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Wolf passed smoke through his nostrils before handing me the joint. I took a good long hit before passing it off to my friends. Wolf frowned. “So now that we’re alone, who fucked up?”
The question of the evening. If we were all dragged here tonight, at the ballet, someone had fucked up. Our fathers only took us to the theater when one of us kids was being an asshole. Trips to the ballet were reserved for special offenses.
Ones usually concerning females.
See, our fathers came up with it in their heads long ago that, when their sons were being dicks, we all needed a reminder to be better men. Something about the male dancers of the ballet treating women in softer ways, more delicate. Respectful.
Honestly, the shit just put my friends and me to fucking sleep, but when we were all dragged here, we knew the reasons. One of us had fucked up, a personal offense against a woman, and our fathers were now trying to teach us all a lesson about it.
It made me wonder what kind of men they either believed we were coming up as, or how they themselves had been in the past. The fact they felt the need to orchestrate a group punishment such as this (one including themselves) was suspect as hell. All our dads were so deliriously drunk in love with our mothers I couldn’t even imagine they’d been any other way, but stranger things had happened.
Despite me obviously being the offender tonight (i.e. the whole Noa Sloane thing), I kept my mouth shut. I would have said something, but I spotted LJ coming around the corner.
Shit, they called him too.
LJ was my dad’s other best friend. He was my last and final god dad and called Wells and Thatcher god sons as well. Our four dads used to be in a strong clique back in high school, something that obliviously expanded once my dad met my mom and Wolf’s dad came into their circle.
All our parents were tight as hell now, the husbands and the wives. Again, labels didn’t matter, but LJ and his wife, Billie, had no children.
That didn’t mean he was exempt from this little punishment.
“Okay, which one of you boys messed up,” LJ growled, and out of all of the dads, he was the only one who looked like a surfer. He wore his blond hair free in his dark tux, eyeing us all on the sidewalk. He must have arrived first since he was coming from the lot without the other dads, and since we hadn’t been pre
pared, we tried to hide our joint. Thatcher had it, and LJ chuckled upon seeing it. “I know you kids smoke weed. Stop.”
That didn’t mean he didn’t fucking take it.
He put it out under his shoe, mumbling something about it being a waste. Odds were, had the four of us not been here, he might have finished it off with our dads. We’d caught them more than once in the garage lighting up. I mean, they never did it in front of us, and whenever our moms found out, the arguments commenced. We’d yet to catch any of our mothers smoking weed, but again, in front of us. Let’s just say my mom kept a lighter in her dresser, and she had not one candle in my parents’ bedroom.
The fact only made me mentally give my mother cool points, though, and each of the fellas gave LJ a hug, myself last. I ended it with a handshake and a snap. “The other dads?”
“They’re coming. Saw them behind me but I was ahead.” LJ’s eyes narrowed. “Was it you?” He directed a finger. “Because if so, you owe me a night with Billie in the Hamptons. I had to get on a red-eye to make this shit happen today.”
He and his wife traveled the world without the ties of children. LJ was a businessman like the rest of our fathers. He even had a few businesses with Wolf’s dad, Ramses.
Yeah, we were really fucked if they’d called LJ all the way over for this thing. He and Billie did nothing but party, living a dream life. His wife used to be a college professor but stopped teaching years ago to just live life and travel the world with her husband. None of us kids ever asked, but we assumed they either couldn’t have kids or didn’t on purpose. Either way it was none of our business. Not like our parents would tell us anyway.
“Uh,” I started, and he eyed me.
“Mmhmm,” he said, figuring it out, and my friends groaned in my direction. I hadn’t told any of them what had happened the other day when my mother had stormed the end of football practice. Hadn’t really had time. Dad had had a field day on my butt when I’d gotten home that night, and it hadn’t mattered that I explained the situation, that a prank had been played on me and I hadn’t gotten a girl pregnant. It’d all been a lie, and I explained that.
It hadn’t mattered.
I knew that because us guys were being dragged to the ballet. My friends’ eyes were on me when the other dads finally did come around with mine. They’d taken a beat to come back, and I wondered if they’d been talking. That wouldn’t have surprised me. They all greeted LJ before us kids.
Our fathers and LJ all took the time to shake and hug it out, not having seen each other all together in a while. Everyone lived in Maywood Heights, but they were all busy men in their various businesses. Outside of his online security startup, Knight, Thatcher’s dad, ran Reed Corp. His company mostly delved in real estate development like LJ and Wolf’s dad, Ramses. Ramses’s businesses ventured outside his company Mallick Enterprises, though. He ran several major art galleries all over the world and Wells’s dad, Jaxen, had fast-food chains all over the country amongst other businesses. This basically allowed us guys to get free food anywhere there was a franchise, and we had when we’d gone on weekend trips without our parents.
Odds were, those trips were dead in the water. Personal freedom, at least right now.
“Brother.” Dad shook, then snapped LJ’s hand since they’d been the last to shake it out. They all called each other brothers, all of us family. I didn’t have memories that didn’t include my god dads or their wives. They were all like second fathers to me, to all of us, and their wives, second mothers.
Which meant I had five fucking fathers to own my ass.
Yes, the dads definitely had talked because when I got my hugs from each of them, I got a look that accompanied it. It was official. Everyone’s Saturday night was gone because of me. Even Ramses flashed me a look, and he was the nice one.
“Kid,” Ramses said to me, grabbing my head before taking me into a hug. His was extra tight, and out of all my god dads, we were the closest. That was mostly because Wolf and I were so close. I even had a second bedroom at the Mallicks’, and Wolf had one at my house too. Ramses pulled away. “You okay?”
And he checked in with me, something I had a feeling was coming from my own dad on the way home. He’d kept the drive to the theater quiet, but I thought mostly because he was considering his own thoughts. I’d figured out over the years, that was his process. He didn’t like not having control and saw that as weakness in others. He’d never say that, of course, but I knew it in the way he handled what he obviously considered his own weakness. Dad had a temper, but he never, at least in my life, openly showed it.
