Chapter 24
Wade
The moment my mother said “Christmas” on the phone, my stomach dropped. Not because I didn’t want to see her, but because explaining three toothbrushes in the master bathroom wasn’t something I’d prepared for.
“That sounds great, Mom,” I lied, sinking deeper into the kitchen chair. “You and Dad want to come here? To Colorado? For Christmas?”
My mother’s voice was warm and excited, the way it always got when she was planning something. “We thought it would be nice to see the mountains! Your father’s never been to Colorado, you know that? In sixty-two years. Can you believe it?”
I could, actually. My father rarely left the county, let alone the state. The farm had been his entire world for as long as I’d been alive. The thought of him on a plane made me simultaneously anxious and oddly proud.
“You’ve been gone nearly eight months,” she continued, “and I want to see where my boy is living. You always loved Christmas, and I know it must be beautiful there with the snow.”
What she didn’t say, because she never did, was that she missed me. Carol Kowalski expressed love through action, not words.
“How long would you stay?”
A soft gasp made me turn to the kitchen, where Lucky was standing there, eyes panicked. She made a slicing motion across her throat, shaking her head. Maybe she didn't want to meet my family either. I raised my eyebrows in question. But I couldn't say no now, could I?
“We thought maybe five days? Henry can’t be away from the farm too long, you know how he gets. Jessie’s going to watch things, but he worries.”
Five days. I supposed I’d have to explain our relationship to them and hope for the best. Story of my life: explaining things to my parents and hoping for the best. They loved me, but they definitely didn’t understand me.
“That sounds... great,” I said again, my voice strained. “When were you thinking?”
“The twenty-third through the twenty-eight? We’d fly back before New Year’s. Henry doesn’t like all that fuss.”
Bode was sprawled across the couch in the living room, a book open on his chest, watching our parallel crises with barely disguised amusement. His dark eyes flicked between us, the corner of his mouth twitching.
“Mom, that sounds perfect,” I said, injecting fake cheer into my voice. “We’d love to have you and Dad here.”
Lucky shot me a look of betrayal.
“No, no, you don’t need to get a hotel. There’s plenty of space here.” Why hadn’t I pretended our house was full? Shit.
The moment I hung up, Bode burst out laughing. Not his polite chuckle, but a full-bodied laugh that made his entire face light up, the kind of laugh that was still rare enough from him that it usually made my heart skip. Today it just made me want to throw something at his head.
“Oh, this is going to be good,” he said, setting his magazine aside. “The Kowalski family Christmas meets the Venkataraman family winter break.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Lucky sighed. “I was trying to signal. I talked to my parents the other day, and they want to come for the holidays. My dad and Chitra want to go skiing!”
“Why didn’t you mention this the other day?”
“I thought I told you!”
“Nope, just me,” Bode said, still giggling. “All the crazy will be here all at once!”
“Shut up,” Lucky snapped, though there wasn’t real heat behind it. “You have no place to talk about crazy families. Your grandmother still cooks most of your meals and drops them off!”
“No, now that it’s winter, she’s started making me come get them,” Bode corrected, still grinning. “So she doesn’t have to drive in the snow. They’ll be in town for winter break, too.”
“This house isn’t that big, though!” I squeaked.
“Oh, don’t worry, my grandparents are staying with my mom, but they do want to meet you guys.”
“Why would they want to meet us?” Lucky asked.
Bode blinked. “Don’t your families want to meet your boyfriends?”
“Seriously? You told your grandparents you’re in a throuple?” Lucky paled, her eyes darting to me.
Something flickered across Bode’s face, uncertainty, maybe, before he shrugged. “I maybe accidentally sent my grandmother the photo of the three of us kissing instead of the photo of us eating their food. But it’s okay, they’re chill. And my mom is thrilled, she loves you guys.”
“Bode! What?”
Why was she so upset that people knew? It wasn't a secret. “It'll be okay. I was going to tell my parents, too. But since they’ll be here soon, I’ll wait to tell them in person, but Bode’s are right here all the time. It makes sense to tell them sooner.”
Lucky dropped into a chair across from me, her face a mask of disbelief. “I still can't believe Bode told Sachi.”
“I didn’t tell her. She asked if I was cheating on you guys with each other. She seriously thought I was fucking one of you behind the other’s back. So I explained that it’s not cheating if you’re fucking each other, too.”
“Bode! That's my boss!”
“What? My mom’s cool, she doesn’t care.”
“She’s my boss! And you told Mack, and your grandparents?”
“Mack was an accident. It just sort of spilled out. And my grandparents just… I don’t know. They’re chill. They like you guys.”
I watched Lucky’s shoulders tense, her jaw set in that stubborn line I knew so well.
I cleared my throat. “So what do we do?” I asked, trying to keep my voice light. “About the parents visiting? Do we take the Bode approach and just blurt it out?”
Lucky looked up, her decision already made. “Of course not. We’ll just pretend we’re all roommates. They don’t need to know.”
My heart sank. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah. What’s the point if it causes drama? We’ll put away anything... incriminating. Make sure our actual rooms look lived in. It’s just for a week.”
I nodded, forcing a smile that didn’t reach my eyes. “Sure. That makes sense.”
It didn’t make sense. Bode’s family knew, so why couldn’t mine?
I had spent most of my life being exactly who I was, even when it was uncomfortable.
I’d never been good at hiding, never wanted to be.
When I realized I liked boys as much as girls in high school, I’d told my parents the same week.
When I decided medical school was my path instead of the farm, I’d sat them down and explained why.
My life had been a series of moments where I showed up fully as myself and trusted that the people who loved me would adjust.
But I swallowed the protest rising in my throat because Lucky looked so certain, so adamant. Because I understood, even if I didn’t like it, that her relationship with her parents was different from mine. That what looked like simple honesty to me might look like unnecessary complication to her.
“It’ll be fine,” I said, standing up and stretching, pretending my heart wasn’t cracking just a little. “We’ll make it work.”
Bode was watching me with narrowed eyes, the laughter gone from his face. He saw through my casual acceptance, I could tell by the way his gaze sharpened, how his head tilted slightly. But he didn’t call me out, just nodded once and went back to his magazine.
The disappointment sat heavy in my chest as I excused myself and headed upstairs.
I needed space to process, to get my head right before I said something I’d regret.
This wasn’t a dealbreaker. It wasn’t even a real problem.
It was just a week of pretending, of going back to what we’d been before: friends, roommates, nothing more.
So why did it feel like a rejection?
I flopped onto my bed, the one I barely used anymore since we’d unofficially moved into Bode’s master suite weeks ago.
The sheets felt cold and unused, the space foreign despite my belongings scattered around.
It wasn’t home anymore. Home had become the tangle of limbs in Bode’s king-sized bed, Lucky’s hair spread across my chest, Bode’s arm thrown over my waist.
Maybe that was the problem. Maybe I’d invested too much, too fast. Maybe I was the only one who saw this as something permanent, something worth acknowledging to the people who mattered. It wouldn’t be the first time.
I heard footsteps on the stairs, then Bode appeared in my doorway without knocking. His expression was unreadable as he leaned against the door frame, hands shoved into the pockets of his sweatpants.
“You okay?” he asked.
I considered lying but couldn’t find the energy. “Not really.”
He nodded, crossing the room to sit beside me on the bed. “Want to talk about it?”
“Not really.”
Bode was quiet for a moment, his hand finding mine on the comforter. “For what it’s worth, I think she’s scared. Not ashamed, just... She seems to have a lot of fears around her kinks. Hiding her identity and all.”
“I know,” I said, squeezing his hand. “And I’ll do whatever makes her comfortable. I just wish...”
“That you could show up as your whole self,” he finished for me. “I get it. But this is all new. Give her time.”
“It’ll be fine.”
“It will,” he said. Then his hand was on my thigh, warm and deliberate. “But in the meantime, I know something that might help.”
His intent was clear in the way his fingers trailed higher, in the heat of his gaze. This was Bode’s strategy for all kinds of distress. He defaulted to sex, and I didn’t hate it.
“Bode...” I started, but he was already shifting, sliding to his knees between my legs, looking up at me with those dark eyes that missed nothing.
“Let me,” he said simply.
And because I’d never been able to deny him anything, I nodded.
His hands made quick work of my jeans, undoing the button and zipper and tugging at them. I lifted my hips to help him slide them down along with my boxers, my cock already responding to his proximity, to the intent in his movements.
Bode took his time, trailing his fingers up my thighs with surprising gentleness. For someone so restless in everyday life, he could be remarkably patient in moments like this, focused and present in a way that made me feel like the only person in his world.