Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
“ T
his meeting is called to order,” Noah said with all seriousness.
So they were two days late with their family meeting. Considering every damn thing they’d had to deal with yesterday thanks to the wreck the day before, West thought they were doing good.
“I haz pie!” Zoe said.
“Okay, Zoe, what kind?”
“Bapplie!”
West chuckled as Mark wrote that down, face a study in seriousness.
“Right, Zoe. One apple pie. Noah?”
“Taters and s’mores!”
Trey’s head tilted. “S’mores?”
Mark chuckled. “I made an empowering s’mores cookie bar.”
“See?” Noah clapped. “S’mores.”
“What about you, West?” Trey asked.
“Layer salad. Es importante.”
Shit, West could live on that stuff. It looked horrifying, but damn it was good once you ate it all together. “Okay. Are you making a list, Mark?”
“I am.”
“Mal?” Trey asked.
“Sweet potatoes. But I’ll bring them because Liam is picky.”
“Do you do marshmallows?” Noah asked.
“Yep. But also pecans.”
“I can eat nuts as long as they’re not whazzed up into weird cream.”
Mark sighed. “You try cashew Alfredo once…”
“It was gritty, bud. I notice textures.”
Oh, he’d bet Trey did. Damn. That was a wild thought.
“What do you want, Trey?” He’d called Trey boss a few days ago, and Trey had cut him dead.
Apparently that wasn’t sexy.
“Cranberry everything.”
“Okay, so fluff and sauce?” Mark asked.
“Yes, please. And bread for breakfast.”
“You got it.” Mark scribbled.
West was proud of all of them. He knew he looked like a zombie, with his bruised-up face and his stitched hand, and Trey’s one eye was red as hell, but no one was gonna mention that—not even a little.
They were a family planning Thanksgiving.
“Ben? Nate?”
Ben chuckled. “I’m happy if there’s brown and serve and any kind of pie. Though pumpkin…”
“Never fear,” Mark said. “I make a huge batch of pie crust, so I can make apple, pumpkin and… pecan?”
“Mmm. Pecan.” That was Lisa’s wife, Belinda.
West had to chuckle. This was going to be a huge enterprise. Good thing they had all told Mark they would help. West would smoke turkey and ham outside to free up ovens. Mal said she would bake at her place and bring up cinnamon rolls, cranberry bread, and butter rolls for supper.
“I will corral children and bellow football scores.” Trey’s grin made him feel pretty good. “Loud.”
Noah cheered. “Eighty-four to?—”
“Cow!” Zoe added.
“No cows at the dinner table,” West said. In fact, no cows at all right now. “But definitely potatoes.”
“My daddy always wanted rice,” Belinda said. When they all stared at her, even Trey trying, she chuckled. “He was from the South Caroline Low Country.”
There was a chorus of ahhhh. They grew rice down that way.
“Okay.” Mark scrolled through his list. “Anything else? Relish tray? Spicy nuts?”
“No!” Zoe shook her head. “Sweetie ones.”
“I don’t mind veggies, if I’m honest,” Trey admitted. “And a cheese ball.”
“Got it. I make a good one with bacon and cheese and ranch mix.” Mark beamed at Trey, and West bit back a curse thinking how Trey would have no idea. Though he reckoned a guy could hear Mark’s smile.
“That sounds awesome,” Trey told him.
“It does, actually.” West could murder that right now. With some kind of soft cracker, like Ritz. Nothing too hard on his teeth. His belly rumbled, right out loud, and Noah and Zoe giggled.
“Uncle West! You’re hungry!”
“I am. I can’t help it. All this talking about food.” And at breakfast, he’d had an emergency with a horse and some ice.
“You want some soup?” Mark asked. “There’s still some from yesterday, and some fresh bread.”
“That sounds great. Anyone else?”
Noah pursed his lips. “I could eat.”
“I want fairy toast,” Zoe said.
Trey frowned. “You need to eat something else first, kiddo. Fairy toast is dessert.”
“Fairy toast?” West wasn’t sure about that one.
Zoe grinned wide, those dark eyes dancing. “Fancy bread with sprinkles.”
“I see.” He didn’t see.
“We were watching some Australian children’s show on YouTube, and we looked it up.” Trey rolled his eyes, grinning so wide. Between the bruises, the scrapes, and the red eye, it was a tad unnerving. “White bread, butter, and sugar sprinkles.”
“Oh.” Gag . He didn’t say it out loud, but dude.
“It’s for girls,” Noah said, rolling his eyes.
“Is not!” Zoe said.
“Uh-huh. You’re a girl.”
“I—” Zoe frowned deeply.
“That doesn’t have to be for girls,” Belinda argued, opening her arms for Zoe, who climbed right up into her lap, cuddling into the solid, flannel-wearing butch. “Fairy toast can be for anybody. Anybody can like bread with sprinkles.”
Noah kind of frowned at her a little bit. “I don’t think so.”
Lisa shrugged, obviously going for nonchalant. “I don’t see why not. Boys can like whatever they want. So can girls. That’s the neat part. People get to be who they want to be, and they get to like what they like, so long as it doesn’t hurt anyone.”
It never ceased to amaze West how every goddamn thing became a weird learning moment when you had kids. He guessed it was normal.
After all, kids were learning things all the time.
But it really made him think about what he said, think about how he said it. Because, it wasn’t just affecting him. Hell, maybe it wasn’t just affecting him all the time, but with the kids it was something else.
“Is there anything else we need to talk about?” Trey asked, hands moving randomly on the table, exploring what was there.
All the adults watched for a second, and West saw the pity in all their eyes.
God, was that what his face read like when he watched Trey? Was that what he felt? Pity?
No fucking way.
No, he loved this man. Trey’s challenges weren’t faults to be disliked or pitied. They were a hurdle for Trey to leap over, sure, but Trey was a strong son of a bitch. West admired him.
He was proud of his lover.
Proud and…well, he wasn’t aroused. He hurt and Trey was all beat-up and tender too, but that wasn’t because of his eyes.
Trey was hot as fuck—a tight little body, white-blond curls, a mouth meant for sucking. And that was just the physical.
That quick, clever brain. The sheer stubborn will. The confidence that Trey was the smartest son of a bitch in the room, and the decency to not have to prove it—all those things made West weak at the knees.
“Y’all? Everything okay?”
It was Lisa who bobbed her head, blinked, then looked at Zoe and Noah. “I think the kids have one more thing.”
Zoe beamed. “Ho ho tree!”
Noah glanced at Trey. “I think that we should put up the Christmas tree the day after the turkey and have Christmas lights and everything. We can all help. Zoe can put the star on because she’s the littlest. Like in the cartoons.”
Trey sat there, his lips parted, then he took a deep, deep breath. “Assuming that people are around to help out Friday. I think that sounds fine.”
Damn it.
“We’ll all be here to help.” Ben offered with no hesitation. “We’ll all be here. Christmas trees are important, right y’all?”
Mark nodded and started scribbling again. “Let’s have a decorating party on Friday. I’ve got no real plans, we’ll have leftovers. Could be a blast.”
“Totally. We can have a fire and everything,” Lisa agreed.
Tears prickled West’s eyes. These were good people. Trey had hired good people. “Well, you know I’m going to be here.”
“Sure, then, we have a plan.”
West wanted to go over and hug Trey and tell him it was going to be okay. Christmas would still be Christmas even if he couldn’t see the lights or hang the balls on the tree.
He did reach under the table to put his hand on Trey’s leg, finding it so tense it was like rock. God. He squeezed, and Trey relaxed a fraction, which was good.
Valentine bustled over to Trey on the other side, jumping up on his leg, and Trey rubbed that silly dog’s ears.
“Tiny, c’mere!” Zoe cheered. Valentine was too big of a word, and so now this poor dog had two names.
Valentine didn’t seem to worry about that one little bit, going over to nose Noah. Then he licked one of Zoe’s legs, which earned him a pat and an ear scritch from Belinda. Then the dog headed back to Trey, pushing under his hand, demanding more pets.
“Well, I think that that concludes the family meeting.” Trey rolled his shoulders. “I think we need soup.”
Mark’s face lit up, relief written across it. “Sure, I’ll warm some up. Like I said, we have fresh bread.”
Everyone kind of wandered off to do whatever they did on snow days. Lisa took the kids over to play Legos. Belinda went to measure for the doggy door in the back door. Mark went to the kitchen, and it left him and Trey sitting at the kitchen table.
“I think we should have Thanksgiving at the dining room table. That’s what Granny always did. She liked the big formal dining room table. There’s a tablecloth somewhere. It’s rust-colored, and there’s this lace thing that goes over the top.” Trey wore a smile that was way more fond than bitter.
“All right, I’ll get it all set up. Or make sure somebody does.” That was easy enough.
“I don’t want the lace thing. Just the rust-colored one. I don’t like the way the lace one feels. I never did even as a kid. Do you think we should use the good china?”
“Seems sort of weird to use the formal dining table and paper plates, man,” he teased.
“All right. Then we’ll pull out the good china. We need to add prosecco and orange juice to Mark’s list. And that non-alcoholic bubbly stuff for those who aren’t drinking. Mimosas are important on Thanksgiving morning.”
“All right, no problem with any of that.” That was easy enough.
Trey leaned back in his chair, face turned toward him, eyes moving as they fought to find him. “How’s the hand doing?”
“It hurts like a motherfucker.”
“Fair enough.” A smile played around Trey’s lips.
“How about you?”
“Still blind.”
He winced. But he kept his voice light as he answered. “Well, at least you’re consistent.”
“There you go.”
West waited, thinking hard, trying to knit his words together. So much swirled in his mind, so many things that his head started to hurt like it had the day he hit it.
What came out was, “I love you.”
Trey blinked hard, reaching out a hand to him, groping through the air.
So he took it in his, holding on.
It wasn’t an answer.
It wasn’t even a bandage, but it was what West had, dammit. He loved Trey with everything in him.
Like all the way. Boom.
Trey finally squeezed his hand. “So, does that mean you’re not going to run screaming from all this family drama, West?”
“Shit, baby. I love the kids, and you know I adore Ben. Mark is a good guy, and Lisa and Belinda are going to be good friends. But I’m here for you.”
Trey’s eyebrow went up again. “Not the ranch.”
“I admit, Mal got me here with the idea of being a foreman on a ranch this way. But I knew as soon as I saw you again, baby. I was in this to win it.”
Trey shrugged, holding onto him. “I wish I’d been enough for you before.”
West had to hunt the words for that too. He wasn’t good at speaking about feelings. But for Trey he would try. “Shit, Trey. It was never you. I wasn’t enough for me. I was scared.”
“‘Scared’.” Trey shook his head. “West, you’re not scared of anything.”
“Oh, fuck, baby. I may not be frightened of anything with hooves or horns but…” He wrapped his head around what he wanted to say as much as he could. “But I was scared to death of not being what you wanted. About trying to live in the city and disappointing you.”
“You couldn’t disappoint me.”
“Now, you know that’s not true. I did that leaving you, and I’m sorry. I just didn’t feel strong enough to stand next to you.”
“I always wished you could have been there. It was a wild ride there for a bit.”
“I bet.” West sat forward. “But I want you to know I’m here now because I want to be. And maybe you need me, but I’m not here because of that. I thought I was, but I been realizing it’s because you’re amazing. And hot. And I love you.”
He needed Trey to hear that. Really feel it.
Trey tilted his head. “I don’t feel hot right now, West. I feel…underwater.”
“Sure you do. Shit is hard. And it’s the holidays. And you’re hurting on top of getting shitty news about your eyes. But you’re a strong fuc— damn swimmer.” He needed Trey to know he believed in him. This was no pity fuck. This was a forever thing.
“I am.” Trey took a shaky breath. “And I will figure it. I swear. I won’t be?—”
“Hey. You’re not. You’re not broken, and we’re together in this.”
“You swear?”
“I promise you that, baby. You know I won’t blow smoke up your— God, watching my mouth in case the kids come in is killing me here.” He had to laugh at that. Not like the night of the wreck, but still a little hysterical.
Because Trey hadn’t said it back, and West wanted him to.
But then again, he only wanted that if Trey gave it without being coerced.
“Yeah, me too.” Trey’s lips curved up hard. “I’m not so great at it all the time.”
“We’ll figure it. All of it.”
“Okay. If you break my heart again, I’m going to hit you with a shovel.” Trey closed his eyes. “I won’t fall in love with you again just to have you hurt me, okay?”
“Okay, baby. That’s totally fair.” Falling in love with him. He could work with that. All he had to do was be like Mark was in the kitchen. Add a little love, a little spice. Shit, was that a simile or a metaphor? He had no idea. But he thought it was something literary-like.
His high school English teacher would slap his head. The man had been a marine like the guy from NCIS .
“Now we just have to make it through Thanksgiving,” he told Trey.
“And Christmas. I guess we need to get you a new truck so Liam isn’t driving us everywhere.”
“You want to go with me to get one?”
“I do. Since I’m buying it.”
West blinked. “Trey…”
“You were driving me to get my kid. I’m buying you a new truck.”
“Hmph.” He wasn’t going to argue now. Not with Trey all arms crossed and stony-looking.
But he was gonna buy his own damn truck.
Seriously.