And Kelly was drawing random pictures that weren’t random at all.

  Seth’s hands, long and supple, his eyes, like green lasers, seeing to the heart of the things he loved best. His mouth, wide and generous, and his white teeth, nibbling at his lower lip as he concentrated on something particularly difficult.

  His instrument, singing the songs of the gods, just because Seth asked nicely.

  Craig came downstairs in the morning, early, and found Kelly asleep on the couch surrounded by sheets of computer paper, each one specially marked like a snowflake. Kelly woke up and tried to sit up without crumpling them, only to find Seth’s dad pulling random pictures out from under his behind and his hips.

  “Something on your mind?” Craig asked dryly, setting the sheaf of rumpled pictures on the coffee table.

  Kelly gave him a watery smile. “He’s coming home.”

  And this morning, Craig Arnold’s smile looked just like his son’s. Slow and dreamy like a sunrise.

  “Good.”

  Reckoning

  SETH HAD his carry-on and his violin, and a splitting headache and blurry vision that came from spending three days on standby in Newark and three different flights after that with eight hours of layovers.

  He wasn’t sure of the last time he’d eaten, and he was positive he didn’t smell so good.

  He knocked tentatively on his father’s door, hoping his dad was home. Was the Cadillac there? Who was driving the Caddy these days? Wasn’t it Lulu’s car? Was Agnes driving? He couldn’t remember.

  God, let his dad be home.

  Agnes opened the door instead, and he stared at her, surprised. She was short, topping out at five three, but she looked so grown-up since…. God. Had it been a year since he’d seen her? ’Cause he was going to see her at her play, but that hadn’t turned out so well, and after that, Skype was always so chaotic.

  “Agnes, are you driving yet?”

  “No, I’m still fifteen. Jeez, Seth, you look like shit! Kelly said you were coming, but we would have had someone come get you from the airport—”

  “I had to take a Lyft from San Francisco,” he told her, and that still boggled him. So had the price. Yikes.

  “That’s horrible. Come in—God, come in.”

  Seth wandered into the apartment he’d always known. Same denim furniture, same brown drapes, beige carpet, same dust.

  But Agnes was apparently sleeping on the couch because there was a shit-ton of pink sheets and a comforter folded up on it, as well as a small suitcase with her clothes and a porta crib in the corner with baby supplies—formula, diapers, a bag with what looked like all the baby’s clothes.

  And a baby in the middle.

  Seth smiled a little. “X-man?” He’d heard about the baby and seen the baby on Skype, but he hadn’t yet held the baby, and he yearned to. This was part of the family he hadn’t had a chance to get to know.

  “Yeah. He’s asleep. You can hold him in the morning.”

  “Where’s—”

  “My stupid brother is upstairs, talking to the hospice nurse because my other stupider brother is….” Her rant, so much like one of Kelly’s, trailed off. “Dying,” she said with a sigh. “Whatever. You’re here, and I’m glad. Come here. I need a hug.”

  Mm. He needed to hold her, but she peeled out of his arms way too soon.

  “You need a shower,” she said bluntly. “Oh my God, Seth, what happened?”

  “Three days on standby,” he said. “Twelve hours in layovers.”

  “And a Lyft from San Francisco. Jesus, it’s like a holy quest!”

  “Well,” he repeated the thing he’d heard sixty-dozen times in the last four days, “it is a week before Thanksgiving.”

  “Damn. Get in the shower. When’s the last time you ate?”

  Seth tried to think about it. “There was a noodle place in Newark,” he mumbled, “and a Panda Express in Houston, but I had a lot of walking in Houston. And that was just to get to the Sky Tram. Was Houston yesterday or today?”

  Kelly’s sister had the round face Kelly’d had as a child, but it looked like hers, pleasing and soft, would follow her into adulthood.

  Her round eyes looked even more horrified in that delicate little circle.

  “Shower,” she muttered. “Do you even have any clean clothes?”

  “When was Denver?” he asked.

  “Holy fucking God. I’ll get you some out of your drawers. There’s got to be some sweats that won’t slide off your bony ass.”

  Good idea. Well, Kelly’s sisters really were all super geniuses, right?

  Seth emerged fifteen minutes later feeling a little better—clean, at least, and moisturized. His dad still kept cocoa butter in the bathroom, which sort of hurt a little. Agnes was right—his old sweats were just about perfect, and there were even some old underwear and… oh God.

  Kelly’s old black shirt.

  The one they’d used the first time they made love on his dad’s couch.

  He almost put it back in the drawer and went through his dad’s drawers for a plain white one, but he couldn’t.

  Kelly.

  He was so close.

  Agnes had some chicken and veggies ready for him when he was done, and he ate it, almost falling asleep at the table.

  “Where’s Kelly again?”

  “Go lie down, honey,” she told him, tousling his hair. He grinned at her, because he’d done the same thing to her as a child.

  “You’ll wake me up when he’s here, right?”

  “Sure.”

  Without quite knowing how it happened, Kelly’s little sister, who was the same age Kelly had been when they’d fallen in love, had Seth by the elbow and was taking him through the apartment. She had him lay down in his bed and pulled his old comforter over his shoulders, then kissed his forehead.

  “I really love your brother,” he told her, because she might not know this. “I fell in love with him when he was your age. And we feel so grown-up now, but a little part of me is still in love with that same boy. And most of me is in love with who he is now. Isn’t that weird?”

  She kissed his forehead again, and this time something wet fell. She wiped it off with her thumb.

  “That’s totally amazing,” she whispered. “I love you, Seth. Get some sleep.”

  He was probably asleep before she turned off the light.

  He wasn’t sure when Kelly crawled into bed with him, turning so his back was to Seth’s front. He only knew it felt right.

  “Kelly?”

  “Anyone else climbing into bed with you?” Kelly asked, and his voice sounded thick.

  “No. Caleb sleeps on the couch. Amara and I only have bunk beds, you know.”

  Kelly’s chuckle was strained, and he pulled Seth’s arms around his middle. “You’ll have to tell me when you wake up.”

  “I missed you so bad. Any time is forever when you’re not at the end of it.”

  “I missed you too. I thought it would hurt, chasing the dream of you again. And then I didn’t even have the dream of you, and it was like I had no heart anymore.”

  Seth rubbed his chest, his body heat seeping in through Seth’s sleep-addled brain like a balm. “Gotta make it better,” he said. “You need your heart.”

  “You’re here, mijo. Got it back again. Now go to sleep. Agnes said you went through hell to get here. Tomorrow’s gonna really suck, okay?”

  “What’s happening tomorrow?”

  Kelly let out a long sigh. “My brother needs to talk to us. He says… he says this is the only gift he can give.”

  Seth felt an unexpected grief bubbling up. “I’d rather have one of his Hot Wheels.”

  Kelly started to giggle, but it turned to tears soon enough, and then he rolled over in Seth’s arms and they were holding each other, face-to-face, and crying.

  That was how they fell asleep.

  Children clutching each other in the storm.

  WHEN HE woke up in the morning, Kelly was still there.

  “Seth, I hate to bother you, but I gotta pee.”

  Seth relaxed his grip and let him up, then fell back asleep again, for he had no idea how long. He didn’t wake up again until Kelly came back into the room, a baby in one arm and a sandwich in his other hand.

  “What’s the sandwich for?”

  “The baby doesn’t faze you at all, does it?”

  Seth heard the teasing note and let out a little smile. “I like babies. You know that.”

  Kelly sobered. “Good. Here—you eat and let Mr. X here get a look at you. When you’re done, he might even let you hold him.”

  The baby made that baby sound—a gurgle and a belch or something—and Seth agreed to terms.

  “My dad says he’s real good,” Seth told him, digging into the sandwich. It was the first time he’d been hungry in six months.

  “What your dad is leaving out, because he’s just as nuts about babies as you are, is that he’s soggy.”

  Seth looked at the baby, who regarded him serenely back through green eyes that definitely weren’t Matty’s. “Cornstarch,” Seth said, smiling slowly to see if maybe this baby would respond. Mr. X chewed on his fist without a lot of enthusiasm and widened his eyes a little. Well, close. “Cornstarch for a soggy baby.”

  Kelly dropped a kiss on top of Xavier’s head. “Not soggy that way. His muscles. Like that smile he’s not getting for you. He can barely lift his hands up to his mouth. He’s got some problems, Seth—”

  “Like Chloe?”

  “Well, yeah. But different problems.”

  Seth smiled at the baby again. This time, he was sure he got a little smile back. “Not problems,” he said, completely lost in the baby. “Personality features.”

  “Oh my God, Seth, you never listen—”

  Seth scowled, realizing this could be the finale of the fight they should have had when he’d been in the hospital. “No. I listen. You’re trying to tell me that he’s a challenge. And that you’re going to be responsible for him after your brother dies. And that he’ll be my responsibility too, just like Chloe. I hear you, Kelly. Now I need you to hear me.”

  Kelly gaped. “You don’t talk this much ever.”

  Seth set down his sandwich, not hungry anymore. “The last six months, I didn’t have anyone who could hear my heart around me. I had to save it for the week, without talking to you in between times. And that’s my point. My whole life, you, my dad, your parents, they moved heaven and earth to know what was in my heart. To give me the things I didn’t know how to ask for. To help me in school when paperwork isn’t my best thing. And the whole time I was like, ‘But, uhm, I’m really not that special.’ You all told me I was. So why is taking these children in any different than that. No, they’re probably not going to solo in New York at twenty….” He stopped and tried to do the math.

  “Five. You’re twenty-five, Seth.”

  “Thank you. I keep thinking it’s twenty-two. I have no idea why. But my point is, they’re special too. I can move heaven and earth for their specialness, just like you all moved it for me. I got no problem with that. I got no problem being a dad at twenty-six—”

  “Five.”

  “Whatever! I got no problem with that. Yeah, it’s young—you think I don’t know Amara and Vince aren’t gonna wait ten more years? There’s people I play with not sure at forty? I get it. But I’m sure now. You’re sure now. Your family’s not a sinkhole, Kelly. Your family’s a family. And I want to be a part of it. I want to be a part of it more than anything in the world, except how I want to be a part of you.” He swallowed, not sure if that came out right. “I want to be a part of your life more,” he clarified. “But the rest of the family is nice too. Agnes looks just like you at fifteen, did you know that? Her face is a little rounder, but it’s uncanny.”

  Kelly was crying, and Seth didn’t know what that meant.

  “That was a good speech,” Kelly said. “That was a life-changing sort of speech.”

  Seth grabbed some tissues and used them to wipe Kelly’s face, since he was holding the really super-placid baby in the crook of his arm.

  “Can it change our lives?” he asked after a moment.

  “How’s that gonna look?”

  Planning. Seth had been bad at planning, but good at chess. This was like chess. “How about I go back to New York and find us a house in Pennsylvania or Connecticut or New Jersey or something. It’s like this weird little incestuous area made up of three states—”

  “The tristate area, Seth. It’s an actual thing.”

  “Oh. Anyway, I get Amara and Susan to help, and we get a place outside the city by good schools for Chloe and X-man, somewhere you can find a job—”

  “I work from home.” Kelly shrugged. “I need to meet with my bosses once, maybe twice a month.”

  “See? Then you keep that job, and we find a nanny who can take care of everybody when we’re busy, and we… you know. Live our lives. And maybe I move to Italy in two years—”

  “This Gianni guy still hitting on you?”

  “No. He’s sleeping with this girl who plays bassoon. Anyway, he likes me in his orchestra, and he’s going back to Italy eventually, and we can go there. And we can bring the kids and do the same thing. And learn Italian. And maybe Germany someday. And we just keep dealing. I mean, it doesn’t end just because we’re together. Even if it was just us, we’d still have to make decisions and balance your stuff and my stuff. And….” Seth hated to admit this. “Yes. Sometimes my stuff is bigger, but that’s because if I don’t show up for work, a thousand people who just paid a shit-ton of money to see me are gonna be real depressed. But some days your stuff is gonna be more important, and I can deal with that. But….” And his façade of adulthood slipped away, leaving behind the kid he’d been at the very beginning.

  The kid whose world revolved around Kelly Cruz.

  “But God, won’t it be better to deal with it together? ’Cause….” The last six months came crashing back into his heart, and it almost broke all over again. “’Cause being alone these last months sure did feel like the end of my world.”

  Kelly nodded, biting his lip, the tears still falling. “Mine too,” he confessed. “God, Seth. I’d rather try almost anything than go back to that. Even the dream of you is better than no you at all.”

  Seth wasn’t sure who moved, but they were suddenly kissing, mouths meshed, Seth’s whole soul involved in the kiss, even if he could only put one hand chastely on Kelly’s waist.

  They had to pull back, panting, because there was a baby making sucking sounds on his fist, and Seth smiled and leaned his head against Kelly’s.

  “Where’s Agnes?”

  “At school. Same as Chloe.”

  “That kid go down for a nap? Ever?”

  “In about two hours. The good news is he sleeps like a rock and stays that way for another two hours.”

  “Me and X-man gonna get along just fine.”

  Kelly laughed softly. “We gotta talk to my brother first.” He sobered and pulled back. “He looks sort of… well, like a movie special effect, but worse. Just be prepared. He’s all swollen and yellow and bald and shit. It’s… you won’t be able to see the Matty you knew in all of that.”

  Seth stared at him in wonder, because he was here and they’d kissed and there would be no more time without the hope of him. “I can still see Chloe and Agnes in you,” he said. “Is Matty’s heart still in there?”

  Kelly’s eyes—such a soulful brown, and so full of life—didn’t quite sparkle, but they did glow, ever so subtly. “First time I’ve seen it in years.”

  “I can meet the creature from the black lagoon if I get to talk to real Matty again.” The pain of Matty’s betrayal, the memory of what they’d been to each other as kids, washed over him. “Your brother was my best friend once.”

  Kelly’s eye roll was almost epic. “That’s only because he was older. If I’d been older, I would have been your best friend and your boyfriend.”

  “Yeah. Probably.” Seth wanted to kiss his face all over, wanted to devour him whole. Instead he remembered he had to be an adult and pulled back with a sigh. “I need to see if I’ve got any clothes in my carry-on—”

  “You don’t,” Kelly muttered. “Oh my God, Seth, I pulled that shit out, and half of it was dirty and the other half was falling apart. Your father just sent you clothes. What happened?”

  “I don’t know. You texted me and there was packing and leaving. That’s all I remember.”

  “Well, remember I’m going to Walmart while you’re talking to my useless brother, because you can’t stay here with one pair of old jeans and three pairs of holey underwear.”

  Seth met his eyes and smiled slightly. “And a black T-shirt.”

  Kelly got a good look at what he was wearing and covered his eyes. “And now I’m even more horny. And embarrassed. How do you even have that?”

  “I never gave it back.” Because duh!

  Kelly uncovered his eyes and kissed Seth on the cheek again. “Like my heart. Now here. You take the baby. I’ll take the dishes, and I’m going to change and shower, because I have clothes. I’ll take you upstairs before I go get you some shit to wear. Your dad is gonna crap when he finds out you left all your new stuff in New York.”

  He paused and frowned.

  “When are you going back?”

  “After Christmas. With you.”

  Kelly raised his eyebrows. “I thought you just said you were gonna go get us a house and—”

  “I changed my mind. I’m bringing you with me. We’ll sleep in my bunk until we can find a place. I’m not leaving you again. It would kill me.”

  Kelly traced his cheek with gentle fingertips. “It won’t kill you if you know I’m coming soon,” he said softly. “I like your plan. Let’s follow that. I promise, I’m not letting the dream of us go again.”

  “I’ll think about it.” Seth really didn’t want to get on another plane without Kelly by his side.

  “You do that. And you sound all growly and possessive and weird. I like it, but don’t be dumb. We know how to be grown-ups.”