Chapter Forty
Gavin
Was he okay? Gavin wasn’t sure. He’d said the words quickly enough, felt some sort of resolve in his bones, but now he wondered if that was just to keep Ben from committing a double homicide in their living room.
All eyes were on him, though, so he figured he should say something. “This is my home.” He spoke quietly, hoping to deescalate the situation. “My home with Ben. If this is all you have to say to me—not an apology or a congratulations for doing so well on my own after you threw me away—then you need to leave.”
He could practically feel the rage simmering in Ben when he took Ben’s hand and stood closer to him.
Neither of his parents said anything, so Gavin added, “I read the same Bible you did, and as far as I can see, you two have a lot more to worry about than I do.”
Carter shook his head, but he stood up as if he were about to go. “You’ve been lied to, son. But we’ll talk again about all this.”
“The fuck you will,” Ben said, his tone barely a whisper, deadly.
“Tina, get your things,” Carter said without a glance at Ben.
Gavin’s heart seemed to stop beating when Tina stood up. This was it. This was what Ben had tried to protect him from. This was the moment Ben wanted to keep at bay.
She stepped around the coffee table and took James from Patricia.
Ben spoke then, as if someone had opened a wound in him. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.” He raked his hand through his hair, looked like he was ready to tear it out. “We watched her sweat and cry and bleed, watched her work her ass off…”
Gavin wasn’t sure what else Ben wanted to say, but he could guess. We gave her a family.
Tina shook her head and passed the baby to Ben, as if that might stop him from killing someone. She hadn’t known him long enough, apparently. Gavin had only seen Ben fight once in the years they’d been together, but he knew what Ben was capable of.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Tina said, her voice more sure, more confident, than Gavin had ever heard. “Brian told the truth,” she added, glancing at Gavin before turning her attention back to their parents. “He’s not the father. I’m not marrying him or anyone else.”
When Carter tried to speak, Tina cut him off. “I let you in, let you hold my son, so you could see what you’ve missed, see what you’ll never have. If I ever hear from you again, I’ll get a restraining order.” She looked at Ben and added, “Or just let Ben take care of it.”
Ben pulled away, stalked to the front door, and held it open.
Carter looked at Tina. “You’re making a mistake.” He nodded and Patricia stood, following him to the door.
“The only mistake I made was staying as long as I did,” Tina said.
When his parents walked out the door, Ben didn’t put a hand on them, but it looked like a near thing. He closed the door gently and then clicked the dead bolt before turning to look at Gavin.
“How the hell did they find where you lived?”
“Sorry,” Tina said quietly, looking like she might fall down, her strength gone. “They found my profile for tutoring and stuff, did a reverse search with my phone number…”
“We gotta up our online security.”
Gavin had to agree. “Or move.”
“Or just hang an upside-down cross on the front door.” Ben laughed like he was joking, but Gavin couldn’t tell for sure.
“That might be a toe over the line.” He tried to picture Nora’s face if she saw that on her next visit. It didn’t end well in his imagination.
Tina sat down on the couch and then shifted away from where their parents had sat. “I feel like we need to fumigate now.” Her eyes brimmed with tears, though, and she dropped her head into her hands. “How can they be so awful?” She looked up at Gavin, then to Ben and James. “I can’t imagine ever… We deserved better, Gav.”
Yeah, they did. They’d always deserved better. “We’ve got better now, though,” he said simply, sitting next to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder.
Ben sat on the coffee table and rested Baby James on his knee. “You should’ve just let me kick their asses. Let ’em try to pray away their broken bones.”
Tina let out a laugh, but again, Gavin wasn’t sure if Ben was joking. She reached for James, pulling him close, as if she needed to remind him that he’d always have her. “Think we can maybe find Elise and Donnie and Mike once they turn eighteen?” She paused and added, “Luke’s already twenty, and Karin’s birthday is in a couple months…”
That would be tricky. Having Tina land on their doorstep had been hard enough for Ben to swallow. He wasn’t sure how Ben would feel about the rest of their siblings.
“We can try,” Ben said. His brow was furrowed, though, as if he were thinking too hard about things he didn’t like. “No telling, though. They might be… brainwashed, or whatever it is.” He caught Gavin’s eye, and said again, “But we’ll try, okay?”
Gavin only nodded in response. The last thing Ben needed was another complicated mess of Gavin’s to clean up, but he was willing anyway. There to put the pieces back together if they failed, if the rest of their family rejected them as swiftly as they’d just rejected their parents’ warped offer. And he’d be there to help rescue the other kids if they could.
He reached for Ben, laced their fingers together as he leaned close. “Thanks.”
Tina shifted James on her shoulder, nodded. “Yeah, thanks,” she echoed, letting out a breath, sounding like she could finally feel some sense of relief.
All things considered, the little reunion went better than Gavin had expected. He was glad Ben had never heard all the other things his parents had said because that? That was nothing. They were on best behavior today. The whole thing could’ve been much worse and he knew it.
“Who’s hungry?” he asked, pressing a kiss to Tina’s head before getting up.
“I could eat,” Tina said, running her fingertips over James’s hair.
Ben got to his feet. “I should probably help sort the groceries.”
“I’m just glad you didn’t throw them through a window.”
Ben laughed before kissing Gavin’s forehead. “I almost did.”
They were halfway out of the room when Tina said, “Hey, Gav?”
He turned to look at her, not liking the tone of her voice, the nervous sound.
“You think that’s really it? Think they’re really gone now?”
Gavin couldn’t tell if she were grateful or sad at the idea. Probably a little of both. They both needed to let go of the idea of their parents being real parents, being like Nora or, hell, almost anyone else. But it would probably take some time to mourn that loss. Gavin was more than five years in, and it still hurt if he thought about it too long. “Maybe,” he said with a shrug. “Probably.”
“Good,” she said quietly, as if she meant it. And maybe she did. Maybe it would be easier for her to come to terms, to let them go, because she was already a better mother than the one who’d raised them.
Ben didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to. Gavin knew where he stood on the issue.
“You dinged the paint,” he said, noticing the spot where Ben had Hulked out and tried to put the swinging door through the wall.
“Be glad that’s the only thing I dinged today.”
Fair point.