After filing his company for bankruptcy, Kyle's wife leaves him and his three-year-old son. Now a forty-two-year-old divorcee with no parenting skills or money, Kyle decides to move back to the small home town he grew up in.
He should have lost all...
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Since the day Kyle spent a night at Chaska's house he's been studying.
Studying Chaska's highs and lows and learning what made him cold and frigid. Kyle noticed that suggestions of relationship progress seemed to scare him, so Kyle rephrased his words and thoughts when talking about that and made sure not to seem like he was pushing Chaska to the corner. Chaska had favorite topics; children, animals, and sports. Nothing of which Kyle had an interest in, but it was nice to listen to Chaska when he talked. He smiled then, and the man would often ask him about what he did. How work was going. What he was reading.
It reminded Kyle of his relationship with Anastasia in the earlier stages. They had been nothing alike, but they liked each other. The only difference seemed to be that Chaska didn't seem very interested in changing Kyle. Anastasia had called it 'improving each other', and to date that still confused Kyle. He had been the one undergoing all the upgrades, and he never really had anything he wanted Anastasi to 'improve' while they dated. Unbalanced as it was, it seemed to have to do with the fact that Anastasia had her life together, and he didn't.
They went to the gym together a few more times, and there was one more incident of Kyle staying over at Chaska's place when it was too late to leave. Things never went past that, and that frustrated Kyle.
"I'm the first man you're trying to see, right?"
That was true. This was new to Kyle, but he didn't really see what made seeing a man different from seeing a woman, but he acknowledged that he had limited experience in general, and probably didn't just understand what Chaska meant like that. He found himself googling up things from time to time, and yes, maybe he drifted far sometimes, learning information that he wouldn't need for a long time.
He wasn't going to sleep with Chaska anytime soon. That he knew. Chaska was clear with the lines he had drawn. Kissing and light touching was fine, but once things got a little too heated, he would pull away without another word.
"Kyle."
Kyle blinked at the sound of his mother's voice. He looked up from the dishes that were soaked in the sink before turning to face her smiling gaze.
"You were smiling. What were you thinking about?" she asked, making Kyle look away before shrugging. He was helping her out in the kitchen. The past few weeks have been a process of him slowly learning to do what was expected of him. Washing dishes, cleaning up after himself and Otis, trying to get up early enough to be the one to give his son a bath. He was putting in an effort, and although he made mistakes here and there it was overall an improvement.
"Come on, talk to your mother," Kyle's mother said, making Kyle look over to her again as he rinsed a bowl. The woman had her wrinkly hands on her hips now. She looked excited, and it reminded Kyle of those times she thought he was finally seeing a girl.
