Assumed Master (22 page)

They all sat in silence, seemingly regaining
their bearings when the gods of fate finished pissing on her parade. An SUV
pulled up beside them, Danielle’s obviously quite offended parents staring with
open mouths at the words etched on the front side of the Larson home in black
paint.

WHORE! FAGS!
COCKSUCKERS!
All in crude
letters at intervals between stick figures of all genders and persuasions in
several lewd sexual positions.

Julie’s lips trembled as she tried to compose
herself long enough to greet her sons and try to explain to Danielle’s parents,
realizing her chest and upper back was visible, welts peeking out at various
places announcing her station in life.

Much to her horror, the boys got out in haste,
Danielle turned her head, and her parents never uttered a word. They just
pulled back out and drove off.

Chapter Eighteen

"That son-of-a-bitch!"
Gav dropped his bag and started a march
across the front yard, obviously hell-bent on meeting the asshole next door
head-on.

"Help Dad, Luc," Dante said, leaving
Julie’s side and running after his son who looked like he might just beat the
man next door half to death if given a chance.
"Gav,
stop!"

"Fuck that, Papi," the boy grumbled,
his face contorted with anger and pain. "He hurt Mom and he’s going to pay
for it."

"Gav, no.
Son."
Dante
reached him and grabbed him by the shoulders, halting his progression. "No,
Gav. That’s not the answer. Right now, Mom needs us all to be strong. And use
our heads, not our fists. Come on." Dante looked in the boy’s face and
realized just how close to tears he was. Not using fists was easy advice, but
not so much when it came to swallowing it himself. Dante would have liked to
have pummeled the person that left graffiti all over the side of his house as
much as Gav. "Take a breath. It’s going to be okay."

Gav nodded and ran his thumb and forefinger
over his eyelids that were now pinched shut. He took a shaky breath and nodded
again, pulling the bridge of his nose. "What kind of person does something
like that?"

"One with no sense.
That’s what kind. We have sense and we’ll use
it." He patted Gav’s shoulder then pulled him in for a hug. "We’ll be
okay."

Dante kept one hand on Gav’s nape as he led
him back to the car where Julie was in near hysterics.

"No! You can't call them, Blake. Don’t!"
She was flailing her arms trying to snatch the phone from Blake’s hand. "They’ll
ask questions. The neighbors will tell them things. What do you think they’ll
do when they find out how we live? They’ll take the boys away and have
me
locked up in a padded room and Dante locked up in a cell
for abuse."

Blake stopped mid- tirade and was standing
speechless, watching her turn in circles alternating between having her hands
on her hips and swinging them in the air. Luc stood a few feet away, a forlorn
look on his face, tears streaming down his cheeks.

Dante locked into control mode and assumed
command of his family in all of a few seconds. He turned loose of Gav and took
Julie from behind, locking her arms at her sides and holding her close to his
chest.

"Calm down, love. Shhhh…I promise you
everything will be okay, but we have to get a hold of ourselves or we won’t
have to call the cops, the asshole next door will and turn us in for disturbing
the peace. Then we’re busted anyway." Going limp in his arms, she
hiccupped and Dante knew then she was crying. "It’s okay. I’ve got you."
As he continued to hold her, letting her use him for support, he started
barking out instructions. "Gav, help Luc get the bags in. Blake, pull the
cars into the garage and lock it. No one’s to call nine-one-one. I think Jules
is right on this one…let’s not
stir
this pot unless we
absolutely have to."

Before he finished, Gav’s cell phone rang and
he looked to his papi for guidance.

"Answer it," Dante told him, nodding
at his front pocket.

"Hello?" It was the only word he
uttered in the ninety seconds he was on the line. He shut the device and threw
it to the pavement, shattering it in dozens of pieces. "Fuck them. Narrow
minded, assuming, uniformed bastards…"

For once, Blake didn’t even try to correct his
language as Gav threw his duffle over his shoulder, reached in the now open
trunk, grabbed three more bags, and stalked off toward the front door.

"She broke up with him," Julie said
lifelessly as Dante swung her up into his arms and followed Gav’s path.

Once in the house, Dante put her on the couch
and shielded her from the boys, draping her favorite throw over her hoping
against the odds the boys had been too distracted with what was written on the
side of the house to see what he knew would humiliate and worry Julie into her
dark place. Although dealing with her marks might have been easier than dealing
with the bigoted suggestions on the house. The whole thing sent his stomach
into a spiral and he wondered for a minute if he might not throw up, too.

While the boys finished dragging in their
bags, Julie curled up into a ball on the end of the couch and laid her head on
the arm, silent tears pouring down her face. This wasn't a good sign.

Two hours later he’d sent the boys to their
rooms to unpack and sort their dirty laundry and Blake was gone in search of a
grocery open anywhere where he could pick up a few essentials and with any luck,
something for dinner and tomorrow’s Christmas feast. Not that anyone was
feeling particularly festive, but Dante felt it was important to try to carry
on as normally as possible. He knew damn well he’d never find a painter until
after the first of the year. He put Julie in their bed with a cup of herbal tea
and some of the nature sounds she meditated to playing in the background and went
to the garage to see if he could locate some paint scrapers. Somehow, even if
he had to arm the boys, Blake, and himself with butter knives, that garbage was
coming off the house first thing tomorrow morning.

After searching over several of the shelves
Blake kept so immaculately organized no one but him understood the system,
Dante located what he wanted.
A small box of scrapers and a
can of paint thinner just in case they needed to do more than rasp the awful
pictures off.
He set the items to the side just as Blake backed into the
garage. While the door descended, shutting out the world, he went around to
trunk that was slowly lifting to help carry in whatever his husband managed to
locate.

"Regretfully, there wasn’t much to choose
from. Piggly Wiggly was open, but they were about sold out of everything,"
Blake explained, stepping out and pocketing his keys. "I did manage to
find all the ingredients for chicken soup. I thought that might make her feel
better if I whipped up a pot of that tonight.
Might be
comforting for us all actually."

"Hell if I know," Dante said,
lifting out two paper sacks and carrying them through the service door and into
the kitchen. "I’m afraid we might be back at square one with her. She’s
not uttered a peep since her screaming fit in the drive-way."

"Give her some time." Blake was
right behind him with two more sacks which he landed on the island before
turning to go back. "She’s probably in shock."

Dante left Blake to the task of putting away
his meager offerings and went down the hall to check on Julie, stopping just
short of the door when he heard the hushed whispers of the boys. Just what the
hell made them think it was okay to leave their rooms and bother her? Staying
the urge to barrel in the room and send them away, he leaned back against the
wall and listened. Not the most upstanding thing to be doing, but at least she
was talking to someone. Maybe their conversation would lend some insight into
how she was doing and what he could do to help her through this.

"I’m so sorry Danielle broke up with you,
sweetheart," Julie said. "This is
all my
fault."

"No, it’s not," Gavril answered. "Her
parents are wound so tight they squeak. They’re narrow-minded bigots. I might
have two dads and a mom, but at least they love each other, don’t cheat, and
are all sober. Her dad has several affairs going on and her mom’s a lush. Not
exactly the type of people that should be pointing fingers at others."

"I tried to tell you before you asked her
out," Luc interjected. "No one ever listens to me. You should be
dating that cute little Jada from home room. She adores you and has two moms."

"So what are you saying, exactly? We’re
not supposed to date outside our own kind?"

"Absolutely not," Julie spoke up. "When
you do that, it makes you no better than they are. That’s as closed minded and
intolerant a behavior as anything the neighbors could display."

"Is there anything we can get you, Mom?"
Luc asked, apparently shifting to be closer to her as Dante heard rustling on
the bed. "Are you in much pain?"

"Why would you think that?" Julie
asked, obviously trying to avoid any questions and sound naïve.

"We’re not idiots." Gav sounded
exasperated. "We know what you and Dad and Papi are into. I mean Papi
thinks we’re clueless, but we’re seventeen for piss sake. Believe me, we have a
clue. It’s okay. We don’t think you’re weird or anything. That’s another thing.
I don’t think Danielle would have been keen on me spanking her ass anyway. Good
riddance."

"Gav," Julie gasped. "Don’t
talk like that about her. For God’s sake, you’re not old enough to be thinking
like that."

"Why not?
How old were you when you started thinking…"

Dante decided this was the time to put this
mother-son chat to rest. Apparently it was time to have a talk with the boys.
One he wasn’t looking forward to at all.

"Hey, boys.
Get your laundry started?" he asked,
waltzing in the room like he’d just breezed down the hall. "Jules, do you
need anything, love?"

"More tea would be appreciated," she
said, holding out her cup, her face ashen.

"Our laundry’s started, Papi," Luc
offered. "Is Dad back?"

"Yeah, he’s in the kitchen." Dante
sat on the side of the bed while the boys slowly made their way to the door. He
could tell by the looks on their faces they wondered just how much he’d heard. "He
could probably use some help. And one of you
bring
your
mother some more tea, please. And no eavesdropping." Smiling at their jaws
dropping, he took Julie’s hand and squeezed. "We’ll talk later. I think we
need to?"

"Yes, Papi," the boys said in near
unison, unease inching across their faces as they disappeared around the corner.

"Are you in much pain? Do you need anything?"
Dante asked, running a single finger along her jaw line.

"My heart hurts worse than anything. Can
we talk freely about this?" she asked, pushing up higher in the bed, never
releasing the hold she had on his hand.

"I think we have to."

"I want to move.
For
the boys’ sake.
We could move into the river house." The look of
determination on her face was fierce as she began to lay out the plan she’d
obviously been concocting all afternoon. "There’s plenty of room. And I
have the money to put them in private school, Dante. I remember what it was
like, being that age and such an outcast. I could fix it so they’d never have
to look at those kids again…"

"No…" Before he could get anything
else out, Luc returned with a steaming cup of lavender infused tea and set it
on the bedside table.

"Do you need anything else, Mom? I can
bring some ibuprofen," he told her, eyeing Dante the whole time.

"No, sweetheart.
I’m fine."

Luc nodded, kissed her on the cheek, and
inched away.

"Why not?"
Julie hissed after Luc retreated, jerking her
hand away from Dante’s like it was on fire, scooting a few inches away from him
to the other side of the bed.

"Jules, what are we teaching them when we
teach them to run?" Dante asked
,
 
sympathy
for her plight swamping his
heart. He knew she meant well, but he wasn’t going to raise his children to run
from anyone or anything. "You just got done telling them they couldn’t hide
in their own circles. Isn’t hiding them physically a bit of a contradiction?"

"Do you realize what could happen to them
in public school? Do you watch the news?"

"Yes, I do. I’m not a stupid man, but I’m
not about to raise them to fear everyone and everything, either."

"There’s a difference in fear and
caution," Julie argued, crossing her arms under her breasts and pouting
her lower lip.

"Yes, there is.
A big
difference.
One I wonder if
you
know the meaning of."

"You’re an ass," she flung, tossing
the sheet back and standing in a huff.

"Watch the attitude, love. I’m not above
taking your ass to the play room and busting it. The neighbors know, the boys
know, why try to hide anything now?" Dante stalked her as she inched along
the wall, a look of horror crossing her features.