Choices and Changes Page 8

  Laughing, Adam wrapped both arms around him, pulling Dean into his lap and kissing him like his mouth was on fire and Dean was the water that could put it out. “I’ve got you baby; you know that, and I feel the same, Dean. I dare say, I might already be head over heels and my brain hasn’t caught up with my heart yet.”

  When Adam turned and laid Dean on the bed, moving into the space between his legs, Dean opened up for him. There was a small tinge of pain throughout due to their frenetic fucking downstairs earlier in the evening. But it felt so good, so right, to be owned and consumed by this man that Dean welcomed that hint of discomfort, riding the waves of pleasure as they both crested together, before falling asleep wrapped in the arms of the man he very nearly loved.

  ~ Chapter 10 | Why I Need Therapy ~

  Dean carefully navigated the chaotic streets of Manhattan on his way to LaGuardia. Driving in Dallas was a walk in the park compared to the insanity that was driving in New York. Blinkers, brakes, and speed limits were optional. As were divider lines on the road, he quickly learned when looking out each window and seeing that there were two cars on either side of him, on a three-lane road. He glanced over at Dusty in the passenger seat of the large SUV when his son’s phone beeped.

  “Is that your mom?”

  “Yeah, she says they just touched down,” Dusty responded.

  “Shit!” Dean swore. “How much farther to our exit? I really don’t want them to have to wait all day, especially with a newborn.”

  Dusty snorted. “You’ve flown into LaGuardia, Dad; you know they’re looking at an hour minimum. They have to get off the plane, find their baggage terminal and then wait forever and a day there. Besides, our exit is next; we’ll have plenty of time.”

  Twenty minutes later, Dean pulled up in front of Baggage Claim, where Dusty had agreed to meet them. “You can wait over in the pick-up lane.” Dusty pointed at a sign a few lanes over. “If the asshole security guard makes you move, circle the airport and come back. We should be out here by then,” Dusty said as he climbed out of the vehicle.

  When Maggie phoned Dusty the week prior to ask if she, her fiancé Isaac, and their baby boy Xander could come for a visit, the four of them had just sat down to dinner. “You guys are gonna need something bigger than Dusty’s truck when you pick them up; you can take the Denali,” Adam offered.

  “Are you sure?” Dean asked.

  “Of course. I wouldn’t offer otherwise, Dean.” Adam reached over, patting Dean on the thigh. “Where are they going to stay?” Adam turned his attention to Dusty.

  Dusty already looked overwhelmed and a bit freaked out. Dean knew it had to be hard for his son—not only learning that your parents were divorcing, but that your father was bisexual and your mother was already pregnant by her new lover. Now he had a baby brother and two potential stepdads in a short, whirlwind three-month time frame.

  Setting his fork down, Dean lay a comforting hand on his son’s shoulder. “How about I stay with Adam while they’re here and the three of them can stay in my room?” He presented it as a question, though it really was the only viable option. A hotel in the city would cost money Dean wasn’t sure Maggie and Isaac had to spare at the moment. He remembered how much it cost for diapers, formula, doctor visits and so on when Dusty was a baby, and that was over twenty years ago. God only knew how much those things cost now.

  His phone buzzed and he picked it up. Swiping the screen, he read Dusty’s text. We’re heading out now. It only took a couple of minutes for Dean to make it back to passenger pick-up as Dusty exited the terminal with a baby carrier in his hands, a huge smile on his face. Maggie and Isaac trailed behind him, Maggie’s arms weighted down with her purse, the diaper bag, and a couple of smaller bags slung over each arm, and Isaac was dragging two large suitcases behind him.

  Dean hopped out and went to open the rear door for their luggage. “Dean!” Maggie hugged him tightly when she got close.

  “Hey, Mags.” He stepped to the side while Maggie started tossing the bags into the back seat. “Isaac, good to see you, man.” Dean held his hand out and the two men half shook, half hugged. “I hope your flight was okay; how was the baby?”

  “Good, actually. We were prepared for Xan to be fussy but he really surprised us—slept the entire time,” Isaac replied, waiting for Maggie to move before hefting the two large suitcases into the SUV.

  “Keep it moving!” An airport security guard wearing an orange vest and a scowl shouted, looking right at Dean.

  “What a fucking dick,” Isaac muttered.

  Maggie smacked him on the arm. “Language, Isaac. No cursing in front of the baby.”

  “You see my love, that’s where you’re wrong. First, I’m not cursing in front of him since he’s up there.” Isaac pointed to the rear seat inside the SUV where Dusty sat, the baby carrier buckled in beside him. “And second, he’s three weeks old, Maggie. I really don’t think he’s interested in anything aside from eating, shitting, and sleeping.”

  Dean chuckled, shaking his head at the two of them. Isaac wrapped an arm around Maggie and walked around the SUV, holding the door open for her to climb in before he hopped into the passenger seat. They’d had their fair share of problems, he and Maggie, but they came out on the other side friends and still fiercely loyal to one another and their son. Dean was overjoyed to see her happy again.

  They talked on the way back to the apartment about the baby, Isaac’s new position at the advertising firm he worked at back in Dallas, and what he and Maggie wanted to see while they were in New York.

  “Definitely the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty,” Maggie told her son when he asked what touristy things were on her To-Do list.

  “We could double date Mags, you and Isaac, me and Adam.” Dean went on to tell her and Isaac about the day he and Adam had spent with Dusty and David sight-seeing. He didn’t miss the brief look of concern in her eyes when she met his in the rearview mirror. She’d obviously seen the pain in his gaze at remembering the hateful stares directed at Dusty and David the day they’d visited Central Park. They were still attuned to each other, a connection so deep it would never truly be completely broken. The love was still there, still shared, just a different kind of love now that they’d both moved on with other people.

  ***

  “All right, Dean, spill,” Maggie said when they were alone in his room at the apartment. The portable crib was set up in one corner, Dean probably the only one in the big house who’d paid attention the day Kassie set that up. Xander was lying on his stomach, legs curled under him, sleeping soundly. Dean had gotten to hold him for a few minutes while Maggie unpacked their bags when they first got back to the apartment, and the little guy was absolutely adorable. Xander’s skin was a soft shade of brown, somewhere in between his mother’s creamy white and his father’s deep chocolate skin tones. He had his father’s bright blue eyes, something you didn’t see often with black people, but then Isaac was also mixed-race like his son. But he had Maggie’s long brown eyelashes and soft brown hair.

  “Jesus Mags, he’s precious. Remember when Dusty was this small and…”

  “We can take a trip down memory lane later, Dean. Right now, I want you to tell me what the hell is going on with our boys,” Maggie stated sternly.

  Dean grinned; he couldn’t help it. She still hadn’t actually met David in person but was referring to him and Dusty as their boys already. “All right Mags, but not here. I don’t want us to wake him. Come on, let’s go get a drink. Trust me, you’ll need it.”

  The four of them were sitting in the living room when there was a knock on the door. Dean hopped up and opened it, knowing it was Adam before he unlocked it. “Hey, babe.” He smiled, leaning up for a quick kiss. “Come on in, let me introduce you.”

  “Adam, this is Maggie, Dusty’s mother. Mags, this is Adam.” Dean bit back the laugh threatening to escape at the wide-eyed look of wonder in Maggie’s eyes as she took in all six foot four of gorgeous man that had enter
ed the apartment.

  “Maggie, I’ve heard so much about you; it’s great to finally meet you.” Adam bypassed her offered hand, pulling Maggie in for a hug. “And you must be Isaac; it’s nice to meet you as well.” Adam shook hands with Isaac who also looked a little taken aback at the man vigorously shaking his hand.

  Oh, My God! He’s fucking gorgeous! Maggie mouthed to Dean, hidden from her fiancé’s view by the broad man she was ogling.

  “Oh, fuck me, not you too, Mother,” Dusty whined, hopping up and stomping into the kitchen. “Can I get you something to drink, Adam? Beer, wine, bleach to clear away all the images that are gonna break the bank with all the therapy I’m gonna need?”

  Maggie, Dean, and Adam all laughed and Dusty groaned, the sound resonating in the small apartment. “What’d I miss?” Isaac asked.

  “Nothing,” Dean, Maggie and Adam said in unison, accepting the offered beers Dusty handed them before he plopped down in the chair in the corner.

  Before any of them realized, two hours had passed. Between the five of them, they’d finished off the case of beer and two bottles of wine in the fridge and were contemplating a run to the bodega around the corner for more alcohol. Dean thought it best if Dusty talked first, starting at the beginning with the shooting at The Monster Bar and everything that’d happened in the aftermath of that. How he’d stumbled into David’s hospital room and had slowly started falling in love with his younger boyfriend from that very moment.

  “I wish I could explain it, Mom—what I felt the longer I sat by his bed, holding his hand and praying for him to wake up. He was so small and broken, but…beautiful in a way, unlike anything I’d ever seen. And then when he woke up…” The wistful smile on his son’s face caused Dean to smile as well. These were finite details of Dusty and David’s story he’d not yet heard, and it gave him a modicum of peace to know that there were bits and pieces of love, happiness and tenderness that could break apart the darkness David had suffered probably his entire young life until he met Dusty.

  “When he woke up he told me that he knew me, that I was the angel from his dreams. Shit, Mom, I was a goner.” Dusty laughed for probably the first time since they’d started the dark, heavy conversation. “He’s so kind, gentle, and caring; I don’t know how anyone could, hell, why they would want to hurt him.”

  Dean told Maggie and Isaac about the abandoned dinner, left to spoil for the night in their haste to get to the hospital with David after the incident at the college. And Adam gave her his side of the afternoon in Central Park. The room fell silent for so long it bordered on uncomfortable. When Adam’s stomach grumbled it sounded so loud, everyone laughed. “Sorry, long day at the hospital. Do we want to start some dinner?” He looked to Maggie for her opinion and Dean loved that.

  “I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m exhausted. What are our takeout options here?” she asked.

  “There’s an amazing Szechuan place not far from here that delivers.” Dean knew how much Maggie loved Szechuan. “I’ll grab the menu.” He stood and walked over to the drawer in the kitchen where they kept the takeout menus.

  “My treat,” Adam called out.

  “No, we…” Maggie tried to argue with him.

  “I insist,” Adam responded in his no-nonsense doctor voice that did crazy things to Dean’s libido. Thankfully, David came home before Dean could put too much thought into the sudden tightness in his jeans. David’s arrival was followed by the wail of one very hungry baby and then the dinner Adam had ordered online was delivered a little while later.

  By the time he and Adam made it back to Adam’s house that night, they were both exhausted and fell right into bed. It was the first time Dean was in Adam’s bed that they didn’t have some type of sex. Adam pulled him close and held Dean in his arms until the world faded away, replaced by peaceful sleep.

  ~ Chapter 11 | Backyard BBQ ~

  That weekend there was a party out at the big house in Mamaroneck to celebrate Astrid officially becoming a Dimir. On paper, she belonged only to Mattie as the State didn’t recognize the union between the three men, but in their hearts, that baby had three fathers. Beau had eagerly represented Mattie in his petition to adopt the baby so he knew the right people to approach every step of the way. And since Mattie had wanted to distance himself as far away from his past as possible, which included his parents, he’d completely dropped the name Carlson and taken Dimir. So the invitation that Dusty had received in the mail, a beautiful image of baby Astrid sleeping on the snow-white blanket Andrew’s mother had knitted for her granddaughter, read,

  Victor, Andrew, and Matthew Dimir invite you to join us in celebrating the newest addition to our family…Astrid Elena Dimir.

  Maggie, Isaac, and the baby rode out to the house with Adam and Dean with Dusty and David following in the truck. Maggie was starstruck with the house on the Sound—much like Dean had been initially. The first thing she did was take baby Xan out of his carrier and climb into the tire swing, Isaac moving behind the swing to push them. Dean followed Adam into the house with steaks and two cases of craft beer they’d picked up on the way, handing everything off to Andrew in the kitchen.

  “Hey, I thought your ex was in town? Did she not want to come?” Andrew asked, looking past Dean and Adam.

  “She found the tire swing,” Adam replied.

  “Ahh.” Andrew nodded. “Well, there’s water, juice, and sodas in the fridge; the beer is in the big cooler out back. Vic is out there as well, firing up the grill if you want to go say hi.”

  The Dimir house was always shrouded in a sort of calm chaos and today was no different. Chris and Linc sat on the far side of the large dining room table next to a couple of guys Dean didn’t know. Beau and William were on the side closer to where Dean and Adam stood, and the six of them were playing dominoes.

  “I’m going to go see how our little princess is doing today. I’ll catch up with you out back in a little while,” Adam told him. Leaning in for a quick kiss and speaking to Beau before disappearing up the stairs to Astrid’s nursery. Dean turned when he heard the screen door slam behind him to see Maggie and Isaac coming in the with the baby—Dusty, David, Jon and Kory right behind them with more bags of groceries in their arms.

  He hugged Jon then Kory, asking if they’d met Dusty’s mom yet. “Yeah, just now out by the swing.” Jon nodded.

  “Is that my baby brother I hear?” Tristan called out from the den. Jon’s response was foreign and quite colorful, of that Dean was certain, as was Tristan’s comeback.

  “Is it always this crazy?” Maggie asked, little Xan starting to whine and fuss. “There, there. Momma’s got you.” She started bouncing the little blue bundle in her arms.

  “Where are my manners?” Andrew came around the kitchen island, hand extended to Isaac. “So sorry, I’m Andrew, thanks for coming out today. You must be Maggie and Isaac. Dusty has told us all so much about you; I feel like I know you. Hell, Vic recognized Dean before they were even introduced.”

  “Andrew, yes, you’re married to Victor and Matthew, right?” Maggie asked. “I remember seeing pictures from your ceremony on Dusty’s Facebook page. It was so beautiful.”

  Dean chuckled, meeting Isaac’s eyes briefly, the two men watching Maggie and Andrew go on and on like best friends. “Dean, show Isaac around; introduce him to everyone and for fuck’s sake, get the man a beer.” Andrew sighed. “I’m going to take Maggie and the baby upstairs—this little one seems like he needs a nap. We can lay him down with Astrid.”

  Watching them head for the stairs, chatting a mile a minute was no surprise really. Maggie had always been very outgoing and from what little time Dean had spent with Andrew, he thought them to be two peas in a pod. Isaac cleared his throat, nudging him with an elbow. “Those two are going to be busy for a while. Now, I believe I heard something about a beer.”