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The investigation had died a quick death after that, though the press coverage of a former president being involved in a deadly home invasion had been lengthy. I’d once again had to make the rounds with the press.
The only one still struggling besides Reese was Charlie. Understandably, the girl had been deeply traumatized by the whole thing. Gage had gotten her counseling, which she was still attending. Initially, she’d been afraid to be away from her father for more than a few minutes at a time. Getting her to go back to school had been next to impossible, so Gage had gone with her and had stayed in the classroom the entire time for almost three weeks straight. At that point, glimpses of the old Charlie had started to come out. She’d gotten to the point that, instead of sleeping with us every night like she had for the first month, she only crawled into our bed when she had the occasional nightmare.
We’d waited a couple of weeks to talk to Charlie about Nash and I moving into the main house and sleeping in her father’s room, but the conversation had barely fazed her. She’d merely asked if she could call us Daddy Everett and Daddy Nash, and then she’d gallantly offered to let me and Nash take her and her grandfather’s turns in naming the next animals that joined the Fortier clan.
It hadn’t taken long for Nash and me to make use of the honor. Six weeks after the attack, Phillipe had brought home two mixed-breed puppies he’d found abandoned in a field near our house. Nash had christened one puppy Dorfmeyer, a name he’d been very happy to let Vincent know about, and I’d named the other puppy Chance for the chance my men and I had taken on one another. The puppies had been welcomed into the family by an all-healed Medusa and the two mastiffs, though Happy wasn’t willing to share Nash with them. It wasn’t a big problem, though, because the puppies had latched onto Zeus and followed the temperamental dog wherever he went.
After the aftermath of the attack had died down and Nash and I had gotten settled into our new home, I’d dealt with the last issue that had been holding me back from fully enjoying my new life with my men.
Coming out.
Predictably, it had caused a myriad of reactions. I’d chosen to do an interview with a single reporter who I trusted to tell my story the way I told it to her. I was both condemned and applauded, but I didn’t care about any of that. I was mostly worried about my family, since they’d have to deal with the haters. But they’d accepted that having a former president in their lives meant that there’d never truly be an escape from the spotlight. It was a fact I just couldn’t change, no matter how badly I wanted to sometimes. I hadn’t done the rounds with the press after my announcement, but I knew that would change when I started to use the power that I did have to do some good. I’d been the voice of millions of Americans for years, but as important as that had been, being the voice for those who were still struggling to be heard was something I was actually looking forward to.
But first, I wanted to see my son getting back to his normal routine. After my coming out, Reese had been inundated with questions about what it was like to have a father who was gay. He’d shot down the questions with one of his own.
I don’t know, what’s it like having a father who’s straight?
A few of the more ballsy reporters had asked Reese about his own sexuality, but fortunately, those had been few and far between. Reese hadn’t answered them, of course, but he’d made it clear to anyone and everyone who asked that who his father, or anyone for that matter, loved didn’t matter one bit to him.
There’d been lots of speculation about my relationship with Nash and Gage, but that was one of a handful of questions that I would absolutely refuse to answer when I did start talking to the press about topics of importance to the LGBTQ community. My family was off-limits and any reporter who didn’t respect that would learn pretty quickly that they and the media outlet they worked for would lose any and all access to me. They might have owned me when I’d been a public servant, but I owed them nothing anymore.
“So tell me about this straightforward job,” I said as I watched Reese put a couple of guns in his duffel bag.
“You remember Vincent’s friends, Ethan and Cain?”
I nodded. I’d met them briefly when they’d come up from San Francisco for Vincent and Nathan’s official wedding reception. Ethan and Cain had actually been scheduled to marry before Vincent and Nathan, but some kind of family emergency with Ethan’s family had forced them to postpone the wedding. Whatever had caused the delay was all resolved now, so the men were planning to marry in the very near future.
