Jack’s gotten used to it, to Robby’s six week itches. He learned to tuck his chin and catch the punches with his forearms. His heart could only take so much. The blocks worked to protect his heart, but he still wound up bruised after each announcement.
“I think she’s the one,” Robby would say. And a month and a half later, “it’s not working out.” A decade ago, before Janey, Robby would add, “and I don’t know why,” but after Janey, he started saying, “it’s my fault. You know the one linking factor in all these breakup? Me.” Robby’s smile was sickly, and it broke Jack’s heart.
Once, in a fit of brave drunkenness, he’d replied flippantly, flirtatiously, “that’s because you haven’t dated me yet.”
Robby laughed and clapped him on the knee.
His heart had been bruised for a long, long time.
And afterwards? Well, Jack tried to move on. Get on the apps, message some people, maybe schedule a date or two. That was, until he mentioned a date to Robby, and Robby, well. He acted like Robby.
Robby had gotten used to it, to Jack being single. After his wife had died, Jack took time to mourn, and Robby stepped up to become his default person. Emergency contact? You got it. Ride to the airport? Of course. Need to sit in silence after a shift with someone else in the room? Hell, Robby could use that too.
Jack had always been Robby’s default person, so it’s not like that was a hardship. He was just returning the favor. Even while Robby was with Janey, he never switched his emergency contact away from Jack Abbot, though he’d gotten close.
Robby didn’t date to find a new default person, was the thing. He couldn’t give a reason why, exactly, he tried anymore. He suspected it was to fill that hole in his heart, the one burrowed into the core of him when he was eight. Maybe that’s why he flitted from person to person, looking for someone willing to make him whole. And when each relationship failed, it wasn’t the other person’s fault. It was Robby’s. He was trying to heal something that was terminal.
“That’s because you haven’t dated me yet,” Jack had joked. And Robby laughed, because that’s how you respond to jokes like that, but those words burrowed into him, a twin line he didn’t dare look at too hard.
Robby shouldn’t have been surprised when Jack told him he couldn’t get a beer on Friday because he had a date. But Robby had never been good at doing what he should do in relationships, so he felt like he’d been decked.
“A date?” He squeaked. He cleared his throat. “With, uh, with who?”
“Someone from an app,” Jack said evasively.
Robby’s mind stuttered through a billion questions he desperately wanted the answer to, and his tongue decided to say the one he didn’t honestly care about. “Is she hot?”
Jack rolled his eyes at Robby and walked away.
Robby spent the whole week fishing as subtly as he could, which wasn’t subtle at all.
“Why are you so obsessed with this, Robby? Let the man go on his date.” Dana had spent the week trying to talk sense into him. It hadn’t been working.
“He just won’t tell me anything about her,” Robby complained.
“It’s a first date. His first since his wife’s death. Maybe he doesn’t want to make it bigger than it is.”
“But it is a big deal,” Robby argued.
“How many first dates have you gone on in the past five years?” Dana rebutted. “Has Jack ever behaved this way?”
Dana cut him off. “If it bothers you so much, why don’t you ask him on a date?” She let out a sharp exhale. “You’re as bad as my daughter when she was a teenager,” she muttered.
“You do, Robby. You really, really do.” Dana tapped her pen on the clipboard and started to walk away.
“You don’t even know what I was going to say,” Robby called after her. She waved him away over her shoulder.
Friday began like a readied guillotine, and Jack wound up popping in for a few hours to help out.
“What’s going on, brother? You keep giving me side eye.” Jack leaned on the counter next to Robby and pressed their shoulders together. “Don’t tell me it’s about tonight.” He had a teasing tone, the bastard.
“I was wondering…” he trailed off. Dana caught his eye and raised her eyebrows before she made a very distinct 180 turn and walked away.
Robby shook his head. “If you maybe wanted to go on a date.” He didn’t dare look at Jack, but there was no immediate response. Then the silence grew longer. Robby would worry Jack had left except their upper arms were still pressed together. “With me,” he added, in case it was unclear.
Jack chuckled, which wasn’t the most promising response. Robby leaned away from him, but Jack’s shoulder followed, maintaining the pressure.
“I’d love to, Robby.” Robby let out a huge sigh of relief. “How about tonight?”
Robby looked sideways at him. “Don’t you have a date tonight?”
“I canceled this morning.” Jack said cheerfully. “My evening has opened up. It’s got a hole the size and shape of Michael Robinavitch, if you’re willing to fill it.”
“I’ll pick you up? 8 o’clock?” Jack clapped his shoulder and walked away with a bounce to his step.
“What just happened?” Robby asked the Hub. Dana rolled her eyes at him.
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