It was Skyler and Craig’s first official date. Craig had thought that he might have to do some sort of big coming out thing, and he had been dreading it. He didn’t want to have to sit his family down, in the midst of all of the wedding preparations, and tell them that he was bisexual.
Skyler had put everything into perspective for him, as he so often did.
“Why should you, then?” he had asked. “We’ve already started sharing the same room. There’s a good chance that they already know. Why does there have to be some sort of big ceremony about it? Let’s just stop hiding it.”
And that had been the best advice that his boyfriend could have given him. It had worked out perfectly. They were openly holding hands at Derrick and Logan’s wedding, not hiding it, but not making it about them, either. Skyler had been right, and Craig felt the tension that he hadn’t even realized he was holding in his neck and shoulders relax, as though he had been relieved of some burden. Which, of course, he had.
There didn’t have to be a scene. They could just stop hiding, and this family had had two same-sex weddings already. There didn’t need to be a big, dramatic scene, a demanding of recognition. This was a family who would accept it all openly enough, as strange as Craig found that.
“You know,” he confided to Skyler later, on the dance floor, letting himself just dance with the man he loved and basking in the fact that it was just fine, that no one minded, “the way I grew up was different than this. Malcolm and Kyle hooking up surprised me. Dad was not the most accepting.” And that had given Craig, and probably Derrick and Malcolm and Wyatt, some serious issues.
“People change,” Skyler said, just two simple words, but two truer words had never been spoken. People did change. All of the Hart boys, and all of the men who had gotten entangled with them, had changed. And so had their father.
It was a lovely day, and though Craig felt a little guilty about it, given the circumstances, he couldn’t help but enjoy it. He had the man he loved in his arms, and they were dancing, and no one cared. The world spun on, and the people he cared about most in the world were all here.
Who knew when, if ever, this would happen again? So Craig let himself feel what he was feeling. He danced, he hugged the people he loved, and he congratulated his brother and his brother’s new husband and was genuinely happy for them.
Jessica was there, and a little to Craig surprise, she was deep in conversation with Skyler’s sister Hannah, who had also become one of the people that the ranch sheltered. Malcolm had welcomed her in, which had meant a lot to Skyler. And she was making friends with people left, right, and center, which just seemed to be part of her personality.
It was perfect. There wasn’t a single person there who didn’t seem to be having a good time. Even Wyatt, oddly, had changed. He would never be the sort of person who was incredibly at home on the ranch, but he really had stopped trying to sell it from under them. And he had even started to talk about going into business closer to home.
His family had changed, and once, that would have scared Craig. But in reality, that change was as natural as the sun, and it was for the better that it had happened.
They were dancing again, himself and Skyler, when Malcolm walked up to him. Strange to say, there were the hints of tears on his face, inadequately wiped away, and his eyes and cheeks were red in a way that confirmed that Malcolm, of all people, had been crying.
“Dad wants to see you,” Malcolm murmured, and his voice, always deep and a little bit rough, was even more so at the moment. Craig glanced around the back yard, the same place where Malcolm and Kyle had had their wedding, and he saw that his father was sitting in a chair way off to the side of the house, in a patch of shadow. The man looked tired and old and far too skinny, very pale, but even from this distance, Craig could see a deeply determined look on his face. When he’d been a kid, that look would have meant that he was, by God, going to do his homework, whether he wanted to or not.
“I’ll wait here,” Skyler offered tactfully, but Malcolm shook his head.
“No. He wants to see both of you.”
So, hand in hand, he and Skyler went over to John Hart, who looked exhausted even though he had done very little. It was that which really slammed it home for Craig. His father was almost out of time, and he understood Malcolm’s tears a little better now.
“I’ve talked to all of you. You’re the last,” his father stated, and Craig shook his head. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to be doing this at all, that he wanted to hear what his father was going to say. He wasn’t sure what, if anything, he could handle.
At least he had Skyler’s hand warm and safe in his own. That helped.
“I knew what to say to everyone else, but I don’t know what to say to you, son. Other than congratulations.”
Craig smiled and nodded, squatting down so that he was on the same level as his father.
“Thank you. But you don’t have to say anything.”
“I asked you once what you wanted,” the older man continued, as though Craig hadn’t said anything at all. “And you said that you didn’t know. Do you know now?”
“I have what I want,” Craig whispered, and to his horror, he felt his throat thicken. He had really hoped that he would get through this without crying, but if Malcolm hadn’t even been able to, Skyler definitely wouldn’t. “I have him.”
“And what do you want?” The question was addressed to Skyler this time, who looked surprised and a little alarmed to be spoken to.
“I want him,” Skyler said slowly, a warm, comforting presence by Craig’s side. “And I want to see where this goes. I want more time to figure out what I want to do with my life, other than that I want to have Craig in it.”
A sense of huge, overpowering relief washed over Craig, because Skyler, surprisingly eloquent, had said exactly what needed to be said.
“Same,” he said, and it was all that he needed to say.
“Okay.” The really surprising thing to Craig was that his father accepted that so easily. Craig knew that his dad had wanted to see all of them settled, and Craig was pretty much saying that, just at the moment, he couldn’t be. “When the time comes, then, I want you to promise me something.”
Blinded by tears now, Craig simply nodded. It was all he could do.
