He’d forgotten how annoying crushes were.
Then he wondered how long it had been a crush, only to realize it had beenat leastsince he had seen that fucking cat tree, but probably longer.
“Twenty-eight?” G.G. gave Trevor a sleepy look almost like a frown, which made Trevor sigh internally at how cute it was even while he half-expected G.G. to make some sort of joke about Trevor’s generation.
“Yeah,” Trevor confirmed, refusing to be sheepish about his age even though it was one more reason there was nothing up between them. “I know I look older because….” He waved a hand over his head to refer to his lack of hair, only to then recall that he had a hat on. G.G. focused on the hat again. Trevor rushed back to their previous topic of conversation. “So, about the pharmacy… if you need me to grab an antibiotic prescription or ibuprofen or something, let me know.”
G.G. had raised his head at “ageist and ableist” but didn’t return to that topic. He said, slowly and carefully, “I was in the ER. Masked, but I should still be careful around your grandmother.” His voice must be husky all the time. He paused and some of his usual sharp perception returned. “Her arthritis is getting worse, isn’t it? Among her other issues. I’d hate to cause her more problems.”
He really did notice things.
Trevor nodded slowly, warm and fuzzy for a man giving a shit about his grandma. “Yeah, it is. It’s not the worst case and she’s still pretty mobile, but there’s no repairing it. Even if she gets the full hip replacement, that leaves her knees and hands, and then there’s the recovery and that impact. Honestly, that’s less of our concern right now though. Thyroid,” he explained, as though he’d known anything about thyroids a few months ago. But G.G. was older, so maybe he knew about them already. Maybe he’d dealt with aging relatives with wonky thyroid glands plenty of times. “And my grandpa was a smoker for years when they were both younger, so who even knows with her lungs. Now we have to be extra careful with her and all this.”All thisbeing how Trevor’s father referred to the current state of the world, a phrase which had caught on with the whole family. “But, um, yes. Yeah. I try to take care with her.”
“She’s fortunate to have you there,” G.G. said quietly, leaving Trevor staring at him for several seconds too many.
He looked down and remembered the casseroles.
He held the dish out and felt like a desperately lonely, touch-starved pervert when their hands brushed as G.G. took it from him. G.G. was considering the food with an expression best described asconsternation. That was cute too.
He might have been wondering how to get away with not eating the strange food his neighbors had brought him, which was fair. But Trevor doubted he’d been cooking anything; he probably wasn’t eating much at all at the moment. He’d had a serious injury, and trying to keep something like a dominant hand immobile or trying to use it despite the stitches could cause real pain, and that kind of constant pain did not make people want to eat. Trevor had broken his forearm as a kid and remembered the experience vividly.
Judging from the t-shirt, sweatpants, and slightly unkempt beard, G.G. was already having issues trying to get things done with one good hand.
Trevor couldn’t make him eat, but obviously, he had to at least try to make it easier for him.
“It’s part of a cauliflower rice casserole and part of a potato one. Identical except for those two main ingredients. Grandma wasn’t sure about your dietary preferences. There’s milk and cheese in them as well. And garlic and broccoli, if you’re allergic to either of those. She didn’t use the bacon the recipes called for. All you have to do is pop the dish in the oven to warm the food up.”
Trevor stared back innocently when G.G. looked up at him with his eyebrows raised.
Griffons were supposed to have a lot of wisdom. At least, according to some tabletop games. They also might potentially rip someone to pieces with their talons.
G.G. didn’t look close to ripping Trevor to pieces. He looked touched, but also like he didn’t know what to do about that.
“I promise it’s not poisoned,” Trevor said lightly, although he didn’t feel light watching G.G. struggle to comprehend that someone had done something nice for him. “Judging from her grocery list this morning, she’s planning on making more meals for you,” he revealed. “And I will bring them over, because there’s no telling her no, and because it’s no trouble for me to do it.”
That was close topushy, so even though G.G. didn’t object, Trevor stepped back and smiled. “She’s also been bored and I think trying new recipes gives her something to do. You’re doing her a favor.”
The fierce stare returned. But instead of calling Trevor out, G.G. said, “She doesn’t have to.”
“Oh, she fully knows that,” Trevor assured him. “But she probably will. When I lived on my own, she would make ‘bachelor food’ comments about me and bring me all kinds of dishes. You’ve given her an excuse to fuss. Sorry not sorry.”
“Fuss?” G.G. echoed.
Trevor caught himself as he was about to say, “Yeah, you know how families are.” Not everyone had families who fussed, lovingly or otherwise. Sky’s family didn’t. They loved him, but fussing was not their brand. They were a ‘go on vacation over the holidays, not visit your loved ones’ type of family. Send a card with money in it for graduation, but onlymaybeattend the graduation itself.
Actually, in Trevor’s family, it was really him and his grandma who were the fussers to the degree that they were. But the others still jumped into the group chat with advice, needling, and gossip.
“Bring the dish back whenever you feel up to it,” Trevor said instead of more family talk. “Or wait, and I’ll collect it when I’m back with the next one.”
He might have flashed a bright smile with that part, but it didn’t matter since G.G.’s phone buzzed from one of his pockets. G.G. made no move to check it, but he couldn’t, awkwardly balancing a casserole dish on his forearm and one hand.
Trevor backed up another step, taking the cue to stop bothering the mythological beast in sweatpants. Which was probably for the best. Another few minutes and Trevor would have been offering to put the food in the oven for him.
Trevor spent an hour being corrected by his grandmother on his knife technique, which was informative both in the sense that he needed to learn the skill and thus needed the correction, and also in how it reminded him of how much he hated being told what to do.
Though his grandma was nicer about it than his teachers or some others in the family had been. She didn’t ridicule him or get short-tempered; she reminded him it was for his own good and then told him that he was doing a good job for someone who had to unlearn the incorrect methods first.
Since Sky would absolutely have found Trevor being told “good job” funny, Trevor took several pictures of the process, including one of him sweating over a pot of potatoes and another of an artfully arranged salad full of tomato, red onion, and slices of hardboiled egg.
