Perfect Together by Kristen Ashley

It also had my mind racing through a memory.

That memory being a time, post-argument between Remy and me.

After we’d fucked it out.

“We need to be quieter,” I whispered to him, tangled in his long limbs and our soft sheets. “Kids don’t like to hear their parents fight.”

“We need to be ourselves,” Remy retorted. “We need them to understand they should express themselves and their emotions. We need them to learn that you wouldn’t fight if you didn’t care. We need them to go into their relationships knowing they shouldn’t back down from their point of view if they really believe in it. And we need them to understand that fighting, in the end, is healthy. And they’ll understand that, baby. Because they’ll see, even if we do it, we always come out of it stronger, but more importantly, together.”

We had always come out of it stronger and together.

Until we hadn’t.

And what had that taught our kids?

“Yves?”

Remy’s voice calling his son’s name called my focus to my baby boy.

To all my children.

Manon was holding Yves’s hand.

As I watched, Sabre was running his hand up Yves’s spine and then he gripped the back of Yves’s neck.

Okay.

What was going on?

My fingers tightened on Remy’s thigh, and nothing occurred to me but to feel the warmth of connection when his hand covered mine.

“Okay, I’ve thought a million times about how I was going to say this,” Yves started.

He swallowed.

My body tensed so deeply I thought every muscle would snap.

Remy’s fingers curled around mine.

“And the only thing I could come up with was just to say it straight out. So that’s what I’m going to do,” Yves went on.

He went silent.

The room went silent with him.

Remy and I sat on edge—literally on our perches, and figuratively in our emotions—waiting.

Yves’s eyes were on me, they flicked up to his dad, then they settled on me.

“I’m gay,” he declared.

I blinked.

Remy didn’t move.

Was that all?

And more importantly, was drama a genetic trait?

“I know that—” Yves started to go on.

He didn’t finish.

“What do you know?” Remy barked.

I jumped in surprise at his tone.

Yves’s gaze sliced up to his dad.

I looked up at Remy too, and saw he was far from bland.

His jaw was set, his cheekbones were flushed.

I knew that look.

He was furious.

Oh God.

“Remy,” I whispered.

“What do you know?” Remy repeated, aiming these angry words Yves’s way.

Wait a minute…

How was this happening?

Remy was not that man.

It was part of being a true man’s man. It was one of the myriad reasons I’d loved him as deeply as I’d loved him.

This kind of thing had never, not ever, been an issue with him.

I’d worked at Bergdorf when we met. I had every intention, twenty some years ago, of being what I eventually became. I’d gone from sales associate to personal shopper and had just started to cherry pick my own clients when Remy and I decided to start a family. We’d also decided I’d stay at home when they were little, but I’d go back to it when our last entered kindergarten.

This I’d done.

Remy worked in the design world. He was at a big firm at first and then struck out on his own. He’d had lots of clients and part of his job was to be in the right places at the right times to find more.

We were active. Social. Had a wide range of friends.

We still did, and for the most part (outside Kara, Bernice, and obviously Bea, as well as Remy’s childhood friends back home, Beau and Jason), we’d managed not to make them pick sides in the divorce.

We had people from every walk of life in our spheres.

This was never an issue for him.

Nothing was ever an issue for him.

If it was, it would have been an issue with me.

We’d also never discussed it, but we didn’t because of just that. It was never an issue, which was one of the reasons, for me, why it was so attractive about Remy.

He didn’t have to play cool.

It was just who he was, and he expected others to be the same.

And that was it.

Yves didn’t answer his father’s question, but I could see my son’s throat ripple with another swallow.

It was Manon who was staring daggers at her father, and Sabre’s face was getting red with anger.

“How about you, Sah?” Remy asked his eldest. “You into guys?”

“No, Dad,” Sabre spat. “Don’t be a—”

“You’re into girls?” Remy cut him off.

I started pumping his hand.

He ignored it as Sabre answered, “Yeah, but what does it—?”

“So, when’s the family meeting for you to announce that?” Remy demanded.

I stopped pumping his hand and started thinking.

Fast.

“Manon, what are you into?” Remy asked as I did that.

“Dad, you’ve made your point,” she said softly.

“Have I?” Remy returned. “Have I made my fucking point?”

Okay.

Oh God.