Page 3 of Dying to Meet You

“I understand the need to lecture him. I do, but are we running the risk of making him paranoid about people he doesn’t know?” Keir frowns at my question, but I don’t want to steal his childhood away by talking to him constantly about the dangers in the world. Weston has always been an outgoing little boy. The thought of him changing is farfetched, but I don’t want to smother his spirit with rules. With reminders that bad people exist.

The note. I quickly shut down where my mind starts to head.

Sucking in a quick breath, I add, “I just want him to have what we never did-a normal childhood.”

Chapter Two

This too shall f*cking pass, right?

Blaine

“Nope.Untellmethat.”

Twenty minutes ago, I was ready to grab Eden’s hand and pull her into the bedroom. It’s been a miserably long week of waiting to get her to myself. Now, I’m stuck listening to my brother-in-law Chris while Keir slips out of the room with her. Fucker.

Rubbing my eyes while letting my head drop back, I try to channel a semblance of interest in his last conquest. The revulsion over his lack of boundaries heightens when he launches into a story about his girlfriend shoving food inside her to push out while he records her. “I miss when people had shame,” I mumble to myself, which is rich coming from me. In fact, my wife would collapse laughing over that statement.

I guess I’m a hypocrite in addition to being a proudly self-proclaimed sexual deviant.

The kitchen door closes as Caleb kicks it shut; his arms loaded down with paper bags from the grocery store. “Need a hand, Big Gulp?” We can joke all we want about my best friend, but the dude looks like a superhero. Tall, broad-shouldered, muscles on muscles… He would be intimidating if he wasn’t always smiling.

Ending my call, I grab a bag from his arms. “I’d offer to help with dinner, but I wouldn’t mean it.”

He rolls his eyes as he sets the other three bags on the counter. “You were banned from attempting a meal again after you managed to blow up a pot of oatmeal. I still don’t understand how you did that. Those blueberry stains took forever to scrub out of the kitchen tiles.”

Oh yeah, fuck. Good thing I have no desire to put together a meal; that’s Caleb’s forte. Eden says Caleb makes a better mom than she is, only partially in jest. He makes sure we’re all well fed, the house is in running order, schedules are kept, the animals cared for, and the kids tucked in at the end of the day. It’s remarkable that as the youngest among the adults in our family, he embraces the responsibilities better than the rest of us.

A more compassionate part of me, the one immersed in psychology, understands he is constantly trying hard to prove to us and himself he’s “worthy” of being a part of our family. No amount of reassurance from any of us will remedy that. His excommunication from the FLDS Mormon cult he grew up in left its mark on him. When I step back and watch him with the kids, his tenderness and care with them eclipses his sense of duty. That’s when it’s clear how incredible he is.

I’d even say there have been times throughout the years when I’ve questioned if I’m crushing on him. Too bad he’s straight; there’s not a queer bone in that body. We hear a tiny squeal from the hallway beside the stairs as Zachariah runs toward us, his Kool-Aid-stained dinosaur T-shirt pulled up over his mouth. “Daddy B, Daddy C…Weston is missing.” Out of breath he bends forward to finish speaking. “The ninjas got him.” I catch sight of Weston dressed in his white karate uniform with his finger over his lips to shush me. He peeks around the corner at the bottom of the stairs, his adorably serious-looking scrunched face almost making me laugh.

I scoop Zach up, resting him over my shoulder. “Huh, the ninjas took him?” I’m thrilled Wes and Zach have been close since laying eyes on each other. The day Wes spotted him at Horizon Wellness Center when he was visiting with the therapy dogs, he promptly befriended him, and that brotherhood is effortlessly flourishing. The skittish behavior I notice with Zachariah only makes Wes more protective over his new sibling.

If only Waverly and Zinnea were experiencing the same. At nine and eight, they’re both mature beyond their ages, but Waverly has had the benefit of a large family giving her love, nurturing her interests, showing up for her dance recitals, and encouraging her drawing. Zinnea’s only had trauma, so she has latched onto Eden strongly, and it’s displacing Waves. There has always been a connection between Waverly and I, one I sense is crucial to her right now since Eden isn’t seeing how Zinnea’s needs are overtaking Waverly’s.

Zach wiggles, his squeaky laugh caused by me tickling his sides makes it hard for him to answer me. “Y-yeess, they went up the fireplace.” As Caleb grabs him away to sit him on the counter he adds in a whisper, “We’re just playin’.”

This tiny six-year-old, with white-blonde, wispy hair, and a distinctively high-pitched rasp of a voice gives us a shy look. “It’s the same ninja who lives in the trees.”

“Zach, the two of you haven’t been playing in the trees behind the barn again, have you?” Caleb asks.

We can hear Wes calling out a “Hi-yah, hi-yah, take that…hi-yah,” as he moves down the hallway toward the kitchen. “Teishi!” Since learning some Japanese from Hutton, Wes has been sprinkling words and phrases into his everyday conversations. The only reason I know he’s sayingstopis because this has been one of his favorite words so far. He’s even named one of the new barn cats Teishi.

“Nuh-uh. Not since the wagon got stuck.”

Last week, the boys were making a fort in the woods when the red wagon they’d used to bring sticks got caught on a tree root. At the time, Hutton lost them on the cameras for ten minutes while he was on a phone call for work. His automatic response was concern that a breach in security had occurred, something he takes seriously enough to have high-tech cameras mounted all over the place that he keeps track of. He found them quickly, but it must’ve rattled him since we had a family meeting about safety again.

Every one of us lives with the memory of that summer years ago, when we could’ve lost Eden or the kids forever. Even if our resources have allowed us some peace of mind, we’re all watching our backs.

The boys resume their antics, with Zach hopping off the counter to chase Wes outside, narrowly missing a collision with Dodger, our grumpy-ass cat. I stretch my arms out with a groan. “I need to get into the gym or …fuck, I need some kind of release.” Caleb half turns, opening his mouth to reply before shaking his head. “What?”

“I know that look.”

Ha. Am I that predictable? Once I noticed Keir and Eden slipping off together, I wanted to follow right behind them. It’s a constant battle to rein in my jealousy. The craving for intimacy with Eden exploded into an uncontrollable urge for sex when she took Keir’s hand to go upstairs.

Caleb turns to lean against the counter. “I’ll watch the kids. Go ahead.”

I search his face for any sign of the irritation I think he should feel. His time with Eden is just as important but he never voices it. If I were a better fucking friend, I would suppress this feeling and follow the boys outside, making sure the animal menagerie isn’t let out, or the boys don’t wander off. But call me a fucking flawed dickhead, I’ll take what he’s offering.

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