“It was so strange to see them again,” Gideon says. Dolly’s now purring like a thunderstorm in the distance. “They’reexactlythe same, just with a few more gray hairs.”
“Iknow.”
“Like. Exactly the same.”
“Trust me, I’m aware.”
Gideon’s quiet for a moment, fingers buried in Dolly’s fluff.
“How are they doing, being back here? With you staying?”
I blow out a breath and pull my feet onto the couch, because even though I’ve been to hundreds of hours of family therapy with my parents, their feelings still tend to be a grand mystery.
“Okay, I think,” I say. “A lot’s changed in twenty years. Not enough—like, I don’t think they’d hold hands in the Kroger—but it’s getting better. And it’s not like I’m gonna get run out of town for being cis and straight, so, there’s that.”
Gideon sighs hisI worry about Reid sometimessigh, so I wriggle until I can get an arm over his shoulder and play with his hair.
“They were so… nice,” he says, after a long pause, like this is the thing he can’t get over. Like despite everything, he wasn’t expecting it.
“Youaredating their favorite daughter.”
“I’m dating their only daughter.”
“A completely irrelevant detail.”
“Also, isn’t the opposite supposed to be true?” he asks. Dolly’s now flopped over his lap, which puts her half in mine. I got the tail half, which is very twitchy, but if I touch it she’ll get mad.
“Would you rather they bring a shotgun along?”
Gideon snorts. “I’m not complaining,” he says.
“Most people prefer to have good relationships with their in-laws,” I tease him, fingers still drifting through his hair. Something occurs to me. “Wait, did your parents do that?”
“I wouldn’t know, I left home before Beth was old enough to date,” he says. “Besides, I think she only ever dated David.”
“Really?”
“They got married when she was nineteen.”
I make a noise somewhere between a snort and a questioning grunt, becausenineteen. When I was nineteen I was reduced to tears multiple times trying to decide on a major in college and briefly dated a man who always played the bongos after we had sex. Even at three in the morning. We didn’t date long.
Still, those are the choices I was making.
“They always did like you,” I tell Gideon, changing the subject back. “I think they’re glad you turned out well. They probably think it was their influence, actually, but that’s just how they are.”
Dolly stretches, and she’s now longer than both our laps. I swear this cat is six feet tall.
“They’re notwrong,” Gideon says, slowly. “You remember the time you stepped on glass in the creek and had to go to the emergency room?”
I twist until I can show him the long scar that’s still on the bottom of my foot. Dollymrrpsand gives me an irritated look.
“Of course. You got me back home.”
“I was terrified,” Gideon admits.
I must have known that, deep down—we were kids, there was lots of blood—but it’s not what I remember at all. “You didn’t seem like it,” I say.
“I thought your dad and Rick would befurious,” he says, drifting his fingers through Dolly’s long belly fur, something no one else is allowed to do. “If you’d been one of my siblings and I’d brought you home like that, I’d have—”
