I was lounging around my room as I took a study break and chatting on the phone to Jack when I heard my dad call out for me. I told him that I’d be there in a minute as I finished my phone call.
The weather outside was miserable and it had been raining all day, which was putting a serious downer on my Friday. My Christmas exams were coming up and the seniors had a free study day. Jack was just finishing telling me about his day so far when my dad appeared at my door, knocking once before walking in.

“Hang up, Alex. Your lunch is getting cold and we need to talk. I want you down in the kitchen, now.”

There was something about the tone of his voice that suggested urgency and I could tell that this wasn’t going to be one of our normal chats. That wasn’t surprising though. Lately, we seemed to be having more and more arguments over the silliest of things and less and less normal conversations like we used to have. My dad seemed to be in an almost permanent bad mood.

“I better go,” I explained to Jack. “This is not going to be fun. Enjoy the rest of your day and I‘ll talk to you later.”

“I’m sure it won’t be that bad, Lex. I’ll see you soon. I love you.”

“Love you too,” I muttered as I reluctantly hung up.

When I got to the kitchen, my dad had two bowls of soup laid out on the table and he motioned for me to take a seat across from him. He let us sit in silence for a while before clearing his throat and pulling out a piece of paper from his pocket.

“I’ve never had to do this before so I’m not quite sure how to approach this. Normally, I use to let your mom deal with all of this.” He was silent for a moment before taking in a deep breath and continuing. “Your report card came in the mail today. You got mostly A‘s and some B‘s this semester, so well done. It was a very good report card.”

I had no idea where my dad was taking this conversation, but I let him continue. He’d get to his point eventually.

“So, I guess since your grades are doing so well, you won‘t need to go to these tutoring sessions anymore. They seemed to have served their purpose.”

“I think that I’ll keep the tutoring sessions up. I’ve learned a lot from them and Jack and I have a good routine worked up.”

Judging by the look on my dad’s face, as soon as Jack’s name was mentioned, I guessed that he was the reason we were talking and I knew it wouldn’t be good. I didn’t know what exactly he knew or suspected but I knew it was probably something I’d have liked to have told him myself.

“Actually Alex, let‘s cut to the chase. I don‘t know what‘s going on between you two, but I want it to stop. Don‘t try and deny it. I saw some of the texts on your phone from him. Whatever is going on, I know it‘s not right. He‘s a teacher. He‘s your teacher. You are too young to be making decisions like this.”

I had no idea where all this had come from. I was sure that my dad liked Jack. Although they had never met, he seemed okay with the fact that we were friends. He had said it himself, that being friends with Jack was no more different than being friends with Danny or Zack. I know he might have been shocked to discover that I liked guys but that wasn’t really something that I could just bring up. I couldn’t just announce it out of the blue one evening as we ate dinner or something. It wasn’t something you just brought up like ‘Hey dad, can you pass the bread? Oh and by the way, I’m gay.’

It just didn’t work like that.

“That‘s not fair,” I began, trying my best to keep my cool and be reasonable at the same time. I wanted my dad to trust me and not dismiss me as just being a teenager. “You can‘t just tell me to stop seeing him. I‘m nearly nineteen. I‘m old enough to decide what I want. He might be my teacher but we‘d still be together even if he wasn‘t. There‘s only four years between us. It‘s not like he‘s some creepy old guy who wants to take advantage of me. You don‘t know Jack, but I do and I know that I love him.”

“Alex, what if you get caught? What happens then? He‘s a teacher. His number one duty should be to teach you and not have a relationship with you. It‘s illegal!”

“We didn‘t intend to have a relationship. It was completely innocent and platonic at the start. We started out as friend but then we grew closer. I made the first move when I realised how I felt about him. We haven‘t done anything wrong. You don‘t know Jack. You‘ve never met him.”

My dad was clearly frustrated by the whole situation as he stood and walked to the dishwasher. If it wasn’t for the fact that the treatment had made him lose his hair, I knew that he’d be running his hands through it; I did the exact same thing when I got frustrated.

“Fine, you’re right. I don’t know him. I’ve never met him. Tell him to be here at six pm for dinner. He has no excuse to get out of this. It’s the time you normally have your tutoring session with him. I’m sure that you can go without it for one night.”

My dad and I had reached a happy medium and I only hoped that once he met Jack, he would come around to the idea of us dating. Before I began studying again, I sent Jack a text letting him know about tonight.

Jack, my dad found out about us. He wants you to be here @ six for dinner. Sorry! xx

~*~*~*~

At exactly six o’clock, the doorbell rang and I rushed to get it. I wanted to be the first one to see Jack. I opened the door to reveal a flustered and nervous looking Jack stood on the patio. Bella’s carrycot hung from the crook of his arm and he clutched a bottle of wine in his other hand.

“Hey Jack,” I greeted him, reaching up to peck his lips. I could feel Jack tense at my touch and I moved quickly to reassure him. “It‘s okay. He‘s in the kitchen.”

Jack quickly kissed back and I took Bella’s seat from him, peeking in to see the sleeping baby.

“Sorry, I had to bring her with me,” Jack explained. “I couldn‘t find a babysitter. My mom‘s in Chicago for the weekend and Matt‘s gone to visit his parents for the weekend.”

“It’s okay, babe. Let’s just get this over and done with. Come on and I’ll introduce you.”

I grabbed Jack’s hand as I led him to the kitchen. Jack scrubbed up well for ‘meet the father’. He was wearing a blue checked button up shirt with dark blue skinny jeans. He was wearing his glasses instead of contacts. Personally, I loved it when he wore his glasses. He looked absolutely gorgeous in them.

My dad was busy stirring the pot of pasta when we got to the kitchen and I called him to get his attention.

“Dad, this is Jack and his daughter, Bella. Jack, this is my dad.”

My dad showed no indication of whether or not he liked Jack as he shook his hand and informed us that dinner would be another fifteen minutes. I took Jack into the living room and I collapsed onto the couch beside him with a sigh.

“I have no idea why he‘s being like this. He‘s acting like the Grinch lately and all we seem to be doing is arguing. He‘s doing my head in. He can‘t break us up.”

Jack laced his fingers with mine, comforting me as I finished my little rant.

“Calm down, Lex. It will all be okay. He‘ll see that we are good together. I‘m sure that he has his reasons for everything. The last thing you want is to cause an argument with him. Everything will be okay.”

I leaned in closer to Jack, automatically feeling calmer under his touch.

“Do you promise?” I know it was childish of me, but it was the kind of reassurance that I needed.

Jack put his arm around my shoulder as he leaned down to whisper in my ear. “I promise you, baby. I‘m not giving you up without a fight! I love you too much to do that.”

~*~*~*~

“So Jack, when did you realise that you were gay?”

I nearly choked on my water when my dad bluntly fired that question at Jack. It was a very personal question to be asking him but if Jack felt this way, he showed no indication.

“I guess that I’ve known ever since I was seventeen or eighteen, but I was hesitant at first to put a label on it. I wanted to let things play out naturally.”

Jack was handling things so well.

“So, if you have known that you were gay since you were seventeen; how did you end up with a baby daughter?”

“Dad!” I hissed at him. He’d overstepped the mark majorly this time. “What do you think you are doing?”

I felt Jack’s hand on my thigh as he attempted to calm me. I placed my hand over his.

“It‘s okay, Lex,” Jack reassured me. “I‘ll tell him the truth. Mr. Gaskarth, Bella is not my biological daughter. I adopted her and I‘m bringing her up as my own. She‘s really my niece but after the death of my brother and his wife a few months ago, I was left as her legal guardian. I took on the responsibility to raise her.”

My dad was silent for a minute or so as he ate before continuing his interrogation of Jack.

“Why Alex though? Why would you pick a student to have a relationship with? As a lawyer, I am more than aware of just how serious a student-teacher relationship is. You can get into serious trouble if it was discovered.”

“You can‘t choose who you fall for. I learned that the hard way. Believe me, I never set out with the intention of having a relationship with Alex. I was simply just helping him catch up because I understood his situation. I had been in his shoes when I was his age. I knew exactly what it was like to lose a parent so young. As I got to know Alex, our friendship developed into something more as we discovered that we had more and more in common. I am more than aware of how serious this is but I am not some guy who‘s years older than Alex who pervs on young boys. I know that I‘m risking a lot if we get caught but that is a risk that I am willing to take. I‘m willing to do anything to ensure that we aren‘t caught because I love your son so much and nothing will change that.”

I linked my fingers with Jack, wishing that I could just hug him on the spot. My dad’s expression softened after Jack’s little speech as he rose from the table and began loading plates into the dishwasher and laying new plates on the table for dessert. Jack exchanged a worried glance with me as my dad began serving up hot apple crumble with cream for dessert and, Bella broke the silence in the room by making her presence known that she wanted to be fed.

My dad waited until Jack had Bella settled in the crook of his arm as she drank from her bottle before speaking again.

“I guess that it‘s time for me to explain myself. Alex, I owe you an apology for the way I‘ve been behaving recently. It wasn‘t fair of me. Jack, I apologise for my abrupt and rude behaviour this evening. I do have an explanation however. It came as a great shock to me when I discovered that there was something going on between you two. I knew that you were friends but I never suspected anything else. Truth be told, I panicked when I discovered your relationship. Alex is all that I have left and because of this illness, I‘m not sure how much longer I have left. All I want is the best for him. I needed to make sure that he wasn‘t being taken advantage of. However, after tonight I can see that he is more than safe. I can see that you love each other very much and that your relationship is solid.”

It took me a moment to take in my dad’s words and absorb what he was saying but it all made sense now. I understood now why he’d been acting the way that he had been lately.

“So, does this mean that you won‘t stop us seeing each other?”

My dad could only laugh at my question.

“Alex, you are as stubborn as your mother was. Do you really expect me to think that you‘d have listened to me if I had told you that you and Jack couldn‘t be together?” He asked. “But, the answer to your question is, yes. You can be together. Jack is a good guy and I like him. However, there will be some ground rules that I need to set. You need to keep your grades up. I was impressed with your latest report. You only have a few months left so I want you to keep those grades up. Secondly, you can‘t stay over at Jack‘s on a school night. You can only stay over at the weekends. During the week, I want you home by twelve. Jack, of course is more than welcome over here at any time but please, keep your door closed as there are just some things that a father doesn‘t need to see.”

My face lit up at these rules, they weren’t half as strict as they could have been. I thought that it would have been too cheeky to ask about staying over this weekend. However, my dad could read me like an open book and he already knew what I was dying to ask.

“Yes Alex,” he chuckled. “You can stay over tonight. Finally, I want Jack to come over for dinner every once in a while so that I can see firsthand that things are okay. I promise you, Jack that things won‘t be as unfriendly as they were tonight and of course, Bella is always welcome here too.”

~*~*~*~

“You know, for a while tonight I was convinced that your dad wasn‘t going to let us be together. It scared me, babe. If he hadn‘t have agreed to this, it would have been so much harder to stay together. He‘s a lawyer and as much as we could have tried to keep seeing each other, he could have made things so difficult. If he hated me, then he could have reported me to the Department of Education.”

Jack broke the comfortable silence between us. It was late, I’m not sure what time it was exactly, but Jack and I were lying in bed together. I moved closer to him, resting my head on his bare chest, listening to his heartbeat.

“I‘m glad that he liked me, though. I wouldn‘t like it if my boyfriend‘s dad hated me. You know, I would have done everything in my power to be with you, don‘t you? You mean too much to me to just let you go. You are too important to me and I don‘t know what my life would be like without you. I‘m pretty sure that it would suck. I‘d have given up my job and moved away just so it meant that we could be together. You are so worth it and, I love you.”

Never before had I been so happy to hear those words come from anyone, especially Jack. I’d never felt so strongly for anyone in my life. I hadn’t realised just how big a role we played in each other’s lives until tonight. I guess that when he was nearly taken away from me, I realised just how much I needed him. I love him with all my heart and I could see him being in my life for a very long time. I was so relieved that tonight had gone so well.

“I love you so much too, Jack. I love you so much!”