AllFreeNovel
Share Us
So Seth wanted to take Heavenly home for his mom’s wedding? Great. Since the PI hadn’t once mentioned his name, Beck had a bad feeling he wasn’t invited.
He glanced back in the rearview mirror, watching Seth take Heavenly’s hands with an expectant smile. She merely nibbled her bottom lip in return. She wasn’t jumping at the chance to meet the Cooper clan?
For a brief moment, Heavenly met Beck’s stare. Yeah, she was aware Seth hadn’t invited him.
“I’d love to meet your family,” she finally said. “But are you sure this is the right occasion?”
“Absolutely. Everyone will be there for Mom’s wedding. All my aunts, uncles, and cousins… They’re dying to meet you. Mom specifically asked if you’d come.”
“I don’t know if—”
“They’re going to like you? Angel, don’t worry. They’re going to love you.”
“That’s a given,” Beck added. “But…where am I in this picture?”
Seth’s smile flattened. Guilt skipped across his face. “It would be great if you could come, too, man. It’s just…”
“What?”
“I don’t think the wedding is the time to bring our relationship out of the closet. My mom is traditional. Hell, she’s a devout Catholic…like, really devout. She believes in the whole one-man, one-woman thing. If the two of us showed up together with Heavenly, she’d lose it.”
“How do you know? She might be more open-minded than you think,” Beck pressed.
“She’s not. Trust me.” Seth sighed. “When I went home last Christmas, I told her about Liam, Raine, and Hammer. To say she was shocked would be an understatement. Then she dissected me with that mom stare and made me swear I wasn’t in any kind of polyamorous relationship. At the time, I wasn’t.”
“So that’s it?”
“I’d truly love for you to be there with us. But try to understand. Mom’s waited sixteen years to find love again. If we showed up as a throuple, it would overshadow her wedding day. I can’t do that to her.”
So where did that leave him, being the dirty little secret?
“Maybe we could call her and explain before the wedding? So it wouldn’t be a shock when we arrived.” Heavenly’s helpful suggestion melted Beck’s heart. “October is a long way off. That gives her time to adjust.”
“Good idea,” Beck praised, then glanced Seth’s way. “Have a heart-to-heart with her. Since your family worried about you in the past, I’m sure they’d be thrilled that you’re happy now, especially your mom.”
“She wants me to be happy, for sure…but this isn’t the kind of news I should break to her over the phone. I would have to explain this delicately, in person.”
Beck tried to understand, but it felt like excuses. Then again, he hadn’t given a shit what his family thought about him in nearly two decades.
“All right. So go for a visit. You have almost six months, so you should be able to find a time to tell her,” Beck countered.
“If I thought it would be that easy, I’d be on a plane tomorrow. But I know my mom. It’s going to take her a long while before she approves of this.” Seth swept his hand over the three of them. “If she ever does.”
A worried frown knitted Heavenly’s brows. Granted, she hadn’t been forthcoming about her hardships earlier in their relationship. But Seth rejecting every well-meaning suggestion to tell his mother the truth felt different, at least to Beck. Heavenly had hidden her problems from them out of misplaced pride and a desire to preserve her independence. So what was Seth’s issue? That wasn’t clear. And the fact he was pushing Heavenly to play a part in his subterfuge clearly worried her.
It worried Beck, too. And it pissed him off. If Seth wasn’t going to tell his stick-up-her-ass mother about them anytime in the next six months, when did he envision telling her…if ever?
“So I’m supposed to…what? Stay in LA with my dick in my hand while you and Heavenly fly off to New York to meet your family and play the happy couple?”
Beck gave zero fucks that he sounded somewhere between petulant and combative when Seth’s refusal to even broach the subject with his mom seemed ten times more childish.
“That’s not what—”
“Guys. Guys. Hold up,” Heavenly intervened. “None of us wants Grace upset on her wedding day.”
No. Beck simply wanted Seth to grow a pair and be honest…with everyone. “Listen, when we took Heavenly to visit her father in the hospital, she didn’t ask one of us to stand in the hall to avoid upsetting Abel. And he was on his deathbed. So what’s your excuse?”
“She went to say goodbye. We weren’t confessing that we were both in love with his daughter,” Seth scoffed.
