“The grand tour?” His sinful lips curl upward, and even with my mother bearing down on us, I want them on mine again. “So that’s what we’re calling it?”
“When you’re done, your father is waiting for you in the living room,” my mother calls. She doesn’t sound like she’s any closer than she was before. She must have decided to stop on the stairs, probably afraid of what she’d walk in on if she went any farther. “And if Kolby doesn’t mind, I could use a taste tester in the kitchen.”
“Sure thing, Mrs. Serrano,” he answers, barely managing to keep the laughter out of his voice.
Her footsteps fade as she goes back downstairs. When they’ve disappeared completely, Kolby can’t hold out any longer, and he collapses onto the bed in a fit of hysterical laughter.
I pick up one of my pillows and throw it at him. “You wouldn’t think it was so funny if she’d walked in on us.”
“She couldn’t have walked in on us,” he says between laughs, tossing the pillow back at me. “We were blocking the door.”
I sidestep the pillow, which lands behind me, and tuck my shirt back into my pants. I’m not even sure when or how it got untucked. At least I don’t have to worry about my hard-on anymore. The sound of my mother’s voice calling my name took care of that.
“Well, we’re not blocking the door now, so we should get back downstairs before she comes looking for us again. If you can manage to stop laughing like a deranged hyena.”
He does, and I show him to his room—the farthest one possible from mine, thanks, Mom—so he can drop off his bag. Then I take him to the kitchen, where my mom is peeling potatoes.
I feel a little guilty abandoning him there, but they’re not together two seconds before she’s got a peeler in his hand and they’re chatting like they’ve known each other for ages. Giggling like teenage girls about some embarrassing story my mother is telling him from my childhood. Probably the one about how I couldn’t say Grandpa, so I called my grandfather Bapa, a name that stuck until he passed away a few years ago. Or the time we went to Disneyworld, and I was in so much pain they thought I had appendicitis, but it turned out I was constipated because I didn’t want to use a strange bathroom.
I’m pretty sure my parents still hold a tiny grudge against me for ruining two full days of that vacation. Even though I was only seven.
More laughter follows me—my mom’s lighter, airy tones mixed with Kolby’s deeper, huskier ones—as I head to the living room. Like the first time I brought Kolby to the hockey house, it’s another reminder of how seamlessly he fits into my life. He has this way of putting people at ease and getting them to open up to him. Probably because he’s so open himself. What you see is what you get with Kolby. And the more I see, the more I like.
I find my father crouching in front of the fireplace, a box of matches in one hand and a wrought iron poker in the other, staring into the dying embers and muttering something that sounds like, “Stupid Boy Scouts make it look so easy.”
“Hey, Dad,” I say, kneeling down next to him.
“Adam.” He sets the matches down on the hearth and claps me on the shoulder. “Good to see you, son. Happy Thanksgiving.”
“It’s good to be home.” It is. I wish I could visit more often. Rhode Island isn’t that far from Vermont. But I’ve got practice and games to work around. And no car. Although hopefully that will change soon. “Mom said you needed help with the fire.”
He scoffs but hands me the matches. “I would have gotten it going eventually.”
“It’s okay, Dad. You were a great lawyer. You’re a great judge. And a great father. Plus, you make a mean whiskey sour. You can’t be good at everything. It would make the rest of us feel incompetent.”
He moves aside so I can get to work. I rearrange the logs to create a little more space between them and give the air room to circulate, adding some smaller ones as kindling. Then I crumple up some newspaper from a pile next to the hearth, stick it in and around the log pile, strike a match, and toss it in. The paper flares right up, and after a couple of minutes, the wood starts to burn, too.
“How about I mix us a couple of those whiskey sours?” my dad asks. “Or I have some of that Georges Deboeuf Beaujolais Nouveau your mother likes.”
Likes is an understatement. She makes him hunt it down every Thanksgiving. One year he had to go to ten liquor stores before he found it.
“Wine’s great, thanks.”
He gets up, brushes his hands off on his khakis, and goes to the coffee table, where there’s a tray with an open bottle and four glasses. He fills two and hands one to me.
It feels a little weird drinking with my dad. But it’s not like I’m planning on driving again today. Coach canceled practice for the holiday weekend, and Kolby asked for time off at the bookstore. We’re not planning on heading back to school until Sunday.
My father makes himself comfortable on the sofa and motions for me to join him. I check the fire one more time—it’s going good now, but I add a log just to be safe—and take a seat opposite him in one of the antique wingback chairs my mother bought and reupholstered during herFlea Market Flipphase. Only she never did master the flip part. Her upcycled creations are all over the house.
“You mother tells me you have a friend with you this weekend.”
Here we go again with the “friend” thing. Was I wrong to bring Kolby here? I don’t want to think so. My parents have always accepted me without any hesitation or reservations. Hell, they supported me through the whole mess with Chase, didn’t they?
But they never actually met Chase. Or any of my other short-lived significant others. Maybe it’s one thing to know your kid is bisexual, and another to have it rubbed in your face.
Still, I’ve come too far to turn back now. I take a deep breath and a sip of my wine. “He’s more than a friend, Dad. He’s my boyfriend.”
“Are you two serious?” he asks, eyeing me over the rim of his glass.
