Page 7 of Promised Secret (Promises, Promises #3)

Chapter Four

DAN

Wednesday was family dinner at my childhood home.

After chatting with Frederick, I felt a little better about the situation. I hadn’t realized just how much weight I’d carried by having nobody to talk to about this.

It never occurred to me how much it helped to have someone share the burden with you, even if all they could do was listen.

Lunch with Clay today hadn’t been as daunting as it had been yesterday, and I thought dinner with the family would be the same.

I was entirely too optimistic.

“There you are, my boys,” Sandra said in greeting, then pulled both of us in for hugs.

She said the same thing every week we came over for dinner, and just like every other time, I forced a smile and kept my mouth shut.

When they put us together like that, it only reminded me of what we were to each other—stepbrothers.

“It’s good to see you again, Auntie Sandra,” I told her, because my lao-ba would whack me with his stethoscope if he knew I wasn’t being on my best behavior.

And since I’d adamantly refused to call her mom, and I couldn’t possibly disrespect an elder by calling them by their name, I was forced to call her “auntie.”

It was a Chinese respect thing, and it made for a confusing-as-fuck family dynamic, but it made my lao-ba happy, which also made Sandra happy.

Sandra turned and pulled her son into a hug, squeezing half the life out of him. “We missed you here earlier this week. But don’t worry, Dan and I made sure to gossip all about you in your absence.”

Clay laughed and hugged his mom back. Besides myself, Sandra was the only other person Clay hugged regularly. We were really the only ones he allowed hugs from.

It reminded me just how far we’d come from the boy who’d jolted away from my hand the first time we’d met.

I knew his aversion to touch had something to do with the abuse he’d suffered from his shitty sperm donor, but Clay didn’t like talking about it much.

I respected that and never pushed him to tell me about his life before we met.

We moved to the dining room, Dad and Sandra sitting on one side, which meant Clay and I sat on the other.

We’d had countless dinners like these growing up, even before Clay and Sandra moved into my childhood home.

At the start, I’d loved having these dinners with my best friend and the person I was crushing on, but later, these meals became a jail I couldn’t escape.

Did these dinners still feel like a prison to me?

I watched the others eat, laughing as Sandra told the story of how Dad played tug-of-war with the backyard weeds today and landed flat on his ass when an especially stubborn one had him using his entire body weight to uproot it.

I laughed as well, just to keep up appearances, but I wasn’t focused on the story. I was watching them instead. They were so happy. If an outsider looked through our window, they’d probably see a sweet family enjoying their meal together.

Nobody would have guessed that at every family meal we’d had since they moved in, I’d always had to be wary of my actions and make sure that my gaze never lingered on Clay too long that it’d raise suspicion.

I’d been too overly cautious in my own home, fearing that I’d mess everything up, so I never really tried to be part of the family.

I tried now.

Instead of letting my guilt and worry about destroying the family cloud the moment, I let myself be part of the family, too.

“The food was delicious, Uncle Victor,” Clay commented when we finished and moved to the living room.

A tiny bit of guilt nudged itself forward again. Clay had once been so excited to call my dad lao-ba like I did, but my horrible reaction had caused him to never once use the term. He’d followed my lead instead and called him “uncle.”

Nobody else blinked at the title, having gotten used to it over the years. Dad and Sandra took the couch, I took one of the side armchairs, and Clay chose to sit on the floor by my feet instead of taking the other one.

I tried ignoring the heat of his back as he leaned against my legs. I kept them stock-still, because if I didn’t, I knew they’d be bouncing like crazy.

Dad turned on the TV to one of his military dramas. For a man of medicine who’d dedicated his entire life to healing, he was obsessed with films about war. It wasn’t like he was watching it, anyway. It was there for background noise.

He’d once told me these dramas were comforting. How people being shot up and dying was comforting, I’d never know, and I wasn’t going to ask in case I learned something disturbing about my lao-ba.

Sandra shook her head, but her smile was indulgent as she pushed his graying hair away from his face. Dad’s smile turned goofy at the action, and he opened his arm for her to settle into the space there.

“Eww, get a room!” I teased, and I could feel Clay’s back vibrate with a chuckle.

Sandra’s laughter filled the room, while pink tinted my dad’s cheeks, which had Sandra looking at him lovingly. They acted more like a young couple on their honeymoon rather than a couple who’d been married for over ten years at this point.

Conversation moved along, and Dad brought up the past. Reminiscing was his favorite pastime, and I would be totally okay with it if he’d stop bringing up the stupid shit I used to do.

“For the last time,” I called over their laughter, “how was I supposed to know the sheets would unknot under my weight? It always works in the movies!”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have tried to sneak out of the house from your bedroom window on the second floor. Hopefully, falling out of your window and breaking your leg taught you not to believe everything you see,” my lao-ba said with a shake of his head and a smirk.

He was joking about it now, but he’d been pissed and worried out of his mind when it’d actually happened. Dad had refused to let me attend a high school party, and to my teenage mind, the only answer to that was to sneak out.

I’d tied my bedsheets together to make a rope for my grand escape out through my bedroom window. I’d gotten halfway down the house before the knot securing the sheets together loosened, and I’d crashed very loudly into my dad’s garden.

Besides the cuts from the rosebush thorns and a broken leg, I’d left the experience with a long lecture.

Dad didn’t believe in “being grounded,” so instead, I was forced to get a part-time job outside of the clinic until I’d earned enough to replace all the plants I’d ruined.

Which took me most of my junior year. Who knew plants could be so expensive?

“Why are you laughing?” I nudged Clay in the back with my leg. “The bedsheets were your idea.”

“I didn’t think you’d actually do it!” he argued.

“You boys have always been so close. I’m glad that hasn’t changed,” Sandra commented, smiling at us.

“That’s not going to change. They’ll always be there for each other,” Dad said with a nod. “Family is most important.”

My lao-ba had lived with that principle all his life, from sacrificing his youth to raise me the best he could to putting me first, even when he had a second chance at love.

When they first told us about being together, they both emphasized that they would only get married if we were okay with it. And knowing my lao-ba, he would have kept his word if we hadn’t been okay with it.

I caught Clay glancing at me. I didn’t look away this time but held his gaze, smiling.

Family was most important, which was why I needed to stop being selfish once and for all.

Some people weren’t lucky enough to have an amazing family—take Clay’s biological father, for example—when you were lucky enough to win the lottery for one that would always be there for you, you had to do the same.

With guns blazing in the background, my resolve to stop dragging Clay into my whims any further was strengthened even more. Even if we never became lovers, he’d still always be in my life. And that would be enough.

It had to be.

We all chatted for another hour before calling it a night. Clay hugged his mom goodbye, and then she proceeded to fuss with his bangs, insisting he stop by tomorrow for a haircut.

I watched them interact for a second before turning to Dad. He smiled and patted me on the shoulder.

Over the years, he’d evolved from head pats to shoulder and back pats as his form of hugs, though I have managed to wrangle an actual hug out of him every once in a while. Today felt like one of those days where I needed a comforting hug from him, so I caught him off guard and stole one.

His shock quickly morphed into a hug that was all loose, with hard pats on the back. It was awkward and inexperienced, but it still gave me the comfort I needed.

“Are you okay, my son?” Lao-ba asked in a hushed tone. I smiled at how I was able to see he wasn’t comfortable talking about feelings, but he was trying his best for me, just like I would do for him.

“Yeah, I will be,” I told him. And of all the lies I’d told myself over the years to keep my crush a secret, I needed this one to be true more than ever.