Laurell Hamilton - Affliction

‘I told you that Nathaniel and I came together with Anita at almost the same time. She knew Nathaniel before me, but they weren’t a couple.’

Nathaniel leaned into Micah, smiling. ‘I think if Micah hadn’t come along, Anita and I would never have been a couple.’

‘Why not?’ Bea asked.

He glanced past Micah at me. I just gave him raised eyebrows, because I had no idea what he was going to say. He smiled wider. ‘We work as a threesome. I’m not sure either of us would work with Anita as a regular couple.’

‘That’s it exactly,’ Bea said, and she sounded relieved. ‘Rush and I alone weren’t enough for each other, but with Ty’ – she shrugged and gazed up at him – ‘we were.’

‘And you were okay with that?’ Jerry asked.

Ty looked at him. ‘Bea and I were beginning to have problems, and I knew we loved each other, but something was missing.’ He turned back to look at Bea, and his face glowed, the picture of a man who was still dead-gone on his wife. ‘Rush helped us find that missing piece.’

Micah’s hand tensed in mine, and I glanced at him. He looked stricken, or shocked. I wanted to ask what was wrong but couldn’t in front of the parents. But Micah saved me the trouble, because he said it out loud. ‘I understand that.’ He turned and looked at Nathaniel, and whatever look was on his face made Nathaniel glow. I smiled at them both, my two men.

‘Oh, for the love of God,’ Jerry said.

We all looked at him. ‘What’s got your panties in a twist?’ I asked.

‘You guys are all looking at each other in the same damned way. It’s the way Dad … it’s, fuck.’

‘Jerry,’ Bea said, ‘we don’t use words like that.’

‘The kids aren’t here to hear me,’ Jerry said, arms crossed across his chest, as he slumped lower into the couch.

‘I think it’s great,’ Beth said. She was smiling at everybody.

‘I wanted at least one person in the family who I give a damn about to be pissed like me.’

‘You’ve got plenty of people in the family pissed, as you say,’ Bea said, and her face looked suddenly older, strained.

Jerry sat up and reached out, as if to reach past Ty and touch his mother, but he let his hand fall back. ‘I didn’t mean that, Mom; I would never be as stupid as all of them are being.’

Bea said, ‘You’ve met everybody from Rush’s and my family who are coming to the hospital now. His parents will come, but only if Ty isn’t there. They’ll tolerate me, but not him.’

‘What did Grandpa and Grandma get upset about now?’ Micah asked.

‘Until Rush got hurt, they could do a sort of “don’t ask, don’t tell” about our … domestic arrangement, but we couldn’t hide how upset we both were.’

‘Have they met Frost?’ Micah asked.

She nodded.

‘Then they didn’t want to know,’ he said.

‘Probably, but we also had to come back to this house to get Rush’s things … he lives here. He still owns the cabin, but he hasn’t really lived there for almost six years.’

I shifted beside him.

Bea said, ‘What is it, Anita? Talk to us, tell us what you think, please.’

I glanced at Micah, and he nodded, then shrugged. We were too far into places he hadn’t expected to be able to guide me, I think.

‘I think that if they didn’t know their son was living here for six years when they live in town – They live in town, right?’

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘Then they’ve been ignoring the elephant in the room for a long time. I don’t think knowing his address would have made them look at the truth.’

Ty, Bea, and Beth exchanged a look.

Jerry sat up straighter. ‘What happened?’

Ty answered, ‘Your grandfather saw me holding Rush’s hand and crying.’

Jerry frowned. ‘So?’

‘You did more than just hold his hand,’ Micah said, and there was no condemnation in his voice, no anger. It was actually the calmest he’d sounded in the last few hours.

Ty nodded and wouldn’t meet his eyes.

‘It’s okay,’ Micah said. ‘We understand.’

‘I don’t,’ Jerry said.

Beth said, ‘Just leave it, Jerry.’

‘No,’ he said, sitting on the very edge of the love seat and looking from his mom and Ty to Micah.

‘Ty,’ Micah said.

The other man looked at him.

Micah raised Nathaniel’s hand in his and laid a gentle kiss on the back of the other man’s hand.

Ty’s eyes were shiny with unshed tears as he nodded. ‘How did you know?’

‘Because it was either that, or you kissed him – kissed him, and Grandpa saw you.’

‘Have they disowned their son?’ I asked.

Bea shook her head. ‘No, they seem to think that Ty is the evil influence. If—’ She stopped herself, took a shaky breath, and said, ‘When Rush gets better I think they’ll either give him a chance to move out of the house or kick Ty out.’

‘He won’t do that,’ Beth said.

‘No, he won’t,’ her mother said.

Micah turned to Nathaniel and me. ‘My grandparents aren’t as crazy religious as Aunt Bertie, but they are very serious about certain things. They finally accepted me as a shapeshifter because I couldn’t do anything about it. It wasn’t a choice. If I had chosen to become a monster, they would have disowned me.’

‘Rush is their son,’ Bea said, ‘and he feels like he’s outside God’s grace now. He loves living here with all of us, but he still believes a lot of what he was raised to believe. It’s really hurt him to love us all here.’

‘It’s made him happier than I’ve ever seen him, Mom,’ Beth said. She got up and went to sit on the other side of her mother so that she and Ty each comforted Bea.

‘That’s true enough,’ Jerry said. ‘I’ve never seen Dad this happy.’

‘He wasn’t just keeping his home address at the cabin to get around his parents,’ Ty said. ‘It’s also because as sheriff he has to live in the town to serve.’

I nodded. ‘Yeah, if he lives in Boulder then he can’t be sheriff.’

‘No,’ Ty said.

‘He loves his job,’ Jerry said.

‘If the worst thing we have to worry about is that he has to change where he’s protecting and serving, we’ll be doing okay,’ I said.

Bea nodded. ‘You are so right, Anita, so right.’

‘Do the other kids know?’ Micah asked.

‘We had to sit down with Twain and explain why we all use the same room at night,’ Ty said.

‘He asked outright?’ Micah said.

They nodded.

‘You haven’t met him yet,’ Beth said. ‘He’s a very serious kid and he’ll ask anything if he wants to know. He’s like a walking social disaster.’

‘He was a serious kid even at four when I saw him last.’

‘Hawthorne knows we have one bedroom, but he won’t ask outright. He’ll just accept it and not ask any questions that he doesn’t want to know the answer to,’ Ty said.

‘Were you all a couple back when Hawthorne and Twain were little?’ Micah asked.

‘We’d started working on that by the time Twain was four,’ Ty said.

‘So, while I was still around?’

‘Yes,’ Ty said.

Micah looked at Jerry. ‘We both missed it.’

‘Yeah, but at least you’ve been gone for ten years. This was all happening under my nose.’

‘The divorce kept you pretty occupied, big brother,’ Beth said.

Micah’s hand tensed in mine. I think it was her calling him big brother . I wondered if that was a nickname she’d only used for him once? ‘I’m sorry that you and Kelsey didn’t work out.’

‘You never liked her,’ Jerry said.

‘I wouldn’t say never, but by the time you were in college, no. I didn’t like her.’

‘Why didn’t you like her?’ he asked.