Chapter Text
Kevin was on an overcrowded airplane full of tired, screaming children, all of whom were entirely too excited to be going from New York City to Orlando. They were on their way to Disney World—home of Mickey Mouse, Epcot, and all things bright and magical.
"Daddy?" the small child seated beside him asked, looking first to Kevin, then up to the other man who shared the title. "How many more minutes 'till we get to Disney World?"
Kevin couldn’t help the smile that bloomed on his face as he gazed down at the little boy, secured safely in Connor’s lap by a pair of long, freckled arms. Their three-year-old son loved everything Disney, from Mickey Mouse to Frozen and everything in-between. A child truly after his own heart.
Physically, he closely resembled Connor, with his wavy, light auburn hair and piercingly blue eyes. He wore a pint-sized sweatshirt with Donald Duck on the front and was nibbling on some Goldfish crackers, most of which were ending up as crumbs in his lap instead of in his belly.
“We still have about an hour to go, sweetie,” Connor replied, brushing back Colin’s reddish-blonde hair. “Why don’t you try getting some sleep? That way, when you open your eyes, we’ll be there. It’ll be just like blinking.”
And then Connor blinked really, really hard—over-exaggerated and full of humor, in the way that he did almost everything. It had Kevin’s lips curving upward even further, and he could hardly resist the urge to pull his husband into a kiss. He had no problem doing so, not anymore, regardless of how many people were around them, but he didn’t want to interrupt their sweet little moment.
They had named their son “Colin” for several reasons. Not only was it Connor’s late father’s name, but it also happened to maintain the theme of everyone in their family’s name starting with “K” or “C.” Connor also took great pleasure in the fact that it contained both the “Co” from "Connor" and the “in” from “Kevin.” Kevin had rolled his eyes at that one, but secretly thought it was kind of adorable.
He sat forward a little, just enough to stick his hand through the gap and lightly tap the thick head of curls belonging to the girl seated in front of him. He would have tried saying her name, but he could see she had her headphones on. With an audible giggle—intermixed with a sigh—she sat part-way up, kneeling into the back of her seat to face him.
“Dad,” she whined, feigning annoyance as she held up her headphones. His daughter had graduated from calling him daddy to dad a couple years back, though she still occasionally called him the former whenever she got really upset about something and needed a shoulder to cry on.
“I just wanted to see how you were doing next to Mister Hawaiian Shirt over there,” Kevin whispered, nodding to the seat next to her.
They had originally thought they could take turns holding Colin in their laps, and that Charlie could sit beside them in their three-person row. Their plans were foiled, however, when they were informed by the airline that all children over two years old were required to have their own seat.
Connor had offered to take the undesirable spot in a different row, but Charlie had insisted that she was old enough to do so. Kevin was reluctant, at first, but Connor had convinced him that it would be okay. Kevin begrudgingly obliged, on the stipulation that she sat in the seat directly in front of him, so that he could keep an eye on her.
She was growing up so fast, and Kevin didn’t like it one bit. But she was also growing into a strong, confident human being, while still maintaining her childlike wonder and endless curiosity. Besides, it wasn’t as though she had any control over the matter. She couldn’t stop growing, even if she wanted to. It was all just part of life.
Connor often reminded him of that fact, especially whenever he found himself in the midst of one of his semi-annual freak-outs.
Still, that didn’t stop him from wishing he possessed a time machine—or, rather, a time freezing device—so that he could just… slow it down a little. So that he could have just a few more years, exactly like this.
“I’m watching How to Train Your Dragon,” his daughter replied, as though Kevin’s interruption had severely put her out, “and it’s just getting to the good part.”
“Okay, okay, I get the hint.” Kevin held up his hands and relaxed back into his seat. “I just wanted to check in.”
His little girl (he could still think of her as that, right?) flashed him a grin before plopping down into her seat, her dark brown curls disappearing from view as she did so.
Kevin was glad she was still just a kid, even if time was moving too fast. He still had a year or so left before he’d inevitably have to deal with all of that… puberty stuff. Girl stuff.
The mere thought of it had a lump forming in his throat, but then he remembered that he wasn’t alone in this, that he had Connor, and that they would likely be having those talks together, all three of them, as a family, and suddenly it didn’t seem quite so scary.
Kevin tilted his head toward Connor, letting his eyes drift over his husband, who was reading their son a story to try and get him to fall asleep. Mickey Mouse and his Spaceship. It used to be one of Charlie’s favorite stories, as well, and she occasionally enjoyed reading it to her younger brother. Kevin had a suspicion that it was still one of her favorite stories, even though she would never admit it.
Kevin was still in charge of bedtime reading most nights, unless he had too many assignments to grade, or if Connor persuaded him to let him do it. He taught Connor how to do all of the Disney character voices—and he was quite good at them, too—but Kevin’s impersonation of Goofy still reigned supreme. Sometimes, they read to Colin together, alternating the characters’ voices between the two of them.
Even though Colin technically had the window seat, Connor spent the majority of the flight holding him in his lap, and so they were both sitting right next to Kevin, who was more than content to simply watch them, smiling to himself every time Colin squealed or Connor went really gung-ho delivering one of the lines. Connor may have abandoned the idea of acting professionally several years ago in favor of teaching dance and piano to children, but Kevin thought he was still pretty good at it. He still got to flex his acting muscles every once and a while in local community productions, which Kevin and Charlie and the gang always enjoyed going to see.
“Hey, buddy,” he heard Arnold whisper from across the aisle, accompanied by the familiar feeling of a hand being pressed against his shoulder.
He lazily cocked his head toward his friend, who was sitting in his own three-person row along with Nabulungi and Harrison, both of whom were sharing a pair of headphones while watching Shrek 3. Chris, James, and James Jr. were seated directly behind them.
Arnold and Naba had moved to Glen Ridge, New Jersey only one year after Connor and Kevin, in a house only five blocks down the same street, citing that his job would let him work from anywhere and that it would only take Naba about six months to transfer her teaching license.
Kevin had been overjoyed, of course. Connor and Charlie were ecstatic, as well. His daughter would once again be living down the street from her best friend, and Connor—well, Kevin knew exactly how guilty his husband had been feeling about the fact that his own best friends were only a few miles away while Kevin’s were over two-thousand. It was a win for everyone involved.
Chris and James stayed in the city with James Jr., and Kevin and Connor visited them quite often. It took nearly a year, but after many dinner parties, birthday parties, and long, uncomfortable conversations, Chris’s formerly hard feelings toward Kevin eventually began to soften. Nowadays, they even considered each other to be quite close friends.
“What’s up?” Kevin replied to Arnold, though part of him wished his best friend would stop pestering him, as he was just about to try and get some sleep.
“So, I know you’re, like, super into the Magic Kingdom and all,” Arnold started, “but I’ve been talking with Naba and she thinks we really oughta start with the new Star Wars park tomorrow. Like, first thing.”
Kevin raised an eyebrow and somehow—somehow—managed to suppress a smirk. “Naba said that?”
“Uh, yeah,” Arnold replied, though it was pretty obvious that he was lying. There were certain telltale signs: the nervousness in his voice, the way his eyes drifted briefly away. “Because Harry just won’t stop talking about it, ya know? It’s driving her nuts. And if we don’t go there first thing, he’s just gonna be so sad about it.”
A small laugh escaped Kevin's throat. He was fairly certain that Harry didn’t even like Star Wars. At least, not on the level that Arnold did.
“Don’t worry about it, pal. I already have it on the schedule for tomorrow.”
“Yes!” Arnold whispered, pulling his elbow into his side in a little ‘victory’ motion. Seeming suddenly aware of how that action must have looked, his eyes went wide and he tried immediately to fix it. “I mean, Harry will be so happy to hear that. Thanks, bud.”
Kevin allowed his eyes to drift closed after that, the sounds of Charlie’s soft giggles and Colin’s squeals and Connor’s mediocre-but-passable Donald Duck impression all blending together to form the most beautiful melody, lulling Kevin to the brink of sleep.
It didn’t take long for him to cross the threshold into complete unconsciousness, despite being seated in an unbearably small coach seat on a crowded airplane full of shrieking children and stressed-out parents. He fell asleep, anyway, just like that, head leant against Connor’s shoulder, hand rested atop his knee.
These days, sleep always came easily to Kevin Price.
The gang rode the Disney Magic Bus from the airport to the sprawling grounds of the resort, and by the time the ten of them dragged their suitcases through the giant doors of the grand hotel lobby, their energy and excitement was at an all-time high.
They had already gotten their magic bands delivered in the mail, and so after a quick stop at the front desk to check-in, the group was free to go right to their rooms. They would be meeting Clara, Jake, Jack, Sarah, and the kids later in the afternoon, when their plane arrived from Utah.
“What room are we in?” Charlie asked, so eagerly—impatiently, even—that he half-expected her to start pulling at the hem of his shirt, in that way she always used to.
“The same room we got last year,” Kevin replied, threading a hand through her curls. “492.”
The staff wasn’t exactly thrilled about them requesting a specific suite, and often gave them a hard time about it, but the few minutes he was forced to spend on the phone explaining how important it was for them to get that specific suite was always worth it.
They had sort of made it a tradition, whenever they came here with Arnold, Naba, and the kids, of getting the same suite they had gotten roughly five years prior, on the trip that had drastically altered the entire course of Kevin’s life.
He had been annoyed, back then, about sharing a suite with Connor. That annoyance had grown into full-on anger with the discovery that it had all been part of Arnold and Naba’s secret (and utterly ridiculous) plan to get the two of them talking again. Enraged was more like it. Rage that quickly transitioned into full-blown panic.
It was hard to believe, Kevin thought, that he and Connor had ever been anything other than what they were now. Literally, it was getting harder and harder for him to even remember. That time, that life, felt almost like a distant memory; one that was only growing increasingly blurry and faded with the passage of time.
It was a dark place he didn’t like to visit very often, as he much preferred to bask in the light of the present. Still, he chose to consciously look back on that trip, on that suite, as a turning point—the point at which Connor had re-emerged into his life and course-corrected the downward spiral he had been on. A gift of which Kevin still had no idea how to properly reciprocate, but damn if he hadn’t spent the past few years trying.
They woke up early on the second day and enjoyed a hearty breakfast of Mickey waffles—dripping with maple syrup, of course—and an array of objectively unhealthy sides. Charlie was approaching the age in which many girls suddenly became self-conscious about their appearance and Kevin didn’t love it, the way that she ate less than she probably should have, considering they were going to spend the entire day walking around the park.
It was yet another reminder that time was moving too fast, but he smiled when she not-so-secretly picked a leftover piece of Mickey waffle off his plate and popped it into her mouth as they moved to leave the table.
They hit up the Star Wars park first, as promised to Arnold, though Kevin would have much preferred to spend the day at Magic Kingdom. They waited in ridiculously long lines for the Millennium Falcon ride, followed by Rise of the Resistance, but all in all, it was an amazing first day at Disney.
“Okay, so… what do we want?” Connor asked as everyone collapsed into chairs and couches and even the floor after a grueling first day at the park. “Margaritas, mudslides, wine?”
“Margaritas!” Naba called out from her place on the couch, followed by various other requests from the rest of the group.
“You already know my order,” Kevin said, slipping an arm around Connor’s waist, watching as he busily gathered the ingredients required to make the various drinks.
“One mudslide, extra chocolatey, and go easy on the vodka,” Connor said. He turned to Kevin and smiled, earning him a kiss on the lips. “Does Clara want her usual virgin?”
“Yes, she does!” Clara called out from the floor, where her two twin sons were climbing all over her person, running hot wheels up and down her arms.
Several years prior, back when Kevin had gloriously discovered that they make alcoholic drinks with his favorite food in the whole world – chocolate – he had made it his mission to sample nearly all of the different recipes before finally deciding that the mudslide was his favorite. He made the non-alcoholic version for his sister one Thanksgiving and the two of them mutually decided it was the greatest elixir ever created.
The group talked and laughed and played board games until just about midnight. After all of the adults had called it a night and Kevin put the kids to bed, he wandered back out to the common room to find Connor sitting alone.
It appeared as though he was waiting for Kevin to return, judging by the two glasses of pinot noir and pre-assembled Scrabble board, the hint of a smirk tugging at his lips.
Kevin smiled back, warned him that they only had time for one game and one game only, and took the empty seat across from him.
On the third day, Kevin inadvertently learned far more than he ever wanted to about Arnold and Naba’s sex life. Smack dab in the middle of the Magic Kingdom, no less; the most sacred and holy of all places.
Kevin was an expert walker, talker, and ice cream devourer, even while tasked with doing all three activities at the exact same time. Arnold Cunningham, on the other hand, not so much. He tended to stop every few feet in order to concentrate on licking up dribbles of rapidly-melting ice cream before losing it to the blackness of the hot Floridian pavement.
Everyone else had gone back on Space Mountain except for Arnold and Kevin, who had opted to stay back and watch Colin and the twins, all of whom were passed out cold in their (extremely heavy and obviously not built for pushing around a giant amusement park on an unbearably hot day) strollers.
“Come on, Arnold,” Kevin groaned, waiting impatiently for him to finish licking the last of his triple-scoop cookie dough flavored ice cream cone. “We only have fifteen minutes to shop before we have to head back and I wanna buy a shirt for Colin.”
“Alright, alright,” Arnold replied, leaning heavily over a garbage can as he continued chasing the melting ice cream with his tongue. “Don’t get your panties in a twist.”
Kevin pulled a face, mildly grossed out by this eating-over-the-garbage-can scenario, which for some reason prompted Arnold to clarify his previous statement.
“Oh, I didn’t mean literal panties,” Arnold told him, giving his cone one last lick before finally tossing it. “It’s just an expression, like ‘it’s raining cats and dogs.’ I don’t actually think you wear panties.”
The way Arnold’s brain worked was still a puzzle to both Kevin and science alike, and so he found himself once again making a face, staring at his friend in baffled amazement.
“Um, yeah, I know that,” Kevin said, slightly wary of the direction this conversation was taking. “And my hypothetical panties are not in a twist, by the way. I just really wanna hit up the store in the very small amount of time we have left.”
“Though if you did wear panties, that’s totally cool with me, bud,” Arnold went on, clapping Kevin on the back as though he hadn’t heard a word he’d just said. “To each their own and all.”
“Oh my God,” Kevin sighed, gazing around as though someone might rescue him. “I do not wear panties. Can we please change the subject?”
“Does Connor?”
“What?” Kevin squawked, his voice climbing up at least two octaves. “No. Nobody is wearing panties.”
“Naba asked me to wear them once,” Arnold revealed for reasons Kevin could not even begin to comprehend. “Hot pink lace ones with a hole in the front. It was weird, but kinda hot.”
“God.” Kevin keeled over, pulling at his hair as though that might somehow erase the image of Arnold wearing lacy pink panties from his mind. “Why are you telling me this? Why?”
“Sorry.”
“Didn’t we already talk about this?” He felt entirely too flustered as he stood back up. “About how you shouldn’t overshare certain things because it makes people uncomfortable?”
“Yeah.” Arnold shrugged. “I just didn’t think this was one of them.”
Kevin gaped at him in total bewilderment. “It’s one of them.”
The next day was spent at the Typhoon Lagoon water park, where Kevin wouldn’t need to worry about anything except alternating between swimming and lounging in the sun. As much as he loved the Magic Kingdom, the water park was definitely a very close second. There were few things in life that made Kevin as happy as zooming down a two-hundred foot water slide and crashing into a cold, waiting pool.
After securing a group of lounge chairs, Connor sat down with Colin in his lap, who seemed quite content despite the hot weather, giggling as Connor bounced him up and down on his knee.
“Eh, eh!” Kevin called out, gently pulling Charlie back when she went to race toward the pool with Harrison and Bella. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
“Dad,” she whined, looking put out as Kevin began spraying her down with 100 SPF sunscreen. “I already told you, I applied in the room.”
“You couldn't have done your back. Turn around.”
He continued spraying her until her entire body was covered in a light sheen and she began to pull away. “Yeah, I think I’m good.”
Kevin wasn’t quite so sure and gave her back one last spritz before nodding his head. “Alright, but don’t go too far out.”
“I’m almost eleven,” she stated, as though that should answer that.
“Exactly,” Kevin agreed, choosing to ignore her half-amused, half-annoyed groan as he pulled her into a hug. “Stay where I can see you, at least until we’re ready to go on the rides.”
“Fine,” she reluctantly agreed before running off with Harrison and Bella in the direction of the pool.
He turned to find Connor giving him one of those looks. The same look he’d been giving him more and more often over the past two years.
Kevin averted his eyes, immediately going to work digging into their oversized beach bag for towels, water bottles, and toddler-sized swimming gear for Colin. When he looked back up, Connor’s eyes were still on him.
Kevin let out a sigh. “What?”
“You know what,” Connor said, lips twitched into a smirk that closely resembled Charlie’s, as though they were both in on some joke that Kevin knew nothing about. “She is getting older. One of these days, you’re going to have to let her… put on her own sunscreen.”
“It’s ninety-five degrees outside and she wasn’t properly covered. She could get some serious sunburn.”
“That’s how lessons are learned. If you keep on doing things like force-spraying her down with sunscreen and nagging her whenever she doesn’t do something she’s supposed to, then she’ll never learn on her own.”
Kevin’s ears burned as he draped a towel over the back of Connor’s chair. He knew his husband was right. He was nearly always right. But still—practicing what he knew to be true was harder than it should have been.
“Yeah, I know,” he eventually conceded, automatically taking Colin from Connor’s arms so that he could slip his shirt off.
Still to this day, the sight of Connor’s skin, even if just his top half, was enough to send a flurry of desire from his chest down to his toes. He wasn’t sure how, as they’d seen each other naked thousands of times. But at least now, he was able to sit with the feeling, even enjoy it, without any of the unwanted guilt or fear or shame that used to come with it.
“Here, let me get your back,” Kevin offered once Connor was done covering himself with sunscreen, leaving only the parts he couldn’t reach.
Setting Colin down onto one of the loungers and asking Arnold if he could keep an eye on him, he squirted a palmful of 100 SPF sunscreen cream (not the spray, as Connor insisted it did absolutely nothing for his pale Irish skin) and slowly worked it into his back.
He quite enjoyed doing this, no matter how many times he’d done it over the years, taking his sweet time rubbing the cream into Connor’s skin until he was certain he was completely covered. Running a thumb along the edge of his husband’s dark blue swim shorts, Kevin leaned in from behind, giving the side of Connor’s neck a tender little kiss. Connor grinned, closing his eyes as he leaned back into Kevin’s chest.
He loved making Connor’s face look like that. He loved it so fucking much. More often than not, these days, he succeeded in doing so. He rarely elicited the opposite reaction, though the occasional fight over something to do with the house or the kids did sometimes happen, but they always made sure to make up immediately after. It never lasted long, and they never went to bed angry.
“Mmmm,” Connor hummed, cupping Kevin’s hands as they looped around his waist. “This is nice.”
Kevin pulled him close, letting his eyes wander the perimeter of the pool until he spotted Charlie, Bella, and Harrison, laughing and splashing in the water. He smiled to himself, taking a long moment to think on Connor’s words.
“Yeah, it is.”
The sun began its descent over the resort a few days later, casting a warm orange glow over the pool, its ripples shimmering in that way that can only be achieved between afternoon and twilight. The air smelled of french fries and barbecue from the bustling outdoor grill. Kids could be heard shrieking and laughing in the distance.
Kevin was sitting at the bar, one arm wrapped around Connor’s shoulders, the other resting against his thigh. Arnold, Jack, and Clara’s husband, Jake, were still in the pool, supervising the kids as they splashed around, screaming happily and playing water games. Chris and James were chatting with Jack’s wife, Sarah, on a row of lounge chairs, while Clara and Naba played a spirited game of volleyball on a small court adjacent to the pool.
“So, what’s the plan for tonight?” Connor asked, leaning deeper into Kevin’s side as he sipped his piña colada. “Are we eating here, or—?”
“I was thinking we could have an alone night,” Kevin suggested, not letting on that he had already made all of the arrangements for precisely that, from the dinner reservation at Salvatore’s on International Drive, to lining up who was going to babysit the kids.
Connor’s eyes widened. “An alone night? But what about—?”
“Jack and Sarah offered to watch the kids,” Kevin replied, thoroughly enjoying the look of confusion on Connor's face, “if we agree to watch Bella and Parker for them on Friday.”
“Oh, wow,” Connor breathed, his confusion quickly morphing into pleasant surprise. “That sounds… great.”
Kevin smiled. “I thought you’d like it.”
“So, where are we going?” Connor asked. “And please don’t tell me the Skipper Canteen because we’ve eaten there three times already.”
“It’s a surprise,” Kevin gave him a cheeky look, “but if you must know, it isn’t the Skipper Canteen.”
The cryptic reply seemed to pique Connor’s curiosity. “Do I know this place?”
“Oh, yeah.” Kevin brought his drink to his mouth, if only to hide the mischievous smile he could feel pulling at his lips.
“You and your surprises,” Connor softly noted. He then leaned in, placing a slow, gentle kiss against the top of Kevin’s cheek. Instead of pulling back, however, Connor proceeded to drag his lips downward, whispering hot and breathy against Kevin’s ear. “And now that we’re having an alone night, I guess I have a surprise for you, too.”
Kevin practically choked on his drink, as the tone of Connor’s voice was very… Well, it was rather flirty. And by the way Connor was grinning as he pulled away, looking all coy and mischievous, Kevin had a feeling he was going to really like this surprise.
Connor’s eyes went wide as the cab pulled into the parking lot of Salvatore's on I-Drive. He glanced over at Kevin, whose mouth had slid into a grin, and the two of them broke out laughing. The cab driver seemed confused, and mildly annoyed, but cheered right up when Kevin handed him a crisp twenty dollar bill.
Tonight was a special occasion, and he planned on going all out.
“Oh. My. God,” Connor said, scanning over the menu once they were seated. “They still have that awful-sounding ostrich steak on here.”
“Wanna try it?”
Connor made a disgusted face. “It’s fifty dollars.”
“That’s okay.”
“I don’t think I wanna eat an ostrich,” he said, jutting out his bottom lip. “They’re kind of cute, don’t you think?”
“You say that about everything.” Kevin smiled. He was honestly surprised Connor still ate any meat, at all, considering how much thought he put into that kind of thing.
“Oooh, they have gourmet pizza! Wanna share one?”
“Sure.”
They ordered a bottle of malbec, talking and reminiscing as they dug into warm Italian bread and far too many slices of pizza. They smiled a lot and laughed and flirted—unabashedly and proud, not really caring who might be listening or watching or judging. Kevin didn’t really give it much thought, anymore, which was interesting, considering it had once been one of his biggest hang-ups. He used to be so conscious of how he acted, trying carefully not to give himself away, but now... Now, he didn’t hide a thing.
Okay, well, maybe that wasn’t entirely true. He was still rather uptight, and had a tendency to flush a deep crimson whenever Charlie or one of their friends caught the two of them making out, or someone asked something a bit too personal, or whenever Arnold overshared in that ridiculous, face-palming way he always did, telling Kevin things he absolutely, unequivocally, did not want to know.
But in terms of this — of openly showing how much he loved Connor McKinley — he hardly ever got nervous about that. He didn’t blush or jerk away or pretend they weren’t actually together. He was so proud of Connor. Proud to be seen with him. Proud to love him. He was proud of them, period. Of their relationship, of how far they’d come, against so many obstacles and nearly insurmountable odds.
“Ah,” Connor said, throwing Kevin a smirk as the Uber pulled into the parking lot of none other than Tiki Tom’s. “I see what you’re doing here.”
It was a local gay bar with a tropical motif. One they had only been to once before, on a night that had ended with Kevin storming out in tears and Connor running to another man’s bed to try and numb the pain.
But tonight, Kevin was determined to rectify all that, to retrace the steps they’d taken roughly five years prior and replace all of the bad memories with good ones.
The interior of Tiki Tom’s was just as tacky and kitschy and crowded as he remembered. The music was just as loud, the bartender just as busy passing out large, tropical-themed drinks to hoards of drunk, rowdy patrons. There were people coupled up in lounge booths, laughing and kissing and getting handsy.
But none of it bothered Kevin, now. In fact, he kind of liked it, even though part of him still felt out of place in settings such as this, as he still wasn’t the biggest drinker or dancer or social butterfly. But he was with Connor, who looked downright handsome in his gray blazer and light, faded skinny jeans.
They still hugged his curves the way they had years ago, still snug in all the right places, but when other people flirted with him, now, when they spent more time staring at his body rather than his face, Kevin didn’t get jealous. Not really. He knew that Connor was wholly devoted to him, and so there was really no reason to feel anything other than total gratitude, that he had someone who was just as beautiful and handsome on the inside as he was on the outside. Someone who others coveted, but Kevin had, wholly and completely.
They each ordered their usual: a classic margarita on the rocks with salt (and just a teensy bit of extra tequila,) for Connor, and a mudslide, extra chocolate and a dollop of whipped cream, for Kevin, and took a seat in one of the coconut-shaped lounge booths. The blaring music and shouting patrons drifted further and further away as they laughed, and kissed, and cuddled, until a slow ukulele song came on and Kevin led Connor out onto the dance floor.
He kept his eyes locked with Connor’s the entire time, save for when one of them twirled around, allowing the music and the mild, intoxicating haze from several mudslides to overtake nearly all of his senses. Connor looked happy, he noted; and bright, and joyful. It made Kevin smile, in turn, as he had the most wonderful habit of making Connor’s face look that way; making it light up and shine, his eyes twinkling with the kind of intrinsic happiness that wasn’t possible to fake.
The music grew faster, and louder, and more clubby, but Kevin and Connor stayed out on the dance floor, only leaving to fuel up on drinks and water and to use the bathroom. Laughing and spinning and dancing close, they moved in time to the thumping, almost hypnotic music, lips locked together through most of the songs, sometimes several in a row.
They didn’t get back to the resort until well after midnight. When Connor instinctively moved to enter the lobby, Kevin gently tugged his wrist, leading him backwards in the direction of the pool. Connor seemed to catch on almost immediately, laughing as Kevin fell back onto the hammock, pulling Connor down with him. The same one they had cried on, laughed on, talked on, many times over the past few years. It had become a bit of a tradition with them, actually, to lay on this exact same hammock every time they came to Disney. But for some reason, going to Salvatore's, and then Tiki Tom’s, and now this, made it hit a little different.
Kevin laid on his back, eyes to the stars, hand trailing up and down the length of Connor’s side. It was difficult to believe, how much had changed since the first time they’d done this. Almost inconceivable, really, that he had gone from that trembling, frightened boy... the one who feared Connor’s touch, his kindness, his love... to… to this. To the person who was proud to call Connor his husband.
The stars above all looked the same, still twinkling in the blackness of the sky, just as they had on that night. The moon still shone just as luminous, casting a dreamy glow over the pool, creating shadows over objects and buildings that weren’t there during the day. Connor looked almost exactly the same, too, as Kevin was starting to think the man just didn’t age. Even Kevin, in his dark blue blazer and matching jeans, looked almost identical.
Charlie was likely asleep, safe and sound in Jack and Sarah’s room after a rousing night of games and laughter with Bella and Harrison. Arnold and Naba will surely tease them tomorrow, not-so-slyly insinuating things Kevin didn’t like to talk about as they nudged him in the stomach and asked how their “date” went. Connor was still wiser than him when it came to things like emotions and stress and caring for a budding pre-teen. Charlie still loved to swim. Kevin still got unduly embarrassed while buying condoms at CVS.
Everything was the same, and yet everything was different.
“What are we celebrating?” Connor asked a while later, meeting his eyes with a touched expression after gazing around the bedroom.
Kevin had arranged in advance for champagne and tulips to be sent up to the room, and for a fluttering of petals to be laid out atop the duvet.
“It's been five years,” Kevin stepped closer, taking his hands with a smile, “since... well, you know. Since you changed my life for the better.”
He knew that Connor knew that he wasn’t referring to their wedding anniversary, or their dating anniversary, or even the day their son, Colin, was born.
“Well, almost. I wanted it to be the actual date, but some people weren’t able to do that week. But it’s, um. It’s close?”
With a knowing smile, Connor squeezed his hands and allowed Kevin to press him back onto the mattress.
They took their time, slowly undoing each other’s buttons, hands roaming over skin and up sides as though this were the first time they were ever doing this. Kevin wanted to take his time, wanted this to be special.
He slowly unbuttoned Connor’s jeans, expecting to find the familiar stretchy band of his typical blue or gray boxer briefs hidden just below the waistband. He was surprised, however, to find a sliver of hot pink lace sitting just above his zipper.
“Oh, wow,” Kevin breathed, momentarily stunned as he slowly lowered the zipper.
Connor was all smiles, gently bucking his hips upward as Kevin slid off his jeans. “Do you like it?” he asked, breathing a bit heavier from all the excitement.
Did Kevin like it? Of course he liked it. It was... Connor was... He was gorgeous. In that hot pink lace… whatever it was called.
His heart skipped a beat. Hot pink lace. Hot pink lace. The words plummeted through him like a brick. Connor was wearing hot pink lace. Just like…
Fuck. No. Just… no.
Arnold’s words from earlier, about how he had once worn Naba’s hot pink lace panties to bed, flashed across his mind, positively ruining any chance he had at enjoying this.
He mentally shook his head. No. No, he was not about to let Arnold, of all people, ruin the first night he’d had alone with Connor all week. The only night they would have alone until they flew back home three days later.
Focus on Connor, he told himself, letting his eyes drift over his husband, who seemed to be relishing in the way Kevin’s fingers kept on trailing over his abdomen, lightly brushing up against the thin patch of coarse reddish hair that disappeared into the garment.
The garment. The hot pink lace garment. The same type of garment he had been forced to imagine earlier in the week on—on Arnold.
Goddamn Arnold, he thought. Arnold and his penchant for oversharing things that should not ever be shared.
“Is it weird?” Connor asked, seeming suddenly concerned. He waited a moment for Kevin to reply before asking, “It’s weird, isn’t it? I knew I shouldn’t have—”
“No, it’s… I love it,” Kevin said, running a tender hand over the edge of the pink lace. “You’re gorgeous. God, you’re so… so gorgeous.”
Connor smiled at the compliment, but still looked confused. “Then what is it?”
“Nothing. It’s just...” He paused, feeling like a total idiot. “Well, maybe you could pick a different color next time?” His tone was tentative, and he could hear his heart beating in his ears. “Any other color. Literally, any other color besides hot pink.”
If Connor looked confused before, then he looked doubly confused now.
“It could be a lighter shade of pink,” Kevin swallowed against the tightness in his throat. “Or, um—a mauvey kind of pink, would be nice. Just as long as it isn’t hot pink.”
“Okay…” came Connor’s slow, drawn-out response, though Kevin could see by the slight twinge of curiosity in his eyes that he knew there was more to the story. “Care to explain the oddly specific preference?”
Kevin hung his head with a sigh. This was not at all how he imagined this going.
“It has something to do with Arnold, okay?” he reluctantly admitted. “Which is just… so not a topic I want to be thinking about right now.”
A slow smile formed on Connor’s face, as though he were actually enjoying how flustered Kevin was getting.
“I’ll explain it to you later, okay?” Kevin went on, running a slow thumb over the lacy rim of the garment. “After.”
Connor nodded, looking amused as he threaded his fingers through the back of Kevin’s hair. “After,” he echoed, and met his lips in a kiss.
They spent their final day at Disney in Kevin’s favorite park: the Magic Kingdom. Charlie still loved the It’s a Small World ride and made Kevin go on at least three times, which was honestly something, considering she had spent the majority of the trip asserting how “old” she was.
Not that Kevin blamed her. She was getting older, he thought as they strolled down Main Street USA toward the ferry that would bring them to Epcot, and that was okay. He was extremely proud of the person she was becoming; the way she excelled in school, how kind she was to everyone. She was still so full of joy, and her big green eyes still lit up at the mention of a Disney marathon (and Moana still made the list every single time.) Connor was having a blast bringing her to Broadway shows and museums, now that she was old enough to appreciate them, and Kevin enjoyed it, too.
And he would still get to do all that little kid stuff, again, with Colin. Everything had a funny way of working out exactly as it was supposed to, he thought as they boarded the boat. Sure, he may have gone off the path for a bit, during those years of strife and turmoil and abject uncertainty, but Connor and Charlie and even Arnold, in a way, helped to steer him right back on. And when a person was exactly where they were supposed to be, the way Kevin was supposed to be with these people, right now, then achieving true peace and happiness felt almost effortless, flowing through everything they did, even during the sad times, the bad times, the I-don’t-know-what-the-heck-I’m-doing times.
The gang enjoyed a long, leisurely dinner at La Hacienda San Angel, then spent the next hour or so making their way toward the lake, sampling drinks and shopping for trinkets at the various country sections of the park.
They reached the lake around eight-thirty. The fireworks wouldn’t be starting until after nine, but Kevin wanted enough time to buy the kids their usual Mickey-shaped balloons before then. Once everybody picked out their favorite color balloon, they all walked down to the glistening expanse of water, sipping on drinks and chatting and joking around as they waited for the fireworks to begin.
Sometimes, Kevin couldn’t even believe it, that everything had actually worked out exactly as Connor once promised him it would.
Well, almost everything. There was still his dad, who hardly ever spoke to him, even after all this time. Whatever brief, begrudging contact they'd had previously (mostly at his mother's prodding) ended nearly entirely once she left him just under three years ago.
Which reminded him: he had something he had to do before the fireworks were set to start.
Pulling out his phone, he turned to Connor, who was holding Colin atop one of his hips, his high-boned, freckled cheeks all rosy from laughing with Naba and Clara.
Kevin gently swatted his arm to get his attention. Connor turned to him, eyes still sparkling from whatever the three of them had just been talking about. “I totally forgot. I promised my mom we’d Facetime her.”
“Oh, that’s right!”
Connor leaned into Kevin’s side, a twinge of pink still dusting over his cheeks. And he was smiling. Smiling at the idea of calling Kevin's mother. And Kevin knew his mother would feel the exact same way. It had happened gradually, over a period of time, but these days, she honestly thought Connor was a hoot. Which was truly something, considering how poorly the two of them had started out.
It sometimes made Kevin want to pinch himself, just in case all of this was just a long, twisted, drawn-out dream, in which everything he had always hoped for somehow came to fruition. But as many times as he pinched himself, he never did wake up. Eventually, he accepted that this was his reality; that he had his mother and his husband and their beautiful little kids (one of them significantly littler than the other, but he wasn’t going to think about that) and the life they used to talk about, all those years ago, in Uganda, backs to the rust-colored dirt and eyes up to the stars.
Kevin turned down to his phone and sent his mother a Facetime request. He knew the show was starting, evident by the multi-colored, etheric-looking lights surrounding the ring on the other side of the water, almost reminiscent of the Aurora Borealis, and the opening instrumentals and vocals of The Lion King booming across all of Epcot.
His mother picked up after a few seconds. As she appeared on the screen — albeit, slightly blurry — he could see that she was in Clara and Jake’s kitchen, hot cup of what was probably her favorite herbal tea partially visible in the camera.
She squinted at the screen, much as she always did whenever he Facetimed her. He had hoped she would come with them on the trip, but she had recently gotten a job doing administrative work for a furniture company and didn’t want to request time off so soon.
“Kevin?” she practically yelled into the phone. “Is that you?”
“Yeah, it’s me, Mom. Remember I told you we’d Facetime you at the fireworks?”
“Is Charlie there? How about Colin?”
“Yes, everyone is here, Mom.” He then turned the phone so that Charlie and Connor and the rest of the gang could wave at her.
“Hi, Mom!” Connor shouted his usual joke, waving frantically toward the camera. He thought the idea of calling her "Mom" was simply hilarious. She nearly always rolled her eyes whenever Connor called her that, but Kevin could tell by the way her lips pulled into one of those fond, amused smiles that she secretly enjoyed it.
Pulling the phone back toward him, Kevin grinned. “Here, take a look at the fireworks,” he told her, then faced the camera toward the lake, where intermittent booms and explosions of light and color speckled in the otherwise darkened sky.
“I’m so glad you’re having fun, sweetheart!” he heard her call out to him, despite the booming fireworks and loud music threatening to drown most of it out. “But you don’t have to keep me on here. I want you to enjoy the show.”
“Okay,” Kevin conceded, as he could hardly even hear her as it was. “I’ll call you when we get home tomorrow, tell you about the trip.”
“Sounds wonderful.”
Then he hung up, slid the phone into his pocket, and looked over at Connor, who was still holding Colin, smiling and talking to him about how exciting the fireworks were. Colin was giggling with every word out of Connor’s mouth, seeming more delighted by the look on his father’s face than the fireworks themselves.
Kevin glanced to his other side, where Charlie was standing, balloon in hand, next to Bella and Harrison. She caught his eyes as he looked over and surprisingly — very surprisingly, considering how independent she’d gotten over the past year or so — stepped to the left and leaned into his side. He pulled her in almost instinctively, holding her close to him as he focused his gaze back on the fireworks.
Conner joined them less than a minute later, leaning into Kevin’s other side with Colin in his arms. Kevin slipped his other arm around Connor’s back, pulling both him and his son deep into his side. He could hear the laughter and intermittent chatter of Arnold and Naba, Clara and Jack and the kids, intermixed with the thunderous boom of fireworks, the harmonious fullness of the strings, and the melodic voice singing a vaguely familiar Disney tune—from Peter Pan, if he remembered correctly.
The second star to the right
Shines in the night for you
To tell you that the dreams you planned
Really can come true…
They really could, he thought to himself, feeling both Connor and Charlie’s warmth against his sides. They were his family; his three beautiful, perfectly imperfect reasons for living. It made him wildly emotional as he stood there, holding them in his arms, watching the majestic splendor of exploding light and color across the stars.
Tears ran down his face as he gripped them tighter, squeezing them as close as he possibly could. And even though he had already known that it would be, had already committed to the idea many years before, he couldn’t help but think that everything they had gone through to get to this point, all of the arguments and tears and heartache and pain… He wouldn’t take any of it back, not even for a second, because in its own weird and mystical way, it had all led him to exactly where he needed to be: right here, in this very moment, with his arms around Connor and their two beautiful children.
It was worth it, he thought, only reaffirming what he had already known. Completely, entirely, one-hundred percent worth it. All of it.