“Yup,” he said. “Dad drinks and hoards, and bitches about the government, and Arturo recites the same racist and homophobic diatribes he’s been spewing for the last eighty years. Family reunions are a real love-in.”
“And… does your grandfather know you’re bisexual?”
“He’s been informed.” Ashley’s hands tightened on the wheel. Clearly it was a sore spot. “He didn’t speak to me from the time I was fifteen until I was about twenty-three, and I guess my dad showed him proof that I was a rock star. I think they saw me on TV or something. When I was a kid, he at least spoke in my general direction, even when I was bringing home girls he didn’t approve of. When my dad told him he’d caught me kissing one of my male friends in the back of his car, my granddad called me a ‘dirty little faggot,’ all the shit you’d expect from a bitter old man. Told my dad to kick me out. My dad didn’t kick me out, but Arturo stopped looking at me. Until I started making serious money and forking some of it over to my dad, I was a ghost in my granddad’s eyes.”
“I’m so sorry, Ashley.” What did you say to something like that? “You deserve so much better than that. But… I hope you know it’s not your fault he’s so filled with hate.”
He didn’t address that. But after a moment he said, “Ginny’s amazing. I just want you to know not everyone I’m related to is a fucking waste of air.”
“I don’t think that, Ashley.”
“They’re embarrassing.”
“So, why did you bring me to meet them?”
“Because… you took me to meet your family. I just thought you should meet mine.”
Because I want you to like me.
I could practically feel him thinking it, even when he didn’t say it.
Because I want you to know me and not run away.
Wasn’t that the same reason I’d brought him to meet my family?
He glanced at me. “Tell me the truth. Did it terrify you to the depths of your soul?”
“Hardly. I grew up with Daniella, remember? We shared a bedroom for years.”
“Ah. Right.” He smiled.
“I’m glad you brought me. Really. I’m honored you wanted me to meet your family, no matter who they are.”
“They’re not good people, Danica,” he told me in a low, serious voice. “At least, most of them aren’t. Not like Ginny is.”
“I’d love to meet her someday.”
He didn’t say anything else about that.
“Do you love him?” I asked him gently. “Your dad, I mean.” It was pretty clear he had no love for his grandfather.
“I don’t know,” he said. Then a moment later he added, “Sometimes.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Danica
We took the long, long way back to my place. Instead of heading straight there when we reached the city, Ashley drove us over the Second Narrows Bridge and meandered through North Vancouver. Then we made our way back over the Lions Gate Bridge and through downtown to my place.
Along the way, he told me stories about growing up, about his aunt Ginny and uncle Joe. About his early years playing in garage bands, and some of the ridiculous antics of being a teenage musician.
And I wondered what it would’ve been like to know him back then. If we would’ve gotten along this well when we were teenagers. If we always would’ve had this easy chemistry between us.
If I always would’ve liked him like this.
Yes. Hell, yes.
When I was fifteen, Ashley would’ve been eighteen and he would’ve set my world on fire.
