Shit.My mind raced, trying to come up with what I might have done that causedthat tonein her voice. I’d gotten used to it in high school when I was constantly in trouble for forgetting to do assignments or for fighting because I didn’t deal well with being called a fucking fairy. But I wasn’t in high school and I didn’t think colleges operated that way.
Maybe William told Mom about us going to The Lodge?No, I doubted that would shock her in the slightest. She knew all about Chase, so she more than likely assumed we went to the club.
Did I have unpaid parking tickets?No, I always parked in my assigned lot at school and rarely drove anywhere that had paid parking.
Seeing as Chase was the only person I’d even looked at since the start of the year, and I was a gold-star gay boy who’d never even kissed a girl, it couldn’t be that someone had knocked on Mom’s door to let her know she was a grandma.
I was at a total fucking loss. She sounded far too chipper for gearing up to tell me someone had died or was dying. “Why don’t you take our stuff up to the bedroom and I’ll be up when I get done talking to Mom.”
“Okay.” Chase and I had a routine that worked for us, helping him shift from Chase, the college student, to Ash, my sweet boy. He slid a hand around to the back of my neck, pressing his forehead to mine. “Relax. I’m sure it’s nothing bad.”
“Oh, now you’re the one taking care of me?” I teased. It was an unexpected turn of events, and I was joking to cover up how strange it felt. I was the one who reassured him, not the other way around.
“We take care of one another,” he corrected me. He pulled my head down so he could press his lips to my forehead. “And, right now, I can tell you’re freaking out. Don’t build this up to be bigger than it is. She probably just wants to talk to you about spring break.”
There he went being logical. I stuffed my hands into the back pockets of his jeans, pulling his body against mine. Unlike his chaste kiss to my head, I licked my way into his mouth, conveying without words how much it meant that he cared enough to be my rock when I needed it. He broke the kiss, but not before both of us were left panting and hard.
“Go. I’m going to lay down for a few minutes.”
“I fucking love you. You know that, right?”
“Yeah, I do.” He gave me a playful shove before bending down to pick up our bags. He stopped halfway up the stairs and called out my name. “I love you, too. Make sure your mom knows I’ll help with the landscaping when we get back.”
Oh yeah, I had to tell her I was bailing for the week, too. Who knows, maybe she had psychic abilities she’d never told me about and her spidey senses told her we were only crashing at home until mid-morning tomorrow. I figured if I was driving him down, there was no point in leaving at the ass-crack of dawn.
“Hey, Mom, something smells good in here.” On the off-chance I was in trouble, I figured a little sucking up couldn’t hurt. Besides, it wasn’t a lie. She had a pan of sausages and peppers simmering in her homemade sauce on the stove. Homemade sauce said something was up. When it was just the three of us, she still made a home-cooked meal but nothing that she had to spend a fair amount of time on. “Should I be worried?”
“Why does everyone get nervous when I get a hair up my ass to actually cook?” she grumbled.
“Um, because we know you?” She swatted me when I got close enough to give her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “You’re a great cook, but you prefer to spend your time baking most of the time.”
“Fair enough, but maybe I wanted to do something special for Chase before he goes home to his family.” The look on my face must have adequately conveyed my disbelief. Besides, she knew he didn’t do tomato-based sauces. She’d scolded me for not telling her ahead of time the weekend she made lasagna for us and he’d spent the evening with an upset stomach because he’d been too polite to say anything. Proving my point, she dumped macaroni noodles into another pot, and I saw the ingredients for a homemade cheese sauce on the counter. I smirked and she busted up laughing. “Fine, you caught me. But I’m not just making the mac and cheese for him. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
Before she could explain, I heard footsteps that were much too quiet to be Chase plodding down the hall. “Miss Gen, when’s my Daddy going to be here?”
“Uh, do you have something to tell me, young lady?” I asked, looking down at the pint-sized cutie rubbing sleep from her eyes. “Oh shi—” Mom stopped me with an icy glare. “Are you seeing someone? Is that why the special dinner tonight?”
“No.” She scooped the little girl into your arms. “He got here when you were still sleeping, sweetheart. He and William are having a grown-up talk. If you can color a picture for my fridge while I talk to Jayden, I’ll take you to them in just a few minutes, okay?”
I was living in the Twilight Zone, that was all there was to it. There was a toddler I’d never seen whose father was talking to my uncle—unless ‘grown up talk’ was a euphemism for busting a nut while the kid slept—traipsing around the house like she was the queen of the castle and my mom didn’t see anything unusual about all this.
“Why is everyone so interested in my love life all of a sudden?” Mom grumbled as she stirred the pasta.
“Because you’re still young enough to have needs, Mom,” I pointed out, shuddering at the thought of Mom’sneeds.Still, she had ignored that side of herself for my sake, and I didn’t want her wasting the rest of her life alone. She deserved to go out and play the field a bit. “So, who’s the kid?”
“Your uncle’s boyfriend’s girl,” Mom said, still more focused on getting dinner ready than on me. It was her way. When she wasn’t sure how I’d react, she busied herself doing other things. The problem was, I couldn’t see why any of this should be an issue.
If William was seeing someone, I was happy for him. It was a sad state of affairs that the one commonality between the siblings was that they’d never had anyone significant in their lives. I wasn’t under any illusions that my uncle had lived as a monk, but I’d always felt like there was something missing in his life. He talked a good game, but he wasn’t really cut out to be the bachelor forever.
“I wanted to give you a heads up so you could make sure it wasn’t going to be an issue for Chase.” My heart warmed that she’d thought about how uncomfortable he tended to be until he warmed up to new people. But he was doing much better lately; he’d even been friendly when Mel had stopped by unexpectedly. “I love that this has become a place where he can be himself, but he may need to tone it down for tonight. You know your uncle wouldn’t have an issue with it, of course, but…”
Her gaze drifted toward the living room. Of course. No freaking out the small child by letting her see the grown man who liked being little. Ugh. I hated that I was going to have to break it to Chase, but it made sense. He wouldn’t be comfortable, and I doubted the kid’s dad would be happy about having to answer questions.
“I get it,” I reassured her. “Why don’t I go up and talk to him now. We’ll be down in a bit.”
“I really am sorry about this,” she called out as I left the room. I felt like a dick for being pissed about having outsiders in our sanctuary. The kid seemed sweet, but she was fucking with my plans.
Chase was dozing on the bed when I snuck into the bedroom. Funny, the first week or two, it had beenmyroom, despite the fact Mom had bought the place shortly before I moved out, but now it wasourbedroom. This space was as much Chase’s as mine. These four walls were our ultimate safe zone where nothing was off-limits. That feeling had never been truer than as I slid into the bed next to him.
