Dee sighed. "I need to call Cassie. We're leaving on Tuesday for the Habitat project. I mean, I need to check on the status. She's the point person in my absence."
I laughed. "Go call your girlfriend and check in, hen-pecked. By the way, you're not the only man in the family that way. I'm the ring leader," I teased as I took Gray's hand.
Dee laughed and hurried down the bleachers with his phone in hand to call his girlfriend. Raising a straight son was a bigger challenge than Gray or I ever thought it would be, but it seemed we were doing okay.
Dee and Cassie were set to go to FSU in the fall. Our little genius was graduating a year early, which wasn't really a surprise. The kid was so damn smart it wasn't funny. Once Gray started homeschooling him all those years ago they had a goal and they went after it with a vengeance. Between the two of them and all the hard work they'd put into it, Dee ended up skipping a grade…his freshman year. We gave him the option to take a year off between high school and college, but he didn't want to lose the momentum, so we supported him.
The road had been rough over the years, but we got where we needed to be. Gray held my hand the whole way and led me down the path, and eventually, we got there. Would I have ever imagined we'd live the gifted life we'd been given? Naw. In my dreams, it wasn't possible, but I'd never imagined I'd meet the magic that was Gray Carson.
When the cadets' hats were thrown in the air, I got the perfect shot of our son with the biggest smile on his face as he looked my way. That, right there, made it worth all the work.
Twenty-Two
Gray
"Please, I'm begging you to stop fidgeting. I can't possibly tie this if you keep moving," I complained.
Learning to tie a bow tie hadn't come easily to me. I'd gone to the tailor's with Dee when he was fitted for his tux, and I had the man show me several times how to tie the damn thing. Derek had no idea how to tie a bow tie either, so I became the family expert. Having a nervous groom in front of me who continued to fidget and flinch didn't help.
"Come on, Son. Didn't they teach you how to do this…," I began as Derek glided into the room looking very handsome in his tux.
"How's the groom?" he asked with a bright smile. My husband looked perfect, and I almost wished we'd had a formal wedding all those years ago, but at the end of the day, we'd done things our way, much as our son was doing things his way.
"I'm ready to puke. How'd I let y'all…I blame this on Grandma. She and Aunt Cara were relentless," our son complained.
I laughed. "You don't know relentless, trust me. Over the sixteen years I've known your Pops, you can't believe the shit I've endured. You've got it easy. Now, let's get pictures. You look very handsome," I told him.
He did. When I thought back to the day I met him, I couldn't believe he was the same boy…man…I was looking at as I stood in that ante-room in the Episcopal church they'd chosen for their wedding.
There was a knock on the door, and I smiled when Sila stuck her head inside. "Hey, are we having a wedding or what? The natives are restless, jackass," she teased.
Derek and I escorted our son out of the room and stood by the door, listening for our cue. They'd chosen to have their parents walk them down the aisle separately, and we were going first.
"You ready?" I whispered as I straightened his jacket.
He grabbed both of us and hugged us. "I can't ever tell you how much I appreciate the fact you took us in. We'd probably both be dead by now if it wasn't for you. I love the two of you so much," he sniffled.
Derek pulled out his handkerchief and dried our eyes because I was crying as much as our son. "Now, let's not look at it as luck. I know you boys went through hell, but let's look at it as we all met up at the exact right time. The universe decided when it was time, and when it was, the four of us met and we all fell in love with each other. It's a wonderful miracle," Derek stated quietly.
I sniffed. "Now, let's get you down the aisle. It's time," I told them.
As the music played, the three of us walked to the front of the church, hand in hand. When we got to the end, Derek and I kissed his cheeks and took our seats in the front row, holding hands to hold each other together.
When the music changed, we turned to look down the aisle to see a man, a woman, and a handsome young man in a tuxedo walking down the aisle to his spot where our son, Ray, stood in his dress uniform waiting for his true love.
When Benjamin Rubenstein and his parents stopped at the end of the aisle, I held the laugh. It was almost like a joke... "A bi-racial guy, a Cherokee guy, a white guy, and a Jewish guy walk into a wedding…"
Derek poked me as I chuckled. "Stop it." I could tell he wanted to laugh as well, but he didn't.
When Samuel and Sarah Rubenstein kissed Benny's cheeks, they took the seat across the aisle from us. Derek and I smiled at them and turned to the front of the chapel where our sons were getting married. Jews weren't any more accepting of gay marriage than Baptists, it seemed, so the boys chose a liberal Episcopal church in Connecticut to join their lives. It was a beautiful church, and I was very happy about the wedding because we loved Benny.
"On behalf of our grooms, I welcome you to the wedding of Benjamin Samuel Rubenstein and Captain Raymond Richard Valentine. Let's bow our heads in prayer," the minister asked. I saw Ray take Ben's hands and the two of them closed their eyes.
The rest of the ceremony was pretty standard, as much as I could remember. After the vows, the tears, and the procession, the wedding planner stopped all of us at the back of the church. "Just a moment, please?" she asked.
She pulled Derek, me, Dee…Ray's best man…and the Rubenstein’s outside. When we saw the soldiers on the steps of the church, I couldn't help crying. They all had shiny sabers in their hands, and I knew enough about the tradition to know it was an honor for them to be there.
Derek and I stood on the sidewalk outside the church, and when the doors opened, the six young men raised the swords to make an arch under which Raymond and Benjamin Valentine walked and when they reached the bottom, two sabers dropped to stop them so they had to kiss. The crowd applauded and cheered.
Dee snapped a photo and showed it to me. "It's a new beginning, isn't it Dad? I mean, we're adding to our family, right?"
All I could saw was "Yes, son."
I was grateful Derek and I had married so many years prior when it was barely accepted because the law was new, and while we worried it would be overturned, it wasn’t. We were grateful our son, Raymond…Rashad…had been able to legally marry the love of his life and not be stoned to death. He was allowed to be gay in the Army, and while he faced some bigotry from time to time, they had a lot of friends who were supportive and also in the Army.
The happy couple was set to be stationed in Italy, and Benny was excited because he was going to teach math at a school on the post so he could be close to Ray. Their future was shaping up quite happily.
When the two of them kissed us good-bye to go on their honeymoon, I was sad but grateful. Before our family came to be, there were many pioneers upon whose shoulders we stood. Men and women who'd been brutalized over their sexuality far more than we'd been…though, we took our knocks. The best thing was we were all still standing. We'd survived it.
Dee walked up and tossed his large arm around my shoulder because I was the smallest in our family, much as I hated it. "So, can I go to Italy to visit after they get settled in? I'd love to meet some nice Italian girls." I laughed. That boy was as straight as an arrow and Dee definitely loved the ladies. Over the years, we'd had our hands full with him, but I never forgot how grateful I was for the problem. It was a wonderful life.
Epilogue
Derek “Dewayne Vaughn” Valentine
I stood in the hallway of the hospital, barely able to believe why I was there. Ray and Benny were in Germany at their new duty station. I could have used their support for damn sure, but they couldn’t get away. Hell, my parents were on vacation to visit my brother and his husband, and I was doing
it on my own…well, nearly. Even with the family support, I wanted to puke my guts out.
The family I had accrued over the years was a blessing…even if it didn't always seem like it. My fathers and my brother had always supported me, teaching me wrong from right and when I fucked it up, they were there to give me hell and then forgive me in the next sentence.
Those lessons, though hard to learn, had taught me the most about growing up to be a respectable man, and I was grateful for every one of them. Nobody was perfect and to forgive weakness in others as you'd want them to forgive it in you had been a mantra in our home as Ray and I were growing up.
"What are you doing out here? You should be in the room," Sila chastised. I hugged her for being there in support.
"They ran me out. I defy you to try to get in there, little one," I responded.
Sila laughed as I felt a hand on my shoulder, seeing her boyfriend, Jake. "Dude, you look like hell. Let's get a coffee," he suggested as the door opened and the doctor walked out.
"Agent Valentine?" he asked.
I turned in the direction of the voice and held up my hand. He gave me the up and down, which didn't surprise me. My bio-dad had apparently been a big guy and for a long time, I was a runt. I’d grown to be six-three, and Pops just laughed about it over the years. Dad, Gray, was five-ten, and the photos we had from occasions were actually pretty comical.
Ray was six-two, which spoke to the fact Rhonda liked big guys. She was gone, so we couldn't ask her about our dads, but we were fine with it. We had hit the damn jackpot in the dads we were blessed with…Gray and Derek Valentine.
"We're going to take your wife down for a C-section. We can't stop the labor, and even though the baby's early, it's within the window where there should be few complications. Are you going to accompany her into the delivery theater?" the obstetrician asked.
"Oh, yes he is. Dee, go with that nice young woman and change out of that suit and get ready to go into surgery with your wife. She's scared to death, and you're going to be there and be supportive," Grandma Addy demanded, still as feisty as ever.
"Of course I'm going, Grammy. I'll be right back," I told the audience that had been run out of the delivery room. Some of the people in my wife's family weren't exactly thrilled about having me for a son-in-law when they learned of it, but we didn't give them a choice. We'd eloped, and we'd been hearing about it for the last seven months.
After I graduated high school, I went to FSU instead of taking a year off to regroup as my parents had suggested. After my first year there, I hated it because I just didn't like the vibe…and I'd broken up with my cheating girlfriend at the time so following her to FSU turned out to be a huge fucking mistake.
After taking a semester off to get my shit together as my parents had suggested in the beginning, I decided to transfer to a college in Texas. Baylor, to be exact. I was able to claim residence since my grandmother, Addy, lived there. I lived with her so I didn't have to pay for housing, and I worked part-time at a farmer's market.
That market was where I really got to know the woman who would become my wife…Christina Valerie Tucker. Over the years, we'd been around each other, but it was always with her five siblings and parents, my brother and dads, our grandparents, and their friends, so we didn't really speak much.
When we were in school in Waco years prior, she was younger than me so we didn't really form a bond, but when she started working at the same store as me, we began talking and taking breaks together. She was going to Baylor as well, but she was in the nursing school while I was majoring in criminal justice to follow in Pop’s footsteps into law enforcement.
After I graduated and went to the Academy, I stayed in touch with Tina…closely. I was assigned the field office in Austin after I graduated, but I came home to her every weekend until she finished her nursing degree at Baylor. We were secretly living together on weekends when I was home from Austin, and we were very much in love.
After she graduated, she enrolled to get her masters' in Medical Administration at UT-Austin, having taken a job at University Medical Center-Brackenridge. We had so many plans for the future it was like a dream and we were sickeningly happy.
I looked up to Derek Valentine, even changing my name to his, because, he and my dad, Gray, took in two ghetto kids whose mother was a drug addict and a whore, and they never looked back.
From Derek, I learned to take my responsibilities seriously, and from Gray, I learned to love unconditionally. When Tina called me while I was in San Antonio on a case for my employer, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, I got my ass back to Austin as soon as possible.
I picked her up at the apartment and got us on the next plane to Vegas. If we told her parents and mine we were going to have a baby, I damn well wanted us to be married when we did it.
A plethora of scenarios ran through my mind regarding her father, Uncle Quinn, stringing me up by my dick for getting his baby girl pregnant, but when I looked at my Tina, it all melted away.
That was seven months ago, and we'd had a small party for the families in Waco one weekend. Marisol wanted us to have something more formal, but Tina wanted to wait until after the baby. Personally, I thought it was a waste of money, but when the women…Addy, Miri, Aunt Marisol, and Aunt Cara, along with my dad, Gray…got it in their heads, we couldn't fight all of them.
When I walked out of the bathroom in the blue scrubs the nurse had given me, Nita, Tina's twin sister, was standing there with a smile on her face. "I hope this one's a boy. The women have too much power in this family." We both laughed as she took my suit and placed it in a plastic bag the nurse had given her.
"It doesn't matter how many men are born into this clan, Nita, you women will always run us ragged. Here's my phone. I sent a text to Dad and Pop. If they respond, will you explain it to them? I don't want them to kill themselves trying to hurry home. We'll all still be here when they get back," I instructed before I kissed her cheek and hurried down the hallway to my wife's hospital room.
I walked inside to see her speaking with her mother and my sister-in-law, Marie. "I'm so scared. I didn't want to…" She began crying, so I pushed everyone out of the way to get to her.
"Baby, please calm down. The doctor told me while it's early, he doesn't expect there to be any problems. The calmer you are, the better it is for the baby," I assured as I gently ran my hand over the sheet covering her belly. Based on the size of her belly, I could see why my tiny wife would have problems delivering our son or daughter. Tina was about five-four. She wasn't heavy, but my woman had curves every man…well, every straight man…loved.
I leaned down and kissed her forehead just as two nurses came in to take us down to a delivery room. While they prepped her for the surgery, I said a prayer to whoever would listen to keep my wife and my child safe. I asked Grandpa Rick, and my Grandma Vaughn to call in favors they had with the Big Man to keep my family safe.
Two hours later I stood at the nursery window holding up my son…my beautiful baby boy…to the family assembled so they could see the miracle God had given Tina and me. I saw my dads, my brother, and his husband crowded around a computer.
Michael was holding up his iPad to the nursery window and they were all excited. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but I could see them crying as much as me. As I looked around, I could see everyone was crying, just as we always did when God blessed us with new babies in our large family.
The next week, we had a ceremony at my in-law's cabin in Waco. It was a Cherokee blessing ceremony and it reminded me so much of the celebration dance we’d learned when Ray bagged his deer over the years. Those memories made me happy.
That was the day we gave our son his official name, Grayson Tucker Valentine. Everyone in attendance held the baby, kissed the baby, and spoiled the baby, as I was sure they’d do over his life. It made me smile at the great life my son would have with so many wonderful people in his life.
I sat outside on the back deck, rem
embering camping trips with all the boys in the Tucker/Valentine families over the years. I remembered QJ teaching me to swim at the quarry, and I remembered Pop teaching me how to hunt and fish as he'd taught Ray.
I remember Dad teaching me how to cook so I wouldn't starve when I went to college, and I remembered looking at a beautiful Cherokee/Mexican woman as she bagged six ears of corn for a customer when we both worked in that market.
For a kid from the bad part of Austin to have such riches of family and love, it was a miracle. One I'd never take for granted.
FIN
Acknowledgements:
I cannot thank my readers enough for their loyalty and support as I’ve embarked on each story I’ve written during my fanfiction days, and my dabbling in original fiction while I tried to work up the courage to put myself out there and publish my first book. You’ve been supportive when I needed it; honest when I needed to hear it; and you always come back for more. Thank you ever so much. I’d like to offer a very special thanks to Genevieve for agreeing to pre-read this book, helping me make this the best it can be. The assistance was invaluable. Thanks, Gen!
About the Author:
I grew up in the rural Midwest around horses and cattle and cowboys, oh my! I met a dashing young man who swept me off my feet and to the east coast where I currently live. I have a loving, supportive family who kindly overlooks my addiction to writing, reading, and the extension of my hands…my computer to write, or my Kindle to read the stories others write. I’m old enough to know how to have fun but too old to care what others think. In my heart and soul, I believe I hit the cosmic jackpot with the life I have, and I try to be grateful for it every day. Cheers!
If you enjoyed this book, I’d appreciate you leaving a rating and/or a review with Amazon and maybe a kind word on Goodreads. If you have constructive criticism to help me evolve as an author, or if you find a technical error (because I’m not perfect at all), please pass it along to me. You can find me at:
A Valentine's Loves (The Valentine's Trilogy Book 3) Page 17