Liability (Suncoast Society #33)(67)

He gave her credit for trying. She nearly made it to the ICU’s doors before she started bawling with laughter that rang through the entire unit before the door swung shut on the sound.

“She’s a nurse, huh?” Hank asked.

“Used to be. She works for a movie production company now. She’s actually known Mason a lot longer than I have. They were friends even before he moved to Nebraska.”

Louise’s eyebrows went up. They looked drawn on with a pencil and Cole couldn’t…stop…staring at them. “Oh! Wait, I thought she looked familiar. I think we’ve met her before, at a Christmas party at Mason’s, years ago. She had a boyfriend named Cris.”

“Still does.” Cole squeezed his eyes shut as he realized what he’d said. “I mean, her husband.”

Movement caught his eye. Tilly reappeared behind him in the unit’s doorway.

“I thought she said her husband’s name was Landry?” Louise now sounded confused and suspicious.

Tilly clapped a hand over her mouth and tried to disappear again, but Cole snagged her arm, dragged her into the room, smiled at the nurse as he held up a finger, and slid the door shut again.

Tilly had her fingers wrapped around the footrest of the bed and was staring down at Mason’s feet.

“I’m sorry,” she said, still struggling with her laughter. “The baby woke up when we got home after we picked her up from the sitter, and she would not go back to sleep, so I didn’t get any damn sleep last night…” And her words devolved into laughter again.

Cole hung his head. This wasn’t exactly how he’d envisioned meeting Mason’s parents.

“You’re supposed to be the kick-ass one!” he hissed.

She laughed harder, shaking her head back and forth. “Sorry. Temporarily out of order.”

“Are you sure she’s a nurse?” Hank asked.

“This is…complicated.”

Tilly leaned over, snorting and laughing, trying to keep it quiet, bracing herself against Mason’s bed.

“Tilly, you’re not helping!”

“I warned you, dude! Nut up and get it over with. Or I can tell her alll about Landry and Cris, your call.”

He sucked in a deep breath. Hell, this couldn’t be any worse than dealing with Kim’s family. “I’m Mason’s boyfriend,” he said. “And Kim is our girlfriend.”

“Bok,” Tilly muttered before giggling some more.

“Kim?” the couple asked.

“The woman out in the waiting room, with Corbin? She’s not with him. She’s with me and Mason.”

Louise’s drawn-on eyebrows knitted in frustration. “But…Mason’s gay. She’s a girl. I know how someone being gay works and—”

“Oh, yeah. That’s the hang-up?” Tilly said, still giggling. “That she’s got girlie parts and not that one plus one plus one doesn’t equal two?”

“We’re poly,” Cole said, glaring at Tilly.

Tilly stuck her tongue out at him.

Spanking her was actually looking fairly tempting.

“Poly?” Hank asked.

He gave them a scaled-down version of the talk they gave Corbin, without any mention of BDSM.

He could tell from the looks on their faces that they didn’t approve, but weren’t sure how to deal with it.

“Look, as Kim and I already told Corbin, we’re going to take care of Mason. We were already talking this weekend about making things permanent long-term between the three of us. He’s our boyfriend, and we want to be in charge of his care.”

Louise looked conflicted. He got it. This was her only child, and Mason’s future was still up in the air.

On the other hand, she wasn’t a spring chicken, she didn’t live locally, and here were two people who loved Mason and who were ready to step in and take care of him.

“As I already told Corbin,” Cole continued, “if this is going to be a problem, I’ve got a couple of friends who are lawyers who will be more than happy to go to bat for us, and they know how Mason feels about us. When Mason wakes up, he’ll—”

“No,” she quietly said, stroking Mason’s hand. “I won’t fight you on this. As long as you don’t try to keep me from my son and you let me be part of this.”

“I would never keep you from him, ma’am,” Cole promised. “And think of it this way. It’s not just me, it’s me and Kim. Two people. Of course we’ll welcome any and all help you’re able to contribute, but we are dedicated to him. He’s…he’s our life. We’re in this for life. We want to be his caretakers for as long as he needs us to be.”

“Did Corbin try to keep you from him?” Louise asked.

Now Tilly had composed herself. “He was…understandably cautious, at first,” she said. “He wanted to make sure Cole and Kim really meant what they said. He gave them an easy out, saying he would take the blame for running them off if they wanted to bail on Mason.”

“He did, huh?”

“Yeah.”

Cole didn’t imagine he spotted the barest hint of a smile there. “That *,” Louise softly muttered, but she almost said it…fondly.

Hank patted her shoulder. “Don’t you think it’s time to bury the hatchet?”