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Kevin had never been too fond of drinking…well, that was only somewhat true. He liked a warm buzz and the way it made chatting people up so much easier, but the taste of it? A nice gin was fine, vodka was even better. But beer? The way it sat on his tongue was flat and bitter and made him think too much of nights spent overindulging to the point of sickness.
Kevin wondered if maybe there was something missing in him that made taste so unpleasant when all of his countrymen seemed to have an inborn love of all things dark and frothy, but there wasn't much to be done about it. After all, when a bloke was out drinking with his mates or lurking in a pub where the main attraction wasn't what was served at the bar, there wasn't exactly much choice besides whatever brown liquid was slid over to you in what you hoped was a clean glass.
Given all this, it made the situation he found himself in that much more unpleasant.
Sat beside him, his step-dad downed another pint like it was nothing more than water while Kevin continued to nurse his second drink. Besides the taste issue, Kevin had no desire to get drunk with the man his mother had decided to marry. They hardly got on even in the best of times, and while things between them hadn't been quite so volatile now that Kevin was an adult, however barely, there was still no real warmth between them.
But his mum, bless her, was determined to cultivate something like affection between them. It was the only reason either of them had agreed to this intensely awkward forced proximity.
She had, for whatever reason, decided that what the two of them needed to go out together, have a drink or two and do that manly bonding she'd heard so much about. Neither of them had been excited by the idea, but both wanted to appease her for their own reasons. Kevin may have been willful and difficult, but to his ongoing embarrassment, he found himself wanting to make his mother happy.
And if that meant spending a couple hours drinking in silence with her husband, he supposed he could stomach that.
The evening had started off well enough, both men sitting down and drinking in complete silence. Compared to the way they'd bickered and fought only a few years prior, it was progress. Kevin had figured they'd both come to the same idea organically. Have a drink, maintain a respectable quiet, go back home, and report that the outing had been a rousing success.
The bare minimum to keep the peace.
Unfortunately, this assumption was proven incorrect as his step-dad turned from his own drink to regard the young man beside him. Kevin had only just registered the shift in time to see the way the older man's brow had started to furrow, looking down at the drink that sat mostly undisturbed on the bar between Kevin's hands and then back up at his face.
"What's the matter with you?"
"What?" Kevin blinked, unprepared for the silence getting broken, and even less prepared for that break to be an interrogation.
" I said …" the man began, sitting up a little straighter and pointing a finger in Kevin's direction, coming in way too close for comfort with the stubby digit. "What's the matter with you? You barely drank a thing. That's odd."
Odd …that wasn't the worst thing to be called, but it got under Kevin's skin regardless. Most likely due to who the word had come from, the way he said it, as if there was another word still lingering on his tongue unsaid.
Kevin narrowed his eyes as he set his gaze on his drinking partner, half wishing he would just come out and say what he was thinking rather than whatever this angle was. “Not as odd as you noticing,” he replied as he picked up his drink and took a sip, proud of himself for looking at least a bit like he'd enjoyed it.
"You've always got some smart bastard reponse ready don't ya?”
“Smart bastard? Usually you just say the second part, but smart? Sounds like you're getting soft on me. Mum'll be so pleased.”
He knew it wasn't smart to pick a fight, or rather to encourage the brewing confrontation, but Kevin couldn't help himself. Sarcasm flowed out of him just as easily as anything that was on tap. And besides, what could the old man say that he hadn't heard a thousand times before?
That he was a disappointment? A useless lout? He ought to get a proper job and quit pretending some minor local celebrity was going to get him anywhere in this world...
That's what Kevin thought anyway, but so far tonight his instincts toward his step-dad were being proven to be off. He was hardly intoxicated, but perhaps, the beer was messing with him anyway.
The older man made a disgruntled sort of sound in the back of his throat, a noise that only a man of a certain age could make. Displeased but without the tenacity of a young man's energy. It made Kevin's whole body tense.
“You didn't answer my question, boy. Ya gonna tell me why a grown man such as yerself can barely down a pint?”
There was a sudden clarity in the other's gaze, and it made the hair on the back of Kevin's neck stand up on end. The haziness of a few beers was suddenly gone, and the eyes that peered at him through those thick frames were entirely too focused on his face. He may have been grown, but that look made Kevin feel every bit the boy that his step-dad clearly saw him to be.
Perhaps, that was why he said what he did.
Perhaps, that was why he told the truth.
“Since you're so interested in me all the sudden…yeah, I can tell ya,” Kevin began, the momentum he could feel building with each word overwhelming his ability to realize that it would serve him and the evening better if he just shut his mouth. “I don't like it. Taste's shit. That a good enough reason for ya , Georgie?”
The other man visibly recoiled at the overly familiar use of his name, but he didn't say anything right away. Normally, Kevin would have considered that a victory, but something didn't feel right about the way the older man's expression shifted. As if all at once he'd noticed something, his eyes widening slightly before he made another one of those damned old man grunts.
“Figures.” He shook his head and gestured to the barkeep to bring him another round. “Fussin' about taste. It's ridiculous.”
“Fuck's that supposed to mean?” Kevin asked, immediately realizing he didn't want to know the answer. Or more accurately, he knew exactly what the other man was implying, and he didn't want to hear him say it.
It was always there, always unspoken. That there was something wrong with the boy attached to the woman he'd married. A tainted thing from a tainted relationship. A boy who was not right in any of the ways he ought to have been.
“You know damn well what it means.”
“I know it means you think I'm ridiculous.” Kevin felt his shoulders tense, his arms drawn closer to his chest as he stared the older man down. The smart thing would have been to pay the tab and go home. End the conversation before it went any farther, but doing the smart thing had never been something Kevin was terribly good at.
His step-dad didn't even turn his head, scoffing as his freshly delivered drink went untouched. “Grown men aren't ridiculous. Grown men don't don't fuss or preen or do any of that odd shite you do. Makes a fella wonder…what sorta man are you?”
It was only then that he turned, locking eyes with the young man who found himself stuck to the bar stool beneath him. Kevin felt sick all at once, and he knew he couldn't blame the pitiful amount of beer that was in his stomach. That gaze was doing more than simply regarding him, it was cutting right through him as if he was made of paper and those eyes were a finely sharpened blade.
Kevin knew his step-dad wasn't fond of him. Knew there was nothing to be done to fix that, that he'd always been some other man's son in his eyes. But that wasn't what he meant, not in that moment. In this moment he was not just looking at Kevin.
He knew what Kevin was even if he didn't say it, couldn't say it, wouldn't say it.
He could see him.
“You're nasty when you're pissed...” His response didn’t have its usual bite as he looked back down at the bar, his brow furrowed as he tried to think of some sort of an out. But he'd had this conversation before, though never quite like this. Never about this...when his step dad's focus was unwavering, picking at a flaw, or whatever it was he saw as a flaw until Kevin either shrank back or had a nasty outburst that would get him scolded by his mum.
“It takes more than a couple beers to make a real man drunk.” At last, the older man took a swig of his drink, ignoring the daggers that were being glared at him from well within striking distance. Putting the glass down, he kept talking, though his voice was quieter now as if he were merely talking to himself. “They don't dress like bright damn peacocks.”
“Anything that's not grey is bright to you,” Kevin countered, pushing his stool away from the bar, making one correct decision. The evening couldn't go on like this if they wanted to get back home without bruises. Kevin had promised himself that he wouldn't come back home looking a mess. He wouldn't have that man make him act foolish, make him break his promise to his mum and act on his worst impulses. Not again, not about this. “Also, peacocks are bright to attract females. Can't be arsed to even get your own insult right.”
The old man squinted up at Kevin, watching him as he stepped away from the bar. That hadn't exactly been an admission, not directly, but it was hardly a denial either.
“Of course, another smart bastard answer. From the smartest bastard of them all.” His dismount from his stool was far less graceful, and Kevin shook his head as he dug around in his pocket for his wallet...or rather, it was his wallet now anyway. The semantics hardly mattered at this point.
“Yeah, well...” Kevin pulled out whatever assortment of coins and bills came most readily from the wallet, placing it down on the bar, not caring one way or the other if it was the right amount. “Better a bastard than related to you, ol' boy.” He gave his step-dad a grin, all teeth without a hint of good nature behind it as he gave him a firm smack on the back before heading for the door. Much too hard to be amiable but with just enough reserve not to knock the man on his ass.
Was that a “man enough” gesture for him?
His step-dad didn't make any sort of real remark, simply making that terrible throat sound as he followed behind his step-son, though Kevin remarked that he moved with more of a hunch than usual. Kevin held back a laugh, but he couldn't help but hope that his gesture had left a mark. It was the only thought that kept the anxious itchy feeling under his skin as bay as they walked back down the road, just as silent as they'd been on the way there.
It wasn't long before they were out in front of the house again, warm light by the front door just barely illuminating the steps. Kevin grabbed his keys as he walked closer, but the other man stood at the gate. Kevin turned around, letting out a long, frustrated, sigh as he saw the wary look his step-dad was giving him. He wasn't sure why, but that's the look that made him crack. The discontented look of a man who couldn't even follow close beside him to get into his own home.
Anger and indignation warmed his stomach, hot enough to boil the beer inside and make Kevin feel bile rising in his throat. He wanted to yell, turn his hands into fists and show his step-dad just what sort of man he was and then drag him inside and drop him unceremoniously at his mother’s feet.
Somehow, he reigned himself in, the bile swallowed and burning his throat on the way down. Kevin's words were fast once he found them, clipped, knowing he only had so much time to get them out before something worse erupted out of him, before he lost control of the rage that still simmered beneath his skin.
“C'mon, I can't leave you outside. Mum'll have a fit. And that's what this night was for wasn't it? So she doesn't have one of her little fits and go on about how we don't get on like we shou-”
“I won't tell her.”
The building irritation halted, cut-off by the unexpected interjection.
“What?”
His step-dad was quiet as he walked up the garden path and to the steps, getting good and close now. Kevin had to fight off every urge to lean back, put that distance back between them as the older man once more fixed him with that unsettlingly clear gaze. He had seen him at the bar, and he could still see him now, even out here in the dim light of the dying bulb.
Kevin could smell the beer on his breath, and it made his stomach turn, his nose wrinkling as he tried to figure out whether or not he was going to get an answer.
“I won't tell your mum.” Kevin must have looked like he was about to say something, and in fairness, he usually was, because his step-dad raised his hand, holding it in front of the other's face. “I won't tell her because a real man wouldn't lie to his mum about who he is.”
His scowl was immediate, but the break had caused his ire to subside and the fire inside him to cool, and besides, it was too late, and he felt too worn by the conversation to dredge up the motivation to be biting. “I haven't lied to her.” Kevin shoved the key in the lock, turning it though he hesitated to open the door. He stared down at his hand a moment, flipping the other's words over and over in his mind for a few moments before he was able to hold his gaze again. “And besides...I think she knows.”
The older man scoffed, shaking his head as the door was opened for him but walking across the threshold anyway, the man who was not his son, not really, following in close behind him.
Alcohol in both their bellies and not a hair out of place or new bruises forming...the night, by all appearances had been a success, which was exactly what they both told the woman waiting for them inside, returning the warm smile she gave them as she looked over the book she was reading to greet them.