Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 96284 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96284 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
We walked in silence, and he gripped my hand as tightly as I gripped his.
No more hiding.
Maybe we should go home right away. I could change our flight. I could call my aunt and say we’d be there this spring instead. As much as I wouldn’t mind a fun dinner with my brothers and sister, Jake’s comfort came first. And my unc’s birthday wasn’t a big pre-planned hoopla. Greer and Ben weren’t coming up from Virginia. It was dinner, and we’d agreed to come because we knew we’d be on the East Coast anyway. We’d originally planned to just forward the hockey tickets. He would go with a buddy.
I bit my lip.
It probably wasn’t wise to book the next flight out either. Jake wouldn’t wanna sit in an airport right now, lounge access or not. No, I should take him out to some nice scenic point where he could look at the world through his camera for a moment.
We arrived at the car, and Jake didn’t get in once I’d unlocked it.
He stayed in front of it and removed his ball cap to run a hand through his hair. Then he opened the passenger’s side door and left his cap on the dash. The rain was picking up a little.
“Maybe God isn’t real,” he said. “She didn’t manage to pray the gay away.”
Hell.
I didn’t have an answer, so I spoke the words I felt my aunt would say. “This is where Aunt Elsie would go, actually, that’s solid proof of his existence ’cause he wouldn’t do a damn thing to someone who’s already perfect.”
He looked at me sharply, and his eyes welled up so fast that I knew the words had hit hard. How they were supposed to hit.
I walked over to him and cupped his face in my hands. “Tell me what you need from me, love. Anything.”
He shook his head and closed his eyes, and a tear rolled down and blended with the raindrops. “I’m just tryna wrap my head around how you can wanna change your kids. Why I couldn’t be enough—”
“Jake—baby, that’s on them—”
“I know.” He sniffled and broke away from me, and I stayed back. I watched him take a couple breaths and wipe at his cheeks. He looked around us a bit too, as if making sure we didn’t have an audience.
The area was dead. The playground in the center, backyards facing it on three sides, then the little row of five or six parking spaces, three of which were empty.
“Did you get your suspicions about your grandfather confirmed?” I asked carefully.
He cleared his throat and dipped his chin. “She didn’t outright say it, but yeah. He wanted a divorce and admitted he was into men, and Grandma punished him by taking the kids away. Ma said something—I can’t be sure, but it sounded like Grandma threatened to out him in their community—to their church and whatever.”
As I’d theorized, then.
Fucking hell, that was awful. So he’d eventually gone back. He’d suppressed his sexual identity, and he’d chosen his kids. And what parent wouldn’t have done the same? Jake and I sure would’ve, but thankfully we didn’t have to these days. Those backward times were fucking over.
Jake’s parents belonged in the past.
“At the risk of pissin’ you off, I don’t want Casper, Adam, and Callie to one day feel what I’m feelin’ right now,” he admitted.
I furrowed my brow, utterly confused. “I’m not plannin’ on turning into a bigot. Are you?”
He sniffled and scrubbed a hand over his mouth. “It’s not that. It’s…feeling like you’re not the kid your parents wanted. It hurts.”
I sobered and swallowed hard at the onslaught of fear and worries. Not new worries. More like, they shadowed me every fucking day.
“We gotta keep a close eye on things,” he said. “If Sandra can’t form a proper bond with the twins, she better fucking fake it like a pro.”
I wasn’t sure that was possible, but I’d thought in similar terms.
Either way, we would be ready.
“Between you, me, Nikki, and Haley, we’ll solve it like a family,” I said firmly. “But why would that piss me off? You said at the risk of pissing me off…”
He shrugged a little and nudged aside a pebble with his shoe. “I don’t know. I don’t wanna step on any toes, but I’m protective of those little shits too.”
I would’ve smiled like an idiot if I weren’t so worried about his well-being. I hated that he was suffering.
“They’re our kids, Jake. Always have been, in a way. They’ve been jumping between our laps since they could bounce on their diapered butts.”
He kept his focus on that little pebble on the ground, but I saw the faint smile that flitted past.
I wiped some raindrops from my forehead. I wanted to circle back to the whole shitshow we’d just left behind, at the same time as I reminded myself to pace shit according to what he wanted. He was processing. He was landing.