Roll With the Punches Read online

  Chapter Twenty

  After making it to the bathroom, Jeff headed to the kitchen where the girls stood waiting on him. Then he’d taken his meds, wincing as he swallowed a pill or capsule at a time. All while Emma and Grace silently watched, wrapped in towels and both red-faced and looking guilty. Medicine now taken, Jeff leaned against the kitchen counter, feeling weak and shaky.

  At some point, sooner rather than later, he’d have to call Brandon and tell him about this.

  Neither girl had spoken yet—a first, if there ever was one.

  He finally broke the silence. “Anything you’d like to tell me, Em?”

  Her face reddened even more. “Not really,” she muttered.

  “If I’d caught you out there doing the same thing with a boy, we’d be having this exact same conversation, so you might as well talk. I’m not the enemy here.”

  He wasn’t so out of it that he didn’t know what he’d seen.

  Two kids making out, hot and heavy, Grace well on her way to sliding into home, so to speak, at the rate they’d been going.

  “Are you going to tell my parents?” Grace asked.

  “That’s Brandon’s call, but I kind of think we have to, don’t you?” He had a thought. “Unless you think your parents are going to give you a hassle for being gay?”

  “I’m not gay,” Grace said.

  He arched an eyebrow at her. “I’m not stupid.”

  “I’m bi, but I identify as queer.” Grace tipped her head toward Em. “She’s gay.”

  Emma remained unusually quiet.

  Save me from genius-level teens. “That still leaves the unanswered question—of all people, why didn’t you feel you could tell us? I get not telling Tracey and Pat. But the three of us are gay. Openly gay. Not just gay, but we’re openly polyamorous. You should have known we wouldn’t have a problem with you two dating. Considering you’re both extremely smart kids, you can’t claim ignorance as an excuse. Why didn’t you tell us before now? Were you that worried about your mom?”

  He left out listing the men’s other dynamic, because the girls didn’t need to know anything about that beyond what they already did.

  He also felt more than a little hurt, personally, that they hadn’t felt they could confide in them.

  The girls exchanged a guilty look…and everything suddenly fell into place.

  “Oh.” He crossed his arms over his chest and tried not to let anger seep in. “This isn’t because of your mom, or because of us. This is because you knew we wouldn’t let you guys sleep in the same bedroom like you have been, much less spend all that unsupervised alone time together.”

  Grace finally nodded while Em studied her own feet.

  But a few odd, stray things that he’d never thought much about before finally fell into completely new contexts. Comments Em or Grace had made, or unusual reactions to things the men had said in the past that now made total sense. Things like comments about dating boys.

  “Exactly how long have you two been an item?”

  Another guilty look exchanged. “Over a year,” Emma finally mumbled, not looking at him.

  Jeff fully recognized that there was a societal double-standard. Two unrelated boys spending as much intimate time together as they had would instantly be labeled gay, regardless of whether or not they were.

  Two girls?

  Besties, natch. Nary a second thought given, much less suspicions about their sexuality.

  Jeff himself was proof of that. The fact that it honestly had not crossed his mind to think the girls were romantically involved with each other made him feel like an utter idiot.

  Jeff finally had to sit down. The room was starting to spin a little in an uncomfortable way he could no longer ignore. He pulled out one of the barstools at the breakfast counter and perched on it, heavily leaning against the counter for support.

  “Okay. So here’s what we’re going to do. You two are going to go shower and get dressed. Separately, thank you very much. Grace, you can use the bathroom at the far end of the hall. Once you’re done, you can sit in the living room and watch TV or something. Maybe that horse has long left the barn, but until your father gives us a ruling to the contrary, I’m erring on the side of caution. While you do that, I’m going to call him—”

  “Why?” Now Emma was looking at him. “Why do we have to tell him anything? If we promise not to do it again—”

  He laughed. “Okay, honey? I might seem old to you, and I am more than old enough to be your father, but I was a teenaged boy. I was fooling around with girls back then, so let’s end that conversation right there. I have to hand this off to your father. If you were a little older, I’d sit you down for a talk and then look the other way. But you’re only sixteen. He might decide this is okay, but I cannot make that decision for him, no matter how much I love you. Stu and I promised we’d never be like Pat. That means we defer to your father. His word is law in this house.”

  She finally nodded. “Okay.”

  “Do you think we’re in trouble?” Grace asked him.

  “Trouble? That I can’t answer. I think he’s going to be as hurt as I am that you didn’t tell us the truth sooner, and that you’ve been lying to us and sneaking around behind our backs. Breaking our trust like that is pretty hurtful.”

  That silenced them for a moment.

  Emma spoke first. “Hurt?”

  “Uh, yeah. Hurt. My feelings are hurt. I thought you understood you could come to us about anything. Instead, you played an end game to sneak around behind our backs. I’d be genuinely shocked if Brandon and Stuart don’t feel at least a little hurt, too, when they find out.”

  Her gaze dropped again. “We weren’t trying to hurt your feelings.” Grace draped her arm around Emma, and another piece of the puzzle suddenly fitted itself into place.

  In their relationship, Grace was in charge.

  “Look, I get it. You’re kids. Smart kids, but you’re still kids. Which is the whole point to having rules and boundaries. You might think you’re grown up, but so did we when we were your age.”

  “I don’t understand the big deal,” Em muttered. “Not like we can get pregnant with each other.”

  “That’s not the point, and you damn well know it, or you wouldn’t have lied to us all this time.” He hoped he was even making sense, because he was feeling crappier by the minute. “The point is you lied to us to skirt around rules you don’t even know if your father will put into place or not. In this case, an omission is absolutely a lie. You broke our trust in you both. There’s no gay ‘get out of trouble free’ card for this situation just because one of you isn’t in possession of a cisgendered heterosexual penis.”

  He realized what he’d said as soon as he saw Grace desperately trying not to laugh.

  “It’s…fine. It’s okay to laugh. I know I’m loopy on meds right now.”

  “What if it’s a gay fake penis?” Grace snarked.

  He rolled his eyes, able to chuckle despite how crappy he felt and the situation in general. He sat up and waved them in for hugs. “Go get showered and changed while I call your father.”

  “Are you going to tell my parents?” Grace asked again after they’d both hugged him and stepped away.

  “That’s up to Brandon, but if it’s up to me, yes. Unless or until he specifically tells me I can make those kinds of decisions, I default everything to him.”

  Once he’d heard them retreat to their own bathrooms, he headed to the master bedroom and closed the door to make the call.

  Brandon answered on the second ring. “Hey, buddy. How you feeling?”

  “We need to talk, Brandon. It’s important.”

  “Is everything okay?”

  “It’s about Emma and Grace. Before you freak out, they’re safe, it’s not anything like that. But we need to talk. Now.”

  “Okay. Hold on, let me get back to my office.” While he traveled to different stores, his main office was located at one there in Sarasota, where Jeff knew he was today. />
  Brandon pulled the phone away from his ear and Jeff heard him excuse himself. It sounded like he was walking—jogging, actually—and a moment later Jeff heard a door close and other ambient sounds disappear on Brandon’s end.

  “What’s going on?” Brandon asked, in full-on Dom tone now.

  Jeff gave Brandon the quick run-down and…waited.

  “Shit,” he muttered. “Really?”

  “Yes, Master. I’m sorry to bother you at work about this, but—”

  “No, you made the right decision.” He let out a heavy-sounding sigh. “I thought I could trust them to always be honest with us. At least about big stuff.”

  “Any orders?”

  “I’ll be home in about thirty minutes. Have you taken your meds today like you’re supposed to?”

  Brandon had changed gears so quickly Jeff had to think for a moment. “Uh, yes, Master. What?”

  “You sound like hell.”

  “I feel like hell. I need to drag my pillow out there and curl up on the couch to chaperone them, I suppose.”

  “No, it’s okay if you’re feeling bad. Go back to bed.”

  “I’d actually prefer to chaperone them until you get home.”

  “They were really…” Brandon seemed at an uncharacteristic loss for words. “There was no mistaking what they were doing, huh?”

  “I’m not that delirious, Bran. They thought I was asleep and were out by the pool. Grace was definitely rounding third base and heading home.”

  “Okay, okay. I believe you. I don’t need sock puppets.”

  Finally, something that shook his unflappable Dom’s composure.

  Although Jeff couldn’t blame him. He wished there was eye bleach he could use to wipe the image from his mind. The one constant most children and parents universally shared was a desire to never see the other in a sexual situation.

  “And can I please sit through your conversation with them?” Jeff asked.

  “Sure, but why?”

  “Because I told them they hurt my feelings. And they did. I know we agreed to always defer to you, but…” He sighed. “They’re my kids, too. I love them. I want to be a parent to them. Well, to Em. Grace is like a bonus kid we don’t have to pay for.”

  Another long moment passed before Brandon spoke. When he did, his voice sounded choked with emotion. “Do you know how much I fucking love you right now, boy?”

  “What’d I say?”

  “Just…you’re perfect. Yes, of course you can be part of the conversation. It affects you, too.”

  “What about Stu?”

  Another sad sigh from Brandon. “Yeah. I don’t know if he’ll be able to come home, but I’ll call him while I’m heading that way to let him know, at least.”

  When Jeff got off the phone, he grabbed his pillow, then a second one from the bed, and headed out to the couch, part of a large and comfy sectional unit. The girls would still have another section of the couch and two comfy chairs to occupy, even with him stretched out.

  He grabbed the TV remote and curled up on the couch, closing his eyes for a moment. He startled awake to the feel of Brandon’s lips kissing his forehead, his Dom kneeling in front of him, a worried look on his face.

  He’d never even heard him come in.

  “Holy shit,” Jeff muttered, looking around. “I didn’t realize I fell asleep.”

  Grace and Em sat next to each other on the smaller sofa section.

  They were dressed, their hair damp, and they looked guilty.

  “Are you okay?” Brandon asked him.

  “Yes, Mas—I mean, yeah, I’m fine. Sir.” He mentally swore and didn’t miss the slight quirk at the edges of Brandon’s lips.

  Instead of sitting at the far end of the couch Jeff occupied, or in one of the chairs, Brandon sat right there on the floor next to Jeff and reached up to lace fingers with him with his right hand.

  For a long, quiet, uncomfortable moment, Brandon stared at the girls, who finally started staring at their hands.

  Jeff had to hand it to him, Brandon had mastered the art of discomforting quiet as an effective tool.

  But could the girls ever repair what they’d efficiently razed to the ground?

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Brandon wasn’t sure if he wanted to kill the girls—metaphorically, of course—or give them a pass and let their guilt eat at them.

  Jeff had made an excellent point on the phone. They had slaughtered Brandon’s trust in them with this lie.

  Series of lies.

  Not just slaughtered his trust in them, but shaken to the very bedrock foundation his trust in himself as a father.

  What else didn’t he know? He’d thought he was pretty good at keeping tabs on his daughter. Had she been lying to him about other things?

  Okay, this can’t be allowed to go unchallenged, at the very least.

  He leaned against the couch and motioned to them with his left hand. “Start talking.”

  They exchanged a guilty glance.

  “We’re sorry, Dad,” Em quietly said.

  “Not good enough.”

  “Really sorry,” Grace softly added.

  He slowly shook his head. “How are we ever supposed to trust you after this? That’s the sad thing, here. I’m not upset at you two for being gay and dating. I’m not even upset at you two getting caught fooling around, because you’re teenagers. Duh. I’m upset that until less than an hour ago, I would have sworn to anyone that I could trust the two of you not to lie to us, and here I find out you’ve been telling us a lot of lies. For how long now?”

  Em’s face reddened. “Over a year, sir,” she softly said.

  Lowercase S, of course.

  “Over…a…year.” He let the silence hang between them for a long, uncomfortable moment. “A year. What else have you lied about?”

  Em shook her head. “Just…about us.”

  “Are you drinking?”

  Both girls shook their heads.

  “Drugs?”

  “No,” they said.

  “Smoking?”

  “No, Dad.” Emma brushed tears from her eyes. “We…we weren’t telling anyone about us and it was easier to not update you.”

  “Because then you could fool around behind our backs.”

  Finally, they both nodded.

  “Have there been times you told me you were somewhere and you weren’t?”

  “No,” Em quietly said, her breath hitching. “We knew if we came here and we were alone that we’d have privacy. I never lied about where we were.”

  “Just about what you were doing.”

  She gave him a little nod.

  He let another long, guilty silence enfold them. No, he couldn’t let them skate on this. They were smart. Damned smart. If he didn’t slam home empathy to them now, the lesson that trust shattered couldn’t be taped back together in an instant, he was failing in his duties as a father.

  “School starts up again in a couple of weeks. No more overnights until then. Future overnights, you sleep in separate rooms, until you’re both seventeen. We catch you sneaking around when you think we’re asleep, the overnights will totally end while you live under my roof. When you’re here together, the bedroom door stays open if you’re both in there. I’m not stupid enough to try to forbid you two from messing around before you’re both seventeen, but expect that, until that time, you’re going to get an annoying amount of oversight that you never dreamed of before. When we know you’re alone together, I will be calling and texting and if I don’t get immediate replies from you, those alone times will also end until you’re seventeen. Ditto if Stu and Jeff call or text. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, sir,” Em said.

  “I’m not doing this to be an asshole. I’m doing this because breaking trust has consequences. Here’s what kills me, honey. Had you two come to me, at least, when you first got together, were honest with me, and told me what was going on? I would have sat you two down for a real-world talk about the facts of life fo
r gay folks, and I would have been willing to…overlook some things. Give you some privacy. Because I was a kid. And it’s not like you two can get each other pregnant.”

  “That’s what I said,” Em mumbled.

  “Oh, you did not just say that to me,” Brandon snapped. “Because that is not what this is about, and I know damn well you’re smarter than that, Emma.”

  He glared at her until she finally looked down again. “Sorry, sir.”

  “Thank you.” He took a long, deep breath to rein in his anger. “And just because you can’t get pregnant with each other doesn’t mean you’re immune to STIs. Here’s what also kills me. Em, you complain you can’t trust your mom. Or Pat. Or Corey. Yet…” He held out his left hand, indicating the obvious. “Want to tell me how this is any different?”

  Tears rolled down her cheeks now, and Grace’s, but he fought the urge to swoop in and comfort them.

  They didn’t accidentally finish off dessert during snack time and tried to hide it.

  They’d lied, repeatedly, for over a year.

  Knowingly, and with the purpose to skirt around what they’d known damn well would have been rules and boundaries put into place to address it.

  “Also, for the next four weeks, Emma, once one of us is home, you hand off your phone until morning on weekdays, and we’ll hold it the entire time you’re home on weekends. And we will be monitoring your phone. Whether it’s me, Jeff, or Stu. You just lost electronic privacy for the next four weeks. No texting through the computer either, or e-mailing each other, and no Facebook. Your laptop stays on the kitchen counter, or on the dining room table. It does not go in your room. If you need to talk about a school assignment, you will come get me and I will give you my phone to call her while you are right there with me. Yes, that’s mean of me, but you need to understand how seriously I take this.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “No messaging apps, either, trying to backdoor contact, or I’ll block Grace’s number from our cell account, forbid you from talking to her or seeing her outside of school for four weeks, plus you’ll end up with a cheap flip phone that can’t text. Understand me?”

  “Whoa,” Jeff murmured next to him. Brandon knew the girls couldn’t hear Jeff, and it was more a comment of shock than it was trying to get Brandon to slow up.