Cutting ties with his father hadn’t been some miracle cure for Caleb, a fact he’d acknowledged himself. The urge to cut still hit him when he got stressed, though he hadn’t acted on it. And he still needed Eli’s and my reassurance on a daily basis that we weren’tgoing anywhere. He’d started seeing a therapist, though he’d asked Eli if it would be okay if he saw someone different from the woman Eli saw. Caleb knew there would be a day where he’d want to tell Eli the truth about the level of Jack’s obsession with him and the subsequent jealousy Caleb had felt as a result, but he wanted his relationship with Eli to be stronger before he tackled that particular issue. Seeing a different therapist gave Caleb a sense of being able to open up about everything without having to worry that the therapist would judge him out of deference to Eli.
Caleb’s relationship with his stepmother had greatly improved and he often took Willa over there for visits. Mariana had given us both a crash course on the basics of caring for an infant and whenever we did have a burning question about something, we called her or any of the half-dozen people in our immediate circle of friends who knew their way around the ins and outs of babies. Caleb and I were still searching for a place of our own, but we weren’t in any real rush. The proximity to Mav and Eli meant we had help with Willa and it gave Eli and Caleb a chance to reconnect.
Caleb had also started making some decisions about his life beyond therapy. He’d already begun the process of getting his GED with the hopes that he could go back to college to study computers. He was particularly interested in web design. It wasn’t something he’d ever given a lot of thought to as a career, but one afternoon when he’d been visiting Aleks at the flower shop with Willa, he’d helped the woman who owned the shop fix a problem with her webpage. She’d gone on to ask him if he could redesign it, and while he considered the changes he’d done mediocre – a sentiment not shared by the grateful shop owner or Aleks – it had stirred an interest in him to learn more about the business of designing websites. It fed both his creative side and his intellectual side.
As Eli’s brother Tristan began playing a small piano, the wedding guests got settled into the pews as the minister took his place at the front of the aisle. Dozens and dozens of strings of white lights strung across the ceiling lit up the dim interior of the church. When Tristan switched to the typical wedding march song, everyone shifted in their seats to watch the procession.
I felt my heart expand at the sight of Caleb walking next to Brennan. My man looked amazing in his tuxedo, but I also couldn’t wait to get him out of it tonight when we got home. Caleb flashed me a smile as he passed, then he put his fingers out. I was sitting along the aisle, so I lifted my fingers to trail along his and I felt the familiar jolt of electricity that went through my arm and straight to my balls. But along with it came the rightness of it all. I knew this would be us someday – we’d have a big wedding like this one so that all the people who’d accepted us so willingly into their family could celebrate with us. But the honeymoon? I already knew what we’d do for that. I’d just have to see if Dalton would lend me his boat again.
Up next down the aisle were several little girls in dresses throwing flowers all over the place. After that came Eli. He was flanked by his father, Dom, and his mother. I automatically scanned the crowd to see where Willa was and was pleased to see that Aleks had her. He was standing near the doorway leading to the back rooms. He was pointing Caleb out to Willa and Caleb sent the little girl a discreet wave. I had no doubt our daughter recognized him.
Warmth spread through my chest and I instantly thought of Maggie. Moments like these were always bittersweet for me – I knew in my heart that it was best for Willa to see me and Caleb as her parents and that it was what Maggie would have wanted, but I would’ve gladly played the role of doting uncle for the rest of my life if I’d had any kind of say in it.
Mav came next down the aisle. His best men accompanied him. Following closely behind the men were the ring bearers.
To say they stole the show was an understatement.
Jamie, the youngest of the three boys, was holding one of Matty’s hands. In his other hand was the Spiderman doll. In Matty’s free hand was a pillow with one of the rings tied to it. Right behind Matty was his best friend, Leo. Even if I hadn’t remembered him as Matty’s bestie, he was hard to forget because he was still wearing the Spiderman pajamas. I had no clue what the significance of the outfit was, but I couldn’t help but notice how relieved little Leo’s fathers, who were sitting on the opposite side of the aisle from me, looked as they watched their boy make his way down the aisle,pillow with the second ring on it in one hand, Baby’s leash in the other.
Once the boys reached the front, they handed the pillows to the best men closest to them, then went and found their seats in the front row. Mav and Eli couldn’t take their eyes off one another throughout the entire ceremony and both cried at different points as they spoke their vows to one another. I felt myself choking up by the end, and when the two men were pronounced as husbands and kissed, I joined the rest of the guests as they got to their feet and cheered. It took a good thirty minutes for the church to empty as the guests made their way to the hotel ballroom Dom and his husband, Logan, had rented for the occasion. I was feeling pretty restless by the time Caleb made his way to me, but when I saw that he had Willa with him, I was able to relax.
It should have been frightening to think that being away from them both even for a couple of hours had been as stressful as it was, but I wasn’t going to make excuses for it. Willa and Caleb had literally become my entire world in a matter of weeks, and nothing and no one was going to change that.
“Hey,” Caleb said as he leaned in to kiss me. “Look what I found,” he said as he gave Willa a little tickle. The baby made the familiar gurgling sound she always made when she was happy. One of Eli’s female relatives had surprised us with a beautiful white dress she’d made for the baby – something we’d both been grateful for, since we hadn’t even considered that the little girl should be dressed up for the occasion.
“They took her from me as soon as I walked in and wouldn’t give her back,” I whined. Caleb laughed and handed her to me. “Here you go, Papa,” he said.
I held Willa in one arm and wrapped the other around Caleb as we headed toward our car.
“It was a beautiful ceremony, wasn’t it?” he asked.
“It was,” I agreed. “Got me thinking about some stuff,” I admitted.
“Oh yeah?” Caleb asked, his eyes twinkling. “I might have been thinking about some stuff too.”
“Hmm, interesting.”
“What do you say we compare notes tonight?” Caleb suggested.
“I say H-E-double-hockey-sticks yeah,” I responded.
Caleb laughed. “What do you say we do it in a suite at the hotel?”
I stopped and looked at him. He seemed suddenly nervous. “I, um, asked Mariana if she might want to babysit Willa tonight at Mav and Eli’s house, since they’re staying at the hotel tonight too. She said yes.”
Before I could respond, he rushed on. “I, um, think I’m ready to, um, you know…”
I did know.
And it was something I really wanted, but was more than willing to wait for. Caleb and I had experimented some more with me using my finger on him, but that had been the extent of it. Even whenever he begged me to fuck him in the throes of passion, I held back because I wasn’t about to take our first time together for granted. And when Caleb was ready, he would need to tell me. I’d told him as much.
And now he was tellingmeas much.
“What do you think?” Caleb asked.
“I think we need to google what the minimum amount of time is that you have to attend a wedding reception for before you can sneak away.”
Caleb smiled wide and said, “You drive, I’ll google.”
