I huffed out a laugh and shook my head as the wide-eyed glee slipped from his face.
“I told you that I’m bisexual. Don’t erase my identity before you even understand it.” Jacques lifted his and Trav’s intertwined hands up, and he wrapped his other arm around me. “Carina’s and my wedding was a spur of the moment decision, but it was real. It is real. I’m in love with her, and she loves me—”
“So you, Travis, and Rusty are together?” Sophia asked, completely glossing over what he’d said about me. “Why didn’t you tell us earlier?”
“Because I was scared of losing you,” Trav replied. “I wasn’t sure you’d be supportive of us, and, frankly, I liked having you as parents.”
Linc reached for him, wrapping his arm around Trav’s waist and squeezing him tight.
“But it’s not fair to Peanut to keep secrets, so I need to be brave.”
“Why brave? What in the world made you think that we wouldn’t support you? We’ve always supported you,” Sophia said. Her brows were drawn, and her lips were turned down in a frown. She held her hands out wide as if she were pleading for them to prove her wrong.
“Have you really?” Jacques questioned.
Perhaps it was an unfair question coming from him. His parents had literally relocated across the world to help him pursue his love of hockey. But when it came to his relationship—the one they knew about—they’d been less than supportive. In fact, Sophia’s reaction was almost laughable given the conversation we were having.
“We have,” Pierre shot back belligerently.
“You could never lose us. We love you,” Sophia added.
“With respect, you’ve just proven Travis’s fears were valid,” Linc disagreed.
“What in the world?” Sophia asked just as defensively as Pierre had.
Linc gestured to me and shook his head. “You walked away from Carina because you don’t approve of her relationship with Jacques. You’ve just spent twenty minutes completely ignoring her, and she’s standing right in front of you. What’s to say that you wouldn’t have done the same to Travis and me?”
Sophie stilled, her mouth dropping open the only movement she made. A look of horror crossed her face, and then she turned to Pierre.
He scoffed and rolled his eyes, “That’s entirely different.”
“Is it?” Linc asked, dead serious.
“Yes, Carina took advantage of Jacques.” Pierre pulled his chin up and looked arrogantly down his nose at me.
“Well, you’ve got control of the puck,” Jacques said, letting go of us and facing up to his parents.
He was taller than his mum, but his dad still had an inch or two on him. But Jacques had presence. When he walked into a room, people looked, and they followed. It was no wonder we were all utterly besotted by him.
“The four of us are together. Carina and I are married, but it makes no difference to Carina’s and my relationship with Travis and Rusty that we aren’t married to them. We’re all having this baby together. We’ll all be parents to Peanut. You either accept it or you don’t. You either treat all of us with respect, or you walk away. It’s up to you. But if you make the decision to leave….” He shook his head and bit his lip.
I wanted to go to him, but Linc held his hand out, stopping me. It was as if he could read my mind.
“Well, if you walk away, you won’t get to know your grandchild.” He paused and let that nugget of information sink in, then added, “I’ve always looked up to you. I’ve always wanted to be as good a parent as you’ve been to me. But I’m disappointed in you.” He shook his head, his lips drawn down in a frown.
“Jacques—”
He continued without letting his mum finish. “You should be ashamed of the way you’ve treated Carina. You’ve been so callous with her, and you’ve hurt Travis, Rusty, and me too. We’ve watched her suffer at your hands. She nearly left because she didn’t want to come between you and me.” He huffed out a breath and looked at me, his half smile more sad than anything else.
“When Carina told her ex-husband the news, he congratulated her. Her daughter did the same. You ended decades worth of friendship and completely misjudged both of us. If you think anyone can take advantage of me to the point that I’m manipulated into marrying them, you don’t know me at all. If you think that Carina would ever do that, you never really knew her either.”
Sophia and Pierre looked like they’d been slapped. But it was about time they’d been made to see reality.
Travis grasped Linc’s and my hands and led us over to Sophia and Pierre. “I hope I don’t have to say goodbye to you. But I will if it means protecting the four people I love.” He placed our joined hands on my belly and Peanut chose that moment to kick. He smiled down at me with wonder in his eyes, then looked to Linc when he spoke. “Jacques isn’t coming out publicly. We’d appreciate it if you kept what we’ve told you here confidential regardless of your decision.”
My guys had voiced what they’d needed to say, and now it was my turn. “No matter what your opinion of me is, think of your son, his partners, and your grandchild. I’m not going anywhere.”
Jacques clasped my hand and brought my knuckles to his lips, brushing a soft kiss over them. I smiled and squeezed his hand. I was so grateful for him, for all three of them, and for their making me see sense.
