Adrian Hayes's Arc

Chapter 5 of 5

The bar opened again three nights later. Travelers came in from the cold and paid for warm plates and drinks. Adrian poured wine into a glass and slid a beer across the wood. He was good at this now. But something sat under his ribs that he had never said out loud. He watched Maxim laugh with a stranger and felt the words press harder. When the last traveler left, Maxim wiped down the counter. Adrian stayed by the bottles, the red wine and the beer still catching the lamplight. He thought about the family he wanted. He thought about the thing Maxim didn't know. "I want to tell you something," Adrian said. His voice came out thin. Maxim stopped wiping. "Then tell me." Adrian gripped the edge of the bar. "When we talked about kids. I never told you the whole truth." He made himself look up. "I can carry them. Myself. I can get pregnant." The words hung there. Adrian braced for the door to close in Maxim's face. He had feared this since the first night. That the truth would send Maxim running. Maxim set down the rag. He came around the counter slow. "You've been scared to tell me this." "Yeah." Adrian's throat tightened. "I thought it might scare you off." Maxim took Adrian's hand. He didn't flinch. He didn't step back. "I told you I wanted a family. I meant it. However it comes." He smiled, small and real. "You thought this was the thing that would push me away. It's the thing I wanted most." Adrian breathed out. The fear he'd carried for weeks broke loose. "You mean it." "I mean it." Maxim held his hand tighter. "We'll have kids. You'll carry them if that's what you want." They stood there in the quiet bar. Then Maxim's face changed. He was doing math again, the same look he'd worn over the empty shelves. "This place has one room," Maxim said. "A bed and a stove. That's fine for two." He glanced at the narrow stairs behind the bar. "It's not a place to raise children." Adrian followed his eyes. The room upstairs was cramped and cold. He'd never thought past the two of them. Now he did. A baby needed space. Warmth. A real house. "There's a house," Maxim said. "Down past the property line. Cedar walls. Big. A porch. It's been empty for years." He rubbed his jaw. "It'd take work. Money we don't have yet." Adrian pictured it. A wide door. Rooms enough for a family. The bar could pay for it, over time. "Then we work for it," Adrian said. "We fix it up. We fill it." Maxim nodded. But Adrian saw the weight land on both of them. They had a plan for kids now. They had no home fit to hold them. The empty house waited past the trees, needing more than they had.