by Kris Ripper
“Didn’t we just do that?” Singer almost said something else, something flippant, but the look on Jake’s face stopped him. Wait. They couldn’t really be saying … this. “Oh my god. Jake.”
“If you want me to get down on one knee, I will, but then they’ll be all over us. We should get married, Singer.”
“I thought that was at some distant point in the future because it doesn’t matter what some piece of paper says.”
“It doesn’t. But then, I don’t know, I didn’t think it mattered having someone tell us we’re fathers when I already feel like a father, and it does. It matters.” Jake gulped and added, “I didn’t get rings. I didn’t want to do anything without you, and I don’t know if gay people do engagement rings, so I didn’t. But I— I want to do this. With you. And Miles.”
“When? We’re sitting at a courthouse right now, so—”
Jake squeezed his hand. “We should do it in secret, like we’re going to the bathroom. Sneak in, sign some papers—”
“Jacob. We cannot get married in secret. Your mother would kill us.”
“Anyway, I kind of think we should have a party. But I don’t want this to be me asking you to marry me, Singer. I want this to be like everything else we’ve ever done. Us doing it together.”
“They’ll all think it’s my idea, you know.”
“Yeah, that’s funny. They all think adopting was your idea, too. I kind of like it. Makes it more, I don’t know, private, that my entire family doesn’t know all the details.”
“Did you just say the Derries don’t know all the details?” Lisa asked. She sat down on the step below theirs, with Emery beside her.
“Jake and I have some secrets left.”
“That must be nice,” Emery said. “Wonder what it’s like.”
Lisa hit him. “We have secrets, too, you know. I keep a list. In my head.”
“Of our secrets?”
“And other stuff.”
Singer held up the hand Jake wasn’t holding. “Don’t want to know, thank you very much.”
“Aw, look, you guys are being cute in public. That’s—cool.” She narrowed her eyes. “You guys are being cute. In public.”
“Lisa,” Jake said, pitching his voice low. “Can you keep a secret?” He glanced up at Singer for half a second.
Singer nodded. Telling Lisa first felt right, for some reason. To say nothing of subversive.
“I’m pretty sure. Why? You guys kill someone?”
“We’re getting married.”
Emery slammed hands over his ears. “I’m a horrible liar! Alice is going to know I know something now!”
“Oh god. You guys are getting married.” Lisa leaned up to kiss Singer’s cheek. “Congratulations, little brother.”
“Thank you.”
“What the fuck is going on over there? Hi, is anyone else seeing some weird-ass shit right now?” Frankie Derrie, bringer of chaos.
“Jake?” Singer said, raising both eyebrows.
“Miles.” Jake scooped Miles up from where he was picking the celery out of the macaroni salad on Alice’s plate, and when he held out his arm, Singer was already moving toward them. Another pointed You talk look.
Singer cleared his throat. “Jake and I are getting married. At some point.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake, what kind of obvious shit is this? Like we didn’t—oof!”
Carey raised the arm he hadn’t just used to elbow Frankie, holding his water bottle. “Cheers to the happy couple and their son.”
“CHEERS!”
The circus roared approval, and Miles raised his voice to keep up, not even bothering to form words.
Jake hooked Singer’s neck and pulled him close. “Cheers, Singer.”
He should have said “Cheers” or “I love you” or any number of other things, but now Singer was actually crying, and all he could do was wrap his arms around his family and hold them tightly.
Author’s Acknowledgments
I would not have written this particular book if I had not grown up in a massive extended family. All the love to my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and especially my cousins.
More specific thanks to my ma, Ellen Dunn, for reading an early version of this book and helping me flesh out the various tensions and relationships between families in the system, social workers, and families fostering and adopting kids. I’d also be remiss if I didn’t point out that in an actual situation, Miles would have more than one worker. I’ve somewhat compressed the human side of social services for the purposes of fiction (but the timeline is dead-on accurate for the state of California). Additional thanks to Fresno County for putting a flowchart on their website, which pretty much everyone should use because it’s rad.
Other early readers to whom I’m grateful include Iben Mylius, Roan Parrish, and Liz Jacobs. General Wendy talked me through a number of Google Hangouts while I wrung my hands over this book. I am, as always, in her debt. Although she may never forgive me for the first draft I sent her. In my defense, I like introducing a dozen characters in the space of the first three pages, so I really don’t know what the issue was! *cackles*
My eternal gratitude to Lennan Adams of Lexiconic Design for overhauling the cover in my design hour of need.
I wrote the first draft of this book in 2013. And trunked it for two years, until Alexis Hall asked me to pitch him something for Brain Mill Press. So I … pitched him this. Well. For a somewhat loose sense of the word “pitched.”
Very lucky authors have great editors. Only the spectacularly fortunate among us land an editor like Alexis Hall. Perceptive as hell, diligent, and with a remarkable gift for peeling back the layers of a story to expose what’s underneath. Dude’s a motherfucking genius. This book was a tough journey on a number of levels, and I wouldn’t have made it to the end without Editor Hall at my side. And occasionally at my back, prodding me with sticks when necessary.
Mad props to my bro, who came up with the title after I fumbled through a very bad description of what I’d tried to write.
Last, but certainly not least, my housemates M, C, and E always make me laugh. An invaluable quality. All the love.
About the Author
Kris Ripper lives in the great state of California and hails from the San Francisco Bay Area. Kris shares a converted garage with a toddler, can do two pull-ups in a row, and can write backwards. (No, really.) Kris is genderqueer and prefers the z-based pronouns because they’re freaking sweet. Ze has been writing fiction since ze learned how to write, and boring zir stuffed animals with stories long before that.