Page 44 of Unchained

Levi sat under the sassafras tree staring at the stars. He had been ushered out to the patio and only told that Jon and Gus were coming. He was pissed at James for telling Alicia, but he was also pissed at Jon for going to see the bitch. As he butted his cigarette and lit another, he heard the wind ripple through the leaves.

The door opened. Jon was on the phone and crying. Levi ran to him.

“… ok. I’ll talk to him about it. I’ll talk to you later. Love you. Bye.”

Levi wrapped his arms around Jon.

“What was that about? Why are you crying? What did that bitch do?”

He heard a sigh. “Can I get a cigarette? We need to talk, and I think I need to sit down.”

Levi felt his heart sink. In his experience, ‘we need to talk’ never prefaced good news. He trudged over to the bench, hand in hand with Jon. Bracing himself for the bad news he knew he was about to receive.

“What happened?”

He watched Jon light his cigarette and take a long drag. The glow of the burning tobacco taunted him.

“My parents are pieces of shit. They had Alicia tell me they would buy me a house if I left you.”

Levi’s eyes flew open. “What?”

“Honestly, I figured it’d be something like this. I knew she was up to something.”

He felt his heart sink. They had offered money to get Jon to leave him.

“What did you say?” A fire stirred in him. He knew he had to fight. But how?

Jon smiled softly and looked into his eyes. Levi could feel them touching his soul. “I told her to tell them to fuck off. You mean more to me than all the money in the world.”

Levi’s eyes searched Jon’s face, looking for any sign of betrayal. “You did?”

“Of course I did. And I meant every single word.”

“Then who were you on the phone with when you came out here?”

“Well, that’s a little different. Alicia had mentioned our grandfather almost as an afterthought. Well, that made me realize they hadn’t told him yet and something was up. I figured I’d beat them to the punch. So, I called him before they had a chance.”

Levi squeezed Jon’s hand. What new levels of shit was Jon going to stir up with his grandparents? “How did that go?”

Jon started crying again. Levi threw his arms around him. “It’ll be OK. I’m your family now and Gus. And James can be the annoying brother who needs his ass kicked. Do you want me to kick his ass for telling Alicia? I will if you want me to.”

Jon laughed as he wiped his tears. “Babe! These are happy tears. He chewed me out for most of the conversation, because I didn’t tell him sooner, but he said he still loved me. I wasn’t expecting that. I was expecting my parents to have already poisoned him against me.”

“That’s a good thing, then, right?”

Jon hugged him. “Yeah. It is. My grandmother got on the phone too. They were asking thousands of questions. I told them everything that happened before I moved here and everything that happened the day after we met. They were pissed .”

“That took a lot of nerve. I’m happy that they’re not like the rest of them…” Levi trailed off. He was smiling, but inside he felt the world spinning. Everything they had built was crumbling away.

“They want to meet you.”

He knew this would be the first step in them taking him away. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out.

“They want to meet Gus, too. My grandfather said he wanted to thank you both for being there for me and cussed me again for not letting him know. They’re in Houston all the time. I was thinking we could have them over for Sunday dinner one weekend. Me, you, them, Gus.”

“That sounds wonderful.” Levi prayed his words didn’t betray his panic. Would they deem him unworthy of Jon? He felt that enough without hearing it from someone else.

“Great! I’ll find out when they’ll be around.”

“Was that all they said?”

“They were just happy that I was happy. Why, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” He wanted to stop there, but the words just came out. “Just the thought of meeting anyone in your family scares the living shit out of me. I know you’re saying they are fine, but what if I’m not good enough? What if they don’t like me?”

Jon kissed him. “I love you. If that’s not good enough for them, I’ll tell them to fuck off, too. I don’t think it’ll come to that.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I would. I’m happier with you than I’ve ever been in my life.”

Levi smiled.