His mother drew him aside while the rest of the family gathered in the living room and den. Following into Jonah’s study after her he moved to close the door part of the way. Before he did, he watched Maggie for a moment, seated in the center of the couch, flanked by the twins as they laughed and pointed at baby pictures of Grey in the photo album Velvet had just gifted her with.
She still looked somewhat overwhelmed by the whole situation, and what was that other emotion? Guilt, probably. He recognized it because he felt it too. Pulling the wool over everybody’s eyes like this. Making believe they were a loving husband and wife and allowing everyone to act like fools about it.
Jonah crossed Grey’s vision, coming from the sideboard with a ginger ale in hand. They locked eyes. Besides Maggie and himself, Jonah was the only other member of the family who knew why Grey’d married her. And Jonah had been a fucking sweetheart all night, deftly helping Grey and Maggie dodge and skirt the seemingly ceaseless barrage of awkward questions peppered at them from all angles. Grey was still furious with him over the money, but since Maggie turned out to be the kind of woman who couldn’t be bought-off he supposed it didn’t matter much afterall. He nodded just slightly at his Dad and Jonah responded in kind.
“Honey?” His mother half-whispered. He took a breath and turned. She had that look. That very ‘Velvet Delaney’ look about her. That glowing, emotional, idealistic sort of hopeful radiance that made people love her. Despite himself he smiled at it. Though he knew it was likely something he’d have to grin and bear, something he’d have to pretend to be enthusiastic about to appease her.
“Thanks again for dinner.” he said, crossing to her and bending to give her a kiss on the cheek. She was such an angel. And, good Christ, did she ever seem to adore Maggie. He rolled his eyes just thinking about the way she’d fawned all over the girl for the entire evening. By the time he straightened up, though, his face was composed again and he was smiling pleasantly.
“I have something for you. Well. And for Maggie, really, I suppose.” She giggled.
“No, Mum, you and Dad have done so much already, really, no more.” He was sick of pretending gratitude for things he could give two shits about. That fucking honeymoon? The Cottage? Now the money for a house? Plus his dad had mentioned something about freeing up the trust fund early, or at least making sure Grey was covered until graduation came around and his money was at last his money. Fuck. They were entirely too generous.
“Well, yes, no, but, oh—“ She grinned and slipped something small from Jonah’s top desk drawer. Good God, she’d planned this out, given it a lot of fucking thought. She held out a breathtaking princess cut diamond, Grey guessed 2 ½ to 3 karats, set in platinum.
“Jesus Christ.”
“Grey.” His mother tittered, lifting his hand and pressing it into his palm.
He didn’t say anything more, because all he could think to say involved harder expletives than ‘Jesus’ or ‘Christ’.
After a moment, Velvet, never comfortable with quiet, rushed to fill the silence. “I noticed Maggie didn’t have an engagement ring, and, well, that’s probably because it was all so spur-of-the-moment and in-the-heat-of-passion that you two eloped!” His eyes were glued to the flawless diamond. It must be worth a fortune. “And had I known you were even thinking about settling down, well, I would have given this to you before the marriage! I realize this is a little backwards--”
“Mum, I don’t want my mother picking out my bride’s engagement ring.” He said as kindly as he possibly could. It wasn’t that she didn’t have impeccable taste, it’s that it was fairly emasculating. He huffed and held the ring back out to her. Besides, he didn’t want to get his ‘wife’ any ring of any kind. She had the gold fucking band and that would be the end of it. He wasn’t going to play these games.
“Oh, no, no, of course—“ she said, her voice changing. “But this belongs to you.” She held her hands up and refused to take the ring back from Grey.
He scrunched his eyebrows and looked at her. “Pardon?”
A melancholy smile flashed over her face and her pale green eyes welled with emotion. “That was my engagement ring.” She stated, her voice a little wistful.
Grey’s eyes went automatically to her left ring finger where the more modest tear-drop diamond he’d always known her to wear sat alongside her white-gold band. And then he understood. He stared at the princess cut monster again and felt every urge to drop it.
“I don’t want anything from that man.” He said, trying to keep the ferocity from his voice; he didn’t want to frighten his mother.
“But—“ Velvet looked crestfallen. “It isn’t about him.” She explained. “This ring, in my mind, is about you.” She searched his eyes but he was stony. “I’ve saved it for you, for when you finally found the one.” She whispered, a single tear slipping down her cheek.
Grey pressed his lips together and wanted to curse. He couldn’t stand it when his mother was upset. “I’m sorry Mum, and thank you, the sentiment is beautiful, but—“ He took a breath. There was no way he was going to put this ring on Maggie’s finger. Even if the marriage was every bit the sham his mother’s had been. “Every time I’d look at it all I’d be able to think about was what that man did to you.” He finished passionately and fixed his eyes on the floor. He didn’t want to watch more tears. He pushed the ring further toward her and at last she took it from him with trembling fingers.
He shoved his hands in his pockets and waited for her to speak. Waited for the signal that it was safe to look up once again.
“Your father thought you might feel like that.” Velvet said in a tremulous voice.
Grey sighed and shrugged. Fucking Jonah—poor fucking sap. He wondered how much it had cost the man to allow his wife this little fantasy, how much it had hurt him to have her keep this remnant of her first marriage and save it up as some symbol of Grey’s birthright. “I am sorry, that you’ve been saving it all this time.” He told her, a finality edging the words.
Before he could remove his hands from his pockets she’d wrapped him in a fierce hug. “Don’t you apologize, Grey Delaney.” She said, her voice strong despite the sob he could hear welling up underneath it. “That was probably the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
He struggled to pull his hands free of his pockets to return the hug, feeling awkward and shackled by her slim but surprisingly vise-like arms. He rolled his eyes and furrowed his brow. He believed he could think of a lot sweeter things he’d said to her over the years, but he guessed he understood.
“I want you to know that I don’t regret any of it, with him, with Vaughan, because you are the best thing that ever happened to me.” She whispered against his chest. His heart lurched and he had to swallow hard and blink rapidly. He knew he was her favorite, people say mothers favor sons and he was the only boy, but the best thing that ever happened to her? He almost felt guilty about that.
“Mum—“
She let him go and quickly wiped the wetness from her cheeks. “Shh.” She said and giggled shortly. “Don’t tell anyone else I said that.” She joked shakily, and he laughed once in response. He screwed up enough courage to meet her eyes, now that she was teasing and laughing at herself. But he found she wasn’t looking at him.
She was looking at her left ring finger. He heard her suck in a deep breath and watched as she slowly slipped the teardrop shaped diamond from her finger, very carefully, very lovingly, and she lifted it to her lips, then held it out to him.
He took a step back. “No.” He said, hardly more than a whisper. That ring meant too much. “That makes even less sense.” He told her with a little laugh. “Give that to one of the girls.” He said, glancing from where she held it out to him to her face and back.
She smiled, though a frown pulled the corners down. “Don’t be silly.” She said, but her voice hitched. “We only have one son.” She said heavily.
He ran a hand through his hair and blew an exhale through his lips. He shook his head. “It doesn’t feel right.” He said, cursing his legs for shaking. His Mom and Dad’s marriage was beautiful. It was as close to perfect as Grey believed any real-life marriage could get. Even with the screwing around his mom still did with her ex, and even with whatever the fuck his dad had been doing last weekend when he’d had the house to himself, even despite all that—because sex was sex and nobody understood that better than Grey—so even despite that business, their marriage was loving and solid and committed, and good and true. He would feel like a fucking asshole if he gave that ring to the woman he’d been blackmailed into marrying.
“Why not?” She asked earnestly. “Your Dad gave this to me on the day you were born.” She told him, a sweet smile curving her lips and a far-away look pulling her eyes to some distant memory over his shoulder.
He hadn’t known that. The impact of it hit him like a freight train. He felt it almost like getting the wind knocked out of him. His eyes welled unexpectedly, and his knees went weak, and for some reason he couldn’t really draw a proper breath. He moved to the desk and sat on the edge of it, one leg hooked over the corner, the other extended straight, anchoring him to the ground. He watched his mother for a long moment. “Why?” He asked. Though he thought he knew his Dad well enough to guess.
She sighed and walked toward one of the windows and looked out in the direction of the cottage, though it wasn’t quite visible from the study. “He really should have waited—I was still married to your, to your, Vaughan.” She said. “But he did it anyway.” He heard her sigh as if it were the most romantic thing in the world to poach another guy’s wife. “He said we were a family and he wanted to spend the rest of his life making us happy.”
Grey’s Adam’s apple bobbed and his nose twitched. He’d never heard this. They hadn’t married for another three years. “Why the long engagement?” He asked. He’d wondered it before.
“I was afraid.” She said simply, turning from the window and facing him.
They locked eyes and he gave her a soft smile. “Of Dad?” He was the opposite of Vaughan in every way he could think of, what was there to be afraid of?
“Of making a mistake.” She confessed. “I loved your Dad from the minute I laid eyes on him but your, but Vaughan—“
Grey held up a hand and she stopped. He didn’t want to discuss anything more of Vaughan Grey and she understood. They fell into a silence and Grey heard the bubbling, overlapping conversations from the den. The sounds of a happy family. He wondered how Maggie was faring. Not that he should care. But he knew he wouldn’t be thrilled to be abandoned in the thick of her relatives all-by-his-lonesome for this long.
“He asked you for permission.” His mother said in a fond voice.
Grey cocked an eyebrow. “I’m sorry?”
She sighed warmly. “He held you, you were so small! And he told me ‘this is between us men’,” She giggled at the memory. “And he asked you if you would consent to him marrying your mother.” She sighed again, twisting the ring in her fingers adoringly. “You made a little sound, and we were both so surprised!” She laughed, “And then he pulled the ring from his pocket.” She lifted it to her lips again.
Grey was quiet. His eyes had welled up again and he felt like a fucking pussy. What the fuck was wrong with him all of a sudden?
“And he told me, ‘Velvet I know you aren’t ready to marry me yet, and I understand, but I want you to know there’s nothing more I want to do with my life than stay by your side and be a family and make you happy, and I’ll wait forever for you’…” She trailed off and Grey looked at her expectantly, blinking the moisture from his eyes. What a fucking sap his dad was.
Velvet was looking past Grey again, but this time her eyes were here in the present. Grey turned over his shoulder to see Jonah, who’d slipped in quietly and was standing with his arms crossed, leaning up against the wall of the study looking sadder than Grey had ever seen him.
“You made me a dad and a husband, son.” He said quietly. “The rest is semantics.”
Grey sniffed and ran both hands through his hair before rising from his seat on the desk. “Thank you both, but I’d rather not take that ring.” He looked at Jonah. He heard his mother’s little inhalation behind him and silently he begged his Dad to help him, communicated his desperation with his eyes.
Behind the glasses Jonah blinked once and then turned to his wife. “Choosing that ring was very important to me, dearest, and I think Grey wants to take his time and find the perfect one for his wife.” Grey closed his eyes and thanked his Dad wordlessly before turning to smile charmingly at his mother.
“Your advice and expertise will be most welcome.” He assured her smoothly.
Velvet tilted her head to the side. “You’re sure?”
“Thank you—Both—Yes, I’m sure.” He crossed the short distance to where his mother stood, somewhat disappointed and adrift. “That belongs on your finger.” He said, and kissed her cheek softly.
He strode toward the study door and paused for just a moment when he reached Jonah. He wanted to thank him but found himself unwilling to do it. Instead quirked his lips in a small, arrogant smile and departed the study.
As he strode into the den he heard the door click softly behind him and wondered just what Jonah would say to his mother. Then Maggie looked up from the photo album on her lap and her relief at seeing him manifested in a tentative smile.
Before he could control himself he smiled back in answer. Son of a bitch. He wished the woman weren’t so fucking likeable. He forced the smile into a scowl and crossed to the sideboard.
“What are Mum and Dad doing in there?” Viola asked him in a whisper, meeting him at the sideboard and looking at the door to Jonah’s study suspiciously.
Grey got himself a tumbler and reached for Jonah’s best scotch. “Fucking, probably.” He answered in a bored sort of deadpan.
Viola’s scowl was more fearsome than his own. “No.” She said adamantly.
Grey studied his little sister for a moment. On most days such a supposition would have elicited a laugh from her and encouraged her to one-up his outrageous claim with something more revolting like: ‘yeah, she’s probably making him lick her asshole while she takes his cock down her throat.’
It was something they did. Sort of a gross-out game of chicken, and they’d play until one of them couldn’t take it anymore. Grey usually won, by virtue of having more world experience and having a wider vocabulary of filth to draw upon, but Viola could hold her own. The trick was to distance yourself from the fact that they were your parents, or real people at all, and just try not to visualize it too clearly. As soon as you thought of the actual people involved it was all over. They did it with all sorts of people, not just their parents. The best was perverted imaginings about Granny Calder and her Bull Mastiff, Rufus.
“Why not?” He challenged, carefully pouring about two fingers into his tumbler. “They fuck like horny teenagers all the time.” He reasoned. “No offense.” He added with a smirk.
Viola opened her mouth for what Grey expected was a biting retort but then she seemed to swallow it whole. “What did she want with you?” She asked, veering away from the game completely.
He replaced the stopper on the decanter and shrugged, a little disappointed that his baby sister wasn’t in the mood to be a good sport. He was feeling the need to be particularly outrageous after that awkwardly emotional tete-a-tete in the study. “She wanted to give me an engagement ring for Maggie.” He answered honestly. He didn’t trust any of his other sisters farther than he could shove them, but he’d always liked Viola, and she’d always proven to be a true blue confidant.
“No shit.”
“Yup.” He said and breathed in the smoky, stinging scent of the scotch.
“Where’d she get it?”
He sipped. “Fucking Vaughan Grey.” He answered with all the loathing he felt. He turned toward the room at large and sat on the sideboard, crossing his long legs out in front of him.
Viola’s face changed and she looked again at the door. “Poor Dad.” She said heavily.
Grey nodded absently and ran his tongue over his teeth and gums, savoring the feeling of the scotch on the inside of his mouth. “She’s kept it for me all these years.” He said with a mirthless laugh. “She can’t even hide a fucking Christmas present.”
“You didn’t take it, right?” Viola kept her eyes on the door.
“Nah.” He answered. “Fucking thing was grotesque anyway. Liz Taylor huge.”
Viola glanced at him, trying to decide if he was joking. When she read that he was not, her eyebrows rose quite high. “I’m surprised she doesn’t wear it, then.”
Grey bristled. He liked Viola. Alot. But in the last couple years they seemed to clash often over their differing opinions regarding their mother. He tried not to get too prickly about it. He knew he was more protective than other sons were where their mothers are concerned, and he knew Viola was a teenage girl and thus biologically designed to hate her mother. So, as often as possible he tried to avoid an out-and-out conflict. She was the only sister he liked enough to bother having conversations with and he’d rather not jeopardize the only thing that made attending family functions partway bearable.
“I bet she wears it when she jerks him off—he seems like a masochist doesn’t he?”
Viola again ignored the bait. “Can I have some?” She asked, eying his scotch.
Grey glanced at the still-closed study door, and then to the next most likely to disapprove, but Avalon was busy searching through Jonah’s old record collection, with the attentive aid of her goody-two-shoes fiancée. Maggie was engrossed in some story the twins were regaling her with, so Grey quirked his lips in a mischievous smile and handed the drink to his little sister.
“Be careful.” He cautioned as she lifted it to her lips.
Her violet eyes widened and her eyebrow crinkled in a question.
“Drinking scotch always makes a person want to eat pussy.”
The light in her eyes danced with amusement and she took a sip despite her wide smile.
He watched her eyes water as she swallowed, and her face scrunch up and twist in her uncontrollable reaction to the stuff. He couldn’t help chuckling as he prized the tumbler from her fingers.
“Holy fucking shit.” She gasped, smacking her lips and blinking rapidly.
“Yeah.” Grey responded, taking a sip and savoring the tingle and the smoke of it.
“How the fuck does anyone drink that?!” She marveled, opening her mouth as if she expected to breathe fire like some storybook dragon. “I can’t believe Dad drinks that.” She said, clearly in awe.
Grey shrugged. “Maybe he enjoys feeling like eating pussy.”
Viola blushed and Grey raised his eyebrows in genuine surprise. Heaven knew he’d said a lot worse of their father when playing gross-out chicken, (one of his favorites involved a rusty trombone, a banana and a Cincinnati Bowtie) and Viola rarely batted an eyelash, giving almost as good as she got. Why the girlish blush now, about something so mundane as oral?
“Can you sneak me a rum drink?” She rushed, and he entertained the idea, but the study door opened and their parents returned to the little party, ruining Viola’s chance at spicing up her evening.
“Sorry kid.” He said with an easy shrug. “Next time.” Grey took a long swallow of Scotch, felt his nose and lips twitch in response, and then commanded his legs to go join the rest of the family. He stood and stretched. Jesus fucking Christ, how the fuck had this all happened?
“Hey, Grey.” Viola whispered, and he turned. “This mean you’re going to bring your wife back to the cottage and eat her out?”
It was Grey’s turn to blush. About something so mundane as oral.
“Touché.” He responded, pushing his shoulders back and quickly looking away. She’d got him.
Well-fucking-played.
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