It gives me hope. I can easily see why Zoey thinks this time is for real.
“I know today’s not going to be easy on you,” I tell him. “Just lean on us.”
He snorts and releases me to reach for a coffee mug from the cabinet. “It’ll be easier on me than you think,” he says. “I knew he was going to be a jerk when he eventually found out I’m gay, but I didn’t think he’d react like that. Now I wish I’d told him that two years ago and got it over with then.”
Me, too, but I don’tsaythat. “The important thing is you have the three of us.” Another thought belatedly hits me. “Do Caine’s parents know about you guys?”
“No. Not yet. He hasn’t come out to them yet. They think we’re just good friends.”
“How do you think they’re going to react?”
“I don’t know. I think they’re going to be cool about it, but he’s not so sure.”
“Well, we won’t tell them. But if or when he decides to come out to them, if he wants us there, too, we’ll be happy to back him up.”
“Thanks.”
I pour both of us coffee. He adds sugar and milk to his while I take mine black. “I’m sorry you didn’t feel safe coming out to us before now,” I say.
And I do feel badly about that.
“It’s…” He cups both hands around the mug and holds it close to his mouth, obviously pondering his next words. “It’s not that we didn’t feel safe with you,” he finally says. “But Caine didn’t want to come out yet. I mean, I had a feeling you guys would be okay with it. Or, at least, not jerks about it. I was going to wait until after high school.”
“So if your dad disowned you, you’d be moved out anyway and at college?”
He nods. “Yeah,” he quietly says. “That.”
The kid has a wicked-high GPA and is likely going to land an academic scholarship.
He scratches at his right eyebrow and that’s when I realize what’s different—he’s removed the eyebrow piercing.
“Hey. What happened there?” I point at where it used to be.
He shrugs. “I got it mostly to aggravate Dad.”
I stare at him, at the sneaky smile that slightly curls his lips, andthat’swhen it hits me. “You were hoping he’d throw you out over it?”
He shrugs. “Maybe.” But his smile widens. “I knew you guys would be cool about it.”
I’m about to ask him more aboutthatwhen I hear our bedroom door open. Nolan and Zoey appear in the kitchen moments later, both of them yawning. Lucas hugs Zoey, then Nolan, and even grabs coffee mugs for them.
That’s a conversation that can wait, I suppose. Maybe tonight, once we’ve got the worst behind us.
* * * *
Zoey and Nolan handle cooking breakfast for us while Lucas returns to his room to work on putting away more stuff. Some things won’t have a permanent home until we get all his furniture moved. He did take the time last night to weed through the closet and dresser, the clothes he has here, and pull out any he doesn’t want anymore, or has outgrown since the last clothing culling. Those he stashed in two plastic bags near the front door. We can drop them at a charity collection box on our way to get the moving truck.
I stop by his room to check on his progress before I go get dressed and I see he’s still got several bags to empty.
“You doing okay, bud?” I ask.
“Yeah.” He points at the bags. “Those aren’t just clothes,” he says. “There’s some of my figures and collectibles wrapped in clothes. I’m waiting to unwrap them up until we get my shelves. I wasn’t sure if Dad would destroy them or not, so I hid them in my clothes.”
The lightbulb goes on. “Ah.” He’s got a couple of anime series he follows pretty avidly, and he collects figures from them. I spy his laptop sitting on his bed. “Glad you found that.”
“Me, too. Can Caine come help us move me? He asked me last night after you guys went to bed.”
I realize he means through chat on his computer. “That’s up to his parents, I suppose. I don’t have a problem with it. What do they know about yesterday?”
