gremlin cave

She is coming to England with her mother and her mother’s boyfriend. She will be staying at Max’s flat for part of the visit and George will only be meeting her briefly today. Just a hello, nothing enormous. Max has said this repeatedly.

George of course doesn’t believe him.

Not because Max is lying. Max is, as a rule, a terrible liar unless the lie involves a secret fanfiction identity sustained through several months of emotional catastrophe, which George still considers an outlier and brings up only strategically. Max means it when he says it will be brief, means it when he says P is excited and easy and not the sort of child who needs people to perform themselves into being fake.

The problem is that George has never once known how to meet anything important casually.

He likes children. In theory and in practice, he likes his nieces and nephews very much, particularly at Christmas, when everyone has agreed roles and food and a number of board games. He can be quite good with them for defined periods of time. He knows how to ask about school without sounding as if he is conducting a police interview, can listen to a seven-minute explanation of Minecraft and only look desperate twice. He gives excellent presents because he researches.

Research is love, in George’s opinion.

He shifts Miffy under his arm and looks at the greeting cards. This is where the current crisis began: There are birthday cards. New baby cards. Thank you cards. Congratulations cards. A distressingly large number of cards involving bears holding balloons. There are no cards that say Welcome to England, child who is technically-not-technically my boyfriend’s stepdaughter, I am attempting to be normal about your existence.

George considers a blank card with a small rabbit on it. Too formal? Too strange? Do children like cards? Do ten-year-olds appreciate stationery? Would giving a child a card suggest that George is trying too hard, which he is, obviously, but there is a difference between truth and presentation. What would he even write in it? Hello P, lovely to meet you. That sounds like an email. Dear P, welcome. Worse. Hi, I’m George, I promise I am less horrifying than my supermarket basket suggests.

He takes the card off the rack. P. He stares at it and his mind, already running too fast, suddenly trips over something so obvious and horrifying that for a second he forgets where he is.

He does not know her name.

George stands very still in front of the birthday cards.

He does not know Max’s child’s name.

Technically-not-technically child…Stepdaughter. Former stepdaughter! Whatever. The little girl in the beach photo asleep against Max’s bare chest, the child George has thought about, worried about and somehow never once asked the name of because Max always called her P and George, fool that he is, let that be enough.

“Oh my God,” George says.

A woman comparing anniversary cards glances at him. George fumbles his phone out of his pocket with the blank rabbit card still in one hand and Miffy under the opposite arm. He calls Max. Max answers after two rings.

“Hello?” he says. “I thought we are coming later to pick up P.” Max continues, “Do you want to come earlier? Because then we maybe have a little time to fu—”

“Did you ever plan on maybe telling me your kid’s name?”

Silence.

Then Max says, “Huh?”

George starts walking. He doesn’t know where. Up the aisle, apparently. Away from the cards, toward pasta sauces, then back again because the trolley traffic near the end blocks him and he cannot currently cope with British supermarket etiquette.

“Her name, Max!”

“Whose name?”

George stops so abruptly a man almost runs into him with a basket of avocados. “Your child!”

Max pauses. George can almost see him frown through the phone. “P?”

“Yes, P. That is the problem. P is a letter.”

“It is also what everyone calls her.”

“It is still a letter.”

“She knows this.”

“Max.” His patience is getting thinner by the minute.

“Her name is Penny,” Max says. Then, “You can calm down.”

George laughs once, sharp and disbelieving. That is always a mistake. “Do not tell me to calm down.”

“Okay.”

“Blimey, you never told me her name!”

“I call her P.”

“Yes, and I apparently accepted that like an idiot because I was too busy having several other crises.”

“It is her nickname.”

“Max, I have just spent twenty minutes trying to decide whether it would be deranged to write a card to a child whose full name I did not know.”

Another silence. Then Max says, “You are buying her a card?”

George looks down at the rabbit card in his hand. “No.”

“George…”

George pinches the bridge of his nose, which is difficult while holding both a card and a stuffed rabbit. “I don’t know how to do this.”

The admission comes out smaller than the rest. The supermarket keeps moving around him. The overhead lights hum. A member of staff pushes a trolley stacked with baskets past the end of the aisle. George stands between greeting cards and reduced-price wrapping paper and feels, suddenly, ridiculous in the saddest possible way. He can hear Max’s breathing change.

“George,” Max says, softer.

George looks at the shelves so he does not have to look at anything real. “I like children,” he says. “I do. I’m good with my nieces and nephews. But this is different.”

“I know.”

“She matters to you.”

“Yes.”

“And I don’t even know her name.”

“Now you know.”

“That is not the point.”

“What is the point?”

“I don’t know,” George snaps, and then immediately regrets his tone because Max is quiet on the other end and not fighting back. “Sorry. I just— I want it to go well.”

“It will.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do.”

“You cannot possibly know that.”

“Yes, I can.”

“How?”

“Because she is P,” Max says, like that settles anything. “And you are you.”

George closes his eyes for a second so he can breathe properly. It is such a Max answer. Entirely insufficient by most measurable standards. Also somehow too much.

“She might not like me,” George argues.

“She will.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do.”

“Max.”

“She likes you because I like you.”

George looks down at the plushie. “You don’t sound too sure.”

Max makes a sound that is almost laughter. “Of course I do.”

“Stop sounding pleased.”

“I am so pleased.”

“I am having a breakdown in Waitrose.” George turns away from the card rack because the woman comparing anniversary cards has definitely started listening.

“This is important,” he says, quieter. “And I haven’t even introduced you to my mom.”

“We can do that later.”

“That’s not the point either.”

“You have so many points, of course.” “I’m serious.”

“I know,” Max says. “That is why you should come here now.”

George blinks. “What?”

“Come over. You are already panicking. Better to panic here. Come now. We have time before the airport. I will make you disgusting coffee. You will show me all the insane things you bought. Then we go.”

George’s throat tightens in a way he refuses to name. “I still need to pay.”

“Yes, George. This is how shops work.”

“I hate you.”

“You don’t.” He doesn't. He kinda loves him.

George looks at the basket and Miffy’s bland little face. “Fine,” he says.

“Good.”

“And her name is Penny?”

“Yes. P when she is being normal. Pen when she is being weird. Penelope when she is acting naughty, which is often.”

Despite himself, George smiles. Max hears it. Of course he does. “There,” Max says. “You are calmer.”

“I am not.”

“You are a little.”

“I am buying the card.”

“Of course you are.”

George hangs up before Max can sound any more fond about it.

🐰

Max’s flat is cleaner than George expected. Which is unfair, because Max is not dirty. He is simply a person who, left alone, treats most surfaces as temporary holding zones for things he intends to deal with later and then somehow does, eventually, after making the room look like a holding pattern for several days. But Max has spent most of the past weeks, almost months really, at George’s house, and George’s house has absorbed him with alarming ease: A spare charger by the bed, a hoodie on the chair, his Red Bull in the fridge, his toothbrush beside George’s and ridiculous little pile of sim-racing notes on the kitchen’s table.

He doesn’t put anything in the room George still sometimes cannot call anything but Alex’s room, though now Max sits in there sometimes too, quietly, carefully, never taking more space than George can bear when George is having a bad day and needs to feel close to Alex.

Max’s own flat feels both familiar and slightly staged. The kitchen counter is clear. The sofa has been straightened, and a stack of children’s books sits near the television, and the sight of them does something small and painful to George’s chest.

Max opens the door and looks first at George, then at the bags. Then at Miffy.

“Jesus,” he says.

George lifts his chin. “She likes rabbits. You said that.”

“She likes rabbits. She is not starving.”

“I just brought snacks. I like to be prepared.”

“You like to control the narrative.”

George steps inside. “Don’t use my own phrases against me.”

“They are good.”

Max takes one of the heavier bags from him without asking and carries it into the kitchen. George follows, feeling absurdly exposed by the sound of crinkling packets and the soft rabbit tucked under his arm.

Max begins unpacking.

“Apples?” he says.

“Healthy.”

“Animal biscuits.”

“Fun.”

“Unicorn pasta.”

George pauses. “They looked cute.”

Max looks over his shoulder. George says, “Do not.”

“I said nothing.”

“You thought something.” George places Miffy on the counter, then removes the rabbit card from his coat pocket and sets it beside her.

Max sees it and his face changes. It isn’t mockery. There is fondness with amusement underneath it, which is his most intolerable expression because it makes George want to kiss him mad and throw something at him in the same movement. “Actually, you bought a card.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

George bristles. “To write in it.”

“It is not her birthday.”

“I am aware.”

“She can read, yes. But what do you write? Hello, I am your Maxie’s stupid alien, tall boyfriend.”

George flushes. “Obviously not that.”

Max leans against the counter. “What then?”

George does not answer quickly enough. Max’s mouth twitches. “You don’t know.”

“I was workshopping it.”

“You are very weird.”

“You write fanfiction about retired F1 drivers yearning in ski lodges.”

Max points at him, laughing his crinkly-eyes-straight-teeth-smile. “You liked that one.”

George glares, though the force of it is undermined by the fact that he is holding a packet of bear-shaped crisps. Max takes it from him and sets it down. Then he steps closer. “It will be fine,” he says.

George exhales through his nose. “You keep saying that.”

“Obviously, because it is true.”

“You don’t know she’ll like me.”

“I know she will meet you,” Max says. “That is all today is. You meet her. You give her the nintje and maybe the strange card if you must.”

“It’s Miffy.”

“Nintje! Then we eat something, maybe at mine or somewhere easy. Then you go home. Oscar and Carlos come over, as we said, and you have an evening where Oscar explains a too complicated boardgame while Carlos cooks.”

George looks down. Max’s voice stays matter-of-fact. It helps in situations like these. More than softness would, maybe. George does not need reassurance wrapped in silk. He needs Max building the evening out of plain pieces and showing him that none of them are traps.

“You do not have to be her parent,” Max says. “You do not have to impress her mother. You do not have to become part of everything today.”

George swallows. “I know.”

“Do you?”

“No.”

Max nods, as if this is the expected answer. George looks at the children’s books by the TV again. Something in him aches: A strange blend of jealousy and grief, softened by wonder.

After Alex died, he thought certain futures had closed.

At first, it was fine, because he kept living, after all. But there were rooms in his imagination he had quietly shut and stopped visiting. Introducing someone to family, having kids…. Standing in a flat while his boyfriend explains what will happen when a little girl arrives from the airport. Worrying about snacks and rabbit cards and whether love can make space without taking anything away from the dead.

He thought he would never be here again. Yet here he is.

Max’s hand comes to the small of his back before he kisses him.

A big, firm kiss. The sort that makes thinking briefly unnecessary. George leans into it before he can stop himself, one hand landing on Max’s waist, the other still uselessly holding the edge of the counter.

When Max pulls back, he says, “We go now.”

George blinks. “You kissed me to end the conversation?”

“Yes.”

“That is manipulative.”

“It worked.”

George narrows his eyes. Max takes Miffy from the counter and presses her into George’s hands. “Come on.”

🐰

Max’s ex-girlfriend is a supermodel.

George knows this objectively before he sees her. Max had told him enough for George to understand that she worked in luxury fashion, that she moved through certain rooms with a kind of ease George finds theoretically admirable and practically threatening. Max had mentioned it all with the same matter-of-fact tone he uses for article edits, Brocedes theories and sim-racing, which had made it impossible to decide whether George was meant to feel any particular way about it.

Still. Seeing her in arrivals is a separate matter.

She stands near the barrier with one hand on a suitcase handle, tall and luminous and composed in a way that makes the airport look badly dressed around her. Her hair is brown and long, her lips are red and her coat is camel-coloured and perfect. Beside her is a man with kind eyes and expensive trainers, holding another suitcase and looking relaxed enough that George decides instantly to resent him for perhaps four seconds before remembering he is apparently “nice.”

George leans toward Max and whispers, furious, “She’s literally a supermodel.”

Max glances over. “Yes.”

George turns his head slowly. “Yes?”

Max looks confused. “Of course she is beautiful.”

“That is not the correct response.”

“What is?”

“I don’t know. Lie.”

“Why? You are jealous?” George stares at him. Max’s brow furrows. “You are also beautiful, of course.”

George’s entire face goes hot. “I’m not a supermodel, though.”

“So?”

“So you cannot say things like that.”

“I can.”

“You should not.”

“Why?”

“Bloody hell, because I am holding Miffy and sweating like a bull!”

Max looks down at the plushie. “This does make you more beautiful, I think.”

George is about to say something appalling when a small voice cuts through the arrivals noise: “Maxie!”

Max changes. It is so immediate that George forgets whatever he was going to say. A little girl is running toward them, all bright motion and dark hair and a backpack bouncing against her shoulders. Max steps forward with a sound George has never heard from him, something soft and instinctive and almost broken with happiness. He drops into a crouch just before she reaches him, and then she crashes into him with the full force of a child certain she will be caught.

Max catches her. His arms close around her and his whole face opens. That is the only word for it: Opens. Softens past anything George has seen, past the tenderness in bed, past the careful attention when George talks about Alex, past the rare quiet moments in George’s kitchen when Max thinks nobody is watching. This is deeper, older. It changes him so thoroughly that George feels almost intrusive seeing it, and privileged, and a little ruined.

P wraps her arms around Max’s neck. “Maxie,” she says again, into his shoulder.

“Hi, P,” Max says. His voice is low and rough.

George’s heart does something painful. Max stands with her in his arms as if she weighs nothing, though she is clearly too big to be carried like that now. Penny does not care and Max does not seem to either. He holds her close with one arm under her legs and the other tight around her back, his cheek briefly pressed to her hair.

George stands there with Miffy clutched in both hands and understands, suddenly and absolutely, that he has no reason to be afraid of this child and every reason to be afraid of how much he loves Max in this moment.

Penny pulls back first.

She has Max’s expression, somehow, despite no blood between them. Or maybe it is only that she has learned some of his directness. Her eyes find George immediately over Max’s shoulder. “Hello,” she says brightly.

George’s prepared greeting vanishes. “Hello,” he says, and then, because he is 28 years old and supposedly articulate for a living, adds, “I’m George.”

“I know,” Penny says. Max’s mouth twitches.

George looks at him. “You know?”

Penny answers before Max can. “Maxie talks about you.”

George looks back at her. Max says, “P…”

“What?” Penny says, entirely unbothered. “You do.”

George holds out Miffy before his face can do anything else. “I brought you this.”

Penny gasps and it may be the single most validating sound George has ever heard. “Miffy,” she says, reaching for it with both hands. George gives her the plushie with the solemn care of a diplomatic exchange. Penny hugs it immediately to her chest, cheek pressed to the soft white head, then turns in Max’s arms toward her mother.

“Mama, look!”

Her mother smiles as she reaches them. Up close, she is even more beautiful, which George finds unnecessary but manageable because she also looks tired and fond in a very human way.

“That’s lovely,” she says. Her accent is soft, difficult for George to place. She looks at George then and offers her hand. “You must be George.”

“I am,” George says, shaking it. “Lovely to meet you.” The boyfriend steps forward too, smiling kindly. George shakes his hand as well and finds it impossible to dislike him because he has the calm warmth of a person who has made peace with complicated families and flights to ex-boyfriends. Penny is already making Miffy wave at Max.

Max, still holding her, looks at Miffy with grave seriousness. “Hello.” Penny giggles. “She doesn’t talk, Maxie.”

“No?”

“She doesn’t have a mouth!”

“Good. One less person to tell me I am annoying.”

Penny considers this. “You are annoying a lot.”

Max nods. “Yes. This is why I don’t need more.”

George laughs before he can stop himself. Penny turns back to him at once, pleased, as if making him laugh confirms something. Max shifts her slightly higher on his hip, and one hand comes up to her face. He brushes hair away from her cheek with a careful thumb, then cups the side of her jaw for half a second like he is making sure she is real. Penny leans into it without noticing, still holding Miffy against her chest.

George watches. He cannot look away.

There is so much in Max’s face. Relief. Love. The ache of distance. The pleasure of being allowed this. The grief of knowing it has a time limit already built into it. George has seen enough grief to recognize its smaller cousins. Missing someone while they are still in your arms. Loving on borrowed time.

Max looks at George then. Just briefly.

And there it is. The whole impossible thing. Max with Penny in his arms, Miffy between them, his ex-girlfriend and her boyfriend beside the suitcases, airport noise all around, and George standing there with his heart growing two sizes.

Max’s eyes ask nothing. They only show him: This is her. This is me with her.

George’s throat tightens and he smiles. Not the Wolff Media one. Something smaller and much less controlled. Penny sees it and grins back, Miffy tucked under her chin.

“Thank you,” she says.

“You’re very welcome, P.”

Max’s hand stays gentle against her back. Her mom says something to Max then, practical and warm, about luggage and timings and Penny’s jacket. Max answers in the same easy, slightly awkward rhythm of people who know each other too well to pretend there was never hurt, and care enough now to handle it gently. Her boyfriend lifts one of the suitcases. Penny starts telling Max about the flight, fast and bright, already halfway through a story about a woman who had three tiny dogs in carriers.

Max listens like every word matters.

George stands beside them, still a little nervous, still overprepared, still with a rabbit card in the inside pocket of his coat that he may or may not ever use. And he knows, with a quietness that surprises him, that it will be fine.

Max glances at him again while Penny talks, his face still soft in that new, astonishing way. George will forever want to learn new things about Max.

George smiles back. This, too, is a room he thought had closed.