Page 29 of Project: FU (Longwood U #3)

TAVIS

I watch Nolan go inside until he disappears from sight.

Then I turn my attention back to my girls.

I’m not exactly sure what to say right now.

Nolan has rendered Kelsey speechless, which is epic.

I can’t remember the last time someone succeeded in that.

I’m torn between wanting to comfort her because of her tears and… not.

There are things you don’t want to know about your kids, and their sex life is one of them. I now know far more about Kelsey than I want to. It’s not the sexual freedom that bothers me, though. From what I’ve gleaned, it’s her complete disregard for the people she’s supposed to care about.

Not for the first time, I wonder what we did so differently with Kelsey than with our other three children.

They’ve all been raised under the same roof with the same rules.

I’m pretty sure we’ve made a conscious effort to treat them all the same.

How the hell does she think it’s okay to toy with someone the way she did Nolan?

I’m comforted knowing that it’s not because this is Nolan we’re talking about. I know I’m going to be biased regarding him. But I also know that I’d feel just as horrified if it had been any other person she treated like that.

Right now, as I stare at her, I’m not sure she has any remorse for her actions. I’m positive that her upset is because she wanted to keep the truth of her actions hidden from us. She has an image as to how she wants us to see her. It’s been shattered.

Her thoughts aren’t about how she’s hurt Nolan. They’re not even how he hurt her brothers. Her thoughts are about how this is making her feel.

“I’m enjoying her silence,” Hannah says, “but I need to know what just happened here.”

“So do I,” Rachel says.

I shake my head. “I can only tell you as much as I’ve been involved. Cliff Notes is that he came into the bar and camped out in a chair with his head down. He was broken up because the girl he loved had treated him like the lowest piece of shit and with a complete lack of empathy.”

Rachel and Hannah look toward Kelsey, but I’m not sure she’s paying attention right now. Rachel frowns at our daughter while Hannah glares daggers at her sister.

“It didn’t take me long to realize he didn’t know he was talking to her father.

When he finally looked up more than twenty minutes later, he felt a little sheepish.

We started talking about anything other than Kelsey.

He started to smile and laugh, and I was a little hypnotized by him.

He has a magnetic personality. Nolan stayed at the bar for my shift and after…

” I glance at Hannah. “Details that don’t need to be shared. ” Hannah scrunches her nose.

“I didn’t intend to keep seeing him. Trust me, the inappropriateness of the situation wasn’t far from my mind after the fact.

But… I couldn’t stop thinking about him.

How easy our conversations were. How good it felt to laugh with him.

I’m not sure I’ve ever felt such an instant connection with someone, so… we got together again.”

“And again and again,” Hannah says, giving me a sly smile.

Thank fuck she’s taking this in stride. “Yes. When I took him out on our first date, I realized then that this wasn’t just a physical connection.

” I look at Rachel for a second before changing chairs to sit beside my youngest daughter.

I grip her hand. “I love your mom. I will always love your mom. I have always loved her, but that love never progressed beyond love for my best friend. Please understand that neither of us regrets the decision we made to focus on this family. We did what we thought was best for our kids, and that’s not something we’ll ever regret. ”

Hannah looks at Rachel. Rachel nods, a soft smile on her lips. Hannah turns her attention back to me.

“With this decision, we knew we were making some sacrifices, which was our personal happiness. I’m not saying that we’ve lived an unhappy life.

I wouldn’t trade a minute with you kids and the household we built for anything.

But we did sacrifice our personal, private happiness.

Because of the actions we took, we missed out on a lot of things.

One of those things was falling in love with the person we’re supposed to be with.

So when I say that I’ve never experienced a connection with someone else the likes of which I’m now sharing with Nolan, I don’t want you to think I mean I didn’t love your mom. ”

“It’s a different kind of love,” Hannah says.

“Very different. Just as my love for you kids never changes, lessens, or can be taken away to give to someone else, the same goes for her.”

“You love him?” Kelsey asks, her face contorted into something ugly. “My ex-boyfriend—you love him?”

“Clearly more than you did,” Hannah snaps.

“Stay out of this, child .”

“The fact your kid sister is far more emotionally mature than you, with the ability to respect other people and not toy with their emotions, says a lot about you.”

“I’m not?—”

“You’re the most vile kind of person,” Hannah interrupts, voice rising. “You know what? I hope you’re alone for the rest of your life. I hope every man you love cheats on you. I hope you’re left at the altar. I hope?—”

“Hannah,” Rachel says, horrified.

“I hope you’re miserable until the day you die!” Hannah shouts at Kelsey.

“You rotten little?—”

“You slutty little tramp.” Hannah interrupts again. “I hope you contract all the STIs and your coochie falls off.”

Rachel tries to stop Hannah again, but the last comment has her covering her mouth. Not that the situation is funny. It’s just the comment alone. Likewise, I’m too busy biting my tongue to break them up, or I might laugh, and that’s only going to make it worse.

The two of them continue to yell at each other, though Hannah isn’t letting Kelsey finish a sentence, when Skye steps back outside with his eyebrows raised. He rounds the table, not retaking his seat but sitting in the one I vacated. As if he doesn’t want to sit on the same side as Kelsey.

He looks between his sisters before turning his attention to me, clearly intending to ignore them. “I’m not mad at you,” he says.

Those five words feel like a breath of fresh air. I grip the back of his neck and pull him into an awkward hug around the arms of our chairs. “I love you,” I murmur. “I’m relieved you’re not angry with me.”

“How can I blame you? Nolan’s pretty great, isn’t he?”

The girls are still yelling at each other. Hannah just gets louder and louder every time Kelsey tries to say something. I think Rachel has given up and resorted to making sure they don’t fly across the table at each other.

“He is,” I agree. “I didn’t know that you two?—”

Skye shrugs and leans back. I think there’s more there, but he’s distracted by Hannah throwing a roll at Kelsey and smacking her right in the face. She doesn’t miss a beat in her screaming, though. I’m impressed with her accuracy and multitasking.

However, if we don’t want all our food wasted, we should probably not allow a food fight. My phone pings, and I chance a peek. I open it when I see it’s from Nolan.

Nelson

I think you need to come up here.

I click the screen off and turn to Skye. “Think you can sneak the food away while your mother plays referee?”

“Since I don’t particularly want to spend the next month cleaning food off the deck, yeah,” he answers and gets to his feet, grabbing the dishes closest to Kelsey first.

I give Rachel an apologetic look before heading inside. I find them in my room, Orion sprawled across the foot of my bed, and Nolan sitting in the chair at the small desk.

Orion picks his head up to look at me as I shut the door.

“You okay?” I ask.

He glances at Nolan, confused as to why I showed up, I think. “I want you to repeat the last thing you said to me,” Nolan says.

Orion frowns and sits up. “I didn’t mean to be an asshole or anything.”

Nolan shakes his head. “You weren’t. Please repeat it.”

Orion looks between us for a minute before saying, “I was commenting on how good Nolan must be that he turned you and me gay. That’s all. For the record, I do think he’s good. I wasn’t being sarcastic.”

Nolan smirks, but I understand why he asked me up here. I cross the room to sit beside my son. “I’m not gay. I’m bisexual, and I’ve known I’m bisexual since I was probably fourteen. Nolan isn’t even the first man I’ve been with, just the first since Mom and I got married.”

Orion’s eyebrows knit together. “Really?”

“Yes.”

He takes a breath. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Honestly? It was irrelevant. In the monogamous life in which your mom and I chose to raise you kids, that part of me, though still valid and very real, just wasn’t… active in my life. It wasn’t relevant to how we raised you.”

“Does Skye know?”

I consider this question. “He does, though only recently.”

“Does Mom?”

“Absolutely. She was the first one I called with every first I had. Remember, she was my very best friend. We had no secrets.”

Orion closes his eyes.

“You missed the crisis part of that comment,” Nolan says quietly.

Orion presses his lips together. “It’s not really a crisis,” he says.

“I just… I’m confused, I guess. I’ve maybe found a couple guys slightly attractive growing up, but then Kelsey brings Nolan home, and it’s fine because he’s her boyfriend, right?

But then he’s not, and he offers, and at first I am not going to act on my attraction because why would I?

But then I can’t stop thinking about it, so even though I know this is all for the purpose of telling Kels off, I think that makes it better.

I can experiment and be done with it. Except I maybe don’t want to be done with it and… ” He shakes his head.

I wrap my arm around his shoulders and pull him into me. He takes a deep breath. “I guess I’m a little confused about some things,” he admits. “It just all kinda came to a boiling point when you told us you’re together because I’m stupid and kept trying to see Nolan again.”

“Ah.” I meet Nolan’s eyes. He’s looking incredibly guilty as he stares at Orion. “I’m sorry. I had zero intent on telling you all who I was seeing today. I had all these steps planned, but Nolan and I had some miscommunication, and he showed up and?—”

“And when he showed up, I thought it would be perfect to get him in the shed, maybe,” Orion muses. “He clearly can’t tell me he has plans if he’s here.”

Nolan covers his face with his hand.

I chuckle. “What do you need, Ry?”

Orion picks his head up from my shoulder and shakes it. “Nothing. I think I needed to get it off my chest. I needed to tell someone. I already feel better about it being known to someone.”

“There’s nothing wrong with liking guys, too,” Nolan says.

“Or instead,” I add.

My son grins. “I know. It didn’t really have anything to do with that.

Just that maybe I wasn’t prepared for how much I liked it.

And how confusing that feels. I knew this one thing about myself my entire life, and then…

maybe I don’t know it at all. Crisis wasn’t the right word.

I didn’t mean for you to send up the panic alarm. ” He looks at Nolan.

Nolan shakes his head. “I didn’t raise the alarm for that. I can handle that. It was that you didn’t know your dad was already into guys before me, and that wasn’t my story to set straight.”

“How punny of you to say it like that,” Orion says, his big grin back in place.

“Every road is straight until it turns,” Nolan says, returning his smile.

“We good here?” I ask.

“Yep. I’m disappointed that you got the guy, but I’ll lick my wounds in private.” He gets to his feet and heads for the door.

“Be warned: your sisters are in a yelling match. I think Hannah’s winning,” I say.

“Those are the best, and I’m up here wallowing.” He hurries out of the room, taking the stairs like he’s a rhino.

Nolan laughs. He closes the door and then comes to me, straddling my lap. “Is it bad out there?”

“Yes. Nothing new, but yes. There’s a reason it was the boys who shared a room and not the girls growing up. They were always fire and gasoline.”

He shakes his head. “I have one more apology to make.”

“Oh?” I touch my finger to my pretty bite on his lip. God, it’s hot. Every little mark on his skin tells the entire world that this man is mine.

“I told you I slept with three of your children, but I didn’t tell you the circumstances around your sons.

When I came into the bar, it was after them.

It was the realization that I might be able to lower myself to make some bad decisions of my own, but I don’t have it in me to use that ammunition.

Skye didn’t know why I approached him. Which was part of the reason he was upset today when he figured it out.

I realized my mistake as soon as he left that night.

When I ran into Orion, I decided to try again, but this time, I’d be honest.”

“But you still didn’t say anything to Kelsey.”

“I didn’t. It felt disrespectful toward Orion, as if he were only a toy, and I don’t want to be that person. I didn’t want to tarnish that night just to slap Kelsey in the face. In the end, she wasn’t worth it.”

“The bar?”

He shakes his head. “As far as I knew, you were happily married, and no matter how much I wanted to make Kelsey mad, it wasn’t worth breaking up a marriage.

You’re people and even on board with what I’m doing, you should be treated as such, so yeah.

I wasn’t there to see you. I didn’t even know you worked there.

I was never going to ask you home or anything.

I won’t pretend it didn’t cross my mind because you’re hot and funny and I loved talking to you for hours that night, but I wasn’t going to. ”

“I asked.”

“When I accepted, it was still never about her. Please tell me you believe that.”

“I do.”

Nolan sighs. He leans forward and rests his forehead against mine. For a few minutes, we don’t speak. “So… now they know.”

I smile. “Now they know.” The possibilities that opens have my heart beating wildly in anticipation.