“Are you curious about them?”
“Sometimes, but since there’s no way to find out who they are, I don’t dwell on it. No sense in wondering. I mean, they gave me up, so who cares?” He put a lid on his rising defensiveness. Benji wasn’t being nosey on purpose, only curious.
“You don’t keep in contact with your adoptive parents?”
Fuck, what’s the sudden interest in my family life?
“Well,” Van said with more irritation in his voice than necessary, “my douchebag father died a few years ago from a stroke, and I found out six months after the fact, so no. I don’t keep in touch with my mother.” She hadn’t been an affectionate woman to begin with, and he’d never regretted leaving home when he had. “I have one older brother who knows my number, and he keeps in contact with a third brother, but we don’t talk. Neither of us wants the reminder.”
Benji ducked his head. “I’m sorry.”
Joshua was frowning at Van hard enough to clue him into how sharp he’d been with Benji. Van reached across the table and squeezed Benji’s wrist. “No, I’m sorry. My parents are a sore subject. I know you’re used to loving, supportive parents, but mine simply were not. They adopted kids to work their farm and help raise the younger kids until they could get out into the fields and farm. It was a hard, dusty life where a leather belt dealt with mistakes, and you did go to bed without supper. I hated thatfucking farm, and I grew to resent both my parents by the time I finally walked away.”
Benji had raised his head during this quiet rant, and instead of sad, he looked . . . kind of angry. He twisted his wrist so they were palm to palm. “Then I’m glad you got away from them. That’s a horrible way to treat children, like indentured servants. How’d they get away with it?”
“It was a small town. Everyone looked the other way about everything, from drunk and disorderly to spousal abuse. And whoever was finding kids for them to adopt was probably making a little extra on the side.”
“That’s illegal,” Joshua said.
Van shrugged, and then leaned back in the booth. “Can’t change the past.”
“Ain’t that the truth?” The flicker of sadness in Joshua’s eyes made Van regret explaining himself as much as he had, but also glad he’d done it. Joshua had a similar background with unsupportive parents. As awful as it was, it bound them together.
“Lucky for us, Benji has amazing parents. You’ll love them,” Joshua continued.
All three of them went perfectly still as the enormity of Joshua’s statement settled over the table. Van’s Off Beat family wouldn’t bat an eye at such a nontraditional relationship, but until this moment, he hadn’t considered the fallout of introducing himself to Joshua or Benji’s parents. Hell, they weren’t even out to their friends in Fading Daze yet. Not everyone was going to understand it, much less accept it.
“Youwilllove them,” Benji said softly. “My mom’s ex-military so she can be a little intimidating, but my dad’s a teddy bear.”
“How do you think they’ll take you dating two guys at the same time?” Van asked.
“I think my dad will worry, because he’s always been the worrywart of the family. They knew about Joshua and me having an open relationship all these years, and I think once we explain that you were the part we were looking for this whole time—” Benji cut himself off, his face going cherry red.
Van sat a bit straighter. “Why does saying that embarrass you?”
“I don’t know, it sounds so melodramatic.”
“It’s not melodramatic if that’s how you feel.” He looked at Joshua, who was grinning at them both. “Is it how you feel?”
“Yeah, it is,” Joshua said. “We make sense together, the three of us, and fuck whoever doesn’t agree.”
Naturally, their waiter chose that moment to come over and ask if they needed drink refills. Young and as queer as a three dollar bill, the waiter refreshed Benji’s iced tea with a wistful smile, then went off to fetch a new Coke for Joshua.
“I have a question,” Van said. “Being the sort of odd-man out here, when are you going to tell your friends? Because Beatrice already knows.”
“She does?” Benji asked.
“We’ve known each other for five years. Bea is like a sister to me and she can sense my moods. I couldn’t lie about why I’ve been so happy at work recently.”
“No, I mean, it’s cool that she knows.” Benji glanced sideways at Joshua and poked at the remnants of his food with a fork. Apprehensive about something, and that made Van nervous too. “The thing is, the band is leaving again Saturday afternoon, and when I first got to town, I’d planned on stealing Joshua for a day or two and us going to see my parents in Philadelphia. It’s been a while since I’ve been home.”
He stopped there, and Van saw the dilemma in his unasked questions:Do you want to come? Would you rather not? How do you feel about us leaving for the last few days of my vacationtime?Van wasn’t going to be the petty, jealous guy who couldn’t let them out of his sight for a few days—especially when Benji would be on the road again soon. He’d have to get used to him not being around, which was a difficult thing to do after spending the past six days in each other’s back pockets.
“Then take Joshua and go see your family,” Van said. “Your plans don’t have to change because your circumstances have altered slightly.”
“Altered slightly?” Joshua parroted.
“You know what I mean.”
