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Owen is just stepping out of the shower as his phone rings. He quickly wraps a towel around his waist and brushes water off his palms so he can grab for it where it’s sitting face-up on the vanity.
It’s TK, and Owen smiles as he answers the call. “Hey, kiddo!”
“Hi, Dad.”
“How are you feeling? You’re taking it easy, right? Not overdoing it?”
TK’s going to gripe at him for asking, but it’s been less than a month since he awoke from the third coma of his life, the third time he’s been haunting death’s door and pulled back from it at just the last second, so Owen thinks he’s more than entitled to be overbearing at least for a little while longer.
Unexpectedly, TK doesn’t complain about being fussed over. In a voice that Owen can tell contains a smile, he says, “I’m good. Really. Basically back to full strength. I put in a request to return to the field next week.”
“What did Tommy have to say about that?”
“If you’re ready to come back, we can’t wait to have you,” TK quotes. “She trusts me to know my limits.”
“Is that a pointed dig at me?” Owen asks, raising an eyebrow at his reflection in the mirror.
TK laughs. “Maybe a little one. It’s been a month.”
“It’s been 28 days,” Owen corrects.
“But who’s counting, right?” TK teases. “Dad, I promise I’m good. Carlos has been an excellent prison warden.”
In the background, Owen can hear the sound of Carlos protesting. He isn’t close enough to the phone to make out specific words, but the tone is unmistakable.
With his voice a little diminished in volume, like he’s holding the phone a few inches away from his mouth, TK amends, “A very nice warden. Selfless and helpful and very sexy.”
Owen chuckles. He turns and leans back against the countertop. He can’t imagine Carlos is thrilled that TK just called him sexy in a place where Owen could overhear. He and his son have always been open about these things. Carlos, not so much.
“Anyway,” TK continues, his voice back into the speaker. “I’m calling because we wanted to invite you over for dinner. Carlos’s parents, too. I’m all settled into the loft, and I’m feeling better, and we thought we should have a proper family dinner.”
“I would love to,” Owen replies. “It’s been too long since I’ve seen them. When?”
“Tomorrow night? I know you only work until six.”
“Perfect. Can I bring anything?”
“No, we’ll take care of it. Carlos is all excited about a new recipe he found on Instagram.”
“I’ll see you at seven, then.”
“See you then.”
Owen hangs up the phone and sets it onto the counter. He turns back to his reflection and finds a small smile on his face. He’s happier than he could express to know TK is so settled and well taken care of, when he spent so much of his young life in such turmoil. He should say so to Carlos some time, Owen thinks. He has a feeling his son’s boyfriend would appreciate hearing that from him.
“Cap.”
Owen looks up into an amused smirk on Judd’s face.
“If you don’t stop twitchin’ you’re gonna drill a hole through the floor.”
Owen frowns, following Judd’s gaze to the lower half of his body and realizing his left leg is bouncing incessantly. He hadn’t noticed that.
“Sorry,” he laughs, crossing his right leg over it to stop the motion.
Judd pulls out a chair and settles into it next to him. “What’s going on?”
He has a concerned frown on his face, and Owen is momentarily heart-warmed by the affection. “Believe it or not, it’s good bouncing.”
“Oh?”
“I’m going for dinner at TK and Carlos’s tonight. TK’s all settled in and he’s almost better and Carlos’s parents are coming too.”
“Oh.” Judd’s smile is crooked and Owen frowns.
“What?”
“Is that a particularly special occasion? Dinner with the in-laws?”
“Not particularly, no,” Owen agrees. He shrugs. “I don’t know. I’m happy, I guess. That kid is a magnet for near-death experiences and I could’ve lost him. And instead he’s building a life and a home with someone who really loves him. I’m more than happy.”
Judd regards him thoughtfully. He looks down at the watch on his wrist, and then he licks his lips and nods sideways at the door. “Get outta here.”
“Hm?”
“There’s only 45 minutes left in your shift.”
“A lot can come up in 45 minutes.”
Judd raises an eyebrow. “D’you trust me to handle it, if it does?”
“Yes,” Owen says honestly.
“Then get outta here. Go celebrate with your kid.”
For a moment, Owen is going to decline. It’s only 45 minutes, getting there at six-thirty instead of seven isn’t that much of a difference. Then, he reconsiders. In an alternate timeline, one where a tiny handful of things had gone in another direction, he could be sitting here at this same table mourning the fact that he’d never get to spend another second with his son. Considering that alternative, an extra 30 minutes does, in fact, seem like an important difference.
He thanks Judd and gets up, heading for the showers.
It takes a bit longer than usual for the loft door to slide open, metallic melody along its tracks. He’s greeted by the confused face of his son, dressed in sweatpants and a dark green t-shirt that’s a little too big on him. Owen wonders if it belongs to Carlos.
“Hey,” TK greets, forehead wrinkled in a frown. The pattern of those lines, the specific way they twist folds of his skin, is exactly the same as when Gwyn frowns. His ex-wife will always be with Owen because he can see her shining through TK.
“Hi,” Owen returns with a smile.
“It’s, uh, like 20 after,” TK says, as he steps back to let Owen in. “You aren’t supposed to be here for 40 minutes.”
“Ah, I got off work early,” Owen says with a would-be-causal wave of his hand.
TK closes the door behind him. Carlos is in the kitchen. He’s dressed in a sweater and jeans, chopping tomatoes with glasses on his face and a tea towel slung over his shoulder. Owen never knew he wore glasses.
“Hey, Carlos.”
“Hi, Owen,” Carlos answers. He smiles, looking happier to see him than TK does.
“You got off work early?” TK asks. He puts his hands on his hips – and there’s his mother, again. “You. Really.”
Owen laughs in spite of himself. “Alright, I left work early.”
“Why?”
“Because every minute I get to spend with you is a minute I might not’ve ever gotten again, if you’d never left that hospital,” Owen tells him honestly, not attempting to control the slight waver in his voice.
“Oh.” TK’s eyes shine, and he moves in quickly for a hug.
“Love you, you accident-prone knucklehead.” Owen rubs his back. TK always feels so young when he’s in Owen’s arms. Owen will always regret the years they lost, and the nightmares he couldn’t chase away.
“Love you too, Dad.”
TK pulls out of the hug sniffing, and Owen gently pushes him in the direction of the bedroom. “Go get dressed. I’ll help Carlos in the kitchen.”
“That’s really not necessary,” Carlos says on cue, as TK walks away. “Can I get you a beer?”
“Yes it is, and yes you can.” Owen goes to the sink to wash his hands.
Carlos looks flustered, ever the perfect host, but Owen shoots him a look that communicates he isn’t joking, so Carlos wipes the blade of the knife on the towel and holds it out, handle first. “You can finish chopping this, and a cucumber in the crisper. I’m making a tossed salad.”
“Aye aye.” Owen takes the knife and sets about his task.
Carlos disappears through the opening and into the dining room. Owen hears the sounds of the table being set as he finishes off half a tomato. He grabs the cucumber when he’s done, and opens two drawers in search of a vegetable peeler. He finds one in the second drawer, but also finds something else.
Owen frowns. He looks closer, sure at first that he’s seeing things. But it’s unmistakable, upon further examination. It’s a small clear tube of sexual lubricant.
Blinking, Owen presses his lips together, grinning as he struck with the urge to laugh. He shuts the drawer after grabbing the peeler, but then as he listens to Carlos humming absently to himself as he sets out napkins, Owen thinks the better of it and scoops out the tube. He shoves it into his pocket. They’ve clearly forgotten it’s there, and Owen can’t quite imagine Carlos’s embarrassment if one of his parents found it. He remembers from the weeks they lived together after the fire how uncomfortable Carlos is discussing certain topics in public settings.
He slices into the cucumber as Carlos comes back into the kitchen. Owen schools his expression into one of perfect innocence, chopping away as Carlos goes into the fridge for the bowl of shredded lettuce. He sets it onto the counter next to the cutting board.
“Thank you,” he says, and Owen nods and brushes him off.
“No problem.”
“Could you drizzle some oil on that?” Carlos asks, as he picks up a potholder and pulls at the door of the oven to check on his dish.
“Sure.” Owen finishes slicing the cucumber and puts it into the bowl along with the tomato and lettuce. He reaches for a jar of olive oil that’s sitting in a set with vinegar in the corner of the counter, and inhales quietly as something else catches his eye. Another tube, tucked just behind the cannister of flour.
He’s going to say something. He has to, this time, because if there are more of them all around the house and Andrea or Gabriel stumbles across them, Carlos is going to die. Owen looks at him, and Carlos smiles cheerfully at him, and he can’t. It feels too cruel to consider humiliating him, so when Carlos isn’t looking, Owen swipes that one, too.
TK comes out of the bedroom, now dressed in black jeans and a dark pink button-up with the sleeves rolled halfway up his forearms. He moves into the kitchen smiling, and he leans in to peck a kiss to Carlos’s cheek.
Carlos takes the towel off his shoulder and hands it over, telling TK, “Check the roast again in one minute, I’m gonna go put my contacts in.”
“You got it.”
Owen watches covertly as they exchange a smile, and he thinks if he squinted, he could see cartoon hearts dancing around their heads. The love radiates off them, in the way they look at each other, the way they speak to each other, the way hands are always finding elbows and biceps and lower backs. Owen couldn’t be more pleased for them, even as he holds back a grin over the fact that there are two bottles of lube in his front pocket.
“You’re happy, here?” he asks TK, just to be sure, once Carlos is in the bedroom.
TK nods. “I’m so fucking happy, Dad. We’re supposed to be together. I …”
“Tell me,” Owen prompts.
“I lost my head for a bit and forgot that,” TK admits, sounding regretful, “but it feels even more precious because we almost lost it.”
Owen nods. “I get that. I’m so glad you didn’t.”
“Me too.”
Owen pats him on the shoulder and heads for the bathroom. He relieves himself, and as he’s rinsing his hands, his gaze drifts to the left and to the shower. Like his eyes were drawn there by invisible magnets, he spots, in amongst bottles of shampoo and conditioner and eucalyptus body wash, a much larger tube of lubricant.
He barks out a laugh. It’s K-Y Jelly; the warming kind. He certainly can’t fit that one in his pocket, so he finds an empty trash bag under the sink and puts it in that, tucking it away into a drawer as outside the doorbell rings and he’s met with the sound of Carlos’s parents arriving.
He exits the bathroom, intruding on a scene of hugs exchanged.
“Owen!” Andrea cries happily, and Owen jogs over to embrace her and return her kiss on his cheek.
“It’s so nice to see you again,” he tells her, reaching over to heartily shake Gabriel’s hand when she releases him.
“It’s so nice our boys are back together,” Andrea adds.
“Mama,” Carlos complains, with an exasperated laugh.
“What? I’m not saying anything,” Andrea laughs. She reaches out for TK, who goes to her and lets her squish him into a sideways hug. “I’m just thrilled to have this one back in our lives.”
“Not as thrilled as I am,” TK says, and Owen doesn’t miss the way Carlos’s eyes go shiny just for a moment before he blinks it away and offers his father a drink.
Owen has a fantastic evening. The Reyes’ are wonderful company – funny, enthusiastic, full of amusing stories and always genuinely interested to hear about his work. Andrea has them all rolling as she describes her granddaughter conducting an experiment on her parents to sus out whether the tooth fairy is real, and coming to the conclusion that the magical being in fact is real, but works a day job as her father. At TK’s prompting, Carlos shyly tells them about a difficult case he helped solve the week before, and Owen feels warm inside watching Gabriel puff up in pride. He’s not sure Carlos notices it, but he hopes TK did, and will tell Carlos later that his father was impressed.
It’s just short of perfect, and the only thing standing in the way of that perfection is that Owen keeps discovering more bottles. Stuffed between couch cushions, in plain sight on the TV stand. He swipes them as discretely as he can, and by the end of the evening the pockets of his jeans and the larger pockets of his army jacket are so full of them he’s astounded no one has noticed he’s growing lumps.
He stays intentionally in the kitchen as the boys are saying goodnight to Carlos’s parents, because there is no way Owen could hug Andrea without her feeling the tubes lining his jacket. He waves to them instead, sincerely echoing their sentiment that they should all do this again soon.
TK and Carlos are both beaming as Carlos slides the door closed. Owen watches them just for a second, and then turns toward the sink and begins to run water to let it warm up.
“Oh, you don’t have to do that, Owen,” Carlos protests.
“I don’t mind,” Owen says with a shrug.
“Dad,” TK says, and Owen looks at him. “Really, you’ve done enough. Let’s have another drink, if you’re not ready to go home yet.”
“You don’t mind if I stay for a bit?” Owen inquires; playing it cool. There's really no way he could sneak everything back to where it was without them seeing, so he might as well have a little fun with it.
“Of course not,” Carlos tells him. “More wine?”
“Sure, that sounds great.” Owen smiles.
He lets Carlos poor him another half glass, and one for himself, and take a bottle of grapefruit Pellegrino out of the refrigerator for TK. He follows them back to the dining room, but doesn’t sit. He waits until the two of them are settled on the far side of the table, facing him.
TK’s eyebrows raise in question, and Owen reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulls out the travel-sized tube of cherry flavored lubricant he’d plucked from inside a potted plant – inches away from where Andrea had been sitting moments before Owen noticed it – and holds it out in front of him before dropping it. It falls a foot through the air and lands, with a satisfying splat, in the middle of the dining room table.
Carlos and TK follow it down with their eyes and then they just stare. Neither of them move an inch. Owen methodically rids himself of others, digging bottles from the pockets of his jeans and putting them next to their comrades on the table.
“Oh my God,” Carlos mutters.
Reaching into the outside pocket of his jacket, Owen picks out two more and tosses them onto the pile. TK’s his eyes are as wide as saucers, his mouth half open as he watches one final tube produced from the back pocket of Owen’s jeans. There are seven, in total, not counting the K-Y he’d stashed in the bathroom, and they make a dramatic scene in a heap on the table where they’d all just shared a delicious meal.
Owen can barely contain his smile. He’s pleased, really, that they have an active sex life. It’s healthy for them to be this into each other. But he has to admit, watching them squirm is a lot more gratifying than it probably should be.
“Is that all of them, do you think?” Owen asks. “You’ve got some inventive hiding places, although not particularly stealthy ones.”
Carlos just says, “Oh my God,” again, quieter this time, some of the color drained from his cheeks and his eyes laser focused on the incriminating assemble of lubricant sitting before them.
Owen shifts his gaze over to TK’s, making eye contact with his son. TK, in contrast to Carlos, has bright pink cheeks, and he stares slack-jawed only for another moment before his face breaks into a smile and he starts laughing. It’s a quiet snicker at first and then he cracks right up, delighted and boyish, resting his elbows on the table and covering his mouth with his hands as his shoulders shake.
Laughing along with him, Owen tells him, “I’d say I’m jealous, but I doubt I could keep up with you two even if I tried.”
TK makes a noise, a pffft release of breath, burying his whole face in his hands and then looking back up with tears of laughter in his eyes. “Dad. Holy shit.”
“You were supposed to …” Carlos begins, but he loses his voice somewhere in the middle of it. He can’t seem to look at Owen.
“I know, I’m sorry,” TK laughs with a groan mixed in. “He got here early! I was just about to go around collecting them all and then he got here early and distracted me.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be taking it easy?” Owen asks. “You just woke up from a coma.”
“I didn’t just,” TK argues. “And we got – ”
“TK,” Carlos hisses, looking sideways at him.
They exchange a look, unspoken words passed between their eyes – Carlos’s expression pleading and mutinous and TK still blushing but unable to contain his smile.
“What do you want me to say?” TK asks Carlos in protest. He gestures at the pile on the table. “He found them all, it’s not like I can claim we’re using it as moisturizer.”
Owen presses his lips together to suppress a laugh that he’s sure Carlos would not appreciate.
Carlos sighs and rubs a hand over his face, but then waves it in front of his body as it to say fine, go ahead.
“We got the all-clear a few days ago,” TK tells Owen, “from my doctor. For … uh. Intimacy.”
Owen feels his eyebrows leap toward his hair. “A few days? You managed to have lube stashed in every corner of the place after only a few days?”
Carlos stands up abruptly. He walks agitatedly away across the living room, muttering, “I am too fucking Catholic for this conversation.”
It’s the first time Owen thinks he’s ever heard the man swear, and he’s still trying very hard not to laugh, and TK being a smirk factory across the table isn’t helping.
“Between the break-up and the coma, it had been almost six months, Dad,” he says, with a glint in his eyes.
Owen snickers. “Alright, fair enough.”
He looks over at Carlos, who is wringing his hands together almost absurdly, hovering across the room near the open door to their bedroom. Seeing him there, with their bed in the background, strikes Owen as particularly comical. He didn’t check the nightstands – he wonders what sort of goodies he might have found in there, since they must at least be having most of their sex in the bed, even if they’re also apparently doing it everywhere else and with such spontaneity that they don’t have time to walk 40 feet for supplies.
Tamping down on his amusement, in a serious voice he says to Carlos, “I am genuinely happy you take such good care of my kid.”
Carlos’s mouth opens and his head shakes helplessly, looking like he would give just about anything for the floor to open up underneath him and swallow him whole.
“How much would we have to pay you to never mention this again?” TK asks. “‘Cause I’m pretty sure my boyfriend is gonna need therapy three times a week for the rest of his life if he can’t repress this the moment you walk out the door and pretend it didn’t happen.”
“I will do that for you for free,” Owen tells him. TK gets up and rounds the table, and Owen reaches for him to clap him on the shoulder. “Consider it a … congratulations on surviving another coma present.”
“I guess they don’t make Hallmark cards for that.”
“They don’t, I checked.”
TK laughs. Owen pulls him into a hug, and holds him there for a little bit longer than he means to. Joking aside, he’s overjoyed to have his son healthy enough that he’s able to have a partner he can’t keep his hands off of. Too many times in TK’s relatively short life, it was all too possible that wouldn’t come to pass.
TK walks him to the door, while Carlos continues to hover near the bedroom with his eyes still wide and his face turned grey.
“Thank you for dinner, this was a wonderful night,” he says, but just to TK. He knows Carlos likely did most of the cooking, but Carlos will have overheard his gratitude. He doesn’t need to be forced to interact with Owen any more than he already has. At least not tonight. Not until he’s had some time to recover his nerves.
“Thank you for coming. And for saving us from Carlos’s parents finding … all that.”
Carlos makes an unhappy noise behind them. Owen has to close his eyes for a moment to keep from reacting, and when he opens them again finds TK with a similarly pinched expression.
He hugs his son one more time, and in a low voice, whispers, “Take good care of him, the last thing we need in this family is an aneurism.”
“I will,” TK whispers back.
He slides the door closed after Owen steps out of the loft. He doesn’t head immediately for the elevator, though. Curiosity gets the better of him, and he leans in close to the glass and strains to hear the continued conversation inside.
“We are never having sex again,” Carlos is saying.
TK is laughing, but not in a mocking way. It’s warm and kind and understanding. “I’m so sorry, baby.”
“I am serious!”
TK responds, but it’s too quiet for Owen to make out, and then Carlos groans.
“Fine. I’m not serious. But that was so embarrassing I’m surprised I didn’t literally burst into flames.”
“I’m sorry,” TK says again. “I will remember next time.”
“If my mom had found them instead of your dad …”
“Definitely would have been more embarrassing,” TK confirms. “But baby, I know you guys have your whole thing where you don’t talk about real shit but your parents have three kids. They are aware sex exists.”
“TK, I swear to God …”
“Okay, fine,” TK laughs. “You’re right. You were all immaculate conceptions. Andrea Reyes has never heard of intercourse.”
Carlos grumbles something that Owen doesn’t catch, but then he hears soft laughter that he doesn’t think comes from TK.
“I love you,” TK says.
“Yeah,” Carlos answers. “I know. I love you, too, asshole.”
“I promise to hide the lube better next time someone comes over.”
“You better.”
Owen leaves them be. He heads for the elevator and down to the parking garage, unable to keep from smiling so hard his cheeks hurt.