Chapter 8
brENT
I feel really super guilty after the glory hole orgy.
Especially every time I look at Rafe. I feel like it’s written all over my face that I imagined him there the entire time.
The whole thing could have been really bad, and I might not have known because imagining that it was Rafe made it so much better.
My guilt only grows every time I think about it. Especially since I’m dreaming about it over and over again, only in my dreams, I know it’s Rafe. I can hear his voice, and we’re alone, not surrounded by dozens of other people moaning. It’s him, and we both know we’re doing it.
I stare at the bottom of Rafe’s bunk and chew the inside of my cheek. We’re supposed to leave this morning to go to his parents’ house for Christmas. I haven’t actually agreed to this, but Rafe is determined to have me along.
I know Rafe. I know this isn’t necessarily because he feels bad for me. At least, not in the way I hate. He’s sad for me, and he wants me to be a part of his family for the holiday. He’s a good person. That’s all this is.
No matter how much my brain wants me to think more of it, I know that this is just friendship. Rafe is a good guy. That’s why I’ve been crushing on him for the entire time I’ve known him. If there’s ever anyone who’s worthy of a crush, it’s Rafe.
A knock on our door has me turning my head, and I realize the room is filled with sunlight. Man, how long was I staring at Rafe’s bed? That’s not creepy at all.
Rafe grunts sleepily, and the mattress creaks above me. Grinning, I hit the mattress and roll to my feet. “I got it.”
I open the door just as another knock begins. Denny looks at me with a grin and hands me one of the bags in his hands. There’s grease bleeding through it, and it smells divine.
“Rafe still here too?” I nod, and he hands me another. “Happy holidays, mate,” he says and claps my arm as he moves down the hall.
My thanks follows him as I back into the room, closing the door behind me.
“Whatsit?” Rafe asks, his words slurring together and thick with sleep.
Grinning, I head back to the bed and toss him a bag. He grunts when it lands on his chest. “Denny brought breakfast.”
“No crumbs in bed,” Rafe mumbles. “That’s your rule.” He sits up and swings his legs over the side. His hair is standing on one end, and I snort as I take out the breakfast sandwich. Maybe it’s the strange combination of foods from last night, but these smell heavenly and taste even better.
My eyes linger on Rafe in his tight shorts and cock bulge. His smooth skin is bare for me to drink in. Stunning. Everything about this man takes my breath away. There’s no wonder why I’ve had the hots for him for so long.
For several minutes, the only sound in the room is us eating. Rafe digs out the second sandwich from his bag and unwraps it. His eyes meet mine as he takes a bite. I can’t look away, even as I bring another bite of my own to my mouth.
I watch his Adam’s apple bob when he swallows. “You all packed?”
I roll my eyes, earning myself a grin as he takes another bite. “Just as much as you are,” I answer.
Which is to say that neither of us is packed.
“I’m only bringing a few things. I have clothes at home. Just going to bring my dirty laundry so it doesn’t stay here while we’re gone, rotting.”
I huff.
“You’re coming with me, Brent,” he says, leaving no room for argument.
With a sigh, I finish my sandwich and crumple the bag in my hands. “Yeah, fine.” Honestly, I’m excited to spend the holiday with him. His family has always sounded amazing, and I’m looking forward to meeting them, but I’ll take all the time with Rafe I can get. “What’s the temperature there?”
Rafe shakes his head. “Mixture. Bring some long sleeves and a couple hoodies, but don’t skimp on the tees. The weather can get down to the forties, but it tends to hover in the sixties.”
I nod. “Cool.”
“You think you’re up for being my fake boyfriend too?” he asks.
My stomach flips as I chant the reminder in my head: fake, fake, fake. “Yeah, I guess. I can pretend for a few days.”
Rafe flashes me a wide smile. “No.” He laughs. “Ten days, Brent. We celebrate for ten days.”
I turn away as I catch my breath. Ten days! Can I truly last ten days with a fake boyfriend whom I’ve crushed on for fucking eons? I’m not sure my heart will survive that.
“Why so long?” I ask.
“We have a big family, and my parents love to entertain. We’re talking ‘entertaining,’ like they did in the 1900s with balls and dinners and shit. But it’s a lot of fun, festive, and… warm. It’s the one time of year that we get to see some of our relatives, so it’s nice.”
It’s not often that I miss my family. I’m not sure it’s even my family that I miss. I miss the idea of a family. I miss my aunt. I miss my ex-uncle, even though we’ve never been super close. That he supports me means everything.
Why wouldn’t he, though? He’s a gay priest. Of course, he’s going to support his gay kinda-nephew when the rest of my family disowned me.
More than anything, I miss the idea of a family. I want what the word symbolizes. I want to feel that kind of love and support and home.
Rafe slides down from the bunk, and we move around the room companionably without talking as we pack our bags. I take a shower and then we head for Rafe’s car.
“Okay, so I’m going to give you a rundown of my family. Take notes,” Rafe says as he pulls onto the highway.
I give him a bemused look, but he’s grinning, though his eyes are on the road.
“My oldest brother is Rice. He’s married to Annie, and they have three kids—Marietta, Candice, and Leah.”
“Rice is married to Annie. Marietta, Candice, Leah,” I repeat.
Rafe nods. “My next older brother is Royal. His wife is Beatrice, and they have a newborn, Sloane.”
I repeat these names as well before repeating Rice and family. “Okay. Next.”
“Next is me. Then Ryanne, our little sister and only girl. She’s two years younger than me. Our baby but still an adult.”
“Got it. Rice, Royal, Rafe, Ryanne. Your family has a thing for Rs.”
He snorts. “Yep, not sure what happened or why we have such… interesting names. Rice is named after a grain. Royal, I mean, come on. Ryanne is the feminized version of Ryan. And me? Rafe? Like they didn’t want to go with the full Rafael or something.” Rafe shakes his head.
Grinning, I say, “Next?”
“Mom is Marjorie. My dad is Edward the Third.”
“Ohhh, the plot on names thickens. No one was Edward the fourth?”
“Mm,” he hums. “Actually, there was. We had an older brother, who was Edward the Fourth, but he died in infancy.”
I wince. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to make a joke about it.”
Rafe shakes his head. “Trust me, you’re not the first. And how would you know?”
“Still. That was insensitive.”
He shrugs one shoulder. “Okay, so Marjorie and Edward. Ready for some family drama?”
“Definitely.”
“All right, so you know that our families have maintained the tradition of contract marriages for a long time.”
“Arranged marriages. Yes.”
He waves a hand at me. “It’s not just a single line of my family that does this. All relatives do. Which means it’s unsurprising that my uncle, Mom’s brother Ryan, did it for his kids too.”
“Wait. Wait. Ryan. And your sister’s name is Ryanne?”
Rafe laughs. “Yes, Mom named my sister after her brother, and no, I don’t know why. It’s just something we’ve always laughed about.”
“Huh. Okay, go on.”
“Uncle Ryan and Aunt Betty have three kids—Eloise, Quincy, and Enfield. Naturally, they were all to be contracted in marriage. Eloise and Quincy accepted their fate easily enough.”
“Let me guess, Enfield is like you,” I say.
Rafe flashes me a grin. “Oh, no. He was so much worse. He did everything under the sun to disrupt his parents’ expectations and determination to have him married to a woman of their choosing.
He was… epically chaotic. We’re talking arrests, bastard children.
Yes, I said children. There was even an international scandal in which he presumably had an affair with a married duke in England.
A married, straight duke. He went so far as to have a woman claim that he assaulted her.
It was fake, and that came out later, but the extent to which he went to get his parents to drop it was seriously monumental. ”
“I don’t even have any words.”
“Oh, it gets better. Eventually, Enfield got tired, and he gave in. He said he didn’t care anymore, but he wasn’t promising to be a good husband.
If they still wanted to marry him off, then so be it.
Enfield signed a contract and went to his new wife’s house.
Only his new wife ended up being a man, which had Enfield absolutely furious that they’d tricked him into marrying a man.
Apparently, despite the duke scandal—which I’ve since questioned whether it actually happened, given the nature of this blowup—Enfield has always insisted that he’s straight.
By insisted, I mean it’s never come up otherwise. ”
“Perhaps the duke thing made his parents think he was into men, too?” I suggest.
“Probably, but yeah.”
“Wow.”
“Oh, wait. If only that were the end of the story,” Rafe says, laughing.
“What more can there be?”
He glances at me, his smile making my stomach dance with butterflies.
“So, Enfield hired lawyers to tear apart the contracts, and while the contracts themselves were legal once he signed and they were notarized, his parents pushed a lot of boundaries, which meant their actions actually nullified the contract.”
“Oh, damn.” I laugh.
“Meanwhile, though Enfield was a bit of an ass at the beginning, Enfield and Xavi ended up falling in love and got married anyway. However, they also canceled their contract and have refused several points that their contracts guarantee, like children and carrying on the family tradition of contract marriages. Where they live. Their ties to the family businesses. All of it was null and void. They forced both of their parents to sign a new contract that freed them of a bunch of shit, or they were going to disappear into the night.”
“Oh my god. That’s wild.”
“Yep. So the whole drama is over; however, Enfield and Xavi do not let their parents into their lives at all. I’m confident that the only time they see their parents is during Christmas.
Because Uncle Ryan and Aunt Betty are there, and despite what Enfield feels toward his parents, he loves the rest of his family, so he’s here too.
I’m going to try my best not to introduce you and let you see if you can figure out who they are for yourself. The tension is epic, I’ll say that.”
I laugh. “I suppose every family has drama.”
“Oh god, if only that were the end of it. That’s the only huge one of my generation; however, there are certainly some in my parents’.
There are three big ones, none of which concern my parents.
I have an uncle who is somehow involved in the Italian mob.
We’re talking legitimate ties. I have uncles who traded wives.
Like, legitimately traded wives. Making it even more wild is that they did so after they were married and each had a kid with their original wives.
The kids even did the whole split custody thing. ”
“Holy fuck,” I say, laughing.
“Yep. Then there’s a rumor that one of my dad’s cousins has some underground moonshine business.
I say these are rumors, but he brings moonshine in mason jars every year.
Mason jars that aren’t off the shelf but are branded with the Hollow Grove Distillery brand, which isn’t anything in and of itself except that all our family brands use ‘Grove’ in their names—including our vineyard, which is Holt Grove Vineyard. ”
“You could write books about this.”
“Just you wait, Brent. One of my great-grandfathers had, like, a dozen bastard children, at least half of whom were born while he was married to my great-grandmother. One of my ancestors before my family came to California from England was an actual pirate. There was a bounty on his head, and many of his crew were hanged on Execution Dock in Wapping, London, on the Thames River. There’s still a noose there today. ”
“I have never met someone with a family so colorful,” I admit. “I’m expecting something grand when we get there. You’ve painted a ridiculously scandalous picture of your family.”
“Are you kidding? I’m still not convinced that there isn’t some weird scandal behind my mom naming Ryanne after her brother!”
I stare at him. “Are you suggesting… like…”
Rafe shrugs. “I’m not suggesting anything, but I’m also not discounting it either. Ryanne looks suspiciously like Uncle Ryan, but that’s also not uncommon. It’s really common that you look more like your aunts and uncles than you do your parents.”
“I don’t even know what to think! This is going to be like family holiday bingo. How many things can I spot in your family?”
He grins. “There’s a lot of wild shit for sure, but far and wide, my family is the greatest. They’re kind, thoughtful, and generous. So filled with love and support. I mean, even Enfield loves our family so much that despite his parents’ trickery, he’s still here. That says a lot, I think.”
“It does,” I agree. I shift so I can look out the window and wonder if I can somehow convince him to marry me. I want that family. I want kindness and love and support. I want to lose myself in their history, both the good and the outrageous.
I’m homesick for a life I’ve never had. I think I’m probably the biggest scandal in my family, and I’m just me. I didn’t do anything. My acts didn’t make me a disreputable member of our family. Their beliefs did.
There are no wickedly devious skeletons in my family.
Those skeletons are banished and it was as if they never existed.
Just like my uncle, who died. I only found out when I was disowned that he, too, was disowned for the same reason.
He was there once, and then I was forbidden from ever mentioning him.
I remember when I was a kid being told that he brought shame to our good Christian family by choosing a wicked and sinful life.
And here I am, following in his footsteps.