26. Imry
26
IMRY
Haze is waiting outside when I pull up. He’s hot as hell and I love everything about the way he walks toward me with that damn smile that changes his features so beautifully. I know it’s a face that didn’t smile a lot growing up and I’m so humbled to be someone he smiles at now.
He climbs in and grabs the front of my shirt, pulling me forward so he can kiss me. I hum into his mouth until he bites my tongue, making me laugh. I shove him away, earning myself a cheeky grin and a wink as he closes the door.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey. You eat or want to stop and get something on the way?”
“Is that code for you telling me you’re hungry?”
“I’m a little hungry,” I admit.
“Then let’s stop for food. I can always eat.”
Since we’re not actually leaving the property, we stop at the office building and head into the cafeteria. There’s always something simmering, regardless of the time of day. Since it’s mid-morning, we have the option of pre-packed lunches, a whole slew of snacks, and the remnants of breakfast, which admittedly, look really good.
“Breakfast pizza,” Haze says as he looks at the few options spinning slowly in the pizza case. “Man, I was a kid the last time I had breakfast pizza, and that was the kind you get at school on those little boat breads or whatever.”
“I promise you, this is so much better. Everything here is handmade.” I pick up a packaged sandwich and show him the little VDT stamp. “The only things we don’t hand make are the chips and candy bars. I think we even have granola bars that are made in the kitchen.”
“Seriously?”
I grin. “Dad would rather employ chefs than pay for preservatives.”
Haze shakes his head. “This place never ceases to amaze me. I’m having pizza. Even if I have to do a hundred crunches later.”
I pause in my debate over the kind of sandwich I want to look at him. While I know that comment can be just a health conscious one, I know why he has body image issues. I’m just not sure if I should assure him he’s perfect as he is and doesn’t have to be as concerned with his diet and exercise as he used to be.
It’s been a while since I was in a relationship, and this one is so much different from mine with Darren. For one, I’ve come to realize how much more human I feel with Haze. I’m allowed to feel how I feel and talk about it without being made to feel like it’s unimportant or wrong. It’s still very strange for me to realize just how toxic that relationship was.
Deciding that I appreciate validation for how I feel, I think maybe Haze might too. Especially after spending so many years feeling self-conscious. I step up beside him and wrap my arms around his waist, placing a kiss on his shoulder.
“You’re beautiful,” I tell him, keeping my voice quiet since we’re in public. “Everything about you. You don’t need to do crunches if you don’t want to.”
His shoulders tense for just a second before he relaxes. Haze laughs under his breath. “Sorry. I didn’t realize I said that out loud.”
I slip my hand under his shirt and touch his washboard abs. “If you’re doing this for you, then I support you completely. If you’re doing it for any other reason, remember that you don’t have to, and no one is going to make you feel bad for stopping.”
He sighs, shifting to wrap his arms around me. “Thanks, Im,” he says, kissing my forehead. “I appreciate the reminder.”
I give him a quick kiss and step away. We haven’t really talked about our relationship and where we’re at, so I’m not sure how he feels about this kind of PDA. I may call him my boyfriend in my head, and out loud when I’m talking to Avory and Ellory, but that’s just between us. Until Haze and I talk about it, he’s just… a friend.
Who I fuck. And cuddle with. And am very close with.
Yep. That’s it.
I go back to looking at the sandwiches and decide on a BLT with mayo. It has bacon, so that means it’s brunch food, right? We use the register to check ourselves out before heading back to my car.
“Okay, so,” Haze says as he settles in and unwraps his pizza. “We’re throwing axes? Right?”
I grin as I get my sandwich ready to eat with one hand. We’re not going far. Even though we’re not leaving the property, we likely won’t meet anyone on the small roads, so I’m not overly concerned with the safety of eating this kind of sandwich behind the wheel.
“Yep. Not just axes, though. We have all kinds of sharp things to throw at targets.”
Haze looks at me, chewing his bite. “First, this is really fucking good. All sorts of nostalgic nine-year-old memories of school. Second, I’m trying to decide if that should be concerning.”
If that were the biggest thing to be concerned with, I’d take it. I muse over the fact that Briar seemed to take our family’s murderous news in stride. Though, to be fair, they were heading out to save their unborn child from being sold on the black market. I guess one horror trumped the other, and when he saw the kinds of people we murdered… maybe that put a different spin on it.
Uncle Noaz also saved another baby and the woman who carried Emerson. Maybe it puts the whole thing into perspective.
I could also remind myself that Oakley knows that Loren’s killed people, though that may also be circumstantial because the murders he knows about are men who were going to harm or kill Oakley. One was stupidly close to succeeding. I suppose that also makes sense why Oakley accepts it. His life or someone who was intent on taking his life. Not many people would choose to die instead of the other person being murdered.
The only other person who knows what we do is Uncle Arath’s boyfriend, Elgin. Again, it was circumstantial. Elgin was in the wrong place at the wrong time and became an unwitting target. Uncle Arath killed the people who were actively—and wrongly—hunting him.
I glance at Haze again and wonder how he’d take the news that the reason we keep these skills sharp isn’t just a fun, family bonding exercise, but so we remain conditioned with taking down a target. Is that something he’d easily accept? Would he appreciate knowing Loren was the one who orchestrated his father’s death, freeing him and Oren from that awful man’s control?
“It’s fun,” I say, shrugging. “Something that we do once a month or so as a family bonding experience. Since we all enjoy it, it gives us a platform to connect on. Besides, there are a ton of places where you can pay to do this now.”
“True,” Haze says, nodding as he takes another bite of pizza. “Is that why you guys were always playing with the bow down at the Rolling Green Estates?”
“Yep. We couldn’t set up an axe throwing arena in the backyard without raising some neighborly concerns, so we went with the bow and arrow.”
Haze nods. “Makes sense. That’s when we first saw you all hanging out together at the same time.”
“We used to play board games when we were little, but as Mom started becoming more of an ass toward Loren, we stopped. Instead, Dad used to take us up here without Mom one weekend a month and that’s when we started throwing axes and stuff.”
“You were young?”
“Eh. I think I was ten. The best way to learn safety and control of something is to practice with it. Not to be a pessimist, but I think I’d rather be prepared and know how to use weapons to defend myself and those I love than find myself in a situation where I’m helpless.” Was that convincing enough?
Since I can see Haze nodding in my peripheral vision, I’m guessing it is. What I leave out is that’s probably when Dad started to really realize how Loren benefited from having that outlet. He realized that if he could point that aggression and hunger for violence at a chosen target, then he had the ability to keep Loren out of trouble.
We’re not the last car here. Myro and Honey Bee aren’t here yet. But Uncle Oxley and his boyfriend are, which I’m pleasantly surprised about. I hadn’t realized that more than Oakley, Briar, and Honey Bee would be joining my brothers, Dad, and me today. I hadn’t even said I’d be bringing Haze. I wonder who dragged Levis and Brek along.
I stop at the end of the lean-to where Uncle Noaz and Briar have Emerson lying in a covered bed. It’s a blanket but has mesh sides, a visor covering half of it and then mesh covering the rest, completely enclosing it. There’s a small fan blowing in, too.
The lean-to is completely shaded, so it’s definitely cooler than out in the sun. Sometimes I have to remind myself that not everyone around the world has air conditioning and kids stay out in the sun all the time. Even infants. Way back in the day, infants were strapped to their mother’s backs while they worked. That’s just the way life happened, and kids survived.
As if Uncle Noaz hears my thoughts, they say, “Not sure how long we’ll stay. We might need to head in a little early if Emerson gets too hot.”
I peek in on my sleeping nephew. Cousin, I suppose is the correct relation, but I’m totally going with nephew.
“Is he asleep?” Huntley asks as he drags Uncle Oxley over. I grin, taking a step aside so they can peek in. Huntley sighs. “He’s so cute.”
I look at Uncle Oxley. He meets my eyes, a corner of his mouth lifting slightly. In all my years, I’ve never seen Uncle Oxley with anyone. I’m not sure if I’m surprised he brought home a guy or if I suspected he’s gay. I don’t think I leaned heavily one way or another.
Huntley shifts and winces, which has Uncle Oxley looking at him with concern. “Are you okay? Do you need to sit? Need an ibuprofen?”
I smile as Huntley turns to him and looks up with hearts in his eyes. “I’m good. Just stood wrong for a minute.”
Uncle Oxley doesn’t like that answer. He wants a task to do to make the hurt go away. When Huntley doesn’t give him that, he leans against Uncle Oxley’s chest and looks at me with a grin. I really love the way he loves my uncle.
We call Uncle Oxley neurospicy. Meaning he’s not neurotypical. His parents refused to get him officially diagnosed because anything mentally ‘ different ’ about someone still had people screaming asylums back in the day, even though Uncle Oxley isn’t that old. I’m not sure if my grandparents refused diagnosis to protect him or protect the family name.
However, we know that he’d struggled growing up. Struggled with being considered weird. He was one of the first uncles to get homeschooled, followed closely by Uncle Noaz for entirely different reasons.
A female laugh I don’t recognize makes me look up. I’m actually amused that we have so few women in our lives. Mom was a disaster. Half of us are gay. The other half don’t bring partners around for whatever reasons they have.
But the laughter belongs to Jeannette. I frown when I look at her. Out of all the people I could picture my father with, she seems too… out of place. She’s wearing this big-brimmed sun hat that looks really strange out here in the desert. I think it belongs on the beach. Her sunglasses are huge too, the kind that make me think of bug eyes.
She’s wearing a dress and heels. In the middle of the desert, where we’re going to be throwing sharp objects. Definitely out of place.
I study my father for a minute. He’s not an overly doting man. Not really affectionate or romantic, from what I remember. I kind of anticipated seeing those things more since Jeannette strikes me as the kind of person who would expect that treatment.
This is all coming from a place of judgment. I don’t know why I’m not a fan, but… I guess I think Dad can do better.
Avory walks in front of my line of sight, and I follow him with my eyes. He drops onto the bench beside Ellory but they’re not touching. I frown.
“What’s that look for?” Haze asks as he pulls me away so others can peek in on Emerson.
“Just hating that my brothers can’t be themselves right now.”
Haze looks around, confused. “I’m not following?”
I nod my head in Ellory and Avory’s direction. “How often do you see them sitting with any space between them?”
“Ah,” he says.
“I get it. I think we’re going to run into situations where they don’t feel they can be authentic more and more as we all grow up, find partners, have families, and whatever. I just hate that they’re here, where they live, and they still don’t have the freedom and safety to be themselves.”
Haze’s arm wraps around my waist, and he kisses the side of my head. “Daddy Jalon’s girlfriend?” he asks.
I snort because it cracks me up every time one of them refers to Dad as Daddy Jalon. But my amusement fades as I study Jeannette. “Yeah.”
I can’t help but wonder if she’s going to be like Mom. How much of our lives has Dad shared with her? Does she know our secrets? I have to believe she doesn’t, but then again, Dad never brought Mom here, so Jeannette has already made it into our inner sanctum, somewhere that the woman who bore my dad’s six sons never did.
Does that mean he loves her more than he did Mom?
Dad’s not beside Jeannette right now. He’s talking to Loren and Myro, each of them with an axe in their hands. I know it’s nothing to do with contracts. Our work only gets discussed in the conference room or the privacy of our own homes without anyone else around.
I study Dad for a long time. I study my brothers and watch the way they dote on their partners. Myro kisses Jessica’s lips often. Loren rarely lets go of Oakley. Uncle Noaz and Briar orbit around each other like gravity keeps pulling them back. Even Haze’s hand is almost always in mine or his hand on my leg, on my lower back. He’s in contact with me a lot.
Dad never touches Jeannette. He never shares smiles with her like my brothers do with their partners. He doesn’t bring her water like Haze does for me. He does show her how to throw an axe and does so the same way I do Haze—using my body molded against his.
In the end, I’m not entirely sure what to make of Jeannette and Dad. I’m torn between her actually being here in our home and the complete lack of affection spread between them. What does it mean?
On the other hand, I’m more convinced today that there’s something bigger between me and Haze than we’ve talked about. He never once shied away from touching me. In fact, there were times it almost felt possessive.
At least something makes sense here today.