by Xavier Mayne
“How dare you,” she replied, her voice offended, guttural.
“You managed to convince me I was sick. For years I believed it. I actually wanted those horrible treatments and all those drugs to burn it out of me so I’d be normal—I’d be the son you wanted me to be. It’s what I wanted more than anything.”
“That’s all I ever wanted for you.”
The sudden compassion that crept into her voice should have relieved him, but instead it enraged him. “Once I realized I’d never get any better, I spent my few moments of mental clarity every day plotting how to kill myself. You’d taken Sandler from me, you’d drugged me into being a vegetable—I had nothing to live for. So for three months I stockpiled all the pills I could trick you into thinking I’d taken, and took them all at once.”
Her face dropped as the sudden realization seemed to sweep over her. “Two years ago. Christmas Eve,” she whispered.
He nodded.
She closed her eyes, clearly badly shaken. “We thought we’d lost you. Again.” A sob caught in her throat.
“Waking up on New Year’s Day was the worst moment of my life,” Trevor said simply. “I spent every day after that wishing I’d managed to die.”
“When they said they found such high levels of those drugs in your system, I thought it was my fault.”
Trevor felt a calm come over him. “It was your fault.”
“How dare you say that,” she replied. “You try to commit suicide—suicide!—and you say it’s my fault?”
“You were trying to make me straight. That was never going to work.”
“I wasn’t trying to make you straight. I was trying to heal you.”
Trevor could see this was going nowhere. “Can we stop doing this, please? Just give me back my passport so I can go.”
“You can have it. And when we get home you can pick up all of your belongings from the trash can. We’ll have nothing more to do with you.”
Orphaned twice in one day, Trevor could only shrug. “I have everything I need.”
Mrs. Hendricks nodded to her husband, who rose and went to the safe. He punched angrily at the buttons on the front and yanked it open. Pulling out a stack of three passports, he quickly found Trevor’s and threw it at him. It bounced off his chest and fell to his lap. He looked down at it and started to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” his mother asked, her voice full of disgust.
“I’m finally free,” he said. “I’m finally free to be the person I was meant to be.” He looked up at his parents. “I don’t hate you.”
His mother looked away. “Someday you will grow up and realize what you’ve done. If your perversion doesn’t kill you first, you will understand that I was right. And I will be here when you realize that.”
“I don’t think that will happen anytime soon,” Trevor replied. “But someday I’d like us to be able to be civil with each other.”
“It will be a cold day in hell,” Mr. Hendricks muttered.
“Every day with you was like that,” Trevor said with a good-natured shrug, a smile rising to his lips.
“Get the hell out,” his father said.
Trevor nodded, then rolled to the door, which he pulled open without assistance. He glided down the hallway into his new life.
TREVOR RODE the elevator back down to the lobby with a heart surprisingly light for someone who had just broken up with his family. He had told his mother that he had all he needed in the world, and that was exactly what was waiting for him in the lobby. Right in front of the elevator doors, in fact—Sandler didn’t seem to have moved from the spot Trevor had last seen him.
“How’d it go?” Sandler asked once he had finished squeezing Trevor tightly.
“It was awful, and then it got worse,” Trevor replied. Then he pulled his passport out from his shirt pocket. “But, in the end, successful.”
“Awesome!” Sandler replied. “Let’s go tell everyone. They’ve all been out of their minds waiting for you to get back.”
“We’re good to go,” Trevor announced as they rolled toward the chairs where Donnelly, Kerry, and Imre were waiting.
“Was it horrid?” Kerry asked, studying Trevor’s face for clues.
“It was,” he answered. “But it’s over. I learned some things about them, and I think once they have a chance to work through their bizarre prejudices, they might realize they learned something about me.” He turned to Sandler. “But for now, I kind of don’t have parents anymore.”
“We’re all we need,” Sandler replied, hugging Trevor again, as he had every minute or so since he had returned to the lobby.
Trevor beamed. “Okay, enough Hendricks family drama. Let’s get you guys to your wedding.”
“Yeah, about that,” Donnelly replied. “The last train today with a direct connection through London has already left. We can take the next one, but that one won’t get us to Whitford in time. Ethan’s just gone to let everyone know that we’ll be late.” He looked across the lobby, where Ethan was just pocketing his phone and walking back.
“You’re not going to believe this,” Brandt said, rejoining the group.
“After the past two days,” Imre said drily, “I’m disposed to believe anything that happens to you lot, no matter how bizarre.”
“It’s just easier that way,” Kerry agreed, nodding compassionately.
“So, let’s hear the details,” Donnelly prompted.
“I just talked to Wendell, our wedding planner,” he told the group. “Because the volcano keeps erupting, there haven’t been reliable commercial flights all week—and the ones that do get through are jam-packed. There was a surge in the ash cloud two days ago, and the diversions around it are now longer than most airlines want to take. James arranged for a private plane to bring all of our wedding guests over yesterday, but just before they were going to take off there was an incident with another private jet that got too close to the ash cloud and lost both engines. They managed to restart one of them and limp back to land. Now they’re not letting any private jets try to make the trip either.”
Donnelly got up and stood next to Brandt. “So not only will we not be at our own wedding, neither will any of our friends and family?”
“Looks that way. James is insisting that the place be kept ready just in case a miracle happens and everyone can get there, but there’s really no chance of that at this point.” Brandt kissed him softly. “Sorry, buddy. We just have the worst luck.”
Donnelly looked around the group, all eyes on the unlucky couple. He shook his head. “Nope. I think we’re extremely lucky. We’ve got each other, and we’ve got these amazing people around us, none of whom we would even have known if it weren’t for our good bad luck.”
“And we wouldn’t have found each other again if it weren’t for you,” Sandler added.
“We were happy to help,” Donnelly replied.
“You did more than help,” Trevor said. “You saved my life. Not in a figure-of-speech way either. I had given up on life so completely that I was considering letting my horrible parents smash their way into my brain and break things. I figured it would either kill me or make me not care anymore, and either way it was a win. But now I have my life back, and I have a reason to live it.” He ruffled Sandler’s hair and smiled happily. “And we have the best friends in the world.”
“So, do we just stick a fork in this wedding adventure and head back home?” Donnelly asked.
“What a picturesque image,” Imre replied with a chuckle. “But I doubt you’ll be flying home until the ash cloud finally clears. How about this—why don’t we take the train to London as we’d planned? I have plenty of room. My grandfather has, for the last half century, owned perhaps the least-used town house in the city, and I would be delighted to host you there until the air clears over the Atlantic.”
“What a generous offer,” Donnelly replied. He turned to Brandt. “I guess we’ll get a honeymoon even without a wedding.”
“Doing things in
the right order has never really been our strength,” Brandt said with a laugh.
Chapter Nineteen
Wedding Day
The Chapel, Whitford
UNDER THE soaring cathedral ceiling they sat. After some spirited discussion about which groom’s side they should sit on, they had decided to sit across the aisle from each other.
The intricately carved walls of the vast stone edifice echoed with the shuffling footsteps of the ushers, who had no one to ush, and the officiant, who had no one to marry. The appointed time had come and gone an hour ago, and still no one, celebrant or guest, had appeared.
“You know,” Bryce whispered across the aisle, “I’m starting to think they’re not coming.”
Nestor nodded, then shrugged and held his arms up with a good-natured smile.
“I am inclined, just this once, to adopt your attitude,” Bryce replied, and mirrored the gesture of submission to forces outside his control.
A few minutes later, the sharp click of quick footsteps shattered the calm. A young man Bryce recognized from the front desk walked down the aisle to the front and then up the steps of the dais to the officiant. He whispered in the old man’s ear, then retreated even more quickly back up the aisle.
The officiant, a spry if elderly man in a finely tailored suit, approached the first row of pews. “I am terribly sorry to be the bearer of bad news,” he said. “I’ve just been informed that the grooms, and the entirety of the guests aside from yourselves, are not going to be here for the ceremony. I’m afraid the wedding’s been cancelled.”
“That’s it,” Bryce harrumphed. “I shall never sleep with another Icelandic man.”
The officiant laughed, his deep voice filling the cathedral. “It is a loss to the entire nation.”
“I assure you it is,” Bryce agreed peevishly.
“I guess there’s nothing for me to do here,” the officiant said, looking about. “Unless you and Nestor here wish to take the grooms’ place.”
Bryce cast an appraising look across the aisle. Nestor smiled demurely and batted his big brown eyes.
The officiant raised an expectant eyebrow.
Bryce got up, stepped delicately across the aisle, and lowered himself in an elegant curtsey. He ended on one knee.
Nestor gasped, and held a fluttering hand to his throat. Bryce took his other hand.
“My darling Nestor, will you forswear all other men, and have only me for the rest of your life?”
“Oh, Dios mío, no,” Nester replied, shaking his head.
“You always know just what to say,” Bryce murmured, clutching Nestor’s hand more tightly. “Will you do me the honor of becoming my bride, as I shall be yours?”
“Si, si, si!” Nestor cried happily, bouncing up and down on the pew.
They embraced, squealing and kissing with wild abandon, while the officiant looked on, beaming at the joyful explosion before him.
“We are ready to be wed,” Bryce said, with Nestor visibly vibrating with happiness next to him.
“It would be my honor,” the officiant said, and he invited them with a grand sweep of his hand to join him on the dais under the sparkling beams of afternoon light that shone through gothic windows. Once there, he looked up from the gilded leather book before him. “We’ll need witnesses.”
Two ushers—the strapping young farm lads recruited by Bryce himself to serve when none of the wedding party showed up in time for rehearsal—rushed forward from the back of the chapel. “We’ll do it!” they called in unison.
“Well aren’t you two just darling, pitching in for us,” Bryce replied.
“It’s the least we can do, to see you off into wedded bliss,” said the taller of the two ushers.
The shorter chimed in, “It will help us deal with our grief, as now you won’t be available for—”
“Oh, pish,” Bryce said with a giggle. “Just because we’re getting married doesn’t mean we have to spend our evenings knitting. We can pick up right where we left off last night, you handsome boy.”
“But, my darling, last night you say you never take both again,” Nestor murmured.
“As I always say, never say never,” Bryce said lightly, winking at both blushing farm boys.
The officiant cleared his throat. “Shall we, then?”
“Yes, yes,” cried Bryce. “Let the betrothal begin!” Then he leaned in close to whisper a last-minute instruction. “My religion does require one thing.”
The officiant leaned forward, a rather startled look on his face.
“Just a little adjustment. We need to leave out anything about ‘forsaking all other men.’ That won’t cause a problem, I trust?”
“Not for me,” the officiant replied. “I can’t speak to how it may affect you.”
“It will suit us just fine,” Bryce replied with a smile, mirrored by a beaming Nestor.
A short time later, this most fabulous wedding concluded with the grooms kissing. And then the grooms kissed the ushers.
It would be a wedding night unlike any in the history of the castle.
Chapter Twenty
Honeymoon
London
“WE CAN’T thank you enough for your hospitality this week,” Donnelly said to Imre as they unloaded their bags from the limousine.
“It was my pleasure,” Imre replied. “I don’t think my grandfather’s house has ever hosted that much laughter. I doubted I’d ever be able to live there after I discovered his secret life, but you have sanctified it with joy.”
“Hard not to be joyful with those two around,” Brandt said, jabbing a thumb at Sandler and Trevor, who were parked at the airport curb, kissing and looking into each other’s eyes.
“Cutest thing ever,” Kerry said, her head tipping as she regarded the canoodling couple.
“You’re just happy they helped you bag a straight guy,” Donnelly cracked.
“I didn’t need any help, thank you very much,” Kerry sniffed with an admirable play to regain some dignity. “The memory of his sister being in a wheelchair may have rendered him temporarily vulnerable, I will grant you, but it’s not like I wouldn’t have had a shot even if Trevor hadn’t been there, being all brave and stuff.”
Brandt raised a critical eyebrow.
“Okay, so maybe they gave me a head start. But meeting him in New York next week? That’s all me, baby.”
“He’s a great guy, Kerry,” Donnelly said, putting his arm around her.
“Thank you, darling. And after spending all week with this group, he’s got a gold-plated hetero guarantee. If he ain’t gay around this beefy bunch, he ain’t gay.”
“Hot enough to be, though,” Trevor chimed in.
“Right?” added Sandler.
“Shut up, you two. Keep your mitts off my man.”
“It would have been hard to get anything on him with you wrapped around him all week,” Sandler replied. “But he did seem very happy, and we’re very happy for you.”
“Thank you,” Kerry said with a bow.
“So where are the two of you off to?” Donnelly asked Sandler and Trevor.
“Don’t know yet,” Trevor replied.
“I have miles in the millions that I’ve never used, so we’re going to pick whatever sounds good on the departures board,” Sandler said. “We’ll try that for a while, and if we get bored we’ll find someplace else.”
“But once you two finally arrange a wedding, we’d love to come,” Trevor said.
“Yes, let’s get the band back together!” Kerry cried.
“We’ve decided not to tempt fate another time,” Brandt said. “We’re going to go to the courthouse after we’re back home.”
“Small and simple,” Donnelly added. “We may not even tell anyone this time. Just slip off one day and get hitched.”
“Because that way nothing could possibly go wrong,” Brandt groaned sarcastically.
“At least you can be comforted that when bad things happen to you, good things happen to those ar
ound you,” Imre said.
“True story,” Sandler said, pulling Donnelly—and then Brandt—into a hug. “You guys are awesome, and you’ll be even better once you’re the new married power couple.”
Kerry piled on to the hug. “But you’re going to tell me, right? I gotta catch as many bouquets as possible.”
“I CAN’T believe we’re finally on a plane together,” Brandt said as they climbed the steps.
“I can’t believe James sent a private jet to pick us up,” Donnelly replied. “This thing is amazing.”
“Welcome aboard, gentlemen,” the flight attendant said as they reached the top stair. “Please, let me take your bags.” She relieved them of their carry-ons and handed them each a glass of champagne. “Please, have a seat, and the pilot will be back to greet you in a moment.”
They settled into the impossibly plush leather chairs and looked around at the polished wood and gleaming metal that accented the plane’s cabin. Then the doorway to the cockpit opened, and a man in a pilot’s uniform stepped into view.
“Good morning, Mr. Brandt, Mr. Donnelly,” he said, extending his hand. “I’m first officer Tyson, but you can call me Jake.”
“Pleased to meet you, Jake,” Brandt said, shaking his hand. “Please, call me Ethan. And this is Gabriel.”
Donnelly shook Jake’s hand as well.
“We’ll be getting underway shortly. Captain Ballard is doing the final checks. Make yourself comfortable, and we’ll get you a nice smooth ride across the pond.”
Jake smiled and went back to the cockpit, leaving Brandt and Donnelly to sip their champagne and enjoy their first and probably only trip in a private jet.
Two hours later, as they cruised high over the north Atlantic, they made their way back to the stateroom.
“It’s a beautiful room,” Brandt said, looking at the fine linens.