Oliver: Chapters: 15, 16, 17, 18 -And, Too Much, Broken, If
Title: Oliver
Genre: Post-513, Daddy!Fic, Fluff
Summary: Brian and Justin's lives post 513, focusing mainly on raising the newest addition to their family, their son, Oliver.
Timeline: 2013--->
Notes: This story will have 100 'sections', and is based upon the fanfic 100 table, but I'll be rearranging some of it a bit. You can find it here--> Oliver Master Post Table Basically, this story is meant to be a breather for me while I finish my original novel.
Oliver
Chapter 15: “And”
Sex didn’t always cure Justin’s problems; sometimes afterward he would be angry with Brian because he felt like Brian was trying to placate him with orgasms, which also sometimes worked. Tonight’s sex wasn’t only about getting the finish or releasing the stress Brian knew was coiled within Justin. It was sex after days of exhaustion, apprehension and broken routines. It was about reuniting more than just their bodies, or Brian thought it should’ve been. He’d been certain that after they got the hard and fast orgasm out of the way, taking it slow and making love to Justin would bring him back to him. It did a little bit, but even as Brian exploited all of the moves, touches and words that normally made Justin shatter and soar, he was aware that Justin’s mind was still focused elsewhere. He began thinking about all the things that might possibly be wrong, that would warrant anything but Justin’s full attention at the moment of orgasm and Brian had to fight to stay in the present and work harder than usual to get them both off.
Afterward, Justin didn’t place his hands at the curve above Brian’s ass and whisper, ‘stay’, he didn’t cover his face with his hands and mumble nonsense breathlessly, and he didn’t open his hazy dark blue eyes and stare at Brian with an intense look so filled with love, it made Brian ache with wonderment. Even if Justin was pissed at Brian for something, there would’ve been some kind of immediate reaction the moment he got his breathing under control, hell, they never would’ve made it to the ‘making love’ round of the sex before Justin bitched until his heart was content. So, Brian hoped that whatever it was that made Justin slide out from underneath him and escape to the bathroom, wasn’t about something he’d caused and apparently couldn’t fix with an intense outpouring of love.
He lay on his stomach, feeling helplessly confused, pondering just how bad ‘it’ was. Finally, Justin emerged from the bathroom, his skin dotted with teeth marks, hickies, sweat and come. Brian didn’t have to see the foreboding expression on his face to know Justin hadn’t gone into the bathroom to clean up; he’d gone in there to seek solace and gather strength before he told Brian what he needed to say. Brian got goosebumps, from both the cold of the room and his nerves, so he moved to sit against the headboard and pulled the comforter up around him.
Justin didn’t walk over to his own side of the bed; instead he lifted a corner of the blanket next to Brian and crawled underneath it, curling up against him, almost in a ball. “I’m sorry for freaking you out. Don’t say you’re not freaking out,” he said, looking up at him, “because I know that you are.”
Brian let out a deep breath and began carding his fingers through Justin’s sweaty blond hair. “I am.” He admitted it because he’d learned long ago that Justin would get defensive.
“Shit,” Justin breathed, “I really am sorry. I probably should’ve told you right after you put Olly to sleep, but I really just wanted to be with you. That’s all I’ve wanted since you left.”
“I know.”
Justin moved out of Brian’s embrace and sat in front of him, between Brian’s spread legs, crisscrossing his own and draping the comforter over both their shoulders. “A couple of days ago, your sister came by.”
Brian stiffened and he immediately knew why Justin hadn’t wanted to talk about this before, he wouldn’t have wanted to and he didn’t want to now. “And?”
“Do you know that she knows about Gus?” Justin asked.
Brian nodded. “Lindsay told me she ran into them a couple of years ago.” He grimaced. “Don’t tell me that bitch is asking to see him.”
“No, no, that’s not why she was here,” Justin said. “Uh… but I… well, Oliver was crying and she saw him, she met him, so now she knows about him too.”
“And?”
“Okay, so that’s not really…” Justin ran his hands through his hair and shook his head. “Shit! So, do you know that John has a kid?”
Brian groaned, “Poor kid.”
Justin frowned. “Yeah. He... Gray, that’s the kid’s name; he really is a poor kid. Not like because of money, well all right, they don’t have money, but that’s not why. It’s because his mom died and now John is in jail.”
Brian grimaced. “And now Claire wants to know if we’ll give her some money to get her baby boy a lawyer?”
“No, actually, she’s the one who called the cops on him. Shit, I need to just tell you what she told me.”
“That would be best,” Brian said, frustrated, but dragged his hand up Justin’s bare arm in a calm gesture to tell him it wasn’t him he was frustrated with.
“John and Gray's mother, Nina, were both hard into drugs before she had the kid. Claire said she paid for them to go to rehab when Nina found out she was pregnant. They got off the drugs, but after Gray was born, Nina got back into them and she overdosed and died. John had been sober for a little while and he and Gray lived in Claire’s house, but after Nina died he got back on drugs and Claire began raising Gray on her own.”
“And?”
“She needs our help.”
Brian snorted. “So she wants us to give her money to help her raise John’s kid?” Brian asked. “Bullshit. Our mother left her everything! Her bank account balance should be just fine. It’s not our problem if she donated half of it to the fucking church!”
“That’s what I thought too,” Justin told him softly. “But that isn’t where the money went. Claire said that she used up all of her savings to send John and Nina to the rehab and then when he got into drugs again, she tried to send him to some extravagant center, but he left right away, didn’t give two shits that his mother would lose all that money, which doesn’t surprise me much. Last week, Peter was visiting Claire when John was there and caught him stealing money from her purse. Peter stopped him, they got into a fight and he threw John out of her house. Claire called the police, but John had already gone. The cops found him at a meth making house, uh whatever they call it, and I think she’s certain that he’s going to prison now.”
“And how much money is she asking for from us to help with Gray?”
“It isn’t money she wants. The landlord kicked her out of the house, I guess he’d warned her before, didn’t like John or the company he kept or something and the cops showing must have been last straw. She’s staying with a friend, but CFS took custody of Gray and they won’t let Claire have him back until she can provide a stable home for him. She’s living on the couch at a friend’s house. She said that she doesn’t want our money, Brian, she wants us to…” Justin let out a deep breath. “Brian, she wants us to take in Gray until she gets on her feet. She’s afraid he’ll get lost in the system before that happens.”
“And we’re the ones… two homosexuals… who she wants to give him to for the time being?” Brian asked in a disbelieving growl.
Justin sighed, “Yes.”
“And what was your response?” he queried uneasily.
TBC in Chapter 16
*
Oliver
Chapter 16: “Too Much”
Brian hadn’t waited until the morning to call Claire, he’d called her that night, waking her up at four a.m., demanding to know just when she’d lost her mind, or changed her mind and decided that he wasn’t a child molester. After a bunch of groggily spoken apologies, tears and pleas for help and forgiveness, Brian told her that she could meet him at ten a.m. at Kinnetik the next day and abruptly hung up on her. After the call, he’d told Justin that they were not going to take in Gray. Justin was obviously relieved with that decision and told Brian he just didn’t think he could handle two children all the time. It went unsaid that Gus did not factor in, because he was not only their son, but he was also a big help to both of them with Olly. They didn’t know how old Gray was, but Justin gathered from his conversation with Claire, and also by John’s age, that the kid probably still needed a lot of looking after. That would be too much for them to handle, especially with Brian needing to focus on winning the Armani fragrance account.
They discussed what they felt was the only way they could help. Though Brian and Justin weren’t ready to forgive Claire or have her in their lives, they couldn’t turn their backs on an innocent child. They decided that they would offer to give her enough money to get on her feet, whatever that entailed for her to have custody of Gray, and then they could go back to their lives.
The next morning, which came way too early for both of them, they drove into town, dropped Oliver off with Molly and went to Kinnetik. Most of the other employees had already arrived and due to Cynthia’s excitement, they were all aware that Brian and Ted had landed the Nike account while in New York. The buzzing joy around the office was palpable when Justin and Brian walked in, but their minds were too preoccupied with the coming meeting with Claire to indulge in the success.
“So it’s going to be one of those days,” Hunter said dryly, as he spotted Justin walking beside Brian. “You were separated too long so now you need an assistant under foot for the day, or should I say, under your desk?”
Justin rolled his eyes and placed his hands on the top of Hunter’s desk. “Today is really not a day to be making jokes, kid.”
Hunter laughed. “You do realize you’re only a few years older than me, right? At one point, we were teenagers at the same time. I think we were both teenagers when we met.”
“But I grew up and you didn’t,” Justin huffed.
Brian stood behind Justin with an amused smirk on his face as he pulled Justin up against him and wrapped an arm around his waist. “What am I going to do with you? You boys, always fighting about something, you two are too much alike it’s scary,” Brian drawled.
“We are not,” Justin and Hunter said in unison.
“Well, at least you agree about something.” Brian laughed when they both glared at him. It sort of amazed him that even the success he’d acquired by banking the Nike account hadn’t made him feel good about today, yet watching Hunter and Justin do their predictable mock cock fight did. Fearing for his sanity, Brian forced himself to put on his boss face and told his assistant, “We’re expecting a… a guest at ten. Send her into my office when she gets here and do not disturb us for any reason until we’re done.”
“A guest?” Hunter asked, confused as he looked down at his computer screen. “I don’t see a meeting with any…”
“It’s not with a client,” Brian cut him off. “I scheduled it after I got back last night.”
“Oh. What’s this guest’s name? I’ll log into the scheduler.”
“No need,” Brian told him.
“It’s just his sister, Claire Ki…uh…” Justin turned to Brian. “What’s her last name?”
“You don’t know your sister-in-law’s last name?” Hunter asked.
“I don’t know his sister, and if you did, you would know why I don’t,” Justin said pointedly. “Think about it, Hunter. In the ten years since you’ve known us and have been to every sort of family gathering imaginable, have you ever met her?”
“What?” Hunter shook his head and grabbed his coffee. “It’s too early for this… for me to deal with…” he gestured at Justin, “blond speak.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Justin asked but didn’t wait for a response. “You do realize that I own part of this company, bought with my own hard earned money. That also means that I too am your boss, so show some fucking respect.”
“It means Justin has his boss pants on today,” Brian said, glaring at Hunter. He rubbed Justin’s stomach soothingly while trying to stop himself from smiling at the look of shock on Hunter’s face. He was sure Justin was giving Hunter a smug smile. “Just point Claire in the direction of my office, she hasn’t been here since the expansion,” Brian told Hunter and pulled Justin with him down the hall.
“So what is Claire’s last name?” Justin asked, once he closed the door behind them.
Brian sat in one of the leather chairs in the seating area and raised one eyebrow at Justin. “You really don’t know?”
“Uh, no,” Justin said, sitting across from him on the sofa. “That’s really fucked up.”
“Her last name is Kinney,” Brian told him. “John and Peter’s last names are Kinney too.”
“What about her ex?” Justin asked.
“Paul left Claire while she was pregnant with Peter.”
“Weren’t they married?”
“They weren’t,” Brian said, snickering, “but she referred to him as her husband when in actuality they lived together in sin. After he left her, my mom showed Claire the error of her ways and took her into her church where she could repent for her sins and have the support of the good Catholics.”
“I would’ve thought that she’d at least have given John his father’s last name,” Justin said. “I mean, she must’ve thought he would stick around if she got pregnant again with Peter.”
“Claire used to be a bigger slut than I was, or at least a careless one. When she told me she was pregnant with John, she told me that she wasn’t sure if Paul was the father. I’m pretty sure the same goes for Peter. Paul was her safe bet, or so she thought, and after he started cheating shortly after John was born, I bet she did too.”
“He had to have known then,” Justin said. “What father doesn’t want their name on their kid’s birth certificate?”
Brian cocked his head to the side and gave Justin a funny look. “You do remember that Gus asked to have his last name changed to Kinney when he was seven, don’t you?”
Justin’s eyes widened. “Oh, shit! I’d forgotten about that. But, that was different, you were different. You were doing a favor for a friend, you didn’t know…”
“Maybe that’s all Paul was doing when he stuck around, doing a favor for a friend, until he couldn’t anymore. I don’t know, I only met the guy a handful of times, he was usually working whenever I saw Claire.”
“It’s really crazy that we’ve been together for twelve years and this is the first I’ve heard of this,” Justin said.
Brian shrugged. “It’s not like Claire is a part of our family, there was no reason for me to bring it up.”
“Were you guys ever close?” Justin asked.
Brian frowned. “I don’t want to talk about that.”
“Sorry, it’s just weird,” Justin told him. “You know practically everything about my family and you’ve met like every single family member I have. Can’t you understand why I’m curious about your family? I just want to know some things about them, about your childhood with your sister.”
Brian scowled, Justin was asking for too much from him. “They aren’t my family.”
“I know, I know,” Justin said, flustered. “But they all share the same last name as our sons. I guess I just can’t help but wonder about them now that Claire…”
“Claire isn’t going to be in our lives after today,” Brian cut him off. There was a knock on the door and Brian stood up. He adjusted his suit and called out, “Come in.”
TBC in Chapter 17
*
Oliver
Chapter 17: “Broken”
Justin had never before been in the same room with Brian and Claire, but he had thought that he understood and that he knew just how broken their relationship was. He didn’t. His perception of how fucked up their relationship was didn’t even rate as a tiny blip on the true scale of the chaos that was their blood connection. This, he figured out with only a few sentences spoken, their stale greetings and Brian directing her to the chair he’d vacated, before going to sit next to Justin on the sofa. Or perch, yeah, that’s what Justin would call what Brian was doing, because he was on the edge of the seat, completely stiff, his defenses up and truly looking as though he was ready to charge into Claire or bolt for the door at any moment.
There was no reaction from Brian when he placed a comforting hand on his thigh and no reaction from Claire when he tried to coax an answering smile from her with one of his own. Claire just stared at him and Justin was pretty sure she actually assessing him because she didn’t want to have to look down and see that Justin’s hand was on Brian’s upper thigh. He’d seen ‘Claire the Bitch’, but he hadn’t expected her to mirror Brian’s posture so much. She was the one that wanted something from them, so he thought she should be the one to appear relaxed and open first. The seconds ticked by though and the awkwardness grew and grew.
“Justin told me what you asked from us,” Brian spoke and his thigh muscle twitched.
Justin wasn’t sure what to think of the twitch, but he was glad Brian had finally decided to speak.
“Did he explain to you my situation?” Claire asked, her tone a mixture of hope and embarrassment.
“He did,” Brian said.
To Justin’s relief, Claire’s posture softened and she leaned back in the chair, though she still kept her hands clenched tight on her purse strap, keeping the thing smashed against her chest. “Good, that’s good.” She gave Justin a look with a tilt to her lips and Justin wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be a smile or not. “How was your business trip?” she asked, looking back at Brian.
Brian rolled his eyes while he leaned slightly back, but his body was still tightly wound. “It was fine, Claire. You can do away with the pleasantries because I’m sure you don’t really care.”
Claire’s eyes narrowed and grew dark. “I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.”
“The trip was a success,” Brian said placating. “Thanks for asking.”
Claire sucked in a deep breath and she opened her mouth but closed it into a thin, tight line, obviously stopping herself from what she’d been about to say. She opened her mouth again and after a moment said, “I know that I’m asking a lot from you,” she looked at Justin, “from you both.”
“You are, which is why we’re declining,” Brian told her.
Claire’s eyes misted over and an expression of grief bloomed on her face instantly. “Please,” she said, her voice shaking, “please, Brian, Justin, I can’t let Gray stay in foster care. I can’t! John has already signed away his rights to the state and he could be adopted soon. Right now he’s a temporary ward of the state, but in a week from now they’re going to…”
“We’re still going to help you,” Justin interrupted, feeling a twinge of pity for her plight. “We’re just not going to take Gray in.”
“But there isn’t another way,” Claire told him. “I have no rights to him because Pennsylvania doesn’t recognize ‘grandparent rights’ and I have no money to sue the state for custody of him if he gets adopted out once I’m able to take him in and that could be months from now.”
“Which is where we come in,” Brian said. “He won’t have to become a permanent ward of the state and be available for adoption if you have a home, right? We’ll give you the money to get you a home and fund whatever else you need to adopt Gray yourself.”
Claire put her hands over her mouth and let out a chuffing breath before dropping them back to her purse. “Brian, money isn’t the only reason… Oh god!” she began weeping then.
“Claire!” Brian yelled. “Would you stop your sobbing and fucking talk to me like an adult?”
Justin was caught off guard by Brian’s response to Claire’s despair, and when he looked at Brian’s face, he felt his stomach lurch. He hadn’t seen ‘this Brian’ in a very, very long time. He knew that Brian had every right to speak to someone who had accused him of child molestation the way that he was… but the carelessness was still jarring to him.
“I’m sorry,” Claire croaked, wiping her eyes. “I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to tell you yet. I was hoping that you’d take Gray in and then I wouldn’t have to tell you until after you’d fallen in love with him. He’s a really good boy, Brian. He’s quiet, kind and so very smart. He talks so well and his preschool teacher said he’s the most advanced child in his class. He reminds me so much of you when you were a little boy. I hoped that you both…” She looked to Justin and this time she did smile at him. “When I saw you with Oliver, I knew you’d be good for Gray, both of you would be.”
Brian shook his head and let out an exasperated noise. “So your plan was to just foist a kid you’ve been raising, off on strangers?” he asked. “You’re just gonna get rid of him because you’d rather what…live the single life? Tell me, is the friend you’re staying with a man? Does he have an aversion to children and that’s why you’re willing to just toss your grandkid away?” he accused.
“No!” Claire shouted, the word reverberating around the room.
Justin grabbed onto Brian’s hand and squeezed it. Yes, he had a flicker of thinking the same thing that Brian had, but his gut told him that wasn’t the real reason Claire wanted them to take Gray. “Then what is it you’re doing?” Justin asked, his tone forcibly gentle.
“I’m… I’m just trying to make sure that he stays with family,” Claire whispered, wiping her eyes.
“You’re his family,” Brian told her.
“We don’t even know him,” Justin said.
“But you could,” Claire softly spoke, “and you could love him. He’s really easy to love.”
“Children usually are,” Justin agreed, “but we have two children and…”
“Carcinoid,” Claire interrupted and looked down.
“What?” Brian asked.
“Carcinoid, it’s…” she looked up again, “it’s the type of tumor and cancer I have and it’s metastasized and spread to my liver and…” She shook her head back and forth and slumped in the chair. “It’s one of the rarest cancers in the world and one of the deadliest. It might’ve been treatable if I’d been correctly diagnosed two years ago when I first started showing symptoms, right after Mom died. One of my doctors even told me that it was all in my head, that I was feeling the way I was because of grief. Last month I found out after I had a colonoscopy and they biopsied a polyp and ran a bunch of other tests. I know that I’m asking a lot from you, and I know I have no right to ask this. I’d hoped that John would get clean and Gray would be all right with him, but that isn’t going to happen. John’s facing up to ninety years in prison for what they found in the meth lab, his fingerprints were all over the stuff in there and they’ve linked him and the people arrested with him to violent crimes. There’s no way that he’s going to beat the charges.”
Justin gripped Brian’s hand tightly and watched as his sister’s words sunk into his husband’s brain. In slow motion, he saw Brian go from being angry and confident to looking as broken as Claire. He sagged back against him and Justin tried his hardest to offer comfort, but he felt lost in how to do so without cutting away the last threads of Brian’s control. He knew that Brian, even broken, did not want to appear that way to Claire.
TBC in Chapter 18
*
Oliver
Chapter 18: “If”
Brian cleared his throat before asking, “What about Peter?”
“Peter knows…”
“I mean if…” Brian began and sighed. “Can’t Peter take custody of Gray? He’s… he’s nineteen now, right?”
A flicker of happy surprise crossed Claire’s face. “Peter lives in Baltimore, he’s in his first year, enrolled in the School of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University. It’s his dream, to be a doctor; it’s what he’s always wanted to do. He already suggested moving back home to take care of me and Gray, and I know he’d do it, but I can’t let him, even if that means Gray gets put in foster care. He worked so hard all through school, he was the Valedictorian of his class and he won a full-ride scholarship to John Hopkins on his own merit and determination. There are only two offered each year and he received one of them. It would ruin his life if he dropped out and he can’t take a leave of absence from a school like that.”
“Why is it so important that he stays with people he’s biologically related to? We’re as much strangers to him as he would be to anyone. If he were adopted by another couple, it’d be almost the same as if he were adopted by us,” Justin told her.
Claire looked at the coffee table between them and pointed at one of the many framed photos of Oliver placed on top of it. “That day at your house, you told me that your son looked like both of you.” She looked from Brian to Justin. “He does, which makes me think that maybe he’s biologically related to you both somehow.”
“Justin’s cousin was our surrogate and I gave up my swimmers,” Brian said, gruffly. “What’s your point?”
Claire looked at Justin and held his eyes. “I think you know.”
Justin did.
“If you hadn’t found a surrogate of your relation, would you have tried adoption?” she asked.
“Of course,” Justin told her quickly.
“But you would’ve tried to find another surrogate first, wouldn’t you have?”
“Yes,” Brian said, growing aggravated. “Why are you talking about this? It isn’t any of your business.”
“She wants to make a point that we wanted a child who we were biologically connected to,” Justin told him, sighing. “And you probably want to know if I would have been the one to be the biological father, don’t you?”
Claire nodded. “Yes.”
“I would have been,” Justin admitted.
“But that doesn’t mean you would’ve loved an adopted child who wasn’t biologically related to you any different,” Claire said.
“You’ve got some fucked-up logic, Claire. Gray would be biologically related to me,” Brian said. “And you know that he’d be loved if he were adopted by people he didn’t share blood with, so what difference does it make?”
“I think…” Justin began. “I think she’s trying to say that there may not be logic to her preferred choice. Because like with us, if possible we wanted to have a child related to one of us. I think she’s trying to make us understand that if she could choose who raised Gray, she would choose someone he was related to over someone he wasn’t. Even if those choices are both strangers to Gray.”
“Brian isn’t a complete stranger,” Claire said. “Just because he hasn’t met him, doesn’t mean that Gray doesn’t know about him. But yes, Justin, you’ve explained how I feel much better than I could have done, thank you.
Brian sighed and spoke in a desperate tone of voice, “Claire, you must realize that you can’t put something like this on us.”
“I know,” she whispered. “I don’t want to. I really don’t want to, and it’s not because I don’t think you both would be good parents to him, it’s because it cements the fact soon I won’t be in his life. I’m sorry for deliberately lying to you about what I really wanted. I just really hoped that once you got to know him, you’d see how he could fit into your lives and it’d be easier to deal with adopting him.”
“Have you thought about the fact that he doesn’t fit into our lives?” Brian asked. “Do you realize that it was possible that we’d be the ones left trying to find someone else to take him once you died? Are you really that careless?”
“I once was, I’ll admit that. But honestly I did not think that you would say no and that you would offer an alternative. I was certain that you would take him. No matter what has happened in the past, Brian, no matter how badly I hurt you and was led astray by other mother, I always knew you’d be a good father.”
“Just like you knew I was a child molester, Claire?” Brian spat.
“No, no, I didn’t ever think that until that day. I was so confused by the police record Mom told me you had and the officers that came and...”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Brian hissed. “I don’t have a record!”
“I know that now, but I didn’t know it then. That day that John told me you’d hurt him, I… I didn’t believe him at first for a whole bunch of reasons, but I knew that I’d have to talk it out with him and figure out why he would lie about something so terrible. I was there talking to him, he was screaming at me, telling me that I never believed anything he said and that I didn’t love him. He was yelling loudly, going on and on depicting other disgusting acts he said that you told him you’d make him do if he ever told anyone. He was so detailed about them and even though my gut was telling me that he was lying, I listened to it all and I just hoped that when he was finished he’d run out of horrible things to say and I could have some time to sort out the truth. I was going to call you and find out if something had happened, not that, but if maybe he’d done something that you disciplined him for and he was seeking revenge.”
“That’s exactly what he did,” Brian grit out. “I caught him stealing from me.”
Claire nodded. “I was about to leave his room and just give up on him telling me the truth, but then Mom was there and she’d already called the police. She told me that you had been convicted of a sex crime before and…”
“I got caught with another kid under the bleachers, he was giving me a hand job at school and I was seventeen. There is no record of that, they wiped it after we both did community service!”
“I know, Brian,” Claire said, her voice breaking. “But I didn’t know that was what she was referring to and I guess she’d already told the police about it because when they began talking to me they said the most awful things about you. I thought that because they were police officers that maybe they knew something I didn’t and they railroaded any conversation I had with them and made me feel like a horrible mother for not believing John. Mom told me that she’d seen you with a young boy at your loft and she twisted my mind and so did the cops. I know that I have no one to blame but myself for my actions but I was scared I began to believe them. I believed something so terrible about you because I was weak.”
Brian glared at his sister and told her. “You know that who she saw me with was Justin, right? He was legal the night I took him home a year before she met him!”
“I realized all of that when Justin came to our house with Debbie and a different police officer. Then John admitted that it and I was so fucking disappointed in myself I couldn’t imagine that any apology I could offer you would help what I’d believed, the things I said to you and how I acted. I’ve thought about it so many times over the years, Brian. I’ve thought about all the ‘what ifs’. If I wouldn’t have been so weak, if I wouldn’t have listened to Mom, if I would’ve realized the officers were homophobic and were more concerned about putting a gay man in jail than doing right by John. If I would’ve remembered that it was always you protecting us while we grew up, if I would’ve just listened to my instincts, if I would’ve called you and asked you your side of the story, if I would’ve asked the police officer to show me your record, if I would’ve never listened to mother about ninety percent of the things she told me, I might have a chance at a relationship with you. If I would’ve gotten the balls to apologize long before now, Gray might not be a stranger to you.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered,” Brian admitted defensively. “If you would’ve tried to apologize to me then, I wouldn’t have heard you or believed it.”
“But you believe me now? You believe that I’m sorry?”
“I’m not sure,” Brian said honestly. “I find it hard to believe that you’re sorry for doing that or that you’ve stopped subscribing to the homophobic bullshit Joan brainwashed you with, even without her here. Case in point, last week, when you stopped by the house to talk to me, you were a bitch to Justin.”
Claire gave Brian a sheepish look. “I was testing him.”
“Testing me?” Justin spoke up. “What the fuck for?”
“Because though I know you cared for Brian enough to stick up for him and find a way to show everyone that John was lying, I was worried that you were maybe only with him for his money.”
Justin knew the situation didn’t exactly call for it, but he couldn’t help the bubble of laughter that poured from his mouth. “You’re fucking serious right now? We’ve been together for twelve years; do you really think he’d keep me around if I was using him for his money?”
“I wanted to be sure before I told you anything about Gray,” Claire said. “I know it was wrong to think that way of you, but I couldn’t help wanting to protect him, protect Gray from living in an environment like that.”
Brian patted Justin’s knee and asked Claire, “Do you ever read the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette?”
Claire rolled her eyes. “I haven’t changed that much over the years, Brian. You know I hate news of any kind, it’s too depressing.”
“The Arts section isn’t depressing,” Brian told her. He gave her a proud smirk. “Justin brings home more money with one of his paintings than I do with a month of profits from Kinnetik, which he owns a portion of too. If anyone’s using anyone, I’m using him so that when I retire, I can live off his ridiculous wealth.”
“And young energy,” Justin quipped, smirking.
“That too,” Brian admitted.
Claire smiled. “I suppose I’ll have to look your work up online.”
“What exactly was it about me that made you think I wasn’t using Brian?” Justin asked. “Or did you just realize that if you pissed me off you’d have no chance getting to talk to Brian?”
“I knew that, too. But it was you with Oliver,” she said simply, as if it explained everything.
Justin and Brian knew that it probably did.
TBC in Chapter 19 Choices