Flare (30 page)

“No, I never go there because I’m not s’posed to go to a site I don’t know and trust.”

Kevin sighed huge and loud.

“We need to block her number and her e-mail address, but first, I’m going to have to print out or save everything she’s sent. Has she called you?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, Christ. What’s she said?”

“I stopped answering her, but my voice mailbox is full with her messages.”

“I need you to write down your passwords for everything. I’m bringing this into the principal.”

“No, Dad. You can’t!”

“Why not?”

“It’s just going to make it worse.”

“How?” he asked. “How can this get worse? She’s invading your life.”

Brooke bit at her lip as tears welled in her eyes.

“Nobody deserves to be treated like this. No one,” Kevin said as he hugged her.

Kevin went to work that day with a sinking feeling in his gut, so distracted by what had happened that he never went back upstairs to kiss Hugo good morning. Not only was his daughter being bullied, but so was his fiancé. How was he going to fix this?

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

A Change in Plans

H
UGO
WOKE
up late, much later than expected, and when he looked at the clock he panicked. It was ten. The kids. He hadn’t gotten up to help the kids get ready for school. Scrambling out of bed, tripping on the rumpled sheet, and nearly face-planting on the floor, Hugo ran to Finn’s room as well as Brooke’s. Both empty. He called their names as he ran down the stairs in his underwear, looking in each room and finding them all empty.

He grabbed his phone, and quickly called the middle school. He told them his name and asked if Brooke made it to school. The lady on the other end took far too long looking in her computerized attendance database before saying “Yes, Brooke is in school. Did you need to speak with her, Mr. Thorson?”

“No. There was just a mix-up this morning. Thank you.”

The conversation at Finn’s grade school didn’t go quite as smoothly. The secretary transferred Hugo to the classroom, not understanding that Hugo didn’t need to speak with Finn’s teacher but just wanted to see if he was there. Mrs. Swanson answered, and when Hugo explained the situation, she refused to tell him whether Finn was in the classroom that day since “you are neither his father nor his legal guardian. Good-bye.”

Hugo stood there with his phone in his hand, feeling dumbfounded for several minutes before he called back and tried to better explain himself to the secretary. That time worked better, and he found out that yes, indeed, Finn was in school, and he had even arrived on time.

Adrenaline pumped through Hugo’s veins. He was wired and angry as hell, so it probably wasn’t the best time to call Kevin, but he did.

“Why the hell didn’t you wake me up this morning?” he yelled into the phone.

“I got distracted by all the Brooke-and-Felicity bullshit. Plus, I figured your alarm would wake you.”

“It didn’t. I woke up at fucking ten and the kids were gone. I have no fucking clue how they got off this morning.”

“What do you mean?”

“They got themselves ready and got to their buses on time with no adult intervention whatsoever. That’s what I mean.”

“Oh.”

“Oh? Just… oh?” Hugo asked, feeling about one hundred variations of pissed.

“I’m sorry. I’ve got a lot on my mind, and I don’t really see the issue if they got out the door on time and are both in school.”

“Fine.” Hugo knew he sounded petulant, but he couldn’t seem to rein it in.

“Hugo, what’s going on?”

“Mrs. Swanson. I got transferred to her room, and she wouldn’t tell me if Finn was there or not because I’m not his dad or his legal guardian. I didn’t know if he was run over on the side of the road or lost.” His true feelings finally caught up with him and tears filled his eyes. “I was so scared.” His voice was obviously affected. “I just had these awful visions of all this bad shit happening to him,” Hugo sobbed, mad at himself for being so emotional. “I’m sorry. I’ve had such a shitty few weeks. Nothing’s going right with the play. We’re not going to be ready for the performance this weekend. I have all this stuff hanging over my head, I still need to talk to Summer, and then I find out last night that what I’m worried about is nothing compared to what Brooke’s dealing with. And I wasn’t even there for her this morning. I’m so angry.”

“I’m sorry, love. What can I do?”

“Get me out of this place. Take me back to Uptown where I don’t have to fit into a mold that I never wanted to fit into in the first place. Get these kids to a place where they won’t be the only kids in their class who have two dads. I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Kevin said, and Hugo didn’t either, so silence drifted between them. “I wish I could take the day off, but there’s an important meeting today I can’t miss. Is there anything you can
do
? Fix one or two of those things hanging over your head?”

Hugo took a deep breath and nodded. “Yeah. I can fix a few things, I think.”

“Can you call me later? Let me know you’re okay?”

“You’re not mad?” Hugo asked.

“About what?”

Hugo scoffed. “The kids. Not being here for the kids.”

“Well, they obviously got to where they needed to be at the right time. It’s not like you haven’t worked with them each morning, teaching them to keep an eye on the clock so they don’t miss their bus. It sounds like all your time and energy finally paid off.”

Hugo shook his head even if Kevin couldn’t see it. “I suppose.”

L
ESS
THAN
two hours later, Hugo was sitting on a chair that was far too small for him at a table that knocked his knees, talking to Summer over her lunch. She had almost a full hour before her kindergarteners would be back from their lunch and music class. When Hugo had sent her a text, she told him she could talk that day if he came to her, and she had time to talk. She postponed correcting homework and recording grades until after school.

“I could tell by the way you phrased your text that you needed to talk. What’s up?” she asked as soon as Hugo found a semi-comfortable way to sit in the awkward chair.

“Brooke has been bullied by this girl in her school, and one of the things she talked about was anal sex, telling Brooke that her dads were going to die from a disease we catch because we are ‘filthy.’”

“That’s not good.”

“You’re telling me. I guess there’s more. I don’t know the details yet because I had such a shitty night last night that all I heard was the girl started texting Brooke now. Kevin and I need to talk. Anyway, that’s not the point. Brooke asked us if it was true, if we were going to die because of diseases. She’s freaked because of losing her mom. Rightfully so. We talked to her about testing and monogamy.”

“Yeah?” Summer said, urging him with one word and a look to go on.

“Getting pregnant.” Hugo gave her a weak smile and reached for her hand. “I just want to make sure we’re on the same page after what happened with Brooke. I’ll help. I’ll give you my boys, but I can’t jeopardize Brooke’s trust in me. So if you saw us having sex to make a baby, I can’t do that.”

Summer laughed. “You thought I was asking you to have sex with me?”

“No. Not really, but we never got into the logistics of things. All we ever talked about was that we’d make a baby
together
.”

“Honey,” Summer said as she squeezed both of Hugo’s hands. “No. That’s not at all what I meant. There are other ways. I’d never do that to you, make you have sex with a woman.”

“You’re too kind to this Kinsey six.”

“There are other ways to get pregnant besides having sex, silly.”

“I know
all
the ways now. More than I ever wanted to know, actually. But I figured you’d want this to be a natural, at-home experience so I’ve been reading a lot. Kevin brought a ton of information home from work, and I’ve been visiting an online forum that specifically talks about ways of making that happen.”

“I’ve read a lot, but what do you mean?”

“I found this forum that deals specifically with at-home insemination. Kevin calls it intracervical insemination or you can even do intravaginal. You use one of those syringes they give you at the pharmacy to give kids medicine and use it to direct the sperm right into the cervix. Or you can use a diaphragm or a cervical cup for the intravaginal insemination. That requires a doctor’s visit to get unless you have one, but the syringe is practically free.”

“I’ve already been in contact with a specialist, but do you think it will work without going to a doctor’s office?” Summer asked. “Based on your research, I mean?”

“I don’t know, but it worked for a lot of these people on the forum if it was just a sperm issue. I’ll send you all the research and links. You’re not infertile from what we know. You just need viable sperm in the right place at the right time, and you know the right time, I’m guessing based on all your thermometer speak. I read how it’s done at home, and I have to be honest, it sounds a hell of a lot like how it’s done in a doctor’s office minus the stainless-steel tables, bright lights, strangers in scrubs, and special tools, which I thought you’d appreciate, my Earth Mama. I
donate
. It gets put in you, and it works best if you come. That helps with getting the sperm where it needs to go. I think it’s worth a try.”

“It sounds a hell of a lot more appealing than what the fertility specialist was talking about. If it doesn’t work, we try again. It’s not like Russell and I haven’t been trying for months already. Then we can talk about other options later if there’s no success. The last thing I want is for this baby to be part of Brooke losing faith in you, so you’re going to have to make this really clear to her that we didn’t have sex. I know you’ve worked hard to gain and keep her trust.”

Hugo tried to stand to lean over and hug Summer, but he lost his balance in the silly little chair and somehow ended up sprawled on the carpet instead.

“Okay, Mr. Graceful.”

“Ah, shut up. These chairs are awful, and I’m nervous about all this.” Hugo stood and brushed himself off, laughing.

“Come here. Give me a hug and relax. We’ll try it. No pressure.”

Hugo knew he’d been worried about this, but he didn’t realize exactly how stressed he’d been until he walked out the front doors of the school and threw away his visitor badge.
One thing down. About thirty to go
.

T
HE
REST
of the week continued to be hell, but at least the performances of the play went off without a hitch despite how awful run-through week had been. Hugo was beyond pleased the play only ran for one weekend rather than the two to three that many he directed did.

He barely saw Kevin and the kids in all that time, leaving Kevin to run his ship all by himself. By the time they saw each other again on Monday evening, they spent what seemed like hours catching each other up on their lives and the kids’ lives.

Hugo finally found out all the details about what Felicity had been doing to Brooke. He was beyond thankful Brooke knew not to click through to the links provided, because when Hugo did so one evening and saw the sites Felicity sent her, he was appalled. How this girl of twelve knew of these sites filled with—quite amazing—gay porn was beyond the pale. How her parents didn’t know about it was, as well. Kevin had blocked the girl’s e-mail and phone number, but the texts still came in, only from different numbers.

Kevin and Hugo went together to talk to the principal again, bringing pages of documentation. The school social worker was included in the meeting as well, and she exchanged the evidence for several pages of resources for Kevin and Hugo to look through when they had the time. She promised that Felicity would be meeting with her about the continued bullying after she returned from her three-day at-home suspension. She and the principal took their concerns very seriously, but Kevin knew he needed to do more, something a bit more proactive, so he called Felicity’s parents and calmly shared with them what was happening right under their own roof. Somehow, Kevin felt the news might be more powerful coming from the victim’s dad than from the school.

“Please check her browser history and sent e-mails,” Kevin said to them. “I have copies of everything she’s sent. I called you because if I found out one of my kids was doing this, I’d want to know so I could stop it. And this needs to stop.”

The parents seemed apologetic, aghast even, promising to address matters. If the behavior didn’t stop, Kevin would talk to the police or Mark, but the thought of even more legal action didn’t sit well. It was a volatile situation and one that perhaps should’ve been addressed by Mark, but Kevin hadn’t wanted to scare the parents even more, turning this into a drawn-out lawsuit if it could be solved in a more direct manner. Before the week was up, Kevin had gotten Brooke’s phone number changed, just as a precaution.

Hugo bit back all the times he wanted to say they should move. Bringing up his desire to be back in Uptown while this was going on wasn’t going to be helpful. He’d wait until things were a bit calmer once again so it wouldn’t seem so reactionary.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Big Life Events

B
ROOKE
AND
Finn were both spending the night at their best friends’ houses at the end of the week because Summer was ovulating. It was the first full weekend in February and Summer’s temperature was just right. They were actually going to do this.

Summer, Russell, Kevin, and Hugo had gotten together earlier in the week after the kids were in bed and discussed in greater detail how this would work, which was why Summer and Russell were already set up in the guest room doing whatever it was they were doing. Kevin and Hugo were in their room talking about how weird this was, but also taking each other’s clothes off.

A baby was being made, even if it was in a wholly unusual way, and Hugo knew Summer wanted this baby to be created in the midst of love, not the cold sterility of a doctor’s office. Since sex between Hugo and Summer wasn’t going to happen, they were doing the next best thing: having sex with their fiancés and then passing off the sperm. It was as close as they were willing to get to the natural way.