Chapter Six

“SMOKING ISN’Tallowed here, and it would be better if you weren’t drinking around Leo.”

A young woman, clearly related to Ryan and sharing the same cool blue eyes, stood in the doorway of his room. She had her arms crossed and her eyes narrowed, watching as Dylan unpacked his bag.

He put the shirt in his hand back into his suitcase and straightened, looked her in the eye.

“I don’t smoke. Anything,” he added with emphasis. “I’m not a big drinker, and when I do drink it’s usually a glass of wine or a beer, but since I am preparing to be a donor, I’ve avoided both. I want to be in the best physical condition I can and provide healthy cells for my nephew.”

Dylan didn’t miss the slight flinch when he said “nephew.”

“While you’re here, I hope you’ll be respectful.”

“I would ask that you do the same,” he replied. “I don’t believe we’ve met.” He moved toward her, holding out his hand. “I’m Dylan, by the way.”

She stared at him as if he were trying to hand her a snake. “I’m Leo’s aunt and Ryan’s sister.”

Dylan held her gaze, refusing to back down from the animosity he saw in her eyes. They need you; you don’t need them. Don’t forget that, he reminded himself.

He dropped the hand Ryan’s sister refused to shake. “Since you clearly aren’t here to welcome me, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to finish unpacking.”

He blew out a shaky breath when she turned on her heel and walked away. Yes, they needed him, but obviously not everyone wanted him here.

He abandoned the rest of his packing and wandered around the room with its stark white décor, and a pang of longing for his apartment back in Venice washed over him. Standing at the large window overlooking the sweeping lawn that led down to the lake, he took in his surroundings. He was happy to see the azure rectangle of water below. Dylan had brought his swim trunks and goggles, thinking he’d find a public pool he could use. He probably couldn’t swim for a week or two after the surgery, but he could enjoy the pool now, and it would keep him away from the soulless mansion. He replayed his encounter with Ryan’s sister. Her comments about drinking and smoking implied she’d heard the lies his parents had told about him and, even worse, believed them. The heaviness in his chest he grew up with returned, reassuring if depressing. He knew this feeling well—and how to survive with it. It might not make sense, but it felt familiar in an unfamiliar place.

A knock on the door pulled him from his musings.

“Do you have everything you need?” Ryan asked, looking at his half-unpacked suitcase with a frown.

“I appreciate your offer to stay here, but I’m not sure if this is a good idea.” The words tumbled out of his mouth before he’d had time to formulate a plan.

“Why? You can see I have plenty of room,” he said, sweeping his hand over the bedroom, which was twice the size of Dylan’s apartment.

Dylan wrapped his arm around his middle. “I think it would be better if I stayed in a hotel. I don’t expect you to pay,” he said in a rush, throwing things back into his suitcase….

He needed to get away before the rising panic he felt overwhelmed him. Why did he think he could come here and act like this was all normal? Ryan’s sister wouldn’t be the only one who believed his parents’ lies about him. Who else would pass judgment, disapproving of his existence?

“Dylan, wait.” Ryan moved to his side and gently wrapped his hand around his wrist to stop him. “What’s going on?”

“It doesn’t matter. You don’t have to worry. I won’t abandon Leo, but I can’t stay here.”

Ryan let go of his wrist but didn’t move away from him. “It does matter. You matter, Dylan. Talk to me.”

Dylan bunched up the shirt in his hand and threw it down into his open suitcase before turning to face Ryan. “Can you honestly tell me that a small part of you doesn’t wonder if the story my parents made up is true?” He held out his arm. “Do you want to check for tracks? You’ve seen my medical tests. You know I don’t drink or smoke, but do you really believe that?”

“Whoa.” Ryan wrinkled his brow. “Where is this coming from?”

“Your sister’s welcome was less than friendly. It’s hard enough to be here with reminders of my sister. Knowing your family believes the lie my parents told, I… this is too hard.”

Ryan sighed. “My sister lost her best friend when Lindsay died. She’s struggling.”

“And that makes it okay for her to warn me against doing drugs around her nephew?”

Ryan looked taken aback. “No, of course not. She wasn’t trying to offend you. She’s very protective.”

The situation was impossible. Why would he think Ryan would defend him from his sister? She was his family; he was nothing more than a donor, no matter what Ryan said.

“Give us a chance, Dylan. You can’t stay by yourself after the surgery. You’ll need help.”

His jaw ticked. “I’ve been on my own for a long time. You don’t know what I can and can’t do.”

“You’re right. You can take care of yourself, but you don’t have to, not this time. And I’d like to have the chance to get to know you if you’d let me.”

How could anyone look at the sincerity in Ryan’s blue eyes and not have their resolve falter?

“If you won’t stay for me, will you please stay for Leo? I want him to get to know his uncle,” Ryan continued.

“Now you’re not playing fair.”

Ryan’s lip tipped up in a half smile. “Is it working?”

“Yeah, it is. I’ll stay, but I’d appreciate it if you would make it clear to your sister that I’m not the drug-addicted junkie my parents want to pretend I am.”

“I’ll talk to Stephanie.”

Dylan nodded, but it was an empty gesture. Everyone else believed his parents’ lies without question. Would anything Ryan said to his sister really make a difference?

“You must be hungry,” Ryan offered. “Come with me and I’ll introduce you to Mrs. Lieu.”

Dylan followed Ryan through a grand dining room, a spacious family room, and into a massive kitchen. This room, unlike the rest of the house, had warmth despite the white cabinets and gleaming white marble countertops. Dylan recognized that the warmth in the room originated from the diminutive woman with sparkling brown eyes and short salt-and-pepper hair framing her light tan face. Wiping her hands on a colorful floral apron, she came toward him with a warm, friendly expression on her face.

“I was about to come and find you to introduce myself to you if you didn’t show up soon,” she said.

“Dylan, this is my housekeeper, Mrs. Lieu,” Ryan said, putting his arm around her shoulder, looking as proud as if he were introducing Dylan to his mother.

He held out his hand and was swept into a hug instead. Mrs. Lieu couldn’t have been more than five feet tall, but that compact frame was all muscle as she practically squeezed the life out of him.

“It’s nice to meet you.” He chuckled, returning the hug a little more gently.

When she let go, she put her hands on his cheeks and said, “Beautiful boy. Don’t you worry, I’ll take good care of you. I have a nice lunch ready for you.” She ushered him toward the kitchen table that sat in front of a floor-to-ceiling window with a view of the lake.

“I hope you like banh mi,” she said, going to the counter, returning with two plates, and setting them in front of Dylan and Ryan.

The smell of the Vietnamese sandwiches she placed before them—crusty bread rolls spread with pesto, mayo, Asian ham, pickled vegetables, green onion, and coriander—made his stomach rumble.

“I love banh mi. Thank you,” Dylan said.

“Mrs. Lieu makes the best banh mi in Seattle.”

Mrs. Lieu laughed. “Seattle has a lot of wonderful Vietnamese cuisine. Ryan doesn’t know what he’s talking about since he’ll only eat my cooking.”

“But that’s because yours is the best.”

Mrs. Lieu rolled her eyes and went back to bustling around the kitchen.

Ryan turned to Dylan with a smile. “I don’t know what I would do without Mrs. Lieu. She keeps me fed and the house running.”

“How long has she worked for you?”

“More than ten years now. I hired her when I started my company. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have ever had clean laundry, and I would have starved to death.”

“Ugh.” Mrs. Lieu pinched her nose. “That boy would have been willing to live in a pigsty, he gets so caught up in his work.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Ryan said with a pout.

“Remember the time you pulled out a smoothie I made for you from the freezer and then forgot about it?”

“You’re never going to let me forget that, are you?”

Mrs. Lieu laughed. “He put it in the kitchen sink and then forgot about it for two days. The smoothie fermented and then—” She clapped her hands together and made a rocket motion. “—boom, it exploded. And when the lid flew off, it left a dent in the ceiling.”

“How was I to know a smoothie could become a guided missile?”

Dylan enjoyed watching the banter between the two of them. It was clear they cared for each other. This was a side of Ryan he’d never seen before. He was—Dylan searched for the right word—lighter, around Mrs. Lieu. Dylan felt like he was seeing the real Ryan for the first time. A movement outside caught his eye.

“Whoa, was that…?” The large object passed again, swooping low across the water. “Wow, a bald eagle.”

Ryan chuckled. “I forget most people don’t see bald eagles on a regular basis.”

“Definitely not,” Dylan said, watching the enormous raptor dive and swoop, hunting for its lunch. “You must love living on the water with these views.”

Ryan’s gaze followed Dylan’s out of the window. “Honestly, I don’t enjoy it as much as I wanted when we bought this house.”

“Ryan spends too much time working and not enough enjoying what he’s worked so hard for,” Mrs. Lieu said, coming back to the table with a plate of cookies.

Dylan eyed the dock at the edge of the property. “Do you have a boat?”

“No.” Ryan shook his head.

“I’d get a kayak and be out on the water every day,” Dylan said wistfully.

“Would you like a tour of the grounds?”

“Sure.”

With a parting wave to Mrs. Lieu, Dylan followed Ryan through a set of french doors out to the upper flagstone patio that ran the length of the house. The pool Dylan had seen from his bedroom window was on the next level, followed by a third tier that led to a massive lawn going down to the water.

“This is incredible.” Dylan stood at the end of the dock, craning his neck to look up and down the lake. “I can’t even see where it ends.”

“It’s almost twenty-two miles long.”

“It’s probably too cold to swim in,” Dylan murmured to himself.

“It’s colder than it looks, even in the summer. You can swim in it, but you should be careful. Maybe it would be better if you didn’t.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t do anything to jeopardize my health before the surgery.”

“That’s not what I meant. I just… I don’t know, people drown out there,” Ryan said, flinging his arm toward the water.

He’d lost his wife in an accident, so Dylan realized where Ryan’s caution was coming from and rolled his shoulders, forcing himself to relax.

“I’m more of a pool swimmer anyway. I’d rather kayak when I’m on a lake.”

“You’re a water person, aren’t you?”

Dylan looked out at the glimmering dark teal water. “I am. Yet another thing that disappointed my parents. Instead of a football player, they got a swimmer.”

“Can I ask what happened?”

“Will knowing change anything, make any difference?”

“I’m not trying to pry. I’m still wrapping my brain around the fact that your parents would lie and keep you a secret when they knew you were out there and you could help Leo.”

“Prejudice isn’t rational. People can justify anything if they want to.”

“How did they find out you were gay?”

“My mother found my diary. Pretty classic story for a lot of gay kids.” Dylan sat down on the edge of the dock and clasped his hands in his lap. “My parents were waiting for me when I got home from school. They gave me two choices: conversion therapy or get out. I knew what conversion therapy could do, and I knew—” His voice broke and he took a breath. “—I couldn’t do it.”

Ryan moved to sit next to him. “You did the right thing.”

“I’ve never had any regrets. That decision cost me, but it saved my life.”

“You must have been terrified.”

“I didn’t know what I was going to do. I walked out of my house with a backpack and a duffel bag. I didn’t know where to go, so I went to school. I always hung out in the library. It was my safe space. One of my teachers, Mr. Cooper, saw me. He took one look at the bag at my feet and he understood what happened. He brought me home, and he and his husband, Carl, took me in. I couldn’t go back to school. It was too hard to walk down the halls and see my sister walk past me as if I didn’t even exist. Plus my dad was the coach. A football coach in a small southern town has more power than God. They didn’t waste any time spreading rumors about me being a troubled child. Everyone knew it wasn’t true, but no one was going to call Coach McKenzie a liar. I switched to an online high school and finished my junior and senior year.”

“How old were you?”

“I was fifteen when my parents kicked me out.”

Dylan watched Ryan process the information, his expression morphing from disgust to anger and then sorrow.

“I-I don’t know what to say,” he said, his voice gruff.

“There’s nothing to say. You didn’t know. How would you?”

Ryan grabbed his arm, sending a jolt of awareness where his hand touched Dylan’s skin. “That doesn’t mean I don’t care that what happened to you was wrong. If I’d have known, I don’t think….” He let go and turned away.

Dylan’s breath hitched. Was Ryan going to say he wouldn’t have married Lindsay if he’d known?

Ryan got up, dusting his hands on his jeans. “I’m going to check on Leo. Make yourself at home.”

He was halfway across the lawn, walking with long strides, his hands fisted at his sides, before Dylan stood up. Dylan watched him retreat into the mansion, the water and trees reflected in the wall of windows. Money could buy a lot of things, including grand houses, but it couldn’t fill a house with love.