Fuck, if Blake wasn’t going to help, that meant it was up to me.
“My mom has a problem with gay people,” I said with a glance between Russell and Peyton. My heart was beating hard, but I kept talking. “And you all know, she has some serious flaws, but that doesn’t mean I don’t miss her.”
Everyone looked surprised. I didn’t really talk about what happened with my mom that often. It sucked, and talking about it hurt, and there wasn’t anything I could do change it, anyway. Like, how pathetic, if your own mother tossed you out? I didn’t want anyone considering what that meant about me more than they already had. But for some reason, it was the only thing I could think to offer.
“I just think it’s okay to be mad at someone and miss them at the same time,” I said.
Peyton grimaced, and I thought I had crossed some line, but then he spoke. “I’m still mad at your mom for kicking you out.”
“What happened?” Russell asked.
Peyton looked at his brother with surprise. “You never heard?”
“No one ever talked about it, so I never asked.”
“There’s not much of a story,” I said. “I got home from school one day, and she’d packed a few bags for me and told me she was done. She said I’d sassed her too many times, and that she’d found beer in my room, and that she was sick of me, but we both knew the truth. The guy she was dating didn’t want her to have a teenage son.” I looked to Russell, who held my gaze with wide, compassionate eyes, and realized I needed to share the whole truth. “She’d figured out I was bi a few weeks before, too, although she and I never talked about that.”
Blake grunted. “You didn’t even tell me and Peyton that part until a few years ago.”
I realized my eyes were watery and that I had barely even touched my food. I pushed the palms of my hands across my eyes, then shook my head quickly. “Long time ago,” I said.
“But it still hurts,” Russell said with a nod.
Beneath the table, I felt his hand land on my knee with a squeeze, and a second later, Blake’s heavy foot landed on top of mine and rubbed against my ankle. The charge of connection shot through all three of us and warmed me, helping some.
“Your dad was a good man, too,” I reminded Russell and Peyton. “He took me in when I didn’t have anywhere else to go, and he loved that town like almost no one else did. The bad stuff doesn’t make the good stuff not true.”
Peyton looked down at his plate. His eyes were sad behind his glasses, but he had a half-smile on his face, too. “He made a really good lasagna,” he said.
“Second-best lasagna I’ve ever had,” Russell said with a smile to me. “And you know, even though I’m sure he would have disapproved of me, I really believe he would have come around eventually.”
“Yeah?” Peyton asked, then laughed. “He wasn’t really known for changing his mind.”
“Sure, but he loved us. And even if he and I would have had a couple of rough years, once he saw me happy and married and raising my own kids, he’d learn to swallow his pride.”
“Raising your own kids, huh?” Peyton asked.
“He’ll be a great father,” Blake said confidently, then shoved more lasagna in his mouth.
Russell shrugged. “I’m not there yet, but sure.”
Peyton nodded and turned back to his plate. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Dad would get there.”
Blake and Russell shared a contented smile, and even though I forced myself to smile along with them, inside, I was still tearing myself apart.
Because that was the difference, right there in front of me. Blake came from about the happiest, healthiest family I could imagine. His parents were amazing, and I was sure that if he came to them and said he was going to be marrying Russell and raising kids, they wouldn’t even bat an eye.
Blake knew how to be normal. He knew how to be happy. Russell needed someone like that, but me? All I’d ever known was a father who abandoned me when I was too young to remember and a mother who made it painfully clear she didn’t love me.
Peyton was scheduled to leave the next day, and I knew that Russell and Blake would want to get right back to where we left things off. It was tempting as fuck, and the thought of denying myself that time with them felt like I’d be denying myself oxygen. I’d surely suffocate.
But I owed them the truth, and I owed it to myself, too, no matter how much it hurt. Once Peyton was gone, I’d sit my guys down and tell them I was done and that they should keep on without me.
And until then, I’d just try to sit here and enjoy the last little bit of the fantasy.
