For my friend @handoftheassassin
Adopted
Matt has always known about Frank’s kids. He had met the kids before he met Frank, actually.
That's the thing about hanging out in parks. Kids are bound to happen. Frank Jr happened to Matt on a Saturday while he enjoyed a large cup of coffee and the sun on his face. The small boy had taken the seat by his side, politely asking “is this seat taken?” and immediately engaged him in conversation.
Matt had smiled, wondering if the child was aware of the “stranger danger” rule. Not that he was dangerous to the boy, but this is New York. Crazy people all around.
Frank would always smile and kiss him when they remembered that story.
“You didn't even know him, already you were parenting.”
Lisa had come after, telling her brother he was supposed to be looking for pebbles, and then, to Matt, “hello. I'm Lisa.”
Frank appeared a moment later, apologizing to him, a strict tone with his children, “what did I say about running off?”
Lisa ended up asking if she could draw Matt’s face, and he laughed, said “sure” while Frank told her not to bother him, but Matt assured him it was fine.
When the fact that he was blind became evident to the kids, Lisa took it upon herself to describe his own face to him while working on his portrait.
“You're very handsome, Matt”, she had said matter of factly and both him and her father laughed.
“Thank you, Lisa”, he had said. “Can you describe your face to me? I'm curious.”
When she told him about her blond hair and her green eyes and her freckles and her nose, he said she was very beautiful and she giggled, and thanked him.
It was while she did a very good job of describing her father’s face to him, was that he noticed the man’s eyes scanning his face.
“My dad is very handsome, too, all my teachers think so. I heard them talking”, the girl said.
“You did?” Frank asked, surprised, taking his eyes off Matt to look at his daughter.
“Yes”, she said, like it was no big deal. “Miss Marks said she could just eat you up. But wouldn't that make her a cannibal?”
“Ok”, interrupted Frank while Matt tried not to laugh. “How about we change-”
“And Miss Leelo said she thinks you look like a brute.”
“Oh my God.”
“And that she likes that idea. What's a brute, daddy?”
“When- where did you- how did you hear all that?”
Matt felt Lisa shrugging and then hopping off Frank’s lap to run around with her brother and the dog that had been lying at their feet.
“God”, Frank had said, chuckling, still sitting next to Matt. “What just happened?”
“She sounds very, very smart”, he commented, all his focus on the man sitting by his side. It's been less than an hour, but he could already say he agreed with Lisa’s teachers.
“I thought I was in the clear after the terrible twos.”
They ended up spending the whole afternoon together. From the park they went for a hot dog, and then to another bench, and then another park.
When they said goodbye, Matt sort of had a date.
With Frank, his kids and his dog, to a different park, the next weekend.
When, finally, they were able to meet without the small chaperones, Matt could read all that was going on in Frank’s body, and he smiled when he felt the two eyes intent on his face.
When Frank kissed him, it was after he insulted Matt’s coffee choice. They were in his apartment, with the excuse that Frank was going to borrow Matt’s boxing gloves until Frank got new ones for himself.
“It's not bad” he had said after the first taste. “But these fancy machines can only do so much.”
“And here I thought Nespresso was the best of the best.”
“Stick with me, Red”, he said, using the nickname he came up with because of the color of the lenses of his glasses. “And you'll never have another mediocre cup of coffee in your life.”
Matt had smiled, said he was taking him up on that, and then Frank took two steps towards him, planting his mouth on his, hand on the back of his neck, fingers inside his hair, making him shiver.
Matt did stick with him. And Frank kept his promise: only the best coffee from then on.
.:.
One month in, Matt met his ex-wife.
“Ah, the famous Matt my kids seem to adore” said Maria, shaking his hand. “Nice to finally put a face to the stories.”
“Mom!” exclaimed Frank Jr. “Did you know he can fight?!”
“Yes, baby, you told me.”
“He's really good. He's teaching me.”
“Oh, that reminds me”, she said, turning back to Matt. “I don't know how to thank you enough for the meditation thing. I swear, it worked wonders.”
“I'm glad it helps”, he said, feeling Frank’s arm on the back of his chair.
“Oh, it does. Bed time used to be such a fight, now it’s a breeze”
He was glad to have a good relationship with Maria. At first, he imagined it would be hard, to date a man with two kids and an ex wife, but he got lucky. Frank was the most difficult out of the four of them, with his temper and short, short fuse.
Two months and the school’s schedule was in Matt’s planner. He would pick them up on Thursdays and Fridays, sometimes with Frank, sometimes by himself.
“Oh my goodness”, he heard Frank Jr’s teacher say under her breath when she spotted him once, all the way across the playground that separated the door from the sidewalk where Matt was waiting. “Where can I find me one of those?”
He tried to keep the smile in, but Frank Jr politely and innocently answered, offering an excited “at the park!” to the rhetorical question he had overheard. “That's where we met.”
Matt pretended to be coughing in his hand in order to mask the smile that broke out.
“Oh!” Exclaimed the teacher, blushing. “That's nice, Frankie!”
If he was extra charming just to make the teacher blush a little more, nobody could tell.
.:.
After they moved in together, the place was a mess for a while. That first week, they both took Friday off work to sort out the unending number of boxes piled around the apartment. Until, after an entire morning and part of the afternoon, Frank had enough.
“Shit”, he said, dropping a lamp he had no idea why he had bought, let alone brought to the new place, back in its box. “I can't do this anymore. I'm fucking done for the day.”
Matt sighed, tired himself.
“Listen”, Frank said, sitting by his side on the floor, hand on the back of his neck, guiding Matt's face to his for a lingering kiss. “You're picking up the kids today, right?”
Matt nodded.
“How about I go with you?”, he kept interrupting himself, kissing and kissing and kissing and Matt smiled. “We’ll pick them up and then… I don't know… we’ll get some air?”
Matt let himself be kissed, angling his head, opening his mouth, hand pulling on the buckle of Frank’s belt. He nodded.
“How long do we have?”
Frank looked at his watch and came back to his mouth with renewed gusto, advancing on him until Matt was lying on the floor.
“Hour and a half.”
Christen the new living room: check.
Frank was sipping his usual coffee, talking to the dad of one of Lisa’s classmates about how they both missed their motorcycles, holding on to Max’s leash, when Matt heard Lisa’s excited voice coming down the hallway, the door still closed.
“And who’s picking you up today?” Asked the teacher.
“My dad”, the girl had said, simply, but Matt’s heart did something funny inside his chest and he found himself smiling.
She meant him. Had known he was picking her up by himself, thought Frank was going to be putting her new bed together.
“Oh!” She said when she saw both of them. “They're both here!”
Half an hour later, he was sitting at the outside table of the new burger place by the Hudson River while Frank taught the kids how to throw a baseball at the small grass field a few paces away.
“Ok, sir, here we go”, said the waitress, arriving with a tray full of food. “I got two double bacon cheeseburgers”.
“Yes, that’s his”, he said, pointing to the empty seat next to his, where Frank would sit.
“Alright”, she placed the two burgers on the table, in front of the empty chair. “One double, no bacon and no pickles?”
“That's mine.”
“Now…”, she read the check. “One chicken, salad and extra sauce?”
“My daughter”, he found himself saying without even thinking about it, that feeling in his heart spreading in his chest again.
“And… one single, bacon and cheese?”
“My son.”
His throat was not closing. He was just thirsty, that's all.
“Right. I'll pick up the rest. Five fries and four chocolate shakes, right?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“You're welcome. I'll be back in a minute.”
When she did come back, Frank and the kids were already at the table, digging in, talking over each other, exchanging bites and stealing fries, Lisa asking Matt to open her ketchup packet for her, sitting on his lap just because, head resting on his chest while she ate her chicken burger, tired, eyes far away at the water, and he wondered if it was now, a month ago or at that first meeting that he became a father.
