Chapter Text
“How do you forget to tell someone you’ve entered them into a bachelor auction?!”
Mary winced at Stede from across the kitchen table as Doug got up to pour them something stronger than the lemonade they were sharing. He’d arrived to pick the kids up a few days early to give Mary and Doug a reprieve in the run up to their latest show. He’d happily taken a seat at the table for their customary chit chat session, expecting to be regaled with foibles of artists working on a deadline as they shared dinner—instead, Mary had excitedly told him his bachelor auction had raised the most money.
The existence of such a listing was news to him.
“I swore I told you!” Mary said, frantically scrolling through her phone for evidence.
Stede scowled, thumbing through his own texts and emails to prove her wrong. “I would definitely remember something like that–because I would have said ‘NO’!” he hissed. “You know how I hate being a spectacle.”
Mary looked up from her phone long enough to scoff in Stede’s face. “Please, you love to make a spectacle.”
“I love to make a spectacle when I choose to do so, not to be made a one. And you very well know that,” Stede said, sullen.
Mary had the good grace to look abashed. “You’re right; I’m sorry. There’s a huge difference between the two and—” Mary’s face fell and she slapped a hand to her face in mortification. “Oh, motherfucker.”
“I did ask if you were sure Stede had okayed being in the bachelor auction.”
Like an angel, Doug reappeared with drinks. He placed a glass of red wine in front of Mary and a very generously poured Sidecar in front of a grateful Stede. He sipped on his own wine and gave Mary some very blatant side eye.
“Don’t give me that look!” she said indignantly, glaring at Doug.
“Do give her that look!” Stede commanded. “She listed me for sale like a piece of meat!”
Mary stopped scowling at Doug to face Stede. Her face fell in contrition and guilt. “Stede, I am so sorry. The note from the PTA letting me know I was in charge of planning the auctions ended up at the bottom of Alma’s bag for two weeks!” she explained. “I only found out because one of the other PTA moms just so happened to be volunteering in the parent pickup line and asked me if I needed any help organizing the auctions. It was only then that Alma remembered and handed me the destroyed letter right in front of her.”
“That sounds like our Alma,” Stede replied, begrudgingly endeared by their eldest’s scatterbrained mistake—after all, she inherited it from him.
Sighing in defeat, Mary collapsed onto the table for a moment of indulgent whining before sitting up with a sharp inhale. Pouting, Mary turned her phone toward Stede. “I asked Lucius,” she said. “I wanted to put feelers out for if you would even be comfortable with your preference in partners being advertised and ended up getting sidetracked by Lucius’ excitement.”
Stede wasn’t entirely sure that he was comfortable with the parents of his children's’ peers knowing his sexuality. A great deal of Alma and Louis’ schoolmates were the children of people Stede knew to be absolute dickheads. He wouldn’t put it past them to notice Stede’s quiet change of identity and encourage their children to make his children’s life a living hell.
“I don’t know that I am,” he admitted. “But mostly because I worry about it affecting Alma or Louis.”
Mary’s eyes welled up and her lip wobbled. “Stede, I am so sorry,” she repeated, voice breaking. She looked devastated, guilt bearing down on her already-overburdened shoulders. “I’m so sorry I outed you—”
“You didn’t out me,” Stede interjected. “Let’s nip that right in the bud, Mary Allamby. I’ve been publicly since shortly after our divorce, and people will only find themselves surprised due to how little notice they give me.”
“Assuming they’re surprised at all,” Doug teased with a wink, effectively breaking the tension.
Laughing tearfully, Mary took her phone back and scrolled through her conversation with Lucius. Stede reached across the table and took her other hand. “In all honesty, I probably would have agreed to it after a few persuasive after dinner drinks and we all know it. It’s for charity, and you know how much I like to give my father’s money to charitable organizations he’d disapprove of.”
“Oh, bidding on yourself doesn’t count!” Doug heckled. He whacked Stede with a dish towel as he rose to check on dinner.
Stede rolled his eyes, hiding an impish grin behind his drink. “It would have been a very handsome donation.”
“Oh, it already was,” Mary said offhandedly as she continued to mutter under her breath. “I can’t believe I talked to Lucius about this multiple times over the past few weeks without mentioning it to you. Come to think of it, I can’t believe Lucius hasn’t mentioned it to you!”
“I can,” Stede grumbled. “He can be very discreet when it comes to masterminding things that amuse him.”
Doug snorted. “Like forgetting to mention the bar he wanted to take you to was a leather bar?”
Stede’s lips thinned in annoyance. “Quite.”
“Or when he asked you to sign up for the first art course he taught and conveniently forgot to mention it involved nude models?” Mary reminded him.
“Watch it you,” Stede said, flicking her on the back of the hand. “You’re not out of the doghouse yet. Let me see what lies Lucius wrote about me to make me interesting enough to raise…how much did it raise?”
Mary gave him a pointed look. “Ten thousand dollars.”
“I beg your finest pardon?” Stede croaked. He could easily donate a similar sum, but hearing the figure in relation to a literal bid for his time was incredibly sobering. “Good God, what did the boy write about me?”
A manilla folder was slid across the table after much rifling and Stede centered it in front of him with great trepidation. He took a fortifying sip of his Sidecar and flipped the folder open. Stede wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t for his life to be laid out in front of him and framed so…lovingly.
The auction profile was almost formatted like a CV but filled with much more than just his qualifications and professional achievements. His interests were described in terms of excitement and framed in ways that made Stede seem delightfully offbeat rather than off-putting.
“Who wrote this?” Stede asked, voice thick.
“Mary, Lucius, and I,” Doug said. He had stilled as he was blowing on a spoonful of Bolognese sauce, looking at Stede open affection.
Stede swallowed thickly. “Lucius wrote some of these things?”
“Oh, he wrote something alright,” Mary chuckled. “Doug and I had to tweak things a bit. His tone was glowing, we just had to translate it into something middle aged suburbia could understand.
He cleared his throat in an attempt to swallow the emotions bubbling inside him. Mary slid her own water across the table to him and Stede accepted with a grateful smile before looking at selected photos with a different appreciation.
A surprisingly tasteful headshot stared back at him from the upper right corner of the profile, though it was still a headshot, meaning it was perfectly acceptable if entirely lacking in personality. His hair was curled and the lenses of his browline-glasses were free of smudges, but there was little in the way of excitement about his cream cable knit sweater and collared shirt, even when paired with a velvet bow tie.
A handful of other pictures were paperclipped together underneath his romantic resume and Stede was pleasantly surprised by what he found. There was a photo of him on the boat, laughing and windswept and covered in a blanket of summer freckles.
“That’s my favorite photo of you,” Mary said. She reached out to trace over Stede’s hair as though to brush it away from his face.
Stede huffed a quiet laugh. “No one would ever guess this was less than a year after our divorce.”
“And taken by your ex-wife’s new boyfriend.” Doug said, setting a timer before meandering back to the table with his wine. “On a blended family vacation, paid for with your homophobic late father’s money.”
Mary winked. “There was a lot to smile about.”
“There still is,” Stede replied.
Overwhelmed from the evening’s rollercoaster of emotion, Stede broke eye contact and focused on the remaining pictures in front of him. Stede shuffled through a few more pictures; him smiling in the snow, him dressed up in a suit for some charity dinner, him beaming alongside Mary at her first gallery opening, him fighting off Alma and Louis in full (gentleman) pirate regalia.
Stede found himself a mite flabbergasted when he came upon a picture that could have only come from Lucius; his first Pride. It was two years ago, and Stede remembered being so intimidated. Not just for the sheer number of people in attendance, but by being surrounded by so many people confident in who they were.
Lucius had caught him at a quiet moment between events, after the parade but before any of the many afterparties. Stede was leaning against the wall, so deliriously happy and exhausted he hadn’t even noticed the Pride mural behind him or Frenchie slipping a pair of heart-shaped sunglasses over his prescription lenses. His curls were a mess of glitter, with a rainbow on one cheek and a sparkling lipstick kiss on the other—all compliments of daring to show up with Calypso in something as drab as a pastel rainbow tie dye shirt and shorts.
He looked comfortable in his skin. He looked like he belonged. He looked happy.
“Well,” Stede said, clearing his throat as he blinked back tears before ultimately failing. He laughed tearfully and allowed Mary and Doug to hold his hands. “This was all actually incredibly touching. I was not expecting that.”
“It’s almost like people love you or something,” Mary said, giggling as she shrugged away her own happy tears.
Stede’s breath hitched as he laughed. “Well, at least it will make having to go on a humiliatingly awkward date worth it.”
“You don’t know that!” Doug protested. “It could be great.”
“And it could also be terrible.”
Mary sucked her teeth at Stede’s pessimism. She pinched the back of his hand before slumping back into her seat with her wine in hand. “Don’t jinx it.”
“Do you know who it is?” Stede pressed.
“No,” Mary admitted, sulking. “The bidding was anonymous—but everyone signing up to bid had to go through a background check, so don’t even start! You’re not going on a date with a serial killer. I made sure there was a very strict ‘no homicide’ policy. Or assault. Or fraud, for that matter.”
Stede took a long sip of his drink. “There’s a first time for everything.”
“There sure is,” Mary said, unimpressed. “So if your date asks you to Venmo him, let me know.”
A moment of silence fell over the table before curiosity got the better of him. “So, how exactly does this date work? Since everything was anonymous?”
“Ah,” Mary said. “Well. All bidders were given very strict guidelines as to what was considered appropriate date activities. Once they are notified of their win, they have a week to respond to the contact information provided with their plan. After the contact person approves the itinerary, the details are forwarded to the bachelor.”
Doug spoke up to clarify further. “Mary’s your contact.”
“And I promise I won’t let them plan something weird or something that I know you are going to hate.”
Stede took off his glasses and rubbed at his eyes. “And how will I recognize this person?”
Mary grimaced. “They’ll have a rose,” she said. “I wanted to pass on the contact information after the date was approved, but someone brought up The Bachelor at a PTA meeting? Suddenly everyone was attached to the idea of the bachelor getting a rose like in the show.”
“I think the bachelors only receive roses on The Bachelorette,” Doug remarked. “Right? Otherwise the bachelor hands them out to the women?”
“Probably,” Mary agreed, a long-suffering look on her face. “I only agreed to move the meeting along.”
Stede took a deep breath and held it for a handful of heartbeats before slowly releasing. “Well. Lucius and I will be having words with one another tomorrow.”
Mary frowned, turning to check the crowded calendar on the fridge. “I thought you were off for the next few days?”
“I am,” Stede drawled. “But Lucius may not survive if I stew over this for more than a single evening.”