Page 31

Driving myself outside the city wasn’t a usual Sunday occurrence for me, but it was definitely a needed one.

Though my parents didn’t live that far outside of D.C.

, I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d been out of the city that hadn’t been because of work.

Traveling to Piper had been entirely work related and while Piper was a great little city, nothing compared to being outside of the city because you wanted to.

The outskirts of the city were turning to autumnal colors, signifying the change of the season that hadn’t quite settled.

The air felt crisper now, and I wanted it to signify my new beginning as well as I took this impromptu trip to visit my parents.

I’d texted my mother before I’d gone to sleep last night, with Wrex snoring adorably beside me, and she’d been thrilled over my reaching out for a visit.

I’d thought about scheduling one before the warehouse woes, but that had certainly thrown everything off course.

So much so that she said my father was planning on running out to the store early in the morning to make lunch for my arrival.

Admittedly, It’d been too long since I’d come to visit my family.

They’d made multiple attempts to come visit D.C.

but I’d always been way too busy with work.

Things moving along at lightning speed with the formation of ORBIT hadn’t helped in more denials coming from me when they’d asked to see me.

I was glad I was making the effort to make it up to them now.

Now that Wrex and I had solidified where our relationship was headed the day before, I felt lighter as I drove my town car down the country roads.

Taylor Swift was blaring on the car stereo, thanks to my phone’s bluetooth connectivity, and I was screaming the lyrics into the void with the windows down as I took my leisurely drive.

My parents only being a forty-five minute drive didn’t bother me.

I hadn’t taken my car out of the garage I was forced to have it in downtown in way too fucking long.

So being able to roll all the windows down and sing along to my favorite music without a care in the world was such a liberating feeling.

One I needed to remember to do more often.

Pulling up to my parents driveway, the usual anxiety kicked in.

Would my family hound me for more details about my personal life?

About the divorce? I’d told them that I was able to get Matty to sign the papers, but I hadn’t updated them on anything about ORBIT, assuming they hadn’t seen everything that had happened down at the warehouse on the news.

I loved talking about my life with my family, but to say I was a little nervous about mentioning that I was dating an Orb would have been the understatement of the year.

Would they judge me for dating someone so soon after the finalization of my divorce?

Would they shun me for dating outside my species?

My family was usually pretty liberal when it came to those social issues, but I still had a knot in my stomach that they’d turn on me for some reason.

An irrational thought, for sure, considering that neither of my parents had condemned me to hell or any other fictional location for being gay.

I knew that the worry was worse than the reality, so I shook myself mentally as I got out of my car and made my way up the steps of the updated Victorian my parents called home .

Before I could knock on the door, my mother opened it with enthusiasm, beaming at me with her coffee stained smile and the green eyes I’d inherited from her. “Wally, I’m so happy to see you!”

Only my parents were allowed to call me Wally, and never in public.

Inwardly cringing, I smiled and accepted the hug she enveloped me in without hesitation.

She smelled like apricots and linen, taking me all the way back to when I was a kid in this house.

I smiled at the nostalgic olfactory memory and plumped a hand at her blonde hair.

“You cut your hair,” I grinned, seeing that she’d gone for a shoulder cut. Last time I’d seen her, the golden locks had been halfway down her back. “It looks great.”

“Thanks, sweetheart.”

Coming into my childhood home, I could see my father putting the finishing touches on lunch in the kitchen. No sooner had I slipped my shoes off at the door (before my mother had to chastise me to do so), I heard the sound of a teenage stampede as my sisters approached.

I gave my mother one last look, staining a finale of a smile on my face. “It was nice knowing you.”

She began to laugh as my sisters appeared from the hall, running at me full speed, yelling “Wallace!” as they ran up and threw their arms around me.

Giggling with them, I did my best to hug them back haphazardly from the weird sibling ball they’d made us form.

My sisters and I had quite the age gap, but we loved each other all the same.

“Girls, let your brother get in the house before you break him,” I heard my dad call from the kitchen, the sound of something sizzling as a savory aroma wafted comfortably in the air.

Snickering, I looked down at my sisters, who were refusing to let me go, talking over each other as they spewed questions at me.

At least I thought they were questions, I couldn’t quite tell over their conjoined excitement.

Barbara, who went by Barbie, was the middle child at the ri pe age of thirteen, sharing the red hair that had been handed down to us from our father.

She was wearing an adorable pink ribbon in her hair.

Edith, who went by Edie, was the only other blonde, getting most of her genetics from our mother.

Both were wearing pink and blue overalls, respectively, and were talking so fast and so much that I had to break apart from them and bend down to their level.

“Let’s take a breather,” I laughed. “Then you can tell or ask me whatever you want.”

“Why haven’t you been home?” Edie asked with a pout that I was sure my parents had perfected every time I denied their request to meet up in D.C.

“Yeah, it’s been too long.” Barbie agreed, crossing her arms over her chest. “You didn’t even get to hear about how I made the soccer team.”

“And I’m in cheerleading now!” Edie was quick add.

“Girls,” My father chastised again. “Come get the food and set the table so I can get a minute with him.”

“But dad!”

“Now, girls.” My mother said with a smile, backing up her husband. “Go on.”

Scampering to listen to our parents, Barbie and Edie wandered into the kitchen, accepting the kiss to the cheek and the head ruffling our dad gave them as they grabbed the food and headed to the dining room to set everything up for lunch.

It appeared we were having cheeseburger sliders for lunch, one of my dads favorite things to make.

Of all the things he’d mastered in cooking, his specialty was appetizers and things of the sort.

I never left my parents house without a salaciously good meal.

The perks of having a chef for a father.

“Baby boy,” My dad said with a grin, his scraggly beard matching my own as we went into a warm embrace. He patted me exactly twice on the back (per usual) before unfurling to stare at me. “It’s good to see you, son. ”

“Good to see you too, Dad.” Footsteps sounded in the kitchen as my mother walked over to give my father a side hug and a quick kiss. “You too, Mom. I’m sorry it’s been so long.”

She waved me off, but I knew it had bothered her. Both of them hadn’t seen me since…fuck, how terrible of a son was I that I couldn’t even remember? It hadn’t been since Matty and I first separated, had it? That would’ve been a little over two years ago by now.

Had I really not been home in two years?

“Shit, it’s been too long .” I sighed, running a hand over my beard in frustration. “I’m really sorry. I could say it’s because of how things were with Matty and work, but it’s not a good enough explanation. I’m really sorry I haven’t been up to see you, or accepted your invite to come to D.C.”

“You’ve been busy.” Dad shrugged. “Plus, you’re a hero now.”

“Oliver, don’t embarrass him!” My mom chastised, but she squared a look at me. “We’ve seen every mention of ORBIT on TV. And we heard about what happened at that warehouse where the kidnapped petrylle were being held.”

Which only made it worse that it’d been so long since I’d seen them. I realized, watching them hold on to each other, watching me, how much I’d truly missed them. I definitely needed to come home more often to avoid this disparaging pit of guilt I was now harboring in my gut.

“I’m definitely not the hero in that situation,” I scoffed, again using the usual nervous tick of running a hand over my beard at my unease. “That was all Detective Hudson Rowe. He’s the hero, I just happened to be there.”

“Modest and humble,” My mother squished my cheeks together and kissed them tenderly. “You haven’t changed after all.”

“Come now, Lorraine.” My dad said, patting my mother’s hands away and slapping a hand on my shoulder. “He’s our boy. That’ll never change. ”

Until you hear about who I’ve been fucking , I thought sharply. Rather than spilling the beans in front of my gossipy teenage sisters, I decided I wanted to partially rip that particular band-aid off before we sat down to the lunch Dad had prepared.

“Um, before we eat, I wanted to tell you both something.” Clearing my throat didn’t erase the nerves I was feeling, but the looks of concern in my parents’ eyes made me go on.

“It’s nothing bad but I just want to get it out of the way.

I’m dating someone. It’s very new and we’re taking things really slow, on my part because of the divorce being freshly final. ”

“Well Wallace, that’s great.” My father said with all the excitement of a kid in a candy store, a lopsided smile brightening his face and making him look years younger.

“Whatever makes you happy, sweetheart,” My mother echoed. “Were you nervous that we’d tell you it was too soon?”

“I was nervous because I’m not dating a human,” I blurted, needing to get it out of me so my appetite for the food my father had prepared could politely return. “I’m dating an Orb.”

Whatever I’d been worried about in regards to their reaction vanished when I saw the delight on their face.

“Wallace,” My father said, his tone dipping down sweetly and potentially decreasing in volume so that my sister’s couldn’t eavesdrop. “We’re not doing a very good job of being your parents if you were worried we’d, I don’t know, kick you out of our house if we found out you were dating an Orb?”

“For goodness sake, honey, you’ve had a focus on Orb politics for how long now?” My mother laughed, looking at her husband as they shared a chuckle. “We’re happy for you, regardless of who or what the person you’re dating does or is. Okay?”

Tears singed my eyelids at their words, but I held them tight enough that they didn’t fall. “Thank you. I’m sorry I thought you’d be anything but supportive of me after, well, everything.” I shook my head. “I shouldn’t have been so worried about telling you that I’m dating an Orb. ”

“Wallace is dating an Orb!?” I heard Edie squeal from the dining room.

“Omg, get in here and give us the tea!” Barbie cried.

Laughing together, my parents shrugged in unison. “Not many secrets get kept in this house,” Dad said.

“You can tell us, or not tell us, all about them as we eat, sweetheart.”

“But let’s eat, I’m starving.”

Nodding, I gave my parents a wide smile.

What the fuck was I thinking, being nervous?

These were the same parents that had bought me front row Cher tickets for Christmas.

They’d always supported me, through coming out, through wanting to pursue politics, to having a focus on Orb related political science, to even telling me how proud they were about me creating ORBIT.

Coming home made me feel more in touch with myself than I’d realized. And as I sat down with my family to eat, I knew that I was blessed in every avenue of my life. I needed to acknowledge that more going forward, and I’d be completely unstoppable.