EIGHTEEN

 

 

Oh, he had to be careful, and Ken knew it. Justin had made that pretty clear, had dropped some very obvious signs in Ken’s path, and in this case, the signs said slow down and proceed with caution.

It was a good thing, too, because Ken had been a few seconds from inviting Justin to the wedding with him. Everything had seemed to be going so well, or so he would have thought, but the way Justin had shut down like that, Ken had the feeling that maybe Justin wouldn’t be quite as interested as Ken might have hoped.

And why not? Ken knew he had a history of getting far too into people too quickly, and Justin had pretty much warned him off before, right? Told him that it was hard to let himself trust? That he didn’t like to let people in too quickly, or even at all?

Ken was pushing too much, asking for too much. And if he wasn’t careful, the best thing that had ever happened to him might be driven right away. It was worth holding back a little if it meant that he wasn’t going to lose Justin.

“Ken, come on, you’re not even listening to me,” his mother’s exasperated voice cut through his reverie, and Ken blinked gritty eyes and tried to focus. It wasn’t exactly the easiest thing that he had ever done, though.

“Sorry. I didn’t sleep a lot last night,” Ken admitted. Which was an understatement. He had barely slept at all, and honestly, he couldn’t even regret that, not with how amazing it had been.

“Yeah, where were you last night, anyway?” Liam seemed to grasp onto the question like a drowning man would grab for a piece of wood, and honestly, Ken could sort of understand that. He wasn’t any more sure why Liam was here, and Mason, too, than he was why he was here.

Then his eye caught Luna’s, and his sister looked at him guiltily, and he knew. She had asked for them to be here because then there would be some distraction coming from them. He wasn’t even sure he could blame her for that, honestly. It had to be overwhelming being the first one in the family to get married.

“Didn’t Ken come home last night?” their mother asked, and Ken winced because this was not a line of questioning that he really wanted to get into. “Where was he?”

Ken actually watched as the knowledge of what he’d done dawned in Liam’s eyes, but it was too late. Liam retreated into himself, softly muttering that he didn’t know, he had no idea, maybe Ken had come back, and he just didn’t notice, but Ken wouldn’t have made any bets about his mother believing any of it.

“Um, so this cake is pretty good,” Luna spoke up, and Ken gave her a grateful look. She’d gotten him into this, so it seemed only fair that she should bail him out now, but he was still glad that she had. “What do you think, Mom?”

“I think that I want to know what’s going on with Ken,” she said bluntly, not even looking down at the cake which Luna was trying to shove in her face. Distraction tactic most definitely not effective, it seemed. Unfortunately. “Staying out all night, what will people think? Probably at some party, acting like an idiot, doing things that are just wrong …”

“Geez, Mom, why don’t you tell us how you really feel?” Mason, always a bit of a smartass, spoke up, and Ken couldn’t help but smirk. His brothers and sisters had his back, which might be a little weird given how they’d grown up together but they all had to deal with the mother that fate had dealt them. Maybe that brought them together.

“Not to mention, I don’t think you’ve said yet who you’re going to the wedding with.” She was, clearly, not to be deterred, even as she shot her teenaged son a bit of a dirty look. “I still think that very nice girl, Eliza, from the hotel would give you a chance, though you are leaving it until the last minute, dear.”

Well, Ken might not be sure of very much, but he was absolutely positive of one thing. He was absolutely not going with that girl or any girl, and he had been clear on that right from the beginning.

“Mom. No.” Ken made his voice firm, refusing to listen to any arguments about that. Any chance of her accepting who he was would go right out the window if he gave in on this one because visions of a daughter in law and little grandbabies would float through her head if he relented even a little.

“Well, fine,” she said with a sniff, as though she couldn’t believe that he would be so difficult. “But then who are you going to take? I hope she’s nice. I’d like to meet her before the wedding.”

It was hopeless, wasn’t it? Ken closed his eyes and his hands clenched into fists as he struggled to hold back his emotions, but it wasn’t an easy thing to do. Only hearing Luna’s voice helped.

His sister was terrified. This was her wedding, her big day, and of course she wanted everything to go smoothly. He opened his eyes and saw that she was looking at him, her own plaintive, begging him not to let his temper get the better of him.

Maybe it was the only thing that could have brought him down, defused the bomb that seemed to tick inside of him, counting down to an explosion faster and faster every time his mother harangued him about this.

“Mom, we really need to pick a cake,” Luna spoke up, her eyes still begging Ken for his silence. And it was brilliant, too, because if there was one thing that their mother couldn’t resist, it was the feeling of being needed. Ken was able to sink back in his chair and look unseeingly down at the sample tray in front of him, all filled with teeny tiny little pieces of cake, all frosted delicately with white and pastels.

Damned if he had never been less interested in food in his entire life.

Who was he going to bring? Maybe his mother was out of line in asking, but Luna certainly wasn’t. There were still too many choices, even though he’d ruled a lot of them out already.

First off, he wasn’t bringing a girl. Any girl, whether it be one that his mother picked or not. Nope, no way, not an option.

Second, he wasn’t bringing Aaron. Everything that he had thought that he had felt for Aaron had been proven to be false. In the true, brilliant light of what Ken felt for Justin, there was no way he could even go after anyone else.

So that left two choices. Either he could go alone, or he could get brave and just outright ask Justin. After all, Justin was a grown man, and he could always just say no, right?

The more he thought about it, the more it seemed like the best choice. After all, when Justin had found out that Ken was thinking about bringing Aaron, he had had no issue in telling Ken off for it. He hardly had to worry about Justin going along with something that he didn’t want to.

So that was that. As soon as he got a second alone with Justin, he would ask him. It couldn’t be any worse than just waiting with this hanging over his head. He would ask him, and then he could tell Luna either way.

It was actually pretty simple, when it came down to it, Ken realized, as he gazed around at his family. They drove him crazy, but he still loved them, and he couldn’t help but smile when he heard their bickering.

He hoped that they liked Justin. But one thing he did know was that he would go to this wedding with Justin, or he would go with no one. There was really no other option because there wasn’t another person on the entire planet that he would want to be with.

Even making that much of a decision helped him, and he smiled and, with his appetite suddenly back, started to toss little pieces of cake into his mouth. No matter what happened now, at least he had a plan of action, and that was something.