“Throw the rules out the window.” he shouts. “Because, no one should tell you how to be a family. No one has the right to tell you what is right and what is wrong. This is your gig. This is your show. Make it yours. Own it. Make things right. Look back at your childhood and grab everything that was good. Use it. Take all the bad things and leave them behind. Change the future. Change your life. Don’t even look back. If not for yourself, then do it for me. Make things good. Make things right. Because everyone deserves to be happy. Everyone deserves to be loved.”
He almost blushes when he finishes his speech, looking nervously around the room hoping that people don’t think he is a total nutcase. He never used to be like this. Axel Kleve is not brave. He is not crazy. Axel Kleve follows the script, delivers the standardised course as per the manual. Axel Kleve does not behave like a lunatic, with a beaming smile on his face. He just doesn’t. Yet Axel Kleve is standing in front of his audience of parents and wondering what has happened to him. Realising that this is him. For the first time in forever he knows who he is. He is Axel. Partner. Parent. Father. Friend. And it’s okay. It’s more than okay.
AXEL: How did the date with the arsehole go?
MALENA: Crazy.
AXEL: What do you mean? Was he nice? Are you seeing him again?
MALENA: He is an arsehole. But, we talked like constantly for 2 hours. I have no idea how that happened.
AXEL: Good. So, you are friends?
MALENA: I don’t know. We are hanging out tomorrow again, and he gave me a hug when we left. I’m fucking confused.
AXEL: Confused is good. Nobody has everything figured out after one date.
MALENA: What did you and Pappa do on your first date?
AXEL: Drank coffee and laughed.
MALENA: Tobias isn’t my type at all. Nothing like what I’m like. I just felt comfortable with him, like I didn’t have to try. I think I called him every name under the sun. I listed him as ARSEHOLE in my phone and he laughed. He took a picture of it and posted on Insta. Totally nuts.
AXEL: Sounds like your kind of guy. Bring him home for dinner. I can order pizza, and we can all take the piss out of him. See if he passes the Sommerfeldt family challenge.
MALENA: As long as you are there, because Pappa might just kill him. He will just stare at him and ask him awkward questions.
AXEL: I will be there. Friday night?
MALENA: No because you and Pappa are going for dinner at Sondre and Carla’s Friday night. I am babysitting.
AXEL: Are we? Fuck, I need to buy a calendar.
MALENA: Axel! Use the fucking calendar in your phone and coordinate it with the rest of the family. This is the electronic age you wanker. I will sort it out on your phone later.
AXEL: What else am I doing this week that I don’t know about?
MALENA: Dinner Friday, you have 3 hours alone time with Pappa Saturday afternoon, then Sunday we are going to Granny and Granddad, and that’s it. Can you put your work schedule in the calendar too so I know when I need to pick up the kids?
AXEL: You need to teach me. I am useless.
MALENA: Anyway, I might bring him home one day. I don’t know. I don’t know shit. I don’t know if I even want a friend. Or a boyfriend. Or whatever. Ugh, I’m so confused.
AXEL: Do whatever feels right. I trust you, so trust yourself. Hang out. See what happens.
MALENA: I just want what you and Pappa have. The disgustingly adorable shit.
AXEL: (heart emoji) You deserve all the disgustingly adorable shit in the world Lena. Don’t settle for anything else.
MALENA: (heart emoji)
MALENA: Did I just send you a heart? That’s it, I am losing my shit. I did not send you a heart.
AXEL: Yes, you did and I love you too. You are fucking amazing.
MALENA: You are cool Axel .
AXEL: You are cool too. (fist bump emoji)
Sondre and Carla’s home, Korsvoll, Oslo
Friday night
Jens should be nervous and fidgeting in the car driving out to Sondre’s house in the suburbs. He hates these kinds of things. Dinner and drinks, at people’s houses. Pressed shirts and polished shoes. Light conversation about things he has zero interest in. Sports and politics. Bloody gardening. Always feeling judged and looked down on by the women and underwhelmed by the company of the men. Sure, Sondre is his friend, but it’s not like they have anything in common apart from work and supposedly a passion for literature. Which Jens struggles to even find in conversation with the dude who is standing in the doorway when Jens parks the car on the drive and squeezes Axel’s hand. Axel, whose face is pale and there are sweat marks forming on the collar of his shirt, while Jens feels surprisingly calm. Defiant and proud.
“We can leave whenever you want, just say the word and we are out of there. Even if it’s in the middle of dinner, just fake an emergency at work and we are gone.” Jens leans over and kisses Axel’s cheek. Unbuckles his seatbelt. Grabs the cheap petrol station flowers he picked up on the way.
“For two gay dudes, we are fucking rubbish at this.” Axel laughs. “I thought we were supposed to know this shit, choosing epic flower arrangements and bringing well thought out gifts to the hostesses of dinner parties.”
Jens just cocks his head and raises an eyebrow.
“I might just be the worst gay dude in the history of gay dudes. I mean, I don’t even know if I should call myself gay. I have kind of decided that I am Axel-sexual. It just makes things easier in my head. I love you. I fancy you. I want to have sex with you all the time. That’s enough for me Axel, and I am not even going to define myself as anything else.”
Axel just beams back at him with a face full of laughter and lips pursed for a kiss. Pouting and tangling his fingers in Jens’ finely gelled hair, messing up the whole three minutes Jens spent trying to make himself look presentable.
“I like that about you. Axel-sexual. Well, I am going to be Jens-sexual then, because there is no one else for me but you. Never was, never will be.” Axel whispers in between kisses and laughing at Jens who is giving Sondre the finger through the open car door, as Sondre shouts at them to either get inside or go get a room.
They make their way up the stairs, hand in hand. Shaking Sondre’s hand and Axel introducing himself and Jens beaming at Sondre with a face full of laughter.
“Look Axel, my wife is a fan of yours, she’s a bit crazy, and she is seven months pregnant, so please just humour her. And at least I feel safe knowing, if the shock of finding out she is having the famous Axel Kleve over for dinner makes her go into labour, she is in safe hands.”
“I’m still getting used to the idea of people knowing who I am. I have no idea how this whole famous thing happened. I am just a midwife who writes on a parenting blog, and then suddenly the whole of Norway loses their shit.” Axel is shaking his head in disbelief. “Honestly, the whole idea of people thinking I am something I am definitely not is starting to grate.”
“Well, Carla certainly thinks you are the business. She’s in the kitchen, and thinks Jens is bringing his new squeeze for dinner. She has no idea that it’s you. No idea.”
Sondre looks like an excited child. Axel looks like he doesn’t know what to do with his hands and Jens just laughs and walks ahead down the corridor.
“Carla! Hi.” Jens wraps the tiny woman with a significant bump in a hug and swings her around the room while she squeals and shouts for him to “put me down, you crazy man.”