Chapter 50

Van

The others were going about everything wrong.

Like I got they were pissed when the parents started behaving badly, but that was the point when you pushed back, told them how you were feeling. I knew Connor’s dad had a pole jammed up his arse, but the rest? Gage and Kendall’s parents weren’t complete raging arseholes. They’d understand what was going on between the four of us once they got over the shock. I was determined that was what was gonna happen when I woke up the next day.

A kiss for Kendall on the tip of her cute little nose and then I pulled away, watching her roll towards Gage. He sleepily pulled her closer and breathed in her scent. They’d sleep in, wake up in a better mood, and I’d come home with fresh croissants and good news; I was sure of it, so I got out of bed and pulled on some clothes. I suppressed my whistle until I was out the front door and in the van, heading over to Mum and Dad’s.

“Hello, love.” Mum’s smile looked a little strained but that was probably due to her nursing a hangover. I plonked a to-go cup of her favourite coffee in front of her. “Oh, you’re a good boy.”

“Who’s a good boy?” Dad’s muffled voice said. “Me? Because, honey…” My father was halfway through undoing the towel wrapped around his waist to flash my mother when he saw me. “Van! What the fuck are you doing here, kid, and where’s the rest of your merry band? Don’t tell me that if you’re in a relationship with three other people you still can’t get a root?”

See, this was why we needed to talk.

“I’m not bi,” I told him.

“Nah, you’d be tri, wouldn’t you?” Dad smirked at Mum. “Try-sexual. Pretty sure he’d give anything a try once.”

“Stop it, Dean,” Mum said, slapping him on the shoulder, but she was smiling when she turned back to face me. “So, you decided to come back and talk us through what the hell is going on? I admit, everyone was a bit surprised, but I don’t think you needed to storm out like that.”

“Mark was being a dick, though,” Dad said. “Told you not to invite him, Heather. Thinks his shit doesn’t stink, that prick, and he’s shit at cooking on the BBQ.”

“Mark was being a dick,” I agreed. “He’s threatening to pull all the seed money he gave us to set up the company.” I settled down on one of the dining room chairs.

“So what does that mean, mate?” Dad asked, settling down beside Mum and reaching for her coffee. She slapped his hand away, but I had all of their attention.

“We could lose the house, the business, everything.”

I’d come in here all optimistic, thinking if I bounced through the door and explained everything, we’d sort this situation out, but how was I going to do that again?

“What?” Dad’s back jerked straight. “You boys have been doing very well for yourselves. Business is booming, and you have that nice house of yours. How much do you guys owe Mark Woods?”

“One hundred thousand.” I said it with a wince. When we’d taken the loan, I’d just said yes, not really thinking it through. Mark said it would be a no-interest loan, that we could take all the time we liked to pay it off. I knew Connor was making regular, sizeable repayments, especially when we sold a house for a really good price, but hadn’t thought too much beyond that.

“Shit…” Dad hissed.

“But you make regular repayments?” Mum said.

“Regular as clockwork,” I told her.

“And that’s not enough for Mark bloody Woods,” she spluttered.

“Now, Heather—”

“No.” Mum shook Dad’s hand off, getting to her feet. “I knew it wasn’t a good idea, getting money from Mark, but…” She frowned, then turned to me. “I’ll be back in a second.”

“Heather…?” Dad said. “Heather, what the hell are you doing?” We both followed her inside the house, and I saw the mess from last night, but we walked past bowls of stale chips and wilting salads to find this.

Mum was a packrat, always collecting things, but she was meticulous with her ‘filing system’ as Dad called it. Her cupboards might be packed tightly with stuff, but she knew where every single thing was; so when she pulled down a metal lockbox, I just blinked. Keys were produced from her bedside table and then she unlocked it.

“You’re not gonna like this.” Mum shot me a look over the open box. “It’s not something I’d ever want to show my child.”

“What the…?” Dad peered over her shoulder then shoved the lid back down again, reaching for the keys. “I thought you got rid of those?” he hissed.

“I don’t get rid of anything, you know that.” His long sigh confirmed it. “And for a good reason too. You never know when you’re gonna need something.”

Dad’s cheeks were flushed bright red, his eyes now a brilliant blue as he watched Mum hand over a bundle to me.

“What the…?”

Have you ever seen vintage porn? Like full bush, not a silicone-enhanced tit in sight porn? Well, apparently my mother was a collector of that, but as I peered at the black and white photos, I got an almighty shock. There were people fucking in every damn combination in the shots, but that wasn’t what had me tossing the photos on the bed. Because as they scattered across Mum’s bedspread, I realised who was in them. Not some proto-Only Fans performers, but… our parents.

“Mum…” I gritted my teeth, trying to meet my parents’ eyes and failing. I’d seen my parents do a lot of crazy shit but never that.

“Fuck, you lot were swingers?”

Finn’s voice echoed in my ears, reminding me of something I tried pretty hard to forget the moment I heard the news, but looking at those photos. it was pretty hard not to, until…

“Mark and Jane used to swing with you?”

I tried to reconcile the man and woman I saw in the photos, looking a lot younger, a helluva lot freer, and also nowhere near as respectable as they tried to appear now.

“It’s not information I would share with anyone else,” Mum said. “We were young and dumb—”

Dad shot me a dark look.

“Something you might know something about, Son.”

“But it doesn’t seem fair, Mark bloody Woods getting his knickers in a twist about the four of you, when he… and Jane…”

“She was the bloody worst of the two,” Dad muttered. “Gobbled down dick like it was going out of fashion.”

“Oh my god, the mental bleach I need right now.” I raked my hands through my hair. “Like for the love of god, let’s never talk…”

But then it occurred to me. This was a shitty, shitty plan, but Mark was basically trying to blackmail Connor into doing what he wanted, using the funds he’d leant us to set up the business. The man didn’t care about his son, just his damn reputation. When Connor approached him about providing us some seed money, Mark had leapt at the idea, because then his son wasn’t just swinging tools for someone else. Mark had wanted it to just be his son running our company, for us to be working for him, but when Connor made clear that was never going to happen, Mark had been forced to compromise. But now Connor’s dad was prepared to burn it to the ground because he didn’t agree with our lifestyle?

I couldn’t believe I was about to do this, but I dragged out my phone and started moving photos around the bed, taking shots of the ones that had Jane and Mark in them and handing the others back.

“What’re you thinking, kid?” Dad asked, approaching slowly. “You want to blackmail Mark Woods? I don’t think that’s smart.”

“Not blackmail,” Mum said with a nod. “Just reminding him and Jane of who they were. It’s easy as you get older to forget you were young once, trying to work out how to live your life, be happy.” She reached across and took Dad’s hand. “Who you love and want to spend the rest of your life with.”

“Only you, love.”

When Dad cradled my mother against his chest, I felt like I could see me and Kendall there, superimposed on top of them, holding onto each other even though the years had ticked by. And that drove what I saw in the photos out of my head. I’d do just about anything to make sure we had the same future. So I smiled-my face hurting as I did-at the sight of the love my parents still had for each other, at the love I felt for Kendall, right before I opened a text message and sent the photos to Connor.

“Well…” My voice cracked on that, but I smiled and cleared it when my parents looked my way. “This has been highly traumatising, but helpful. I need—”

“To give your old man a hand with the clean-up,” Dad finished for me with a grin.

“Dad—”

“And I believe you made mention of cleaning my gutters?” Mum said.

“Why the hell did you bring that up, kid?” Dad asked, moving to elbow me in the ribs. “So I’ll just get him the ladder and some gloves, shall I, Heather?”

“You’ll be getting up there too, you old goat,” Mum said. “Leaving our boy to labour in the hot sun all on his own? He needs to get home and back to that beautiful girl of his.” She came closer and put a hand on my arm. “It was all a bit of a shock last night, but Van, I’m happy for you, love. You’ve held a torch for Kendall for some time, haven’t you?”

“Longer than you might think,” I croaked. “I love you guys and I don’t want drama, but…” I shook my head. “Nothing’s gonna stop me from being with my girl. Nothing.”

“Better get your arse up on the roof then,” Dad said with a sigh. “Get these jobs knocked over and then you can run back to Kendall and start making some grandkids for us to spoil.”

“Ooh!” Mum clapped her hands. “Do you think we’ll get more grandies because there’s more guys?”

“Um… not sure that’s how it works, Mum,” I said.

“You’d have to have at least three. A cute little boy with your eyes, or a girl with your blonde hair.” Mum sighed, a familiar clucky look on her face. “Oh, she’d be just beautiful.”

“If you let me go now, I could start practising for kids really, really hard,” I pleaded.

“Not a fucking chance, stud.” Dad punched me in the arm. “Now get your arse outside. I had the birds and the bees talk with you when you were a young fella, but now’s when I can share the real good stuff.” His eyes twinkled as we walked through the house. “I know some real good positions—”

“I’ll do the gutters all by myself if you stop talking.” I groaned.

“Done deal, kid.”