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“Nice to meet you, James.” Somehow, it was a joke, but a joke that they shared.
“We’re more than happy to meet you, too,” James found himself saying. “I mean, we wouldn’t have been able to put up the tent without you.”
Elio still looked amused. “At your service. Now let’s… oh, the tent stakes aren’t in yet. Do you know where they are, Big D?”
Dana grinned at the nickname. “I can get them!”
Elio showed them how to pull the tent taut before pounding the stakes in, interspersed with little stories about his own camping misadventures. Like the time a rainstorm had capsized his flooded tent in the middle of the night. And the time he’d thought he didn’t need tent stakes, and his roly-poly tent just rolled away in a gust of wind before he got his stuff inside to anchor it down.
Elio just had this way about him that put everyone at ease. He could tease Dana while also showing her respect. It impressed the hell out of James, because usually all he could do was try to listen to her and not get too angry when he had to set limits.
But now Dana and Elio were singing a pop song together—one that he’d never heard, but it had them busting up in giggles. Dana’s voice wasn’t quite on pitch, but Elio’s was rich and true.
Elio finally stood and announced, “Alright, now we’ve just got to stand the poles up. All hands on deck.” Without a pause, he headed for the picnic table, where Mikey was hunched over his Pokémon binders. James was about to tell him not to bother, but Elio was already there. “Oooohhhh… You’ve got a Charizard VMax!”
“I’ve got three of them. And a TagTeam with Reshiram.”
“Whoa. Nice. I used to have the Magikarp and Wailord TagTeam.” They were speaking a foreign language. One that buzzed often outside James’s ear, but he hadn’t gotten up the energy to figure it out yet.
“Do you play?” Mikey asked.
Mikey. Was talking. To a stranger.
Though it was about Pokémon, so maybe that didn’t count.
“Not too much anymore.” Elio grinned. “No one to play with. I’m Elio. What’s your name?”
“Michael.”
“Well, Michael, I was wondering if you could help me with something. It’s an important job.” Elio said this with all seriousness.
“Sure.”
James just watched, amazed, as Mikey followed Elio back to the tent.
“Alright, everyone’s going to be in charge of one pole. When I say, you’re going to lift this up like this… and then attach this thing right here. Got it?” At Dana’s nod, he left her in charge of the first one.
“Michael, this one’s gonna be yours.” He repeated the tutorial.
“I know, I know!” Mikey insisted, always the expert at everything. “You and Daddy can do your poles now.”
Elio raised one eyebrow, over the children’s heads. “Alright, Daddy. Let’s go do our poles.”
James had to be red up to the roots of his hair. He obviously knew that sometimes younger gay men called older gay men Daddy, but… God.
There hadn’t been a hint of flirtation before, just good family-friendly fun. Or so he thought. Wait, had Elio been flirting before? And he missed it?
“Do you know where your pole goes, Daddy?” Elio asked, full of innuendo and mischief.
Oh God, this was flirting. A real, live, sexy gay man was actually flirting with him. There was no way James could answer that. He just picked up the tent pieces and nodded that he was ready.
“Alright, on three. One, two… three!”
James raised his pole and snapped the stretchy cord into place. His side was still falling though, because Mikey obviously hadn’t quite gotten his together. Elio was already running around to help him, and a moment later, they had an actual tent.
“Whoa, cool!” Mikey was already unzipping the doors, with Dana right behind him.
Elio didn’t even ask for help as he walked around the tent and did magical things that got the little side rooms and front “porch” to stand up.
