I laughed. “Nolen cooks for me.”
Their silence had me realizing I’d just told them Nolen existed, and I’d also sort of told them I was seeing someone.
Daddio got closer to the camera, looking pointedly around my bedroom. “Who’s thisNolen? Can he cook ribs? Never mind, I’ll teach him.”
That had me sobbing with relief, but my dads horrified faces told me they didn’t think this was happy tears.
“What did this guy do?” Dad demanded. “Where are you? We’ll come get you.”
I shook my head. “These are happy tears. I promise.”
“Oh,” they said in unison.
“Nolen is my boyfriend. He helped me out with everything as I healed. You two will love him.”
“If you love him, we’ll love him,” Dad assured me.
“I don’t know,” Daddio said. “I never did learn if he can cook ribs.”
“I’m sure I can manage,” Nolen’s playful tone had both my dads speechless. Hell, I was, too.
Beckoning him closer, I held my phone out so both my dads could see him.
“Hi,” Nolen waved at my still speechless dads.
“Wow,” Daddio finally muttered. “You went from dating pretty girls to hunks.”
I laughed. Nolen might have lost a lot of his body mass, but the magic truly had helped him gain a lot of it back, and with his height I knew he was taller than both my dads.
“Hello, Nolen,” Dad greeted, using his accountant/no nonsense voice. I snorted at that. But I secretly loved that he tried to intimidate Nolen. It meant they cared.
“Where’s Derek?” I asked Nolen, wanting him here, too.
“He’s in the living room.”
“You have a son?” Daddio asked Nolen, more out of interest than shock it seemed.
“Um,” Nolen said, looking pointedly at me.
“Let’s go into the living room so they can meet him,” I announced, taking my dads with me. They were silent as I moved, likely trying to see my surroundings as I moved about the house.
Derek sat on the couch and watched the same movie we’d watched earlier. I sat next to him, still out of frame as I said, “Dads, meet Derek.” Then I moved closer to Derek and made sure we were both in frame.
Silence.
Derek did a cute wave thing. “Um, hi.”
Their eyes went from me to Derek and back again. “They lied to us?” Dad whispered in disbelief. “They said your twin died.”
“I wasn’t even told I had a twin,” Derek informed them. “My childhood trauma had me forgetting everything, so it wasn’t until I met Aiden that I knew either.”
It was a lie we had to tell them, but it was still close to the truth.
“How on earth did you find him?” Daddio asked, still looking between us like he couldn’t believe his eyes.
“Nolen and Derek are boyfriends,” I started. “And once we met, we just fit together, the three of us.”
“This is probably going to sound wrong, but as your dad I need to know,” Dad began. “This isn’t some kink thing, right? You aren’t just there for…fun?”
