“Honey, this is what parents do when you bring home your partner. It’s a rite of passage. You can’t avoid it.”
“Max doesn’t need to know that I peed my pants at school!”
“But it was so cute!” Jeannie clapped her hands together. “Your face was so red, but we couldn’t tell whether it was because you kissed Melanie or because of your wet pants.”
“I’m sure I was simply wishing for a hole to open up beneath my feet.”
His parents laughed heartily and drove on, showing Max where Ethan got his first job (‘he was the best ice cream scooper they ever had, the owner told us so himself’), to where he first learned to ride a bicycle (‘he cried the first two times he fell, but then he never fell again. Well, not until that time he hit a curb and crushed his little boy parts. Be he healed up just fine from that, Max. Well, I’m sure you know.’)
“Someone put me out of my misery,” Ethan groaned, pushing his face into Max’s shoulder. “Max, tell me you brought your weapon.”
Max curled his arm around his shoulders in support. “The best I can do is beat you with a pillow.”
“That’ll take too long.”
“Oh, Ethan, you’re so dramatic,” his mother teased him while looking like she was having the time of her life. Max had to work hard to suppress his own smile. “Coming up soon is the movie theater where Ethan tried to arrest two boys who snuck in through a side door. Ethan was only seven, though, so I’m afraid nothing came of it.”
“Should have filed a police report,” Ethan mumbled. “Even as a seven-year-old I had a right to make a citizen’s arrest.”
“Your sense of righteousness is truly awe-inspiring,” Max told him. He kissed the top of his head. “The FBI missed out on you.”
“The FBI is probably relieved.”
They picked on Ethan a bit more before his parents relented and decided he’d been bullied enough. Max’s heart felt full as they arrived back at the Winters’ home. Though not one for public displays of affection, he kept his arm around Ethan’s waist as they followed his parents into the house.
It was a small place, with only one bathroom and a kitchen the size of their bathroom back in Radcliffe Place. Nonetheless, the humble home was comforting with its lived-in furniture and decor. The Winters had been gifted the home by their parents after their wedding, and hadn’t left it since.
“It’s a little late for the old fogeys,” Dale said as he stood in the living room and palmed the back of his neck, obviously chagrined. “We usually go to sleep right about now.”
“It’s okay, Dad. We can watch TV for a while or just talk.” Ethan smiled at Max ruefully. He’d warned Max that his parents would want them to stay in the extra bedroom while they were in Indiana. Max had claimed it wasn’t an issue. But it was certainly a new experience for him to sleep in another person’s home, rather than at a hotel. He valued his privacy. There would be little in such a tiny house.
“We wake up early, like old folks do,” Jeannie warned. She kept an arm around her husband’s waist. “We’ll do our best not to wake you. How do you like your eggs, Maxmillian?”
Surprised by the question, he fumbled. “I—that is, you don’t need to prepare anything.”
“I cook breakfast every day,” she informed him proudly. “Ethan used to love my pancakes but then he bought me a fancy waffle machine and that was what he lived on whenever he visited during college.”
“Your waffles are the best,” Ethan said with enthusiasm. He glanced at Max, who was still coming to grips with breakfast. “We usually eat pretty lightly. So maybe just over easy on toast for us? Do you have any yogurt by chance?”
“I just bought some! Is blueberry alright? They were two for a dollar.”
Ethan smiled. “Perfect, Mom. Thanks.”
“Yes, thank you,” Max added belatedly.
Dale thumbed down the hall. “The shower is a little touchy. I’ll show you what you need to do,” he said to Max.
Max nodded and followed him down the hall. The bathroom was even smaller than he remembered from that afternoon. Only one person could stand at the sink. A second person would need to be inside the tub. Seafoam blue tiles covered everything.
Ethan’s father swept aside the stiff plastic shower curtain that was decorated with starfish. “You just need to be really careful with the temperature dial,” he explained as he motioned at the big acrylic handle in the wall. “It’s gone reversed for some reason, so if you want hot, you need to turn it to Cold. And if you want cold, you turn it to Hot. Also, the water pressure is a little weak, and since you’re so tall, you’re going to want to adjust the head if you want to wash your hair without getting a crick in your neck.”
“Understood,” Max said solemnly as his gaze ran over the knitted cozy for the toilet paper and the sunshine stickers on the vanity mirror.
“While I have you here one on one...” Dale cleared his throat, eyes averted as though he were shy. Or intimidated. Max hoped it wasn’t the latter. “Without a daughter, I don’t need to give the Dad’s talk. And especially with Ethan being older and you being, well, the sort of man you are, it’s probably not necessary at all,” he began nervously.
Max’s mouth opened when he realized what was happening. He felt suddenly hot all over and found his own gaze wandering the small room rather than resting on Ethan’s father.
“Ethan means the world to his mom and me,” Dale went on after clearing his throat again. “I’m sure he told you what it meant when he came into our lives. We wish it could have happened earlier, so we’d have more time with him now, but we’re grateful all the same. Really, really grateful.”
“I understand,” Max said quietly. He prayed Ethan wasn’t standing within earshot. In a house this small, could they hear this conversation from the living room?
“Him finding someone he loves enough to marry—and for it to be, well, not a woman, making it even tougher. For him, I mean, not for us. It’s, uh, it’s another thing we’re grateful for. Jeannie and I honestly do feel like you’re our son, too, Maxmillian.”
“Thank you. That means more than you know,” Max murmured, humbled to his core.
“But I guess, being the dad and all, I have to warn you or something.” Dale chuckled awkwardly. He pointed a finger at Max, though he was pink-cheeked. “Don’t hurt my boy. He’s a good boy. You’ll never meet a more kind-hearted one, and now that he loves you, he’ll love you for life. Please don’t—please don’t take that for granted.”
Max could feel himself sweating. The conversation was simply awful, and yet—he cherished it in some strange way. He was getting The Talk from a parent who wanted to protect the man he loved. How could he resent that? It was impossible.
He held out his hand. After a second of surprise, the older man accepted it.
“I love your son,” Max told him. “I love him to a degree that, if I attempted to explain it, would only embarrass us both. Suffice it to say, he will always be cared for and loved by someone who measures the days by his smiles.”