The One-Shots

Neil\'s nephew Chester was a little weird- you know, one of those kids that was almost too smart, so he didn\'t know how to do normal stuff. Chester was three and he already could read, add and subtract, knew all the elements of the Periodic Table and, oddly, every movie Kevin Bacon had ever been in- in chronological order. What\'s more, Neil\'s sister, Ann, and her husband, Chester Senior, didn\'t care he was weird. And yeah, Neil was all for accepting a kid for who he was, but just like, if he was falling behind in school, Ann and Chester would have got him extra help, Neil thought he ought to have some sort of social tutor so he didn\'t end up bully fodder once he got to school (like Neil had been). Ann thought Neil was worrying about her kid too much and Chester Senior thought he was projecting his own crap on Little Chester, but they still let Neil try taking him to the playground when he babysat every so often- as long as Little Chester agreed.

Little Chester never agreed.

Except today- for Neil\'s birthday, Little Chester let them come to the playground because it was a special occasion. It made Neil feel like he was the three-year-old, but he took him anyway.

Once they got there, Chester hugged Neil\'s leg, hiding his face if any other kid even looked at him, so Neil picked him up and went in the sandbox with him. It didn\'t take long before Chester was building a scale model of Pikes Peak and chattering about the political and economic significance of Zebulon Montgomery Pike\'s explorations of the American Southwest. Ten minutes later, a cute little redhead girl, who looked to be about Chester\'s age, got in the sandbox, buried her feet next to Chester\'s mountain and laughed when Chester called them the foothills. Neil took that as his cue to back off and found himself a seat on a nearby park bench next to the guy who\'d brought the little girl.

\"How old?\" the guys asked him, nodding at Chester.

\"Three and a half. How old is she?\" Neil returned, always unsure how to have these parenty-type conversations.

\"Five next week. She\'s a little small for her age.\"

They sat and watched the kids getting very sandy for a while. Neil shifted on the hard bench and was reminded of the way cool Captain Dynamo car he had in his pocket when it poked him in the gut. Chester had handed it to him on the walk over and forgotten to get it back once they were there. It was better that he didn\'t have it in the sandbox anyway- sand and battery operated toys didn\'t usually mix well. Neil took the toy out and considered it. Chester didn\'t seem to like it much. Neil thought it was a wonder of modern technology- it had laser lights and a siren that really worked and if you turned it on and put it on a large surface, it moved in a pattern that spelled out Justice Restored which was what Captain Dynamo wrote in the dust behind him when he spun off into the sunset after a job well done.

Neil turned it on, attracting the attention of the guy sitting next to him. \"Wanna seem my Cap. Dy car?\" Neil offered, \"It has lasers.\"

The guy chuckled and moved down the bench to sit next to him. \"I used to just love that show,\" he told Neil and reached over to straighten the action figure in his seat. \"I didn\'t know it was still on.\"

\"Cable,\" Neil supplied.

\"Right.\"

The guy smelled really good, which was a bad thing for Neil to be thinking about because he was obviously straight. The little girl looked just like him and he probably had a pretty little pregnant wife waiting at home with milk and homemade cookies for them when they returned. So, Neil didn\'t inhale and didn\'t let the guy\'s funny little laugh endear him and didn\'t notice his thick but agile fingers as he turned the toy over to look at the switch on the bottom before setting it down on the blacktop to watch it go.

The kids played in the sandbox and the men played on the blacktop. About twenty minutes later, the guy and his little girl had to go- she had a doctor\'s appointment- and that was the end of that.

Except- Neil couldn\'t stop thinking about that guy. He didn\'t date much, but he decided that getting hung up on a straight guy he\'d spent half an hour with was a sign that he must be in a bad way, so he let Ann set him up on a blind date with some man she knew from the neighborhood- probably the only other gay man she knew.

***

Neil was the wrong kind of nervous- the good kind of nervous- anticipatory nervousness kept him on the ball, made him pay attention to details and get things right, but he was the wrong kind of nervous- the spill things, trip on his own feet and say the wrong thing nervous- nervous nervous- and that was bad. Really, really bad for a first date. Still, it was a blind date and anyone with any sense knows that they don\'t ever go well, so it\'s not like he was going to mess up something that had any potential anyway. He was just going to make it blow up earlier in the night than it otherwise would have. That was a comforting thought- it eased his nervous nervous into a lower level of panic.

Neil was sitting in a too expensive restaurant for a blind date, but Ann\'s friend, John, his date, had picked it. So, in an effort to shake his stupid obsession and please Ann, he would eat French food, make a fool of himself and pay half the bill. Neil was hurriedly wiping up the half a glass of water he\'d spilled down his front when someone stepped up to the table. Neil looked up to see his date and Oh crap! He choked on his greeting. Oh crap! It was the guy from the playground. Oh crap!

\"Uh . . . Hi?\" Neil closed his eyes and shook his head to bring reality back, opened on eye to check if he was still dreaming, saw that he was, considered things and decided to go with it. \"Hi, don\'t I know you?\"

\"Yeah,\" the guy- John admitted sheepishly. \"Nice to see you again.\" He sat down and pushed a prettily wrapped package across the table to Neil.

\"You brought a gift? I didn\'t know we were doing that. You have to let me pay the bill to make it up,\" Neil promised and opened the package.

\"It\'s nothing- kind of stupid, really,\" John mumbled. It was a Captain Dynamo t-shirt.

\"You knew it was me- this date?\" Neil held it up to see if it would fit. It was perfect.

\"Yeah,\" John nodded.

\"You had Ann set this up?\" Neil asked, astonished.

\"Yes.\"

\"How did you- You knew Chester already?\" He put the shirt back in the box and the box under the table.

\"No, I didn\'t know your nephew. I ran into him and your sister a few days later at the playground and I had to take the chance.\"

\"Lucky that, huh?\"

\"It was bound to happen- I had Cindy in that park every day for two weeks hoping you\'d come back.\"

\"Really?\" Neil asked. Wow. That was either really romantic or terribly creepy. Neil decided to hope for romantic. \"Cindy? Your daughter?\"

\"Yeah. Best thing in my life.\"

\"But you\'re here- you\'re gay.\"

\"Bi.\"

\"Oh. So, not married with a pretty wife who bakes cookies and baby on the way?\"

\"Widowed.\"

\"Oh. I\'m sorry.\"

\"It\'s been years. I\'m close to all right. I\'m even dating.\" He gestured at the table they were sitting at.

\"Cool.\"

\"I\'m hoping so.\"