Page 50 of Ken
TWENTY-FIVE
It was definitely not the sort of thing that he would normally do, go to a wedding of a woman he didn’t really know to a groom that he had never even met. But Luna looked beautiful, and she seemed genuinely happy, and Justin couldn’t even regret coming.
Jade was thrilled, of course. She got a sappy look in her eye that filled Justin with foreboding. He almost felt sorry for anyone that she would eventually fix her eye on, but he supposed that was a bridge to cross when it happened.
Meanwhile, she was just being a kid, chattering and laughing and running around in a pack with the other kids around, hair ribbons and dress flying as she giggled and dashed madly around.
In short, she was being a kid, and Justin realized, as he watched her, that he probably hadn’t brought her to enough of these sort of things. She was so happy, so in her element, and she would have her new friends eating out of the palm of her hand in no time.
“Wow. I didn’t even know that you had clothes that weren’t sweats,” Ken commented, grinning at him as he slipped an arm around Justin’s waist. A bit self-conscious, Justin gazed down at himself. Truth was, he’d had to buy a suit just for this event, he hadn’t even owned one before, and it definitely felt strange.
Before Justin could comment, though, he felt Ken’s body stiffening up beside him. When Justin followed his lover’s gaze, he thought he understood all too well. Maria, Ken’s mother, stalked toward them, her eyes burning and fixated on them both.
She had thought that Justin was safe because she had learned that he had a kid, but clearly she was having somewhat of a rude awakening on that subject.
Trying to exercise something like tact, Justin slipped his arm from around Ken’s waist, or that was the idea, anyway. But Ken captured his wrist and drew it right back around, and it was a pretty clear sign that he didn’t want to hide it.
That didn’t exactly break Justin’s heart, actually. He would have been willing to try to be subtle, but he didn’t want to. He was well and truly in love, and while it wasn’t his style to scream it from the rooftops or take out a billboard about it, he didn’t want to hide it.
“Justin.” Maria’s voice and face were tight, her brows furrowed into two deep canyons between her eyes. “How lovely to see you again.”
Justin just nodded, standing beside Ken, offering his support but this was really Ken’s decision to make, how he wanted to deal with all of this. Whatever he did, Justin was there to support him as best he could.
Not that he was best at dealing with overprotective mothers, not given his own history.
“What’s up, Mom?” Ken asked, and Maria’s eyes narrowed as she looked up at him, somehow far more imposing than her height would usually suggest that she be. This was a woman to be reckoned with, for sure.
“That nice girl that I wanted you to bring to the wedding? I got Luna to invite her and her parents so you can meet her. I’m sure Justin has better things to do than hang around with you, dear …”
“Actually,” Justin interrupted, his voice pleasant enough despite the anger, “I don’t. This is exactly where I want to be.”
That sort of bluntness took the wind right out of her sails, deflated her. She had been pointing over at a lovely little family, with a girl just about Ken’s age, but that finger dropped with Justin’s abrupt comment.
“Yeah, not gonna happen, Mom,” Ken said, and there was frustration in his voice, and anger, and sadness, but also love. Whatever her methods, this woman did just want the best for Ken, but it was a very narrow definition ofbest, one that fit into her world view.
“Ken, please,” Maria whispered, and there was no faking the fear in her eyes. “You don’t want to do this. I want more than this life for you.”
And she probably did. That was the hell of it that she really did think that she was doing the best for her son.
“This is the life I want, and it’s my life,” Ken told her, and while he wasn’t cruel about his words, they were firm, direct, and to the point. Incontrovertible.
“Daddy!” Jade ran up, with probably the most impeccable timing of anyone that Justin had ever seen before. She was joined by another little girl with thick, straight black hair and eyes so dark brown that it was hard to see the pupils. “This is Arya. I want her to come over sometime.”
Justin looked down at the other child, giving her a bit of a nod of greeting. She nodded back, obviously a bit shy, and that made sense. Shy children had a way of latching on to the more gregarious ones. Only maybe it wasn’t just kids, because Justin had sort of done the same thing with Ken, hadn’t he?
Looking into his daughter’s eyes, he realized that she expected him to make some sort of excuse. And he realized, too, that that wasn’t fair. That it was her house, too, and that he was going to have to open it up at least a little. He probably wasn’t going to be hosting any huge parties anytime soon, but he didn’t need to be a complete hermit.
“Yeah, we can probably do that,” he said, making his daughter grin up at him, then take her new friend around the waist and tug her off into whatever complicated games the children were playing. Before she left, though, she looked at Ken, grinned at him, and then turned her attention to Maria, who was almost visibly biting her tongue.
“Hi!” Jade chirped at Maria, and then she was off, but it was probably the best possible thing that she could have done. Maria looked a little bit like she’d been hit in the stomach by a two by four, but not in a bad way.
A woman like her loved kids, she hadn’t had so many of them for any other reason. In that one word, Jade had added Maria to her string of admirers, that much was clear.
It probably wasn’t going to be entirely smooth sailing from here, but Justin had the idea that it wasn’t going to be impossible, either. And that was something, anyway.
Maria wandered off, a look of not entirely discontent on her face, her eyes fixed on the roaming gang of kids.
“She wants grandkids,” Ken told him, bringing him over to one of the tables that had been set up in the big outdoor venue where Luna had decided to hold her reception. It was a nice area. Too damn hot, especially in the stuffy suits, but nice.
