Page 23 of Ken
Justin smiled and rested back on the bed, cradling the phone to his ear as he listened to Ken’s words. From a lot of people, Justin would have felt a bit threatened, but for whatever reason he’d come to trust Ken.
“Jade. She’s eight,” he admitted. “Her mom split before Jade even had her first birthday. Said she didn’t want the responsibility.”
If it was strange for Justin to talk about his daughter, it was downright bizarre for him to mention his ex. He tried his best not to even think about her because once, he had been in love, but that had all died when she had walked out the door and left their kid.
She’d been talking about putting Jade up for adoption, while she was still young enough that someone would want her. Justin had refused, and in a very real way, he’d picked Jade over his relationship with Jade’s mother. It wasn’t a call that he’d ever had a reason to regret.
It wasn’t like that relationship had been all that healthy to start with, honestly.
“Oh man, that’s rough,” Ken said, and the words might be a little bit awkward, but the tone, the emotion, behind them was sincere. “So you’re a single father?”
“Yeah,” Justin admitted, closing his eyes so that he could focus entirely on Ken’s voice. “I wasn’t really around because my phone died. I was taking care of Jade. She had the flu or something. She’s getting better, though.”
How could he have been prepared for how amazing it felt to talk about it? To have another adult to share some of the burdens with? For most of Jade’s life, it had just been the two of them, and Justin had gone it alone. But now, Ken knew, and Justin didn’t have to keep that secret anymore.
“Look, I wanted to ask you something,” Ken said, his voice coming out slowly, far more so than his usual energetic tones. “But maybe now isn’t the time, if your daughter has been sick. I can call back tomorrow, maybe?”
“No, it’s fine. Ask away.”
What could it be? About the song, probably, since Justin was fairly certain that was Ken’s main use for him.
“I was wondering if you wanted to go out sometime.” Now Ken was speaking all in a rush, the words tumbling over each other, one after the other. “I mean, I get it if you can’t because of Jade, but I’d really like to see where this goes.”
For a moment, it felt to Justin like Ken might have started speaking a completely different language, one that Justin only sort of knew. It took him a second to make those words make any sense because they just weren’t the sort of thing that was said to him, much less by Ken, of all people.
“Hello? Are you there?” Ken asked, anxiety clear in his words. “It’s okay if you don’t want to. I know that I’m too young for you. I just thought that in the changing room, we sort of had, you know, a moment. But if I was wrong …”
“You weren’t wrong.” Justin had been silent for too long, so he just opened his mouth and blurted out the first thing that he was thinking, feeling. “And I’d like that. So let’s go out.”
“When?” Ken asked, and Justin was pretty sure that he could actually hear the smile in the younger man’s voice. Was this really happening? Dating, spending time with someone, that wasn’t the sort of thing which had figured into Justin’s life at all for eight years. Did he even remember how? How much had it changed in the decade or so that Justin had been off of the market?
“Now?” Justin sat up, glancing at the time. It wasn’t even 8:30 yet, early enough that he could count on his neighbor to come over, not so late that she would be asleep yet. Jade was passed right out, and as exhausted as she was he was sure that she would easily sleep right through the night.
“Now?” Ken repeated, and Justin was sure that he had gone way, way too far,tipped his hand too soon, shown too much. He was going to scare Ken away by being too into this. “Okay. Now sounds good. Where do you want to meet?”
It seemed so quick, and yet so inevitable, somehow. Justin found himself with plans to meet up with someone that he had been interested in for far, far too long, even if he had barely let himself know it.
Ten minutes later, he was out of the house, with his lovely, elderly neighbor watching television in his living room instead of in hers. She had his cell phone number, he told himself firmly. His phone had even charged up enough that it should last, at least long enough for this date. She could call if anything happened and he was needed at home.
If that’s what it was, a date? The way Ken had talked about it, it had certainly seemed that way. Or was that just wishful thinking, that someone as young and vital and energetic as Ken could actually want a boring old single father like him?
They had arranged to meet at a cafe not so far away, and Justin hopped into the car, swallowing hard to try to tamp down the nerves that insisted on crawling through his stomach and making it clench hard. This was no big deal. He’d seen Ken before,andthey’d even hung out. Once. This wasn’t so different.
Only it felt different. It felt like they were both trying something new, and Justin would be damned if he knew how it was going to turn out.
When was the last time he could actually say that? When was the last time he’d taken much of a risk at all? This was as irresistible as it was dangerous, and there was no way in hell he was going to be able to back away now.
* * *
How was this so easy? Justin had been so nervous, but when he glanced down at his phone, he saw, to his surprise, that several hours had passed. Hours in which he and Ken had just chatted, so easily and openly, about every topic under the sun. His body was jittery with more than just the many cups of coffee that he’d drunk during their date.
There couldn’t be any doubt to Justin—not anymore—that it was a date. At least to him. Ken might not feel the same, but then there was a strange, intimate look in the younger man’s eyes that made Justin wonder. A look that suggested that this thing that was going on between them, maybe it wasn’t just on Justin’s side.
“Sorry, guys, we’re closing,” the friendly, pink-haired barista called, and Justin frowned as he looked at Ken. It hadn’t been long enough. The cafe closed at two in the morning, Justin had checked before they’d arranged to meet here.
His phone, though, informed him in brightly glowing white numbers that it was already five minutes after two. Impossible as it seemed, they had been there, chatting and laughing and drinking coffee, for almost four hours.
“Okay, we’ll get out of your hair,” Ken agreed, giving her an easy smile, one that Justin immediately envied. Ken was so good at interacting with people. He seemed to do it without any effort at all, and in general, they seemed to like him. Justin certainly couldn’t say the same about the people that he himself talked to.
