Chapter 15

fifteen

ADELE

“Wine, wine, water.” The one thing Renato really had going for him was the accent. Adele had half a mind to convince him to start narrating audiobooks because he’d buy them all. It was a rare night when Renato was available to hang out with them, and he was passing out drinks as everyone sat around Frey’s living room. “Beer, water…”

“Beer me,” Frey said, making grabby hands.

Renato gave him a sour look as he slapped a bottle against his palm. “I will divorce you.”

Frey scoffed. “You have to marry me first.”

“Then I will, to divorce you,” Renato answered. He took his own wine and sat next to Frey with a tiny smirk.

“And you’ll marry me again, right?”

Renato shrugged. “Rex will be thrilled. All those weddings.”

Frey let out a happy hum and stole a kiss from Renato before settling against his side, and it said something about them that Renato automatically lifted his arm and let Frey tuck himself into a small shape, like a perfectly cut puzzle piece.

Adele ignored the pulse of jealousy he felt in his chest. It had lessened since his night in the blanket fort with Kash, but it was still there because while he’d confessed how he felt, and so had Kash, there were still no promises between them. There was nothing defined.

There was the foggy outline of some distant future, and Adele couldn’t begrudge the man for needing time, but it was hard not to ask for more than what Kash was willing to give.

“So,” Bowen said. He was sitting in the rocking recliner with the edge of his foot on the coffee table, pushing himself gently. “How goes operation woo the best friend?”

Adele had finally spilled his guts to the group, and no one was surprised. Bronx had laughed in his face when Adele tried to apologize for hiding it, and everyone agreed that he had absolutely no poker face.

“It is what it is right now. We talked it out. We had a disaster date—which, by the way, I wanted to petition a possible new member?—”

“Uh, no,” Bowen said, knocking his knuckles against the table. “I motion we table any new member talk so my brother will stop avoiding the topic.”

Adele’s cheeks warmed. “I really don’t want to do this right now.”

Bronx cleared his throat. “Maybe we should leave it.”

Bowen sat back with a pout. “How is it that we literally live next to each other and I’m your goddamn brother, but I’m also the last to know shit?”

“You’re the only person I told when I was in the middle of freaking out about what to do,” Adele defended.

Bowen pouted harder, so Lane got up from his seat and tipped his head back, laying a soft kiss on his lips. “Stop being a goddamn baby.”

Everyone laughed, and Bowen tried to look angry, but he was clearly mollified by Lane’s attention. “Whatever,” he eventually muttered as Lane went back to his seat.

“Look, we came to an understanding. He knows how I feel, I know how he feels. Right now, he’s going to focus on healing as much as he can and figuring out the rest that he can’t.”

There was a collective silence, like they’d all momentarily forgotten what Kash was facing, and everyone looked apologetic.

“So,” Dallas said after a beat, startling Audra, who was resting on his shoulder, “tell us about this new guy.”

Adele didn’t have Frankie’s number, but he did know where to find him. Fenton had told him he worked downtown part-time at the art museum. And at the very least, it was a nice distraction from the things that were driving him absolutely up the wall.

“Guess what time it iiiiisssss!” A voice rang through a megaphone in the station, and Adele slapped his hands over his face, groaning against his palms before he stood up and walked out of his office and peered over the balcony.

Antonio—one of the guys Adele had worked with the longest—was standing on the snack table, which was bowed precariously in the center, holding the megaphone against his lips.

Adele knew what it was about. The guys had been bugging him to do a fundraising calendar for the last two years. He’d run out of excuses, and since he’d been dealing with a depression cycle, he okayed the project.

Now, he was regretting it, and he was kind of hoping he could plead temporary insanity.

“Please get down. I do not have the energy for the paperwork if you fall,” Adele called out, heading for the stairs.

Everyone booed him, but Antonio hopped off the table and set the megaphone down. “You cannot rain on my parade today, boss. It’s time to assign months, and I’m taking March because I want to be full-on Dionysus. Naked, covered in flowers and drunk off my ass.”

“You definitely won’t be drunk,” Adele said, “and you cannot be completely nude.”

“I won’t be. I bought a dick sock on Amazon,” Antonio said with a smirk.

Christ, this was going to be a mess. He approached the table where Antonio had the sign-up sheet, and he felt a presence at his side. He turned, unsurprised to find Ridge sliding up to him, looking worried.

“Did I miss something? Was I supposed to buy stuff for this?”

Adele sighed. “No. We haven’t done this in a few years, and I forgot this asshole caught me at a moment of weakness and I okayed the calendar. I mean, they sell well,” Adele said, rubbing the back of his neck. “We have twenty-two full-timers, so two guys go twice, and we do two editions. Last time we did this, we were able to fund the repairs we needed to the mechanic bay and enough to donate to the children’s hospital here.”

Ridge softened. “Oh. And, uh, do we have to get naked, or…”

“No one’s getting naked,” Adele said again. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “You also don’t have to go tube-sock or whatever Antonio’s bragging about. Just…show some skin, make it hot. Your old station didn’t do this?”

Ridge’s cheeks pinked. “Big-city funding.”

“Right.” Adele glowered when he was handed the sign-up sheet, but he jotted his name down on the form, not giving a shit what month he’d chosen. As long as he didn’t have to put a bunch of effort into what he was going to wear, he didn’t much care what he was dressed up as.

He looked down and saw he’d picked September.

“Hmm,” Ridge said when he took the form from him. “Both Octobers are already gone.”

Adele snorted. “Are you really surprised?”

“August seems nice,” Ridge said after a beat. He put his name down, then handed the form off. “God, do you think one day my kid’s going to find this hanging in her friend’s creepy dad’s garage?”

“Well, avoid that by not letting her go over to friends’ houses with creepy dads,” Adele said, walking over to the fridge for a bottle of juice. “That’ll solve one problem.”

Ridge laughed. “Yeah, good point. I can already tell I’m going to be one of those annoying-as-fuck parents who never lets her go anywhere.”

“You’re preaching to the choir. I did the same thing: no sleepovers until junior year. Gage’s only just forgiving me for robbing him of late-night horror marathons or whatever. But if it saved him a lifetime of trauma, I’m gonna live with that anger.” He took a long gulp of the juice and sighed. “Anyway, make sure you get—Antonio! What’s the date on the shoot? And who’s doing it?”

“Uh…my cousin’s doing the shoot. And it’s in three Fridays.”

“Friday’s our worst day,” Adele said .

“Yeah, well, he’s got a million things going on, and you wouldn’t increase the budget for some big-name photographer.”

“It’s soft-core firefighter porn,” Adele muttered. “I’m not paying big bucks for that.”

Ridge snorted. “Poor bastard’s gonna have to put up with a lot.”

“Here’s hoping he appreciates the eye candy,” Adele said, lifting his juice into the air before draining it all. “Anyway, my shift’s about to end. You out of here soon?”

“Yeah. I’m picking up Ina, and we’re heading over to the new preschool that’s got a couple of Deaf teachers. They have a parent ASL integration class thingie there, which I’m signing up for. Oh, and that reminds me, I need to swap for Wednesdays off.”

“Send me a text,” Adele said as he headed for his locker. “Otherwise, I’ll never remember.”

He saluted Adele as he followed him into the locker room and went to his own, which was on the far right where all the rookies had to keep their shit. “Oh, and about that dad club meeting…”

“Tell me you’re finally going to come by,” Adele begged. He wanted some fresh blood in the mix. Not that things were getting stale, but he really liked Ridge, and a small part of him worried that things were starting to fall apart. He wasn’t ready to lose that part of his life because he had Kash now.

Ridge sighed. “I was thinking about it. I thought it might be good for Ina to hang out with Rex, at least. I mean, I know they have years apart, but?—”

“No, that’ll be good,” Adele said quickly. “Rex is great with the little ones. And I think he’ll be excited to have another Deaf kid around. ”

“Even if she’s got—” He made the sign for cochlear implants.

“I doubt he gives a shit about that,” Adele said, hopping to pull his jeans over his ass. “He goes to a school with all kinds of kids. And everyone in the group signs. Even Dallas’s baby is picking up on it. But I know he probably still feels a little isolated.”

“That’s what I’m terrified of. I don’t want Ina to feel like an outsider.” Ridge said, his face drawn.

Adele sighed. “Gage went through it too. Being adopted, being raised by a single dad, not knowing where he came from. I was worried he was going to get bullied for it, but he’s such a likable kid, and he never seemed to give a shit about his birth parents.”

“You really raised a good one,” Ridge said with a small smile. “I hope I have that kind of relationship with Ina when she’s older. I…” He hesitated, and Adele took a step closer after pulling his shirt over his head. He dropped to the bench and looked up at Ridge, hoping his face looked patient. Ridge rubbed the back of his neck. “I never wanted kids, and I’m obviously never going to tell her that, but she doesn’t get that nice, fluffy story about how me and my partner went out and chose her. She was abandoned in a little box at a random fire station in the middle of the city.”

Adele hadn’t known that. “Is that what happened?”

Ridge glanced away. “It’s a long story. It’s not a secret, but it’s complicated.”

Adele wasn’t going to push. “Look, you still chose her,” Adele said quietly. “You might not have been out looking, but the moment you set eyes on her, you loved her.”

Ridge sighed and shrugged. “Yeah. But I’m terrified she’s going to doubt me.”

“Look, man, I get it.” Adele rested his forearms on his thighs and leaned forward, staring at the ground. He rarely ever talked about this, but it felt nice to say it to someone who understood. “I think I’ve spent most of Gage’s life waiting for the moment he told me I wasn’t his real dad. He grew up knowing he was adopted, and there was this piece of me waiting for him to get so pissed at me he used the one thing that would tear me to shreds.”

“He never did?” Ridge asked softly.

Adele shook his head. “No. I don’t know if it even occurs to him that we’re not biologically related most days. And I’ve done my best not to project that insecurity onto him because he doesn’t need it. He’s already a bi teenager of a queer dad in a small town, you know?”

Ridge snorted a laugh. “Yeah, I get that.”

“Don’t assume she’s ever going to look at you any other way except adoring. Well, until she becomes a preteen and is pissed off at everything, but that’s not something you can avoid. You’re better off learning to steel your heart against the teenager look of absolute disgust than adoption worries. I think that hurts worse than anything because it’s so honest.”

Ridge winced. “How bad is it?”

“I took Gage with me to get shoes a few weeks ago, and I picked a pair I really liked. The look on his face made me want to crawl into a hole,” Adele said with a shudder. And it had been true. Gage had been horrified at his taste, and Adele had put the damn shoes back, only to return and buy them later because he’d be damned if he let teenage fashion sense dictate his wardrobe.

The worst part was that he wore them as a sign of protest when he got home, and Gage hadn’t even noticed. And when Adele waved them in his face, he said, “Cool shoes. Can I go hang out with Lucas? ”

Adele felt robbed of his vindication.

“I guess if that’s the worst thing I have to look forward to?—”

“It’s not,” Adele said honestly. “You have to look forward to the age when they get introduced to making bad decisions. Ditching, drugs, sex—all that shit. You have to look forward to the moment when you realize they don’t need you anymore. You have to look forward to sleepless nights where you’re overcome with anxiety about them making bad decisions because you trust them, but you don’t trust yourself to have taught them everything they need to know about navigating the world.”

Ridge paled. “This does not sound fun.”

“It’s fuckin’ not,” Adele said. “But it’s life. Gage is leaving for college soon. He’s going to be living on his own, and he won’t be five steps away behind his bedroom door anymore. If he’s in trouble, I won’t be able to be there the second he needs me. And,” Adele added, his voice softer, “he’s moving into the stage of his life where he won’t need me. Not the way he used to.”

“Fuck.”

Adele laughed and slapped his thighs as he stood. “Yep. Fuck. That’s why we have the club. So we can get through all the hard parts, and we still won’t be alone when it’s all over.”

“Even if some of us remain tragically single?”

“I don’t think that’s your fate,” Adele said, smiling at his friend, “but should that happen, the answer is still yes. Even if one of us stays tragically single.”

“How are you so good yet so bad at pep talks?” Ridge asked.

Adele grinned as he walked to his locker to grab his wallet and keys. “It’s a gift. What can I say?”