He finished getting his clothes on and planted a noisy kiss on Lyndon’s cheek as soon as his head appeared through the T-shirt opening. “Come on, let me show you how amazing my family is.” Another kiss, this one to Lyndon’s lips, and both of them were a tad breathless when they left the bathroom.
Levi’s dad stood at the entry of the hallway, hovering like some worried mama bear. Levi kept one of Lyndon’s hands in his as they stopped in front of Henry. “Dad, this is Lyndon Hines. Lyndon, my dad, Henry Travis.”
“Good to meet you,” Lyndon said, returning Henry’s intense look. “You have an incredible son.”
“We do,” Levi’s mom said coming in from the kitchen. “In fact, all of our kids are pretty incredible. Sometimes even in a good way.”
Henry laughed and Levi groaned at the bad joke, but Lyndon seemed unsure of what his reaction was supposed to be. Levi mouthed “Just be yourself” before reaching out to give his mom a one-armed hug. “Tell me you and Dad aren’t staying long,” he whispered near her ear.
Cheryl chuckled. “Sure.” She nudged him away and looked Lyndon up and down. “Well, I can see why Levi might be fascinated with you. I’m Cheryl, and you’d better be good to my boy.”
“Yes ma’am.” Lyndon smiled and shook Cheryl’s hand. He didn’t offer a cheesy compliment to Cheryl, for which Levi was grateful. His mother hated bullshit. “Am I going to be interrogated?”
“I think he’s got us figured out,” Henry said after laughing and slapping Lyndon on the back. “And yes, probably at least a little.”
“Right. We’ll try not to be too obnoxious about it, but…” Cheryl let loose a long sigh. “Well, Levi, you remember how we all, er, chatted with Jenny’s Mark when she brought him over the first time.”
Oh shit!
“Uh, yeah.” Poor Mark had looked like he wanted to run. Jenny hadn’t let go of his hand the whole two hours he’d been over. And Levi had been there, too.
Which Cheryl, of course, pointed out. “I thought you were going to take Mark out back for a man to man talk.” The way she said it left no doubt as to how the talking would have played out—with fists. Which wasn’t true. Mostly.
“I didn’t say anything about fighting Mark and you know it,” Levi groused, barely holding on to his temper. Lyndon didn’t need to be teased when he’d been so nervous in the first place. “And I only did what Dad told me to do, which was look intimidating.”
“Don’t blame it on me, you were eager enough to go along.”
“Both of you about scared that poor boy—young man,” Cheryl corrected quickly, “to death. We aren’t going to let anyone try it with you, Lyndon.”
Lyndon didn’t look convinced. “And why am I an exception?”
Henry sat down in the big recliner. “You’re not, we just couldn’t figure out who we could get to intimidate you. You’re kinda big.”
Levi tugged and got Lyndon settled on the couch with him. Lyndon was just the right size, in his opinion, but he wasn’t going to comment unless his parents had some other devious plan up their sleeves. Like to pull out a chart and start ticking off plus and minuses in regards to Lyndon’s suitability.
This is what comes from having a close family.
He patted Lyndon’s leg reassuringly, he hoped.
“Besides, Jenny was really angry with us after the whole…interrogation. We realised we were probably overprotective since she was our first child to fall in love.” Cheryl sat down on the arm of Henry’s chair. “Now, we aren’t saying you two are in love, but Levi hasn’t ever brought a boyfriend home before, and we’ve never met any other shifters, so we’re doubly curious.”
“About?” Lyndon sounded so calm Levi had to look hard to detect the tense set to his jaw and the small tic there by the join. Levi wanted to smooth away the tension and the twitch, but wasn’t willing to give away the signs of Lyndon’s discomfort to his parent. Lyndon had his emotions reined in tight, not even giving off a whiff of a nervous air. Levi was happy to let him have the comfort of such self-control.
“Well, about you personally, of course, but also about what you are.” Cheryl’s smiled ruefully. “We didn’t know there were other types of shifters. Kind of egotistical of us to think snow leopards were the only kind, I suppose. Honestly, though, I never gave it much thought. I’ve been too busy loving and enjoying my life—but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to know about our past.”
Lyndon relaxed fractionally and draped his arm over Levi’s shoulders. “I don’t know a whole lot about shifters, Cheryl. My mother wasn’t one, and I don’t know my father.”
Cheryl leant forward and for a second Levi thought she was going to get up and come and hug Lyndon. He wasn’t sure if he should be relieved she didn’t. “You don’t know him? Like, who he is, or just aren’t close to him?”
“Prying a lot, aren’t you?” Levi interjected. “I thought this wasn’t going to be another interrogation.”
“It’s okay. I understand why they want to know these things.” Lyndon smiled at him and Levi knew he was telling the truth. “I like that your family loves you enough to be intrusive and”—Lyndon winked at Cheryl—“Borderline rude.”
“Borderline, my butt,” Levi grumbled. He couldn’t tell who laughed louder, his mom or dad. “This is an example of the love hurts theory. Or at least, love embarrasses.”
Lyndon nuzzled Levi’s cheek, then his ear. “Be glad you have them, Levi.”
“Oh, I do like him, son.” Cheryl hummed a little and settled back against Henry’s arm behind her. “He might even be a keeper.”
Levi wanted to call her on the ‘might’ part, but he saw the way her eyes held a teasing glint and he let it go. Instead, he returned his attention to Lyndon. “Do you want me to run them off?”
Lyndon took a few seconds to answer, but he sounded certain once he did. “No, I think maybe I need to talk about my father and why I’ve been running for so long.”
Chapter Fourteen
Whether it was a need to belong, or simply being able to actually talk freely about his past, Lyndon couldn’t say, but he found himself opening up. The words almost gushed from him, as if they’d been held back so long the pressure of keeping them inside had grown too great to be restricted any longer.
Lyndon began speaking, his gaze darting from Cheryl to Henry then to Levi and back again. “My father is, it turns out, a very wealthy man. Also very territorial, and when I did meet him, it wasn’t what you’d call a friendly confrontation. He attacked me when I was a scared kid whose mom had just died. And he drove me from the only familiar place I had.”
Cheryl’s normally fair skin had gone even paler, and Henry had pulled her down onto his lap as Lyndon had spoken. Her voice held a slight quaver when she spoke. “What kind of father would do something so awful? How old were you?”
“A cruel one, and I was seventeen, almost an adult.” Lyndon settled a little closer to Levi. “My mom had struggled with bipolar disorder for as long as I could remember. She’d been disowned by her family because of it, she told me once. Her highs were…were dangerous times, for her and sometimes for me, but she wasn’t a bad person. She wasn’t a bad mother. She was just ill, and there was no one or way for her to get the help she needed.”
Levi could tell Cheryl wanted to ask how Lyndon’s mother had died, but good manners held her back. “First of all, you weren’t an adult, period. Age doesn’t make one an adult, either, not in my opinion. I can’t imagine…” Cheryl’s voice cracked and she cleared her throat. “I’m sorry you had to go through losing your mother alone. It’s horrible that her family held a disease she couldn’t control against her. How did you get along after she passed away?”
“The day I found her…” Lyndon gulped and turned his gaze towards his hand in Levi’s. “Everything about it is blurry, which is probably for the best. I got up to go to school, and went to check on her. She was just…it was like she was asleep, except her eyes—” It hurt to remember, which was more than likely the reason he didn’t remember much of that horrible day. “The official cause of death was listed as natural causes. I’ve never figured out what the meant, when a thirty-six year old woman goes to sleep and never wakes up. Doesn’t seem natural to me.”
“Lyndon.”
He forced himself to look at Levi and told himself there was no shame in the way his eyes burned with unshed tears. Levi cupped Lyndon’s nape and pulled his head close until their foreheads touched. “You don’t have to keep talking. I hate seeing you hurting.”
Lyndon rocked his brow on Levi’s, small movements, but comforting ones. “I’ve never really gotten to talk about any of this before, Levi. It…it helps even if it hurts.” In fact, the more he spoke, the lighter he seemed to feel even though he ached. He was finally mourning in a way he hadn’t been able to before. Another band of emotional steel loosened inside.
“An anonymous donor paid for a very basic funeral.” Lyndon sighed and reached over his lap to take Levi’s hand. “I suspect it was my father, Cole Tavares, who paid for it. There was only me and our neighbour along with some people I didn’t recognise at the funeral. Turned out one of those was my father.”
“He actually had the nerve to show up then?” Henry growled, sounding very much like a shifter even though he wasn’t.
Lyndon nodded. “Yeah. He pulled me aside afterwards, took me back to the only home I’d known for years, then proceeded to beat the shit out of me. Then he told me he held the lien on our home, and gave me a cheque before driving me out of San Antonio and tossing me out in an area where a few gang victims’ bodies had been found over the years. I remember hitting the ground, then I came to with an old, grizzled guy leaning over me. His name was Grady Marks, and he’s the reason I’m still alive today. I think I’d have just given up without him.”
Cheryl stood up and walked over before sitting beside him. She touched his arm but didn’t push for anything more affectionate, which was good with Lyndon since he didn’t know her or Henry at all, really.
“I think you’d have still been here,” Cheryl said. “You might have had a bumpier road, but you’d have stayed on it. You’re a strong young man, Lyndon. I wouldn’t expect Levi to fall for anyone who wasn’t.”
Was that the parental blessing couples were always hoping for? Lyndon kind of thought it was. And Cheryl was giving him a look he didn’t quite know how to interpret, but it was—it reminded him of the way his mom would look at him, all soft and caring, and he’d missed that, so very, very much.
He leaned over and kissed Cheryl’s cheek, hoping he wasn’t reading too much into her expression. “Thank you.”
Cheryl squeezed his arm. “Any time you need to talk, Lyndon, we’re here.” She stood up after patting him. “Now, we’re getting dangerously close to being nice.” Cheryl winked at him. “Wouldn’t want to ruin our reputations as the big, bad interrogators.”
“Too late,” Levi crooned. “You and Dad have already exposed your inner gooey sweetness, and now Lyndon’s going to know what big softies you both are. If you aren’t nice to him, he’ll warn all the other boyfriends or girlfriends the sibs bring around later on.”
From there on, the conversations were much more light-hearted. Lyndon was relieved in a way, but he also thought he’d like to talk to Levi about his past sometime, maybe once they had spent more time together.
He also enjoyed watching the way Cheryl and Henry were with each other. Their love was as obvious as their respect for one another. Lyndon had wondered about it, since Cheryl was a shifter and Henry wasn’t, there’d be some sort of power imbalance, like where Cheryl was more the boss and Henry the obedient worker, but it seemed they had a true partnership, equal and loving. Lyndon wanted that for himself, and he wanted it for and with Levi.
Tonight, he thought it just might be possible to have it, given time.
“I really think I’m going to like your parents,” he told Levi after Cheryl and Henry left.
Levi made an exasperated sound and flopped on the couch. “You already like them, and I’d love them even more if they didn’t stay so long!”
Lyndon laughed and reached for Levi. “You couldn’t possibly love them any more than you already do. You know how great they are.”
Levi came up and into his arms in a fluid motion. “You’re right. Now, why don’t you take me to bed and show me how great you are.”
“Sounds like the best suggestion I’ve heard all evening.”
Chapter Fifteen
The warm body sprawled over his was a delight to wake up to. Levi opened his eyes, eager to see Lyndon. That Lyndon hadn’t packed up and left after being grilled by Levi’s parents was kind of miraculous. Once Lyndon had told them, and Levi, about his past, Levi’s parents had all but pronounced Lyndon their son-in-law. Embarrassing, kind of, but also just…cool.