“I dunno maybe I didn’t go to any publisher you have a hand in because you told me it was pointless and you’d cut me off if I didn’t go into business.”

He flinched even while he said it, worried the fragile feeling peace would fall apart in one line over the phone, then reminded himself, that even if it did, it wouldn’t change what he’d accomplished.

He kept picking it up and turning it over, as though one of the times he picked it up, it wouldn’t be his anymore. His book.

“Yeah no the didn’t run a hardback. Yeah dad no, it’s … yeah. Ok the short version is that it’s a … specialized romance novel. No not like 50 shades. Ew. Look just look it up on Amazon I don’t really want to explain this to you on the phone…”

He picked it up again, running his fingers lightly over the glossy cover. It was a somewhat deliberately vague cover, with two men with their hands on each others arms, and the title ‘Boss’. It wasn’t the senshi related play he’d been fighting with… more of an return to some of the small fics he’d done in college and highschool… but more polished… and not with other peoples characters. He was kind of proud of it, in that sort of uncomfortable way that made him unsure how he was going to handle anyone wanting to discuss it. It was -his- book, something he’d created, and suddenly it was his name and not just an internet handle on the cover. It was sort of a strange set of feelings, none of which had been made less tumultuous by the unexpected event of his family reaching out. His sister must have mentioned it to them, she’d been in touch and he’d sent her a copy.

It was still uncertain if that was a mistake. His father seemed, surprised. Taken aback that what he had dismissed as frivolity had actually made it to tentative success, and early sales reports were good. Better than he’d been expecting, with the uphill battle of trying to get publicity. Lots of plugging links online, begging people to try his book.

He almost missed the next question on the phone for the distraction, and then when he realized what it had been he almost dropped the phone.

“Wh… yeah. I can meet you for dinner… When… Oh… uh. Yeah I’m…” he glanced frantically at the calendar, as though it might manifest some protective barrier between him and this uncertainty. “...I’m free.”

His stomach did an anxious flip flop.

“Ok but can it be someplace more casual? I haven’t replaced my suit jacket in a while. No. Why would I do that? I haven’t needed it, and I’m not going to… no I don’t n… no I’ll look into something just don’t get mad if it’s not Armani ok?”

God, be thankful if he didn’t show up in a robins egg blue tux jacket out of a sense of spite.

He struggled to believe this was going to go well, or that he wasn’t going to go into some kind of nostalgic shock if his father paid for dinner. He’d order a really damn good steak. It would be amazing after an small age of learning to cook rice, beans, ramen… that kind of thing… to produce variety and rounded nutrition. It had started to become a habit, and he wasn’t sure he’d entirely ditch it after this, if anything changed.

He wasn’t expecting it to, it wasn’t exactly the sort of thing he pictured his father approving of. An romance novel about two young men… but he’d written it, and it was published, and he’d succeeded, and they wanted him to write another. He was ok with that.

He could be proud of that.