The news of their mother being dead had…made sense, sadly. It had crossed Del’s mind that she was on a downward spiral when he’d seen her in town a few times. It seemed that Justin was trying to take over.
Del wasn’t sure how he felt about the way Justin had tensed visibly when Del had mentioned Clyde. He couldn’t tell if it was a homophobic thing or just a surprise, and decided there was no reason to dwell on it.
They drove back home in silence, Del thinking hard all the while. Justin was clearly in over his head. The kids were having issues. There was no actual warmth between Justin and the little ones, and with what Del could remember hearing, Justin hadn’t been around for a while. It had to be a horrible situation.
It was that thought, more than anything, that made him offer help if Justin needed it. The shocked expression on his face as he gathered his siblings in their driveway told Del more than anything so far. Justin didn’t expect kindness, but he needed it more than anything.
* * * *
The next morning, Del woke up to the rumble of the school bus passing by his house. With his bedroom being toward the front yard, the bus woke him up more often than not, if he’d stayed up too late.
It still felt weird, waking up to it, because it felt like sleeping in big time. Working in kitchens and then running one had had him on crazy schedules long enough that waking up in regular person time was still a luxury.
He’d gotten less sleep than he normally did these days after dropping off the O’Dwyers. It had taken him ten months to get to a steady six hours-ish of sleep every night, and having less than that felt like an odd, unwelcome jolt to his system.
He got up and staggered into the bathroom, and as usual, by the time he got to the kitchen he was relatively awake.
He used his French press on autopilot and opened his laptop to check the news while he waited for his brain to boot.
As he sipped his coffee, he tried to remember if there were things he was supposed to do that day. Well, apart from the obvious. He still had stuff in the fridge that needed to be cooked, because he hated to throw away anything, especially the more expensive stuff he got as a delivery every week. Connections were awesome that way, even if it cost him an arm and a leg to get fresh ingredients from Portland.
If it hadn’t been for the house and his mother’s gentle suggestion of it not leaving the Abbot family, Del wouldn’t have chosen Enterprise as a base. At least he wouldn’t now. A year ago, when he most needed to get out of California, it had felt like he best available option.
The house with the four bedrooms, three bathrooms, study, large family room, and massive kitchen was a lot for one person. There had been a dining room, but when he’d moved in, he’d had the wall between it and the kitchen torn down and now the kitchen looked like a small restaurant’s kitchen more than a regular home one.
He really, really needed someone to look at the house to figure out the priorities in further renovations and fixing what was falling apart. At least Del had no illusions about the condition of the place.
Once he felt awake, he texted Bernie to see if she was available, then started a video call on the laptop.
As usual, she looked efficient as fuck for the early-ish hour. She’d already sent her husband to work and made sure her two boys had made it to the school bus in time. And she’d probably called Abigail to make sure she’d made it to morning lectures at her college in Denver, too.
“What’s up?” she asked, sipping on her massive coffee mug. “Did he call you?”
“Oh no. My night turned out much more interesting than that,” Del replied. He changed his mind about sitting in the kitchen and took the laptop to the couch instead. He balanced it on his lap and made himself comfortable.
“I sense a story here, do tell while I make some toast for myself.” She propped her tablet against something on her counter and got to work.
“So last night, I fell asleep on the couch and got woken up by a bunch of kids banging on my door.”
“Kids? There? Wait, was it the O’Dwyers? Aren’t they really young?” she asked, while he watched her hands move in their task in the way he’d seen her make toast since they were children.