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Wait, was Dom a boyfriend?
The thought made him feel both silly and giddy at the same time.
“You look good, Dad. Happy.” Shane picked up his fork and jabbed a piece of lettuce out of his salad. He paused with it on the way to his mouth. “You look really happy. Work going well?”
“It is.” Abe took a bite and closed his eyes at the hit of hot mustard and pastrami. “Oh yeah, that’s the ticket,” he breathed. He took another bite and moaned. He opened his eyes at the silence across the table.
Shane looked at his boyfriend. “Dad and food.”
“It’s like porn,” Quinn said with a cheeky grin.
“Hey now, no mentioning porn in the same breath as my dad.” Shane shuddered and dug into his salad.
Quinn snorted. “Shane, I hate to break it you, but your father is a genuine hottie.” Quinn said it so matter-of-factly, he made Abe blink. “So the work is going well, you said? Did you get more orders for those custom window frames?”
“Pretty sure everyone on my street has put in an order now, so I’m booked.”
“Chairs, too?” Shane asked.
He nodded and wiped his mouth with a napkin. “A restaurant downtown put in an order for one of their rooms. Surprised me because the chairs aren’t cheap.”
“Wow,” Shane breathed. “At this rate, you’ll have to hire someone.”
“Hire someone to do my hand-carved specialty woodwork?” Abe shook his head. “Nah, I’d like my Stephens Chairs to stay made by a Stephens. Let me know if you want to learn.” He waggled his brows. “But if it stays this good, I’ll be able to do it full time. I’ll need a bigger workshop, though.”
“Oh!” Quinn said, excitement lighting up his blue eyes. “The last time I was at your house, I noticed how full your garage is getting, so I looked into a few places.” He paused and chewed on his bottom lip. “Hope that’s okay?”
“Of course it is. Thank you.”
He beamed at Abe. “So there are some places down near North Bend Road for rent that wouldn’t be too far from your house. Have you looked at those? They have reasonable prices and no noise ordinances.” Quinn picked up a baguette and tore off a hunk to dip into his soup. “I remember you said you had to start late in the morning on some of the projects because of your neighbor’s baby.”
“I’ve actually had trouble knowing when it’s okay to run the saws. Babies sleep on different schedules than we do. And another of my neighbors is elderly and she sleeps midafternoon. I know because she brought me cookies and asked if I could run the saws in the mornings.”
“So, damned if you do and damned if you don’t.”
Abe nodded. “How’s your mom doing, Quinn?”
The young man’s smile wavered a little bit and Shane’s hand slipped under the table, likely to squeeze Quinn’s leg as he’d seen him do a dozen times in the past. “She’s okay. There are good days and bad days. The doctor made a little tweak to her meds recently, and it seems like the good days are starting to outnumber the bad again, which is always a plus.”
“Definitely,” Abe said with a nod.
His expression suddenly perked up again and he smiled broadly at Abe. “She asked about you when we visited last week.”
Abe’s head jerked back in surprise. Quinn’s mother had been involved in a horrible car accident when Quinn was in college and suffered brain damage from which she never fully recovered. Quinn had explained that her memory had been bad after the accident and was growing worse with age. Abe had met Charlotte only the one time and it was over a month ago.
“That’s amazing.”
“Yeah, she was wondering if my handsome father with the killer smile was going to come visit her again,” Shane said with a leer. He stole a hunk of bread off Quinn’s plate and dipped it into his own soup.
“Hey now,” Quinn teased, smacking Shane’s hand. “You had your own and scarfed it down.”
“Yours always tastes better anyway.” Shane winked.
Abe laughed, completely pleased with Quinn, so glad he felt comfortable enough to check into something like that for Abe. He really was a part of the family already. Which meant…he needed to be here for what Abe was about to say. He might not be ready to talk about Dom, but it was time his son knew about him. The voices around him became a drone of noise and he took a deep breath. Then another. This was harder than he thought.
He wasn’t in any way ashamed of who he was; it was just telling his kid.
“I wanted to talk to you two about something today.” He cleared his throat. “I’m seeing someone.”
Shane’s grin was a flash of white teeth in the dark scruff on his chin. Scruff that held no hints of gray yet—but he was young. Abe ignored the ironic voice in his head saying Dom was the same age.
