“Forgive me if I sound petty and selfish, but I really just wanted to spend our first holiday as brothers with our normal circle.” Hearing my thoughts out loud made me sound very immature and self-absorbed. My family was chomping at the bit to meet Chase and I kept putting them off. It wasn’t that I wanted to live separate lives or anything dramatic like that. I just really wasn’t ready to share him yet, but I knew I had to stop it. I was hurting the feelings of people who meant the world to me. “I’m sorry for sounding like a spoiled brat who doesn’t want to share his favorite toy.”
Chase shoulder-bumped me and said, “I’d probably feel the exact same way. You’ve already been baptized in the fire of my crazy friends and family. If the situation was reversed I would be hesitant to pop the bubble of comfort I had developed while getting to know you.”
“Thanks for understanding.” There were times that my joy of having such a wonderful brother was overshadowed with regret that I hadn’t known him longer. I would get angry at Matthew Rivers and then get mad at myself for resenting a dead man. What good was served by anger and resentment? None.
Gray or Jack would come into the kitchen occasionally to steal a drink, snack, or a kiss while we finished preparing the food while the turkey roasted. “It looks like we’re feeding an army,” Chase joked once we were finished. “Do you think we got carried away?”
“Not at all. Some of us show people how we love them through our food.”
It wasn’t much longer before the other guests started trickling in, but baby Jacob stole the show. Chase practically knocked his best friend over to get to her baby. He made cooing noises and kissed Jacob’s little fingers and face for several minutes before he even acknowledged Ava or Brandon.
“Oh, hello.” Chase grinned impishly at them before he carried Jacob to the couch where he sat down next to Gray. “Say hi to Uncle Gray, little Jacob.” I watched as Gray wrapped his arm around Chase’s shoulders and pulled him and Jacob closer. The baby brought tiny fists to his mouth and began to suck on them. Chase looked up at Ava with accusing eyes. “Oh, I see. You brought him over hungry, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to feed him. It’s not like I can give him a teet. You just can’t wait to snatch him back from me.”
“Moron,” Ava replied affectionately. She reached into the diaper bag and pulled out a bottle and a small towel and walked them over to Chase. “It’s pumped breastmilk so you can feed him.”
“You can have diaper duty later too,” Brandon offered.
“We’re not afraid of stinky poop,” Gray replied. “We’ve babysat our niece plenty of times and I can tell you that infant poop is a walk in the park. Just wait until he’s eating solid food,” Gray said, referring to his brother and sister in-law’s toddler, Grace.
“We’re now talking about kid poop?” JJ asked when he walked through the front door, wearing a queasy expression on his handsome face. “It’s bad enough I have to listen to all you lovesick fools wax poetically about how great monogamy is and see enough suck-face to last me a lifetime.” JJ might be fooling a lot of people with his sarcastic anti-love diatribe, but it wasn’t working on me. His words were the same as usual, but his tone and body language were different; as if he were just going through the verbal motions, but without the feeling.
Gray glared at him and opened his mouth to say something snappy right back, but Miller came through the door and he shifted his focus to his best friend. “House rules,” Gray said firmly, waggling a finger back and forth between JJ and Miller. “No jizzing up our new house like you did our old one.”
Neither JJ nor Miller looked overly embarrassed and I wondered just how long they had been screwing each other, but I bet it was longer than anyone knew. I wasn’t at whatever party they got busted at so I couldn’t be sure, but I had witnessed their physical chemistry on more than one occasion. The first time had been when I went shopping for Gray and Chase’s wedding gift. The guys had registered at Nordstrom’s and I saw JJ and Miller there when I went to pick out their gift, though neither of them saw me.
I watched as JJ was comparing items on the registered gift list to some kitchen gadgets he was looking at. He was picking up items and looking at them, as if he had no idea what some of them did. His confusion was kind of cute and gave away that he didn’t spend any time in a kitchen, at all. I was about to help him out, but Miller arrived on the scene and he helped JJ with something I wasn’t interested in. It started with teasing and laughter, but quickly escalated in to something else pretty quickly. Miller helped JJ pick something out while grabbing a gift from himself, and then they were off. It was obvious from the pheromones floating around what they were leaving to do. I almost expected them to find the nearest bathroom for a quickie, but it was Nordstrom’s after all and not a bar.
The second encounter was at a nightclub downtown. I went with a group of friends to celebrate a birthday. It didn’t appear that JJ and Miller arrived together, but they sure as hell left together. I watched them tear up the dance floor together and was surprised by how in tune they looked. It was if they had been dancing together for a long time, but I was pretty sure they had only met when their best friends fell in love.
“Some people are so fucking touchy,” Miller said to JJ.
“We should wait until they’re in a food induced coma and jizz up every bathroom in the place.” He looked over to me and offered a sympathetic smile. “Welcome to the family, kid.” JJ stuck his tongue out at Gray and headed to the kitchen with the bottles of wine he brought. I wasn’t surprised when Miller followed behind him.
“Definitely don’t jizz up my kitchen,” Chase said firmly to their retreating backs. He looked over at Gray while baby Jacob went to town on his bottle. “Who do those idiots think they’re fooling anyway?”
Xavier, Ben, Ellie, and Bevan all arrived together a few minutes later. Ellie handed the dishes she had made to Xavier to put in the kitchen and Bevan helped her into a recliner. “I probably will need a crane to help get me out of this chair later.”
“Nonsense,” Bevan said quietly and dropped a kiss on her forehead. “You’re more beautiful today than you were yesterday.”
Ben stood behind his brother grinning like an idiot over Bevan’s newfound soft side. Love did that to people. I looked over at Jack and found him watching me with a soft smile. Jack had changed and blossomed so much once he pushed aside all of his fears and gave himself over to loving me. He held my hand and showed affection without regard to anyone else’s opinion. I would never tire of holding his hand or feeling his heat beside me as I snuggled into him while he wrapped his arm around my shoulders. I never forgot to send a thankful prayer to Big Jack for guiding Jack into living a life of truth and openness.
Gram and Lennie showed up last. “You’re never too old to make a grand entrance,” she said. Chase kept an iron grip on Jacob until Gram arrived, but he gladly handed the baby to her so she could fuss over him. “I want one of these soon from you two.” She gave Chase and Gray a pointed look before turning all of her attention to feeding the baby.
Chase, Xavier, and I left everyone in the large family room while we finished getting dinner ready. As much as I loved this large, boisterous crowd, I sometimes found them overwhelming. It was nice to have some quiet time with my brothers for a little bit. Soon, everything was ready and we gathered around to say grace and share the delicious meal. Part way through the meal, Chase said that he wanted to share something with us.
“Gray and I have been talking about starting a family for a little while now. We couldn’t decide if we wanted to try IVF with a surrogate or adopt a baby. We also had to figure out if we wanted to try to adopt an American baby or international, because it’s honestly easier to adopt internationally sometimes.” Chase became emotional suddenly and cleared his throat before continuing. “Well, it turns out that fate made the decision for us.” He closed his eyes and silent tears slid down his face.
“Pastor Simms contacted us last month about a young lady in her church who was looking for a couple to adopt her baby privately. She immediately thought of us,” Gray said. “Her name is Abigail and she’s a high school senior. She and her family discussed all of her options early on and she decided on adoption. She wants to do it privately, because she wants to make sure her baby gets placed with a family she approves and this was the only way.” Gray’s smile lit up the dining room and he nodded at Chase to finish the story.
“We had a private meeting with Abigail and her family soon after we received the call from Pastor Simms. We learned the day before Thanksgiving that we were the chosen couple to adopt her baby.” Total silence for a few seconds before everyone started talking at once. Chase and Gray laughed at our exuberant responses, but then both of them held up a hand so they could answer the questions being fired at them from all angles.
“Yes, we know the sex of the baby,” Gray said and then looked at his husband. “Should we tell them or make them wait?” There was a lot of whining and pleading going on, but Gray just let everyone fuss for a few minutes before saying, “It’s a girl.”
“We haven’t picked out a name yet,” Chase told us. “We are still so excited to be chosen, and a little scared.”
“Scared?” Gram asked.
“Yes, we were chosen as the adoptive parents, but there’s a chance that Abigail will change her mind once the baby is born.”
