Underside of Courage (Beautifully Disturbed Series Book 2)

by Sarah Zolton Arthur

  Col walks over to me, taking my hand. “Kip, you had a life before me. Not like you don’t know about Andrew.”

  “Yeah but… ” But I never freaked out over Andrew and accused you of fucking him while we were together. Not that he could have.

  “I like this space,” he finally says. “It’s not the you now, but somehow fits you. If that makes any sense.”

  That’s when I notice Ma hanging in the doorway, her arms crossed over her chest, crying. One thing Collin will have to get used to if he’s going to be a part of our family, there are a lot of women, and they all cry. A lot. My mom being the crying ringleader.

  “I’m just so glad to have my baby home. And he brought a keeper.” A loud sob escapes my mother’s lips.

  Jeeze, Mom.

  “Is she…Are you okay?” Collin asks her, eyes wide, hand stretched out like he wants to comfort her yet he hesitates, not even taking a step in her direction.

  It worries me that she’s pushing too hard, putting too much pressure on him with all her keeper business. I’m worried he might bolt. I want, no, need Col to be part of my forever. Some people though, some people are the grab forever by the balls and make it your bitch kind of people and others, well, others are Collin. He’s the slide slowly into it without much acknowledgment of the fact kind of person.

  “I’m putting out a call chain. Everyone will want to know you’re here,” she says to me, conveniently not answering Collin’s question.

  “No—not the call chain.”

  “What’s a call chain?” He asks me.

  “Exactly what it sounds like.”

  ***

  An hour later the first of my siblings descends on the household. The oldest of my sisters, second oldest in the family, barrels into the house with her husband, three daughters and two sons in tow.

  “Kippy!” she screams when she sees me, which sets off a round of “Uncle Kippy! Uncle Kippy!” from the kids.

  Out of anything or everything they could’ve called me as a kid, Kippy is what they chose. About now I’d prefer to answer to asshole over Kippy. And dammit if Collin doesn’t look ready to crack the hell up every time someone calls that god awful name out.

  “And you wonder why I don’t come home more often,” I deadpan to my mother. She sees through the act, of course. I mean, I really want them to stop with the stupid nickname, but I’d never stay away because of it.

  “Kip.” My brother-in-law Keith walks over to me, clapping a hand on my back. “Glad to see you home, man. Not the same around here since you left.”

  “There’s enough of us running about, no one should’ve missed me too much.”

  “If you think that, then you really don’t know your place in this family,” he says back to me.

  “Who’s the exceptionally delectable sweetie?” My sister Ramie walks over by us, standing way too close to Col for either his or my comfort, and bumps his arm with her elbow.

  “Ri, he’s a person not a pastry.”

  She laughs, but moves a little closer still.

  “Guys, my boyfriend. Collin Pratt.”

  “Nice to meet you.” Keith holds out his hand to shake Collin’s. “Hope you’re ready.”

  Only I would be able to see the nerves in those icy baby blues of his. But Collin, a pro at pretending, doesn’t let on his apprehension in the least, shaking the offered hand instead.

  “So he’s the guy?” My sister gushes.

  “He’s a guy. We established my penchant a while ago, sis.”

  She punches my shoulder, then. “Not a guy. The guy. As in the one Kay talked to? The one who thinks you’re special.” She draws the word out, and I’m officially going to murder my sister. What the hell? Kay had no business telling the family those specifics. Some things should remain private between a guy and his boyfriend and his… twin sister. “Knock it off, Kippy. Don’t look so bent. We worry with you being so far away. She was just setting us at ease.”

  “I’m not bent, and don’t call me Kippy. I’m twenty-one fucking years old.”

  “Mom, Uncle Kippy said a bad word!” My sister’s youngest yells from the couch where the kids had been wrangled to watch some cartoon.

  Laughing the whole time, Collin moves to stand next to me. He leans in, “Yeah Uncle Kippy, you said a bad word.”

  “Call me Uncle Kippy again, baby, and see what you get tonight.”

  “That a threat Uncle Kippy?”

  He certainly doesn’t expect it when I lean in to steal a kiss and tell him, “That’s a promise.”

  Pretty soon the house is crawling with sisters and brothers and sisters-in-law and brothers-in-law and nieces and nephews. Kay has the longest way to drive, so she hasn’t shown yet. But it’s my dad who I really want to see. I want him to meet Collin. Mom already loves him, I want Dad to love him, too.

  It would go a long way to cement our relationship if both of my parents get to know him and love him as much as I do. To see he’s accepted. Maybe then he won’t be so afraid of his feelings for me.

  Chapter 24

  Collin

  His family honestly greeted me with open arms. His mother Rena went as far as to say that if Kip and I didn’t work out as a couple she’d be happy to adopt me. Although I’d have to change my name to something starting with K or R. I laughed along with her but when she said if he and I didn’t work out… Was she hoping for that? Mother’s intuition?

  I’ve been silently chewing on that little nugget for at least an hour now, waiting as everyone has for Kip’s dad to come home. He’s been on a business trip for the past week and his flight had been delayed. Boy, but when he found out Kip was home—no one’s ever sounded so happy to see me ever in my life.

  No one.

  Now along with the nighttime comes a darkened outside, and we all stop talking, or in my case thinking, when a pair of headlights cuts through the living room from the window, muted by the sheer curtains.

  His mother stands from her spot on the sofa where she’d been playing with her grandchildren. From there, she walks over to wait by the door so when it opens, she’s the first thing his father sees.

  There’s so much love between them. My chest tightens at the outpouring of emotion, and I find myself swallowing back the urge to tear up.

  Kip got to grow up with these parents. In this family. I should feel happy for him. Happy he didn’t have to feel as unloved and unwanted as my family, as my whole fucking town made me feel. But all I feel is jealousy because he got them and I didn’t. Jealousy and a healthy dose of fear.

  Okay, so I can win over a mom and some brothers and sisters. But a dad? Am I being selfish again? Keeping his son from living a normal life, from being a real man? The night he found out about us, Mr. Hayes spat out his assessment of me and Andrew. How could Mr. Daniels possibly think different? He’s a dad.

  “Where’s my boy?” The older man from the pictures sounds so much like Kip, I can imagine him thirty years from now looking and sounding like the two people openly hugging in front of us all.

  Wearing his expression of excitement, one that says he’s happy to be home, one that’s written all over his face, Kip steps up with an outstretched hand. “Hey, old man. Good to see you.”

  “Old man?” His father raises his eyebrow, again, exactly as I’ve seen Kip do so many times. He reaches his hand out like he’s about to shake Kip’s but pulls his son in for a huge, enveloping hug instead. “Missed you, boy.” He says into Kip’s hair. His mouth so close I can make out each individual hair rustling. “Don’t stay away so long again.” His voice sounds choked, strangled, and the older man swipes at his eyes. “Your mother… she… ”

  “Yeah, Mom.” Kip’s voice strangled, too.

  Now would be my time to move farther into the background, to be unseen. But dammit, Kip’s sister steps behind me blocking my retreat, and their father’s keen eyes detect my movements.

  “And who is this gentleman in my living room?”

  Kip, bless his angelic hear
t, speaks as if he’s proud. “Collin,” he says, gesturing for me to come closer as he introduces us. “Collin Pratt, my boyfriend.”

  No. Coward that I am, I can’t look. Can’t bear to see that flash of disappointment flash even for a second in Mr. Daniels’s eyes. I don’t need to see the unspoken wish that maybe for once, for once he made the family proud and brought home the right sex. The sex which could make and carry grandbabies, and marry without judgments or protests that we’ve violated their religious freedom. Because God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. The right sex which would make his life so much easier.

  So no, standing in that same spot, I close my eyes and don’t open them until it becomes hard to breathe because someone’s large arms, different from the feel of Kip, who I am so used to by now, squeezes the life out of me.

  “Really great to meet you, son,” he says to me. Son? It’s been years since someone addressed me as son. My own parents don’t address me as son. Shaming the good name of Pratt the way I have, they try not to address me at all, let alone claim me.

  So what’s his deal? Does daddy dearest not realize I’m the one keeping his real son, his biological progeny, going down that dark path? Does he even know that his son, only weeks ago, told me he loves me? Bet he wouldn’t be calling me son then.

  “I mean no offense.” He pauses, and I brace myself for the ugly. “But you are a really handsome young man.”

  What?

  “Of course I know you have to be so much more than that to have stolen my boy’s heart. Thank you,” he whispers, then.

  “Thank you? For?”

  “For loving him. Kip is the glue keeping us bound together so tightly. Always has been. Even as a little boy, at the slightest bit of dissention in the house, he’d jump into peacekeeper mode. He deserves to be happy.”

  “Can we do me a favor,” Kip asks, clearing his throat. “And not talk about me as if A, I’m not in the room and B, like I’m not a grown adult now. Please.”

  Most of his siblings begin to laugh. I don’t. I can’t. Because to me, he is all adult. All man. A man I am always aware of being in the same room as me, occupying the same space, breathing the same air.

  “It’s a curse,” he says to me specifically. “Being born exactly two minutes after Kay officially makes me the baby of the family. Two freaking minutes. You’d think they’d let it go by now.”

  He says it’s a curse, and for him it probably is.

  Except I see him the way he wants to be seen. I’m the only one in the room who sees him.

  Why? Why can’t he be the same as Bradley or any of the nameless, faceless hookups who have come before him? As in nothing beyond a good time. Kip and I, we don’t have good times, we have great times. He might even be my best friend. But I have a best friend, a brother. I have Ben. So then why do I feel like I’m betraying Kip for thinking of Ben as my best friend?

  I’m not cut out for boyfriend shit.

  The chatter in the room picks up again. Kids go back to watching cartoons or falling asleep. Several of Kip’s siblings and in-laws swarm around his dad to chat with the man. Kip takes the opportunity to slink away from the group. He hooks his pinky around mine, tugging me to get my attention, where I follow him into the hallway.

  “Hey, baby… got that lost, seizure look again. What do I need to talk you down from?”

  “So I’m the crazy asshole who needs to be talked down, now? Maybe I need meds. Is that what you’re saying?” I whisper/yell at him.

  “Wow, how ‘bout you get over yourself now. Yeah, you might just need a chill pill or two. I wasn’t suggesting anything other than you look off. I was concerned. That’s how relationships work. One party looks stressed, the other party asks what they can do to help. I wouldn’t expect any less from you if I were the one stressed.”

  Yup. I suck at boyfriend shit.

  “Sorry. I don’t want to fight. The trip is supposed to be fun for you.”

  “I’ve been having fun, but Col, if you aren’t just tell me. It’s been a long day. We can go hang out in our room for a while or whatever.”

  “Nah, I’m cool. Besides, you have all your family here to see you and Kayna should be here soon.”

  He pulls me into a really warm, tight hug. The kind where he rests his forehead against mine. My favorite hug in his hugging repertoire. Then he says low, but not in a whisper. “You’re my family, Col.”

  And that would be when we hear a collective, “Awe.” Long and drawn out, and decisively female.

  I stiffen and he turns, still holding me in his arms, to see his mother and two sisters and a sister-in-law standing at the mouth of the hallway. Most of them hold onto each other or with their hands over their hearts, all of them blinking to fight back tears.

  “Really?” Kip asks. He sounds completely exasperated. As exasperated as I feel.

  Then we hear a “Woman! Leave those boys alone if they need some private time.” The words are boomed out from the living room in his father’s voice.

  The gaggle breaks up, leaving us alone again.

  “Sorry, baby. They mean well.”

  They do mean well. I know it. And since I’ve been here, they’ve been more than welcoming. So it’s not like I have any room to complain.

  Kip resumes his hug for a few more minutes before we brave the family again. He knew I needed the reprieve and he gave it to me. Like every other time since I’ve known him, Kip takes care of me.

  All hell breaks loose in the Daniels house once Kayna arrives. They might be twins, but their personalities are just as fraternal. As subdued as Kip is most of the time, she’s a whirling ball of energy. I get tired just watching. But I can see the love between them, between all of them really.

  About midnight I finally excuse myself to bed. It’s been a long day, and Kip deserves to enjoy his time here without worrying about babysitting my ass. After changing into my sleep shorts, I’m drawn to his photos tacked above his desk again.

  He took so many pictures with Jake. So many. I’m not sure if we’ve taken any together, have we? Look at what he had here. So he and Jake broke up, doesn’t explain why he’d move so far away from his family.

  Does he even realize how lucky he is to have a family to love him so fiercely? What do I have to offer him in Michigan besides freaking fantastic sex?

  There’s a picture of him and Jake, they’re laughing, out with friends. For some reason the picture strikes a nerve with me, and I can’t leave it alone. Pulling it from the corkboard, I lay down on top of the covers on the bed and stare at the damn picture. Kip looks younger, but not too much. I’d say he had to be a senior in high school here. His face, every bit as angelic as today though.

  I don’t know how long I’ve laid staring at the picture when I hear the door crack.

  “You awake?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Thank fuck.” Then I hear Kip rustling around the room, the unzipping of his jeans, the swish of fabric either coming off or slipping on and then he moves to the bed. It dips with his weight. “What you got there?”

  I shrug. Not sure if he can see me.

  “Is that one of my pictures? Col, it was high school me. Whatever’s going on, it’s not important any more. Do you understand?”

  He doesn’t give me the time to answer, leaning over to kiss me. And I let him because kissing him is so much easier than dealing with my shit.

  “I want you, baby. Tell me you don’t mind fucking in my high school bed.”

  “Your family… ” I remind him.

  “Won’t hear a damn thing if we keep quiet enough.”

  We fumble around the small bed jockeying for positions, his long sleep pants brush against my bare legs since I packed these stupid shorts instead. I know what he wants, what he deserves. But those people—his dad called me son. I just can’t. Not tonight.

  I flop around a few more times until I’m turned facing away from Kip. His chest and hips and shit… his erection pressed against my back. Why is it so hard to
turn the bullshit off in my head?

  “Can you just hold me tonight, Kip? Please, please just hold me.”

  I feel him reach down to reposition himself. He has to be uncomfortable with that mammoth meat stick pulsing in his pants. But he doesn’t complain. Instead, wrapping both arms around me and hooking his leg over mine, he anchors me to the bed, to him specifically, so there’s no space left between us.

  “Yeah,” Kip whispers in my ear. “I’ll hold you. Anything you ever need from me… ” Then he kisses my cheek and nuzzles his nose into my neck. “Love you.”

  Those words are the lightest, but make the loudest noise.

  When my eyes flash open, it’s still dark which means I hadn’t been asleep long. Kip however has one arm flung over his eyes and the other resting above his head, his knuckle brushing the headboard. My angel deserves to sleep in longer, so gently as possible, my feet hit the floor as I slide from under the comforter and slip out into the hallway to use the bathroom.

  His mom surprises me, standing just outside the bathroom door when I open it. She hooks my arm. “Come on, handsome. Let’s make coffee.”

  She pulls the filters from the cupboard while I fill the carafe with water when she finally speaks again. “You’re looking a little distracted. What’s up?”

  “It’s… ” I have to clear a sudden thickness from my throat. “It’s nothing.”

  “Hey.” She moves in next to me slipping my hand in hers like a supportive mother would, which makes me jerk my hand, embarrassingly. Kip’s supportive mother grips my hand tighter instead of letting go. My mother let go. She’s known me a day and grips my hand, I don’t understand. “He says you buy him Lucky Charms.”

  “Yeah, um… they’re his favorite.”

  “But he says you never let them run out. Since he all but moved in with you, you’ve never let them run out.”

  “It’s cereal. No one’s nominating me for sainthood.”

  She lightly laughs, soft through her nose. “Collin, a beautiful life is built from all the little things. The big things, they’re just checkpoints along the road. You’ve got demons. I’m Catholic, I know about demons. You’ve got guilt. We spoon it in our coffee instead of sugar. Whatever’s got its hooks in you, baby, you got to unhook it. It’ll drag you down.”