•It All Started With A Phone Call•

ĖLĖVĖN

RØRY

After dinner, Matt pulled me aside into his study and he paced anxious in front of me.

"Uncle Matt!" I call at him and he stops. Matt looks at me and smiles awkwardly. "What's wrong."

"I'm going to propose. To Brendon. When you and your friends go out on Saturday." Matt replies dreamily. He walked over his desk and fishes through the bottom drawer until he pulls out a blue velvet box.

He puts it in my hand and I open it. I gasp at how beautiful it was. It was masculine, but the diamonds gave it a feminine touch.

"Matt, he's gonna love it!" I shoved his shoulder affectionately. Matt beams a smile at me, I can tell just how happy he really was. "I'm so happy for you!"

Matt hugs me quickly and takes the ring back. He smooths his thumb over it and I have to look away because it's just such a fond look.

"He just makes me so happy." Matt sighed. He put the ring back and faced me, still smiling brightly. "We said that marriage wasn't going to be on the cards for us, it would be hard with me moving around a lot for work. But I got offered a compromise from my company, it means I never have to move around if I didn't want to."

"Matt," there wasn't really anything I could add onto that, I was just so happy. "Do Pa and Dad know?"

"Yeah, Cole helped me pick out the ring and everything." Matt brushed his hair away and fell down into the couch. "Things have just changed so much in the past few years. Like your dads, we didn't meet in the best circumstances and to be honest, I never thought we were going to last. It wasn't until ten years ago when I realised that we were in this for the long haul, I wasn't even into guys when I met Brendon so I assumed it was just wanting something different or anything like that. But, no, I was meant to be with him, you know?"

I didn't know how these two met, nor did I know how my dads met either. I knew it wasn't something that they were proud of, that's why they haven't told me. Dad had a lot of scars from back then, a bullet shaped one on his leg, a jagged line down his shoulder, burns on the side of his body. They were really bad, and sometimes Pa would wake up screaming out 'Shadow' or 'Dale' and I didn't know who these guys where. I assumed they were the people who hurt them.

When pa was in one of his lows, which was rare these days, he often sat on the bathroom floor and rock back and forth, mumbling to stop hurting him. I knew 'him' wasn't pa, I thought I might have been dad. When dad would come into the bathroom and scoop pa up into his arms and seat him on his lap, pa would mumble 'Shadow' over and over.

Dad, with sad eyes, would brush back his hair and reply, "he's gone baby boy, it's okay, it's okay. I'm fine, you're fine. We're out of there, okay, baby? We're safe. He's gone. He can't hurt us anymore."

That's why I think Shadow was the one to hurt my dads back before they had me, why else would dad say that he couldn't hurt them any more?

I had asked who Shadow was when I was fifteen and had walked in on dad and pa on the bathroom floor for the first time.

Dad had just shushed me and told me to go to my room. I asked again and said it didn't matter. By the third time, pa had told me that Shadow someone left alone in their past. I gave up on asking them, I knew I wasn't going to get an answer I wanted so I just left it.

Now though, I nodded to my uncle and he ruffled my hair.

"Get him a puppy." I say for lack of a better thing to add into this conversation.

"I just might." He nodded and checked his Rolex. "Come on, kid. Movie time."

"Can we watch Love, Simon?" I asked hopefully and Matt just chuckled and gave me a thumbs up.

When we got out into the lounge room, Brendon was getting some popcorn out of the microwave and putting it into a bowl that was already half full with buttered popcorn.

"He has requested Love, Simon." Matt tells Brendon and we get one of his crystal smiles back.

The three of us collapsed onto the couch, Brendon into Matt's chest and me into a mountain of pillows and blankets.

By the time the move ended I had cried and laughed and cringed. Brendon was asleep on Matt and he was snoring softly, like a kitten.

I was well on my way to falling asleep, and I still needed to call Kay to say goodnight, so I bid my uncles farewell and go back to my room.

I get my phone off charge and lay down in my bed.

Kay picks up the phone on the fifth ring.

"Hey, Pet." He says in a quiet tone. He sounds sleepy, which is fair because it's almost ten on a school night and Kay usually gets up at three thirty to get to school by six. I don't think he lived three hours away, just that he had to have a long ass morning routine to be that good looking.

"Hey," I replied.

"You sound happy." Kay noted. There is some shuffling and I think he is moving around in his bed.

"My uncle Matt told me he's going to propose to Brendon on Saturday!" I giggle, trying to keep my voice down even though there was minimal chance of Brendon hearing.

"That's great pet, tell them I said congratulations." He mumbled, sounding adorable.

"I will." I set down my phone quickly and pull my shirt and tracksuits down and chuck them somewhere. "I miss you," I whine like a baby.

Kay chuckles and yawns and I want to cuddle him.

"Miss you too, Pet. Like you wouldn't believe." Kay mumbled into what I presume was a pillow.

"We haven't even been together a day and we're already that annoying couple." I giggled. Kay snorted in agreement.

"Well, I'm just taking what I can get. I've been waiting for this for close to six years," Kay owned up.

"Six years!" I exclaimed. "No way have you been into me for six fucking years, Kay!"

Kay grumbles something that I could decipher before saying, "I need to go to sleep, Pet. I'm so tired. I went on the track after you left for a few hours."

The 'track' I had gathered was a dirt bike track in Kay's backyard, he had told me that over the phone once. I had had no idea that Kay had been into dirt bike riding before this week.

"You have to take me on the track at least once." I say, rolling my fist over my eye with a yawn. "I'll let you go now, Kay. Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Pet, love you." I hummed affectionately at that.

"Bye,"

"Bye, love."