“Boys,” Rachel said. “Why don’t you head outside and play?”
“They are fine. They need to hear this, too.” Evelyn stuck her nosey nose right where it didn’t belong. “They’re old enough to understand that their uncle Travis and their mother are anitem.”
“Like Dad and Dakota?” Brady asked.
Well, without the whole door slamming and the throwing of the ring.
“Both of you, go outside and play.” Rachel grabbed the bowls from the table and went to rinse them in the sink.
“C’mon boys, this is a grown-up talk.” Gavin gave Rachel a look with a subtle head bob. He had her back on this.
She wasn’t quite sure how to feel about that. Mostly good. Unexpected. But good.
Thankfully, both boys seemed to get the vibe in the room and headed outside. The soles of her feet itched to follow them. Instead, she went back to cleaning the dishes.
“I care about her,” Travis announced. “A lot.”
Rachel stopped rinsing Brady’s bowl, seemed to stop functioning altogether. She glanced up at Travis. He was staring at her intently.
He cared about her, and he wasn’t afraid to say it in front of everyone.
She gulped. The water poured over her hands, over the now-empty bowl, to swirl down the drain.
“I’m not entirely sure how she feels about me, but I want to make it clear that I care deeply for her.” Travis continued his announcement like it wasn’t a big deal.
It was, in fact, a big deal.
Huge, even.
“No.” Evelyn’s word was curt, to the point. “This is unacceptable.”
“Mama,” Gavin said, setting his bowl aside. “Let’s hear them out.”
Rachel turned to look at Gavin,and his warm brown eyes rested on her. They weren’t angry. She wasn’t quite sure what they were, but they weren’t upset.
“If they want to talk about it,” he continued.
Rachel didn’t. She didn’t want to talk about it with Evelyn, etc.
Not until she talked about it with Travis. They should’ve formed a plan when he’d suggested it. Then things wouldn’t have gone wildly off script.
“What will the boys call you now, Travis?” Evelyn was all piss and vinegar and southern sour. “Unca-Daddy? Unca-Step?”
“Mama.” Gavin set his bowl aside and stepped forward. “This is uncalled for.”
“What is uncalled for is your brother and your Rachel—”
“She’s not my Rachel.” Gavin stared down Evelyn in a way that Rachel had never seen before. Stared her down and stood right up to her.
“I’m no one’s Rachel,” Rachel said. “I’mmyRachel. I’m the mother of Brady and Kellan. And Travis and I are a couple, and we’re figuring things out, and we were waiting to announce it because we knew this, this right here, is what would happen. You’d lose your mind. It’d drip into the boys’ lives, and people would get hurt.”
“Mom,” Brady squealed from outside. He ran straight to the door of the kitchen that led to the back patio. “Kellan’s sick.”
Rachel quickly dried her hands and hurried toward the door.
“He threw up all over,” Brady went on. “It’s like a peach ate gummy bear ice cream and it exploded everywhere.” He made dramatic hand motions to illustrate the point.
Wonderful. Ridiculous Evelyn and her toaster tarts, and ridiculous Gavin and his breakup drama, and her ridiculous clients with their demands—
