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“We should get him a new bed,” Jane stated.
“Sorry?” her husband, Julio looked up from his phone next to her. The telly was on with some re-run that neither were really watching. The kids were upstairs asleep, two of them at least.
“For Carlie. His birthday is coming up. A double would probably be better for him.” She kept her eyes down on the cup in her hands. “More space, he’s going to be 17.”
She heard Julio shift next to her on the sofa.
Her voice was barely above a whisper as she spoke, “There is no point fighting it anymore.”
She knew he’d understand exactly what ‘it’ meant.
Charlie and Nick might as well be one. She didn’t really approve of them sharing a bed still so young and with it the likely activity taking place. More sheets in the wash and a wrapper poorly hidden behind a tissue were proof enough. It just wasn’t worth the fight or the effort when by morning Nick would be spooned against Charlie in the same bed.
“If they are going to be active, I rather they are somewhere safe.” The voice of Sarah echoed in her mind from months ago. That was where Charlie was at this moment, in his boyfriend’s bed on a school night. Or she assumed as such at 11 o’clock and trusting they would be at school on time.
After the last year, however, she couldn’t deny it anymore. Nick was Charlie’s safety. She doubted that she had even been Charlie’s safe place since he had come out to her. A memory flashed on this very sofa of her oldest son’s white grip on his boyfriend’s hand as Charlie read a letter on just how bad his mental health had been. She had missed it all.
There were other moments since when she was certain if not for Nick, they would have lost Charlie forever. Any argument, any fight, anytime she knew Charlie was overwhelmed and not answering his phone, Jane knew he’d be with Nick, and a message would come through Tori or even Sarah to tell her where her oldest son was.
The voice in the back of her head that once kept shouting this was only a teenage romance, that eventually they would part and she would be left with a broken-hearted boy, slowly drowned out by the inevitable. But this was no teenage romance, that voice was slowly growing stronger.
A small laugh came from her husband’s lips pulling Jane back from her thoughts.
“When it comes to those two. No, I don’t think there is a point. It might be the only way we see Nick next year when he’s gone for universtiy.” he chuckled.
Jane didn’t want to think about that quite yet, Nick going to university. She didn’t know his plans exactly, but she knew from overheard conversations the north was looking like a probability.
“Yeah, it would be nice.”
They lapsed into silence for several minutes, ads now playing on the television.
“Are you sure?” Julio asked again.
This time Jane looked up to her husband, “I am. Make the trip to Ikea next weekend? Sarah said she was going on a spa trip with friends. Let Charlie know he can spend the weekend at Nick’s.”
She stood from the sofa, “Another cup before bed?” She asked. Julio nodded, passing over his now empty cup and taking it before heading out of the room. No way back now.