If it’d been quiet in the waiting room before, it was tomb-dead silent now. A nurse sitting at a desk behind a sliding window to the side of the ICU door looked up from her computer.
Noel wasn’t finished venting her pent-up emotions. “I’m only here for my father. I love him, but he wasn’t any better than the rest of you have been to me. So here’s the truth—I’m married to Scott and I’m in love with him, and we both are in love with Keith, and he’s in love with us. Deal with it. We’re adults and we’ll do what we want. My relationship isn’t up for discussion. Now I’m going to go in there and see my father. When I come back out, if you want me to leave, I will. But I’ll be damned if I’ll sneak out of here like I’ve done anything wrong.”
She spun on her heel and stormed toward the door. She spoke with the nurse at the desk and was buzzed through, the doors swinging shut behind her.
Meanwhile, Scott had—likely unconsciously—sidled closer to Keith as the entire family turned on the two of them.
Okay, enough’s enough.
He edged between Scott and Noel’s mother. “Mrs. Jameson,” he quietly said, “I apologize for Noel’s outburst. She’s very upset, obviously.”
But Noel’s mom stepped to the side and focused on Scott as if Keith wasn’t even there. “She said you both are in love with this guy. This is your doing, isn’t it? I knew you were wrong for her from the moment I first met you. Even my husband has always hated you, but I tried to keep the peace. I tried to—”
“Enough,” Keith firmly said, taking charge and dropping into full-on Dom mode. Obviously, tact and diplomacy weren’t going to work in this situation.
Not after Hurricane Noel dropped a whirling shit-bomb of truth right into the middle of the spinning turbine of stress and drama.
“I’m not asking you to like or approve of our living arrangement, Mrs. Jameson,” Keith said as he edged between her and Scott again. “And I wish that our meeting had been under better circumstances. Honestly? I thought Noel and Scott were exaggerating the dysfunction in this family. I can see that they weren’t.”
Now the woman looked huffy. “Dysfunction? There is nothing dysfunctional about this family! Noel has always been high-strung and difficult, all her life. Insisting on being contrary and nonconformist just to cause trouble. I should have known she’d do something stupid like this. She was never easy like the rest of my chil—”
Keith held up his palm. “Stop. Right now. You’re done.” When one of the brothers tried to step forward and intercede, Keith turned his palm toward him and closed his thumb and fingers together in a universal shut-up gesture without taking his focus off Noel’s mom.
“Once Noel’s done,” Keith said, “we’ll leave and go back to the hotel for the night. We’ll return tomorrow and check on her father. Either you pull your heads out of your asses and play nice and put aside whatever petty, stupid family squabbles you’re going to use Noel as the scapegoat for, or we’ll take her back home to Florida.” He’d actually booked the trip for them to be up here a week, so he’d have to change the flight.
But he wouldn’t tell her family that.
One of the sisters looked a little conflicted. “Mom, he’s right. This is about Dad, not about—”
The other brother reached out and grabbed her shoulder, scowling at her.
The sister’s face reddened, but she went silent.
“Oh. I see how it is,” Keith said. “Rule by dictatorship instead of honest, adult relationships based on mutual respect and understanding. Gotcha. That’s your definition of a ‘functional’ family.”
“How dare you!” her mom said. “You don’t know us at all.”
“Exactly. I can tell I don’t want to know you, either. Not if you’ll treat Noel and Scott this poorly during a situation as grave as this.”
An announcement went off over the loudspeaker, a code blue page. Ten seconds later, two doctors bolted through the waiting room and were immediately buzzed through the ICU doors.
Everyone fell silent. Scott felt for Keith’s hand, Keith taking and squeezing it.
Noel didn’t return.
Thirty minutes later, Noel, with a nurse helping her walk and led by a doctor in scrubs, emerged from the ICU.
“Mrs. Jameson?” the doctor asked.
Noel’s mom covered her mouth with her hands.
Keith and Scott went to flank Noel, taking over from the nurse, who appeared to actually be holding her up, not just helping her walk.
From the look on Noel’s face, Keith immediately knew what had happened. He didn’t even need to ask.
She softly wept against them as the doctor ushered the family into a conference room just off the waiting room to break the news.
Keith ignored everything except Noel and Scott.
They were his focus, his priority.
The other siblings and their spouses comforted her mother and each other as the doctor explained what happened.
“I want to see him,” her mother demanded. “Take me to my husband.”
The doctor escorted her out while the nurse stayed behind. Keith heard her say, “We’ve called the hospital chaplain for you.”
“I want to go,” Noel quietly said to Keith. “I want to leave now.”
Keith exchanged a glance with Scott, who looked as heartbroken as Keith now felt.
“Honey,” Scott said, “we can’t leave right now. We have to—”
“I want to go. I don’t have any reason to be here,” she said, pulling away from them and wobbling to her feet. “This isn’t my family anymore. I kept hoping they’d change, but they haven’t. I’ve changed. I’m happy now. I’m done.” She headed for the conference room door on unsteady legs.
Scott looked to him for confirmation. Keith shrugged and rose to his feet, quietly following Noel, catching up with her and opening the door for her as Scott slipped an arm around her waist.
Downstairs in the car, she had her meltdown, sobbing between the two men in the backseat as they sat there with her between them.
“He opened his eyes and looked at me,” she whispered. “The nurse who took me back there told me he was sedated, but he opened his eyes when I talked to him. I said, ‘Hi, Daddy. I love you.’ And he opened his eyes and looked at me. Then they closed again and alarms went off and I sort of got shoved out of the way and then there were all these doctors and nurses working on him.”
Keith had his arms both around her and Scott, Noel pressed against his chest and Scott holding her from behind. “Honey, we can’t leave things like this,” Keith said. “That’s your mom, your family. There’s going to be a funeral. I’ll sit out in the car while you and Scott go to it and—”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t want to go. I don’t want to look at them.”
He tried again. “If you leave things like this, there’s a chance you’ll never be able to fix them. I speak from experience.”
“There isn’t anything to fix. The problem is for years I thought there was. I thought if I tried hard enough, they’d like me and accept me, but the truth is they won’t. I don’t know what was so different about me that they couldn’t in the first place. I got decent grades, but I was always different than my brothers and sisters. I liked to read all the time, fiction. I was a dreamer. I was liberal. They never really accepted me once I was old enough to form my own opinions and then defend them without backing down. I’m done beating my head against that wall.”
“Hold on,” Scott quietly said.
He slipped out of the car, closed the door, and then Keith watched him take his cell phone out of his pocket and make a call. While Keith continued to soothe Noel, Scott walked away from the car. In the glow from the parking lot security lights, Keith could see Scott talking to someone, running a hand through his hair, staring down at the ground as he paced slow, small circles. Ten minutes later, he nodded, ended the call, and rejoined them.
“We’ll fly into Grand Rapids tomorrow,” Scott said. “I told my parents
we’d call them as and give them an ETA as soon as we change the flights. We don’t have to get a hotel room. They said we’re welcome to stay with them.”
“We?” Keith asked.
Scott nodded. “All three of us.”
* * * *
It was late in the afternoon when Keith finally pulled their rental car into the Gilroys’ driveway. Mike and Danica Gilroy stepped outside before they’d even emerged from the car. As soon as Noel spotted Danica, the woman held her arms open to Noel and Noel ran to her, crying. Danica shuttled her into the house.
Mike Gilroy looked somber as he walked over to Keith and Scott, who were getting their bags out of the trunk. “You must be Keith. Sorry this meeting had to be under such depressing circumstances.”
He stuck out a hand to Keith.
Keith shook with him but glanced at Scott.
“I told him on the phone last night,” Scott said. “I told them everything. Well, the short version.”
“I’m still confused,” Mike said after hugging Scott, “but he said you three would give us the long version. I think it’s more important to take care of Noel right now. I never did have much use for that bunch of assholes she’s genetically related to.” He looked at Scott. “Didn’t I tell you that then?”
“Yes, Dad. You did.”
“What?” Keith asked.
Scott smirked. “Dad told me Noel was welcomed into our family, but if I ever tried to force the rest of those jerks on him he’d disown me.”
“Mr. Gilroy,” Keith said, “I think you and I will get along just fine.”
The older man smiled. “I think you’re right. Call me Mike. Or call me Dad. I don’t care. Either’s fine.”
Keith felt peace settle around him. “Thank you, Dad. I appreciate that.”
* * * *
If it’d been the plot of a clichéd romance novel, the contrast in the two families couldn’t have been more blatantly different. It was obvious that the Gilroys didn’t understand why Scott and Noel had opened their marriage, and the three of them avoided the topic of BDSM while Scott admitted he thought he was gay, but they were withholding judgment.
Noel had curled up on the couch, her head in Danica’s lap as the woman stroked her hair while the three men sat around the coffee table.
“If you three are happy,” Danica said, “then that’s what matters. I’m sorry you’re going through such a rough time now.”
“We are going to ask for one concession,” Mike said.
“What’s that?” Scott asked.
Keith was expecting a request for them not to have sex under their roof, or to have separate bedrooms for himself from Scott and Noel, which he would have honored.
But he was pleasantly surprised.
“Let’s not tell your grandparents about any of this,” Mike said. “As far as they need to know, Keith’s a friend of yours.”
Keith relaxed. “Agreed,” he said before Scott or Noel could rebel.
Hell, the two of them still owed him twenty cane strokes each for blurting out the truth in the hospital, but that was something he’d collect later, after they’d returned home and talked about it first.
“Are you sure you don’t want to try calling your mom?” Danica asked Noel.
“No,” she said, sounding lost. “You’re a better mom than she is. I just finally found the nerve to stand up to everyone.”
Keith still wasn’t sure allowing Noel to back out of the funeral and flee was the best option, but he wouldn’t overrule her and force her, either. He hadn’t grown up in her household, although both she and Scott had related plenty of incidents that demonstrated the family had an asshole gene that ran deep over the years.
How it skipped Noel baffled him, but he wouldn’t question it. Not when he was the benefactor of her love.
* * * *
A sense of relief filled Noel that night when they settled into the tight quarters of the guest room. The queen-sized bed wasn’t as large as their king-sized bed at home.
Snuggled safely between Scott and Keith, she felt a peace the likes of which she’d never dreamed possible.
“Thank you,” she softly said.
“Who was that to?” Scott asked from behind her. She lay on her side, her ass wedged firmly against Scott, her face pressed against Keith’s shoulder.
“Both of you,” she said.
“Why?” Keith asked.
“For letting me rage back at the hospital.”
“I still don’t agree with how you handled it,” Keith said. “And there will be discussions when we get home about following orders.”
“I know, Sir,” she said, finally able to call him that. Keith had ordered that, around Scott’s parents, they wouldn’t call him Sir, that they’d let Mike and Danica think it was an even partnership. “But if it makes any difference, it was a long time coming.”
“I don’t know them the way you two do, so I can’t guess that. I know it was a stressful situation that wasn’t made any easier. I should have insisted on staying downstairs.”
“I didn’t want you downstairs,” she said. “I needed you upstairs. And, thankfully, you were. Because that’s when I really needed both of you. I’m not happy how things happened, but honestly? I really do feel free for the first time in my life. I no longer give two fucks what any of them think.”
“That’s fine, but this wasn’t the best way to do it.”
“I know. I won’t, however, apologize for it. Maybe that makes me a shitty daughter and sister, and they’ve been right about me all these years. Or maybe it means I had my fill of being the punching bag for them all these years, the ‘jokes’ and ‘just kidding’ comments I tolerated and kept my mouth shut about, because when I protested I was always told to lighten up. Maybe if I’d blown up at them years ago, it wouldn’t have come down to this. I’m not going to change who I am or who I love. The only time I saw them was at Christmas, anyway. Counting yesterday, I’ve seen them eleven times in the past ten years. Other than my birthday, which half of the time most of them forget anyway, I get no acknowledgements from them. So…I’m done.”
“Okay,” Keith said, kissing the top of the head. “If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure.” She pulled Scott’s arm more tightly around her. “I have Scott, I have you, and I have Scott’s parents. And a shitload of good friends who’ve been supportive, loving family to me. I don’t need my blood relatives. I don’t want them. They obviously haven’t wanted me for years. It was just the final…”
She swallowed back the rest of the comment. It was too macabre even for her to say, under the circumstances.
“I finally just had enough,” she quietly said, instead of the reference to the final nail in the coffin.
“Love you, girl,” Keith murmured in her hair.
“Love you, too, Sir.”
He reached across her to Scott, to stroke his arm. “Love you, too, boy.”
Scott let out a content-sounding sigh. “Love you, too, Sir.”
She turned her head and kissed Scott. “Love you.”
“Love you, too. So much, you have no idea.”
“I’m just glad we finally got this right and figured out what we needed,” she said.
“Me, too,” Scott agreed.
Chapter Twenty-Four
It was a beautiful June day, sunny, gorgeous, perfect. The night before, they’d checked into their hotel room thirty minutes away. Close enough to drive, but not so far away it would make their argument for a hotel improbable. They preferred the neutrality of the hotel, a place they could retreat to if things went badly.
Noel noticed how Keith had grown quiet during the drive, until he wasn’t answering questions in anything more detailed than monosyllabic grunts and head nods.
In the backseat, Scott was doing his best to keep up a hint of a conversation, but Noel could see the way Keith’s knuckles grew increasingly white as he gripped the steering wheel more and more tightly with every mile of blacktop rolling beneath their
wheels.
She finally reached over and laid a hand on his jean-clad thigh. “We don’t need to do this,” she said. “We can turn around and catch an earlier flight home.”
He didn’t respond, but in the backseat, Scott fell quiet.
Noel had sent a Christmas card to Keith’s little sister, Aubrey, from the three of them. She’d located the woman via Facebook.
From there, it’d led to some discussions via chat, then phone.
And only then had Noel broken the news to Keith.
Which had first earned her a spanking for going behind his back, and then a long, hard cuddle with his face buried in her hair after he whispered, “Thank you,” in her ear.
Keith’s two sisters and brother didn’t share their parents’ views, and Aubrey was getting married tomorrow.
Aubrey had invited them to come over to Keith’s parents’ house today for a family dinner. Aubrey and her fiancé, along with Keith’s older sister, brother, and their spouses, would be there early, before the rest of the guests, to help act as a buffer between Keith, Noel, and Scott and Keith’s parents.
Aubrey really wanted Keith at her wedding. And hadn’t told her parents about his arrival. The siblings had agreed that they loved their brother and wanted him—and his significant others—to be there.
But none of them wanted a repeat of Indiana.
The question was if the Knepp siblings ganged up on their parents, would their parents relent and at least play nice for the day so Aubrey could have the wedding of her dreams with her entire family by her side?
Keith also had two nieces and two nephews he’d never met. They wouldn’t be there today for the initial reunion, no one wanting to subject young children to any tempers if their father and mother unleashed. They would be brought over later by other family, closer to the time everyone was scheduled to gather.
Noel was used to the vast, rolling farm landscape from having grown up in Indiana. Scott, who’d never lived anywhere other than Florida and had rarely ventured outside the state by car, was fascinated by the open miles of farmland.