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“I guess that’s good enough.” She winks.
“You’re happy?” Mom asks in a soft voice.
“Very.”
Mom squeezes me into a side hug. “Good.”
Cindy Ellis has always been my biggest supporter. From the moment I was born, she has encouraged me to seek out my own interests, even when they didn’t align as closely with my siblings. When they wanted to do karate, I found a computer programming class I was interested in. The summer they wanted to try baseball, Mom let me sit in the stands and read instead. Soccer was just about the only sport we could all agree on.
I’ll never forget what she said to me when I came out to her. We were in Sonoma, in our kitchen, in the house I grew up in. My dad was sitting right next to her, and she pulled me into a hug and said, “From the minute you were born, you’ve been special, Carter. One day, I hope this conversation won’t be necessary for any kid, but I’m so proud you had the courage to tell us.”
I was already on the verge of bawling, and my dad went and added his two cents, saying, “We only want you to be happy, son. No matter how that looks, it’s the only thing that matters to us.”
Sara, my mom, and I sit in silence for the next half hour while we wait for the guys to be done. When they come striding out of the house, I can tell Adam has a head of steam brewing. The grooves between his forehead are deep, and I bet his jaw is clenched hard enough to crack a molar.
“Who the fuck would do this to you?” Adam practically growls the question.
I shrug. “I have no clue. I thought maybe Chase was doing this, but Jeffery said that he was in Greensboro this weekend.”
“Fuck!” Adam shouts.
Sara stands from her chair to hug our brother to try to calm him down. Mom didn’t even get on to him for cursing.
“This fucking sucks. I’m really sorry, Carter.” Nolan squeezes my shoulder.
“People are so fucking shitty,” Sara adds, which seems to tip Mom over the edge.
“Okay, potty mouths. That’s enough cursing for a while, please.”
Her mothering diffuses the anger building around us, and we all end up laughing instead. Sam places his hands on my shoulders and starts to massage. I have to hold in the groan that tries to escape.
I tip my head back to look at him. He’s so fucking handsome it’s hard to take it all in sometimes.
“I got some clothes packed up for you. They left most of that stuff alone. Your pillows and bedding were all destroyed, but they didn’t touch your closet.”
“Thank you.” I grab his hand on my shoulder.
“Do you think they were looking for something?” Dad asks me.
I shake my head. “I don’t have a clue. It’s not like I own anything of value.”
“If this was random, they likely wouldn’t have known that,” Adam says.
“I don’t think it was. I got a couple of threatening letters that didn’t make sense to me. I gave them over to the police, but I still don’t know what they mean.”
My family stares at me in horror.
“You didn’t think that was something we should know?” Adam’s anger returns in full force. “I thought we’d learned from the mess with Sara.”
“This isn’t the same. I was never in physical danger until this happened,” I protest.
“I thought the same thing, brother. Look where that got me.” Sara raises an eyebrow.
“Fair enough,” I acquiesce. Last year, Sara was kidnapped by her stalker. She’d received notes like I got, and she never told anyone about what happened until her stalker broke into her house.
“I swear to tell you all if something else happens,” I promise.
“In the meantime, you’re going to come stay with us, right?” Mom asks.
