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“Dad….” It was whispered softly just above his ear as the mattress creaked and dipped a little.
Ugh. It was 8 a.m. on Saturday… what did this kid want? Maybe if he ignored it, it would go away…
“Daaaaaaaaaaad….” Chuck whined a little louder. He knew Dad was faking sleep. He gave him a little poke for good measure.
Damn it. Herc groaned, “What Charlie?” His day off…his one day off and the brat was in his room, in his bed, bothering him.
Chuck sighed, “Raleigh’s birthday is tomorrow…and I don’t know what to get him…”
“Not my problem.” Herc muttered.
“Hey!” Chuck smacked the lump next to him on the back. Not helpful.
Herc tried not to laugh. Okay, maybe he needed to be supportive, but that was going to be hard without coffee. Chuck draped himself over his father’s blanketed bulk and sighed in his ear. “Help me.”
“I don’t know that I can…Raleigh is your weird little friend…” Oh, that might have been a poor choice of words.
He was smacked again only this time hard enough he could feel it through the coverlet. “He’s not weird Dad!” Chuck snapped. He didn’t need judgment, he needed advice. He started to sit up.
That was a matter of opinion for sure. “I know sweetheart, I’m kidding.” Herc tugged on his arm and pulled while Charlie shimmied over him like a one hundred and change pound slug and invited him to burrow under the covers.
Chuck was still mad at him for being mean, so he curled up with his back nestled in the curve of Herc’s body, but he didn’t resist the arm being draped over him. Herc couldn’t help but smile; sometimes Charlie was closer to going on six than sixteen. This was much better; if he had to be awake and have bonding time at least it was on his terms.
They lay in silence for a few minutes, and Herc started to drift back to sleep. But Charlie wasn’t done with his crisis. “What do I do?”
Herc sighed, “You know him…what he likes. It’s not as hard as you’re making it. It’s really not the thing but the gesture….” Oh…wait a second...was this a present or a present? Had this relationship escalated when we wasn’t looking?!
Chuck was deep in thought; Herc could tell by the way he was jiggling his foot and chewing his lip. Oh yeah…this was a present. Not a we’re-good-friends thing, oh no this was we-are-an-item thing. Damn it.
“I don’t know Dad….why is this so hard?” Chuck groaned.
“Because you love him, it complicates everything. Get used to it.” Herc patted Charlie’s flat belly and enjoyed the squawk at both his cold hand against the boy’s warm skin and the implication that he and Raleigh were in love.
“Daaaaaaad!” he indignantly whined, “It’s not like that!”
Yeah sure. Whatever Charlie. He didn’t dignify it with a response.
“It’s not.” Chuck pouted. Maybe it was. Ugh. Why was Dad always right? He sighed dramatically.
Herc snorted against the back of Charlie’s neck and made him shiver. “Oh come on Charlie, just do something easy. Have him over and make him dinner or something. Don’t kill yourself over one of many birthdays you will have to bullshit your way through.” He wasn’t being bitter or anything, the kid just had the right to know up front that was how it went.
“Wow Dad…that’s kinda…dark.” Chuck laughed, “You sound like Raleigh…oh...my…god….” The horrible realization that he could be dating anyone even remotely like his Father hit him like a ton of truth sized bricks. Shit!
“Oh god is right. Heaven forbid.” Herc was laughing hard now, “I’ll make sure to let you know if I get the urge to dye my hair or wear black all the time.”
Chuck groaned in literal pain and buried his face in a pillow. Herc kept laughing at his suffering; that ought to put a dampener on his budding romance. Dad job done. Excellent. “It’s okay buddy, you know what they say, ‘girls always marry someone like their dad’…guess it’s the same for boys….”
That was perhaps the most rewarding sound Chuck had ever made. Awesome. Any day that started (however early) with eternally shaming your son was going to be a good day. Chuck was still making ultrasonic distress sounds into the pillow he was attempting to end his life with. Herc sat up and stretched, it was definitely time for coffee.
He reached over and ruffled Chucks red gold hair and patted him on the ass. “Well you think on all that. We can always go to that freaky store with the weird music at the mall later if you need too…”
Chuck made another high pitched sound of anguish that might have also been some sort of tell off. Hard to tell and Herc didn’t care. Grinning to himself he shuffled to the kitchen and left Charlie to stew in his self-inflicted misery. It really would be interesting to see what his kid would come up with as a solution to the birthday gift problem though; Chuck was clever, he wasn’t concerned. Besides Raleigh didn’t seem that complicated or hard to please, another one of those stupid shirts he was always wearing would probably be just fine.