the sound, settle down [mashton af]

// t w e l v e //

         

12. You're so conceited/ I said "I love you"/ What does it matter if I lie to you?/ I don't regret it but I'm glad that we're through/ So don't you tell me that you 'just don't get it'/ Cause I know you do

    Ashton spotted their social worker before he spotted Timothy. Madeline had a thin arm around Tim's back, talking to the hostess at the restaurant.

    Tim looked around, spotting his maternal father. He smiled an infamous Clifford smile, Ashton giving one of his own back.

    The two were lead to a booth, Madeline squeezing next to Ashton while Timothy sat on the opposite side. They had their quick greetings before ordering lunch and getting comfortable in their seats.

    "You had a game yesterday, right?" Ashton asked. He twirled his iced tea drink around with his straw, watching the ice cubes hit the side of the glass cup.

    Tim nodded, looking up at his kind-of-father. "Yeah. Dad came, of course, and complained the entire way home."

    Ash laughed, "Why?"

    Timothy was surprised to hear Ashton laugh. It was a short, high-pitched giggle: something he never thought would leave Ash's mouth. It made the teenager smile. "It was cold and his coffee didn't taste good, apparently."

    "Your father has always been like that," Ashton said. He placed his hands on the table, wrapped up in his own fingers. "When you were a wee little thing and I was still kind of in your life, we took you sledding down at Crocker Park. Your dad had two coats on, he was all bundled up and then some. After about twenty minutes, I looked back and he was in the car drinking his morning coffee."

    Timothy smiled, wishing he could remember. "That sounds like him. One time, the power went out so he couldn't make his morning coffee and I don't think I've ever seen him so upset."

    "No, no, no," Ashton held up a finger, preparing Tim [and silent Madeline] for a story, "We went on the day trip to Buffalo right after you were born and we forgot your diaper bag and his coffee on the counter of his Mom's place. Guess which one he was more concerned about?"

    Tim laughed, never realizing how much he sounded like his maternal father. "Dad and his coffee, hm." He shook his head. "Tell me more about teenage Dad."

    Ashton licked over his upper teeth, trying to remember some age-appropriate stories that Tim would appreciate. "I remember our math teacher ripped up his test because he thought he was cheating and he started to cry."

    Timothy laughed again, leaning back in his seat and covering his mouth. "What a baby!"
     "You should've seen it, Tim. It was literally heartbreaking but hilarious at the same time."

    Tim leant forward, resting his head on his hand. "What did you do?"

    "Well, this was September of eleventh grade so I was very pregnant with you. I was emotional and flipped shit on the teacher." Ashton held his head high, being proud of his past actions. "Just imagine a very fat man holding his belly and using more obscenities than our middle aged algebra 2 teacher knew."

    Timothy bit on his knuckle to hold himself from laughing. "I can't believe Dad was still crying in public in the eleventh grade."

    "He's always been a softie."

    Their conversation broke as their food was delivered to their table.

    Ashton thought that Timothy was going to be exactly like Michael was at fifteen. He figured Tim wouldn't talk, wouldn't look Ash in the eyes. Tim is the opposite, though. He was loud and didn't care if he annoyed the neighboring tables. Timothy was more like Ashton and he doesn't know how.

    Timothy took a few bites of his macaroni and cheese before continuing. "You lived with Dad and his parents for a while, right?"

    Ashton nodded. "I lived with them from my seventeenth birthday until Mike and I got our own place." Ash teared apart his asiago cheese bagel, spreading butter on the inside. "Your grandma was a good lady to me."

    He nodded, "She has always talked about you, even when Michael refused."

    "She knew you were going to be a boy before the rest of us, fun fact."

    Tim looked up, interested in this story.

    He missed his grandmother dearly. She didn't really raise Timothy or anything, but she was a very big part of his upbringing. Tim thought of his grandmother as a mother figure since he never really had one of those.

    Ashton probably could have filled that missing mother spot, but things didn't work out.

    "Michael thought you were going to be a girl and he was so excited at the thought. Personally, I think gender is fake and I didn't care enough." He swallowed a lump of food. "I mean I didn't care about your sex, I cared about you—."

    "I know, I know, I got it." Timothy waved him off, not wanting the air around them to get tight with tension. "There's this one photo that I have on my desk of us, as a family, when I was like two or three."   

    "Yeah?"

    "We were outside somewhere and you were holding me and Dad was glaring at you. I took it from Dad and never really told him so I never got the story behind that photo."

    Ashton smile grew wider and wider. "That was when I proposed to your dad. We took a trip to Niagara Falls—on the US side—and we got engaged there. Seconds before that photo, I was holding you over the edge and pretending to drop you and your dad was literally about to flip shit. I've never seen him so angry."

    "That's a great way to start an engagement," Tim's sarcastically spoke.

    Ashton was sure that that was exactly what Michael said after that photo was taken. "Yeah," Ash couldn't stop smiling, "it was alright."

    "I don't really remember a lot from when I was young," he confessed.

    "We had good times. We lived in this pretty small apartment off of university. We didn't have a lot but it felt although we had everything." Ashton was still smiling, he wasn't sure he was ever going to stop smiling. "I wish you remembered it, I don't think I could ever forget it."

    "I remember some trip to a far away ice cream trip, but I don't know why." Timothy furrowed his eyebrows, unsure of his own words.

    "Every first Sunday of the summer we'd go to this family-owned ice cream shop about an hour away. Your father hated it because he always had schoolwork to do. It was just you and me sometimes."

    "Really? That doesn't seem like Dad." Timothy took another spoonful of his mac and cheese before elaborating. "Like, even when he has a dozen cases stacked up on his desk, he'll make sure to be at my soccer game or whatever an hour early."

    That one sentence made Ashton really glad that Tim was left with such a good father. "I think he's changed in the last decade, we all do." Ashton looked up at his son, looking over his strong jawline and peaked nose. "Like, you were barely to my knee when I left."

    "If you don't mind me asking, when did you, like, leave leave?"

    Ashton looked up at the wall next to them, trying to remember the exact date. He used to have it memorized, the exact day he got his rights taken away. "Let me think, your dad kicked me out when you were four but I was still allowed to see you on-and-off until you were about six. Right before you started first grade was when I legally wasn't allowed to be within 5 miles of you."   

    "That sucks."

    Ash laughed, "Yeah, it sucked." He really likes his son, Ashton loves his son.

    Nothing made sense again in Ashton's life and he wasn't sure what to do

Do you think Ashton is going to grow up?

Is he going to play games and beat around the bush forever?

Do you think Ashton loves Timothy or is he playing around with his head, too?