- PIP -
ONE YEAR AGO …
“Serial killer alert,” I whispered into my phone.
The deep chuckle that came from Gage both soothed and annoyed me. I could’ve been in a life or death situation here, and he was laughing at me. Granted, the chances of my date being an actual serial killer were minimal, but I felt safer locking myself in the bathroom of the restaurant. You know, to be sure.
“Did he try to skin you with his butter knife?” Gage asked, trying to hide his amusement.
“He may as well have. I know your dads have come all the way from the States to visit you, but please, please, please come rescue me?”
“Uh … okay. Wait, why can’t you call Reece?”
“She’s about to give birth—I’m not going to make her get out of bed.”
Gage hesitated.
“I’m not asking to meet your dads.” For some reason, he was adamant about keeping his US life and his Australian life separate, which meant no meeting the men who raised him. I wasn’t happy about it, but it wasn’t like I had the right to demand things. Gage and I were just friends. He refused to let anyone in, and I gave up trying after the first few years. He was always there for me, and he knew everything there was to know about me, but it was a one-way street. I’d accepted that was the way it was with him.
“I’m not accusing you of trying to,” Gage said, his voice quiet. “But getting out of here without them wanting to tag along is impossible.”
“Maybe I should put my big girl panties on and go tell Ted Bundy I’m not getting in his car.”
“I’ll be there in ten,” Gage relented. “Usual first-date restaurant?”
“You know me so well.”
This wasn’t the first time he’d rescued me from a horrible date, and I was sure it wouldn’t be the last.
We disconnected the call, and I took a deep breath. Then, like the coward I was, I waited about eight of those ten minutes so I didn’t have to face my date.
Mr. Creepy McCreeperson was waiting outside the ladies’ toilet when I exited, though. I jumped out of my skin—all the better for him to collect it and hang it in his trophy room.
“I was beginning to get worried.” His nasally voice sent ice to my chest. It didn’t match his neat blond hair, well-dressed but skinny body, and charming smile. “Thought you might’ve bailed on me.”
“Uh, umm …” God, why can I tell my friends exactly what I’m thinking when I’m thinking it, but with strangers, I’m worried I’ll offend them? I shouldn’t have cared what this guy thought of me. It was one date. From TDate, for crying out loud. It was the newest and latest dating app to advertise your loserdom. “Sorry, I’m not feeling well. You do not want to go in there.” I waved my hand in front of my nose. Apparently, I was okay with letting this guy believe I had stomach issues but not okay with saying Hey, sorry, this isn’t going to work.
“Let me come home with you. I’ll bring you dry crackers and keep you hydrated.”
Huh?
“No, that’s okay. I called my brother, and he’s coming to get me.” Because I wouldn’t let you anywhere near my home, you psycho.
There’d always been issues dating with a male best friend. It was common for me to tell dates Gage was my brother. I had a lot of complaints about how overbearing and protective he was of me. A lot of the time when they found out he wasn’t my brother, they ran for the hills because of Gage’s army physique that he never let go. His badass muscles and wide shoulders intimidated the hell out of people.
“It’s no trouble,” the creep said and stepped closer.
“No, thank you,” I choked out as I stumbled back. My back hit the wall, and my heart pounded against my ribcage.
With my back pinned, it was the first time tonight I actually felt scared. Yeah, I called him a serial killer and joked about him trying to skin me alive, but I didn’t think he’d corner me. Now I wondered if I’d understated him to Gage.
His eyes hardened, and he boxed me in—one arm going to my waist and the other resting on the wall above my head. “Then when can I see you again?”
“Umm …”
“Never,” a voice I knew well said from the direction of the dining area.
“Tim, this is my brother,” I said. “The one I was telling you about.”
My date let go of me faster than if I had said I have leprosy. “B-brother? You’re her brother?”
Gage flexed his muscles as he crossed his arms over his chest. His domineering frame blocked the exit. “Yup. You weren’t about to lay a hand on her, were you?”
“N-n-no.”
Guess I can add Tim to the list of guys I’ll never see again thanks to Gage.
“It’s fine,” I said. “Let’s get me home. Nice to meet you, Tim.”
Gage took my arm and led me out of the restaurant. “You could’ve let me have more fun with him. He looked like he was about to piss himself.”
“I wanted out of there. He was way too intense and sent up some red flags.”
Gage stopped walking and grabbed my hand. “You okay?”
I shook off the shiver of unease. “I’m fine. He was just too creepy for me.”
“Want me to go back in there and kick his ass?”
I laughed. “All good, Captain America. Stand down.”
With a small nod, he ran a hand through his short, dark hair. “So, listen. My dads are in the car.”
“Oh. You want me to catch a cab or something to Friday night pub night? Being out of the restaurant now, I’ll be fine to—”
“No. I … I want you to meet them.”
“Only took six years, but are you finally giving me a piece of your past?” I mock gasped.
“Revel in it, woman, because it’ll be the last time if you keep that up.” Without another word, he took off, leaving me to scramble after him, which was hard in heels. I looked like Bambi trying to learn how to walk on a good day; forget about trying to move fast.
Two men, one short and blond and the other the spitting image of a slimmer Gage, stood by his car. His dark hair was peppered with grey, but his dark eyes were the same, along with the insane bone structure of his jaw.
“Dad, Odie, this is Pip,” Gage said.
“The infamous Pip.” The blond’s face lit up as he stepped closer and hugged me. “You can call me Joel.”
“Joel?” I asked. “I thought your name was Odie.”
The three of them laughed.
Gage leant in. “Odie. O-D. Stands for Other Dad.”
“Aww, that’s cute.”
Gage glared at me.
“Joel insisted Pop or Papa made him sound old,” the other man said. “I’m Sean.” He kissed my cheek.
Both men had thick American accents.
“Good to finally meet you. The boy doesn’t shut up about you,” Sean said.
I wish I could say the same.
“And now introductions are over, we’re going to drop Pip off at pub night and then go get the dinner I promised,” Gage said.
“Can we come to pub night?” Joel asked. “We hear about it every week, but you’re going to deny us meeting your friends and drinking Australian beer?”
Gage gritted his teeth, and his jaw hardened.
“If you wanted to go to dinner instead, I never ate,” I said. “I could do dinner.”
Gage didn’t even want me to meet his dads, so I guessed he didn’t want the rest of our friends to meet them.
“Does this pub of yours sell dinner?” Sean asked.
“Fine,” Gage snapped. “Just get in the car.”
***
GAGE
This was a bad idea.
There was a reason I kept my old life and my new life here separate. It worked. And while I loved my dads to death, this wasn’t about them and me; it was about mixing two things I said I never would. They belonged to my old world, and having them here brought up too much emotional shit for me to handle. Which sucked, because spending time with them—physical time in the real world and not on Skype—made me happier than I’d been in the last six years I lived here.
Not that I wasn’t happy here. I was. But not letting people in was harder than I expected. Pip was the single most important person in my life, but she knew shit all about my past. She knew the vague facts, but she didn’t know the repercussions still haunted me today.
Upon exiting the car to go in and get Pip back at the restaurant, I’d told my parents to behave. They laughed it off, which made me think I was in for a world of torture.
We arrived early to pub night, so we had time to eat before the others would show up. On the way in, Pip pulled me aside. “It shouldn’t be all of them tonight. Cole and Paige have Cody this weekend, and Reece and Spence are waiting for the baby to pop. So it’ll only be Hunter, Sara, Blair, and Garrett.”
She was trying to reassure me, but that was four people too many for my tastes.
I couldn’t argue it would’ve been good for Garrett to meet my dads. He came out three months ago after struggling with it for years. Out of all of Pip’s friends, Garrett was the one I was closest to other than her. We worked with him at Parsons’, and he and I bonded when he got wasted one night a few years ago and we’d talked about him and Blair. This was before anyone else knew there was a him and Blair. Telling him the story of my dads sealed our friendship, but he, too, knew shit all about my prior life.
“It’ll be fine,” I lied. It was going to be weird, but I could handle it. I’d handled a lot worse than my parents having dinner with my friends—my liberal-thinking friends at that. It was most likely going to be a cakewalk, but that didn’t ease the anxiety of two worlds colliding.
“So, he tells us you’re the one who makes sure he eats properly,” Dad said.
Pip blushed as she took her seat next to me in our usual booth. “I do feed him a lot.”
She really did. There were many nights I’d crash at her place in her spare bedroom.
“It’s good he found someone who can cook. God knows, he’s terrible at it.” Odie sniggered.
“Hey, I’m MasterChef material compared to the shit they served me in the army,” I argued.
“No, son,” Dad said, “you think sub-standard food is acceptable after being served slop for four years.”
“He’s getting better,” Pip cut in. “I’m showing him a few things.”
“Inside the kitchen or out?” Odie asked.
“Odie!”
He laughed and threw up his hands. “Okay, touchy subject. We just figured when we got here you’d introduce Pip as your girlfriend, not have us picking her up from a terrible date. The way you talk about her—”
“We’re just friends.” Didn’t matter the words were bitter coming out of my mouth. I made a promise six years ago, and I’d stuck to it this long. Meeting my dads wasn’t going to change it. Pip and I worked as friends.
Yeah, keep telling yourself. Maybe you’ll believe it one day.
My conscience liked to remind me that a lot of my lonely nights in my studio apartment were spent jerking off to the thought of being with Pip.
“God, if we had a dollar for every time we’ve had to say we’re just friends over the years,” Pip said.
“We could buy out America’s debt,” I said. “I mean, we wouldn’t, because fuck that, but we’d be able to.”
Pip grinned. “I’d buy trained chimpanzees, put them in monkey suits—pun totally intended—and have them do things like housekeeping and butlering of my giant mansion.”
“Butlering isn’t a word,” I pointed out.
“Neither are housekeeping chimpanzees, but with that much money, anything is possible. We could buy the word butlering and put it in the dictionary. Ooh, better yet, we could buy the dictionary.”
“Pretty sure you can afford to buy a dictionary now,” I said.
“No, not a dictionary. The dictionary. We could add whatever words we want.”
“And Australia can finally adapt to proper spelling where they use Z for S. Like reali-Z-e. It’s not pronounced reali-sss-e. The S shouldn’t be there,” I said. “You don’t spell pizza, P-I-S-S-A.”
“It’d be a lot more fun if we did. Yo, order me some pissa. But you have to realise you’re in Australia now, Yank. Have been for six years, and you still spell everything without the U. Like in honour.”
“Well, it’s not pronounced hon-our.”
“Fine,” Pip relented. “We will make up our own dictionary with our own spellings of things.”
I rubbed my chin in thought. “I dunno. That sounds like a lot of work.”
“It’s all right, the uniformed chimpanzees can do it.”
When our gazes met my parents’, the joking around stopped. Dad’s and Odie’s mouths were dropped open.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Dad said and shook off whatever trance he was in. “What are we going to eat?”
When Dad went to put our order in at the food counter, Pip excused herself and went to the bathroom, leaving me alone with Odie.
“What?” I asked. Out of he and Dad, Odie was the one who’d tell me what they were thinking. Dad kept everything inside, and it didn’t take a genius to know where I got it from.
“She … and you …” Odie started. “We haven’t seen you this happy in a long time, kid. We’re sorry we don’t get out here as much as possible, but—”
“You can’t afford it. You could always ask Tony for the money.”
“We’re not asking my husband’s ex-wife’s brother for money. I don’t care how loaded and nice the guy is.”
“Okay, but you know I can’t go back—”
“We understand why you don’t want to come back. We’ll try to get out here as often as possible, but we’re not going to ask for a handout.”
“I’d like it if you were closer. You and Dad should move here.”
“We’ve discussed it, but it’s not viable. And you know your dad; he refuses to leave that place again.”
“God, why?”
“I don’t expect you to understand.”
“You’re right. I don’t.”
Even though my dads tried to convince me as a kid that Dad loved my mum, as I grew older, it became obvious that his and Mum’s relationship happened because Dad ran away from the small-minded assholes who lived in Clarion, Virginia. Mum was backpacking her way across the States, apparently careless and wild. She met Dad, they had a whirlwind courtship where he followed her across the country, and by the time she brought him home to Australia two months later, she was already pregnant. Thirteen months after they had a quickie wedding here in Australia, she was out buying me formula and never came home. She was T-boned by someone who ran a red light. After that, Dad moved me back to the States and got back together with Odie. He refused to leave again because he didn’t want to give in to the bigotry, but I didn’t understand why they’d remain there after what that town did to me.
Odie and I stared each other down until Pip came back.
“Whoa. What did I miss?” she asked, picking up on our vibe.
“I’m trying to get my parents to move out here,” I said. “But they’re stubborn.”
Dad arrived at the table with four beers. “It’s Fosters.”
That made Pip and I laugh about our first-ever interaction. I placed my hand on her arm. “Don’t worry. I’ll educate them.” I never grew the courage to tell her I thought Fosters tasted better than the beer she bought me that night.
My dads grilled Pip in a way they would if she was a girlfriend, and I had to remind myself that kicking them under the table would be immature. I settled for a permanent scowl instead.
So much more adult-like.
The thing was, Pip handled it like a champ. Which only made me want her more.
Dammit.
When the other four of our friends turned up, I sat so still everyone probably thought I was auditioning to be a street performer who pretended to be a statue.
Garrett gravitated towards my dads like a moth to a flame, and it wasn’t long before they were all laughing at my expense. Garrett informed them of fuckups in the office, and they, in turn, told everyone my fuckups as a small child. I was thankful they stayed away from the teen years. They were off limits.
“I’m shouting everyone beers,” Hunter said at one point. “What’ll we have?”
When Dad said he’d have another Fosters, the whole group of Aussies gasped.
“Here we go,” I grumbled. Pip tried to hide her smile.
“Oh, please tell me he did not just say that,” Hunter said.
“I thought we could be friends, man,” Garrett said.
My dads laughed them off.
“Why don’t you try real beer?” Hunter taunted.
“You think you know real beer, youngin’?” Dad said.
“Guys, please,” I said.
“Oh, it’s on, old man,” Hunter said and stalked towards the bar.
“He did not just call me old,” Dad said.
“This should be fun,” Odie added.
And somehow, that was how my parents ended up in a drinking competition with bloody Australians.
I excused myself to take a piss at one point, and with the way the night was going, I knew I was going to have to put up with a long talk from my parents about Pip. It was obvious they loved her and, like everyone else, were confused as to why we weren’t together. What I didn’t expect was to have that conversation at the urinal.
“Hi there, son,” Dad said as they entered the restroom.
They both attacked from a side each.
“Whatcha doin’?” Odie asked.
“If you’re here to check if I pee straight, don’t worry, you toilet trained me real good-like when I was two. Still being awesome at it. Look, no spillage and everything.”
“Cute,” Odie quipped.
“Out with it, boy,” Dad said.
“Out with what?” I feigned innocence and tucked myself away and did up my fly.
“Why are you fucking it up with Pip?” Dad asked.
I cocked my head at Odie. “We’re going to let him do this here?”
“Your dad’s idea. I’ve already said my piece.”
I turned to Dad. “And what’s your piece?”
“You can’t keep running away from having relationships, Gage. Running away doesn’t solve anything. Trust that coming from me.”
“I’m not running away.”
Odie coughed in between saying “Bullshit.”
Dad grabbed my shoulder and squeezed. “You have a great life here, great friends; don’t mess it up by staying closed off. None of them know what happened, do they?”
“Fuck no.”
Dad sighed. “Don’t be an idiot and realise too late what you’ve got. Pip’s a sweet girl, and someone will marry her one day. We want to make sure it’s you.”
“Never going to happen, guys, so get over it. I have. We work as friends. I don’t want more than that.”
Again, Odie coughed and spluttered “Bullshit.” The asshole.
***
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Pip stumbled as I walked her to the door of her townhouse.
“You Aussies trying to drink my dads under the table? No, not at all,” I said. Now I had two very drunk parents in the back of my car.
I gripped her forearm to stop her from falling. “You’re not going to go in there, pass out, and hit your head or anything, are you?”
“My big, strong protector,” she said sarcastically. “You know what I don’t get?” Now she was being defensive. “Your dads are great. Honestly? I’ve thought you had issues with being raised by a same-sex couple or—”
“Nothing like that. It’s just …”
“Personal. Right.” She scowled.
“Pip.” I took her into my arms and wrapped her petite body in mine, and her head rested against my chest. “You know I love you, right?”
She pulled back. “W-what?”
“I’m only telling you this because I hope you don’t remember it in the morning with how drunk you are. You’re the most important person in my life, but I … I can’t …”
“Why?”
Ignoring her question, I tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. Her breath caught, and when my eyes flicked to hers, we had one of those moments that I’d had countless of times with her in the past. She stared at me as if she wanted to devour me. Her gaze dropped to my mouth and back to my eyes. She wanted me to give her any indication that this was what I wanted. And God knew it was. I always broke first, tearing my eyes away from her, but with how drunk she was, and the fact I was holding her up, I decided to be selfish.
For the first time in six years, I took what I shouldn’t have. I stole a kiss I had no right to take. My mouth met hers softly, and I immediately hated myself for it. That didn’t stop the moan that escaped me when she gasped. It did stop me from taking it any further.
A small, chaste kiss. That was all I allowed myself, and I knew even that was too much. I was over everyone trying to push us together, because they weren’t telling me anything I didn’t know. Pip and I would be great together, but what everyone else didn’t understand was I didn’t have it in me to take that step. With anyone. Unless I was willing to deal with my shit, it would be unfair to Pip to start something.
“Go inside, darlin’. Sleep it off. You won’t remember this tomorrow anyway.”