Maddox
“No, you can’t get them…that for Christmas!” Bryan’s whispered words came out slightly frantic. Every time we got far enough apart that he hoped the guys wouldn’t hear him, I got another lecture.
Dodging produce and people who weren’t watching where they were going, he leaned in closer. “You were kidding, right?”
It’d sounded like a good idea when I’d come up with it. Bryan thought I was crazy which automatically made it seem even better. Now I was just making him nuts. He’d catch on to it eventually, and I’d probably have to make it up to him, but he was making the boring trip to the grocery store much more entertaining.
In my defense, Kevin and Jeremy were a bad influence.
They’d also started to figure out that something was up. Shaking his head, Jeremy looked over and gave me a frown, but the laughter in his eyes gave him away. “Stop messing with him. Whatever it is, people are starting to stare.”
I grinned, shrugging one shoulder. “Not sure what you’re talking about.”
Bryan reached over and pinched my butt. I laughed. “You’ve been spending too much time with Kevin.”
“And you’re deliberately making me nuts.” He frowned sternly and looked one step from wagging his finger at me. So cute.
“Yes, I still think it’s a good idea.” It really was. They’d get a kick out of it too.
“What is?” Leaning against the cart, Kevin seemed to be enjoying the show.
“Nothing. Ignore him. He’s nuts.” Bryan was giving me this look like he’d kill me if I brought up gags in the grocery store.
Laughing, Kevin grinned. “I bet it’s a good story.”
Bryan looked frustrated but not as horrified as he would have a few months ago. He gave Kevin a don’t-mess-with-me look. “Don’t you start.”
Deciding Bryan probably needed a break from the crazy, I gave his shoulder a quick squeeze and turned the conversation back around to the groceries. “So what’s next on the list? I think your mom just wanted us back so she didn’t have to go grocery shopping.”
Nodding, Bryan looked down at the never-ending list. “It’s basically one of everything.” He laughed. “She only wanted Jeremy and Kevin to come so they could help haul in this mess. We’re going to have stuff piled on everyone’s laps.”
By the time we were done, the only thing that wouldn’t fit in the back was the paper towels—and somehow I managed to be the one to hold them. Emptying out the car, we had everything packed away well before his mom got home.
Wandering into the living room, Bryan and I snagged the couch and Jeremy sat down in an oversized chair, pulling Kevin onto his lap. Even knowing about their relationship, they seemed right together. Sometimes I worried that it didn’t feel wrong. Maybe it was because we’d seen how much in love they were from the very beginning. It just felt like they belonged together.
“We thought we’d go out to lunch tomorrow then go hang out at the lake. It’s still going to be pretty warm so even if the water’s too cold to swim, it should be fun to relax.” Leaning against the back of the couch, I slouched and fought the urge to close my eyes. Bryan might have slept earlier, but I hadn’t managed to turn my brain off and it was catching up to me.
“Sounds good. We didn’t pack swim trunks or anything but we’ve got shorts.” Jeremy looked as tired as I felt. Had he not napped either? Was there something on his mind or just a lot going on?
In the car, we’d mainly talked about business stuff and bounced ideas off each other. I was starting to get the impression there was something else bugging him. My brain was running around in circles because of the impending lunch. The last time we’d had dinner it hadn’t gone terribly, considering, but I had a bad feeling about Saturday.
“That’ll work.” Bryan stretched out and reached for the remote. “We also thought it would be fun to go see a movie.”
Kevin bounced around on Jeremy’s lap. “The new alien movie!”
Bryan groaned. “The last one was terrible.”
“That means this one has to be better.” Kevin grinned.
Flicking through channels and menus, Bryan finally stopped. “Zombies!”
Bryan and Kevin immediately starting debating on what season they should start at. It was a fairly heated discussion because they were both on different ones. The couch was too comfy and my eyes felt heavy; I fell asleep before they’d made up their minds.
****
They must have agreed on something because when I woke up, people were screaming on TV and his mother was trying to talk to Kevin and Jeremy. The wails from the people being attacked and the moans from the zombies made it hard.
She finally gave Bryan a look, and he sheepishly reached over for the remote and muted the TV. “Sorry.”
“That’s much better.” She smiled and shook her head. “I forget how loud the house gets when you boys come home.”
Jeremy and Kevin were standing by the overstuffed chair. Jeremy reached out to shake her hand. “Thank you for letting us come over.”
Her smile got even wider. “I’m just glad you could make it. I know how busy you must be. Maddox says you’re a freelance graphic designer. I’m very impressed.”
Jeremy looked uncomfortable with all the praise but Kevin just grinned. “His business is doing great.”
“How are your classes going? Have you picked a major yet?” Bryan’s mom leaned against the chair, watching the two guys.
Kevin shrugged. “I’m looking at a couple of different majors. Being a freshman, I don’t get that many cool classes yet. It’s all just basic courses so far.”
Michelle nodded. “Once you get those out of the way, college gets a lot more fun. Bryan complained endlessly the first two years about the basic courses, but this year I haven’t heard a single peep about boring English professors or math he’ll never use in real life.”
Everyone laughed and Bryan snorted. “Nobody ever needs that stuff. I’m not wrong.”
“That’s not the point.” She turned back to Kevin and Jeremy. “Let me know if you boys need anything. I put some clean towels upstairs but if there’s anything else just tell me.”
“Thank you.” Kevin smiled; the stress that had been eating him away earlier seemed to be gone.
Michelle was always great at making people feel welcome. Even when Bryan and I were still figuring things out, she’d never made me feel awkward for being there or unwanted. She was giving them the same looks she’d given me all those months ago.
It was easy to see she thought they needed extra mothering. She had to know there was more to the boys’ story than we’d told her. She probably thought it was something like Bryan and me, but we weren’t going to tell her. It wasn’t our story to tell. The more people who knew, the higher the chance it would get out to people who wouldn’t understand.
After the most polite inquisition ever, we turned the TV off and everyone piled into the kitchen. She let me help chop vegetables for a stir-fry but until Jeremy and Kevin proved they could be trusted with appliances, they were relegated to the table with instructions to tell her about themselves.
That was awkward.
She got the cleaned up casual version of their relationship the way most people did. Eventually, she interrupted, cocking her head, giving them one of her “mom looks” that said she wasn’t buying the line of shit they were shoveling. “If that’s what you want me to believe. That’s fine.”
Jaws dropped. Mine included.
Bryan just looked up at the ceiling like he was praying for patience. Finally, he looked back down and shook his head. “Did you need us to do anything else to get ready for Thanksgiving?”
She took the hint and let the subject drop, but she’d proven her point. She wasn’t going to pretend everything was perfectly typical. She also wasn’t going to badger them about it either because once the conversation changed, it didn’t come up again.
Dinner was wonderful, filled with laughter and stories about school and about Bryan growing up. When, with Bryan’s begrudging permission, she told the abbreviated version of the bus story and his computer antics, she’d had everyone in stitches—even a blushing Bryan.
Hearing it from her perspective, I got a glimpse of the worried mother that must have been frantically trying to understand her son. She told it well and focused on the humor, but I’d heard Bryan’s emotional version and it had probably made her crazy to know how troubled he was over it.
Kevin and Jeremy looked…jealous maybe? Sure, they laughed and enjoyed Bryan’s response since he was just a little embarrassed and still breathing. But they had this hunger to their reactions. Michelle was the mother they’d always wanted. The one who would understand who they were and love them anyway.
It made me sad for them.
When dinner was finally done, she wouldn’t let anyone help clean up. She just shooed us out of the house and told us to go have fun. Standing in the front yard, we looked at each other questioningly.
Kevin gave Bryan a goofy smile. “Your town so you get to pick.”
Bryan didn’t appreciate being put on the spot but before he could say anything, Michelle opened the door. “In my day, we could always find something fun to do.” Shaking her head, she shoved money into my hand. “Go downtown and get ice cream. You can park over by the diner and head around the corner to that old-fashioned place that has the floats and things. It will be fun.”
She shut the door with a grin. I just looked at everyone and smiled. “I had a great thought. Let’s go get ice cream. My treat. I know a great little place. It’ll be fun.”
Nobody thought it was funny.
Piling in Bryan’s car, Jeremy and Kevin couldn’t resist talking about Bryan’s mom. They were still shell-shocked. Kevin seemed the most affected. “I can’t believe how cool she is with everything. I can’t imagine our mom saying anything like that.”
Jeremy nodded reluctantly. “She’d never be that open—no matter what it was.”
Bryan sighed, intently focused on the road. “It didn’t feel that great at the time. I thought I was being uniquely tortured for wanting crazy things. She kept trying to talk to me about it and that just made me panic even more. She wanted to help, but it was so hard.”
“You’re allowed to do things in your own time. I think kink and BDSM are like coming out—no one should push you to go faster than you want and it’s up to you to decide when and how much to tell anyone. It’s your life. Don’t feel guilty about that.” Reaching over, I squeezed his leg. He didn’t need to feel bad for not being ready when she was. She’d had the best of intentions and I think it was good for him in the long run, but he hadn’t been ready to talk about any of it in the beginning.
I couldn’t blame him. I’m not sure how long it would have taken me to accept it in his shoes.
Jeremy spoke up from the back seat. “I agree. We had to keep a lot under wraps because of our parents but in the end, it was our decision who to tell and when. Being gay or the relationship part, it doesn’t matter; it’s up to us. Same applies to you.”
“I feel a little like you guys were backed into a corner and had to tell us.” Bryan frowned, using the rearview mirror to look at the guys.
“Don’t.” Kevin spoke up. “We’d talked about telling you for a while but couldn’t figure out the best way to bring it up. We haven’t had any practice, and there wasn’t a good way to talk about it.”
Laughing, I had to agree. “Yeah, I get that. If you hadn’t overheard us, and the situation had been reversed, I’m sure we’d have been in the same spot. There really isn’t a good way to bring up some things.”
Bryan started to chuckle and I could feel some of his stress melting away. “Yeah, ‘Hi, we’re your new neighbors and are into age play. Don’t mind us even though the walls seem to be microscopically thin’ just wouldn’t have gone over well with most people.”
Kevin was dying. “How about this? ‘Hi, guys, you know how we’re kind of weird, well, we’re actually related and into mild BDSM. You want us to bring a pizza by later?’ ”
By the time we’d parked by the diner, everyone was laughing and the examples had gone from almost reasonable to ridiculous. We still hadn’t calmed down when we turned the corner to find the ice cream shop. Bryan froze mid-joke and brought us all to a stop.
“Shit.”
“What?” Looking around, while Jeremy and Kevin looked on, concerned, I realized what’d stopped him. The morons.
Of all the people to see our first night in town, it had to be them.
Jeremy and Kevin were probably assuming the worst, so I leaned over and whispered low. “Just some people we really didn’t want to see. They assumed stuff about Bryan and me and it got awkward.”
“Oh. The pushy guys Bryan mentioned in therapy?” Kevin spoke low but wasn’t as jumpy as he’d been a few seconds before.
The guys were on the other side of the road. I hoped they wouldn’t see us because I had no desire for them to ruin our evening. Taking Bryan’s hand, I looked over to Kevin again. “Yeah, they’re probably harmless but they feel wrong. That probably doesn’t make sense but—”
“No, it does.” Jeremy spoke up as we started to walk again. “When we first moved in, there were some girls that just wouldn’t leave us alone and it was weird. I get it.”
I kept my voice low but tried to explain. “Knowing more people in the lifestyle should be a good thing, but it never seemed right to share things with them. Bryan went to school with them but once they saw us together, they made it a goal to get us to open up and tell them what we were into. It was…weird.” There was probably a better word, but that one just summed it up perfectly. They were weird.
Jeremy laughed. “Yeah, some people just make you nervous and you don’t know why. Intuition or whatever you want to call it but that feeling is usually right.”
I nodded and reached out to grab the door. The ice cream place was one of those old-fashioned parlor type restaurants with the checkerboard floors and small metal tables. I could see why Bryan’s mother liked it, but it was a little cute for me.
They ended up having a ton of flavors and everyone had fun picking out different things. “You’re never going to eat all that without making yourself sick.”
Watching the banana split Bryan chose come together, my stomach rolled. He snorted and shook his head. “This is what I get every time.”
It made my three scoops of rocky road seem boring, but I wasn’t the one who was going to end up with a stomachache. Kevin’s eyes seemed bigger than his stomach too because he got something almost as ridiculous as Bryan: an oversized brownie sundae with more toppings than I could count. Jeremy seemed to be in the middle. He got a sundae, but it was closer to mine than Bryan’s.
Maybe I was boring.
We ended up squeezed around a table in the back. We laughed and hung out as we watched Bryan stuff ice cream into his mouth. “Slow down; your mother will kill me if you choke on a banana.”
I was serious, but evidently, Kevin thought it was hilarious. After several rounds of banana sex jokes—who knew there were so many?—Bryan was almost done and the rest of us were nearly green watching him finish off the dessert.
“Man, that’s just…” Jeremy couldn’t seem to find a way to adequately describe how gross it was, because he grimaced and glanced away only to frown.
He was looking over toward the door. Whatever he saw, it had to be even worse than Bryan’s ice cream because his expression got even darker. Turning around, I knew right away what caught his attention. The morons.