Page 64 of Laying Low

“Yes,” she confirmed.“And we told them to expect you around two o’clock today.You’ll have to wake up again to eat, and that should work just fine.”

“So,” Anthony said, feeling a little slow, “if we’re leaving in three days, and you and Dean will take three days to get home—”

“We’ll all be getting home about the same time,” she told him.“Dean and I might even be picking you up from the airport.”She nodded toward Reg’s phone.“And now that you have a new one of those, you’ll need to spend at least an hour texting everybody.Anthony here stirred up a hornet’s nest when he texted.It needs to be you.”

Reg gave Anthony a puzzled glance.“But Anthony’s so nice,” he said.“How could he stir up hornets?”

Julie gave Anthony a telling look and patted his arm.“I’ll let him tell you, son.But don’t worry.He said something everybody needed to hear and you would never have said.It’s okay—we’ll have it all balanced out by the time you get home.”

Reg frowned at Anthony, bemused, and Julie laughed a little.“Give me a hug,” she said.“You and your young man enjoy this time here—you’ve earned it.”And with that she kissed him on the cheek and then turned to Anthony for his hug.“Welcome to the family, kiddo.I hope you’re ready for all of us.”

Anthony snorted.“Oh yes, ma’am.”He smiled.“And I already felt like family.If you didn’t want me to stay, you shouldn’t have been so awesome.”

She laughed and patted his cheek.“Now, if only we could get Sal to come home, I might actually believe that.Bye, boys.Travel safe.Text us all you want, but don’t forget to put the phones down after a while.You deserve the peace.”

And with that she was gone, leaving Anthony to face Reg’s irritation.

“What did—how did you scare up a hornet’s nest?”he demanded.

Anthony let out a sigh.“Reg….”

“No, seriously.What am I walking into when I pick up my phone?”

He said it, but to Anthony’s intense relief, he let the phone remain on the charger and crawled back into bed with the air of a man who needed more nap more than he needed to fight—or to log on to find out why his myriad siblings were currently freaking out.

“I just happened to mention to them that….”Wow.He was glad Reg was lying down for this.“That you let your mother win at cards.”

“You did what?”Reg pushed up on one elbow, and Anthony waved him back down.

“We’re going back to bed.”He yawned.“Lay down and face me.”

It was always harder to maintain a good edge to your anger when you were prone and gazing into the eyes of somebody you were trying to be angry with.

“Why would you do that?”Reg demanded, but he did it lying on his side, staring across the pillow space at Anthony with wounded eyes.

“Because,” Anthony told him.“Because you didn’t give them a chance.It wasn’t fair.They wanted to send you to school, did you know that?And you know what?”

“What?”

“Chanceknew.Chance knew, and I don’t think he could have kept it to himself for much longer.They wereso hurt—do you know that?They felt like it wastheirfault, that they hadn’t made you feel like you could be accepted if they knew the real you—”

“That’s bullshit!”Reg exclaimed.“I just didn’twantto go away.Don’t you get that?I didn’t want to go away… and fade… and be forgotten—”

“We would never forget you!”Anthony couldn’t yell—not from his current position—but he could put his passion into the words.“Reg, baby… don’t you see?It’s not that you didn’t want to go to college, it’s that you didn’t even give them a chance to send you.It’s that you… you tried to make yourself invisible so you didn’t make waves.Don’t you think they deserve the chance toseeyou?”

He sighed, and Anthony could feel the press of their oft-broken sleep on him too.

“I’m so unremarkab—”

Anthony kissed him.Slowly, druggingly, a kiss designed to let the both of them, as they lay prone, drift off to sleep.When he pulled away, Reg frowned, but neither of them were going anywhere when they finished what they had to say.Bed was just such a nice place to be.

“What?”he asked, yawning.“What are you trying to accomplish?”

“I’m trying to let you know that I see you and I think you’re amazing,” Anthony told him, yawning back.“Now go to sleep.We can discuss this when we wake up, and I’ll set our alarm so we can go visit the boys and Adelle.”He grunted.“It’s going to be a while before we see them again.”

And that right there was a warning as to why they should hash their shit out and get over their irritation.You never knew when the people you cared about would get yanked right out of your life.

Reg seemed to arrive at the same conclusion.“I love you,” he muttered.“But don’t make decisions for me.”