Bad decisions

Ch. 3

I automatically got flirty.
"Hey officer braiden" I checked him out "nice outfit." He laughed but his face turned a slight pink. My father went on ahead and left braiden and I behind him and he named off the steaks he wanted, the thick cut, and the amount.
"So now that I'm off the hook and not your little prisoner, though I wouldn't mind being hand cuffed by you; how's about a date? Or we can just you know hang out? If you catch my drift."
"In your dreams kid. I gotta go now." I watched his ass in those jeans all the way to his car.
"Eli." My father said snapping me out of my teenage hormones for a minute.
"Coming." I simply said as i made my way to the counter to pay for the steaks.
Dad and I got out to the car and he broke down crying and I automatically got frantic with worry.
"Dad? What is it? What's wrong? Are you in pain? Dad answer me!" He put his hand up as to tell me to give him a minute so I did. He turned to me and hugged me. "Dad?" I said as this man had never shown this kind of affection towards me since I came out as gay.
"I'm sorry Eli..."
"For what?"
"I'm so very very proud of you; You truly are a good kid. You do so much for this family and for me to have been treating you the way I have been isn't fair to you. Just know that I am truly proud to be the father of a man who works to support his family's needs while still juggling school and taking care of his sister. I'm so sorry son."
I was in tears at this point
"Dad.. you never really did anything wrong. You kept a roof over our heads for as long as you could before it became to hard for you to work. You just... didn't really know how to react to my being gay.. but you never said anything negative towards me, never lectured me on it, you just distanced yourself because you didn't know how to react which is perfectly okay. I understand it was a lot for you to take in. You have nothing to be sorry for and I mean that. I love you." I hugged him tighter and then we both let go when dads phone rang. Mom was wondering what was taking is so long he said he had to make an extra stop to pick up something special for dinner.
When we got home I lugged in as many bags as I could in one go inside the house. Made it in with only three left in the car. I went back out to get the last three bags and that's when officer braiden walked up to me.
"Hey kid, can we talk?" I gave him a flirtatious crooked smile he looked around the yard "With both of your parents that is." My smile turned into an uninterested expression.
"Yea, they are getting dinner ready." I said as I grabbed the last three bags and shut the trunk. "You can just follow me in." And he did just that.
My mother turned away from the bag she was marinating the steak in and turned towards us.
"Oh braiden how lovely to see you. How's your mother?" I looked at my mom in a confused way 'How does she know about braidens mom? How does she even know his mom lives here?'
"She's doing better Mrs. Woods especially since you were so kind enough to make her some pain lotion with your apothecary treatments. Thank you by the way I really appreciate it."  I looked back and fourth between them both and then realized his mother was the one with cancer my mother was talking about not to long ago.
"Please braiden m call me Anne."
"So what brings you here tonight?" My father questioned looking at me curiously as he winked at me. 
"We've got some news on the guy who broke into your house. I'm not on duty right now but I figured letting you guys know some things we found out would help with you knowing why he was here to begin with."
"Well come sit down and join us for dinner and we can about it after does that sound good?" My mother kind of pushed him to the table where he sat down right next to me. He looked directly at me. I cocked my head to the side putting on my crooked smile and I licked my lips bitting down on the lower one as I looked him up and down.  I didn't need food when I had eye candy right I front of me.
We ate dinner and had some casual conversations and he honestly fit right in with us. There was no awkward silences or uncomfortable feelings of anxiety. 
As I was air planing Lilly's baby food into her mouth mom asked if I was going to eat.
"Eli aren't you going to eat? You've barley touched any of your food." All eyes were on me as Lilly opens her mouth for the airplane.
"Yea in a second, just let me finish feeding lily, she's only got two bites left."  I said as I was scrapping the jar of 'chicken dinner' baby food to get the last bit out.