"Hey Sonny Boy!"
"Jesus!"
Michael stands stock still looking at his own father. He's never come here. He's not even sure that he ever gave his parents his address yet here he is, standing at his front door.
"Yeah well, you wouldn't be more surprised if it was!" His dad quips with a wry grin, "Are you going to let me in?"
"Uh...sure..." Michael stands aside to let his father pass, a thousand questions running through his head.
"This is some place!" His father says, looking up at the high beamed ceilings and the size of the apartment. "It's as big as a palace! Looks like a dump from the outside..."
Michael rolls his eyes behind him, he hears all the compliments whenever he brings a new trick home but it's typical of his father to turn the compliment on it's head and revert to his usual derogatory self.
"Hey, who's this?" His dad asks, spotting Gus sitting in his car seat on top of the kitchen worktop. His little hands and feet are waving in the air and he's cooing now, still with the dummy in his mouth.
"Er, this is Gus..." Michael explains, going over to him quickly before his father can get there, instinctively wanting to put himself between his son and his father. "He's Geordie's kid...remember Geordie?"
"Yes! Tallish, blonde? You used to take her out. Pretty girl," His Dad nods appreciatively.
Michael notes that, as usual, and after years of not seeing her, his father has remembered Geordie's looks before everything else.
"She's got one hell of a cute son! She leaves him with you?" Daryl asks, taking another look at Gus before walking away to look around the loft a little more.
"Sometimes. So what are you doing wandering around town? It's late..." Michael asks, getting Gus out of his car seat and following his dad into the living area. "Have you been visiting a lady friend? Aren't you a bit old for that?" He adds sarcastically.
"That's not it," His father says, picking one of Gus's bears up from the sofa before sitting down.
"Need money?" Michael asks warily, only too aware of why his father's arrived on his doorstep, unannounced, at this hour.
"No, I didn't come for your fucking money."
Michael runs through a list in his head of why his father could possibly be at his place at this hour. "Mum finally leave you?" He asks in the end.
"I've got cancer," Daryl tells him, looking up at him stony faced. Michael blinks, wondering if he's heard right. "Started in my lungs, now it's spread. My brilliant doctors discovered it on an x-ray during my annual physical last Summer. Now it seems it's everywhere."
Michael sits down opposite, cradling Gus to himself. "Sorry," He says eventually, glancing over at his father.
"Your mother insisted that I tell you and your sister in person, so you're hearing it from me."
"Thanks," Michael mutters, not really knowing what to say.
"Hello! I didn't forget the Singapore Noodles this time!" The usual delivery driver calls as he walks in through the open front door, a big smile on his face.
~~~
"You know Calum just moved in a few weeks ago. So, all the funny things that you see around here, like Captain Astro, they're his," Stephen feels the need to explain to Adam, as he pours out three glasses of orange juice.
Calum, who was coming down the stairs, creeps back up again and sits on the top step listening in.
"He must be even younger than I thought...oh Telstra's gone up! Cool!"
YOU ARE READING
Queer as Muke
Fanfiction"The thing you need to know is, it's all about sex. It's true. In fact they say men think about sex every twenty-eight seconds. Of course that's straight men. With gay men it's every nine." Twenty nine year old advertising executive Michael Cliffor...
