by Amy Lane
“No.” Dustin sighed. “That’s when I said I didn’t like that fuckin’ word.”
Then Belinda jumped on her own grenade. “And that’s when I jumped in and yelled at them all to mind their own goddamned business because they were bigoted stupidheads and should choke on their own vomit.”
Quinlan’s eyebrows shot up. “Exact words, I assume?” He checked with Dustin to make sure.
“She said ‘fuckers’ and not ‘stupidheads.’” Dustin rolled his eyes. Stupidheads was a baby word.
“Precision is important. So that’s when you threw the punch that knocked Troy Castro on his ass and broke his tooth?”
“I broke his tooth?” Dustin brightened. That was some cachet right there.
“And his nose. But that’s when it happened?”
“No,” Dustin said shortly. Quinlan didn’t press him. The baby started to fuss in the silence, and he set the carrier down on the ground and pulled St. Peter out, body kicking into the Daddy sway Dustin had seen the adults in his family practice since he was two years old.
“So?” Quinlan finally prompted. “Guys, I can’t talk to your principal or your parents without all my facts here. Don’t leave me hanging.”
Dustin let out breath from his nose. “So she jumped in and told him off, and Troy….” Oh God. Why was it so embarrassing repeating insults? Why did it make him feel like he was the one who said the really vile thing?
“He asked Dustin if I was a come-slut like Dusty and our mom.”
Quinlan jerked back as though slapped. “I’m sorry?”
Dustin managed to nod emphatically. “That. He said that.”
“And that’s when you hit him?” Quinlan’s shoulders looked like he was going to sprout wings.
“Well, duh!”
Quinlan nodded and took a deep breath. “Okay. I know what we’re working with here. Dustin, could you hold your little brother? I can’t look all tough when he’s drooling on my shoulder.”
Dustin refrained from rolling his eyes and telling him he didn’t look all tough ever and it was a lost cause. Instead he held out his hands for St. Peter, and then watched as Quinlan…
Grew.
It was the only word for it. His usual slouch disappeared, and his spine went ramrod straight as he dropped the baby bag at his feet. His shoulders squared, his jaw straightened, and his big, inky, vulnerable-looking eyes narrowed until he looked rattlesnake mean. He turned on his heel like an ROTC member and strode up to the principal, who was busy with a guy in a suit. Quinlan swaggered—that was a swagger, right?—and interrupted.
“No,” he said, apparently picking up a conversation Dustin was not aware of.
“I’m sorry?”
Principal Baker looked surprised—but then, he was a thick-jowled, thin-haired man with icky red juicy lips. His eyes bugged out, and he looked perpetually surprised.
“No, they’re not suspended.”
Dustin pulled back and looked at Belinda, whose own eyes were huge. They were going to be suspended? The principal had called Quinlan and told him they were suspended, and Quinlan got their story first?
Oh wow.
The next five seconds were a train wreck in Dustin’s head, and then a furious realignment of everything he ever believed about a person.
In the meantime the conversation went on.
“I’m sorry,” the principal said, not sorry at all, just being a condescending douchebag. “But those two students actively participated in violence against Troy Castro without provocation—”
Quinlan ignored him and looked Troy’s father in the eye. “Your son called Belinda and her mother come-sluts. Is this a word he’s heard from you?”
Dustin had never actually seen somebody turn pale before. “Uh….”
“So you agree that your son got this word from your home, and then he came here and yelled it at Dustin and his sister.”
“What a….” Baker was sputtering. “What a vile thing to say!”
“I’m not arguing.” And again, Dusty was struck by Quinlan’s lack of aggression. He didn’t assert, argue, banter, or fight. He just stood, strong and reasonable, and dealt with whatever was in front of him. “So this wasn’t a case of zero provocation. This was a case of bullying. Troy was saying the things, he had his posse behind him backing him up, and if Belinda hadn’t stuck to her brother like lint, Dustin would have more than a black eye.”
“It’s clear that he swung first,” Baker snapped, and Quinlan’s eye roll put all of Dustin’s adolescent posturing to shame. This was an epic expression, a grown-up tour de force of disdain.
“Would you like me to call a member of your family a—”
Baker waved his hands in front of his face. “No! No! No! Fine! Troy Castro and his friends are suspended, and the Grayson children get a write-up and are allowed back to class.” He caught his breath and ran his hand over his thinning hair, and then belatedly snuck a look at Troy Castro’s father to see what he thought.
The elder Mr. Castro was nodding, looking afraid, and Dustin wondered if Quinlan guessed something about Troy’s dad that Dustin hadn’t.
But then Quinlan was talking again, and Dustin was back to counting his blessings.
“I’ll check them out now,” he said smoothly. “I have errands to run and their little brother and sister to pick up—I’m not coming back here so they can go to, what? Fifth and sixth period? Besides—” He threw a glance over his shoulder. “Have either of you eaten lunch?”
Belinda shook her head, and Dustin remembered to close his mouth.
“No, sir,” he said. Oh dear God. He would die for Quinlan Gregory.
“Good. Here—I’ll sign out, you pack up St. Peter, and let’s motor.”
And like that, they were out of the hated middle school, away from Troy Castro and his stupid buddies and the entire school who’d heard the altercation and knew Dustin had pretty much come out when he’d been baited.
And they weren’t suspended.
Troy Castro was suspended, and so were his stupid friends.
And Dustin had broken the stupidhead’s stupid tooth.
Quinlan stopped off for fast food on his way to the grammar school, complete with a toy surprise for the little kids and shakes for Belinda and Dustin. He pulled up alongside Conroy and Melly’s school, parked under a shady tree, and rolled down the windows, turning the car off but leaving the radio on. He liked the same kind of music Sammy liked—every kind of music. Right now he was listening to classic rock and cellos covering the same songs, and Dustin figured he could live with that.
The baby had fallen asleep during the trip, and Princess T was nodding off with a chicken nugget in her grubby fist. Belinda was texting diligently on the hand-me-down phone she’d gotten from her mother when she’d been promoted into middle school. Dustin had one from his dad, for the same reasons: to text if they were going to be held up for any reason.
The silence in the car grew oppressive, and Dustin’s chest tightened as he searched for things to say.
“Dustin?” Quinlan’s quiet voice grounded him.
“Yeah?”
“You’re going to have to tell your parents sometime.”
Dustin let out a whine and then hated himself. “It’s my own goddamned business,” he snarled, to cover.
“Of course it is. And it’s not fair. I get that. The straight kids don’t have to say, ‘Mom, Dad, I’m straight.’ So even if you live in… like, Family Gaytopia, you’re going to hate the actual conversation. I get that.”
“Yeah? That’s real human of you,” Dustin grumbled—but without heat.
Quinlan sighed and tilted his head back, rubbing his eyes. Dustin, for all his self-centeredness, noticed that he looked tired. “I’m just saying—it could be worse.”
“Yeah?” Dustin snorted. He wanted to roll his eyes, but after seeing Quinlan do it, he was sort of embarrassed. Quinlan had it to an art form.
“I packed,” Quinlan said, his voice drifting, like he was remem
bering.
“Packed?”
“Yeah. In November, right before Thanksgiving—I turned eighteen that January, but for some reason my trust fund hit the week before Thanksgiving.”
“You have a trust fund?” Damn. Dustin had visions of unlimited free beer when he turned twenty-one.
“Cool your jets, Sparky,” Quinlan returned dryly. “I spent half of it on my education. But I hadn’t then. It hit the bank, I changed all my passcodes so my father’s lawyer had none of them, went home for Thanksgiving, packed all the stuff I hadn’t taken to college but still wanted, and came out at dinner.”
“And….” Dustin couldn’t help it. He was hooked.
“Well, let’s just say I had the cab timed to perfection. By the time my father paused for breath, I had my last suitcase down the stairs and was ready to roll.”
Dustin couldn’t help it. He flailed. “They threw you out?”
Quinlan shrugged, and Dustin contemplated the destruction of everything his life was built on—and couldn’t. He’d known. He’d always known that when he came out, his parents would still love him. Quinlan was right. Dustin’s Uncle Tino had married Sammy’s Uncle Channing to make the Robbins-Lowells. They’d just gone to Brandon and Taylor’s wedding—two men. Dustin did, indeed, live in Family Gaytopia.
Quinlan’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “And I got a call from the bank as we were pulling out of the driveway, because my father wanted to access my account.”
“But that money was yours!” Every thing Dustin had ever earned, every penny from mowing lawns, every toy his mother promised him, danced in front of his eyes. Those things were his, and throughout all the creative ways his folks had chosen to discipline him, his space and his things being his space and his things—that had never been in doubt.
“It was,” Quinlan agreed, taking a sip from his iced tea, his eyes focused off beyond the shade, where Conroy and Melly would appear before they walked to the car. “Much of it still is. I used it to stay in school, to help fund the tours in the summer—live simply, and you want for nothing, right?”
“But… but why?” Dustin’s voice pitched, and he shushed himself. This conversation suddenly felt beyond private, and he looked in the mirror to make sure Belinda hadn’t looked up from her texting. “Why is it such a big deal? Why does Troy Castro hate me so much? Why do I have to tell my folks like it’s a big announcement? Why would they do that to you?”
Quinlan turned for the first time in the conversation and met Dustin’s eyes with his own. “Because not everybody is your family. And I think you know that, or Troy Castro wouldn’t be at the dentist right now.”
Dustin shrugged, embarrassed. Nobody talked shit about his sister—and nobody talked shit about his mom. “Why do people gotta be so awful?” he asked, hating himself because it was as babyish as “stupidhead.”
“I don’t know.” Quin looked away again, the lines in the corners of his eyes relaxing like he found peace here, waiting for the little kids to get off school. “But I know your family is pretty wonderful. You might want to take advantage of it.”
“But then they’ll know….” Oh, dammit. He was not going to talk about this. He was not. Absolutely not.
“Know what?”
If Quinlan had looked at him, Dustin couldn’t have said it.
“Know how I feel about Sammy.”
“Ah.”
“That’s all you’ve got for me?” Dustin muttered. “Ah?”
Quinlan kept his face averted, but Dustin saw the small, self-deprecating smile in the corner of his mouth. “Let’s just say it’s a common affliction.”
Oh. “Ah,” Dustin mimicked, gratified when Quinlan gave him a real smile.
“Yeah. And maybe they’ll know and maybe they won’t. But nobody in that house will hold it against you.”
“Did Sammy know about you?” And for some reason this answer meant the world to him.
“As many times as I tried to grab his ass? I hope so. But he was gobsmacked by Cooper, pretty much from the beginning. No fighting it when it hits you, you know?”
“But how do you deal?” Dustin asked, the ache in his chest, the stupid, painful ache that had first blossomed when he was nine years old and his beautiful cousin had smiled at him at dinner one night opening up to a huge, limpid pool of ouch.
“Hurt?” Quin asked, almost clinically.
“Yes.” God, he felt wretched.
“Yeah. But see—that pain? Right here?” Quinlan rubbed his chest. “That was the first thing I felt since driving away from my parents’ home in Redwood City. Two and a half years of nothing, and then bam! I’m in love with someone who only likes me as a friend.”
“That’s awful.” Because it was. Oh Jesus—how was Dustin going to hate this guy now?
“No,” Quin said, smiling softly. “It’s not. Because it’s something. And even if it’s a painful something, if it’s pure, it’s better than a whole lot of empty nothing. So embrace the pain. Means you’re human. And tell your parents, so they can step in and tell your stupid principal to go eat a porcupine.”
Dustin laughed, like he was supposed to, and the bell rang, followed by the ebb and flow of students as they moved to the front and side of the school for pickup.
“And there’s our kids,” Quinlan said, starting the car.
Conroy and Melly trotted up the sidewalk and loaded in, full of chatter and excitement, particularly about Dustin and Belinda being in the car before they got there and not after, and when Conroy was locked in his seat and Melly was in the back of the car chatting excitedly with her sister about oh my God a fight! it hit Dustin.
Quinlan didn’t sound in pain when he’d talked about the kids. He sounded happy.
After they got home and unloaded, Dustin followed Quinlan into the baby’s room, getting a spare diaper and wipes while Quinlan undressed St. Peter.
St. Peter cooed and made happy bubbles while Quinlan wiped his ass, which always blew Dustin away. If someone else was wiping his ass, he’d be pissed off.
“Quin?”
“Yeah?” Quinlan lowered his head and blew a stomach bubble, and the baby went insane with giggles. When had he started playing so much? Dustin must have missed it in his determination to hate the new guy.
“Eat dinner with us tonight.”
For the first time, Quinlan looked uncomfortable. “I don’t know—that’s your family time, Dustin—”
Dustin took a deep breath and ripped apart his soul and found the magic word.
“Please?”
He wanted to say more. He wanted to say, “Thank you for dealing with my teenage bullshit,” for one. And “Oh my God, thanks for talking about the whole coming-out thing,” for another. He wanted to say, “You need a family so you can forget about Sammy, because we’re both better off changing our dream.” And maybe, “You deserve to feel something besides pain.”
He even kind of wanted to say, “I’m sorry I was such an asshole and gave Princess T a whole bowl of pitted cherries for her snack when I know it gives her the runs and I’m pretty sure it made your first few days here an absolute joy,” but he didn’t.
He said, “Please, Quin? It would… it’s important.”
And Quinlan, being Quinlan, gave one of his quiet, understated smiles. “Sure, Dustin. Thank you for asking.”
And that was that.
“SO,” Dad said happily after taking a bite of Mom’s garlic bread and trying not to swoon. He’d been eating the stuff for what? Fifteen years? Dustin thought his dad would be over his mother’s cooking by now, but go figure. “Anybody got any good stories to tell?”
He eyed Dustin meaningfully, because Dusty’s shiner had bloomed and it was a beaut, but then Conroy saved Dustin’s bacon like the cherubic little sweetie-face he was.
“I drew a fish.” Conroy beamed.
“Doing what?” Jacob asked, turning his attention to the little boy with an effort.
“Whatever fish do. He was very happy.” Conroy too
k a bite of his linguini and smiled, brown eyes sparkling and content, and that was usually all you got out of Conroy.
“Okay, then.” Another veiled look at Dustin. “Princess T, anything to add?”
“Quinlan bought us nuggets,” she said. “I like Quinlan.”
Dad’s eyebrows went up. “That was nice of him.” He looked at Quinlan, puzzled. “Why did we do that? I thought we had burrito fixings for lunch?”
Quinlan looked supremely uncomfortable, and it hit Dustin. Oh geez. Quinlan had been a good guy, and it was time for Dustin to pay him back.
“Because he was bailing Belinda and I out of a shit—erm, buttload of trouble,” Dustin said, pulling the entire family’s focus to him. “Because we had to beat the crap out of someone for being a douche… erm, ass… erm… scumbag, and Quin had to come be a hero for us because we didn’t start it, and he made sure the principal knew that, and then we all got fed.”
“Wow.” Dustin’s mother’s brown eyes got really big when she was surprised. “Is there anything else we should know about your day with Quinlan?”
“Yeah. He told me I should come out. I’m gay. Pass the parmesan.”
Belinda passed it to him on automatic, her mouth open in awe.
“Is there….” Dad shook his head and then scowled. “Dustin Matthew Robbins-Grayson—did you get into a fight because you came out to your classmates and you didn’t come out to us?”
“No,” Belinda said, shaking herself from her stupor. “He got into a fight because Troy Castro called me and Mom come-sluts. Can I have the bread, Dad? I’m starving.”
Dad passed her the bread without blinking, his eyes still on Dustin. “Son,” he said, shaking his head, “I’d like to find a way to blame this on you, but… but you’re not suspended, your sister just threw herself on the dirty-word grenade—”
“Don’t say that again ever, Belinda!” Mom interjected.
“Thank God,” Belinda agreed.
“—and apparently Quin did a nice job on cleanup.” Dad finished. “I got nothing. Congratulations on being gay. You’re in good company in this family. Be prepared to be civil in case your grandparents want to know all your business.” He paused. “Belinda, give me back the bread. I’m finishing it off.”