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Tyler kept his word and was waiting in the parking lot at nine o’clock. Richie scrambled hastily into the truck and Tyler pulled off. The ride was drowned in awkward silence and it dawned on Richie that Tyler was always the one to start the conversations. He had no idea what to say to the man outside of their arguments. He didn’t even know if he wanted to say anything and risk bypassing the boundaries between boss and employee. Not that they weren’t already very close to doing so. He had never heard of a person’s boss acting as a personal chauffeur for them. Even Cedric was shocked by the turn of events when they spoke the night before.
Richie inspected Tyler’s face while he drove, carving into mind every frown line in sight. His boss was actually a handsome man when he wasn’t making snide comment.
“I know what you’re thinking but sorry, I’m a married man.”
Richie sputtered and gaped, a blush crept up on him.
Tyler took a look at his face and laughed. “Wait, were you really thinking that you’d do me?”
“No,” Richie scoffed, “Why do you have to be so vulgar?”
“I’m not the one staring at a guy like I want to eat him.”
“I was not staring at you like that,” Richie said indignantly, “I was just thinking about… Your kids. I was curious about what your kids look like.”
Tyler said sarcastically, “Is that so?”
“Yes,” he lied, “How many kids do you have anyway?”
“Four, three girls and a boy.”
“Wow, what’s their names?”
“Rachel, Venus, Bonnibel, and Troy.”
“How old are they?”
“Rachel is ten, Venus is eight, Troy is seven, and Bonnie is two months.”
“What do they look like?”
“Why are you asking twenty questions about my kids? You’re not planning to kidnap them, are you? Because Troy and Venus can be a major pain in the ass so I don’t think it’s worth it.”
“Of course not,” Richie laughed, “I can’t wait to have kids of my own. I hope to find someone to settle down with and adopt kids. You know, live the classic happily ever after.”
“Getting married and having kids isn’t exactly the fairytale ending that you’re imagining,” Tyler sighed heavily, “Actually, it’s just brings a new set of problems.”
Richie grimaced, “I guess you’re hinting towards your life.”
Tyler just shrugged. “Life, you know? Doesn’t always work out the way you expect it to.”
Richie nodded understandingly.
_______________
“Hey, Richie,” Richie looked up to see one of the only people that didn’t change their attitude after hearing about his sexuality. Greg was a few inches taller than Richie with messy black hair and thick glasses that nearly hid slighted slanted eyes. “Are you done with the Finley documents?”
“Nearly done,” Richie replied with a smile, “Just give me a minute.”
“No problem,” Greg leaned his hip on Richie’s desk, “So how has things been going?”
Richie shrugged, “Could be worst. Mr. Delroe is such a nice guy, I can’t believe he’s giving me a ride back and forth from work. I totally had him pegged wrong.”
Greg chuckled, “You’re one of the few people who get to see that. Especially with everything that’s happening with his home life. I’m starting to think that being around you has had a therapeutic effect on him.”
“Yeah, Greg,” Richie paused to wonder if he was actually going to ask. “Do you know what’s been going on with his home life?” He asked.
Greg frowned thoughtfully, “I don’t know if I should be the one to tell you.” He glanced at Richie’s sad blue eyes, “But what the heck? I’ll spill. I overheard him talking to his wife about two months ago while she was in the hospital. She had given birth to their fourth daughter and no one called to tell him until hours after. He was outraged. She even picked her name without him. You could hear him yelling throughout the whole building. Seriously, his voice shook the very foundations, he was so furious. I’m not sure what happened afterwards because he stomped out the building but if that’s not a relationship on the rocks then I don’t know what is.”
“Wow,” Richie lowered his eyes to his keyboard, obviously distraught, his hands came to a standstill. “That’s terrible. I can just imagine how heartbroken he was.”
Greg didn’t respond, he just nodded in agreement.
“Poor guy,” Richie continued with his heart still shattering, “It must have been so painful to miss his daughter’s birth.”
Greg patted Richie’s back sympathetically, “Now you’re making me feel bad. You look like you missed your own daughter’s birth. Delroe’s a tough guy, he bounced back the very next day.”
“That doesn’t mean that he’s not still in pain.”
Greg couldn’t respond so he stayed silent and waited for Richie to finish.
An hour passed while Richie carried on with his work. Suddenly a shout rang through office, “Richie.”
Richie jumped out of his seat and saw Tyler motioning for him to come to his office. Richie walked over obediently and walked into the office, closing the door behind him.
“Yeah?” he asked curiously while Tyler typed at his computer.
“I need to leave early,” Tyler explained without looking up, “Be ready to go in an hour.”
“Okay but why?”
Tyler sighed, “My son got in trouble at school so he has detention and he’ll miss his bus home. My wife can’t pick him up so I have to.”
“Oh, what did he do?”
Tyler massaged the bridge of his nose to stall before answering that question. “He was wrestling with some kids during recess,” he sighed, “And hurt a kid badly. They’re trying to play it off like Troy did it on purpose but they’re giving him the ‘benefit of the doubt.’ I don’t want to sound like a defensive dad when I say this but the boy is truly harmless. He would never hurt someone on purpose so I’m guessing he just got a bit too into the game.”
Richie chuckled, “I believe you. Kids get overexcited, it’s part of why we love them so much. So one hour?”
Tyler nodded and sent a grateful smile to Richie, “One hour and not a second later, brat.”
Richie grinned, “Got it, old man.”
An hour later, the two were in the car, driving towards the elementary school. This time, the silence wasn’t awkward but strange comfortable. Richie couldn’t help feeling like he should feel uncomfortable but they were both seemed to appreciate the silence. They pulled up to the elementary school and Tyler hopped out after ordering Richie to stay there. He disappeared into the building and came back out, pulling a young boy by the arm. From what he could see, the boy was talking at a mile a minute while Tyler was completely silent.
Tyler opened the back door of the truck and herded Troy into the car then closed the door after him. He climbed into the driver’s seat without a word and pulled off.
Troy had stopped talking in favor of staring curiously at Richie.
“Dad,” his immature voice sounded like a chime of a bell, “Who’s this guy?”
“No one, Troy,” Tyler gritted his teeth, “Now that we’re off of school property, would you like to tell me why you were wrestling in recess?”
“Um…” Troy thought about it, “Not if you’re going to be mad.”
“Don’t worry, I’m already mad.”
“Oh,” Troy laughed nervously, “Well, you see, me and my friends were talking about the wrestling moves we saw on the last WWE match and they said they could do it and I said I could do it better and I could do it better, that’s why I got detention.”
Richie covered his mouth before he could let an accidental chortle slip.
Tyler growled, “Didn’t I tell you to stop watching WWE?”
“You did,” Troy confirmed, “But I was trying to talk to mom ’cause I was bored and she was like, ‘Not now, Troy.’ But I was bored and Rachel and Venus were playing on their own so I told her I was bored and she said, ‘Can’t you watch cartoons or wrestling or something?’ and I said, ‘Dad says I can’t watch wrestling’ and mom said that I could so I did.”
Tyler sighed, “Well I’m reinstating what I said. You can’t watch WWE and the next time you’re bored, watch cartoons instead since your mother is obviously too busy to play with her own damn kids.”
Startled, Richie watched as Tyler fumed silently. Troy noticed too but he turned away so he didn’t have to see it. He hated his father’s silent angry more than his yelling angry. Yelling angry was okay because he could still feel a loving warmth but when his parents were silent angry, he felt cold and lonely.
Tyler noticed the uneasy silence that fell over the car, which felt totally wrong because Troy was in the car. Troy was the nonstop chatterbox. Something was wrong if he was silent.
“So, Troy,” Tyler said in an attempt to repair the atmosphere, “How was school?”
Troy instantly brightened, “I hated it. First, this one girl calls me gross because I got earwax out my ear so I called her gross for keeping earwax in her ear and she called me a jerk. She’s a poopface though. Don’t you think so, dad? Dad? Dad? Dad? Dad?”
Tyler barked, “God, shut up, Troy. I heard you the first time.” Richie couldn’t hold back a chuckle.
Troy pouted, “But you didn’t answer the first time.”
“You didn’t give me a chance to,” Tyler retorted. “You just kept on saying my name.”
“Um, dad?”
Tyler glared at his son through the rearview mirror, “What?”
“I’m pretty sure ‘dad’ isn’t your name.”
Richie covered his mouth while he laughed.
Tyler took a deep breath to calm his nerves, “It’s times like these when I wish I didn’t have kids.”
“I’ve heard a song like that,” Troy said, then sung horribly, “It’s times like these that you learn to live again. It’s times like these that you give and give again.” (Times like These by Foo Fighters)
“I’m ignoring you, Troy,” Tyler announced, “I’m just going to ignore you.”
Troy switched to scream singing, “I can’t feel the way I did before, don’t turn your back on me, I won’t be ignored. Time won’t heal this damage anymore, don’t turn your back on me, I won’t be ignored.” (Faint by Linkin Park)
Tyler swung wildly into his driveway, “Troy, get out now and I swear, if you say a single word,” he trailed off threateningly.
Troy mimed zipping his mouth but he puckered his lips and leaned towards Tyler. Tyler took a look at Troy’s duckface and said, “No, Troy.”
Troy frowned angrily, “Hey, if you’re going to embarrass me in front of my friends then I’m going to embarrass you in front of yours.”
Tyler grumbled under his breath but leaned in and let Troy lay a sloppy kiss on his cheek. At that point, Richie gave up trying to hide his laughter. Satisfied, Troy finally hopped out the car and ran up to the door. They stayed until Rachel opened the door to let Troy in, then pulled off towards Richie’s apartment.
“He is so cute,” Richie gushed, “Can I adopt him as my own? I have never met such an adorable kid.”
Tyler looked over at him incredulously, “Have you not met a single kid? You just saw Troy at his worst and you still think he’s cute?”
Richie nodded affirmatively, “He’s absolutely adorable.”
“I’m going to take a wild guess and say you like taking care of troublesome people.”
Richie shrugged, “It’s a character flaw.”
“One that I will fully exploit whenever I need a babysitter.”
Richie just laughed as Tyler pulled into Richie’s apartment complex and parked. “I’m actually okay with that. If you ever need anything, just call me, even if you’re just tired of having takeout dinner. It’s the least I can do after everything you’ve done for me.”
“You’ll cook for me?” Tyler asked with a disbelieving smirk.
“Yeah, I’m a great cook,” Richie replied indignantly, “I used to cook for my friends all the time.”
“So you’ll cook for me and take care of my kids if I ask you to. If you’re trying to win me over then you’re off to a great start. Now you just have to convince me that gay sex is hot as hell.”
“Oh, uh,” Richie stared, wide-eyed and speechless. His mind was working rapidly and thoughts such as ‘can I?’ and ‘we are at my apartment’ surfaced. Then he tried to crush them with logic like, ‘this guy is married’ and even more importantly, ‘he’s straight.’ Tried, meaning he was still wondering if he could convert this completely straight, married, and handsome man. If he could then he would definitely try at the very least.
“Stop looking at me like that, I was joking dammit.”
Richie snapped out of his dangerous thoughts, “What?”
“I was joking,” Tyler repeated, “Damn, you looked terrified.”
“Oh,” Richie laughed uneasily, “Of course you were. Sorry, I guess I should go then. See you tomorrow.”
Tyler watched him slide out the car with amusement, “Wait, were you going to, you know, invite me in? I’m not totally uninterested.”
Richie gaped, “Really?”
“Oh shit, were you really going to?” Tyler laughed. Richie stood there and felt his face become steadily redder as Tyler continued to laugh mercilessly. “I was just kidding.”
“Good, asshole,” Richie shouted out of embarrassment, “I wasn’t planning on inviting you in anyway.” He slammed the door shut and marched up to his apartment, slamming that door behind him too.
He was so enraged and embarrassed that he knew he had to vent so he picked up his phone and called Cedric.
Cedric answered with a {What’s up?}
“My boss is such a jerk.”
{Really? You were gushing about him yesterday, now he’s a jerk? What happened?}
“Well, he, uh, he kind of,” Richie grew redder as he babbled, “He made me admit that I’m attracted to him to some degree then started laughing at me.”
The line went silent then there was a sudden chortle, {Are you serious?}
“Shut up,” Richie whined, “It was so embarrassing.”
{Hold up, so you’re attracted to a married man? Nice.}
The realization dropped on Richie like a bomb, “Oh my god, I totally forgot. He spoke like he was divorced.”
{Oh, rocky marriage? Then go ahead and get in there, you home-wrecker.}
“Ced, this isn’t funny. I even met one of kids today. This guy loves his family, even if he’s not so fond of his wife. I don’t want to break them apart.”
{You obviously don’t see it the way I see it. If he’s talking like a divorced man then he must be on the way to getting a divorce. Don’t let that deter you and as for the kid, what was he like?}
“He was so adorable,” Richie immediately squealed, “He’s the same age as the Sy’s boy but he’s so much louder and he looks so much like his dad. He even gave Tyler a goodbye kiss on the cheek. You will never understand how adorable that was.”
{Whoa, slow down, Rich. You sound like a teenage girl. I say go for him. It might turn out better than you think.}
“I don’t know, Ced, it’s not like I’m in love with him.”
{Yet.}
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