Now the woman looked huffy. “Dysfunction? There is nothing dysfunctional about this family! Noel has always been high-strung and difficult, all her life. Insisting on being contrary and nonconformist just to cause trouble. I should have known she’d do something stupid like this. She was never easy like the rest of my chil—”

Keith held up his palm. “Stop. Right now. You’re done.” When one of the brothers tried to step forward and intercede, Keith turned his palm toward him and closed his thumb and fingers together in a universal shut-up gesture without taking his focus off Noel’s mom.

“Once Noel’s done,” Keith said, “we’ll leave and go back to the hotel for the night. We’ll return tomorrow and check on her father. Either you pull your heads out of your asses and play nice and put aside whatever petty, stupid family squabbles you’re going to use Noel as the scapegoat for, or we’ll take her back home to Florida.” He’d actually booked the trip for them to be up here a week, so he’d have to change the flight.

But he wouldn’t tell her family that.

One of the sisters looked a little conflicted. “Mom, he’s right. This is about Dad, not about—”

The other brother reached out and grabbed her shoulder, scowling at her.

The sister’s face reddened, but she went silent.

“Oh. I see how it is,” Keith said. “Rule by dictatorship instead of honest, adult relationships based on mutual respect and understanding. Gotcha. That’s your definition of a ‘functional’ family.”

“How dare you!” her mom said. “You don’t know us at all.”

“Exactly. I can tell I don’t want to know you, either. Not if you’ll treat Noel and Scott this poorly during a situation as grave as this.”

An announcement went off over the loudspeaker, a code blue page. Ten seconds later, two doctors bolted through the waiting room and were immediately buzzed through the ICU doors.

Everyone fell silent. Scott felt for Keith’s hand, Keith taking and squeezing it.

Noel didn’t return.

Thirty minutes later, Noel, with a nurse helping her walk and led by a doctor in scrubs, emerged from the ICU.

“Mrs. Jameson?” the doctor asked.

Noel’s mom covered her mouth with her hands.

Keith and Scott went to flank Noel, taking over from the nurse, who appeared to actually be holding her up, not just helping her walk.

From the look on Noel’s face, Keith immediately knew what had happened. He didn’t even need to ask.

She softly wept against them as the doctor ushered the family into a conference room just off the waiting room to break the news.

Keith ignored everything except Noel and Scott.

They were his focus, his priority.

The other siblings and their spouses comforted her mother and each other as the doctor explained what happened.

“I want to see him,” her mother demanded. “Take me to my husband.”

The doctor escorted her out while the nurse stayed behind. Keith heard her say, “We’ve called the hospital chaplain for you.”

“I want to go,” Noel quietly said to Keith. “I want to leave now.”

Keith exchanged a glance with Scott, who looked as heartbroken as Keith now felt.

“Honey,” Scott said, “we can’t leave right now. We have to—”

“I want to go. I don’t have any reason to be here,” she said, pulling away from them and wobbling to her feet. “This isn’t my family anymore. I kept hoping they’d change, but they haven’t. I’ve changed. I’m happy now. I’m done.” She headed for the conference room door on unsteady legs.

Scott looked to him for confirmation. Keith shrugged and rose to his feet, quietly following Noel, catching up with her and opening the door for her as Scott slipped an arm around her waist.

Downstairs in the car, she had her meltdown, sobbing between the two men in the backseat as they sat there with her between them.

“He opened his eyes and looked at me,” she whispered. “The nurse who took me back there told me he was sedated, but he opened his eyes when I talked to him. I said, ‘Hi, Daddy. I love you.’ And he opened his eyes and looked at me. Then they closed again and alarms went off and I sort of got shoved out of the way and then there were all these doctors and nurses working on him.”

Keith had his arms both around her and Scott, Noel pressed against his chest and Scott holding her from behind. “Honey, we can’t leave things like this,” Keith said. “That’s your mom, your family. There’s going to be a funeral. I’ll sit out in the car while you and Scott go to it and—”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t want to go. I don’t want to look at them.”

He tried again. “If you leave things like this, there’s a chance you’ll never be able to fix them. I speak from experience.”

“There isn’t anything to fix. The problem is for years I thought there was. I thought if I tried hard enough, they’d like me and accept me, but the truth is they won’t. I don’t know what was so different about me that they couldn’t in the first place. I got decent grades, but I was always different than my brothers and sisters. I liked to read all the time, fiction. I was a dreamer. I was liberal. They never really accepted me once I was old enough to form my own opinions and then defend them without backing down. I’m done beating my head against that wall.”

“Hold on,” Scott quietly said.

He slipped out of the car, closed the door, and then Keith watched him take his cell phone out of his pocket and make a call. While Keith continued to soothe Noel, Scott walked away from the car. In the glow from the parking lot security lights, Keith could see Scott talking to someone, running a hand through his hair, staring down at the ground as he paced slow, small circles. Ten minutes later, he nodded, ended the call, and rejoined them.

“We’ll fly into Grand Rapids tomorrow,” Scott said. “I told my parents we’d call them as and give them an ETA as soon as we change the flights. We don’t have to get a hotel room. They said we’re welcome to stay with them.”

“We?” Keith asked.

Scott nodded. “All three of us.”

* * * *

It was late in the afternoon when Keith finally pulled their rental car into the Gilroys’ driveway. Mike and Danica Gilroy stepped outside before they’d even emerged from the car. As soon as Noel spotted Danica, the woman held her arms open to Noel and Noel ran to her, crying. Danica shuttled her into the house.

Mike Gilroy looked somber as he walked over to Keith and Scott, who were getting their bags out of the trunk. “You must be Keith. Sorry this meeting had to be under such depressing circumstances.”

He stuck out a hand to Keith.

Keith shook with him but glanced at Scott.

“I told him on the phone last night,” Scott said. “I told them everything. Well, the short version.”

“I’m still confused,” Mike said after hugging Scott, “but he said you three would give us the long version. I think it’s more important to take care of Noel right now. I never did have much use for that bunch of assholes she’s genetically related to.” He looked at Scott. “Didn’t I tell you that then?”

“Yes, Dad. You did.”

“What?” Keith asked.

Scott smirked. “Dad told me Noel was welcomed into our family, but if I ever tried to force the rest of those jerks on him he’d disown me.”

“Mr. Gilroy,” Keith said, “I think you and I will get along just fine.”

The older man smiled. “I think you’re right. Call me Mike. Or call me Dad. I don’t care. Either’s fine.”

Keith felt peace settle around him. “Thank you, Dad. I appreciate that.”

* * * *

If it’d been the plot of a clichéd romance novel, the contrast in the two families couldn’t have been more blatantly different. It was obvious that the Gilroys didn’t understand why Scott and Noel had opened their marriage, and the three of them avoided the topic of BDSM while Scott admitted he thought he was gay, but they were withholding judgment.