Chapter Text
Neil felt like a young father as he watched Rachel climb the scary-looking children’s slide. He would not have climbed there, because the structure was higher than him by at least a foot. It was completely useless to persuade him to do such crazy scams. He was too young to break all his legs, you know?
Five-year-old Rachel probably thought she was old enough to climb the summit with such desperate heroism on her face that no one at the playground doubted that this girl was the main character of the day.
Like any main character, her story was a particular tragedy.
Andrew: How’s the full custody going?
Neil looked at the message, unwittingly disheartened and turned his gaze from the screen of his smartphone to a cloudless sky. The weather today was fine, and nothing said about the drama that happened in the life of little Rachel, who could not yet fully understand that her mother is no longer. She was not present at the funeral last week: Allison, Neil’s colleague, agreed to sit with her while he took his friend on her final journey. Neil didn't wander around: he gently explained to Rachel what was really going on, even though he knew she couldn’t fully comprehend it. He wasn’t the kind of man who used to make idiotic excuses. "Mom’s gone and she’ll be back soon." Really? What about the psyche of people who thought that such words were a good explanation for death?
Neil: Shit.
Neil’s response was succinct and best-placed to convey his current position. He managed to get temporary custody for three months, but even getting that fucking paper about how he was no stranger to Rachel literally squeezed all the juice out of him. He has not messaging with Andrew for the past few days because he was fighting with bureaucratic monsters.
The call was received as soon as the status message appeared that it was read. Not even a minute had passed. Andrew probably had nothing to do there.
"Don’t you have a match?" Neil asked immediately with the share of the courge. In the background was heard the squeaking of shoes on the floor. He was definitely at the stadium. "Aren’t you going to go out and kick some ass?"
"There’s no one to kick ass, only disabled people in the team. Hand does not raise," Andrew waved away. He will definitely get from his coach for phone calls during the game. Neil felt a little guilty because he didn’t write anything to him the days before the match, but his head was full of completely different things. "Can you talk? Is the baby near?"
"Yes. We were walking past the park, and she saw a playground. It’s a fucking trap, you have no idea."
"Watch out for young moms. Tell me what’s going on before the coach burns me down."
Andrew knew for sure that the moms were not interesting to Neil in principle, but they never talked about it, even though they had known each other for a couple of years.
Neil and Andrew met right after graduation through mutual acquaintances. Neil happened to be in California while hitchhiking with Nicky. Hemmik planned to move to Germany to his boyfriend, it seems, from the first year, and therefore after graduating from the university he said that they simply had to leave positive memories of their friendship. Who knew that the positive memories in his understanding were some crazy adventures with overnight stays on the road and dangerous trips with dubious appearance of truckers. It was no joke: they had run into drug dealers three times and once a pack of wild dogs (Neil was more comfortable thinking that because imagining that it was wolves was too stressful for his mind). Which one was more dangerous? The question that had no answer.
Nicky?
The final point in their journey was California, where Nicky first introduced him to part of his family and Neil first realized his character.
His type were blonde-haired, dark-eyed athletes with a sharp tongue, and Neil thought so until he found out there were two of them, and the heat burned him only because of one of them.
Andrew Minyard didn’t suspect anything (Neil was always sure of keeping his face neutral), but Nicky noticed the changes in his friend’s behavior right away because he had known him for a long time. He added him to the family group chat almost immediately, finding it funny. Neil and Andrew became close later.
As friends, to the disappointment of Nicky, who did not contain his endless friendly jerks in their direction and from the very first meeting played the matchmaker.
"I’ve arranged temporary custody. For three months, because the court is still hoping they can get to Kristen’s relatives," Neil chuckled. "It's crazy, right? They think her brother, who didn’t care about her, will care about Rachel."
"Wait, you mean the bastard you helped her move out of?" Andrew’s memory was excellent, not only used to remember the shameful stories of Neil’s student life told by Nicky. "But he's bald.”
"You’re too judgmental. He’s got a business, a wife, two kids and a three-story villa with a pool. Do you think someone is looking at his bald head?" Neil looked at Rachel, who was sliding down the children's slide into a puddle but didn’t seem too upset about it. That seems to be her plan. "My apartment was searched three times before they gave me this temporary paper, but I don’t even grow marijuana there."
"Should you start?" Andrew grinned softly. He didn’t say anything comforting, but there was some support in his voice. Minyard did not let Neil slip into melancholy. Rachel was not the only one who lost a loved one.
"That would have saved me a lot of trouble," Neil agreed ironically, but went on to say more seriously: "I was only saved by income and the possibility of remote work, but if this type does come out..."
If he shows up, Rachel will be taken into a family where she will be reminded for the rest of her life that she is nothing to them. This is not the fate that Neil would have wanted for his best friend’s daughter.
"Why can’t they just give it to you?" Andrew asked. "You lived together for almost a year, you barely weaning Rachel to call you dad after all. Just lie that you were already engaged."
Andrew was aware of these stories. He was the only person whom Neil endlessly spamed in correspondence about everything in the world, not knowing whether he complained or was being comforted. He showed Andrew a video of toys scattered around his room and told him that Kristen once again asked him to sit with Rachel, arguing that she needed to make her own life. He recorded half-hour voicemails trying to learn with a small poem for kindergarten and knew that Andrew would listen from beginning to end. He photographed a set of children’s rings that Rachel collected in a toy box, and received gifts from Andrew with missing pieces by delivery.
"But we weren’t. In court, the words don’t mean anything, I’m nothing to her on paper."
"Don’t care about the papers," Andrew said firmly. Minyard must have noticed the voice shuddering and realized that Neil was not sure he was worthy to become a full guardian. It's okay, Andrew's confidence is enough for everyone. "If this shady uncle shows up, we’ll get a lawyer. We’ll raise our correspondence, call the neighbors as witnesses, create such a evidentiary base that even you will believe it. I’ll give you money if..."
"Keep it for yourself to buy a racquet," Neil snapped back without malice immediately.
"Did you even see how many racquets I have? I’m a professional athlete."
"Professionals don’t talk on the phone during a match," Neil couldn’t help but remark, and there was a quiet chuckle in the phone that caused an involuntary smile. "I have money, but I won’t give up your help in finding the right person," he added softly, looking for Rachel on the slide. "And yet I hope that you won’t need it."
Neil guessed that he was very wrong here.
Rachel was on the steps, she was sure to block a boy who was already preparing to cry. Andrew had to say goodbye to save a cranky kid from a fighting juvenile beast.
As he left the park, Neil thought that he hadn’t heard Andrew’s voice in a long time because they were often on social media but almost never spoke on the phone.
He could not deny that he would like to have this conversation a little longer.
***
"Pink wallpaper?" Neil was horrified to see Rachel and grabbed her by the hood before she could snatch under a construction cart full of small boxes. The consultant, whose way was blocked by the cargo, belatedly gasped and clutched at his heart.
Neil, to be honest, wanted to follow his example.
"Pink wallpaper!" Rachel said happily, not at all frightened by the collision and rushed to the nearby rack of fluffy carpets.
"You see, she likes it," Andrew smirked at the speaker on his phone. He called Neil to help decide the design for the room.
"Oh, I don’t doubt it."
The Guardianship Center has set another condition: to provide the ward with adequate living conditions. She had already had a good deal, but the inspector made it clear and unequivocally that Neil needed to arrange his home in such a way that the inspectors would be weeping with envy that they did not have one as children.
He was treated with contempt and during one of the consultations a psychologist from the center directly explained why this happened.
"You’re young, Mr Josten," the woman said with a stern look. He wanted to break the eye contact, but he did not do so, suspecting that it was another test of strength. These trials weighed so heavily that the heroes of ancient Greek myths must have risen from the dead to take off their hats before him.
"I’m twenty-four," Neil reminded, but in response received a short condescending smile from thin lips.
"If you think that’s enough, it just proves once again your youth."
In order not to throw a sharp accusation of ageism directly into the face of the man on whom the decision to approve indefinite custody depended, Neil had to gather all his will power. He did it: he kept his cool face, and his voice sounded even and reserved. He was not going to give a reason to spoil his psychological portrait.
"Okay. But what’s my age got to do with it?"
"You still have everything ahead of you," Mrs. Morris said carelessly, and put some documents on the table. "It will take a couple of years, and you’ll have a family, you’ll have own kids. Rachel will be a burden and an extra burden for you, which cannot get rid of. It will not lead to anything good, believe me, from my many years of experience."
“Remind me, since when did you become an expert in interior design for five-year-old girls?”
“I'm a princess at heart,” Andrew replied in as serious a tone as possible. “Maybe I dreamed about it myself?”
“Let it go.”
Neil looked at a pew with a map of the shop, which was probably like an entire district in his hometown, and studied each section. They were somewhere in the textile section, but they needed — oh god… — pink wallpaper.
By the happy, but utterly unintelligible, murmur of some childish song, he realized that Rachel was very close, but still he glanced at her, checking that she had not run away.
He was paranoid, but he never seemed to get rid of the horrible feeling that the child under his care would just disappear at some point and he couldn’t do anything. Neil only a few months ago said he still felt like a nineteen, he had more games on his computer than any working programs, and he couldn’t even cook a fucking egg bowl so that it didn’t burn the edges.
"Do you want me to come?"
Neil was almost sure he thought he heard it, so he kept quiet, and Andrew did not hurry to repeat the words or translate the topic.
"You need to train," Neil said after a long pause. He couldn't say no, although he understood that such proposals should be answered with polite rejection. It was nothing more than a courtesy.
He would have liked to see Minyard.
"I haven’t had a vacation in a while, and I’ve been saving up enough time off. In the extreme case, I could just go away and tell them where I will be when I arrive at the airport," Andrew replied carelessly, and Neil was almost ready to give up. It was a crazy, absolutely crazy idea. How is he going to help? Will he choose the curtains? Buy a new toy in comparison to hundreds of previous ones? Hold his hand as moral support?
The more arguments Neil came up with, the less reasons he saw for refusing.
"You don’t pity your coach?" he asked a rhetorical question and heard a mocking denial. "You’re definitely going to get kicked out of the team at this rate."
"I’m too good."
"And modest."
"You catch on."
Neil laughed quietly, and as Rachel ran up to him, grasping his leg, he unconsciously touched her blonde head with two ridiculous lopsided pigtails. Honestly, before he put it on her head before going out, he had received at least a dozen tutorials.
"You know, I love the carpet with the pony..." Rachel said that as if by the way and pulled his hand somewhere opposite to the way they were going.
Neil sighed and followed, hoping that at least pink ponies didn't exist in this world.