Flare (2 page)

“I don’t even know what set him off, but Finn was in the family room with Kyle and Tasha. He just started screaming,” Kevin said. “I was playing a game with Brooke at the kitchen table at the time, so I don’t know what was said or done. When I ran in, it looked like he was about to be hit by his own grandpa. Instinct took over, and I did what we always do when he starts losing it; I held him in a bear hug and talked to him until he calmed down.”

“That’s it? You think that’s why they’re trying to take your kids away, because of how the therapist told us to help him come back to center? From seeing one incident?” Hugo asked in disbelief.

“I can’t think of what else it would be,” Kevin said, finally taking a deep breath that Hugo could see helped him feel more collected. If the bear hug was it, there was no judge in their right mind that would take the kids away from their father based on a therapist-approved calming technique. “Tasha said something about how restraining him was upsetting him more, but I told her it was what settled him.”

“But you said Kyle looked like he was about to hit him. Like, slap him or what?” Hugo asked.

“Probably. I’m not sure. I was more focused on Finn’s emotional outburst at the time, but it didn’t look good.”

“Did you ever find out what set him off?”

Kevin shook his head. “Nothing specific, but after that, he told me he wanted to go home. He was nervous. I wonder what they said. Tasha and Kyle were both in there, and Finn only has those meltdowns when he feels helpless or afraid. Maybe he’d be willing to talk more about it now. He sure as heck wasn’t willing then. I haven’t asked for at least a week.”

It was Saturday, so there was no way to talk to Kevin’s lawyer until Monday about the papers he’d been served, which was frustrating as hell. They discussed calling the Clarkes and talking to them, but considering there were legal papers in hand, that might not be the most prudent idea. Let the lawyer handle it because he understood the law, they both agreed.

“Are you sure you can’t just call your lawyer at home?” Hugo tried. “Or do you have any friends that are lawyers? There’s got to be something you can do.”

“Mark would probably be okay if I called him at home if it were an emergency, but this isn’t.”

Hugo stood and walked toward Kevin and rested his palm in the center of his chest. His heart was beating so fast, and when Hugo looked up into his gray eyes, he saw tears there. Kevin so rarely cried, except when he felt completely out of control. Sliding his other hand to his neck, Hugo teased the downy skin behind his ear where it met up with blond hair.

“Just call him, love.” Hugo spoke in a low, gentle way. “Let him bill you at triple the rate. Who cares if it’s an emergency in his eyes or not. It’s an emergency in your eyes, and I can feel it right here in my palm. Your heart is going a million miles an hour.”

“Do they know?” Kevin’s voice was tight with emotion. “Do they have any clue how hard these last months have been on the kids and what we’ve done to make life better for them?” He answered his own questions with a shake of his head that Hugo easily mimicked. “They left after the funeral and have barely communicated with my kids since then. Their own grandkids. I know Tasha and Kyle are in mourning too. I get that. I really do, but I thought things were going to get better. I thought our visit up there had gone well, except for that one thing. Maybe I didn’t go there soon enough.”

“Don’t second-guess yourself. Call Mark. He knows custody law. He can probably answer questions you don’t even know to ask.”

“When do the kids need to be picked up?” Kevin asked.

“Ten. You have time.”

Kevin nodded, grabbed his phone, and then picked up his pacing again as he called and started talking to Mark. Hugo found Erin’s stash of small spiral bound notebooks piled in a drawer and pulled one out along with a pen, then set them on the kitchen counter so Kevin could take notes if needed. Kevin scratched a few words on the pad as he passed it and eventually settled next to it to doodle and write as he listened. Hugo wished he could be part of the conversation, but tried to content himself by cooking a hearty breakfast instead.

Hugo had always wondered how long Tasha and Kyle were going to lie in wait. Well, at least Tasha. Last Christmas, she had been at a loss as to why “that Hugo fella” needed to be there for their family time.

Just as September came to a close last year, Erin found out she had terminal brain cancer, and that she was going to die within months. She found out a few days before her and Kevin’s divorce was to be final. No matter how you sliced it, everyone’s lives changed in the blink of an eye.

Kevin and Hugo had been dating since the Fourth of July weekend when they resparked their high school romance. They’d both been looking forward to Kevin being officially single again, but when Erin broke the horrible news, Kevin decided he couldn’t possibly leave her to suffer alone. Erin and Kevin decided not to go through with their divorce, but chose to remain married so she could still have his medical insurance. But Kevin didn’t want to end his relationship with Hugo, either. Hugo was understandably unsure, and Erin didn’t yet know the man she’d been married to for so long was bisexual. When Kevin finally told her everything, she was beyond supportive.

The reality of Erin’s cancer made everything so complicated. It took Hugo many days to process his own hurt and the past hurts Kevin’s plans exposed inside him. Hugo felt he was being abandoned, that Kevin was replacing him once again. But Hugo came to the recognition that he did want to be with Kevin, even if that meant their relationship was going to change dramatically.

Kevin had asked Erin to move back home with him so their children could have as much time with their mom in her last days as possible. Brooke and Finn were a large part of Hugo’s decision to stay. He had lost his own father to cancer as a teen, and he wanted to be there to help Kevin’s kids as much as he could. They would be forced to watch their mom suffer and die. Hugo knew that pain, and he wanted to help ease it any way he could.

Kevin and Hugo chose to stay together; this was all done with Erin’s knowledge, blessing, and at the time, her insistence that Kevin and Hugo regularly head over to Hugo’s apartment in Uptown, Minneapolis, to “love all over each other, because you holding back is driving me insane.” Throw on top of that the fast friendship Hugo and Erin developed, and their relationships were nearly impossible to explain to even some of the most open-minded people in their lives.

These complex bonds would never fit into any sort of conventional social understanding. They knew that just from how long it took to explain their situation to people. It was easier to keep Kevin and Hugo’s relationship hush-hush, diverting any questions about who Hugo was so they could keep their focus on what mattered: Erin’s last days and helping the kids cope. That was how Hugo became known as
the help
to Erin’s friends and her parents.

He generally despised secrecy. It went against everything he believed about the type of relationship he wanted to have with a man. Hugo was out. He was proud. He was so far out that after he’d turned eighteen, he’d never considered
not
telling people he was gay. That all changed after he entered into his relationship with Kevin, though.

No one wanted Erin’s last months to be buried in conversations with judgmental people who didn’t matter and who’d never understand the new family dynamics that had been created. The arrangement worked for everyone in the family, and they saw no need to justify it. Then the kids started getting asked questions they didn’t know how to answer. Who was Hugo? Kevin, Erin, and Hugo had done what they could to build a protective cocoon around Brooke and Finn so they could feel safe. The kids knew about Kevin and Hugo’s relationship, but when they asked the children how they wanted to answer these questions, Brooke and Finn decided on calling Hugo their friend. He wanted nothing more than to protect Kevin’s family, and if he had to be silent and hide parts of himself away again as he’d had to do in high school, he would. At least until Erin was ready to tell the world and take the time to make people understand.

She had started by telling her parents at Christmastime when Tasha made some pretty inflammatory comments. Then about a month before she died, Erin had gone online to tell the world—her Facebook world—about who Hugo was to Kevin and that she was giving her blessing to their relationship. She wrote that she wanted these two men to raise her kids together.

It had been awe-inspiring to see Erin be so selfless, to give of herself, to let go of any jealousy she felt so her husband, the man she’d loved for well over a decade, could be happy. And she did it for her children too, so they’d be supported by both Kevin and Hugo as well as the people in her community.

By the time Kevin got off the phone, the lines that had been etched between his brows since the doorbell rang that morning were finally smoothed. Hugo felt the lines on his own face were more firmly in place, but at least they had eggs, sausage, and waffles cooking now.

“What did he say?” Hugo asked.

“He needs more information. I’m going to scan and e-mail the papers to him, because kinship custody is a whole different ballgame, I guess. From the parts I read to him and what I told him about that weekend, he doesn’t think they have a chance. He said people sometimes do crazy things when they grieve, and maybe Tasha and Kyle are doing this as a way to try to hold on to Erin. I know they’ve had a hard time letting her go their entire lives, especially after Tasha had that stillbirth. That’s why we made sure to live at least four hours away from them and Erin discouraged them from visiting too often. She’d done that since we were married. If it were up to them, they would’ve been here every weekend. Erin said they just refused to let go.”

“A lot of parents are like that, but this is ridiculous. Anything else he said?”

“I told him about the incident they saw, the restraint, and the therapist. We don’t even need to do the bear hug at home anymore,” Kevin said and looked to be fighting back emotions again. “I haven’t done it since that day, and prior to that, it might’ve been a few weeks. Finn just needs one of us to be in physical contact with him now and he’s fine. The bear hug calmed him, but he was so upset, it didn’t help right away. They saw him fight against it.” Kevin shook his head, as if to get the image out of his mind. “Let me get these off to Mark so he can look at them.”

Kevin disappeared while Hugo dished up breakfast. He took the time to hand wash Kevin’s favorite mug too, the one the kids had made for him last Christmas. He needed a little pampering this morning.

Kevin was strong in so many ways, but weak in others. For years he’d been emotionally abused by an asshole of a father, which caused so much self-doubt in his personal life, unlike in his professional life where he was confident and secure. He avoided conflict and often put the needs of others above his own desires. Now Hugo worried that the voice of doubt Kevin used to listen to—the voice of Peder Magnus—would start to speak louder again. Erin and Hugo had both tried to make sure Kevin felt secure listening to his own voice before Erin died, and Hugo knew he had to help support Kevin even more in this scary-ass moment.

Soon they were eating. “Let’s not let this ruin things. I think we need to trust Mark’s expertise in this,” Hugo said, trying to bring some logic to the table.

“I hired him for the divorce because he came highly recommended as a guy who fought hard for people but didn’t fight dirty. I like that about him.” Kevin gave a slow smile. There was evidence of that conflict avoidance, even with the lawyer he’d hired.

“It sounds like the Clarkes are fighting dirty, so you might have to have Mark fight dirty too, but let him do the fighting, okay?”

“Yeah,” Kevin agreed. “I have to trust him. I trusted him with the separation and it was pretty anticlimactic. I trusted his advice when Erin was sick. I trusted the doctors and even awful drugs to help her.” He was far from unruffled, but he was becoming more and more collected as time wore on.

“We should do something today so we don’t get stuck thinking about this.”

“You mean we should do something besides calling them and yelling?” Kevin asked with so much bitterness in his voice. “But really, what did you have in mind?”

“I don’t know,” Hugo admitted. “A de-stressing blow job?”

“Not in the mood, to be honest,” he said with a pathetic shrug.

“I’d be happy getting in the car and driving or going Uptown to bike or walk or something. Anything.”

At this point, Hugo would do anything for Kevin.

CHAPTER TWO

Colorful Water

C
ONSIDERING
HOW
tired the kids were after their sleepover, Kevin and Hugo decided to just drive. Hugo headed east and then drove south on Highway 61 alongside the Mississippi River. It was a scenic drive, everything greening up after an early morning rain, and before long, the kids were sleeping in the backseat of the car. With soft voices, Kevin and Hugo talked about their worries, despite wanting to
not
think about them.

“I just don’t get it,” Kevin said after making sure the kids were really and truly sleeping. Hugo turned the stereo on and messed with the balance so the sound was coming out of the rear speakers, just in case. “We haven’t argued since Christmas. Things have been decent since then. Nothing was ever mentioned about custody or a schedule for visits or anything. What the hell happened?”

“Have you considered calling Russell?”

“No. I don’t want to get him in the middle of this,” Kevin said.

“I’m not sure he’d like to be left out, to be honest.” If Hugo knew anything about Erin’s brother at all, it was that he was extremely loyal to his sister. There were few of her decisions Russell didn’t support, and they all knew her intention was that Kevin and Hugo would raise Brooke and Finn together as a family after she died. It had been written in black and white in her own handwriting so many times, not to mention how often she talked to them about it while she was still alive. Her desire for this was one of the reasons she pushed Kevin and Hugo to no longer hold back affection from each other in front of the kids. Erin wanted Brooke and Finn to see that the two men in their lives were in love and a solid, dependable wall to lean on. Now, two people who saw these kids four times a year, at most, wanted to strip them away from their father a mere three months after their own mother had died.