by Riley Knight
Isaac caught Ben’s eye, and his boyfriend grinned at him, rising up out of the water like some sort of river god, droplets clinging to the skin of his powerful chest and shoulders. It was too far away to be absolutely certain, but Isaac was pretty sure that if they were closer together, he would get to see Ben’s nipples, hardened into tight little buds by the chill in the water.
Ben came back toward the blanket, and Isaac got to test his hypothesis. To his utter delight, he saw that he’d been right, and for just a moment he had the insane urge to reach out and touch Ben, to brush the palms of his hands and his fingertips over the silky smooth flesh.
Not that he would. They were out in public, definitely not the only people who had sought out the sanctuary of the river, and then there was Sammy, who had just turned nine and was easily embarrassed. But the urge was almost overwhelming, just for a second, and Isaac let his eyes meet Ben instead of his hands.
Sammy followed behind his big brother, but he didn’t look happy about it. Ben might be exhausted, but Sammy had all the energy of any child, and maybe more, and he flopped down on the blanket and looked expectantly at Ben, who was sitting close enough to Isaac that their shoulders almost touched.
“Okay, okay, you rested,” Sammy complained. “Can we go back in now? It’s boring here, and I’m hot.”
Ben gave a soft, sexy little laugh, and shook his head as he reclined back, giving Isaac a gorgeous view of his stocky, beautiful, muscular body, tanned from the summer sun and many, many days out together. Him, Isaac, and Sammy, their own little family, the one that they had all chosen for themselves and which was all the more real because of that.
“Sorry, kiddo,” Ben murmured, and Isaac turned his gaze from admiring Ben’s slender waist and broad shoulders to look at Sammy, who slumped down, disappointed. But Sammy was a good kid at heart, despite all of the bobbles that they’d had, and he accepted it.
“I’ll go with you if you want.” Isaac knew the offer was likely to be met with scorn, but he just felt so bad for Sammy, who really did seem to want to be around his big brother all the time. That sort of made sense, really, because he had been apart for him for so long, but Isaac was betting on it being more than that.
Sammy must have spent so much time alone, when he was with his mom and when he was in foster homes. Now that he didn’t have to anymore, he seemed eager to be around people all the time, or so it seemed to Isaac. So maybe, it was just barely possible that Sammy would be willing to spend some time with Isaac if it meant being around someone and still getting to play.
Ben sat up, propping himself up on his elbows, watching this carefully. Isaac knew that it made Ben a little bit sad that his brother was just short of hostile toward his boyfriend, so he was obviously paying very close attention to see how this went.
Sammy turned to look at him, and his eyes were the same shade as Ben’s. Despite the differences in the brother’s faces, those jade eyes were proof that they were brothers, there could be no doubt about that.
“Okay,” Sammy said, his tone as offhanded as if this wasn’t a big deal at all and as if he didn’t do his best to ignore Isaac at every opportunity. Isaac’s heart seemed to swell as the boy got up, and he and Ben exchanged a triumphant look. It might not seem like much, but it was definitely progress, and Isaac would take it.
“Are you coming or not?” Sammy’s voice was impatient, and Isaac smiled at his boyfriend and rose to his feet. Sammy was giving him a chance, and Isaac wasn’t going to turn it down, not for anything.
“I’m coming,” he said and then walked toward the water, with its surface like clouded, rippled glass, providing a welcome respite from the heat of the day. And providing, too, Isaac’s first real chance to make friends with his boyfriend’s little brother.
* * *
They played until Isaac lost track of time, and the chill of the water actually started to seep into his bones and make him feel cold. Only then did he finally glance back at the blanket, and what he saw made him shiver in a way that had nothing really to do with the cold, but rather the potent mix of fear and hope that rushed through him.
Ben was talking to a girl, and that wasn’t really so strange. Girls were always talking to Ben, and Isaac was secure enough in their relationship that he wasn’t worried about it.
But this girl wasn’t just anyone. It was Amanda, who was bundled up in the summer heat like it was the middle of the winter, desperately trying to hide what couldn’t possibly be hidden for much longer. Already, it was obvious, if you were looking for it.
Even from here, it was obvious that Amanda was a mess. Her hair was tossed back in a lazy, messy ponytail, and the dark circles under her eyes made them look huge, even in the distance which separated Isaac from her.
“Are you and Ben gay?” Sammy finally asked, his voice pitched so low that Isaac could barely hear him over the trickling sound of the water which swirled past them.
That got Isaac’s attention, and he turned back to the boy, who was looking at him with an expression that perfectly married curiosity and hostility and the expectation that he was about to get in trouble.
“What?” Isaac asked stupidly, and Sammy looked at him, his gaze defiant.
“Are you gay? You and my brother? Because if you are, and people find out, that’s gonna suck for me in school.”
Isaac supposed it would. The local school district was no more progressive, no more accepting of that sort of thing than the town itself was.
“Yes,” Isaac told the boy, deciding right on the spur of the moment that he needed to tell him the truth. Sammy clearly already knew, no matter how subtle he and Ben had tried to be.
And it was the truth, Isaac realized. He hadn’t ever really thought of it in those terms, but he had never, ever been interested in a woman romantically. What else would that be called, other than gay?
“Does that bug you?” Isaac asked because Sammy had lapsed into silence, the little boy’s hand busily running through the flowing water and his eyes fixed on that now instead of on Isaac.
“Nah. It doesn’t bug me, but it’s gonna suck in school,” Sammy finally said, and Isaac didn’t even know what to respond with. Kids could be cruel, terribly cruel, and Isaac wasn’t going to try to lie to the kid about that.
“I need to talk to that girl,” Isaac told Sammy. The little boy nodded, and the two of them waded in, just as Amanda raised her eyes to look at him.
As they got closer, Isaac saw just how desperate Amanda was, how close to the edge she was. How obviously exhausted, the circles under her eyes prominent.
“Isaac. You got a second?” Amanda asked, her eyes flickering to Sammy. Whatever she was going to say, she clearly wasn’t sure that she should be saying it in front of a child, and Isaac wasted no time in nodding. As he did, he looked past her and saw her parents, who were watching her anxiously. There was some real hostility in her mother’s eyes, and Isaac could only imagine what the poor girl had been through, worrying over her illegitimate child, what people would say and think and do.
Isaac walked to a slightly more private area, one shaded by another of the scrubby little trees. Amanda’s parents would still be able to see her, but they didn’t stand a chance of hearing them. Isaac knew how this worked. Hadn’t he been a part of a church community for enough years to learn exactly what he could get away with?
People were looking at them, though. Isaac had become used to that. He was living with another man, and his parents had kicked him out, so there had been rumors flying.
It wasn’t just him, though. They were staring at Amanda, too, and this far into the summer, it made sense. She was dressed in a way that was as bulky as possible so that she was actually pouring sweat, and no doubt rumors were going around about her, too.
“I don’t want to hide this anymore,” Amanda told him, her voice low and urgent as she said the words. “Isaac, please. Can you think of anything? Any way that I can get help?”
Isaac looked down into her small, frighten
ed little face. Her hands unconsciously touched her belly, and he shook his head slightly as he looked at her, as he saw her fear, and he felt nothing but compassion.
“Amanda, you won’t be able to hide it for much longer. But Ben and I …” He glanced over at his boyfriend, who was watching them with an intense, focused look on his face. Ben had a healthy dose of curiosity himself.
It seemed as though all eyes on the park were on them, and most of the town was there on a hot day like this. Anything that happened here would get around.
“Ben and I won’t let anything happen to you,” Isaac promised. They would take care of her, and, by extension, her baby, no matter what people thought about it. They would keep her safe. It might not make up for the life that she’d lost out on, for what Isaac’s father had taken from her by getting her pregnant, but it was the most he could do.
Or was it?
“Amanda. I have an idea. Do you trust me?” Isaac’s voice shook just a little, but he was determined. His life was about to change if Amanda went for this, but he knew that he was ready.
“I trust you,” Amanda told him, and Isaac nodded. He reached out and took her hand, very obviously, so that everyone in the park would see, and though he wished that he’d had time to warn Ben about this he had to hope that Ben trusted him just as much as Amanda did.
Amanda’s eyes widened, and then she squeezed his fingers, her own slippery with sweat. In a split second, he saw that she understood the desperate plan, and when she released his hand, at first he thought that she wouldn’t go along with it.
Instead, she took just a half step back and then slid out of her thick winter sweater, the one which was two sizes too big for her and which had served to protect and hide her growing stomach. Underneath, she wore a tank top, one which she looked much more comfortable in.
But her stomach, swollen, obviously pregnant, was now on display. Amanda reached for Isaac, for his hands, and put them on the round swell of her belly. The smooth skin stretched taut over it.
Isaac felt the regard of the entire town on them, men, women, and children. The children, actually, were a good thing, because this would send a clear message to them. Sammy might have an easier time because of this one moment, this few seconds of desperate acting.
Knowing full well that everyone in the town would assume that he and Amanda were lovers and that the baby she was carrying out of wedlock was his, Isaac leaned in and hugged the young woman. It wasn’t the best hug he’d ever had, Amanda was still pouring sweat, but people would see it.
People would see, and they would make their assumptions. As bad as it was for her to get pregnant by Isaac, it was a thousand times worse for her to be carrying the child of a man old enough to be her father.
In that one hug, an agreement was struck. Isaac would publicly be seen as the father of this baby, and that would keep Amanda safe, and it would keep Sammy safe. It seemed like a pretty good deal to him.
Glancing over at Ben, Isaac saw the surprise in his face, and he had to hope that he hadn’t just lost his boyfriend with what he’d just done. Hopefully, he could make Ben understand why he had done it.
TWENTY-NINE
“Oh wow,” Sammy whispered, and Ben finally dragged his eyes away from Isaac, who was pulling away from his embrace with Amanda. He felt strangely dead inside, cold, not sure how to even begin to deal with this unexpected development.
Ben’s eyes fixed on Sammy’s, and the kid, who had looked just as shocked as Ben felt, suddenly grinned at him and it was like the sun had come out from behind the clouds in his eyes. Sammy had been on edge, but all of that faded away, and he looked like a normal kid again.
“Why the hell are you so happy?” Ben grumped at him, and Sammy gave him the look of condescending pity that only someone under the age of ten could pull off and not be at risk of getting slapped.
“No one will know that you guys are gay now,” Sammy informed Ben like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Isaac, he’s not so bad, really. I mean, I guess he’s okay.”
A slight smirk tugged at the corners of Ben’s lips, and he turned back to Amanda and Isaac, who were approaching them now. Around them, the people in the park started staring at the little mini-drama which Isaac had staged …
Staged. Right. All of a sudden, everything made sense to Ben. What had just happened had been a little play put on for the people of the town, and a hint of panic which had been threatening to erupt into something full blown and terrifying faded from Ben’s heart.
He knew who the father of Amanda’s baby was, and it wasn’t Isaac. He knew that his lover had never been with anyone else. He trusted Isaac. Despite the shock, he knew that Isaac hadn’t lied to him, would never lie to him.
“Hey,” Ben drawled, sitting up and tossing a bottle of water to Isaac. It was a hot day, and they were all pretty charbroiled, and Isaac hadn’t been drinking enough. “Looks like we get to welcome you to the family, Amanda.”
The look Isaac gave him then would have been reward enough for a lot more than Ben’s simple acceptance of the situation. He and Isaac needed to talk, that much was obvious, but it could wait for later.
For now, it was enough to know that he loved Isaac, and he trusted him and that no matter what had happened in Ben’s life, no matter how many times he’d felt betrayed, he knew that Isaac would never betray him. Whatever game this was, it was being played for a reason.
“Looks like,” Amanda said and then glanced over her shoulder, daring to look at her parents which clearly took more guts than Ben thought he possessed himself. Her mother was glaring, but her father was looking thoughtful, which Ben thought was probably a good sign.
“Amanda,” her mother called, her voice a knife which pierced sharply into Ben’s heart and made him feel guilty even though he hadn’t done anything. But Amanda’s father said something quietly to his wife, and she subsided, though she didn’t really look much happier.
“Look, I’ll give you my address. If things get too bad, you can drop by anytime,” Ben told her, and between the three adults, they managed to scrounge up an old receipt and a pen so that he could scribble it down.
“Thank you,” Amanda whispered, looking not only at Ben but at Isaac. Then she went back to her parents, and Ben let his eyes meet Isaac’s. What he wouldn’t give to overhear how that conversation was going, but the sun was almost at the horizon at this point, and they’d all been out for too long at this point. It was time to go home.
* * *
Sammy was in bed, fast asleep, tucked in and dreaming. Slightly sunburned, as were they all, despite all of the sunscreen they had slathered onto themselves, but none the worse for wear.
“So,” Ben commented, as he dropped down onto the couch which had been Isaac’s bed for a terrible period of time which Ben didn’t want to repeat or even think about, “Today was a big day.”
It had been, too. It would have been if Sammy had just shown the signs of acceptance toward Isaac that he had, or if Amanda had walked into their lives again, more pregnant than ever. One or the other would have been huge, but both together? It was a bit much to take.
“Are you angry?” Isaac asked, and he turned, drawing his slender legs up onto the couch so that he could face Ben directly.
Ben considered that question very carefully. Was he angry? He searched himself, poking into the dark corners of his mind and heart, the places that he rarely let himself go, and then shook his head.
“No. Confused. What happened in that park? What did Amanda say to you?” Ben reached out, wrapping an arm around Isaac’s shoulder and pulling him closer to him, so that Isaac was resting right against him, almost in his lap. Whatever was going to be said, Ben knew that it wouldn’t change the way he felt about Isaac, and he felt like he always wanted to be touching him.
“She said that she wanted to stop hiding what was going on. That she was tired of it,” Isaac told him, and those brilliant eyes were surprised for a second before Isaac settled against Ben, outright
crawling into his lap and then dropping his chin so that he could nuzzle against Ben’s shoulder and neck.
“Okay. So you hugged her … why?” Ben tried to be patient, but the whole story was taking a long time to come out, and he was pretty ready to hear it. But at least he had Isaac’s slender, lithe little body in his lap, and he could wrap his arms around him.
“I wanted everyone to think that the baby was mine,” Isaac admitted. “I know it sounds crazy, but in that split second, at least, it seemed like the best choice. Not just for Amanda, but for Sammy, too.”
Ben frowned, trying to work his mind around that one, to make that make sense, but coming up short. He shook his head.
“I can’t work that one out. Sammy? What’s he got to do with anything?”
“Sammy was worried about the other kids in school judging him because he lives with us.” Isaac pulled back, gazing into Ben’s eyes, as though wanting to make sure he understood. “Because we’re gay.”
Had anyone ever said that so bluntly to him? Put it right out in the open like that? But that was Isaac for you. He hadn’t learned a lot of tact. It wasn’t like it was untrue, either, and it touched Ben deeply that Isaac was even willing to admit to that.
But that was also the final piece of the puzzle that he needed to make it all actually make sense in his mind. The picture was forming, and it wasn’t one that Ben liked but it was one which, living in Texas, he understood the need for.
“So she gets a baby daddy everyone can accept,” Ben said slowly, “And Sammy gets clear proof to show to everyone that you’re not gay. As long as no one comes to our house, no one knows a damn thing.”
Isaac nodded, his normally vivid little face very solemn, but his eyes compassionate as he gazed at Ben.
