All We Need Is Daylight

He hears the knock on the door, just a few moments after the initial buzz asking entry. Frank is kind of terrified, because he’s about to let his mom come into his boyfriend’s apartment, and she doesn’t know that she’s walking into her son’s boyfriend’s apartment. All she knows is that her son was feeling sick and she came to make him food. In addition, she’s going to meet her son’s best friend who’s his boyfriend.

Frank psyches himself up in front of the door, Gerard leaning very awkwardly against the counter behind him, waiting for Frank to open the door, which it feels like he never will. Maybe time hasn’t passed at all, Gerard just doesn’t see it that way. This is him meeting Frank’s mom for the first time. He’s never met a boyfriend’s mom because he’s never had a boyfriend. She told Frank over the phone that she liked him, but does that mean she’ll like him in person? Will she be happy to see him or annoyed that he’s disrupting her mother son time? Obviously, she won’t know the whole truth, but will she be able to sense something? Frank and Gerard are subtle, sure, but this is Frank’s mom, and she knows him better than Gerard does, which hopefully won’t always be true as Gerard collects facts about him every where he can. Bottom of the line is that he needs to make a good first impression because it’ll be really bad if his future husband’s mom hates him.

There’s another knock, and that’s when both of them realize they’ve been standing looking at the door for too long, especially Frank because he knows his mother is not an impatient person. He takes a deep breath. Why is he so scared? It’s his mom, the one person in his life who he doesn’t need to be scared of. The one person he probably doesn’t need to keep secrets from, except Gerard knows way more of his secrets than his mom does. And it’s going to stay that way for a couple of things.

Frank opens the door, and despite his initial trepidation, he smiles with relief when he sees his mom standing on the other side. “Frankie!” hardly a second after the door is opened and he’s being attacked into a hug before he can even blink. In that moment, he forgets his worries because how could he ever be scared. This is his mom. She loves him with no hesitation, and no strings attached. He could tell her anything. He’s completely positive he could ask her to help him hide a body and the only thing she’d ask is when and what to bring.

He sees Hayley standing behind her, Hayley is miraculously shorter than even his mother, who would’ve ever guessed? Hayley is gorgeous, as usual. Her bright orange hair, which has been a signature of hers since about middle school, reassures him. She’s just so familiar, and vibrant and a wonder.

“Frankie, I’ve missed you so much, you look so good,” she says, rubbing his back like she needs to reassure herself he’s real.

Behind him, he can hear Gerard echo to himself, “Frankie?” It’s almost like he’s tasting the word on his lips.

“Only my mom can call me that, Gerard,” Frank says, not able to look at him because she’s squeezing him within an inch of his life, but he doesn’t want Gerard to start getting any ideas.

“I call him Butters,” Hayley says.

“You’ve literally never called me that a day in your life,” Frank responds.

“I know, but wouldn’t it be funny?” she says, giving him a shit eating grin which shows off her two front teeth which actually earned her the nickname Spongebob growing up.

“You must be Gerard,” his mom says as soon as she lets go of Frank, which is not a short amount of time. She walks over to him, and Gerard holds out a hand like he’s going to shake it, but she declines and goes in for a hug with him too. His mom is everyone’s mom, and she will always hug you unless you ask her not to.

“Hi, uh, Ms. Iero,” Gerard says. His hug is not as long as Frank’s had been. He also has his arms mostly pinned to his sides by her embrace so he just sort of stands there awkwardly. It’s definitely not the kind of hug Frank has grown familiar with from him, and that thought makes his heart burst a little bit because man would he love to hug Gerard.

“Please, call me Linda. I don’t want to be one of those parents who are like ‘I’m a cool mom’ because I think Frank will attest to you that I’m not cool, but Ms. Iero sounds like an old lady who I don’t want to be friends with.”

“Sorry, uh, uh, Linda,” Gerard says, and he’s seriously disturbed by the fact that she seems to think he’s an adult who calls people’s parents by their first name. Gerard still feels like a child, there is nothing quite as daunting as surpassing the point where you have to call people older than you by their first names. Why can’t anyone understand he sees himself as a small child around real adults?

Behind her, Gerard sees Frank give him an okay sign and mouths the word, “smooth.”

His mom is such a fiery little Italian woman, Frank can’t even comprehend how much he loves her. She looks back at Frank, and then grabs him into a hug again, because that’s what she decided she wanted to do. “I’ve missed you so much, it feels like it’s been years since I last saw you.”

In search of something to do while Frank hugs his mom, Gerard realizes he hasn’t acknowledged Hayley yet. “Hi, uh, Hayley,” Gerard says, giving her a small wave as she closes the front door behind her. When did he start saying “uh” so much? He definitely remembers being either a bitch or just very cold to Hayley the last time he saw her, and in his defense, he was a lovesick asshole that day. He doesn’t think he’s one of those jealous monsters, and he’s pretty damn sure he has no reason to be when it comes to Frank, but it’s something he’s going to keep in check if it ever comes back.

“Gerard,” she says, smiling back at him. Hayley most definitely has not forgotten the way Gerard was very grumpy when she last met him. Hopefully she’s meeting him on better terms this time. Also, she wants to give him the benefit of the doubt because Frank has a crush on him and she respects Frank.

Frank’s mom finally let’s go, and then looks at him, taking him in like an X-ray. “You look so handsome, Frankie,” she says. Gerard agrees. “Is that a new shirt?” Of course, she’d notice the shirt, he definitely called it.

“Yeah it is new, and thanks. I’ve missed you a ton too, ma.” That’s an understatement.

Frank knows that the world has stopped for her to be in it, because he honestly almost forgets the other two are even here right now. He’s so focused on his mom, wonderful, perfect, amazing, gorgeous, saintly, Linda Iero. That definitely isn’t the number of adjectives she’s worthy of.

“You have such a nice apartment, Gerard,” his mom says, seeming to notice it for the first time. She looks around the tiny pieces of it that she can see with her eyes that take in everything. The two of them had done a pretty okay job at picking up all the things that were lying on the ground and on every surface in the room, although no one needs to open Gerard’s bedroom door for the time being, even though they definitely didn’t throw everything in there. The apartment doesn’t quite look bad, but decent is the highest honor it really deserves, and definitely not nice. The floor needs to be swept for sure, but hopefully she doesn’t look down for too long. It’s a bachelor pad if there ever was one, with Gerard’s three bookshelves of comics on full display to Frank’s mom. Frank likes those though, they show off how obscenely nerdy and cute Gerard is.

“I mean, it’s cheap and there’s a roof, so it does the trick.”

She smiles at him, walks a little further into the living room. “You’ve got posters just like Frankie, it almost looks like it could be his place! Frankie, don’t you listen to that band,” she points at a poster of Black Flag.

“Ma, you know that’s my favorite band.”

“Oh, that’s right.” She continues looking around, and Gerard feels like his life is on display a little bit. It’s not that she doesn’t respect boundaries, she’s just trying to relate to Gerard, and find him on the scale in comparison to Frank.

“So, what are you making for dinner?” Frank asks, almost as a saving grace, and Gerard questions whether he and Frank have an empathy link that tells Frank how he’s feeling.

“Oh! I almost forgot,” She looks up and turns her attention back to the three of them. “Vegetable scampi. I left the groceries in the car, will you come with me to grab them?”

“Yeah, of course,” Frank says, nodding.

“Do you need me too?” Gerard asks, looking for any sort of reason to do something other than stand awkwardly, feeling like a visitor in his own apartment.

“No, I’m pretty sure that two people can do it, but thank you Gerard.” Frank waits for her by the door and she puts an arm around him, which feels welcome.

“So… you like hockey?” Frank hears Gerard say before he closes the apartment door behind him. That’s an awkward conversation he’s glad he doesn’t need to be part of.

“So, Gerard is your assistant coach?” she asks.

“Yeah, but he’s not like super old or anything, he graduated last year, he’s only 22. I’m not like hanging out with some old man.” Is he being overly defensive? Yes, probably.

“Oh Frankie, I’m not worried about that, Hayley is older than he is, and you’re an adult, even if I still see you as a baby. I’m just worried that your teammates are going to feel like he’s playing favorites if you’re his best friend.” He likes that she assumes that Frank is Gerard’s best friend. She just feels that anyone who comes into contact with Frank should think of him as their best friend.

“Uh, I mean, Gerard’s younger brother is on the team too, so I think if he was gonna play favorites they’d probably be more likely to go after Mikey than me. But they don’t seem to mind about that, I’ve made like a lot of friends here,” Frank says. She doesn’t need to worry at all about that. That’s not the reason the people on the team hate him.

Frank walks ahead of her down the thin staircase, and waits for her at the front entrance, which he opens for her, because he’s a goddamn gentleman.

“You like it here, don’t you? I can tell,” she says, smiling, as she walks Frank down the street to where she parked the car, in an absolutely beautiful parallel parking job that Frank could never achieve. Frank laughs as she unlocks the doors for him to start grabbing the bags in the backseat.

“I do like it here,” Frank says, and there’s so many reasons for why it’s not a lie that the fact that it is a lie is almost negligible. “Coming here was a really difficult decision for me. You know how much I gave up back in Boston. There have been a lot of compromises, and it’s not been easy, but there is something about this place that I think was made for me.”

Two weeks ago, that’d have been the honest to god truth. He has friends, he likes his classes, even though they’re tough and he’s been playing a lot of catchup. He likes the small town feel with the big town personalities. He likes, or at least he used to like playing hockey on this team. Most of all he likes Gerard, but anyone could’ve guessed that. Even though he still had qualms weeks ago, it still felt like something about Armstrong had called out to him. He wonders if that’s still here and he just needs to rediscover it or if it’s gone for good.

“There’s nothing bothering you at all?” she asks. She really does see right through him.

“Nothing,” Frank says, giving her a fake smile which a stranger wouldn’t buy, so there’s no chance that she will. Frank’s mom sighs, because obviously Frank is hiding something, but that’s kind of his role as a teenager. You don’t tell your mom everything, and it’s aggravating because she would do anything to help if he’d let her, but she’s going to have to accept it. Everyone has secrets to keep, and you can’t will anyone to tell you them.

“I love you so much, Frankie,” she says, both of them closing the doors of the car at almost the same time, grocery bags in hand.

“I love you too, ma. I miss you a whole lot. I’m really glad you came down today. Even if I am just going to come home in like three days for Thanksgiving anyway.” To be fair though, it’s not much of a break because Frank does have to be back at school Friday night for a hockey game, because hockey doesn’t rest, even for extreme sales at Walmart.

“Any excuse to see you,” she says. “How’s your stomach by the way? Still bothering you?”

“No, the um, stomachache is gone. I’ll be able to play again next game.” Frank says, and that’s a prophecy he’s terrified of having to fulfill, but he’s going to have come to terms with it. He’s going to have to get back on the ice. He already knew he would, but the fact that it’s going to be soon is something he can’t escape. His mom and he had talked about this particular game weeks ago, because it’s the day after Thanksgiving, so she doesn’t have work and can come watch it. He can’t just not play for the game she’s going to see in person.

Frank had sort of put off all of these thoughts for the time being, because he’s been worried about the fact that he’s got a new boyfriend, and the whole his life is falling apart thing, so it’s not a welcome embrace to realize that there are other things he needs to worry about and a deadline attached to them. He’s sure once his mom leaves he’ll find a little spot in Gerard’s arms and cry about how terrified he is to play hockey again, but right now it’s all sunshine and smiles because his mom can never know what happened.

“That’s good to hear. I’m still going to make you the best meal you’ve had in months, though,” she says, totally unaware of just how bad things really are for him, and that breaks his heart even more. One of the worst things you can ever imagine happening and it happened to her son, but she’ll never know.

“I don’t know, ma, I went to Ihop for my birthday, and they made a smiley face out of chocolate chips on my pancake,” he says, keeping things light.

“I’ve missed your sense of humor,” she says, as they walk back. Frank smiles for real at her, because he’s missed her more than she knows too.

The two of them make their way back, Frank telling her briefly about his friends, and how school is going. Gerard has to buzz the two of them back into the building, but he left the apartment door open for them. He and Hayley appear not to have moved more than an inch or two, so conversation must have been as awkward as he imagined it being.

“Alright,” Frank’s mom makes a show of putting her bags on the counter, which his superintendent lovingly calls a “peninsula” because it sticks out against the rest of the counter space, but Gerard calls it a toe hazard, because he’s stubbed his toe on that thing more than on any other piece of furniture he owns. “Let’s start chopping.”

She has Gerard tell her where he keeps everything, she’s definitely not impressed by how little he actually has in the way of cooking utensils, but only Frank is able to pick up on that. She’s way too polite to even be judging him intentionally, Frank just knows her well. He has a set of three cutting boards but they’re not like real cutting boards, they’re these thin plastic things that Frank surely hopes cost no more than five bucks, because they’re fucking pathetic.

“You probably don’t want me to chop anything, just as a warning,” Gerard says. “I’m not terribly efficient with knives.”

“Can you peel a potato?” she asks.

“I… suppose so. But I don’t have a potato peeler.”

She looks at him inquisitively, and then opens the drawer he’d showed her with all of the utensils in it. She pulls out a potato peeler and holds it out for him to look at. “Then what’s this?”

“Is that what that is?” Gerard asks, looking genuinely alarmed. Frank could kiss him to death right here and now, what a fucking idiot, he’s so dumb and so so pretty.

“Oh, Gerard, sweetie,” she looks at him like he’s a toddler whose gotten permanent marker all over his own face. “I’m so glad I’ve come to you, come over here, I’ll show you how to use it.” Wow he can already picture her helping Gerard out when they make a big family Christmas dinner.

She sets Hayley and Frank to work on their own tasks, while she helps Gerard. Frank watches as Gerard starts to get the hang of it, and he cannot even begin to enunciate how much he loves him. It doesn’t help that Gerard is standing perfectly in front of the window so all the light that’s escaping through the blinds, which frames him perfectly as if an angel.

It’s Gerard. That’s who all those love songs are about. How did all those singers know about him when they were writing those songs?

Frank can’t take his eyes off of him. Ten minutes or so, his mom asking him questions, and he gives her answers, but he can’t look away from Gerard. He only spares looking down at what he’s chopping when he’s afraid he’s going to cut off his fingers.

“Gerard, where do you keep your garlic?”

“My garlic?” Gerard asks, “uh, like for cooking?”

“Yeah, I’d prefer the real stuff, but if you only have powder that will work too.”

“Oh, well, uh, I don’t have any,” Gerard replies.

Frank’s mom stops what she’s doing entirely, her back straightening, and she turns her head to look at Gerard in disbelief. “You don’t have any garlic?”

“Not that I’m aware of. I don’t really have spices at all. I sort of don’t cook… like at all.” He’s not sure how she hadn’t put those pieces together, but maybe his mom was just hoping for the best.

“Ever?” She asks, looking dumbfounded, and Frank can tell that Gerard is in for it. Not like a reprimand or anything, but she’s about to start rambling off about how he’s an adult man who doesn’t cook and that’s not okay and what if he gets married and his wife asks him to cook something. It’s going to be an adventure.

“I don’t really have the time. I know how to cook, sort of. My mom has taught me, but it’s just like, if I don’t order pizza or something than I usually just eat ramen or make pasta, and you don’t need anything to make pasta besides sauce, and I’m fine with the stuff from the jar. So, I just don’t like use any spices really.”

She has a look of utter defeat in her eyes, Frank suppressing laughter behind her. “Gerard, sweetheart, when is your birthday? No, never mind, Christmas. I’m getting you a spice rack for Christmas. And a cookbook. Maybe two. You need to cook for yourself, Gerard, how are you ever going to take care of a wife or kids?”

“I hadn’t really thought that far ahead,” Gerard says, which is a lie, because he has absolutely thought about that it’s just that his wife in that scenario looks a whole lot more like Frank, and they have three kids, and yeah, he should really have considered cooking for them, that’s a character flaw that he’ll own up to. “And thank you, Ms. Iero, it’d be really appreciated.”

“It’s Linda, Gerard, we talked about this!” She says, and god Frank would die for her. “Well anyway, I saw there was a corner store a block or two away, I’ll just have to run down there and grab some garlic.” It’s so on brand for his mother to have brought everything to cook but assumed that someone would have garlic. Because, of course they have garlic, and she even knows he’s Italian so obviously Gerard would have garlic.

“No, don’t worry about it, I got this one,” Hayley says, standing up from her spot at the breakfast bar. “You’ve got other things to get ready for dinner, I’ll save you some time.”

“Hayley, if you would. If Gerard doesn’t have any spices pick up on of those Italian spice blends as well, would you honey?” she says, looking at Hayley with the utmost affection. Frank swears that she adopted Hayley as her own as soon as Frank left for college. She’s an empty nester and Hayley is a perfectly good candidate, plus she did always want Frank to have a sister.

“No problem,” Hayley says, smiling as she grabs her jacket from the coat hanger, that Gerard didn’t even realize he had. Frank’s not sure if Hayley is trying to escape the situation or if she really is just that great. Before she goes, she turns to give everyone a wave goodbye before she’s heading out the door.

“God bless her,” Frank’s mom says, and he smiles. What he wouldn’t do for any of these three people, honestly, they’re so perfect. She goes back to chopping her onion, which is a relief to Gerard who is feeling very judged. His mom begins talking, clearly to Gerard, “Hayley is practically Frank’s sister, you know. She used to eat around our house almost three times a week when Frank was growing up.”

“Oh yeah,” Frank says, “I had almost forgotten about that.”

“I would never let you two go skating without feeding you first, but you were at her house quite a bit too. You know, I used to think you two would make such a cute couple,” she says, playfully and Frank turns absolutely beet red. His own mother? Why does everyone think he’s so in love with Hayley? To be fair though, if he weren’t gay he probably would be. It’s awful that everyone just assumes it, but at the same time it is nice having that as a ruse to fall back on.

“Gerard, did you know Hayley taught him how to skate?”

“Yeah, he told me,” Gerard says. “He’s always saying she’s the best skater he knows, but I know that’s not true, because I’ve seen him.”

“Hayley always did say Frankie has it in his blood. Clearly, she wasn’t wrong.”

“He really does,” Gerard says, biting his lip, and thoroughly enjoying the fact that Frank is still red, though it’s faded from the violent scarlet into a subtler rose. “Not just hockey, he’s a good figure skater too.” Frank turns back to scarlet.

“Oh, he’s told you about that?” she asks, looking up from the onion again, looking as surprised as she probably should be.

“Yeah, I’ve even gotten to see him.” Frank can see that Gerard is laying it on pretty thick.

“Frankie has pretended he doesn’t figure skate for the last, god, I don’t even know how long. Ten years probably. I don’t think Hayley even knows! He always thought people would make fun of him. I always knew that wasn’t a real concern.”

“Only Gerard knows, though, Ma. The rest of the guys on the team really would tear me to shreds if they found out.”

“So only you know, Gerard? You must be a good friend, if Frankie told you. I’m glad he has a friend like you that he can trust,” his mom says, and it’s Gerard who blushes this time which Frank thinks is only fair and is also extremely cute.

He looks up from the red pepper that she has Frank working on he takes a deep breath because he sees an opening. This is it. This is the time. With Hayley gone, it’s just the three of them, which he hadn’t planned on but he can’t get past how perfect it is. He definitely needs Gerard here, though, for support. “Actually, mom, we need to talk about that.” Biting the bullet has its positives and negatives, a positive being that you’re getting things done that you don’t want to do, but a negative being that once Frank has let the words out of his mouth, there’s no turning back. He’s committed.

But the thing is, he is committed. Not just to his words, but to Gerard. This is his mother, Frank’s entire world, or at least she was his entire world before Gerard stepped into it, and now the two have to share the spotlight. But it’s not fair if she doesn’t know. It just isn’t. Half of his world is being told a lie, well a couple lies, but only one she needs to know about.

“What is it Frankie?” she asks, and Frank sighs, looks at her in the eyes, and then he looks at Gerard. He’s looked up from his own task, only on his second potato, because apparently, he can tell that this is the moment. The two of them had discussed this right before his mom got here. Gerard had agreed. He was even supportive of the idea. Now, Gerard looks nervous, but he nods, giving Frank the go ahead.

“Well,” Frank takes a deep breath, looks down at the red pepper beneath him, because he doesn’t think he can look her in the eyes right now. It feels like he’s never done this before, even though he’s come out a few times now. “Gerard isn’t just my friend, mom… he’s my… boyfriend.” His voice ends on a nervous uptick, almost like a voice crack. He then has a tentative exhale, and looks at his mother, who at first doesn’t have an expression on her face at all, and then he sees it melt away into an empathetic smile.

“Oh, Frank,” she says, setting down her knife and turning her body towards him. He can tell that she’s surprised. She certainly hadn’t expected this, but there’s nothing antagonistic in her face.

He knows that he wants to say the word, he wants to say it exactly, so he looks her in the eye this time, “I’m gay, mom. I’m gay.” He lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, maybe a breath he’s been holding for years. Frank can also feel tears appearing in his eyes as the words pass his lips, only he doesn’t think that they’re out of sadness, he just can’t help them. Sometimes extreme emotions demand tears.

“Aw, sweetheart, come here,” she says, immediately holding her hands out to him, and that’s when she brings him into the most bone breaking hug he’s ever experienced in his entire life. It’s like she’s trying to squeeze him tight enough for them to merge into the same person. “I love you, Frank. More than you could ever know. You’re perfect.”

“I don’t want you think any differently of me,” Frank says. He can tell this is tacky. Of course, it’s tacky, it was always going to be. Because his mom is supportive, he knows that, and he always knew she would be. He still had to do it, and it’s still terrifying, because he’s been keeping this a secret from her for years and now she knows and it’s a weird feeling for him. She’s meeting him, his entire self, for the very first time. This is her gay son, Frank, who’s laying his soul out for her, and she’s accepted him, because that’s who she is.

“You’re my son, and you’re my world, and I would never change a thing about you. You’ll never be anything less than perfect. All that I care about is you being happy,” she says. Her hugs are the best hugs in the world, even better than Gerard’s, because she’s his mom, and she has the ability to just squeeze the sadness out of him. It’s a superpower, really.

Frank feels himself crying, he can’t prevent it from happening. It kind of feels nice to just cry and be held by his mom, and it’s a little weird that Gerard is just standing there existing during their moment, but at the same time, Gerard is his family too.

It’s several moments before she actually let’s go, and Frank wouldn’t like her to. He hates it when she lets go. The two of them look at each other for several moments, she wipes the tears away from Frank’s cheek with her thumb. Frank loves the way she smiles at him, forcing a matching one from him. People always tell him they have the same smile, but that can’t be true, because no one’s smile could be like hers.

His shoulders feel so much lighter than they had been, and he takes a deep breath of air that’s much cleaner than he remembers. Frank can’t tell the world about Gerard and him, but his mom is the one person who he can tell everything to. Now she knows, and it was nothing.

“You give me a hug too, Gerard,” she says. Gerard, with an expression like a spooked deer bites his lip, and smiles very faintly, because he’s dumb and hasn’t figured out that he doesn’t need to be intimidated by her at all. Frank gets why meeting the parents is scary, but this is his mom, and everyone should love her because she’s perfect.

Gerard is hesitant at first, but she wraps her arms around him before he has any time to really stop it from happening. Gerard looks at Frank, who’s standing behind her now and can make easy eye contact with him. Frank gives him a thumbs up, and in response Gerard makes a face that he can’t identify.

“I knew I liked you for a reason, Gerard,” she says, and lets go of him after at least a minute.

Gerard immediately begins overcompensating. “I’m going to learn how to cook, okay? And I’ll make Frank food all the time, I’m not going to be like one of those guys who makes someone else do all the work. And I know it’s a mess in here, I will clean-”

“Oh, Gerard, you don’t need to impress me. If Frank likes you, I like you.”

“Still, I, like I try to be better for him.”

“I appreciate that, Gerard. And I’m sure Frankie does too.” It’s entirely possible that she doesn’t care. As long as Gerard is good to him, Frank’s mom will like him. He’s never had a girlfriend, but he always kind of knew that’s how she’s react.

The alarm signaling that someone is trying to buzz in sounds, interrupting the moment, but it kind of feels like the moment was over anyway. Gerard walks over to the door, and buzzes Hayley in.

They stay quiet for a few seconds, before Frank turns awkwardly back to the counter, and continues to chop his pepper. The other two decide to do the same. After a few seconds Frank says, “I love you mom.”

“I love you too, Frankie.”

Frank thinks about it for a second, but then decides he’s just going to say it, “And I also love you, Gerard.”

“I love you too… Frankie?” Gerard says.

“Don’t you start,” Frank says, “I’m holding a knife, Gerard.”

There’s a knock on the door before it’s opened by Hayley, carrying a bag in her hand. “Ta da! Babies first garlic.” She pulls out a jar of minced garlic, and then walks it over to the counter beside Gerard. “I figured the stuff that comes in a jar would last you lounger.”

“Thanks,” Gerard says, smiling. He’s definitely still regretting how he treated Hayley the first time he met her. She’s such a nice and funny person and has gifted him with his very own garlic.

She looks around at the three of them, and surely senses the atmosphere. “Did I miss something?”

“Uh, I, well,” Frank says, laughing a little to himself. “Hayley, have you met my boyfriend, Gerard?” Frank gestures towards Gerard who gets pink again, and maybe that’s just how this day is going to go for the two of them. It sure is turning out that way.

“Uh, okay, cool. Hello boyfriend Gerard,” Hayley holds out her hand to shake Gerard’s in a stupidly staged way and Frank can’t help but eat it up. This is his family, he thinks. Maybe it’s not a traditional family, but this is it.