He’d known it would be there, but having it in his hand is an enormous relief.

He closes the trunk, gives the man an awkward nod, and then gets into the driver’s seat, the scarf wrapped around his hand when he sets it on the wheel. The sight of the familiar pattern gives him a rush of much-needed comfort as he starts the engine and pulls past the uneven asphalt on the edge of the parking lot and into the street.

When he’d told Niall he was going to go see his dad, he’d been inventing the story he thought was most likely to get him away from Niall with the car. For some reason, though, he finds himself driving there anyway. Maybe it’s because he still feels that invisible nettle shirt all over him, like he’s tainted himself by handling Niall, and he needs to shake it off before returning to Robbie. He doesn’t dwell on his reasons as he makes the few turns down increasingly narrow streets, then finds himself on the one-way lane through the care center’s parking lot. He stops close to the door; the lot isn’t large, but apparently he’s the only guest.

Lance looks through the glass-paned doors. He has no intention of walking inside, but he can remember going through the entrance on Friday. He may never forget the smells of antiseptic and wet paper, and the sight of his father, drugged to unconsciousness, with his wrinkled face slack and half-covered by the oxygen mask. He’d been glad that his dad hadn’t known Lance was there, then guilty for being glad. If he could talk to his father, in a coherent state, what would he say?

There should be some satisfying confrontation he can imagine. Maybe his father would cry and apologize, beg for forgiveness, or somehow redeem himself. But all Lance really wants, now, is the luxury of not having to see him anymore. If that makes him terrible, well, he’ll add it to the list. After several long minutes, a woman’s face appears in the door. She’s wearing scrubs with purple puppy faces all over them and looking at him curiously. Lance smiles awkwardly and backs out of the parking space; he winds through the parking lot to the exit side and doesn’t so much as glance in the rearview as he points the car out of town.

While he drives toward Riverside, he tries to plan what he’ll say and do with Robbie, like he’s always planned conversations when he wants a specific outcome. But all of the tactics he’s used before to cement a relationship, earn an invite to stay, or secure a declaration of attachment, he can’t envision with Robbie standing in the place of past boyfriends. Robbie is something else. Robbie transcends those people and those arrangements to an impossible degree.

Robbie told Lance he didn’t know what to do with him; the memory makes Lance laugh, his eyes pricking with tears. Lance doesn’t know what to do with Robbie, either.