Again

Chapter 3

On the drive home, it's quiet as usual Corey is absorbed in his game, Mackenzie her music, so Steve only has his thoughts for a while. He thinks about two things. First, he thinks about how nice a surprise it had been to see Eddie. Maybe he was due a meet-up with some other friends soon, perhaps something more organised. Secondly, that Morgan kid, well, not the kid himself, Mackenzie's interaction with him.

Steve waves his hand to get her attention and then looks in his rearview mirror at Mac, "So, what did you think? Wanna go back, or shall we try elsewhere? I'm sure there might be others D&D clubs around, right? It's a super popular game! We might just need to drive further out, which is not a problem at all." Steve raises his eyebrows, hopefully.

"Do you want me to find a game somewhere else?" Mackenzie says with a suspicious smile narrowing her eyes at him playfully.

"No! No. Not at all." Steve knows he's given himself away by how high-pitched his voice has gone and the raised eyebrow from Mackenzie and her nodding, turning to look out her window again.

He felt pulled in two different directions, he did not want to put Mackenzie off trying new things, but he also didn't want one of those new things to be that little, probably stoner punk squatting at his house. So he tries a different tactic. "Hey, you know what, it's fine. Eddie's there, and I know he's cool. He'll make sure you're ok there. We go way back" Steve nods to self-affirm and taps the steering wheel to self-soothe.

"Oh, is that why you were whispering to one another behind a book? There was me thinking maybe you'd found something there for yourself, Dad," Mackenzie smirks.

Steve could be mad, but when she smirks, it's his smirk on her face. It just floods him with fondness. He pretends it goes over his head, she's already certain she's smarter than him, and maybe she's right in many ways, to be fair.

"I have no interest in playing any nerdy games unless, of course, you were running one, and needed a player, then I'd happily help out."

She gives an eyebrow raise and upwards nods, laughing to herself. At least he'd succeeded in convincing her he didn't get it. He looks thoughtfully back out onto the road. Truth be told, for a good while, just before he'd met the kid's mom, in fact, he'd been purposefully trying to forget about Eddie. After everything, when everyone was still recovering, Steve felt something. He'd often tried to convince himself it was just a friendly fondness, but sometimes his thoughts would wander a little too far. Steve understood it a little more now, but it was just a big no-no at the time. Society generally was not that accepting, especially with the epidemic that the gay community had been scapegoated with, and then by the time he'd made his peace with the fact that maybe there was something more than friendship. Eddie left. He just packed all his stuff and left. Eddie kept in touch with a few people, but not Steve, at least not directly. For a little while, Steve thought Eddie hated him for something, but then he got an invite to his engagement party. He didn't go. He made up some bullshit excuse and drowned his disappointment in a bar. As luck would have it, the very same night, a beautiful woman, inside and out, happened to be doing the same over someone else, not four seats away from him.

Steve remembers her waving down the bar to get his attention, pointing at him and making a charade for heartbreak. He had raised his tequila shot at her in a cheers motion, and she raised hers back. She waved him over and patted the seat next to her, "Better to be miserable in company than alone, right? Do you wanna go first, or shall I?" She said with a tipsy smile and waved the barman over again for another round. She'd gone first, and then he had told his gender-changed version of events, and she just sat there and listened. In hindsight, it was probably not the smartest move, but they spent that night together, intending never to see one another again. Sometime later, Steve found himself at another bar, this time reeling from the engagement party pictures that had just come back from the developers. Eddie looked so happy. His fiancé was supermodel-level beautiful, and everyone said she was so lovely. All Steve wanted to do was go and be jealous somewhere, so he did, a bit further out of town near a motel so he could stumble back later.