohol in his system. He had no idea if this was pandemic isolation-related or if it had something to do with the fast beat of his heart.
Then he thought,Oh, this is a full-blown crush now. Fuck.
