“Right?” she mumbles against my shoulder.
Finally, she takes a deep breath and looks up at me. “We’re still doing it,” she softly says, and not as a question.
I nod, glad we’re on the same page. “Yeah, we are.”
“Okay. Good. You’ll take point with Nolan?”
“I will.” I know how to soothe our guy’s skittish nerves. I think having Lucas living with us will make life easier, in some ways. Because Nolan’s ex, Jerilyn, will be less likely to give us a hassle about Nolan living with us.
Katie’s only six. That means twelve more fucking years of dealing with Jerilyn.
That bitch.
That’s the kindest thing I have to say about her, too. The only good thing about that woman, in my opinion, is that she had Katie, and Katie is Nolan’s world. He’s a fantastic dad.
But I hate that we were so close to achieving this perfection a long time ago, then lost Nolan for a couple of years because Jerilyn manipulated him. That we almost lost him to her for good.
Thankfully, he saw through her bullshit—finally—and divorced her.
Jerilyn never did like me. If she’d known the full extent of my relationship with Nolan—and Zoey’s—she would havereallyhated both of us.
Meanwhile, Katie’s our bonus daughter.
Zoey ducks out of the kitchen and back to our bedroom to put on some actual clothes before Lucas thinks to ask why she’s running around in a bathrobe. At least I grabbed a T-shirt for myself from our bedroom during one of my trips down to Lucas’ room with an armload of his things.
I’m still astounded at the new low Bill has sunk to. Just when I thought his douchebaggery had bottomed out, he grabs a shovel and starts digging.
Asshole.
Maybe now—not tonight, obviously—we’ll finally get answers to what the fuck happened two years ago.
First, we need to get through dinner, and then tomorrow morning.
If it was up to me, I’d drive over at Bill’s house right now with Nolan and empty everything Lucas has out of there. I can only hope Bill doesn’t change his mind before tomorrow and somehow works on Lucas to win him back.
I retrieve glasses from the cabinet and start loading them with ice. I don’t need to ask Nolan or Zoey what they want to drink—iced tea for both of them, while I’ll take water.
Another reason we need to talk to Lucas sooner rather than later. Little things like this factoid right here, knowing what we each like in a way that’s more intimate than just friends, will trip us up. Or it’ll only be a matter of time before he catches us kissing, or something.
“Lucas, what do you want to drink, buddy?” I call out.
“Water, please.”
I fill the fourth glass and carry his and mine out first. “Is Caine okay?” I finally think to ask. “Bill didn’t hurt him, did he?” I feel somewhat guilty I didn’t think to ask sooner.
In my mind, I also now refuse to refer to Bill as Lucas’ “dad.” No true father would throw his son out for being gay.
Lucas shakes his head. “No. He took off when Dad arrived and started screaming at us. He begged me to leave with him, but I thought maybe I could calm Dad down.”
Note to self—buy Caine an Amazon gift card or something for being stand-up.“Do you need to call him and check on him?”
“I can’t. Dad took my phone.”
Fuck. Well, that’s something else we’ll need to do tomorrow. It’s starting to look like our play weekend is completely shot to hell.
“You have everything backed up like I taught you?” Nolan asks him.
“Yeah. At least I have that. I didn’t lose any pictures or contacts or anything. And he doesn’t have my passwords for my online accounts. I logged out of everything before I gave him the phone back, and I changed the passcode on it.” He smiles. “He was too angry to even see I did that. He just grabbed it from me.”
