“Just a moment.” She gave me a kind smile. “Mr. Stevens has been brought to room 214 on the second floor. Take the elevator down the hall and turn left when you get off on that floor.”
“Thank you.”
Eli started walking as soon as we got the room number, and I followed him into the elevator.
“Nervous?” I asked. “Because I kind of am.” And this was about as much silence as I could take without crumbling. “How long has it been since we’ve seen them? Ten years. Must have been almost ten years.”
Eli nodded, lips pressed tightly together. I tried not to sigh. Thankfully the elevator was fast; it dinged again after only a few seconds and we were on the second floor.
“It’s to the left from here,” I said, stepping out first. I found the right room number and then… I didn’t know what to do. Knock? Just go in?
I looked to my brother, who seemed to lack my hesitation. He simply put his hand on the door, knocked once, and walked in without waiting for a response.
I entered the room after him.
There they were. Our parents.
My dad lay in the bed, some sort of breathing mask on his face and so pale I hardly recognized him. He was covered in bandages too, and I couldn’t tell whether he’d aged a lot in the past ten years or whether that was just the hospital effect. His eyes were closed, and so I looked to my mom instead.
The woman who raised me sat in a chair by the bed. She looked up as we came in, and her eyes fixed first on Eli and then on me. And there was so much pain in them. I could hardly stand it. I couldn’t deal with people being sad around me.
“Hey, Mom,” I said softly, because no one else was speaking and that was something else I couldn’t deal with.
“Griffin… You look so grown up.”
I had to give her a smile at that, because if there was one thing I hadn’t busied myself with over the past ten years, it was growing up. “Looks can be deceiving.” I took a step closer and gestured to my father. “How is he?”
“He’ll be okay, probably. Smoke inhalation, a broken bone, some burns…” She shook her head. “I’m sorry I worried you. I panicked.”
“It’s okay.” I breathed a sigh of relief. “It must have been scary. I would have been scared.” I looked to my brother who still stood by the door. It didn’t seem like he wanted to say anything, so I just kept on talking. I was good at that, after all. “What happened?” I asked.
She looked aside. “He fell asleep smoking. It was stupid. The whole smoking thing is stupid. I wish he’d quit, honestly.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, not knowing what else to say. The dad I remembered hadn’t smoked. “What about the house?” I wondered how much damage it had taken.
She only shook her head again.
“That bad?” I asked.
“Let’s just say repairs are going to take a while.” She sighed.
“But Dad’s going to be fine?” Eli suddenly spoke up. He’d crossed his arms in front of his chest, leaning back against the wall next to the door as if taking another step into the room would leave him with burn wounds too.
I couldn’t blame him for his reservations, not really, but that didn’t stop me from wishing things could be different.
“I think so, dear.”
Eli’s lips curled, as if the endearment insulted him, but he kept his mouth shut. I guess even he knew this wasn’t the time or place to start an argument. “I think I’ll excuse myself then. Very sorry for the trouble you went through. Give him my best wishes when he wakes up.” He looked at me as he pushed himself off the wall. “Griff?”
Obviously, he wanted to know whether I was coming along. He was my ride, after all.
I looked at my dad, then at my mom, who returned my gaze with something nearly pleading in her eyes, as if asking me not to leave so soon. Not now.
I gave a little sigh as I broke. She’d done some bad things, but she was still my mom. “I think I’m going to stay for a little bit.”
Eli raised an eyebrow at that, but didn’t criticize my decision.
“I’ll get a ride from Dean later,” I said to reassure him that it was okay for him to go. He probably wanted to be back with his husband and kids to process this. “I’ll call you when I’m home.”
“Okay.” My brother uncrossed his arms and turned to leave.
“Thank you for coming,” Mom said before he could close the door behind himself.
“Thank you for calling,” he returned, and with that, he was gone, leaving me alone with our parents.
There was another chair by the wall, so I grabbed it and dragged it over to where my mother was sitting. Then I sat, and didn’t really know what to say. What did you say to someone you were close to once but hadn’t talked to in nearly ten years?
Fortunately, my mom started talking before I had a chance to start my nervous blabbering. “How have you been?” she asked. “Are you still doing photography? You were always so fond of that.” She smiled sadly, as if she regretted the years we’d lost just as much as I did.
“I am,” I said. “That’s how I make my money.”
“Really?” Her smile turned bright. “That’s good. That’s really good.”
“Yeah.” I grinned. I didn’t need my mom to be proud of me, but it was still nice to know that she was. Okay, maybe I needed it a little bit. But sitting here and grinning, I almost felt like I was betraying my brother, even though I knew that was ridiculous and that he wasn’t upset with me for staying. He wasn’t, was he?
“How are the children?” my mom asked.
I bit my lower lip.
My mother sighed. “I’m sorry. I guess I really don’t have any right to ask about them, do I? But how long should this silence continue? I’ve tried to apologize a hundred times. Though I know it’s not something that’s easy to forgive.”
“You need to talk to Eli about that.”
“Don’t you think I’ve tried? He won’t listen. Most of the time, he doesn’t even answer the phone anymore.”
“I had no idea you’d tried to contact him. Recently?” I remembered there’d been the occasional call the first one or two years, but they’d stopped eventually and almost faded from memory.
She shook her head, and she looked tired now. “I tried to contact you too.”
I cringed. Vaguely, I remembered letting a call or two go to voice mail and thinking that I might call back at a later time. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright, dear. At least you came. That means a lot. I’m sure your father would agree.”
Glancing at my father’s still form, I wondered if that was true. My parents were both betas, but it had always been my dad who called the shots at home. I was pretty sure that kicking Eli out had been his idea as well, even if my mom was just as guilty for going along with it. And I couldn’t just forgive her, not like that, not after everything.
“The kids are fine,” I said eventually, if only because I needed to say something. “Livvy’s super cute and Jake… well, he’s Jake,” I said as if she would understand, but how could she when she didn’t know the boy?
My family was really messed up.
I got up from my chair. “I… uh… need to make a phone call.”
My mother nodded. She looked a bit like she was wondering whether I was going to run, but I wasn’t running.
I just really, really needed to talk to someone who wasn’t related to me.
16
Dean
When I answered the phone, my boyfriend sounded like he was about to cry. His voice was shaky and his breathing shallow and I didn’t know at all what was going on.
“Griff? Is everything alright?”
“I’m at the hospital,” he said.
At the hospital? My mind immediately jumped to worst case scenarios. “What are you doing there? Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m not hurt. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to scare you.” He sniffed, and that scared me. Not much could bring Griff down, so whatever had
happened, it must have been monumental.
“Did someone you know get hurt?” I prodded him along, trying to get the most important facts. I had some experience talking to trauma survivors, and this didn’t feel that different—which, honestly, did nothing to reassure me.
“My dad,” he said. “There was a fire.”
A fire? For a second, my mind went blank, and then it crashed in on itself, burying me under a pile of rubble made from images and memories of the last time I’d had to deal with a fire. But I couldn’t focus on that, couldn’t fall apart when Griff needed my help. Deep breath, I told myself. Talk to him.
“You’re at the hospital right now because your dad was in a fire?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry. Is it bad?”
“I don’t know. Not really? I mean… I don’t know. He’ll be okay, I think. My mom said so. She said he’ll probably be okay.”
I had to smile at Griff’s babbling, if only because he was moving away from shock and back to coping mechanics that were more characteristic. “That’s good,” I said.
“I’m just… I don’t know… I haven’t seen my parents in a really long time.”
“I know.” Now that he mentioned it, I remembered his family situation. I’d just forgotten about the misery surrounding that at the mention of fire. “Do you want me to come to the hospital?”
“If you could…”
“Okay, just hang tight and I’ll be there as fast as I can, alright?”
“Okay. I’m in room number 214. It’s on the second floor.”
As soon as I was done talking to Griff, I pocketed my phone and let Shane know that I would be taking the car. He didn’t seem to mind and he didn’t ask why I needed it, which was good because I had no time to explain. I had to get to Griff before my own demons caught up with me.
Luck was with me and I made it to the hospital in record time. Traffic was light that day and I sped right through until I reached the hospital’s parking lot. I parked the car and walked in without letting myself think, which honestly wasn’t that easy. I’d been hospitalized myself just before coming back to Oceanport, and though this was a different hospital, the memories wanting to bubble to the surface didn’t care.
I bit the inside of my lip as I got into the elevator and waited for it to take me up. Once I arrived on the second floor, it took me only a minute to locate the room with the number Griff had given me.
This was it.
I was officially about to meet my boyfriend’s parents. In all the rush, this was the first time that occurred to me. Maybe because I wasn’t meeting Mr. and Mrs. Stevens for the very first time. I had vague recollections of seeing them every now and then when I was a child, but still, this was the first time I was meeting them as the man who wanted to have sex with their son.
Awkward.
But I couldn’t let myself linger on that.
I knocked on the door. It only took a few seconds for Griff to open, as if he'd been waiting on hot coals for me to come. I could just picture that he'd jumped from his chair the moment he'd heard knocking.
“You're here!”
I gave him a smile. “Yeah, I am.” I leaned in to give him a quick peck on the lips. I wanted to go for a longer kiss, really, because I was so worried about him, but I couldn't quite get myself to do that before I knew how he felt about kissing in front of his mother and his bedridden father.
But as I wanted to draw back, Griff held on to the hem of my sleeve, and pressed our lips together again, opening his mouth to me. Seemed he had no reservations about who was going to see us do this whatsoever. Well, that was a relief. And I shamelessly took him up on his invitation to explore his mouth. He didn't just smell sweet, he tasted sweet as well. I could have lost myself in him.
But this was neither the time nor the place for that.
“Thank you for coming,” Griff whispered as we parted. “Thank you so much.”
“You don't have to thank me.” I kissed him again on the forehead before looking into the room. I spotted Mr. Stevens in the bed, and Griff's mother in a chair in front of it.
“Hello, Mrs. Stevens,” I greeted her. “I'm Dean Kramer.”
It took her a moment, but then her face lit up in recognition. “You used to be friends with Griffin back in school, didn’t you?” She shook her head. “I guess that’s not the appropriate term anymore, is it?”
I reached for Griff’s hand and held it in my own. “I’m his boyfriend now, and it’s a pleasure to meet you again, Mrs. Stevens.”
“His boyfriend, I see.” She smiled. “I’d been wondering if there was anyone special in my son’s life. I’m glad to see he’s not alone.”
“No, he’s not.” I smiled back at her, glad that she was taking my role in her son’s life so well. Approaching the bed, I glanced at the still form of Mr. Stevens. I’d seen worse cases of fire victims, but I’d also seen better.
“Dean’s a firefighter,” Griff told his mother with a hint of awe and pride in his voice that made me feel all sorts of things. And not all of them good.
I hadn’t been much of a firefighter in a while, and if that was what Griff liked about me, I was going to let him down.
No, you just need to overcome your problems and get your head back in the game.
But the fact that I had no idea how to do that was exactly the reason I’d come to this town in the first place. To run away, like a puppy with his tail between his legs. Fine alpha I was.
Griffin’s mother looked at me curiously. “Oh, but you weren’t with the nice firemen at our house, were you?” She tilted her head as she scrutinized me.
“No, ma’am. I don’t belong to this town’s fire department.”
“Oh, that’s a shame,” she said. “They could use more men, and you look capable.”
“He does, doesn’t he?” Griff said, and then he slapped his hand in front of his mouth as if he’d said too much. He made me smile. The only one who could in moments like this.
“Be that as it may, I’m very glad to see you in relative health after the accident,” I said to shift the topic of conversation away from me.
“It was awful,” Mrs. Stevens said. “I’ll have nightmares for weeks. And the house… oh, the house…” She shook her head.
“It must be bad. I’m sorry.”
She only shook her head again. “I don’t even know where to stay yet. Maybe I’ll just stay here overnight.”
“Mom, no. I have so much space, you can stay with me,” Griff said. And then he looked surprised at his own words. I was slightly surprised as well, and hoped that he knew what he was doing. From what I’d gathered, he didn’t have the best relationship with his parents, but maybe he was right and this was the time to restore some bonds.
“You don’t have to do that, Griffin,” his mother spoke up, though she was smiling. Then she looked between the two of us. “Are you two living together yet?”
“No!” Griff said quickly as if the thought shocked him. Or maybe it was more the thought of what his mother must be picturing in her head. I hoped for the latter, anyway. “We’re not… This is a new thing.”
Mrs. Stevens laughed. “I see. But you don’t need to act so coy, dear, you know I had two children when I was your age.”
Griff’s face took on a shade so red it rivaled the stop sign he probably wanted to put to this conversation.
His mother seemed to be amused by it, though. “Are you thinking about having children?” she asked.
“It’s a bit too early for that,” I cut in before Griff could become the first human to explode from embarrassment.
“Yes, it is!” Griff agreed with me. “We’re like… going slow and all, and we’re totally not living together so I really have space in my house and all. If you want to stay, I mean. That would be cool. Because you wouldn’t be interrupting anything.”
“Griff,” I said softly to make him aware of his rambling, and he stopped. I kissed his cheek and whispered, “You’re adorable when y
ou’re nervous,” in his ear just to see if he would squirm. He did. Considering the situation, I kept my laughter inside.
“If you really don’t mind…” his mother said. “I’d like to see your house.” She gave her son a soft smile. “I’ve always wanted to know what it looks like from the inside.”
Griff returned her smile, but his looked rueful, and I could imagine why. The two of them had a lot to discuss, but maybe not right now.
“Shall we go, then?” I asked, still holding Griff’s hand firmly in my own to remind him that he had my support in everything he chose to do.
“Yeah, I think we should. I have to call Eli too, when we’re home.”
I could see on his face that the thought made him slightly uncomfortable. Knowing his family’s history, I understood why. If Griff had a difficult relationship with his parents, Eli’s was catastrophic. Griff probably feared that his brother was going to be mad at him for taking their mother in, but I couldn’t imagine that to be the case. Griff needed to give his brother a little more credit. I squeezed his hand.
“Let’s be on our way, then. Are you coming as well?” I asked Mrs. Stevens, because it was entirely possible she wanted to remain at her injured husband’s side for a while longer, but she nodded and stood.
“I’m ready,” she said with a last look at the man she’d married. “Let’s go.”
“Good,” I said, because I couldn’t wait to get out of this hospital and away from all the bad memories it was stirring up inside me. I couldn’t unload any of them on Griff, not while he needed me. Maybe not ever.
17
Griffin
We passed the ride back to my house in relative quiet—a feat I was proud of, considering how hard it was to keep myself from babbling the whole way. But staying quiet forced me to remain in my own head, to think about all that happened and all that my mother had said. It was obvious that she wanted to make up. Part of me wanted that too, but I couldn’t deny that there was also a part of me that was mad at her, still, and I feared it wouldn’t go away so easily. And if this was difficult for me, I could only imagine how Eli was feeling.
A Baby for the Firefighter Page 9