Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 82341 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 412(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82341 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 412(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Harry stepped up next to me. “I’ll join you.”
While we walked to the hotel lounge, we made small talk until I mentioned we lived in Hobie, Texas. “You’re kidding?” he asked. “My son and daughter-in-law have a vacation home on the lake there. What a beautiful place.”
“You’ll have to come visit sometime. We’d love to show you around. It’s a great little town. My family has lived there for generations.”
Harry studied me. “How in the world did Tilly’s brother wind up in tiny Hobie, Texas?”
I grinned at him. “Long story.”
Chapter 36
Weston “Major” Marian
We spent the rest of the afternoon talking each other’s ears off. Tilly was the same sassy girl I’d known as a child, but now she also had an entire life’s worth of experience and wisdom behind it. And maybe a healthy dash of irreverence. She was a riot and had Doc laughing so hard at times, I thought maybe I was going to have to make a joke about needing adult diapers before long.
At one point we moved our foursome out to the lobby where both Wildes and Marians congregated around us, quietly at first. They asked us questions about growing up together and asked more about our lives between Bakersfield and now. I discovered that she’d somehow ended up in the same kind of wild and wonderful extended family we had. I’d never seen so many gay men under one roof in all my life.
After I’d finally convinced Tilly to join me for a visit to Miller and his sick mother the following week, my granddaughter Sassy came up and looped an arm through mine with a soft whine. “What the hell, Grandpa. All the good ones really are gay. This is worse than going to Stallions with my brothers on dollar martini night.”
I kissed the top of her curly hair. “Meh, you’re better off anyway. They’re all related. Sort of.”
Once heavy hors d’oeuvres appeared out of nowhere and began circulating, the party ramped up in volume and excitement. Tristan Marian made sure everyone who wanted some had a glass of wine in hand and distributed bottles of water to everyone else. Someone turned on music while someone else stoked the fire and turned on twinkle lights around the large space as the sun went down outside.
Doc and I eventually snuggled into the corner of one of the giant sofas and talked to absolutely everyone at some point. We got to know Thomas and Rebecca’s children, and I had a chance to ask Thomas about his father, my brother, Walt. It sounded like he’d been a milder version of my strict father because Thomas credited Rebecca with turning his own life around and opening his mind.
Rebecca cut in. “Don’t get me wrong, Walt was a nice man. But if he hadn’t passed away already, he would have died when he realized our boys were gay. And that’s before we got involved in the shelter and adopted more kids. He was just… well, we always told the kids he was from another generation.”
“How the hell did Tilly make it out with such a different outlook?” Doc asked.
Thomas’s eyes crinkled with laughter. “She roomed in college with a total hippie. Her name was Maureen, but she went by Moonbeam, swear to god. Let’s just say, she introduced Tilly to the wild side. They spent spring break marching on Washington and summer vacation allowing Maureen’s rich family to fund their escapades to Europe and the Cape.”
Doc leaned across me to ask a question in a low voice. “Where’d she get all her money?”
Thomas leaned in, squishing Rebecca against me. “To this day, nobody knows.”
I caught my sister’s eye across the coffee table. She winked at me and then seemed to notice my grandson Hudson sitting on a nearby chair. She tilted her head and then narrowed her eyes at him.
“Holy crap, it’s you!” she cried. “The dumbass who accidentally proposed to someone.”
Hudson’s eyes grew comically wider as the lightbulb went off. “The flight to Ireland! That’s where I know you guys from!”
He turned to his husband to explain. “Right before I first met you. This is the lady on the airplane who told me to, er, I mean…” His face flushed deep red.
Charlie turned to Tilly with a giant grin and his enticing lilt. “Thank ye kindly for suggesting the sausage over the tacos, ma’am. He turned out to have a wee taste for it.”
The entire room tittered with excitement and laughter before demanding the whole story. Tilly seemed enchanted by Charlie. After asking him a million questions about his meeting Hudson, she finally winked at him and said, “I don’t really give a shit. I just wanted to hear you talk.”
At one point, a stranger entered the lobby and looked around until locking eyes on King. King froze and stared at the man as if seeing a ghost. When the stranger approached, King stood.