19. Tradition

CHAPTER19

Tradition

Remy

The next morning, Remy had his back to the headboard and his wife riding his cock.

And ever since Sabre could think coherent thoughts, they’d practiced the art of fucking without making a noise.

Therefore, they were doing this now, even if Wyn was taking his cock like she was willing her body to absorb it.

“Baby,” he murmured, tweaking her nipple.

She slid a hand back and claimed a fistful of his hair.

He heard the soft sound of warning, took her mouth to swallow the moan of her orgasm, and once she recovered from it, as if she wasn’t serious before, she set her sights on pounding one out of him.

He didn’t make her wait too long.

After it was over, she sat on his dick with her face in his neck.

“I need another hour of sleep,” she whispered.

In their time zone, she did.

He’d woken her to fuck.

But although Wyn needed a solid seven to eight hours every night, Remy was one of those people who was good with five to six.

So he was awake.

“I’ll clean you up and then go find coffee,” he replied.

She nodded, her hair moving along his shoulder.

As he’d been doing since they added physically reuniting to the rest of it, random things that felt important, because they were, he memorized.

And so he memorized the feel of her hair on his skin too.

She climbed off him and curled under the covers.

He kissed her shoulder and got out of bed making certain those covers were barely disturbed.

He came back with a washcloth, and she adjusted enough to let him take care of their business before she let him kiss her lazily and she snuggled down in the bed.

She mumbled, “Love you,” as he straightened.

But he took her in under silk and down and entrenched in one-thousand-plus thread count sheets, moved his eyes around the room, and then back to her when he said, “You were made to be right there.”

She blinked up at him, turning her head a little on the pillow.

“Sorry?”

“This house suits you. You were made to lie under silk in Egyptian cotton with opulence everywhere you turn.”

“That’s only because you love me.”

“It’s because of who you are, which is who you made yourself. But honest to God, you were that woman when I met you, Wyn, you just didn’t yet have the means to be who you were going to be.”

She scrunched her nose and replied, “Once a farm girl, always a farm girl.”

“You’re that too,” he replied. “But one who sleeps in expensive sheets.”

She nestled her head in the pillow, ordering, “Go away. You being amazing is making me want to do things other than sleep, and I have to have my wits about me to wrangle three rabidly protective children. Not to mention, I’m not facing any day with dark circles under my eyes.”

Although he wasn’t a big fan of her blowing off what he was saying, to let her have her sleep, and since she was looking at him out of the corners of her eyes, he grinned before he leaned in and kissed her temple.

Then he left her to it, took a shower and shaved.

She was sleeping when Remy exited the bathroom, so he quietly got dressed and moved into the hall.

All the doors to the rooms were closed, except the door to his old room, and Remy didn’t investigate.

His kids were in the same time zone as their mother and Manon and Yves had inherited her sleep needs.

Sabre, on the other hand, had inherited Remy’s.

It was unlikely he was hanging in the parlor, more likely he was out for a run.

Remy wasn’t about to run in that humidity.

Once, he wouldn’t have felt it.

Now?

No fucking way.

Instead, he went to the kitchen in search of coffee and found Melisande, his parent’s housekeeper.

She’d been with them for nearly seven years, lived in the carriage house across the drive and did everything for them from cleaning and laundry to cooking and running errands.

They’d always had a live-in, and as far as he knew, Guillaume had only fucked one of them. Her name had been Angela. She’d been there a very short time, and before her, and after, the rest were much older, and never conventionally pretty.

Melisande was different, however.

She was probably in her early thirties. She had a nice figure. And she was attractive.

She was also evidence his mother was slipping, as was his father, because, due to her no-nonsense personality, Remy was in no doubt Melisande wouldn’t allow Guillaume to touch her.

Which was why she’d lasted that long.

“Good morning, Remy,” she greeted.

“Morning, Melly.”

“Sleep well?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Coffee and breakfast?” she offered.

He nodded again.

“Your father’s at the table. So is coffee. Traditional southern? French toast? The House?” she asked after what he wanted for breakfast.

He smiled at her. “The House.”

She smiled back because she knew that would be his answer, and Remy moved into the dining room.

His father’s reaction to the news his grandchildren knew what happened in this house being too fresh, Remy was unprepared to see Guillaume at the dining table as he now was.

The last of a breed, sitting at a table with a live-in in the kitchen who made breakfast to order, coffee at hand in a silver pot that was used regardless that it had been crafted in Paris in the nineteenth century, reading an actual newspaper.

It was the newspaper that dug under Remy’s skin.

Colette had always slept late.

But Guillaume had sleep needs like Remy.

So whenever his father was home, even if their housekeeper would be the one to wake Remy so he’d get ready for school, Guillaume was at the table before Remy in the morning.

And every time, the moment he saw his son, he’d cease reading and go direct to the funny pages, which he’d hand Remy to read when he was little, or the sports section when he got older.

And even as a little boy, so he could be like his dad, Guillaume made sure Remy had a cup of coffee.

It was a café au lait, and it was always more steamed milk than coffee. Caffeinated or decaffeinated, he never knew. He just knew drinking it, he felt grown up, like his dad.

And Remy never forgot how important he felt, lounging at the breakfast table with his coffee, his paper and his father.

Even as a little kid, if his dad was home, he’d get up early so he’d have time to do that.

And when he was in his teens, drinking real coffee and reading the paper, he’d never lost that feeling of silent, morning, man-to-man camaraderie he shared with his dad.

So now, when Guillaume’s eyes landed on Remy, Remy was feeling a lot when his dad shook the paper closed, sat straighter in his chair, and said, “I suggest you consider your time at home with us a vacation from the news. It’s far from pleasant.”

“Comme c’est le cas ces jours-ci,” Remy replied, (as is the case these days), heading to the table, and reaching for the coffee.

This so he could ignore the warmth hitting his father’s expression that he’d spoken French.

Remy poured his coffee and sat down opposite his dad, who was seated not at the head, but at the side of the table.

And it only occurred to Remy right then that this was another man-to-man thing with his son.

When Colette was around, he took the head, Colette sat to his right side, and Remy sat where he was, middle to the left.

Separate from his parents.

More aptly, at distance from Colette.

But when Guillaume knew it would be only him and Remy, he sat opposite.

Not the man of the house.

In a position where they could look right at each other when they spoke, and no one was lording over the other.

“Sleep well?” Guillaume asked, setting the paper aside.

Remy answered, thinking instead of what he did after he woke, “Very.”

“Good,” his father said quietly. Then he cleared his throat and began, “About Yves—”

Remy swallowed the sip of coffee he’d taken and cut him off. “This is not an issue and I’ll not have it made an issue.”

He had more to say, but Guillaume spoke, surprising him with his words.

“Of course it’s not an issue.”

“You don’t—”

“Remy, stop being so American,” Guillaume drawled, and Remy felt his neck tighten. “When I was at school, half the boys did things with other boys. Most of that was what your mother said, experimentation. But some of it was because they simply liked boys. It’s exceedingly puritanical to think some mortal man interpreted the words of God to state this is wrong, when some men have loved being with men, and some women have loved being with women, and some love to be with whomever they please, since time began. I would think, considering this has always been the case, more than likely since history was even recorded, it’s quite naturally the case. And since God made us this way, that’s really all to be said, don’t you think?”

He did think.

However…

“Mom was—”

He was interrupted again, and although he had no qualms with what Guillaume was saying, it was annoying not being able to finish what he was saying.

“I had words with your mother. She was taken off guard, though you know how she is with these things. Very traditional. It was just that we both were annoyed at being blindsided, as I can assume you’d well imagine. Which was why I brought it up. Yves is who he is, and he’ll be our grandson and we’ll be proud of him regardless. But perhaps a little consideration can be borne in mind in the future?”

“Mom will be proud of him?” Remy asked dubiously.

“She’s exceedingly proud of all of you, fiston. Yes, including Wyn.”

Remy sat back in his chair and took a sip of his coffee, allowing that to share he didn’t believe what his father just said about Wyn.

Guillaume’s tone was sharper when he asked, “Considering the fact we both lost you for three years after she said what she said, and I’d done what I’d done, do you not think your mother and I had long conversations?”

Remy made no reply.

“I’ve been besotted with Wyn since I met her,” Guillaume continued. “If she didn’t speak, and I just watched her and her mannerisms, I’d think she was French.”

Remy sighed.

“And you know your mother. She gets competitive even if it isn’t rational.”

Remy made a noise in his throat that stated plainly, I wonder why that is?

Guillaume looked beyond Remy, to the palest, pale blue-green of the wall where a portrait hung of his great-grandmother lounging on a hip on a chaise longue, resting on her arms at the arm of the chair. She’d had her portrait done wearing long ivory gloves and a butter-yellow evening gown adorned with stitched-in ivory lace.

Her hair was parted in the middle and pinned at her nape, and his mother still owned the strand of a multitude of pearls draped at her neck.

His wife would one day have those pearls.

And she’d give them to their daughter.

Guillaume looked back to him and started, “I’ve made mistakes—”

Remy sat up in his chair. “Let’s not do this.”

“You are the best thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

Those words coming unexpected, Remy froze.

“I look at you, your children, your wife, the family you created. Do you not think it pains me to see my son has all that I did not?” his father demanded. “The pain coming from the fact that I was…it was me who—”

“Dad, like I said, let’s not do this,” Remy bit off.

“Why did you leave Wyn?”

“Okay, I’m not doing this.”

“She’s an extraordinary woman.”

“I know that.”

“She loves you more than she loves even herself.”

“I know that too.”

His father’s face got hard. “I’m trying to be a father to you, Remy.”

“Too late,” Remy replied mildly and took another sip of his coffee, ignoring the fact that his father looked like he’d been struck.

Then Guillaume asked, “What would you do if Wyn was like your mother?”

“No way in hell I would marry a woman like Mom.”

“I’m speaking in hypotheticals.”

“Even so, it’s impossible to answer because even hypothetically that would never happen.”

“What would you do if you loved a woman more than anything,” his dad pushed, “and she was…not right?”

“I wouldn’t fuck around on her making her even more…not right,” Remy retorted.

His father’s shoulders visibly tightened. “It’s the French way.”

“It’s fucked up.”

“Remy—”

“Let’s not do this, Dad.”

“Do you think, what she did to you, she did not do to me a thousand-fold?”

And again, Remy froze.

Guillaume kept speaking.

“Your grandmother was a vapid woman. I would have been uncertain she had much but air between her ears, except she was uncommonly cruel to her daughter. She wished her daughter’s death, not her husband’s. And she did not wish that because of love for her husband, but because she wanted no responsibility except selecting which gown to wear to which event she’d attend each evening. She was infuriated she was saddled with a child, a home and a business she had to see to herself. And as such, it isn’t lost on you, she saw to all of them very poorly.”

Remy didn’t have anything to say, but even if he did, Guillaume wasn’t finished.

“I took one look at your mother, I saw this extraordinarily beautiful woman who needed to be saved, and I was lost. I was young and that romantic notion was too much for me to ignore. I fell in love with her and set about saving her. It wasn’t until much later that I realized the damage was done. But I was still in love with her, much more so by then. What did I do? I am a man and not a small man. When she slapped me, did I slap back? When she used her nails on me, did I bind her then cut them to the quick? When her tantrums woke the neighbors, did I gag her?”

“Well done for deciding to just absent yourself and letting your child deal with it,” Remy replied.

“We left her four times, do you not remember?”

Remy felt his blood turn sluggish in his veins.

And it seemed his lips didn’t move when he answered, “No, I don’t remember.”

“We were in France, without her.”

Fuck.

He remembered that.

Maybe around when he was four. Definitely when he was six. His dad had even enrolled him in school that time. And again at seven. Last, not long after, when he was eight.

Respectively, the pump, the brush, the cut from the vase, and the broken arm.

His mom was not with them, but he didn’t know they’d left her.

He just knew they’d left.

“To get me back, us back, she promised,” Guillaume continued.

Remy said nothing.

“She lied,” Guillaume finished.

“So why—?”

“Why did Wyn take you back when you left her? I love her. And after the last, when I told her she wouldn’t get another chance, it stopped.”

“It didn’t stop, Dad.”

“I had our housekeepers reporting.”

He did?

“It didn’t stop, Dad.”

That was when Guillaume froze.

“It didn’t stop until I was eleven. She shoved me, and I pushed her back. I told her—”

Oh Christ.

He told her to tell his father.

And telling his father, they both knew, meant his father would know he didn’t push her for the fuck of it.

He pushed her because he was fed up and was pushing back.

Now he knew, that if he’d told his dad…

“You told her what?” Guillaume prompted.

“She threatened to tell you what I’d done. I told her I wanted her to. After that, the physical stuff stopped.”

Abruptly, with an awful look on his face Remy could barely witness, Guillaume started to rise from his chair but stopped and settled back when Melisande arrived and set in front of Remy a plate filled with oysters fried in cornmeal and poached eggs covered in hollandaise sauce with creole seasoning, on top of ham and biscuits.

“The House,” or the breakfast Cormier men had been eating in that house for over a hundred years.

Not the women.

They got one egg, half a biscuit, the ham and sauce, but nothing fried, and it was assumed they wouldn’t finish it.

Wyn ordered it without the oysters, which was to say, two eggs, not one, and a full biscuit.

Manon had it as it was and ate every bite.

“Thanks,” he pushed out.

“Anything else, Remy?” Melisande queried.

“I’m good.”

“For you, Mr. Gastineau?” she asked his dad.

Remy looked and saw his father had smoothed his expression.

“The others will be waking soon, my dear, perhaps fresh coffee?” Guillaume ordered.

She nodded and reached for the pot. She then left.

That was when Guillaume got up and stood at the window to look out.

Remy stared at his back and wondered, holding himself so tight, if the compression would get too much and he’d fly apart.

“Dad?” he called.

“What do I do now?” he asked the window.

“Nothing,” Remy answered. “It’s done. There’s nothing to do.”

Guillaume turned. “I made a deal with my wife that she would cease abusing our son, and she did not honor her end of that deal, and I’m to do nothing?”

“It was over forty years ago and she’s dying.”

Guillaume jutted his chin forward and clipped, “I don’t care if it was a hundred years ago, she promised she’d stop hurting you.”

Well…

Fuck.

“I forgot how much the children love beignets,” Guillaume suddenly declared. “I’m going to Café Du Monde to get some for them.”

It was arguable, but Melisande’s beignets might be better than CDM’s.

Remy didn’t argue it.

It was not arguable, but the first morning at the family home in New Orleans, they’d all want the House. It was the second morning they went to CDM for beignets.

He didn’t mention that either.

He said firmly, “Please be careful.”

“Mais bien sûr,” Guillaume replied before striding from the room.

Remy looked down to his food, but he didn’t eat it.

He then heard a noise in the kitchen, and even though his mind was fucked right the hell up with all that he’d just learned, he wasn’t going to ask Melly to make the effort of cooking his breakfast and not eat it.

Therefore, he set about doing that.

She came back with a fresh pot of coffee, and about five minutes later, both his sons, faces and bodies slick with sweat, fresh glasses of juice they likely got from Melisande in hand, came in from the kitchen and parked themselves at the dining room table.

“There’s no one here, so your personal assault in the form of sweat on the turn-of-the-century dining chairs is unoffensive,” Remy noted.

Yves slugged back juice.

Sabre said, “Whatever. Who has chairs at a dining room table you practically have to wear a tux to sit in?”

Remy skirted that and asked, “Run good?”

“Hear me now, hold me to it later, I will never live anywhere with humidity in my life,” Yves declared.

“Word, bro,” Sah agreed.

“Maybe drink your juice and go take a shower?” Remy suggested.

“You okay?” Sah asked, watching him closely.

“I’m fine,” Remy lied.

“You down here by yourself?” Yves asked, his gaze sliding over the folded paper on the table.

“Your mom and sister are still sleeping.” He turned his head to Yves. “I’m surprised you’re not.”

“Sabre dragged me out, telling me I should run it off rather than get up in Grandma’s shit again.”

“Though, that was fucking epic,” Sah remarked, reaching to the coffee.

“Hear me now, don’t hold me to it later, your brother is wise,” Remy joked to Yves.

Both quirked grins at him.

Then Sabre’s eyes returned to the paper.

They came back to his dad. “Was Pépé here?”

“He left to get you guys beignets.”

“He give you shit about Yves?”

“No,” Remy said and looked again at Yves. “He says homosexuality has been around since before recorded time, so it’s entirely natural.”

Yves didn’t hide his surprise including enunciating it. “Whoa.”

“He and I still would like you to lay off your grandmother,” Remy went on.

“The marital affairs crack was not on,” Yves clipped.

“She’s a dying woman hiding behind her lipstick. You’re a vital young man with your whole life ahead of you, and your mother was standing there looking like she was about to be called to film her next scene with Brad Pitt. Maybe cut her some slack?” Remy requested.

“You’re totally hotter than Brad Pitt, Dad,” Yves told him.

“I’ll take that as an informed opinion,” Remy quipped.

Yves busted out laughing.

“What else did you and Pépé talk about?” Sabre butted in.

Remy leveled his eyes on his oldest boy who he saw was unamused.

He regarded him a beat before he asked back, “When’d you get so fucking smart?”

“He knows we have the House the first day. Why’s he getting beignets?” Sabre pressed on.

Yeah.

Fucking smart.

“He told me something I didn’t know. That we’d left Mom four times in his efforts to get her to stop doing what she was doing. I remember being in France with him, and Mom wasn’t with us. I was just too young to know why we were there. All my life, we went there often, so it wasn’t entirely out of the norm. Though, I do remember going to school there for a couple of months when I was in first grade, which was not normal. The final time was a couple of years later. The last straw and he made that clear. She promised she’d stop. Then I told him something he didn’t know, she didn’t stop. He was understandably pissed and he’s taking a drive to cool off.”

“He…took you away?” Yves asked.

Remy reached toward the coffee pot to give himself a refill. “Apparently.”

“Well, damn,” Yves muttered.

“Do you believe him?” Sabre queried.

Having filled his cup, Remy put the pot back. “I remember explicitly being in France. And with this brought to mind, I remember my grandparents being there and being pretty damned attentive. Uncle Luc and Aunt Francesca coming to visit frequently. I also know I have an affinity with Uncle Luc, and in some senses Aunt Francesca, because we’re family and they’re great, but also because Uncle Luc had little patience with my mother. Aunt Francesca just avoided her, though she made a point not to avoid me. When Mom was around, they’d take me on a lot of excursions, pointedly leaving her behind. But Uncle Luc…”

He shook his head, caught the fact both his sons were watching closely and listening to every word, allowed himself a private moment to let it settle what great fucking kids they both were, then he carried on.

“Looking back, he actively disliked her and would shit-talk her, doing this to her face. Mostly in French, which she knows a little of, but never became fluent since Dad translated for her all the time. But I knew what he was saying.”

“Always liked that guy,” Yves murmured.

“How do you feel about all that?” Sabre inquired.

Before Remy ate one of his last oysters, he said, “I need to think on it.”

“He loves you, Dad,” Sabre said.

Remy swallowed and paid even more attention to his son.

“I know he does,” he replied.

“No, I think that was why I was so pissed at him,” Sabre said. “Because, you know, he looks at you sometimes and his chest gets all puffed out. And it’s like…like…if I look at the sidelines after I make a goal or I see you after I’ve made an important pass, that’s how you’re looking at me. And I thought that was all bullshit with Pépé, because you can’t love someone and let them…”

Sabre didn’t finish.

So Remy said, “I know.”

“But, you know, if he took you away. If he thought…I don’t know. He loves her too. Like, a lot. But he left her and that kinda freaks me out because she’s always been a pain, and he puts up with it. But he left her. For you.”

He did.

Four times.

“And he always remembers we like beignets,” Yves said quietly. “It’s tradition. First day, the House. And second day, Pépé takes us to CDM.”

“Tradition,” Sabre agreed. “Because he knows we love beignets.”

Remy looked to the window.

“Stop talking about it, Sah,” Yves muttered.

He glanced between them and assured, “I’m all right.”

“Sure?” Yves asked.

Remy smiled and nodded at his last born.

“Maybe it’ll get to, like, feeling good to know he, like…tried,” Sabre suggested.

“Jesus, Sah, stop talking about it,” Yves clipped.

“I’m fine, and yes, maybe it will, Sabre,” Remy said.

“I’ll shut up now,” Sabre replied, sitting back with his coffee.

“I’ll give fifty dollars to either or both of you if you can manage to shower and dress in clean clothes that don’t smell like a locker room before Melly comes back with your breakfast,” Remy challenged.

Yves’s chair almost tipped over, and Sabre didn’t spill a drop of the coffee he took with him as his sons bolted from the table.

Then Remy sat with the remains of his own breakfast and coffee and stared at the window with his great-grandmother’s unseeing eyes gazing at the back of his head.

And he gave himself a minute to sit with the profound idea that, yes.

He tried.