Page 59 of Love It or List It
Okay.Apparently they weren’t done hanging out.Austin could totally do this.Make small talk with a woman who had such exacting standards that Joe still acted as if any sort of dirt or chaos was some sort of rule-breaking thrill.
“So, you can tell me the truth.Did Joe want to help her because she needed a home or because she had special needs?”Maria shot Austin a quick small smile, as if they were sharing a secret.
“Er, well, I mean, I was definitely the one handing over the credit card at the vet, but he didn’t dissuade me,” Austin said, trying to stick to the truth without revealing Joe’s sort-of lie.Technically Pepa was Austin’s dog, but she was also Joe’s.“And he’s never said why, but probably for both reasons.Though considering he saved her life from the coyote that took her leg, I can’t say I blame him for being attached.”
“Well, that’s a story I need to hear,” Maria said, so Austin recounted the Pepa saga, start to finish, including the finding of the kittens.
“Honestly, I should have been more surprised if he hadn’t found strays after moving out here.”She shot Austin a sly look.“He ever tell you about the time he tried to adopt a kitten?”
They were on their way back to the house now.Pepa had finished her business and was starting to shiver.“Can’t say he did.”
Maria happily launched into the story, voice laced with warmth as she recounted it, which didn’t quite match the picture of her Joe had painted.Though he’d said she was trying to do better these days, hadn’t he?
By the time they stepped back into the breezeway, Austin was wheezing with laughter, picturing a tiny nine-year-old Joe thinking he was being in any way subtle about his hidden prize.As if his meticulous mother wouldn’t have noticed the missing guest towels from the bathroom or the pilfered cans of tuna or, most tellingly, the sounds of a lonely baby looking for its surrogate parent coming from his bedroom closet.
“You could hear it howling all throughout the house.Poor kid was so alarmed at having been caught.He tried to tell me it was ghosts, and maybe I should put in a call to the Ghostbusters.”She shook her head.“I almost caved and let him keep it,” she said thoughtfully, then gave a self-deprecating huff.“Can’t change the past now, though.And he really was probably too young for full responsibility of a pet.”
Austin hummed, not sure how else to acknowledge that statement without sounding like a douchebag.Obviously there was more to the relationship between Joe and his mother than Austin had gleaned from their months of acquaintance.
When he didn’t offer a verbal acknowledgment, Maria prompted, “So is it just the dog and the three cats, or does he have a terrarium somewhere too?”
“The kids wouldn’t fit,” Austin told her as he held open the back door.She laughed and preceded him into the breezeway.“And I make Joe take the spiders outside and release them.”
Now she paused, shaking her head as she removed her coat.Rather than hang it on the hook where Austin kept his—perfectly serviceable for a puffer jacket—she folded it over her arm to take back to the front hall closet.“You make Joe deal with the spiders?”
“Ah, well.”Austin was too gay—and had too macho of a job—to feel emasculated by his fear.“I think they’re creepy, so….”
Maria tilted her head at him.He thought she’d taken his measure inside, but he could see her reevaluating him now.He didn’t know why until she said, “Joe’s been afraid of spiders since he was a kid.We had a neighbor with a tarantula.Awful brat.He made Joe put his hand in the tank once.”
Jesus, what the fuck.
Joe was afraid of spiders?
Austin turned over this piece of information, fitting it into his understanding of Joe as a person.
Joe collected strays.That was obvious.He had too much heart by half; he’d adopted four feral children as a teenager; he had a whole contingency plan in place for when Will got outed to his family and had to move out.He’d given Austin grief about Pepa and the kittens, but it was all surface level and none of it directed at the animals; he was sweet as anything with them.
Austin had thought Joe had exempted him from the collection.After all, Austin was an adult.He didn’t need looking after.
Except Joe kept feeding him, didn’t he?And taking out the spiders, even though he was afraid.He’d come to collect Austin from the cold the night of the storm, made sure Austin was warm in his bed.
And then there was the sex, the way Joe’d micromanaged everything until Austin had been overwhelmed with pleasure.
Perhaps Austin had been adopted after all, except not in the same way Joe had taken in the kids, the dog, the cats.And notopenly.Of course he hadn’t; Austin had told him he didn’t date.And the little Joe had told him on the topic of his ex had illuminated plenty.Austin knew that kind of pain, knew what it could do to people, in the right circumstances.Or the wrong ones.
That was… interesting.
“Austin?”
Joe was standing in the door to the breezeway; his mother must have gone to hang up her coat.
“You good?”Joe asked.There was a crease in his brow and a splash of something red on his shoulder, likely from dinner.Austin made a note to treat the stain; he was wearing Joe’s clothes.He owed him a load of laundry anyway.
He’d let his hair grow out, Austin realized.The sweep of bangs across his forehead almost touched his eyebrows.He must’ve missed an appointment.Austin thought it suited him, but he also thought—Joe took pride in his appearance.He wore his hair short because it made sense for work, because he didn’t have time to spend styling it.If he’d missed an appointment, then what else was he neglecting?
Joe spent so much time taking care of other people.Who was taking care of him?
“I’m good,” Austin said, straightening.He slipped Pepa’s collar and leash onto the hook next to his coat.“Sorry.I’m good.”
