Page 109 of Knot Just for Show

“He threatened to remove me from his will—to make sure I inherited nothing, not a single penny. My mother begged him to wait—to see what happened when I finished school…” Lysander’s lip quivers and we all hold our collective breath—knowing what will come next.

“They were on the private jet, a routine jaunt to Paris for my mother’s sixty-fifth…They never came home.” He dissolves, completely undone.

Lysander sobs openly, his head bowed—the ragged cries ripping from him in tattered peals as I fold him against me—my arms wrapping tightly around his chest—his back rounded against my ribcage—his hands reaching back into my hair as he keens and wails.

“It’s ok darling, it’s all going to be alright,” I soothe Lysander, my lips pressing just below the lobe of his ear.

“C’mon Sandy baby,” Teddy croons—shifting in front of Lysander, taking Lysander’s face in his hands. “Take a deep breath, bud—we’ve got you,” he reassures Lysander tenderly.

“You’re in good company,” Mavren sniffles, tears flowing from his eyes as he draws near—his arms reaching out to wreath our shoulders—Lysander’s and mine. “I didn’t have the same type of trouble with my old man, but I lost him in my early twnety’s. He never got a chance to see me open my own restaurant, to make a name for myself—to meet all of you, my dream pack.” His warm, sonorous voice tapers off into muffled sobs as he lays his head atop Lysander’s—his full lips pressed to the boundary land of Lysander’s porcelain forehead and his soft brown curls.

Ash doesn’t offer any words of wisdom—just worms his way into the open space between Teddy and Mavren, purring softly to calm us—his Juniper Palo-Santo scent calling to Lysander’s own theta perfume; the lavender and blue chamomile rising as Mavren and Teddy begin echoing Ash’ low thrumming purr.

“It’s hard to lose someone,” Ronan speaks softly—his quartz pebble eyes still fixed on the stark monochrome portraits of the late Mr. And Mrs. Ewing. “Even harder when you lose someone who you spent your entire life trying to figure out how not to love them,” he sniffles, his voice tight with threatening tears.

Lysander stills then—his sobs quieting in earnest as he lifts his face to regard Ronan through the protective cage of our limbs, gathered around him in a group hug.

“My old man was a hateful sonofabitch,” Ronan’s tears begin to fall, spatters of dark blue wetting the front of his shirt. “Smacked me around ‘till I saw stars, or belted me until I couldn’t sit down at my desk at school the next day, so he had to keep me home,” he confesses, barely above a whisper. “Last time I ever saw him, he called me a ‘faggot’ and told me he had no son.”

A sob breaks free from Lysander and his hand shoots out—reaching for Ronan, calling him to us.

Ronan finds his way into the skein of arms—our limbs untangling and re-weaving into new patterns to welcome him in.

We stand like this—a sobbing, snotty mess until Lysander’s voice rises again—strong and true.

“They can’t hurt us anymore. For better or worse, all we have left is their memories,” he sniffles—our hold on one another loosening as we take a collective step back; face to face once more.

Teddy wipes the tears from his own eyes before bending to kiss away the tears on Lysander’s face, on my cheekbones. “We have plenty of memories to make of our own.”

All of us are so emotionally exhausted after our visit to the Ewing family crypt, we strip down out of our finery; opting to have tea on the patio in our bathing suits and loungewear; some of the boys pouring fine bourbon into their fancy vanilla-bean-scented cups of assam; Ronan, Mavren, and I still feeling guilty for disassembling a cigar worth twice the weight of ganja used to roll it into a quick and dirty blunt…but not so badly that we don’t smoke the sweet skunky thing down to a roach to soothe our frayed nerves.

Since dinner isn’t until much later, Lysander, Ronan, and I take advantage of the black-out curtains in the nesting room; thethree of us collapsing into the plush nest to take a much needed nap while Mavren, Ash, and Teddy kill time.

When I wake—I wake alone. A momentary panic strikes me as I reach out my arms to sweep the empty bed around me in the near perfect darkness, finding nothing but the blankets already gone cold.

“Lysander?” I call, sitting up in the nest—the golden strip of light under the door, and the dusky pink glow of sunset bleeding from the rippling seam where the drawn curtains meet. I didn’t mean to sleep so late, why hasn’t anyone woken me.

“Ronan?” I shout louder this time.

I wait in silence, straining to see if I can hear the muffled sound of voices from another room.

Nothing.

As my eyes adjust to the dark, I push to my hands and knees and crawl out of the nest, fumbling my way toward the door with my arms outstretched. When I manage to get my hand on the doorknob, emerging into the bright hallway in my oversized t-shirt and boxer shorts I let out a startled yelp when I nearly crash headlong into a camera crew along with Millicent or “Millie” as Lysander sometimes calls her affectionately; a tall wisp of a woman with watery blue eyes and golden blond braids—her arms laden with thick white towels and a deep red velvet dressing gown.

“Oh, Miss!” She blinks with surprise. “What excellent timing. I was just coming in to wake you.”

“Where are the boys?” I blurt, my voice sounding more worried than I’d like.

“Mr. Ewing and the others had to attend to an urgent errand.” She smiles apologetically.

“Oh…did they say where they were going?” I press, my hands unsure of what to do.

“I’m sorry, Miss Goldblum-Laskaris. I’m afraid they didn’t say.” Millie bows her head slightly, her lips pursed contritely.

“Please—you can call me Ursula, Millie.” I wave the honorifics away. “Did they say when they’d be back? We have dinner with Teddy’s parents—god what time is it? Around eight? I think we were supposed to meet them at some restaurant for dinner.

“It’s quarter past six Miss—erm, Ursula,” she corrects herself quickly. “Mr. Ewing said that they should be home well before dinner, and to let you sleep as long as possible.” She opens her arms to more fully display the towels and dressing gown. “Mr. Ewing also suggested that you might like to have a bath in the omega suite before dinner.” She beams before adding conspiratorially under her breath “It isincredibly luxurious— with a little wink. “I would be happy to prepare the bath for you.” She sweeps her entire body to the side—at once opening my way down the hall and gesturing to the door to the bath—an inviting amber glow pouring from the frame.

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