“Are we late for dinner yet?” Dad asked when he let Dev go.
“Not yet. Well, you are, but you know Mom.” They grinned at each other. Living in the household with creative people had taught her early how to juggle schedules to feed everyone at the same time whenever possible.
Angel came in after Dad, looking awkward, yet still somehow defiant.
“Hi,” Dev said in a neutral tone.
“Hey.”
Dad looked between them and sighed. Then brushed it off—for now, Dev guessed—and asked Dev, “So, where’s your company?”
“Oh, they’ve been roped into setting the table, and Leaf helped Mom with dinner,” Dev said, ignoring Angel, who scowled.
“Great!” Dad, always the hyperactive optimist, said and followed Dev into the kitchen.
“Seth, Leaf?” he called, and his lovers came from the dining room, Seth with a bunch of unfolded napkins in his hand.
His dad traveled a lot, met a lot of people on daily basis, so meeting Seth and Leaf seemed easy for them all. They exchanged platitudes and sized one another up, and in the end, everything seemed peaceful and it seemed they all liked one another.
“Go wash up, boys,” Mom said then, looking at all four of them. “Dinner is in five minutes.”
Angel had gone somewhere already, probably to wash up and change his graphic T-shirt into something less… well, colorful.
Dev, Seth, and Leaf went to their assigned room to change too. All of them chose jeans and button-down shirts. It was too formal, almost, for a family dinner, but they all knew it was quietly expected this once, so they played along gladly.
“Damn, you do clean up nicely, Mr. DeWitt,” Dev purred at Leaf when he came from the bathroom, having fixed his hair and made sure he had enough buttons open to not feel like he was being strangled, but few enough to hide his chest hair.
The fact that Dev had started to read them both delighted him to no end. Knowing that Leaf hated anything constricting around his neck, but that Seth didn’t care at all with how he had to dress at work were one thing. The fact that he knew the hole in the back pocket of Leaf’s jeans was from keeping his car keys in it was a whole other intimate detail. He felt like he belonged with them, that he was part of them, knowing these things.
“You don’t look half-bad yourself,” Leaf murmured as he leaned in to kiss Dev.
Seth came to them, and they carefully kissed one another for a while—beard burn right before family dinner when all three of them had a healthy stubble going on, no thank you—and then went back downstairs.
They all took seats, and once they had sat down, Angel slunk into the room like an alley cat. He took his place opposite of Dev and moved his chair so not to sit too close to Leaf on the same side.
Mom, at their end of the table, noticed. She glared at Angel, put down the bottle of wine she had been pouring from, and cleared her throat. “All right, I think it’s time to talk about the mammoth in the room. I can’t eat before this stupidity is settled,” she said, looking around the table at each man individually.
“All right,” Dad said, straightened in his chair and looked at her.
“This situation between you four is plain ridiculous,” she started, then looked at Angel. “Their relationship is not and never has been and neverwillbe about you, Angel.”
Angel was smart enough not to open his mouth, but he looked positively mulish.
“The fact that you don’t like these three being in a relationship together is your problem, Angel, not theirs. Certainly not your dad’s or mine.”
“But—” And there it was, Angel opening his goddamned mouth.
Dev dropped his gaze to his empty plate and sighed.
“No buts. I understand that you lost your mentor, but whose fault is that? I understand whatever went on in that office was probably unprofessional, but it’s not like I haven’t visited your father at work in his office over the years,” Mom said, beaming at their dad.
Both boys groaned out loud, and Seth and Leaf tried to hold in laughter.
“She’s right. Whatever consenting adults do in their relationship is about them. From what I gather, there are no rules against dating a relative of a student at the college, right, Seth?” Dad asked, looking relaxed and calm, which was… great. Dev hadn’t seen his dad angry more than a handful of times in his life, and he preferred it that way.
“Right,” Seth answered. “None of us three deny we messed up. But it had nothing to do with Angel.”
Angel was about to speak, but Mom reached to place her hand on his arm.
