It's Always Complicated (Her Billionaires Book 4) (16 page)

“That was a long, long time ago,” he grunted.

“I can’t imagine Mike ‘little’,” Dylan joked, giving Mike a pleading look, half-sympathetic, half panicked.

“He was born a babe like all of God’s creatures,” Mike Sr. said, his eyes steely, his voice cold as he looked at Dylan.

Mike’s rage came flooding back. Dylan carried one toddler on each hip and before Mike could punch someone or something, Dylan smoothly handed Aaron into his arms, giving him a look.

“Make yourself useful,” he said in a voice that was meant to be joking, but Mike knew was an order.

“Will do. Got to change a diaper,” he said, sounding like a robot, his job obvious.

As he turned away from his parents and carried a happy Aaron into the bedroom, plopping him on the bed to squeals, Mike’s head felt like a balloon on a string someone just released.

“Fuck,” he whispered.

“Uck,” Aaron said.

“Men didn’t change diapers in my time,” his ma said, in a chiding but amused voice, the sound floating in through the screened window.

“When you have three in diapers, it’s a requirement,” Laura said, her voice rising above the chaos outside as Jillian began singing that damn Elsa song, Laura adding a chuckle in a polite manner.

“She’s not potty trained yet?” His mother’s voice held a tone of disapproval, and Mike gritted his teeth. All these years of feeling isolated, bereft, abandoned by parents who considered him an abomination against God for who he loved had left him bitter.

But the upside to being shunned: no one had been the voice of the overbearing parent butting their nose into how he raised his kids.

Laura’s response carried a note of surprise in it. “We’re working on it.”

He wanted to jump to her defense, to parse out all the successes with Jillian, to explain that she only wore a night diaper, to defend against that fucking tone his ma used.

I’m being triggered
, he thought to himself, drawing on the language of therapy.

No shit
, said a different voice in his mind. The one who lived in the real world.

Cyndi’s no-nonsense voice interrupted his mom as she started to reply. “We need to get everyone unpacked and settle the kids down for dinner and baths, Laura.”

“Are you their other grandma?” his mom asked Cyndi, and Mike wished, as he wiped Aaron’s bum and did a quick wet-diaper change, he could have seen Cyndi’s face for that question.

“My mother’s dead,” Laura said bluntly, her voice gaining strength as she picked up on the kind of person his mother could be. Never underestimate the level of judgment Mike and Mary Pine could disseminate.

Infinite. They could judge forever.

And did.

“I’m so sorry, dear!” His mother’s voice was sincere. “How awful! So the children have no grandma?”

“They have my mother,” Dylan cut in, his voice tight.

Now he
really
wished he could see everyone’s face.

“Your mother—you—she’s Mike’s daughter’s
grandmother
?”

Even Mike got dizzy overhearing that. Aaron stayed surprisingly still through the diaper change, and as Mike finished up and wiped his hands with a baby wipe, his son wiggled off the bed and toddled out the door, headed toward the sound of Mama and Daddy’s voice.

“Sure am!” The boom of Dylan’s mother’s call made Mike wince.

Here we go.

Rose and Paul Stanwyck were here. Dylan’s parents. His mom was a loud, greying woman who talked with her hands and did more lecturing than listening, but she was a whirlwind of energy. Dylan’s dad was opinionated and a man’s man, but had never held his son’s unconventional love choices against him. Rose and Paul hadn’t welcomed their threesomes over the years with open arms by any stretch, but their quiet tolerance and lack of judgment had been a far cry from Mike’s parents’ reaction.

Once they had Jillian, though, Rose and Paul had become official grandparents, and that changed
everything
. Tolerance had evolved into acceptance and appreciation, as time showed that he, Dylan and Laura were a forever triad, fused by love and children into a family overflowing with joy.

Joy that felt completely gone right now.

With heavy legs, he walked out to the porch to find Rose kissing Aaron into giggle fits, Paul shaking hands with his own dad, his ma giving him looks of confusion, and Laura in the middle of it all, a thousand live nerves jangling in her eyes. He wanted to comfort her, but he was too livid.

And way, way too overwhelmed.

“You’re her grandma?” his ma asked Rose, the look in her eyes tearing him apart. He felt the tingle of angry blood in his arteries, like soda pop poured in, and he needed to run. His glutes tightened and released, the clench of calf muscles an attempt to contain the roaring pain inside him. His nostrils flared, his ears burned, his jaw so tight he could feel his tongue mold against his teeth.

“And so are you,” Rose said kindly to Mary, the words shattering every piece of self inside Mike.

He bolted.

The first step he took felt like he was drowning. The second was a longer step, fueled by the punch of extra power required to overcome inertia. By step four he was running, and within seconds he was in full flee. Instinct made him search for an opening in the woods, path or not. Between two branches he darted, bushes ripping into his bare skin, long scratches like a gauntlet he didn’t know life would expect him to run.

The pain felt good.

He ran as fast and as hard as he could, the sprint digging into his lungs, his ribs screaming in minutes, the sudden move from tension to release too much, too fast. A cramp formed in his mid-side and he shook it off, keeping the breakneck speed for one reason only:

Because he had no choice.

Seconds became minutes. Minutes became hours. Time was his enemy and his best friend, chugging by like a locomotive on a steep incline, and whipping past like an oiled-up frat boy on an alpine slide. Mike disappeared. Dissolved. Faded.

Ran.

Thousands of words competed for attention in his logical mind, while the
adrenaline coursing through him
screamed a single word: run. Nothing he said or did back there would fix the nightmare that just invaded his well-constructed, carefully rebuilt life. Not one damn word. Muscles, though...muscles could be worked into submission. Beaten through sheer energy expense.

And once you tap
p
ed out a body, you were left with nothing to worry about. All Mike would become was a pile of sweaty, panting cells.

That was his singular goal.

Trees and leaves and bright-green overgrowth blurred into one stream of liquid nothingness as he flew through the woods, dodging fallen trees and old logs like a
parkour
course, his long legs like springs, extensions of a soul that needed to be in motion. Pushing himself to the max, he began to groan with each breath, arms fueling his journey, his body unaware of any destination.

Because he was going nowhere.

Running away from the problem wouldn’t solve a damn thing. In his more developed mind, he knew that. But that part of him wasn’t in charge right now. That part of him was miles away, sitting at his desk at the ski resort, or standing in front of a pot of tomato sauce at home, capable of rational thought and reasoned discourse.

His reptilian mind controlled him now, and it sent the same, damn message to his body:

RUN.

For eternity, just run.

Bright light ahead signaled a clearing. With a burst of extra energy, he propelled forward, chest thrust ahead, eyes steady on a spot a million miles away, the roar of his blood crashing against the walls of his ears. His legs couldn’t stop if they tried right now, and as the last cluster of branches ended, scraping against his arms, he found himself flying.

Literally.

Flying in thin air as he ran full-force over a cliff that led straight down to the ocean.

Dylan

“What’s going on?” his dad whispered, holding a wiggly Adam in his arms as Cyndi looked at his mom and dad, and Mike’s mom and dad, with a big, fat question in her eyes.

Pointed at him.

“Hell if I know,” Dylan mumbled, relieved to have his parents there for no articulated reason. He couldn’t explain it. Couldn’t describe why he felt a palpable sense of protectiveness from them, even though no one was threatening him.

And then it hit him.

The last time he ever saw Big Mike, he was trying to beat the shit out of Dylan’s Mike. That was more than thirteen years ago. No wonder he felt so on guard right now, tense and vigilant. Because Big Mike was a threat.

And he needed the relief of having allies.

He looked at Mike’s dad, now stooped, so much of his muscle gone to fat, but the broad planes of a body once the size of a small bear were still there. He was a shadow of what he’d been thirteen years ago, but memory has a funny way of sneaking in and replacing the present with whatever imprint it left in the past.

A deep sigh escaped him. The rush of relief.

Thirteen years ago, he’d pulled the giant man off Mike.

And he could do it again now, just as easily. He was safe. His children were safe. His dad gave him a concerned look.

“Dylan? You okay?” His dad’s chest puffed up and eyes narrowed. Maybe Dylan wasn’t the only one noticing the threat.

“Yeah. I’m okay. Just remembering.”

Paul’s eyes darted from Dylan’s face to Big Mike, then he stiffened, his expression changing to one of knowing. Shortly after the huge fight, when Mike’s parents disavowed him, Dylan had gone home with Mike and Jill and told the whole story to his parents. They’d thawed considerably, and his mom had told Mike he was always welcome in their home.

That had been the true beginning for Dylan, a start to living life on his own terms, with more of the truth spilling over into the world he’d grown up in, the one that repudiated every bit of the life he needed to live.

But it had been a start.

“Think he’s gonna cause trouble?” his dad asked, eyes on Big Mike, who was watching Jillian and laughing.

“No. Mike’s freaked, though.”

“Why would he be upset? He invited them, right?”

Laura jerked toward the conversation as his dad said that. Dylan pressed his lips together and gave his dad a look that must have said everything he couldn’t.

“Oh, shit,” his dad mumbled. “So this is a surprise?”

“This is a nightmare,” Laura whispered, her eyes filling with tears. “I thought I was doing something good. They never replied to my letter, so I assumed they weren’t coming. I never imagined this would happen, and now Mike took off and the wedding’s tomorrow and—”

“Shhhh,” Dylan said in a low voice, pulling her into his arms. He turned her away from Mike’s parents. Paul caught his eye and gave a sympathetic look, then—with great effort, Dylan knew—engage Big Mike in small talk while Dylan walked Laura into the cabin.

She fell apart in his arms.

“I swear, Dylan, I had no idea this would happen! I just thought that Mike should have one more chance with his parents, and that if they knew they had grandchildren they’d try to reconcile with him, and he could have some peace and oh, God, I’ve ruined everything.”

“Shhhh,” he said again, repeating himself because what the hell was he supposed to say? This was an epic failure, and Mike was out running nineteen miles. Hell, he’d make it to the Canadian border by midnight if he wanted to. Tracking Mike down when he went on a blind run to work out his pain was a useless task. The guy didn’t take a cell phone or wear a FitBit device.

He was just gone. Who knew when he’d come back?

“Mike’s angry. Blind-sided. And I’ll bet he feels betrayed.”

Her sobbing increased. Shit. He wasn’t good at finding the right words, especially when caught by surprise.

“But he’ll come back. He won’t fuck up the wedding. I promise.”

“How can you promise?”

“Because I’ll send out a search party if I have to.”

Her chest heaved with emotion. “You think it’ll be that bad?”

“No.” He wasn’t quite convinced, and Cyndi quirked an eyebrow at him. She’d been their nanny for years and had seen Mike run off a handful of times, normally after run-of-the-mill arguments that all adults in a family had. This was special, though. The wound in Mike was deep and clearly unhealed, the tenuous scar ripped open by his parents’ appearance.

This wedding was stressful enough without them. With them?

It must be unbearable for Mike.

“Why don’t we all go for a walk and get to know each other while Dylan and Mike and Cyndi get the kids settled?” his mom said, giving him a meaningful look over Laura’s blonde head, which was tucked into his shoulder. Mary looked at Mike, who looked to Paul—not Rose—for a cue.

Paul gave a wide, fake smile. “Sounds good to me! I’ve never been here, and I’d like to find out more about that beach.”

Mary’s face split with a smile. “We’ve never seen the ocean before!
I
t’s a long drive from
our part of the world,
and we’d like that.”

She wouldn’t stop looking at Jillian, who was in
Dylan
’s arms now, clinging to his side.

She pointed to Mary and asked Dylan, “Who’s dat?”

Out of the mouths of babes.

“That’s Mary. Can you say hello?”

Mary frowned slightly, then recovered. “I’m your—I’m Miss Mary.” A flicker of memory floated through his mind, of parts of the country where children didn’t refer to adults by first name, the convention to put a Miss or Mister first.
He wondered why Mike’s parents would insist on formality—maybe one of them was southern? But he let the thought go, needing to focus on protecting Jilly.
 

“And this is
Mr.
Mike,” she added, eagerly touching Big Mike’s arm.

He gave Jillian a closed-mouth smile.

“Mike? You’re not Mike! Daddy is Mike!’ she said, as if that were the silliest thing she’d ever heard.

Laura’s entire body turned to stone in his arms.

“And Papa is Dylan,” she added.

Dylan watched as the most astonished expressions imaginable rippled across Mike and Mary’s faces.
That’s right
, he thought. Daddy
and
Papa.