BRIAN

“You are the first thing I shared with Mel, and found out I had a friend I didn’t know I had. LY”

“I took one of your shirts with me when I left, and wore it when I missed you. Love you”

Justin and I were led to his mother’s table. After the whole thing with Deb, neither of us was in the best of moods. I kept wondering what it would take to get Deb to open her eyes and see that Michael needed to deal with his own life. She gets angry when Michael does something that affects her, but ignores anything nasty he does if it affects any of the rest of us. It also makes me look back at the things that went on, and not like that I let Michael get away with using what happened to keep me running back. Listening to Justin question Deb showed me that I never took the time to see that I didn’t cause Michael’s belief that we would ever be anything more than friends.

“We could have met for dinner if you wanted. Was there something you needed to do for your friend?” Jen asks.

“Deb overreacts to everything when it comes to Michael.” I tell her.

“She wants you to give your life for the guy.” Lee tells me.

“I got the feeling she wasn’t happy with Justin.” Molly tells us.

“I let my inner asshole come out when he wanted to play ‘who was more important to Brian’.” Justin tells them.

“Damn, and I missed it. Justin does it so well.” Molly laughs.

“I can overreact if she wants to screw with my son.” Jen tells me.

“Mom, let it go, I can handle it.” Justin tells her.

“Okay, but let me know. That goes for you too Brian.” Jen tells me.

Lunch was finding out more about Justin’s life; that his father had died, his grandfather filled that role for both Justin and Molly while they grew up, and that Justin was in trouble with his grandfather for going to jail. I watched Justin squirm when Jen asked if he had talked to his grandfather.

“I’ll call him, I just didn’t need two lectures on being an idiot.” Justin tells her.

“I can’t even watch when Justin and Quinn race on the test track.” Jen tells me.

“So Lee says you have a son?” Molly asks, changing the subject.

“Gus. I had him with my friends Mel and Lindsay. They wanted to have you over to their house tonight. It’s so Gus can go to bed if he gets tired.” I tell them.

“Justin’s always wanted children.” Jen tells me.

“You never told me that.” I tell him.

“It’s not really something I thought about doing anytime soon.” He tells me.

“We are going to have Gus some weekends.” I tell him.

“We need to start looking at furniture for the house.” He tells me, making me smile that he sees it as a place where we’ll be.

“Are you moving here? I know you said you needed to start looking for a place of your own. But I thought you meant near the company?” Molly asks.

“The house Brian bought is close enough that I could live there and still go to work without a problem. I can even set up an office in the house and work from there when we aren’t building the car.” Justin tells them.

“Where have you been living?” I asked, when we were on our way back to drop me off at work.

“My cousin and best friend's house. Before I came here I knew it was time to give them back their house. Everyone thought I was hiding from you, but I just didn’t want to commit to a house.” He tells me.

“Now you can just move into our house.” I tell him.

EMMETT

Drew tends to run for it when Deb shows up at our doorstep. She had the ‘Brian’s an asshole’ look on her face and part of me wanted to trip Drew and run to lock myself in his man cave. Once again I got stuck with Deb on a rant. She’d eventually make it to Ted and Blake’s, but she always starts with Lindsay, then me. She’s used to me being on Michael’s side, too bad I’ll disappoint her.

“I can’t believe the way this Justin talked to my Michael.” She tells me, sitting down.

“Why not? Michael was saying things to try to make Justin think that only Michael was important to Brian. It doesn’t matter what Michael told you, I was there and it was Michael who started it with Justin.” I tell her.

“Brian can't just bring someone around and not expect Michael to be upset. Brian’s always told Michael everything, but to leave out he's been seeing someone for years, it bothers me too.” She tells me.

“If I'd been Brian, I wouldn’t have told you either.” I tell her.

“Why not, I've always been happy for you?” She asks me.

“Look at what happened every time he just wanted to get away. Michael would get upset and suddenly become hurt or depressed, and you’d end up calling Brian, telling him he needs to drop everything for Michael. The fact that you seem to ignore that there isn’t anything wrong with Michael, makes all of us wonder. Deb, Brian shouldn't have to hide things, but you're already showing him why he did it. You took Michael’s word for what happened at Woody’s, not even asking anyone who was there for their version of what happened. If I'm right, you showed up and jumped on Justin for not letting Michael get away with what he was saying to Justin.” I tell her.

“Justin doesn’t understand what Michael’s been through.” She says, once again excusing Michael.

“He was injured in a car accident. What does that have to do with Michael trying to make it sound like he and Brian are more than friends to Brian’s partner?” I ask.

“Michael probably didn't even realize that's how it sounded.” She tells me.

“Is she serious?” Drew asks me. “I mean, I hope your kidding Deb, because no one could be that blind. I know Brian sent you the video of Michael dancing, an hour after he told Brian he might have broken his leg, did you watch it?” He asks.

“Yes…”

“Then why are you sitting here defending Michael?” He asks.

“What Michael did was wrong, but Brian…”

“How do you go from Michael lying to trying to blame Brian? All Brian is trying to do is have a relationship with Justin. Your son shows up, telling Justin shit like ‘it was nice Brian didn’t have a trick for a change’. Then jokes to the man Brian’s with that Brian was tricking all the time they were apart. Wait, there's more. He also tried to imply that Brian and Michael seeing Gus right after he was born showed who was more important, and just to put it all out there for you, called Justin a 'dirty little secret’. If Michael had pulled that shit with me, he'd be lucky to be alive to tell you. All Justin did was fight words with words, so you should be glad he doesn’t think like me.” Drew tells her.

“Michael wouldn’t do that to Emmett.” Deb tells him.

“But it's okay to do to Brian?” He asks.

“You need to go home and decide if you want to keep defending Michael. Because if you do than all you'll accomplish is that you’ll give Brian more reasons to see not including Michael in his life as the best thing to do, and you too if you're not careful.” I tell her.

“Emmett, Michael felt like all of you were treating him like his friendship didn’t matter.” She tells me, looking for me to back her up on this, which was not going to happen.

“I couldn’t sit there and agree just to make Michael happy. Justin has the right to defend his relationship with Brian. I should add that Michael didn’t seem to have a problem stomping out the door, in case he made sure to limp for you. It seems all of us have stopped being blind to your son’s limping for attention, but you.” I tell her.

“You think she listened?” Drew asks, when Deb got up and left without a word.

“Doubtful. It will take something that directly affects her for it to get through to her.” I tell him.

TED

Mel came to help me with a contract for the MacTaylor deal, she’d started helping as a way to pay back Brian for all the support he gave to Gus. She doesn’t get that Brian doesn’t care about the money, as long as Gus has everything he needs. Emmett called to tell me Deb had already made the rounds, which I told him Cynthia told me when I got back. She already cornered Justin and Brian. Mel rolled her eyes whispering Lindsay already tried too. I hung up, thanking him for the heads up, because she hadn’t gotten to me yet.

“I told Lindsay not to waste the time. Deb only listens when we agree with her.” Mel tells me.

“She needs to realize Justin isn’t one of her boys. What does she expect, that we’ll all alienate Justin until he agrees to let Michael say shit and not respond?” I ask.

“It’s what she's been used to. I know for me it became impossible to not see the stress Brian was under. He’d show up and hold Gus as if it gave him more strength to deal with the next round of Michael. Seeing Brian and Justin together, it’s like seeing Brian getting back to the man who didn’t take shit from anyone.” She tells me.

“I worried when Michael brought up Brian’s tricking during the last few months, but Justin didn’t seem like it bothered him. He even made it sound like they were tricking together.” I tell her.

“We were. Now is there some reason you're talking about my life?” Brian asks from the doorway.

“Deb’s running all over today. Emmett and Drew just got an earful. We figure she’ll try Ted soon. We were just bitching on your behalf, so deal with it.” Mel tells him.

“Jen was fine with having dinner at your house. I called and told Emmett to bring over something edible, so you girls just have to smile and be sweet.” He tells her.

“Brian we don't want to confuse Justin's family. Us crazy lesbians want her to have the full crazy you complain about.” She jokes, chasing him to his office.

It was seeing my best friend and Brian become more than the bickering twins that showed me I’d misjudged Brian. For most of our lives it always seemed like Mel and I were outside Brian’s friend circle, only there at all because Michael and Lindsay were in our lives. Only now I see it as Brian not worried about us, because he knew we didn’t need him to handle our problems for us. It really says a lot of his opinion of us. So if Deb wants to come, then she isn’t going to get the answers she wants from us.