“Why?”
Susie wanted to tell this part. She felt she owed the boy that much. She reached out and touched Grant’s shoulder and he nodded.
“Remember how I told you my husband died?”
Kyle nodded.
“Remember how I told you his brother still worked at the dealership?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, yesterday, I bought him out to get him out of my life once and for all. His parents, my husband’s parents, didn’t like that. They came in this morning and threatened me, threatened your dad. They had…” She sighed. “They had pictures of me and your dad, and of me and Grant. We were in the pool together at my house. Pictures of us kissing.”
“Ew, they spied on you?”
“Exactly.”
“Creepy.”
“Yeah. Very creepy. My ex-father-in-law came in this morning and threatened to go to your dad’s boss and show him the pictures and tell him that I was dating both Grant and your dad, and to get him fired. So I had to think fast. I got a bunch of stuff ready and made it there first and told the reverend that the reason my father-in-law wanted to meet with him was to plan our wedding.”
He stared at her for a moment, then to Grant, and Darryl. “So you’re not getting married?”
“We are now,” Darryl muttered.
“It’s okay,” Grant said. “If your dad and I get married, he’ll definitely lose his job. If Susie and I get married now, Marcus Costello will try to get your dad fired.”
Kyle seemed to digest that. “Soo…you’re sort of like that Sister Wives show? Except…not?”
“Huh?” Susie asked.
“Guy has a bunch of wives,” Kyle said. “It’s a reality show. He’s only legally married to one of them. They’re…morons or something.”
Grant snorted. “Mormons?”
“Yeah, that.”
“No,” Grant said, “we’re not Mormons. We’re what’s called poly. I love your dad, and he loves me. We both love Susie, and she loves us. Unfortunately, in this country, there are legal restrictions on how many people you can marry at the same time. If any of this gets out, your dad will lose his job, I could lose my job, and your mom will most likely try to take visitation away from your dad.”
“Yeah,” Kyle said. “She would.” He stared at Susie for a long, uncomfortable moment. “So you really love both of them?”
She nodded. “I loved them when I was in high school. I mean, we didn’t do anything in high school. We were just friends. But we’re older now, and it seems we met again for a good reason. And yes, I wish I could marry both of them, but I was scared your dad was going to lose his job and you, so I had to think fast. I bought a ring, got a bunch of florist and bakery brochures, and made the reverend think we were there to talk about a wedding. I couldn’t let your dad lose custody of you or lose his job.”
Kyle seemed to digest that. “Well, what did the guy say when you told Dad’s boss that you were getting married? Your husband’s father?”
“He couldn’t say anything at that point. He would have looked creepy, as you said, for having pictures of me and your dad that he took in secret.”
Kyle slowly nodded. “You outsmarted him.”
“Yeah. Fortunately for me, not hard to do in this case.”
“So Dad won’t be moving out of Grant’s?”
“Well, we haven’t got that far yet,” Grant said. “If your question is will all three of us be living together, the answer is yes. I hate to ask this of you, but you can’t tell people the full truth. Not now, anyway. Once you’re eighteen and your mom can’t cause any trouble—”
“Yes,” Kyle said with a firm nod. “I’ll keep your secret for you.”
Susie’s memory flashed back to that first weekend, when she’d agreed to Grant’s proposal without him even getting the whole statement out of his mouth.
“But I have a condition of my own,” Kyle said.
Oh, boy. Here we go.
“What?” Grant asked.
He focused on Susie. “Dad’s lawyer is your lawyer, too. Right?”
“Right.”
“Can you help him pay to get full custody of me? To make stuff go faster so I can live with you guys all the time?”
The three adults exchanged a look.
“I’ll still go visit her,” Kyle added. “Like on weekends or something. But I’m sick and tired of living there. I want to be here. I want to live with you guys. You guys are normal. When I’m here, we have dinner together every night. You help me with my homework and talk to me. I want that. I miss my Dad. I miss him being around all the time. He raised me. Mom never has time for me.”
Grant stared at Susie and Darryl, eyebrow arched.
She knew what he wanted to say next, and she nodded.
So did Darryl.
“Okay,” Grant said, “but before you say that, I have some rules you need to know.”
“Sure.”
“In this relationship between me and your dad and Susie, I’m the one in charge. They defer to me. That’s the way I want it, and that’s the way they want it.”
“Duh.”
Grant’s other eyebrow went up. “Say again?”
“Come on, I know Dad’s…” He looked at Darryl. “No offense, Dad, but Grant’s the guy and you’re the girl. And Susie, too. But you guys are happy, so whatever. I don’t care. One of my friends, his dad is gay and has a husband. They’re kinda like that, too.”
The giggle finally escaped Susie, making Grant turn. “What’s so funny?”
“You, Sir,” she said. “You look like you just got your kneecaps taken out from under you.”
“I did.” He returned his focus to Kyle. “I’m serious—you can’t tell anyone. Not your friends, no one. Our official story has to be your dad and Susie are dating and engaged. If anyone finds out the truth, your dad and I both could lose our jobs, and then your mom can try to go for full custody again.”
“I promise I won’t. I haven’t said anything before now, why do you think I’d say anything after?”
“Your dad is still in charge of you,” Grant said, “but I run the house. You’re going to obey our rules.”
Kyle nodded. “I will. I promise.”
“Do you have any questions for us?”
“Can I be at the wedding?”
“Well, yeah. Of course we want you there.”
“Okay. Deal.”
“Anything else?”
“Yeah,” Kyle said. “Can we have pizza for dinner?”
Grant smiled. “I think we can manage that.”
* * * *
There was no use in hiding things from Kyle any longer. They did a lot more talking over pizza. They kept the conversation age-appropriate, and didn’t get into the sexual aspects of their relationship or talk about BDSM, but they did manage to get the basic gist of things conveyed to him.
After Kyle went to bed, the three adults retired to Grant’s bedroom and collapsed.
“Holy crap,” Darryl said as he fell back onto the bed and stared at the ceiling. “I feel like I’ve been run through an emotional blender.”
“Join the club,” Grant said as he stretched out next to him.
“Do you think he’s really going to keep our secret?” Susie asked.
“I think so,” Grant said. “I think he understands what’s at stake. It doesn’t hurt that he really wants to live here full-time. And he’s right. If he hasn’t said anything to anyone before, why would he blow our secret now?”
“You think he’ll still want to live with us in a couple of months?” Darryl asked.
“Yeah. This is different than before. This isn’t just a temper tantrum. He’s really done living there. I can tell. And I feel crappy for him.”
“Me, too,” Susie said. “He looked really upset.”
“He is upset,” Darryl said. “He wouldn’t talk to me when I got him. He just got into the car and it was like a wall of silence until we got here and he ran inside.”
“The good news is, we don’t have to sneak around anymore when he’s here,” Grant said.
“And the bad news?” Susie asked.
“We’ve got a wedding and a custody battle to plan,” Darryl said.
Chapter Twenty-One
The next morning, Susie called Ed as soon as he was in the office and gave him an update.
“Wow,” he said after a moment of silence. “When you do something, you don’t screw around, do you?”
“No. What can we do?”
“About the custody agreement?”
“Yeah.”
“Lucky for us, Pat Donnelly is the judge. We might have to give up asking for alimony and child support to get Chelsey to let go, though. And Kyle might have to talk to the judge. You sure he’s willing to do that?”
“This isn’t the first time he’s talked about it.”
“He’s thirteen in what, a month?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s going to be hard for any judge to ignore a minor that age. All we can do is give it a shot. I’ll get the ball rolling on this end and contact Chelsey’s attorney for a sit-down and see what we can hammer out. Maybe we can do this without it having to go before the judge.”
“You think so?”
“No, but it’s worth a shot. Meanwhile, document everything. Every visitation, every phone call, everything.”
“Will do.”
She texted Darryl to call her when he could, and an hour later, he did.
“Well?” he asked.
She filled him in. “I’m paying for it,” she added.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Um, yeah, I do. We’re a family. If you want to pay me back later, fine, but Kyle’s miserable. Did he say anything else this morning on the way to school?”
“He asked me how long it’d take to get it done, and when he could tell his mom. I told him to wait until we’d talked to Ed.”
“Smart. Because Ed needs to talk to her attorney first. No use tipping her off any sooner than necessary.”
“Kyle says he understands.” She heard him let out a sigh. “I feel like shit, Susie. Like I’m a horrible dad. I should have fought harder during the divorce.”
“You did what you had to do to survive.”
“I could have taken the initiative when I realized what was going on with her and filed for divorce myself. Maybe kept primary custody.”
“Or it might have still ended up this way. Don’t beat yourself up. Sometimes, we can only do so much before we hit a wall when we’re in survival mode.”
Goodness knew she’d lived that personally.
* * * *
It only took two weeks. Susie didn’t know what magic Ed pulled out of his ass but after several rounds of negotiating, he got Chelsey’s attorney to get her to agree to let Kyle live full-time with Darryl without it having to go before the judge for anything other than his signature on the order.
The afternoon of the move, Grant called in a little insurance in the way of the Collins brothers to help not only move the things Kyle wanted over at their house all the time, but as witnesses to help ensure Chelsey didn’t cause any trouble.
Susie wanted them as witnesses, too.
Just in case.
At one point, Susie found herself alone inside with Chelsey, who looked her up and down.
“I’ll be honest,” Chelsey said. “I really thought Darryl was gay and just hiding it with Grant because of his job.”
Susie put on her cheeriest smile. “I’m happy to say he’s not gay.”
Okay, homoflexible wasn’t gay.
Technically.
Not completely.
“I thought about fighting this,” Chelsey said, “but my attorney said that you’re paying for it. I can’t afford that. Besides, Kyle made it perfectly clear he wanted to live with you guys full-time. So what’s the point in fighting?”
Susie wasn’t sure what angle the woman was looking for and just kept her mouth shut.
“Believe it or not,” Chelsey said, “I love my son. But I’m not very…maternal. Darryl’s a good father. I know that. He wasn’t manly enough for me, though. At first it was cute, having him taking care of me all the time, but I needed a real man. I couldn’t live my life like that.”
Susie couldn’t help herself. “I understand. Fortunately for me, Darryl and I are perfectly compatible.” She headed for the front door and turned. “Oh, and, by the way? Next time you have your son do tech support on your phone? Clear out your text messages from your other boyfriends. He saw them and told us all about them. That’s one of the things that got him so upset. He is very mad that you’re cheating on Greg. He also said he knows you cheated on Darryl while you guys were married because he heard you and Greg talking about it. And he overheard Greg on the phone once talking about your plans to soak Darryl for more money.” She smiled and waved. “Ta!”
It was all she could do not to burst out laughing at the horrified look on Chelsey’s face as Susie turned and walked out the front door.
Bitch.
Yeah, it was uncalled for, and would likely earn her some paddle hits or cane strokes later, but it was worth it.
Every last fucking one.
* * * *
We have to pull this off.
That was the mantra Susie repeated to herself over and over again in the two months leading up to the Friday evening of their wedding.
Yes, she should be happy. It was her wedding day, for chrissake.
But she still wished it was Grant and Darryl getting married.
Grant, however, had put his foot down. For the greater good, he wanted Darryl and Susie to get married. It ended a lot of potential issues with Darryl’s job. Hell, if Kyle was all right with it and going along with it, wasn’t that the important thing?
She also wished it was Loren performing the ceremony, but since she’d committed to the bit, as it were, for the wedding, she had to go along with Rev. de Papio performing the ceremony.
Was kind of the whole point of rubbing Marcus’ face in it.
The past two months had been a blur of activity, planning everything and settling into a new routine with Kyle living at home during the week.
But she wouldn’t trade a thing when she saw how happy Kyle was, and how happy Darryl now was, how at peace he was.
He was a good dad.
And it had her shoving away the old regrets, memories of the talks she and John had just started having about kids of their own when he died.
They were in one of the anterooms at the church, getting ready for the ceremony. Grant put his arms around her from behind as she stood in front of the mirror. Darryl had been banished from the room since he was the groom, and Kristin, Tilly, Loren, and Susie’s mom were there helping her get ready.
“Look at it this way, sweetheart,” he whispered in her ear. “Think about how much pleasure you’re going to get seeing Marcus and Joanie having to wear those sick smiles all evening.”
Susie suppressed a giggle. “Yeah. True.” Marcus had made Joanie do his dirty work and call Kristin a few weeks earlier for a total.
Susie only made them pay for the cake, catering, and florist.
That was more than enough satisfaction for her. And they were the most expensive parts of the whole thing, too.
Susie and Grant were paying Kel and Mallory to handle the photography and videotaping for them, and they hadn’t rented tuxes, so for the most part, other than her dress and the rings, there weren’t any other expenses. Even the church was free, courtesy of Darryl working there.
Grant kissed her cheek. “If I’m happy, then you should be happy, too.”
She pulled his arms tightly around her, meeting his blue gaze in the mirror. Then he winked at her before releasing her and heading out to track down the nervous groom.
Grant, Kyle, and Rusty were standing up as best men. Chelsey had wished them well and taken off for a last-minute weekend in the Bahamas with her latest boyfriend despite it being o
ne of her weekends with Kyle, and despite her and a “plus one” having been invited to the wedding.
And Chelsey hadn’t asked for a make-up weekend, either.
They suspected Chelsey thought that would slow down the lovebirds, except that Kristin and Ron were now taking Kyle, their two grandsons, and several nieces and nephews over to Disney for the whole weekend, leaving right from the church once the reception was over.
And that didn’t hurt Kyle’s feelings at all. Especially when Susie slipped him a pre-paid credit card loaded with three hundred string-free dollars to buy whatever he wanted in the way of souvenirs.
A win all the way around. Excessive? Absolutely, but the kid had been true to his word about keeping his mouth shut.
Susie also wanted to make up in some small way for the shit the poor kid had to put up with to get to that point.
Once the wedding was behind them, then they’d finish the process of getting Grant’s house emptied and ready to sell. He wanted to take some of the equity he’d receive from the sale and put it into Kyle’s pre-paid college fund.
At least Susie’s house was larger. They hadn’t completed the physical process of blending the two households, but they were now all living full-time at Susie’s. One room of her house had already been turned into a playroom.
For gaming.
Of the non-explicit, child-friendly kind.
The weekly D and D game was now held at Susie’s, and Kyle had joined the campaign and was learning how to play. It meant they all had to tone down their banter, but it also meant more bonding time with the three of them and Kyle, who seemed far happier now that he was living full-time with them.
Even his grades had shown a marked improvement with his home situation stabilized. And with him spending most weekends at Chelsey’s house, it meant the three of them could still get out and go to the club and be with their friends.
Susie’s father entered the room. “Ready?”
At least her parents had managed not to start bickering at each other.
Yet. “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”
Tilly hugged her and whispered in her ear. “Remember, we’re all here for you.”