Love In Slow Motion, page 12
Fredric laughed as he felt out the corners of the bread, then picked it up and took a bite. “Fine. What do the kids call it these days?”
Ilan gave him a flat look. “Dating, Papa. We call it dating.”
Fredric laughed again, and Ilan’s stomach swooped. He pushed aside the feeling, doing everything he could not to think about his moment of weakness in the shower. “So, what do you call it when you’re trying to…you know…?”
“Romance someone?” Ilan offered when Fredric started searching for the word. “I guess it depends. I mean, Archer swept Julian off his feet, and that was the first time I’ve ever seen something like that happen right in front of my eyes. I’m not really sure there’s a word for that. But I’m not sure that’s what you’re looking for.”
Fredric’s chuckle was softer now. “Not really. I think we all saw actual stars with him, but I don’t need to be overwhelmed by love. I just want something comfortable.”
Ilan took a moment to let that settle under his skin—sparking to life a want. A need. “I think for most of us, all that star stuff is overrated. People want to feel wanted—sometimes they want to be needed. They want to know you’re a person capable of appreciating them. And eventually loving them—even when they’re not at their best.”
“Yes.” Fredric set his sandwich down, and the longing in his voice was so profound, it made Ilan ache. “How do I do that?”
Ilan couldn’t help his own, slightly bitter, laugh. “No offense, but I think you’re barking up the wrong tree. I can’t make them stay for longer than a night.”
Fredric made a disagreeable noise, and Ilan turned his attention back to his sandwich because it was impossible to look at him with that expression on his face. The one that said he would burn the world down before he let Ilan think badly of himself.
“I think you just don’t let them stay. I know you, don’t forget that,” Fredric cautioned, and Ilan’s gaze snapped up.
“You do, but—forgive the term—you have a massive blind spot when it comes to me.”
Fredric’s brows dipped, but eventually he sighed. “That doesn’t make it less true, Ilan. Since the day I met you, I knew you’d never give yourself enough credit, and it was such a shame, because you deserve so much more than you’ve ever let yourself have.”
Ilan stood there and let himself feel those words as he ate, the food soothing some of his raw nerves a bit. The silence between them was heavy, but it wasn’t unpleasant or awkward. Ilan could just exist with this man—in quiet, in chaos—and he’d always feel at least a little bit content. The idea of losing that petrified him.
“What do you want me to do?”
Fredric fidgeted a bit, then laid his hands flat on the counter. “Help me practice?”
Ilan nearly choked to death on his swallow, and he took a minute to regain his composure. “With what, exactly?”
“Dating.” Fredric sounded exasperated, but he also sounded dejected, and Ilan hated that. “Hudson was a good man—and it should have been a good date, but it was painful,” he stressed, dragging a hand down his face. “I know I can do better, I just…need to know where to start.”
Ilan wanted to tell him no, wanted to tell him this was the worst idea he’d ever heard, but he couldn’t look at Fredric Pedalino and let those words escape his lips. “Fine,” he said, regretting everything. “One practice session, and I’ll whip you into shape as best I can. But I’m not going to be able to do anything unless you start to come to terms with being worthy of romance.”
“I know I can do it, but…”
“No,” Ilan said, and against his better judgment, he leaned forward and laid his hand over Fredric’s. “No buts. Just like Julian, you are the sort of man who deserves to be swept off your feet and carried to the stars.”
Fredric said nothing, but he let out a sharp breath, and the moment between them simmered.
Fredric had three messages with potential dates, but he was refusing to commit until he had at least one trial run that wasn’t going to end with his total and utter belief that he was a lost cause. Ilan had defended him with a sort of careful passion that he’d come to expect from the younger man, and it had stayed with him most of the day.
After Ilan agreed to help him, Fredric got a proper tour of his house, walking down the precarious dock he could feel bowing under their weight. “Tell me we’re not about to crash down into the water,” Fredric said, his hand tight on Ilan’s arm.
Ilan laughed and gave him a pat as they came to stand at the very edge, and it was a little more stable than the rest. “I’ve already scheduled a repair, but it’ll hold. The wood’s got water damage from a couple of floods. I don’t think the previous owners spent a lot of time here.”
Fredric took in a breath and turned to face the water. He could feel it, the dampness of the air and the way sounds just sort of floated and disappeared across the vast space in front of him. One of the most difficult things Fredric had come to learn about blindness was losing relativity beyond what he could touch.
He often forgot things existed beyond the reach of his fingers or the walls in his house. The months he spent at his beach house right after the stroke had been learning the basics. How to get up, how to move from room to room—even unfamiliar ones—without crashing into walls. He learned how to pour cold water and hot water. He learned it was easier to put toothpaste on his tongue than on the toothbrush and how to pin his socks together before washing them so they would always stay matching.
His therapist started sensitivity training him because he wanted to learn braille, and by the time he was done with that, he knew each of the spice jars and each of the boxes in the cupboard just by picking them up. He didn’t mix up his shampoo for body wash, and he knew his clothes by the feel of the fabric.
But the day the woman put a cane in his hand and told him they were going to walk to the end of the street and back, he had his first real panic attack. He was safe inside. He knew inside. He knew where the barriers were and what came after.
He hadn’t realized how profoundly crushing it felt to lose his ability to see the horizon—to have no way of telling how big the space was. It felt claustrophobic and endless all at the same time, and he’d taken two full weeks before he found the courage to go out again.
He did it though. He mastered cane skills so when he went home, he could walk the neighborhood and find the corner shop and go from his office to the little shawarma truck at the end of the street. And eventually, he got his first dog, and the world got bigger, and his understanding of it settled into something manageable, even if he didn’t entirely comprehend it anymore.
But there were moments in his life he missed the view. He rarely told anyone, but the little squeeze around his heart as he tried to conjure old images of the ocean or where the sky met trees often lingered. He didn’t think about it all the time, but right then with Ilan at his side, it was hard.
“Fredric?”
He turned his face and smiled. “Sorry. I got lost for a minute.”
“Are you okay?”
Fredric let out a small sigh and gave Ilan’s hand a gentle pat. “I’m struggling, but things could be worse.”
Ilan was quiet for a long while, and then he leaned into Fredric just a little closer than before. “You know it’s okay if this is all too soon, right? I get that you feel like time’s snapping at your heels, but you’re not old. You’re allowed to let things settle if you’re not ready for all of this.”
“It isn’t that,” he told him, but he wasn’t quite sure if it was a lie or not. “I was ready to leave her when she started sleeping with other people. I can’t even remember what it felt like to love her.” He let out a laugh that tasted bitter. “I don’t know if I ever did. I didn’t know better. I was so young, and she was so beautiful.”
“She still is,” Ilan said, though his tone was reluctant. “I mean, on the outside. She’s aged gracefully. But…” Fredric waited for him to close the pause. “She never did deserve you,” he finished on a sigh, and Fredric couldn’t stop himself from putting his arm around Ilan’s waist.
Every now and again, in moments like this, he became aware of the man Ilan had grown up to be. It was easy to forget how massive he was when Fredric kept his touches to gentle hand pats or holding his arm. He was taller than Fredric and strong and broad. He was the shape of men Fredric had let himself think about wanting in ways he should not be wanting Ilan.
But he couldn’t pull away, no matter that he suddenly felt strangely and compellingly nervous, standing there like that.
“She’s always been a force of nature,” Fredric said after a moment. “Destructive but enthralling all at the same time. I don’t know if I ever loved her—and if I did, it’s been a damn long time—but I could also never escape her.”
“You did, though,” Ilan told him, and a small part of Fredric wanted to argue that it wasn’t true. Because he still heard her voice in the echoes of his new life. He still braced himself for her sharp claws, still caught his breath in the quiet pauses of the day like she was waiting just around the corner to remind him that he would never, ever live up to the man he could have been.
But those were the ghosts of the life he’d shed, and he knew he needed time to heal. He just didn’t want to do it alone. And maybe it was wrong of him to go searching for a person to love him through all those terrible and tender moments that waited for him to drop his guard, but he was so tired of being strong by himself.
His knees were weak, his fingers ached, his head hung low.
He was ready to taste just a little bit of peace.
Ilan drove him home before dinner and offered to keep him company a bit longer, but Fredric was ready to be on his own for a while. He felt bad for guilting Ilan into helping him with the date stuff, but when he tried to apologize in the car, Ilan had just laughed and kissed his cheek.
“You know I’d help you with anything,” Ilan said with his hand wrapped around the back of Fredric’s neck, and the honesty of his statement was almost painful.
He gave himself a single moment to indulge in the touch, then broke away from Ilan’s grasp. “I’ll see you soon,” he said, then he climbed out of the car and took Bas with him to the front door.
The ghost of Ilan’s lips lingered against his skin as he went inside, and Fredric caught himself brushing fingers over the spot that still felt warm. As he stood at the stove, waiting for soup to heat, he wondered if he clung to those sensations because he’d been deprived of them for so long. He wasn’t sure he could withstand that as a constant—he was fairly sure he’d crack into pieces under too much softness, but there had to be a balance.
Ilan had seemed to find that in himself, he thought as he poured his soup from the pot into a bowl. He was sure of himself, and he was charming, but he seemed to know all the right moments to be sharp, and all the right moments to soothe those little nicks with kind words. It hit him, as he sat down at the table—he needed Ilan to teach him how to woo a man like that. To charm someone the way that Ilan had been subconsciously charming him for most of his life.
Fredric had the spoon halfway to his mouth when his phone started to ring, and the voice let him know it was Corinne. He contemplated letting it go to voicemail, the way he’d been doing with Julian, but unlike his son, his daughter would get in her car and interrupt his careful routine if he didn’t answer.
“Hello, sweetheart,” he said, then finally took his first bite. The soup was too hot, and just shy of too salty, but it was better than nothing.
“Am I interrupting anything?”
Fredric laughed and ate another bite. “Just sitting down to dinner. Everything okay?”
“Yes. Your son is still losing his mind even though apparently you’ve been carousing around town with his best friend.” Her voice was a little sharp, and too much like Jacqueline’s to make Fredric feel easy, but it had always been that way. “I should be asking if you’re okay. Is this some kind of midlife crisis? Are you going to buy a boat or get a tattoo or something?”
Fredric laughed again. “I hadn’t considered it, but you know, boating might be a good use of my time now that I’m retired.”
“You’re too young to retire,” she grumbled, and he almost choked on a potato. “You can’t even eat and talk, you’re not going sailing.”
He had no plans to sail, but standing on the docks with Ilan, he’d almost asked him to take him out on the water. And maybe he would. Maybe he’d go surfing. “Well, you and your brother can both calm down. I’m in my place, my entire house is unpacked. I even have real food in my fridge.”
“And no one to cook it for you,” she pointed out.
Corinne was too young to remember his therapy, and he was somewhat grateful about it. His memories were stuffed full of him dropping things, swearing, failing so many times in a row that he threw mugs and bowls across the room. He’d end the day with cuts on his hands from cleaning up shards of ceramic and depressions against his back from where he’d spent the night curled up against the cupboards, refusing to move for hours.
But he’d come away stronger for it, and he tried not to take Corinne’s accusation personally. “I’m doing alright, and Ilan is just down the street if I need help. I also have a neighbor.”
“Oh. I heard. Ilan told Julian all about her.” And every bit of that sentence was her mother.
“I love you,” he told her, because every time he’d ever criticized or chastised his children, he always started with that, “but you need to stop. I’m not a child, and I am not incapable of living on my own or socializing with strangers. I raised you and your brother—got you to adulthood. And yes, we had a chef, and yes, we had a cleaning service. But if we hadn’t, I would have done all of those things too. I don’t need you to remind me of my limitations, Corinne. I’m well aware what they are.”
She was quiet a long moment. “I just…worry.”
“I know, but your worry can be painful.”
“Fuck.” He heard her take a deep breath, and if she’d been the type, she might have started crying. “You know I’m trying not to be like her, right?”
That struck him in the heart. “I wasn’t saying…”
“No, but I am. I hear her voice come out of my mouth sometimes, and I get carried away. I’m surprised Julian forgave me for being such an epic bitch to him for so many years.”
He said nothing, because that was between Corinne and her brother. “Why don’t we plan for you to come down in a couple weeks,” he said.
“That long? I could…”
“In a couple weeks,” he said firmly, not backing down. “I’m settling right now. I need this time. I miss you so much, but you need to respect that.”
She choked a little, then swallowed back her frustration. “Okay. Just promise me it’ll be only a couple weeks.”
“Mark me down for the Saturday after next,” he told her, and she laughed softly in his ear. “We’ll make a day of it. I’ll take you to lunch, and we’ll get ice cream after. Maybe we’ll even come home and video call your brother.”
“He’ll die of jealousy,” she said, and there was a hint of glee in her voice. “Are you flying out for the…”
“No,” he interrupted. “No, sweetheart, I’m not going to Paris for the holidays. Not this year.”
“I bought a ticket,” she said slowly. “Archer’s brother’s going to visit. And one of his friends. And Ilan said he was thinking about it.”
Fredric winced, because he knew Ilan wasn’t planning on going anywhere. “That’ll be nice for him—and for you. I think the two of you need that.”
She groaned, but she didn’t argue further. He asked her about work after that and her latest boyfriend, and eventually she hung up, and he got back to his chilled soup. At that point, it was just sustenance, but everything felt like that these days.
It was a reminder of why he was trying so hard to make things different. He wanted to find the joy in everything and stop settling for scraps. And as much as it felt like he was using Ilan, he knew that it was the best place to start.
“So,” Agatha said as she took the leash from Fredric, “are you sure you don’t want Bas with you?”
Fredric shook his head as he grabbed his cane from the coatrack. “If it were anyone else, I would, but he’s someone I trust with my life.”
He stopped when he heard the crunch of tires on gravel, and then Agatha let out a short breath. “God, he gets hotter and hotter every time I see him. Are you going to introduce me?”
Fredric lifted a brow. “Will Ted mind?”
At that, she snorted a laugh. “He’s crushing harder than I am. Anyway, I’m not stepping on toes here, I just want to shake that giant hand.”
Fredric had to physically swallow down his laugh as he heard Ilan’s shoes padding across the pavement, and he took a step to the side. “I’m all ready to go, but I wanted you to meet my neighbor first.”
“Agatha,” Ilan rumbled, and Fredric heard her suck in another breath. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“And I’ve seen a lot of you,” she shot back.
Fredric grinned, glad he hadn’t prepared Ilan for how blunt she was. “I do make an impression—or at least, people tell me. Are you dog-sitting tonight?”
“I am,” she said.
Fredric heard nothing, but then he heard Ilan kneeling down and ruffling Bas. “I’d be jealous. He’s my favorite family member. But I think Papa and I will be able to amuse ourselves without him.”
Agatha choked. “You call him Papa?”
“Only to annoy Julian,” Fredric offered, and she laughed.
They made small talk for another couple minutes, then Agatha headed over to her place, and Fredric followed Ilan to his car. It felt good to settle in, his nerves not nearly as on edge as they’d been when he was heading to the restaurant, but there was still a tinge of unease as Ilan started the car and pulled out onto the main road.
