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The First Annual Leon Family Re

It was a forty-five-minute drive up out of the valley. It shouldn't have felt so long.

When Tean was sure that the girls were caught up in their own conversation (it sounded like Sofia was explaining to Anahí, with only a loose grip of anatomy, why Bluey could walk on two legs and Scipio couldn't), he interrupted his husband.

"Jem, I love you. You're the most important person in my life."

Jem's eyebrows went up, but all he said was "Except for the girls."

"There's not really a comparison."

"And Scipio."

"I love Scipio, but he's a dog, and you're my husband."

"Wow." Jem dragged out the single syllable. "He's going to be pissed when I tell him you said that."

Tean took a deep breath. When he trusted his voice, he said, "I love you so much. But I need this to be the last conversation we ever have about whether or not you're going to get frosted tips."

"What?" And when Tean didn't respond right away, Jem added, "Are you kidding me?"

"Either do it or don't. I can't talk about it anymore."

"That's the whole problem: I can't decide. On the one hand, Emery did it—I mean, Colt sent us the pictures, and you saw how awesome it looked—but on the other hand—"

"Jeremiah!"

"Okay, okay. Got it. Message received. Transmission, uh, transmitted."

But that was too easy.

"You mean for the rest of the trip, right?" Jem asked.

You weren't supposed to close your eyes while driving up a canyon (well, while driving in general), but Tean wondered if there was an exception for husband-related moments.

"It's going to be fine," Jem said in a quieter voice. He rubbed Tean's shoulder, and Tean could feel how stiff his own body was. "If there's a problem, we'll handle it. That's what we do."

Tean shook his head.

Jem must have heard what he didn't say, though, because he continued, "The girls are going to have a great time. And everyone's going to be nice to them. And nice to you. And nice to me, because I'm charming. Or I'll kick their ass."

"Tean!" Sofia shouted, interrupting her own explanation. "Jem said ass!"

"Jem said ass," Anahí echoed.

Jem held up his hands in surrender.

The problem wasn't just that it was a family reunion, Tean thought as they drove through Park City toward the house they'd rented for the weekend. A family reunion might have been manageable if it were just the two of them. After all, Jem had done a good job of setting boundaries—to put it politely—with Tean's family, and Tean had gotten better himself at negotiating some of those fraught relationships.

No, the issue was the girls. Not that they were a problem ; the opposite. But how would Tean's brothers and sisters treat them? How would the in-laws react? What about the nieces and nephews? Was he supposed to introduce them as cousins?

"Deep breaths," Jem said as they turned onto the property. His fingers kneaded Tean's shoulder. "Hey, here's an idea: we line everybody up, and I'll fight them one by one."

"Yeah, fight!" Anahí screamed from the back.

"I'll start with your mom," Jem said. "She's right-handed, right?"

"Fight!" Sofia screeched.

"No fighting!" Tean said. "Nobody's fighting anyone. We don't solve our problems with violence." He added a look for Jem. "Do I make myself clear?"

Jem's exaggerated nod, and the even more exaggerated wink, made Tean swallow a groan.

"But I could totally take her," Jem whispered once the girls were talking about Bluey again.

Fortunately, Tean didn't have to respond to that because they'd arrived. He parked in front of the renovated farmhouse. Around them, acres of manicured lawn made a vibrant green contrast to the dusty sage and brown of the valley—expensive and showy and not at all native. Some of the nieces and nephews ran across the grass, playing a game that Tean didn't understand, while the adults watched from the deck.

"Let the funeral march begin," Tean said as he unbuckled himself.

"What's a funeral march?" Anahí asked.

"It's like a parade," Jem said, "but for dead people."

"Jem!"

But Sofia and Anahí screamed over him: "Yay! A parade!"

It honestly wasn't as bad as it could have been. Some of it, sure, was what Tean had expected. His dad dominated the conversation at the beginning, telling everyone how much it had cost to rent this place, never mind that his children were paying for most of it. And his brother Amos made a snide remark about Jem's embellishments to the mandatory family reunion T-shirt. On the back, the T-shirt was standard issue: FIRST ANNUAL LEON FAMILY REUNION, with a posterized image of Tean's parents and the year 1981, when they'd gotten married. But where the rest of the family had gotten away with an unadorned front, Jem had...improved the shirts by adding their names. In giant letters. That he'd subsequently bedazzled.

But other parts went better than Tean could have hoped. Jem immediately fell in love with Great-aunt Marion, which mostly had to do with the food she'd prepared. The Dutch oven chicken, the funeral potatoes ("Yay! Potatoes!"), the Rhodes dinner rolls—they all made a significant impression on Tean's husband. But after Jem's third rapturous attempt to describe his love for Great-aunt Marion's scones, Tean decided he was going to add fried dough to the things-we-don't-talk-about list, along with frosted tips.

"They're not even real scones," he tried to explain. "That's just what they call them in Utah."

Jem nodded as though absorbing the words, but he was already speaking before Tean finished. "And you've got to try this dessert. What's it called, Aunt Marion?"

"She's not your aunt," Tean put in.

"Better than Robert Redford," Great-aunt Marion said. And then, in a guilty whisper, "But Hazel calls it Better than Sex."

"Oh my God," Jem said. "We're totally calling it that."

Great-aunt Marion couldn't stop giggling.

The love fest finally broke up after Jem kissed Great-aunt Marion on the cheek so many times that her angina started acting up, and she had to go lie down.

By the time Tean finished helping with the clean-up, Jem had gotten cornered by Uncle Nephi, who wore a calculator watch and whose hobby was programming TV remote controls.

"And Amos's birthday is October twenty-second," Uncle Nephi was saying. "I know everybody's birthday."

"What's mine?" Jem asked.

"Has anyone seen Glade?" Sara called from the deck.

Uncle Nephi looked a bit askance at Jem's question.

"I'll give you a hint," Jem said. "It's not in January."

"That's not much of a hint," Uncle Nephi said.

"Time for games," Tean's mother announced.

"It's not in February," Jem said.

"Can you help the girls with the games?" Tean asked.

"What if we make a bet?" Jem asked.

"Jem."

"What do they need help with? They're fine."

And that, at least, seemed to be true—although Amos had given the girls the stink eye a few times, everyone else had acted as though their presence was totally normal. At that moment, they were playing with the rest of the kids, slowly being herded by Corom and Seth onto the lawn.

"I'll give you even money," Jem said to Uncle Nephi. "It's not March."

"Is it in April?" Uncle Nephi asked with a hint of desperation.

"Jem!"

"Why can't you help the girls?"

"Because I have to find Glade before he burns the house down."

Jem sighed and turned toward the kids gathering on the lawn.

"Is your birthday on Christmas?" Uncle Nephi blurted.

Jem's little wave and smile, of course, gave away nothing.

After finding Glade—who had, as a matter of fact, been opening a box of matches when Tean found him, true to form for his little pyromaniac heart—Tean accompanied the eleven-year-old vandal back to the games.

But he was too late.

"Who's ready for Three Deep?" Tean's mom called.

"No," Tean tried.

But excited cheers drowned him out.

"What is Three Deep?" Jem asked, hooking an arm around Tean's waist.

"It's nothing. We can sit this one out—"

"Now, the rules are simple," his mom was saying. "Everyone take a slip of paper. You're all trying to find your group. Each group has a top—"

Jem's eyes got huge.

Tean groaned.

"—a middle—"

"Yes," Jem whispered. "Please."

"—and a bottom," Tean's mother continued. "Once you find your group, you're going to sit in a stack—top, middle, bottom. Three deep! Ready, set, go!"

Cries of "Top! Top!" and "Where's my bottom?" rang out.

"I have to FaceTime Auggie," Jem said between giggles as he dug out his phone. "He's not going to believe—"

Tean caught a glimpse of Amos's face; his brother was staring at them with a look that suggested he knew exactly why Jem found the game so amusing and, of course, disapproved of, well, everything.

"Stop," Tean whispered harshly, shoving Jem's phone down. "Just stop, okay?"

The hurt came first in Jem's face. And then smooth nothing.

Around them, shouts and laughter drifted up toward the thickening stars.

"I'm sorry," Tean said.

"No, it's okay. I shouldn't have—"

"No." Tean drew a deep breath. "No, Jem. I'm sorry. I've been so nervous about—" He shook his head and spread his hands. "And I hate it. I hate that I care. I hate that I even think about that kind of thing. And I'm sorry that I'm letting my—my weirdness make me treat you badly. You've been so sweet and kind and such a good sport about everything—" The words seemed to have gotten away from him in the flow of the apology, and he couldn't seem to stop himself as more spilled out. "—and I honestly think Great-aunt Marion thinks she's supposed to marry you now because your lips touched her lips."

It seemed like a long time before Jem said, "Only a tiny bit. And it would be a sham marriage anyway because I'd still secretly love you."

Tean laughed, but he wiped his eyes.

"Come on," Jem whispered as he hugged him. "It's okay. We're going to have a great time."

"Yes, we are." Tean cleared his throat. He wiped his face one last time. And then he said, "Get Auggie on the phone. And then you officially have my permission to go find your bottom."

"That is the sweetest thing you've ever said to me."

"No," Tean said, "it's not."

Jem looked like he might argue the point, but before he could, the girls sprinted up to them. Sofia was grinning as she waved a bubble wand—where it had come from, Tean had no idea—and Anahí jumped in place as soon as she stopped running.

"Jem, Jem!" Anahí waved her arms in case he hadn't heard her. "The next game is called Capture the Bacon!" And she giggled like that was the craziest thing she'd ever heard.

"And Uncle Seth says you have to be on his team!" Sofia said. She pointed to Seth, as though Jem might not understand. "Come on!"

Jem glanced at Tean.

Tean smiled and kissed his husband on the cheek. "Save some energy for Shake It," he said. "You literally just shake your ass to make ping-pong balls fall out of a box."

"Oh my God," Jem whispered. "I'm going to cream these guys."

In spite of himself, Tean grinned.

Then Sofia and Anahí were pulling him into the throng of family, as cries of "Tean said ass!" floated back through the night.

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