Page 104 of The New Place

“Newbury?” Steve asks without preamble, leaning on the doorframe and grinning.

“Great. Who else knows?” Ned asks. “Hi, good morning.”

“Nobody, everyone.” Steve shrugs. “Does it matter? You’ve gotten a hell of an out from here.”

“It’s not for sure yet.”

“It’s sure enough, from what I heard.”

Ned nearly laughs. Yeah, because he and Abbot have upended their lives agreeing to tell everyone they’re engaged. Which would be alright if they hadn’t woken up into an awkward silence this morning, Abbot still quiet after whatever last night was, and Ned exhausted by Peggy being unable to fall asleep and Baxter’s nighttime escapades.

“Weird we won’t be back here, isn’t it?” Steve asks.

Ned looks around his office. The books he arranged just so, the view of the little square of grass next to the parking lot he’d been so happy to see the first day he walked in here. His first meeting with a student in here, the first time he’d closed the door and had his own space to work in, finally feeling like a real, actual professor.

His baseball team too, he thinks ruefully. How messy has life been that he hasn’t even properly dwelled on that?

“I’ve barely had time to think about it,” he admits, but a pang catches him now all the same. Too many changes, too quickly, and he’d just gotten settled in here. No, he isn’t ready to say goodbye to this place, these colleagues, the future here he’d been so certain of. Especially not for the whirlwind of life apparently waiting for him.

“Manage any space for a thought about the house?” Steve asks.

Ned drops his hand from rubbing at his eyes. “House?”

“Yeah, how I said we should trade spots?” Steve asks.

“Oh.” No, Ned needs to say. He’s not moving, which is on the list of issues he and Abbot have to figure out.

Or they don’t. Maybe they can keep ignoring it, like Ned has been, and like Abbot is so good at too when it comes to his own shit. Agree to just carry on in silence, which is real damn good for a healthy relationship.

“You should really consider it,” Steve says. “It’s not far from Newbury, actually.”

“Great,” Ned says weakly.

“I know I’m biased, but it’d be a good place for you two,” Steve goes on. “It’s been really well taken care of, new roof a couple of years ago, new furnace, all that stuff. We did a lot of work when it was clear my grandma wasn’t moving out of it anytime soon. She’d still be there if it weren’t for the stairs.”

“So it’s got stairs then.” Ned means it as a joke, but it’s lame as hell.

Steve at least offers a little chuckle. “Stairs, floors, walls, everything you could hope for. Three bedrooms, nice backyard, quiet street.”

“Sounds perfect.” And maybe it would be, if he weren’t broke as a joke. He wants to bury his face in his hands again. Instead, he reaches for the only way to definitely change the subject. “We’re getting married.”

“What?” Steve asks on a laugh. “Really? That’s amazing.”

“Thanks,” Ned says, trying to inject the right tone into his voice.

“When? You set a date?”

“Not yet.” Later, he thinks, that faraway time that once felt so very safe.

“Well, congrats to you both.” Steve comes over to give him a handshake that turns into a hug. “You two are perfect for each other.”

Yeah. Perfect.

Your marriage is messy too sometimes, right? Ned suddenly wants to ask. Or is Ned the common denominator here, in a second relationship with really shitty communication? Two people he’s loved who don’t want to talk?

At least to him.

The thought stays with him as he plods his way through his lecture, his office hours, the time he’s set aside to work on a paper but instead just stares at his computer. Charles, beats in his mind the moment he can get his focus off of the non-conversations he’s had with Abbot. Charles has landed by now, Ned’s pretty sure, like he can feel the man’s presence bearing down on him as the day wears on. It gets worse as he walks back to his car, bent against the wind funneling through the buildings of campus. Maybe it’ll at least blow the last of the dog hair off of him.