He turned back to me, sorrow in his eyes. “Dan cared so much about my happiness that he tended to keep his own close to his heart. I thought that as long as he was safe and healthy, it would all be okay. He never voiced whathewanted, and that is one of my greatest failures as a father.”
I let the words sink in, not knowing what to say to comfort him. I wasn’t a father, so I couldn’t understand his exact mentality, but I knew Victor would do anything to protect his son. He was the kind of father every kid deserved.
“He’d always listened to me and never insisted on anything…that is, besides you,” Victor said.
My heartbeat rocketed as his eyes watched me. There was no doubt he knew his son and I were together, and under the inquiring gaze of the man I saw as my father figure, I panicked.
I wanted to explain myself and tellhim that none of this was Dan’s fault.Iwas the one who pushed for everything.
Instead, what came out was, “I love him.”
Victor didn’t yell at me or get mad. He just patted my knee and said, “You’re a good man, Clay. I would know, since I consider you my own.”
I bit my tongue and nodded. I couldn’t talk or the tears would threaten to spill. To hear someone I thought so highly of say they thought of me this way comforted something inside of me.
Was I a good man?
Sometimes the way my thoughts led told me I wasn’t. But I wanted to be for the people I loved.
“Dan loves you,” Victor continued, “and I can’t think of a better person to be by his side.”
“I’ll take care of him, sir,” I said seriously.
Victor smiled. There was a bright twinkle in his eyes. “You’ll take care of each other. And I told you before, you can call me ‘lao-ba.’ I think, as my future son-in-law, you’re allowed to do that.”
“Okay,Lao-ba,” I managed to choke out. Over a decade later, I was finally able to call him that without the guilt of Dan’s despair haunting me. Dan never wanted us to be brothers, but that didn’t mean we wouldn’t end up as family, and this was one family I was so fucking thankful to have.
“C’mon, they’re waiting for us to eat,”Lao-basaid and stood. I stood, too, and waited for him to go first. Instead, he came to my side and wrapped an arm aroundmy shoulder. I was surprised, but my only reaction was to lean into his homey touch. “Let’s go, son.”
We walked like that back inside, his arm holding me all the way inside. Dan smiled when he saw us. He’d just finished setting up the table with my mom.
Lao-bawalked to my mom and pressed a kiss to her cheek, which she happily accepted, and Dan came to my side. He grabbed my hand, his eyes curved in happiness as they reflected my image.
I knew there would be many hurdles in us being together, but we crossed the most important one. Our family accepted us, and that was more important than the opinions of anyone else.
Sunday brunch came, and Dan was filled with nerves as we walked into Hector’s. We’d planned to tell our friends about us being together today.
Countless eyes found us as soon as we walked inside. All of them turned into shock when they saw us holding hands. Doing this in the middle of a very busy day at Hector’s guaranteed the entire town would know by noon, but we didn’t care. Now that our parents knew and accepted us, we didn’t care who else did.
Our friends were all already at a booth in the back. Today’s brunch only included Jones, Ryan, Ryker, and Sam. The smaller group made this a lot easier, plus Dan told me Jones already knew about us.
Ryker was the first to spot us. His eyes bugged out of his head when he saw us holding hands as we walked his way. We just smiled and continued weaving through the crowd of people toward them.
“About time,” Jones commented when we slid into our seats. He raised an eyebrow. “Have something to tell us?”
Dan lifted our entwined hands and placed them on the table for everyone to see. Jones smirked, Ryan and Ryker were still in a shocked stupor, and Sam looked…not surprised?
“I figured something was going on when you two stopped bickering all the time,” Sam admitted. “Plus, I have eyes. It’s obvious you two had a thing for each other by how you stick together all the time. And, Clay getting jealous of Dan’s dates isn’t exactly normal for stepbrothers.”
I nodded. My jealousy really hadn’t been normal, but I never understood the reason for it until now. I squeezed Dan’s hand and beamed.
“That’s not something to be proud of,” he said with a snort.
I kept holding on.
“Obvious? Obvious how? How come I never noticed anything?” Ryker asked.
I could practically see his eyes spinning.
