Hook, Line, and Sinker (Flirting with the Zodiac Book 1) Page 10

  “So … it’ll help the nausea?”

  “Oh, probably,” Dad said, glancing him over. “If you two aren’t maintaining contact, your body’s likely trying to … well, get rid of it.”

  The room went silent after that, and Ty tried to find something to say, but words were beyond his reach.

  “You didn’t know that,” Dad said softly. His grip on the arms of the chair had tightened.

  “I …”

  Dad sighed. “This is going to be a long eight months.”

  Ty froze. “What.”

  “I’m sorry,” Lawrence said, “eight months?”

  “That’s how long Piscean pregnancies are.”

  The noise that escaped Ty wasn’t human.

  “Honestly,” Mom said, “didn’t you do any research before you got knocked up?”

  “Maybe if you two had ever told me anything!” Ty almost shrieked, then clapped a hand over his mouth because he wasn’t sure if he was going to cry or puke.

  “Ty,” Dad started, but he shook his head furiously, and Mom handed him one of the potted plants so he didn’t throw up all over the carpet.

  Thirteen

  Ty stewed over that meeting for a week. His parents had finally, guiltily admitted to him that they’d just been doing what they thought was best—Piscean hybrids were pretty much unheard of and nobody knew how to treat one. He’d dragged out of them half the truth of why they didn’t associate with anyone Piscean—Dad was practically a social pariah for not carrying his own child.

  So they’d just tried to raise him human, even though he wasn’t. Ty wanted to be sorry for them—Dad seemed upset, at least—but it was so little, so late.

  But if he’d thought telling his parents had been rough, it was nothing compared to breaking the news to Lawrence’s parents.

  Lawrence wasn’t exactly close with his parents. They lived on Earth, disdained Mars, thought it was filthy. Most of Lawrence’s text chains with his mother were about how awful Mars was, how he needed to come home to Earth. In fact, Lawrence wasn’t even sure they’d come to Mars; they’d almost skipped his graduation. They’d badgered Lawrence about a trip to Nevada instead of having the reception in New Martia, but even with the (awkward) morning hug ritual, Ty wasn’t in a fit state to travel. He still felt sick most of the time.

  Ty hadn’t had much time to think about it anyway;

  he’d been trying to organize the reception, get enrolled in summer classes so he could maybe graduate, schlep himself around to appointments, and stay healthy and unstressed, even with his mother now texting him daily about what his horoscope said he should be doing for the baby.

  The date crept up on him; suddenly, it was the third of May and Lawrence’s parents were arriving in half-an-hour and Lawrence was tearing the apartment apart, because it wasn’t clean enough or chi-chi enough or something.

  Ty figured it wouldn’t matter anyway; the Traffords were snobs and Ty wasn’t good enough to be the dirt on Lawrence’s shoes, let alone his friend or, heavens forbid, his husband.

  It didn’t matter how messy their apartment was; the Traffords had already judged them and condemned them.

  Ty didn’t want to be, but he was puking his guts up when the Traffords arrived. He heard the door open between retches. He caught bits of stilted conversation. Things were silent when he finally rinsed his mouth and flushed.

  He straightened up in the mirror as best he could; there wasn’t much hiding the fact he’d puked; they’d likely heard him anyway.

  He stepped into the living room, found Mr. and Mrs. Trafford sitting primly on the sofa. They still had their shoes on, and Mrs. Trafford’s purse was on her lap—both of them ready to take off at a moment’s notice, like they thought they might get mugged or something. In fact, they probably did.

  They shifted their gaze to Ty. He forced himself to enter the room, nodding stiffly to them, jamming his hands in his pockets.

  Lawrence stepped into the room, carrying two tall cocktail glasses. One was full of whiskey, the other full of what looked like water—but the speared olive suggested something else.

  “Never took you for a bartender,” Mrs. Trafford said instead of thanking her son, and Ty rolled his shoulders and tugged at his collar.

  “It never hurts to learn a new skill, Mother.”

  “You could also learn to hire a maid,” she said tersely. “There shouldn’t be any shortage of them here.” Mr. Trafford grunted, his whole body jerking with the noise.

  Lawrence just smiled. “I’ve been trying to learn to clean myself, but I’m not doing very well.”

  Mr. Trafford pointed at Ty. “If you’re going to marry down, then at least put him to work, hm? About all he’s good for, I’m sure.”

  “I’ll show you what I’m good for, you—”

  “Mother, Father, please. Ty’s in a delicate condition—”

  Mr. Trafford’s eyes went wide. “A delicate condition!” he harrumphed.

  “I told you,” Mrs. Trafford sniped, “I told you, Larry, this is nothing more than a sham.”

  Both Ty and Lawrence straightened up. She tossed back some of her drink, pulling a face. Her expression was still frozen in that sour set as she glared at Ty. “Just like the rest of you Martians, get one Earth boy up here and you’ll do whatever you can to trap him.”

  Ty reared back. “What are you talking about?”

  “You’re clearly out to ruin his life! You’re nothing but a bad influence—encouraging him to stay in this filthy place, to get into all kinds of vice, letting him spend on whatever you want! And now a baby! What did you do? Poke holes in the condom? He’d never stay with you otherwise, you—”

  “Mother!” Lawrence cried. “Please! We both wanted this!”

  “You’re delusional,” Mrs. Trafford sniped back. “All the radiation up here’s warped your mind. You need to come home—leave this filth, let him deal with the bastard spawn he wants—”

  “I’m not leaving,” Lawrence huffed. “He’s my best friend, Mother.”

  “You owe him nothing, Lawrence. What has he ever done for you?” Her lip curled as she look at Ty. “Aside from—”

  “Mother, please.”

  “Can I punch her?” Ty asked, and Lawrence rubbed his temples.

  “Please don’t punch my mother,” he muttered, even though the look on his face suggested he thought it might be a good idea.

  Ty inhaled, then turned back to the Traffords. “Look, I get you don’t like me,” he snarled. “You made that clear the first time we met. But you don’t get to come into my house, accuse me of shit like that!”

  Lawrence had gritted his teeth.

  “And,” Ty continued, “you definitely don’t get to insult me, belittle me, just ’cause I’m different than you—”

  Mrs. Trafford sniffed, her lip curling up in a sneer. “You ought to toss him back, Lawrence. I’m sure of all the fish in the sea, there simply must be one that’s more … civilized.”

  Lawrence stepped between them before Ty could lift a hand. He glanced over his shoulder. “If you’ll excuse us,” he said, and his smile was sharp at the edges.

  “Take your time,” Mrs Trafford said; she was wearing the same look.

  Lawrence herded Ty all the way back against the kitchen counter, gripping his shoulders almost painfully tight. “What are you doing?”

  “What, you want me to just let her talk shit to my fucking face, Lawrence?”

  “Ty, I know, but—”

  “No,” Ty snapped, “you don’t know. You gonna let her say that shit in front of our kid? Let her treat me like dirt, because I live on Mars, because I’m not rich, because I’m not fully human? Our kid’s gonna be mixed too. Are you gonna let her …”

  Lawrence’s expression was horrifically open; the thought had never even crossed the bastard’s mind. Ty felt his lip curling. “Oh fuck no,” he spat, “either this stops here and now, or she’s not even going to get Christmas cards, Lawrence.”

  Lawrence loo
ked desperate. “They’re my parents,” he whispered. “I can’t just cut them off, I—”

  “I’m not letting them fuck up our kid.” Ty had never been angrier with Lawrence than he was right that second. The very idea that Lawrence would let his mother talk like that in front of their kid, that he wasn’t going to stand up to her, scalded him; anger simmered in his veins. “You’re human. Fully human. And white. And rich. You don’t fucking know anything. You have no idea.”

  Lawrence looked like he wanted to say something, but Ty didn’t want to hear it. “If you won’t cut her off, I will. I am not letting our kid go through what I went through, Lawrence, and fuck me if I’ll let you let your mother—”

  He clutched Lawrence’s collar tight in his fists, then shoved him away as he turned his head violently. The last thing he wanted to do was cry, but that was how things were going for him today. Tears trickled down his nose, and he gritted his teeth against a sob.

  “I’m sorry,” Lawrence said, “I didn’t know.”

  “Don’t fucking apologize,” Ty barked. “Go change it!”

  Lawrence stared at him for a moment. Ty scrubbed at his eyes. “If you won’t do it for me,” he sniffed, “then do it for your goddamn kid.”

  Guilt flashed across Lawrence’s face again, settled in his eyes. He straightened his back, then marched into the other room. Ty covered his face with his hands.

  Lawrence’s face was grim when he returned. “They’re going now,” he said softly. “They’ve agreed to be civil at the reception tomorrow night.”

  Ty frowned. “Not good enough.”

  Lawrence sighed. “I said we’d take it from there. That we’ll be evaluating their behavior and using that to determine if we want to continue contact.”

  Ty shut his eyes. God, he felt like an ass, but …

  “I told them they can’t talk to you that way,” Lawrence continued. His gaze swept the floor. “I should have said something a long time ago. I told them if they won’t accept you as my husband, you’re still my best friend, and I won’t put up with it.”

  He paused again, his brows knitting together. Finally, he said, “I didn’t get a choice of parents. I did choose to be your friend, so that has to count for something.”

  Ty nodded a touch, hating the way his heart was fluttering in his throat. “I, um.”

  Lawrence lifted his head, eyes widening as he inhaled. “Turn around, sink’s behind you.”

  Ty pivoted on his heel and pitched into the sink, just in time, as his stomach staged yet another mutiny.

  Fourteen

  The reception was the worst idea they’dever had. And they’d had a lot of bad ideas over the years: the time Ty had jumped off the balcony at Raoul’s (he’d fallen two stories into the snow) on a dare from Lawrence. The time they’d thought it would be funny to hotwire Val’s car, only to get stopped by the cops. Drinking an entire bottle of tequila before they’d gone to a theme park with Radu and Ali.

  Heck, they’d eloped and decided to have a revenge baby, and those were still better ideas than the reception.

  The atmosphere was ice cold, tense; the Trafford side of things was wound tighter than a high wire, ready to snap. On Ty’s side, there was only his parents, and a handful of friends who were valiantly trying to bring some cheer to the party. To cap everything off, Ty could hardly keep anything down, and his head was splitting in two, even before the DJ started spinning.

  Normally, he would have just gone outside and blazed with the rest of the crew, gotten drunk enough that the noise didn’t seem all that loud, and he would have been happy enough to try and rap along to some of their favorite tracks. As it was, he spent part of his night on the bathroom floor and part of it with his head on the the table, hoping it was all over soon.

  Raoul’s speech was short and stilted, and Ty wondered how the man would ever survive a courtroom. Val took the stage after, and the hall rang with the plaintive notes of first violin. Ty glared at the rented table cloth, wished he was up there instead.

  He tried to sink under the table when his mother started reading her poetry, much to everyone’s chagrin. Only Dad didn’t seem to notice, beaming at his wife, while absentmindedly rubbing Ty’s shoulder as he crouched near the head table.

  Maybe Ty could learn to get along with the Traffords. They would bond over their mutual hatred of his mother’s hippie poetry.

  “When the speeches are over, we’ll go,” Lawrence whispered to him as his mother launched into another poem.

  Everyone clapped politely when Mom finished her last stanza, lowering her hands and her eyes. The room was silent for a few seconds. Then she clasped her hands tightly and perked up, announcing, “If you enjoyed that, there’s plenty more where it came from! I have a book—”

  Ty groaned and sank back in his chair. Trust his mother to turn his reception into a goddamn infomercial for her book. Dad chuckled a little, then patted his shoulder again and met Mom at the corner of the stage.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Metzler,” Ali said, guiding her from the small platform before she could launch into a spiel about how she read palms or something. “Would anyone else like to say something on behalf of the new couple?”

  He looked hopefully at the Trafford side of things; they hadn’t said a peep all night. Apparently, Mrs. and Mr. Trafford had taken Lawrence’s speech yesterday to mean that they needed to shut up forever and always. Ty gritted his teeth. Maybe that was for the best.

  “I would!” The warbling voice rang from the back of the room, and everyone twisted around in their seats to look at Myrtle, slowly getting to her feet. She was frail and wobbled as she stood, shaking as she leaned into her walker.

  “Mother,” Mr. Trafford hissed.

  “Oh, hush, Larry,” Myrtle said, shaking him off and continuing her slow advance to the front of the room.

  Ali grinned and sidestepped toward the edge of the stage. “Yes, ma’am, stage is all yours, ma’am! I hope everyone’s paying attention, because we’re going to get some real wisdom here.”

  Myrtle bumped into the stage, and quickly, Raoul and one of Lawrence’s cousins (Frankie, not Chaz, Ty noted) were at her side, taking her by the arm and helping her up the two tiny steps to the platform. Ali grabbed her walker and hauled it on stage; Raoul and Frankie tried to guide her to it, but she batted them off, heading for the lectern.

  “Good evening, everyone,” she said. Her voice was thin and reedy, belying her age, but every eye in the room was still affixed to her. “First, thank you all for being here, on a day many of us thought would never come. Lawrence finally got married.”

  “Gran,” Lawrence hissed from beside Ty, and Ty laughed into the tablecloth because he didn’t dare lift his head.

  “Next,” Myrtle continued, “thank you to Lawrence and Tydeus for finally deciding to get hitched, so we could have a party.”

  “You’re welcome,” Ty mumbled, turning his head to look at Lawrence.

  Myrtle beamed at them. “I’ve been around a long time,” she said, “and I’ve seen many things. I’ve traveled to distant stars and back again. And one of the most magical things I’ve ever seen is a couple truly in love.”

  Ty glanced at Lawrence, who tugged nervously at his collar. Myrtle nodded a couple of times as she looked down at the lectern, as though reading invisible notes. “My memory isn’t what it used to be,” she said with a laugh—the rest of the room chuckled lightly—“but there are fair few times I’ve seen what I’d call true love. I saw it between my own parents. I saw it on a mission to Taurea. I saw it when a young Force pilot laid down her life for her mother.”

  Myrtle paused, pressing her lips together. “Point is, true love is something rare in this galaxy. Maybe even in the whole universe. And I saw it once more when Lawrence introduced Ty to us.”

  “We were just friends!” Lawrence barked, drawing a cold laugh from the room.

  Myrtle didn’t laugh though. “Of course,” she said. “Nobody said true love only exists where there’s
romance, Lawrence. There are plenty of types of love—the love between parent and child, the love between romantic partners, the love between siblings, the love between friends.”

  She cleared her throat. “When Lawrence brought Ty to Doris’s housewarming party, I knew I was witness to something special. Right from the get-go, these boys loved each other in a way that so few people experience.”

  She lifted her head, smiled at them. “I hope that, in marriage, through thick and thin, sickness and health, you boys never, ever lose that. And above all, stay friends.”

  She turned about, shuffling a bit. “Okay, I’m done now,” she said as she passed the microphone to Ali and reached for her walker. Raoul and Frankie helped her across the stage again.

  Ty glanced quickly at Lawrence. “Are you crying,” he hissed.

  “I’m not crying,” Lawrence grumbled, wiping at his tears.

  “Good,” Ty groaned, “I’m gonna throw up again.”

  “Again?!” Lawrence cried, and somebody—maybe Mom—had the good sense to pass him a bowl.

  ***

  They didn’t stick around much longer; Ty was in no mood for dancing or chitchat, and it wasn’t fair to let Lawrence work the floor alone.

  After all, who would punch cousins who needed punching? (Even though Dr. K had explicitly told Ty he probably shouldn’t be starting fights at this point, he wasn’t about to sit idly by when people—particularly Lawrence’s family—were being dicks.)

  Ty spent most of the car ride home with his head in a paper bag. Lawrence had a hand between his shoulder blades, rubbing his back.

  The nights were still cool; early May almost always was. Ty dug his hands deep in his pockets and tried to ignore the chill as he waited for Lawrence to settle up with the driver.

  “I’m sorry,” Lawrence said as he approached Ty, the words nearly drowned out by the vehicle taking off.

  “For what?” The other man’s hand was a warm and welcome presence between his shoulder blades as they ascended the stairs to their apartment.