Cards on the Table - 36. Chapter 36 Claiming the Pot

Cards on the Table

Chapter 36

Kendall never would have imagined he’d be holding Candy’s hand, not in any reality, but that’s exactly what he was doing. Snow had fallen throughout the exhausting, roller-coaster day, and her parking lot had not been plowed as yet. Helping her down from the high-sitting truck once again, he reacted to a quick slip when her foot met the snow by grabbing her hand. Another slip cemented his commitment to not letting go until they reached the safe footing of the covered building entrance.

“There you go being decent again,” Candy commented wryly, glancing upward as she spoke.

“Just being a gentleman, ma’am,” Kendall drawled, and then found himself astonished when he heard a girlish giggle. It seemed so unlike this woman he’d thought of as a vile creature earlier that morning.

“Chivalry is not dead after all.” She paused for a second. “Thank you, Kendall… for today, I mean. I know we’re not friends, but it was nice to not be alone at the hospital… and you were right about me needing to go. I would have gotten a lot sicker if I hadn’t, and I'm not sure I could have handled that.” She sighed. “Most men I know would have left after dropping me off.” That remark, softly said, made her sound bitter to him.

They had reached the entrance, so he let go of her hand and opened the door. “You’re welcome.” No more words were spoken as they rode up the elevator to the ninth floor.

The door to her apartment swung open before they even reached it. Janine’s greeting was met with a look of bewilderment from Candy, the presence of her friend obviously unexpected. “What are you doing here, Janny?” It sounded more an accusation than a question.

Janine rolled her eyes, and Kendall didn’t know if it was in response to the ‘Janny’ or the attitude. Michael was standing back, just out of reach… an isolated figure. Turquoise locked with dark blue and Kendall could read the need in him, and it was the same as his own. Decorum be damned. He apologized as he pushed between the two women who were now conversing about something he had no interest in. He reached his goal and enveloped his partner in a hug they both needed. “Are you okay?” he asked softly, enjoying the squirm his breath caused in Michael's ear.

“I’m good now.” Michael returned the caress of breath with his whisper. “How about you… it must have been a hell of a day?”

Kendall could feel eyes upon them, so he turned as he answered. “It was quite the day for all of us, but we know where we stand now. Candy's in a lot better shape than when we left.”

Staring at the two of them, connected as they were, Candy had no specific expression on her face. “Why didn't you ask me before you arranged for Janny to be my nursemaid, Kendall? I would have been perfectly fine on my own.”

It was difficult to tell what she was thinking, but she wasn’t smiling. Feeling tired, he let a sound of frustration escape. “I’m sorry but that’s what I do,” he admitted. “I didn’t want you to be alone, because I would have worried about you. Michael and I both would have. Whether or not you agree with me asking Janine to stay with you, the fact is you were quite ill when I made the call. You might be better, but you’re still sick. Janine is your friend so I took it upon myself to ask her because I didn’t think you’d mind. You might need someone to help you tonight and you said your roommate was gone, so…,” he trailed off, glancing at Janine before looking back at Candy.

She studied him for a brief moment, something he was getting used to. “Well, I guess I should thank you for being considerate. You certainly are full of surprises.” She smiled, until she saw Michael’s expression. “Michael, close your mouth for God’s sake. I’m not that bad.” She looked around the now spotless apartment. “Janny, you didn’t need to clean up, but thank you… it was sweet of you.”

Confusion marred Janine’s pretty face. “It wasn’t me. I only got here a few minutes before you did.” Everyone turned their gazes toward Michael, who was still looking embarrassed at Candy’s earlier comment.

“Um, I was bored, so I cleaned up a little. It was no big deal,” he stammered, turning even redder than he already was.

“Heaven help me, I’m surrounded by saints… first Saint Kendall, and now Saint Michael,” she said with a smirk. “How did you vacuum, Michael? I can see the marks, and the stupid thing is broken... did you buy me a new one?”

“Um no, I, ah, I fixed it,” he answered, displaying a different level of awkwardness.

Candy, with eyebrows raised, gave him an appraising look before nodding her head. “Janny, I would like to get in bed now… could you help me change the bedding?” She turned to Michael. “Or did you do take care of that too?” Her one eyebrow was still raised, as was one corner of her mouth.

“No, no. I didn’t go in your bedroom. I only cleaned up out here,” Michael insisted while looking like he wanted to crawl away and hide.

Janine winked as she walked past him. “Okay, let’s go get you settled and then I can make you something to eat if you want... or some tea. I brought some of my herbal ones from home.” They headed down the hallway to Candy’s room.

“What the hell did you do to her?” Michael whispered fiercely to his partner once the girls were out of sight. “I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone. We need to get the hell out of here.”

Kendall laughed at the reaction as he pulled him close again. “Kiss me now, and I’ll tell you later. I missed you.”

“Oh fuck, I missed you too. I was going crazy here. I’m sorry you were put in such a position. I should have been with you.” The kiss had a frantic edge to it that was stimulating to say the least.

“Slow down, big guy! You’re getting me hard and that’s just wrong considering where we are,” he teased, whispering seductively into Michael’s ear.

“Then like I said, let’s get the hell out of here.” It was clear he'd had enough of being in Candy’s apartment. “I feel stupid about cleaning up the place. What was I thinking? She thinks I’m a bloody idiot.”

Kendall couldn’t help laughing again at how cute his partner was. “No she doesn’t. I think you might have even thawed the ice princess out just a little.”

Michael didn’t look convinced.

“Shit, I forgot something… hold on a sec.” Kendall called Candy’s name, and eventually she reappeared, walking slowly up the hallway, already changed into a dressing gown.

“What is it?” she asked. Janine was following right behind her.

“We forgot to fill your prescription on the way here. We'll go get it now if you give me the script? I'm sure you don’t want the vomiting to start up again.”

“Oh, damn, how could I forgot about that?” Candy gave her head a little shake as she appeared to assess him one more time. “Saint Kendall strikes again,” she said in a humorous tone as she went to her purse and retrieved the prescription. “I deal with the pharmacy right on the corner. You can see it when you go out the front entrance. They have all my drug plan info on file. Just hand them this card,” she said as she handed it, and the script to him. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me today.” She glanced at Michael, hesitating as if she wanted to say something, but then appeared to change her mind and started heading back to her room. Janine giggled at the perturbed look on Michael’s face.

“Ah, one more thing. I need your keys. If you give them to me now, I won’t need to bother you tomorrow.”

She turned back around and gave Kendall a skeptical look. “Are you sure you want to do this? It’s really not necessary.”

Kendall hazarded a look at Michael’s perplexed face before answering. “Yes, I’m sure we want to do this. There’s no way you should be driving around in a car that’s unsafe… right, Michael?”

Michael clued in quickly. “Um... right.”

“And no, we don’t have to do this, but we want to. So are you giving me your car keys?”

Her response was to point to the console table near the entry. “They’re in that first drawer. I really do need to go lie down now. Janny… sorry, Janine,” she corrected, “will let you back in when you get back because I don’t think I’ll be getting up again for a while.” She started to turn away, but stopped. “Oh, and Michael, like I already told Saint Kendall, I won’t be changing my mind again about the custody. I'm convinced you will be good fathers.” This time, she turned and walked down the hallway, seemingly unaware of the stunned reactions she had gotten from the three people standing there.

Judging by the look on his face, you could have knocked Michael over with a short blast of air. “What the fuck?” he whispered none too quietly, and Janine regained her composure enough to giggle. “I don’t know what you did, Babe, but that is not the same woman I talked to yesterday or this morning. Did you fix her hormones or something?”

“What can I say. I think she’s finally seen the light.”

“I can hear you guys,” Candy called from the bedroom, startling Michael to near panic.

“Can we please go to the pharmacy now?” Michael asked as he headed to the door. He had his boots on in record time while Kendall and Janine snickered at his rush to leave.

He turned to them with a scowl. “I’m glad I amuse you two. Can we get going, please?” He wore an exasperated look, so Kendall took pity on him and followed him out of the apartment.

Kendall was in Candy’s small car, following behind Michael’s Silverado. This was the first time he'd driven since his injury, and Kendall was nervous. He had wanted to pick the car up in the morning, but Michael insisted he was fine, and that it was his good leg he used for driving. After resisting a few minutes in the cold, Kendall relented. He was relieved when they entered their own parking lot and felt the lessening of the tension he’d been carrying since yesterday. Parking in the visitor section, he hopped out, in a hurry to be there when Michael exited his truck… just in case.

Michael grinned before accepting Kendall’s help in getting to the snow-covered ground. “You worry too much,” he said with a chuckle, “but don’t ever change, okay?”

“I don’t think I could. Just don’t get sick of me, all right?”

Michael leaned in for a searing kiss. “Like that’s even possible,” he scoffed at a breathless Kendall.

The first thing Kendall did upon entering their home-sweet-home was to order in some Chinese food. He was starving and there was no doubt Michael was hungry. He always was. His answer to Kendall’s query as to what he wanted to eat was, “I’ll eat anything. You decide,” and with that he flopped on the couch. It soon became apparent from the tapping of his foot that he was anxiously waiting for him to finish ordering. He obviously wanted to hear the whole story of what had transpired while they were apart. As soon as the call ended, he demanded Kendall come join him on the couch.

Sitting up as he drew near, he reached out for his hand and pulled him down against him. With a little shuffling, they ended up comfortably situated, facing each other, and holding hands. “So how in God’s name did you get that woman to act human? I still can’t believe she said we’d be good fathers.”

“I didn’t expect that either. Like you said, it was a twilight zone-ish kind of day. I don’t know… I think she's been alone and scared, and maybe even feeling a little stupid about what she did. Despite the fact she was a real bitch to us and put us through all kinds of hell, we still treated her with respect and kindness, and I’d say that got through to her like nothing else would have. I mean, I laid it all on the line and told her what she’d be in for if she didn’t sign. It had a big impact, but I think sticking by her was the key. At one point she said the deal was off. I said okay but I didn’t leave, and that was hard for her to wrap her head around. It was the right thing to do, you know?”

Michael nodded thoughtfully. “So you were just being your amazing self. What did you tell her she’d be in for?”

When Kendall went into the detail, Michael seemed riveted. He kept quiet right till the end, staring with undisguised admiration at his partner. “You’re fucking brilliant. See, I would have lost my cool, at least once, and would have ended up leaving. You’re a better thinker than I am. Thank you for what you did for us today... did you believe her?”

“About not changing her mind?”

“Well, yeah, and about her thinking we’d be good fathers. Do you think she meant that? Cause you know that’s so weird coming from a homophobic person, to switch gears like that.”

“You’re right, it is. But… I don’t know for sure… was she acting like a homophobe or was she acting like a woman scorned? I mean, I have no doubt she’s been raised to think being gay is wrong, but a lot of people are, and they change. Maybe she’s changing? And maybe she’s getting over the fact that someone finally dumped her.”

“Good point. It’s like she hates me with a passion, but she doesn’t appear to mind you all that much. She even seemed like she was being nice to you."

“Nice for Candy, you mean,” Kendall said as he chuckled.

“Yeah, that.” Michael joined his partner with a chuckle of his own. “Why the car, though? I definitely agree it is the right thing to do because there's no way she should be driving around in an unsafe car, especially being pregnant, but is there more to it than the safety factor?”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because I know you. You hated her this morning just as much as I did. So, have you changed your opinion of her?”

Kendall thought for a second. “Maybe I have. I feel like I understand her a little better, and it's like we’ve called a truce. And yeah, I believe her when she says she won’t change her mind, but there’s a part of me that won’t let me trust her completely. My guard might be lowered, but it’s still there. I listened to everything Stuart said this morning and I had a kind of checklist in my head today. I didn’t want to miss any opportunity to solidify our position with regards to custody, and fixing her car is a part of that.”

“How so? What do you mean?”

“Well you know how Stuart said paying money up front makes our deal much stronger?”

“Yeah, like it would start the deal if we gave her money now and that way it would be harder to break?”

“Exactly, and by paying for the car repairs, which will likely be two to three thousand, isn’t that kind of what we’re doing? We pay for the repairs by credit card, your credit card,” he explained, “so there’s a record of you paying for her car, and it shows the deal started, that in effect, money changed hands before the baby was born and after the papers were signed.” Kendall waited to hear what Michael thought.

“You really are fucking brilliant. I will never make the mistake of underestimating you.” He beamed with what Kendall figured was pride. “By doing the right thing, you also made our position stronger in case we ever need to go to court.” Michael leaned forward and kissed Kendall sweetly.

With their foreheads pressed together, Kendall asked, “So you think spending the money is worth it? We really couldn’t let Candy drive around in her car the way it is anyway, right? That would be putting the baby at risk.”

“Seriously? Were you worried about what I would think?”

“Well, yeah, a little bit.” He pulled back so he could see his eyes. “We do things together… make decisions together, but I made this one by myself, and even though I know you would support whatever I do, I guess I still wasn’t comfortable not talking to you about it first.”

“I get that, but you already said it… I will support any decision you make. Stuart said we might have to fly by the seat of our pants in this and that’s what you had to do today... you were by yourself, and you ended up turning a bad situation around, which means in about six months we’re going to have full custody of our own child. How amazing is that?

"So, yeah, spending a few thousand dollars more is worth it, for both reasons. Like I said, you’re a brilliant man, and when Candy said she would only go to the hospital with you, I had no qualms about you making any decisions. In fact, I was counting on it. It’s what you’re good at… well one of the things you good at,” Michael said with a wink. “So, do you want to hit the sack and make wild monkey love?” The eyebrow wiggle made another appearance.

Kendall’s laughter at Michael’s one-track mind washed the rest of the residual tension of the day away. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“What? What am I forgetting?”

Right on cue, there was a knock on the back door, and Kendall grinned at the perplexed man. “That,” he said.

“Fuck yeah, food! I’m starving for food too. So we’ll eat first and then have wild monkey sex?”

Kendall walked towards the door, still chuckling. “Michael?”

“Yeah?”

Before Kendall opened the door, he turned around. “Shut up,” he teased with an eyebrow wiggle of his own.

“Anything you say, Captain Dooley.” His salute was accompanied by a shit-eating grin.

After they ate and cleaned up, Kendall insisted they call Big Mike to explain the situation with Candy’s car. He hoped to get it back to her by the weekend. They reached him and Colleen, putting them on speaker to bring them up to date on Candy’s refusal to sign the papers, and what had taken place over the course of the day. Michael made Kendall sound like such a hero that he had to take over the conversation in order to put an end to it.

“Thank you for rescuing our grandchild, beautiful boy,” Colleen spoke. “Stop downplaying what you did today. You did good. Now what do you want to do about this woman’s car?” Colleen’s referral to ‘this woman’ spoke volumes about what she thought of her, and Kendall gave Michael a silent ‘whoa’.

“It needs new brakes front and back, four good new snow tires, and a new right ball joint,” Michael told them. “We thought you could order all the parts for us, Dad, and maybe get your mechanic Henry to do the work. We want someone we trust to go over the whole car and make sure it’s all up to par, and take care of whatever needs doing. Would that be okay with you?”

“No problem. Where’s the car now?”

It’s here, Pop,” Kendall spoke up. “I thought I could run it up to your shop in the morning if you could maybe bring me back here? I’ll just go into work a little late.”

“No need. After we open the shop, your mom can run me down. I’ll drive it back and drop it off at Henry’s. I want to test drive it anyway, just to see if anything else shows up. How does that sound?”

“That’s perfect, Pop, if you don’t mind doing it. We’d love your opinion on what the car needs.”

“Of course I don’t mind. We don’t want our next grandchild being driven around in some rat-trap. I’m just glad everything turned out okay today. That was quite a story.”

Kendall gripped Michael’s hand. “So are we. One more thing, though. We want to pay for the repairs with Michael’s credit card so there’s a record of it if we ever need to go to court. It’s just a precaution, but it would apparently make the agreement more solid if there are monies paid out in advance, according to Stuart Barnaby.”

“That makes sense, but we have a problem then because your mother and I are paying for this car to be made safe. We call that right as grandparents, and it’s not up for discussion. We’ll bill everything to your card, Michael, but we are reimbursing you for it. Enough said… we’ll see you in the morning, around 8:30 or so. Good night, boys.”

They heard Colleen giggling as Big Mike hung up, not giving them any chance to disagree.

“Well, I wasn’t expecting that.” Kendall shook his head. “He hung up before we could say anything.”

“That’s because he knew you’d argue.” Michael’s giggle was much like his mother’s, just a lot deeper, and Kendall chuckled as much at that as he did about Big Mike’s sneaky tactics. “That’s Dad for you, and there’s no sense trying to change his mind,” Michael continued as he pulled Kendall closer to him. They ended up snuggled together on the couch, just enjoying the quiet. The Christmas lights on the balconies across the way were a reminder that Christmas was edging closer. “Hey, don’t you think we should have heard from Mom and Pop by now?”

“Yeah, I was thinking the same thing when I was at the hospital today. I would have thought Mom would want to talk to us as soon as she found out, but then again, it’s only been a couple of days.”

“Call them and see what’s up. I’m curious about what’s going on.” He gave Kendall a playful poke and earned himself a tickle in return.

“No, no, Deuce please, no tickling,” Michael gasped, “You might hurt my knee,” he exclaimed as Kendell’s fingers burrowed into his side.”

Kendall was the one laughing the hardest. “When you want sex, your knee is perfect, but a little tickle and all of a sudden it’s fragile,” he teased a now grinning Michael.

“You know I hate to be tickled,” Michael whined. “So are you going to call Mom and Pop?”

“Yup, otherwise it’ll bug us all night.”

Carson picked up on the second ring.

“Hey, Dad, it’s us. Is everything okay?”

“Yes, boys, everything is great here. How about there?”

“Perfect, but we were wondering how come we haven’t heard from you guys? You said we would be hearing from Mom very soon, and that was Sunday.”

“Sorry about that. I haven’t told her yet, boys, and I can’t stay on the phone too long because she’s on her way home from having dinner with Tess.”

“I don’t understand. Why haven’t you?”

“I wanted to double-check with you guys first. I thought about it and realized that I likely put you both on the spot. I wanted to give you a chance to think about it in case you wanted to change your minds. It was pretty nervy of me to make that kind of proposal. That’s the reason I’ve held off telling your mother. I was going to call you tomorrow.” He sounded guilty, and that bothered Kendall.

“Pop, we appreciate your consideration, but I can assure you we haven’t needed to talk about it at all. We love the idea and want you both here, living at the house.” Those words got Michael a huge smile from his appreciative partner.

“Michael’s right. As far as we’re concerned, it’s a done deal. Are you convinced?”

“I am now. I just wanted to give you some time, like I said, and you two just allayed my concerns about having pushed you into this. Thank you both… I’ll be telling your mother soon, and I’ve got to go now… she’s just pulled in the driveway. Good night, boys.”

Michael’s laughter drew Kendall’s attention. “Both dads hung up on us tonight. I’m starting to get a complex.” He continued laughing and Kendall joined him.

“I’m impressed my dad held off the way he did. It just shows that this Carson doesn’t want to overstep like the old one always did. I’d say it’s a good indication we made the right decision to accept his proposal.”

“That’s a really good point, my brilliant and handsome partner." They sat quietly again, both lost in their own thoughts.

Kendall finally broke the silence. “So are you still up for some wild monkey sex… or is your knee too delicate?”

Michael perked up immediately. “I thought you’d never ask, and don’t worry about my knee. It’s perfect… never better,” he replied with a grin.

“Yeah… that’s what I thought. Let’s go before I change my mind.”

“Way ahead of you, Babe,” Michael proclaimed, and Kendall laughed… because he was.