Chapter Text
Trevor was self-aware enough to know he had no business doing any part of what he’d been doing for the past six years. He had no business raising his nephew.
He wasn’t trying to say that he didn’t love him because he did, so much - ninety percent of the time Andrew was the coolest little dude - but he was always overtired and overstimulated after daycare, especially on Fridays, and most of the time he didn’t have to do much to con Trevor into taking him to the little café on the way home for a cookie before dinner. Which probably didn’t help with being overtired and overstimulated, Trevor was self-aware enough to know that, too, but he was as tired as Andrew was and dealing with the consequences of a five-year-old on a sugar high was Jeremy’s problem tonight, not Trevor’s.
Out of the corner of his eye Trevor saw Andrew’s hand in the air and he kept one hand on the steering wheel while holding up his right hand to catch an airborne action figure. Not like this was the first time this sort of thing happened; it wasn’t even the first time that week. “Come on, dude, we’ve talked about this. No throwing toys in the car or at daycare towards your little friends.”
“Cookie today, Uncle Trevor?”
“Not if you throw your action figures at me. This car is a no-flying zone.” Trevor pinched the bridge of his nose and he wondered not for the first time what he’d done in a past life to end up as defacto coparent for his brother’s son.
Jeremy hadn’t dated the same woman for very long in high school or the first three years of college but in his final year he dated the same woman for an entire semester. Megan had plans to do her own thing after graduation, plans that hadn’t included Jeremy, and she hadn’t wanted to do long-distance so they broke up. They ended up having one night of bonus sex a week or two after the breakup and shortly after graduation she told Jeremy she was pregnant. Her having a baby didn’t change any of her super-important plans and not even six weeks after Andrew Lefkowitz was born, she decided she didn’t want to parent anymore, signed away her parental rights to Jeremy and was on the first flight to the opposite side of the country.
Not that Trevor had thoughts about that or anything.
He stepped up and helped out a lot that first year just because Jeremy got thrust full-force into single parenthood and didn’t know what the hell he was doing trying to take care of a baby (Trevor hadn’t known what he was doing either and even with neverending phone calls to their mom that first year was rough doing their best to keep the little dude alive) and here they were six years later and Trevor’s responsibilities to Andrew and parenting time had only become more well-defined. For all purposes he was Andrew’s second parent. To the point that Trevor had been the one to do all of the work checking out daycares in the area for Andrew to go to in preparation for kindergarten next year and one of the deciding factors for the one Jeremy ended up choosing was that it was close to Trevor’s work.
(The daycare was cool. Trevor had no complaints about the facility. Sam and Jay Arondekar, the owners, were good people. His friend Pete worked there and the woman in charge of Andrew’s age group, Miss Flower, was a good teacher despite his first opinion of her. Andrew made two friends right away and most days he didn’t want to quit playing with Thor and Sasappis. But that wasn’t the point.)
Trevor wasn’t mad at Jeremy and he wasn’t mad at Megan (much) for leaving, and he wasn’t enough of a douche that he had it in him to be mad at a little boy for existing in the first place - but sometimes he wondered. What it would be like to be able to date a woman and not have look at the calendar on his phone to coordinate schedules with Jeremy to make sure that Jeremy was free on whatever specific night to take care of his own son. If any of the girlfriends Trevor had the last five years would have stuck around had he not been locked in to the three nights a week he wasn’t scheduled to leave work early in order to pick up a five-year-old from daycare.
Okay. Fine. Whatever.
Maybe he was a little mad at Jeremy for refusing to put Andrew’s needs ahead of his own the way Trever always seemed to have to do, and maybe he was pissed off at Megan for walking away from her kid. But Andrew was the coolest little dude that called him Uncle Trevor with such exuberance and unconditional love in only the way a little kid could that Trevor couldn’t quite bring himself to be disappointed how his own life fell through the cracks a little more each day.
Trevor’s favorite little bro loved him, and that was a bigger high than any of the pills he’d taken in college had ever given him.
He sighed and took a right turn in the direction of the café. “Fine, man. But just one cookie and it can’t have a lot of sugar on top. And we’re not telling Dad. You ratted me out last time and that’s not cool. You didn’t follow bro code.”
Andrew dutifully lifted in arms in anticipation of getting out of the car seat as soon as they pulled into the parking lot of the café. Trevor dutifully unbuckled him and deposited him on the ground in under ten minutes. They’d done this whole routine entirely too many times. Trevor didn’t much care anymore how much sugar his nephew had; he’d had a shitty week at work capped off by an even shittier Friday and the only thing he looked forward to was dropping off Andrew with Jeremy for the weekend so he could go home and get drunk. He needed it.
Trevor reached for Andrew’s little hand to hold before they started moving. Andrew was a runner just like Jeremy and Trevor were when they were kids and Trevor might be lax on some parenting rules (he liked to think he was more consistent with the rules than Jeremy was, though) but this one he was firm on and there were appropriately-aged consequences if Andrew didn’t listen.
Trevor thanked his lucky stars every day that Andrew listened to him every time even if it was the only rule he listened to.
Andrew ran to the dessert counter as soon as they walked into the café and Trevor wished again that Jeremy was better at teaching his son that he wouldn’t always get his way. The preschooler motioned to the cookie that he wanted. “That one, Isaac.”
“Hey.” The admonishment was out of his mouth before he could stop himself. Trevor purposefully let a lot of little things go and didn’t discipline Andrew as much as he probably should because he hated being that guy. “Not cool, Andrew. Use your words. What do we say?”
Andrew looked at Trevor and immediately looked back at Isaac and the cookies. “That one, pwease, Isaac.”
Isaac patiently indulged smudgy handprints all over the countertops and the glass-enclosed box that held the frosted cookies. “I think we should listen to what your Uncle Trevor says first.”
Trevor wasn’t entirely sure whether or not it was a good thing or a bad thing how he and Andrew were on a first-name basis with staff at a café that sold decadent desserts and frosted cookies, but he smiled and ultimately nodded. “Sure, he can have one, just make it the smallest one you’ve got. They probably gave him a snack at daycare and it’s almost time for dinner.”
Alberta, the lone waitress that worked at the café almost as long as Isaac had, grinned at him from where she was training a new employee to work the coffee machine. There wasn’t much to the coffee machine, Trevor thought to himself, it’s not like this place was the second coming of Starbucks. But Andrew loved it and they did make the best cookies in the entire state. “You spoil that boy too much, Trev.”
Trevor shrugged. “Not my problem when he’s hyped up on sugar tonight and can’t get to sleep. That’s Jeremy’s deal.”
A laugh disguised as a cough came from the new employee working the coffee machine. Trevor looked at her for only a moment (he knew from unfortunate experience that he couldn’t leave Andrew unsupervised with cookies for very long unless he wanted to foot the bill for every cookie in the entire café) and Alberta seemed to not take long at all to see where he was going with this.
Alberta stepped away from the coffee machine and closer to the counter in order to speak to him where the new employee wouldn’t accidentally overhear. “Her name’s Hetty and she’s new here as of last week. She’s Isaac’s friend. No, you cannot date her.”
Trevor allowed her the time and space to deal with a customer that arrived and he spared another look in Isaac and Andrew’s direction, very thankful that Andrew only seemed to have one cookie. As soon as the customer was gone Trevor narrowed his eyes at her. “I didn’t even say anything.”
“You don’t think I know how a man looks at a woman? Trev, the last three women you dated the relationships ended so badly you go out of your way to avoid places you went together and the places she worked, and do you want to be the one to tell that sweet nephew of yours that you can’t come to his favorite cookie store anymore because someone you used to date works here?”
Clearly, he’d complained a little too much about his dating life or lack thereof the last time he was here.
Trevor went to the other end of the counter so he didn’t have to listen to Alberta anymore but also because he needed to pay for Andrew’s food. He handed Isaac his credit card and asked for a small bottle of water. If he was going to let Andrew have cookies before dinner, the least he could do as a semi-functional responsible adult was to make sure Andrew had water instead of soda. Andrew tugged on his arm while Isaac handled the transaction and Trevor distractedly unwrapped the cookie and handed it to the little boy with a handful of napkins, telling him to go find a table where he could still see him. Andrew scampered happily to the booth Isaac directed him to and Trevor used the time alone to unabashedly stare in the new girl’s direction.
Hetty, Alberta said her name was. Trevor found himself wondering what that was short for and if she would tell him if he asked. It would probably be over before it even started once she found out that Andrew was his nephew.
Trevor and Andrew sat in the booth closest to the cookie display for ten minutes while Trevor did his best but ultimately failed in his attempts to stop Andrew from making a mess. How you could make that big of a mess with one little cookie and a pile of napkins, Trevor did not know, but Andrew was always up for the challenge. Andrew complained as soon as they were ready to leave and Trevor told him to put on his coat. The preschooler scuffled his foot on the floor and pouted but Trevor gave him the look saying he wasn’t kidding this time, and Andrew sighed dramatically but eventually put on his coat. In the few minutes Andrew messed with his coat, Alberta found him again.
Alberta snuck a look in Hetty’s direction, on her own with a customer for the very first time, and looked back at Trevor. Trevor was busy buttoning and zippering Andrew’s coat but motioned with his hand for her to get on with it so they could get out of here before Andrew decided he wanted another cookie. “She’s going through some stuff right now, Trev. You can talk to her all you want but don’t push it, okay?”
Trevor’s dating record in the last six years wasn’t anything to be proud of and Andrew would throw the mother of all fits if Trevor played any part in him not being able to come here anymore, he knew it. So he decided not to take any of it personally.
Trevor looked over at Hetty again, meeting her eyes for the first time and smiling back when she smiled at him, and then looked back at Alberta and nodded his agreement. He knew it better than most people how it was when you were going through some stuff.
The next time he’d come to the café after learning Hetty’s name she was at a table with customers and the time after that Andrew threw an unbelievable tantrum because Trevor only let him have one cookie and not two. Trevor had taken the little boy outside to the car for a little chat about behavior and swore he’d seen Hetty looking at him with a sympathetic smile.
The third time was the charm and Trevor got to actually talk to her for a few minutes while she was on her break and Andrew was munching on a much smaller-sized cookie. Trevor pretended he didn’t notice Alberta keeping watch over the two of them from where she stood behind the counter.
He learned her name - Henrietta Woodstone - and how this was her first real job. How this was the first time she’d ever gone against her father and did what she wanted to do with her life and how it had taken her months to get up the nerve to stand up to him. He found out about Elias Woodstone (and thank fuck he had the good sense not to ask his initial question whether or not they were related, because that would have opened up a whole mess he wouldn’t know how to fix) and how her father not only expected her to date him with the intention of marrying him and producing children with him one day, solely because he could provide for her properly, but that she suspected her father told Elias she’d be delighted to do so because Elias was especially persistent coming to the café the days she was on call to work and asking her out on dates.
Over the next couple of months he learned more. He learned that she lived with Isaac in a two-bedroom apartment not far from the café and how Isaac was her lifeline that had helped her get this job and adjust to life outside her father’s command. He’d learned about her father having a conniption over the notion of his unmarried daughter cohabitating with an unmarried man and working as a “lower-class servant girl,” but that Hetty had stood her ground and told her father either she lived with Isaac and worked a job or she went to college at a school that would be her choice and not his. Either way, she’d told Trevor, she refused to live under her father’s financial or emotional control anymore.
She’d told Trevor all about how much she worried about her sister Margaret that still lived at home with their mother and father, and how Hetty’s only connection with her was a weekly phone call she suspected her father listened in on. He wouldn’t give permission for Margaret to visit Hetty at her apartment and Hetty wasn’t allowed to return to the family home as punishment for disobeying her father’s authority.
Somewhere along the way Hetty had transitioned from a pretty woman he wanted to date to a pretty woman he wanted to date that also happened to be his friend. And Trevor actually came to appreciate that because he didn’t have a lot of friends.
He distanced himself from Ari, David and Chet their freshman year of college when a fraternity prank went bad and a prospective pledge had ended up in the hospital with hypothermia when he’d been ordered to do the Run of Fun in the dead of winter. Ari and David, especially Ari, refused to take any responsibility and had blamed Pinkus saying he’d made the choices all on his own, and Trevor suddenly saw what idiots his supposed friends were. They all went their separate ways after graduation and as far as Trevor knew none of them ever knew what had happened to Pinkus. He’d tried to call him once and the automated voice said that number was no longer in service. He wouldn’t blame Pinkus if he’d transferred to a different school.
He found himself talking to Hetty those evenings at the café, more and more of them without Andrew, of things he couldn’t talk to anyone else about. How his parents divorced when he and Jeremy were teenagers because his dad cheated on his mom and how his dad had a string of girlfriends in the years that followed that ultimately resulted in him getting a half-sister when he was in his senior year of high school. How it pissed off his father that Trevor and Jeremy didn’t have much of a relationship with their stepmother or their half-sister and how Trevor knew it logically that it wasn’t Janie’s fault she was so much younger than them, but they weren’t and wouldn’t ever be close.
Hetty made a noncommittal sound at Trevor that day and he’d stopped that line of conversation, correctly assuming she was thinking about Margaret.
Trevor met Elias for the first time a few weeks after that and wasn’t impressed with the way the older man dared to speak to Hetty. Hetty Woodstone, as Trevor had come to learn, had a remarkable way of taking care of herself and soon enough but at the same time not soon enough Elias Woodstone left the café closing the door so loudly the little bell on the handle clattered noisily to the floor. Andrew immediately ran to pick it up and bring it to Isaac and in the distraction of those few seconds Hetty slipped away to the back with the excuse it was time for her break.
Isaac knew better and at his nod Alberta untied her apron and followed Hetty to the back. The evening rush wasn’t much of a rush on weekdays and Isaac could handle everything at the front for a few minutes.
Isaac stared at Trevor while Andrew was distracted looking at the cookie display. The café changed their cookie designs every few weeks and it was Andrew’s favorite thing to look at the new ones with loads of frosting and bright colors. “I must admit I’m frightened he’s going to wear her down one of these days. What we can afford to pay her here isn’t enough for her to take the college classes that she wants, and we’re barely getting by with rent as it is.”
Trevor looked towards the back where Hetty and Alberta disappeared and then back at Isaac. “Wear her down for a date?”
“Her father intends for her to marry Elias Woodstone.” Isaac must have seen something then because he leaned closer across the counter towards Trevor. “As you may or may not know, she is not on the schedule for tomorrow. I’d like to speak with you then, if you can spare the time.”
Trevor didn’t have to check his schedule to know that he’d make the time, and the next day he took an extended lunch from work and drove the ten minutes to the café to meet with Isaac. Isaac immediately took his scheduled break as soon as Trevor arrived and the two men slid into a back booth. Soon enough Isaac opened his mouth. “You and I both know that your adorable nephew’s love of our cookies isn’t the reason you are coming here twice a week for the past four months.”
Trevor couldn’t in good faith argue that point but he wished he knew what Isaac was getting at and why he was acting like Hetty’s gatekeeper all of a sudden. And not in the fun way like Alberta did.
Isaac continued on. “Trevor, far be it from me to be yet another man in Henrietta’s life thinking he knows what is best for her, but you might have noticed that Henrietta’s father has a specific plan for her life and has encouraged Elias Woodstone to be part of those plans. Someone like you does not fit into those plans.” Trevor opened his mouth to defend himself, to say that Isaac didn’t know what he was talking about and he and Hetty were friends, duh, but Isaac merely held up his hand and marched on verbally. “But that is precisely why I am here imploring you not to give up on her. She is so happy being out from under her father’s domineering hand. She’s thrived here, truly, but she won’t work here forever. She wants more. She wants to go to school, she wants to save her sister, she wants…” Isaac shook his head then, trailing off and clearing his throat. He looked again at Trevor, sincerely and honestly.
“Please don’t give up on Henrietta, Trevor. Alberta and I see how much you like her, and she seems to be quite fond of you as well. If ever you did decide to ask her out on a date one day…we think you should. We…I also think Hetty would be quite interested in going on a date with you.”
Trevor knew it was inappropriate to ask but it was the first question that came to mind. “You and Hetty live together and can you honestly tell me that you’ve never…?”
Isaac sat straight with his back ramrod against the booth cushion and coughed politely into his napkin. “If I was ever to be interested in a woman that way Henrietta would be at the top of the list, believe you me.” Isaac looked at Trevor unblinkingly. “Henrietta and I are friends and that is all we will ever be, Trevor. You do not have to concern yourself with me in that regard.”
Trevor merely nodded. Sometime later that night Isaac’s words would tumble around in his brain and he would realize the magnitude of what Hetty’s friend had told him, but for now he clapped Isaac on the shoulder and told him he’d think about it.