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  My emotional pain from the last two years evaporates. “Oh, sweetie. What happened?”

  He shakes his head and sobs, holding me tighter. I glance over his shoulder at Arlo, who stands there now looking enraged and ready to kill. He loves Lucas. But after the last time my son threw us under the bus, Arlo swore he was done trying to protect him from Bill. Unless, of course, Bill started getting physically violent with Lucas.

  I can’t blame Arlo, either. I wasn’t the only one hurt when that happened, although Arlo is a master at being my rock and anchor and hiding his pain from me.

  He’s had a lot of experience hiding pain over the years, but I usually can see through him.

  “I’ll move his stuff inside,” Arlo says. “You get him into the house. Find out what happened.”

  Despite already being four inches taller than me, Lucas leans on me as I guide him inside. He’s near hysterics and too upset to talk as I settle him on the sofa, where he curls up on his side, his head in my lap, like he used to when he was little.

  My heart breaks for him. “What happened, sweetie?”

  He shakes his head.

  “Drugs?”

  He shakes his head even harder. No, my son isn’t stupid, that much is certain. “Bad grades?” I ask.

  He snorts. “No,” he softly says.

  Well, maybe he’s still in the AP program, then.

  “Do I have to play twenty questions with you on this?” I ask a couple of minutes later.

  He rolls over and buries his face against my stomach. “Mommy, can I please move back home?” he whispers.

  Hell. He hasn’t called me that in years. If I have a secret weak spot, it’s that.

  I stroke his hair while not daring to hope this time. Last time, my heart was shattered when he played us to get into his father’s good graces.

  Not the first time he’d manipulated us like that, either. Although that had been the worst time. Arlo’s right that, unfortunately, I can’t trust my son not to break my heart again.

  But he’s still my son. Unless he’s done something he needs to be in jail for, I’ll never turn him away.

  “Of course you can live here, sweetheart. I’d like to know what happened, though.”

  He sniffles. “Can I go use the bathroom first?”

  “Sure.”

  He gets up and disappears down the hall. Arlo walks through with another load. He realizes Lucas is gone and gives me an arched eyebrow. I shrug in return.

  “How many more bags?” I ask.

  “Three.”

  I walk outside to grab a bag, my head spinning. I know Lucas will eventually talk, when he’s ready.

  At least, I hope he will.

  Did he finally stand up to his father and call him out for his asshat behavior?

  Maybe he finally caught Bill cheating on Mary. Wouldn’t be a shocker there, considering the man never stayed faithful to me during our marriage.

  Then again, none of those would explain Bill’s cryptic comment about Lucas being a “freak.”

  Arlo walks outside as I make it to the front door. “The pot of water’s boiling,” he tells me.

  Shoot. “Oh, thanks.” I leave the bag of what feels like clothes inside by the entrance to the hallway and go dump linguini into the pot.

  Meanwhile, I stand there in the kitchen, eyes closed, and curse Bill. He couldn’t have waited until Monday to throw this little temper tantrum, I suppose.

  Our first damn weekend together in a month, and the first overnight we can have in weeks, and Bill has to pitch a fit and cock-block us.

  Figures.

  Worse, whatever this is impacts Lucas, and that makes me want to go kick Bill’s ass myself.

  I hear the front door open and close again as I stir the noodles. Then, a pair of arms encircles my waist and a man kisses the back of my neck.

  “Helloooo, sexy.”

  I jump. “Crap!” I turn and spot Nolan’s frown.

  “Not exactly the greeting I was expecting, babe.”

  “I’m sorry!” I gently push him back and whisper, “Lucas is here.”

  “What!” I shush him and he drops his voice. “What happened?”

  I shake my head. “I don’t know. Bill just dropped him off a few minutes ago, tossed bags of his things into the front yard, and screamed that he’s burning Lucas’ stuff if we don’t get the rest of it out of his house by tomorrow morning.”

  Nolan looks ready to kill. “Bill Motherfucking Webb strikes again.” Then his expression turns sad. “No nakey Twister this weekend, huh?” A playful smile creases his handsome features. He can always make me and Arlo smile.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Arlo rounds the corner and walks into the kitchen. “She tell you?” he softly asks.

  Nolan’s expression immediately turns angry again. “Yeah. You want to hold Bill down, or do I finally get the honors?”

  Arlo laughs and gives him a long, strong hug before they kiss hello. “I think we’ll have to flip a coin,” Arlo says.

  They break apart when we hear the bathroom door open down the hall.

  “You want me to go?” Nolan asks.

  I shake my head. “No! Absolutely not. We need you here more than ever tonight.”

  “What about—”

  “Dump your stuff in the guest room,” Arlo says. “Say they’re spraying your apartment for bugs.”

  “I’d like to spray Bill with pesticide. From the inside out.”

  Both men look ready to laugh when Lucas enters the kitchen. The men quickly school their expressions.

  Lucas notices Nolan. “Hey. Didn’t know you were here.”

  “Just arrived.” He clears his throat and glances at me. “They’re spraying my apartment this weekend. Zoey and Arlo offered to let me hang here with them.”

  “Cool.” Lucas leans against the counter and looks at the floor. He always has liked Nolan. He’s known Nolan as long as he’s known Lucas. Like a bonus dad to him, in many ways.

  I turn up the heat on the skillet, on the chicken and veggies, to finish them off. At least we’ll have enough for dinner for all of us.

  “You ready to talk?” I ask my son.

  Lucas takes a long time to build up the courage. I read it in his face, the way his jaw tenses and works. It surprises me when he looks at Nolan to deliver his announcement. “Dad can’t accept who I am.”

  My eyebrows arch. “Honey, would you care to be a little more specific?”

  The things Bill Webb cannot accept about other people covers a large enough swath of land it could be turned into a national park.

  His voice drops as his gaze lowers. “He walked in on me with someone this afternoon. Mary was still at work, and he came home from work early. I didn’t think he was going to be home until eight tonight.” He scratches at his right eyebrow, where a stainless ring pierces it. He got it a few months ago. I’m not happy about that, but I’ll never say anything about it, either. It’s not a battle worth fighting right now.

  “Your dad threw you out because he caught you with a girl?” I ask.

  Now I’m really confused. I could understand Bill possibly reading him the riot act out of parental responsibility. Especially if the girl is younger than Lucas. Even Bill isn’t that out of touch with common sense. Although, to be honest, I’d expect Bill to be an ass, probably grin and give him an attaboy.

  But to throw our son out and disown him?

  Especially when the sonofabitch can’t keep his own goddamned pants zipped?

  Really?

  Lucas takes a deep breath. He speaks so softly I almost don’t hear his next words. “He didn’t catch me with a girl.”

  Arlo, Nolan, and I all exchange a glance with each other. Lucas looks up, first to Arlo, then Nolan, then me. “He caught me with Caine.”

  I blink, stunned into silence. I need a moment to figure out the best thing to say in response.

  Laughing isn’t an option, even though I honestly feel like it. Lucas is upset and would mist
ake the reason behind it and not understand it is relief.

  “Let me get this straight,” I carefully start. “Your dad threw you out…because he found out you’re gay?”

  He nods as tears well in his eyes.

  I step forward and pull him into my arms as he starts sobbing. Both men instinctively step in, enveloping us in their embrace.

  “It’s okay, baby,” I whisper. “We love you. It’s okay. You’re safe. You’re finally home, where you belong, and we love you.”

  I close my eyes and fight my own tears as he sobs in my arms. Of all the bombshells Lucas could have dropped on us, being gay isn’t even in the same ballpark of what I consider “bad” news.

  Does it make me a shitty, petty person that inside I’m silently doing a touchdown dance? Because it likely means Bill will never again take my son from me.

  I know it makes me petty to wish I’d known this years ago, so I could’ve used it then to get Bill to disown Lucas.

  I’ll own that pettiness, except you need to understand how much heartache this boy has brought to me and Arlo because of his father manipulating him.

  Yet I still love Lucas, because he’s mine. We both nearly died when he was born, and I will absolutely give thanks to any powers that be if Bill Motherfucking Webb is finally out of our lives for good.

  Lucas cries for several minutes while we maintain our group hug. Eventually, he sniffles and steps back, the men also releasing us. Nolan hands Lucas a wad of paper towels, which he gratefully accepts.

  I don’t miss the look the men exchange. This will change our plans, and not just for the weekend, either. Exactly how remains to be seen. Regardless, I thank god I insisted Nolan spend the weekend anyway.

  While I’m open-minded and not the least bit upset by my son’s admission, I have no practical experience being a gay man. At least Nolan and Arlo can help guide him, even though Lucas doesn’t know that yet.

  I sigh. “Let’s sit down and eat. Then we can talk after dinner. Okay?”

  Lucas nods, looking for once like my little boy and not the almost-man he’s become. He opens a cabinet and starts pulling out plates without any prompting from us.

  The three of us exchange another shocked glance.

  Lucas setting the table without being asked?

  Wow, he really is upset.

  Chapter Two

  Arlo

  I love Lucas—I do. I won’t ever have any biological kids of my own since Zoey doesn’t want more kids. She had her tubes tied shortly after Lucas was born because she had a horrible pregnancy, a long, rough delivery that nearly killed Lucas, and it ended in an emergency C-section that nearly killed her.

  Lucas may be my step-son but that still makes him mine. My son, not “just” my step-son. I’ve always felt like that. I love him as if he’s my own flesh and blood. Hell, I’ve known him most of his life. He was just turning four when I first met Zoey, and we got married when he was five.

  I’ve been there for him through Cub Scouts, doing homework, taking him to Little League practice, making doctor runs, and wiping his face when he puked. Taught him how to ride a bike and how to fish.

  He’s my son.

  Yes, I’m still hurt and resentful Lucas put us, and especially Zoey, through the wringer the way he did two years ago when he decided to live full-time with Bill without any explanation.

  Bill lives only fifteen minutes from us, meaning Lucas was still in the same school district at either house. Normally, he alternated between our houses, spending a week with us and a week with his father. That was the joint custody arrangement agreed to during the divorce.

  Then the massive clusterfuck happened. It started with Lucas returning after spending a week with his father and tearfully beegging to live with us full-time. It’d been the culmination of several rough visits with his father, where Bill apparently spent a good deal of time yelling at Lucas every time the kid turned around. Apparently, if Bill wasn’t yelling at Lucas, he was yelling at the girlfriend who’d been living with Bill at the time, because Bill was going through a bad patch with her.

  I found out later from friends of mine who knew the woman that she’d caught Bill cheating on her.

  No shocker there, because Bill cheated on Zoey all throughout their relationship.

  We’d had a few instances of this in the past, Lucas wanting to live full-time with one of us—usually us—which could almost always be traced back to normal childhood acting out. Attempts to play one parent against the other. Frequently triggered after he did something at one house or the other to get himself in trouble, or grounded.

  Usually at Bill’s, because the guy’s a dick. We rarely had behavioral problems with Lucas.

  This time, however, it felt different. Lucas was adamant he wanted to live with us full-time and only visit his dad on the weekends. When Zoey asked Lucas if he wanted us to talk to our attorney about it, he said that he did.

  So we got an appointment with the guy, took Lucas in, and let him talk to the attorney. Then we gave the go-ahead for the man to draw up the revised custody papers and prepare the motion. But we also told Lucas we’d give it a few weeks before actually filing the motion, to see if he felt differently then.

  That wasn’t my idea—that was Zoey’s.

  If it’d been up to me, we would’ve filed immediately. Like I said, Zoey’s kind-hearted. I wanted to do it before Lucas changed his mind.

  Bill is a narcissistic asshole. There’s no way to put a finer point on it. I’ve seen the guy be a dick to Zoey and Lucas for no good reason other than he’s a miserable human being. He doesn’t try that shit with me, because I threatened to deck him the first time he got in my face. That happened during the first few weeks after Zoey and I started dating. I strongly believe he was trying to scare me away from Zoey, because he was still convinced he could somehow win her back.

  Like how he tried to woo her to stay for a candlelight dinner at his house when she arrived to pick up Lucas one Sunday evening. That happened a couple of weeks after we started dating. Funny thing was, Bill had barely said ten words to her in the preceding months.

  Of course she said no. Luckily, I was waiting out in the car. While Bill was standing there and applying copious layers of bullshit—because of course he didn’t have Lucas ready to go in a blatantly transparent effort to stall her—she quickly texted me, asking me to come in.

  I’m sure the timing of that stunt was not a coincidence. Especially in light of the fact that I took Zoey and Lucas fishing the weekend before, and Lucas had a great time. The weekend following Bill’s failed wooing session, when he arrived at Zoey’s to get Lucas, was when Bill tried to get shitty with me and I put him in his place.

  I know Bill hit Zoey once while they were married. That’s how she got the divorce in the first place. He was drunk and they had a fight, a pretty bad one, and he hit her. When it happened, she was brave enough to immediately grab Lucas and run to a friend’s house and get pictures. Then, leaving Lucas with another friend to babysit, the friend and her husband took Zoey home, the three of them confronted Bill, and they made him sign a statement admitting he hit Zoey and that he’d pay for her divorce attorney. Otherwise, they threatened to call the cops on him right then and there and have him hauled out in handcuffs for domestic violence.

  For once in his stupid life, Bill made a smart choice, because he knew damn well he’d get fired if he was arrested for that.

  Except as I said, Zoey’s too nice. She didn’t press for full custody back then, and she should have. Bill had never hit her before, although he’d apparently come close a few times. He was a wall-puncher and a dish-thrower, and had been throughout most of their relationship.

  Zoey confessed to me before we were married that she goaded him into the fight that night. She suspected that he would hit her if she pushed him far enough, and she knew that’d be the only way she could finally force herself to leave him. Several previous attempts to leave him ended with him coaxing her back by sweet-talking her an
d pretending he would change. And if that didn’t work, by crying and guilt-tripping her.

  But he’d never hit his child, was never physically abusive to Lucas, which was the only reason Zoey let Bill have joint custody. That, and she told me she felt guilty about how she’d finally gotten the divorce.

  I personally don’t think she has a damn thing to feel guilty over.

  But I digress.

  Back to two years ago, when we had our attorney ready to pull the trigger on our motion for full custody.

  Still don’t know what happened, exactly. But the next week, when Lucas returned from his visit to Bill’s, he said he’d changed his mind.

  Worse, he then asked to live with Bill full-time, and visit us on the weekends.

  I think it had something to do with Bill’s latest girlfriend moving out a couple of weeks before, so Bill had all that free time to focus on Lucas. During that point, when Bill was pretending to be super-dad, Lucas spilled the beans about the custody motion, and Bill worked on Lucas to change his mind.

  I mean, that’s my best guess how it played out, since Lucas won’t discuss it.

  Predictably, within a couple of weeks, Bill was already dating Mary, whom he ended up suckering into marrying him a short six weeks later.

  Yeeeaah.

  To say Lucas’ reversal devastated Zoey was an understatement. Only time in my life I’ve ever wanted to hit that kid. Because while she didn’t break down in front of Lucas, it was me and Nolan comforting her in private as she cried her eyes out and wondered what she’d done wrong.

  She’d thought she must be a horrible mother, no matter how Nolan and I tried to convince her otherwise.

  I’d love to know if Bill guilt-tripped the kid, since that was how he suckered Zoey into staying as long as she did. Lucas won’t own up to it, no matter how many times I’ve tried to coax him into telling me the truth about the incident. I don’t know why Lucas insists on protecting the sonofabitch, but maybe those days are finally over.

  Figures that bastard—Bill, not Lucas—could manage to screw up our weekend.

  Ever since Nolan and I talked the other day and started putting pencil to paper about our future plans, I’ve felt excited, eager to break the news to Zoey this weekend. One of the things Nolan and I wanted to do this weekend, when we took a break from wearing out Zoey and each other, was to sit down and go through our finances together and really start looking at numbers.