Page 106 of The New Place

“Baxter can wear it while we’re eating,” Ned says. End up pissing all over it, maybe. Suddenly the idea to leave him in the car while they eat seems like an awfully bad one, no matter the mild temperature. “Let’s put it on him together.”

“Abbot,” she says and moves around him.

Great. They’re already here. Charles’s kids probably never defied him.

Though Abbot did move to a different continent, so there’s that.

Abbot’s face is stern now. From last night still or from today with his father, Ned doesn’t know, and Abbot doesn’t say, just returns Ned’s peck of a kiss hello in silence. It’s something, at least, that small, warm affection between them, and it heartens Ned somewhat as he steps back.

Next to Abbot, Liesl seems impossibly older, her hair left loose over her shoulders, and she’s wearing little sparkling earrings. She is taller, like Abbot said, and Ned wants to shrink her back down to the kid he first met, not this teenager standing before him.

“Look at you,” Ned says and she’s shy like she always is when he first sees her, so he holds his fist up for a bump instead of folding her into a hug like he wants to. “How many movies did you watch on the plane? Fifteen? Sixteen?”

“It wasn’t that long a flight,” she says.

“Seventeen, nice.” He bumps her fist again. “Good to see you, kid. And Charles, hello.”

There. Like ripping off a Band-Aid. If the Band-Aid were a conversation with a man Ned is pretty sure keeps a file of his myriad failures, and enters in a spreadsheet everything he hasn’t done to be worthy of dating Abbot. Like the latest, riding Abbot’s coattails to a job Ned couldn’t ever hope to land on his own. He puts on a smile and hopes it doesn’t look too horrible.

“So nice to see you.” Charles’s tone suggests anything but as he shakes Ned’s hand.

“This is Peggy,” Ned says, taking her shoulders. “Hon, can you say hi? This is—” Shit. Charles? No, he doesn’t seem the type to go by first names with kids. Mr. Abbot? Dr. Abbot?

“Pleased to meet you.” Charles holds out a gloved hand to her.

Shake it, Ned silently pleads as Peggy stares up at him. He squeezes her little shoulders. Slowly, she extends her hand and he lets out a breath.

“Pegs, you remember Liesl, right?” he asks and yes, that’s better, the two girls clustering around Abbot as he opens the restaurant door for them and ushers them in outside of the cold.

Which, great. Leaves Ned with this guy. Wonderful.

“Really so nice of you to come all this way to celebrate our engagement,” Ned gets out, his smile still firmly in place.

“I’m very glad to,” Charles says shortly.

Yeah, Ned can tell, all that warm bubbly enthusiasm he’s so clearly showing. They’re not so different, him and Abbot, tall and austere and reserved. But beneath the cold surface, Abbot is funny and kind, and Charles probably eats qualitative researchers for breakfast.

“I rather thought you would have come to visit.”

“Oh.” Ned nods, unsure why he’s doing it, but it feels right and gives him a moment to reach for some words. “No, yeah.”

Which are not the articulate words this man is probably expecting. Sentences, Ned tells himself. Actual language that makes sense. He has a PhD for fuck’s sake. Ned needs to answer with something other than, I absolutely can’t afford to, which is the truth of the matter.

“I’m really looking forward to it,” he gets out. Yes, that sounds right.

“When?” Charles asks, his voice flat.

“We’ll have to find a time that works.”

“And you’ll bring your daughter?”

Two plane tickets. Great. “Absolutely.”

“I’d enjoy that,” Charles says.

Really? That feels hard to believe, but the words sound surprisingly genuine.

Well, he better be honest about inviting Peggy, because he’ll be learning quite a few dinosaur facts if he’s really going to host her someday.