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“Yes. He has some blockage in one of his arteries but it’s not a lot, so his doctor is gonna treat it with medication.”
“That’s great news. I’ll bet he’s relieved.”
“He really is. So am I. I told my dad that nothing can happen to him because he’s all I’ve got left. No grandparents or anything on either side of my family, plus I’m an only child like Zac,” I said, grinning at him sitting next to me. “I’m a little spoiled too.”
Zac and his parents laughed, and Gregg reached across the table and extended his hand toward me. After I took it, he looked straight into my eyes with his blue ones that were identical to Zac’s, gave my hand a gentle squeeze, and then smiled at me.
“I speak for my family and I want you to know that you’re accepted here, Stevie. There is no judgment of your and myson’s relationship. The way that Beth and I view Zac’s marriage to Avery is that they’re married only on paper, and it’s been that way for over four years. I’m sure I’m not telling you anything that you don’t already know but I just felt a need to be transparent with you about my feelings on all of this. Because your father is a pastor and because of your church upbringing, I have no doubt that you’ve grappled with the circumstances of your relationship with Zac,” Gregg said, glancing over at him.
“Yes, sir, I have.”
“It’s understandable, sweetheart, but you’re gonna learn that when it comes to matters of the heart, certain manmade rules and laws will never apply.”
“This that Zac and I share has been a big lesson in that very thing.”
Gregg gave my hand another squeeze, then let go of it and took a sip of his beer.
“Stevie, in the short amount of time that you’ve been here in my home, I’ve already witnessed enough between you and Zac to know you two are very much in love. Now, I have no idea what the future holds for you or my son, but I do know that I hope you’re in his future. I’ve never seen him like this,” Gregg said, pointing at Zac and smiling. Then he looked back at me. “You can’t fake what I see showing in his eyes and also yours, young lady.”
I had already started getting choked up from listening to everything that Gregg was saying, but it was his last sentence that really got to me.
“No, you can’t fake it,” I said, smiling through my tears.
I glanced at Beth and she was in the same boat as me, then I looked up at Zac to see him wiping his eyes. His dad was right there with him, doing the same thing.
“Thank you for coming here, Stevie,” Gregg went on to say. “You’re a true delight, just like Zac said you were.”
I thanked him for his kind words, and then Beth asked all of us if we’d like to go relax in the living room.
“I know you wanna check out that picture collage in there,” Zac said, nudging me. “I saw you looking at it earlier.”
“Yes, I do wanna check it out. Especially those pictures of you when you were younger.”
“That’s fine. You can check them out and then you can get your jabs out of the way.”
I held up my hands, acting innocent. “Who said I was gonna do that?” I teased.
“No one—but I know you, Sinclair. This one here likes to give me a hard time, Mom and Dad,” Zac said, looking across the table at them.
“Sounds like she’s just keeping you on your toes, son,” Gregg chuckled. “I know someone who’s good at doing that to me.”
He looked at Beth sitting beside him. They smiled at each other, and then Gregg leaned over and kissed her. In that brief moment, watching them, I saw Zac and myself. The sweet affection was the same and so was the friendship.
By the time another hour had passed, Zac, his parents and I had sat down in the living room to relax and talk some more, but not before Beth gave me a quick tour of her home and also showed me all the pictures of Zac in the collage on the wall behind her couch. There were ones from when he was a baby all the way through his elementary, junior high and high school years; one of him on the day that he graduated from law school; one of him rocking Malcolm when he was a baby; and also a recent one of Zac. I knew it was recent because he looked just like he did now with the short beard that he grew just for me.
When I asked Beth when it was taken, she smiled and said, “I took it on the day that Zac told me about you. I wanted to take a picture of my son because his happiness about having you in his life was so obvious. He was glowing all over just like he is now.”Beth glanced over at him sitting in the chair next to his dad, who was chatting with him, then turned her attention back to me.
“I love this picture of Zac so much,” I said, looking at it again.
“I’m gonna go print a copy for you right now. Which size would you like?”
“Same as yours, please.”
“One five-by-seven picture of Zachariah Dalton Buchanan in love coming up,” she said, then flitted off. I smiled at hearing her call Zac by his full name because I’d done that too.
When I turned around, Zac smiled at me and then patted his leg for me to come over to him and sit down. As soon as I was in his lap, he wrapped his arms around my waist and hugged me to him, and he kept holding on to me while he and his dad continued their conversation.
Beth was gone for only a few minutes, and when she returned to the living room, she walked up to me and handed me a manila envelope.
