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Author's Chapter Notes:

The girls continue to scheme - gotta love their energy, huh? Enjoy! TAG


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Chapter 25 - What More Could They Do?



“Damn! She wrote back!” Quinne exclaimed.


Qianna, who’d been sitting in the next lounge chair over from her sister while the two lazed on Britin’s back patio, immediately sat up and turned to face Quinne. “Who wrote back?”


“Lizette! She wrote back,” Quinne explained, as she scrolled through the email on her trusty tablet.


“Finally! What does she say?”


“Uh . . . Well . . . I know we discussed going slow with Lizette and not giving away too much at the start,” Quinne began to explain, looking a little guilty, “but I was just so upset last night after listening in to what Dad and Pops were talking about, so I sent her another email.”


“So, you basically busted her ass, huh?”


“Basically.”


Qianna huffed a satisfied laugh. “Good. She deserves it. She ruined both our father’s lives with her shit AND kept the two of us from knowing about each other. So, what did the witch have to say?”


Quinne got up off her lounger and came over to sit next to her sister so they could read through the missive together. It seemed like Quinne’s attack email had hit a nerve. Lizette started off apologetic but the more the girls read through the woman’s supposed explanation the less sympathetic they felt towards their birth mother.


“. . . But I soon found out that parenthood - especially parenting twins - was just too much for me,” Quinne read aloud, adding a disbelieving snort. “Seriously? Listening to this drivel is painful,” she added for her sister’s benefit. “Aha, now we come to the blame-someone-else portion of the excuse . . . ‘Don, my boyfriend at the time, wasn’t at all supportive. While he’d been vehemently against letting a gay couple raise you two, he wasn’t really a great father figure. So, after a while, it just got to be too much. When you were about three months old, I realized I couldn’t be the mother you deserved and I contacted Justin, telling him I’d changed my mind. However, when I asked if he would be willing to still pay me the balance of the surrogacy contract, he told me that he and Brian were no longer together. And when Don heard about that, he got greedy. He convinced me that we could get double the money by giving each of the guys one baby and getting each to pay us the same surrogacy fees. I know this was wrong but at the time we were broke and I was weak . . .’ What a load of bullshit!”


“She was ‘weak’? More like, she was a conniving liar. And blaming it all on her boyfriend? How lame.”


Qianna was equally disgusted. “Yeah. There’s more . . . ‘I wish now that I hadn’t listened to him, but Don was very controlling. I should have known that, as soon as we got Justin and Brian to pay up, he would take off. He ran off, with all the money, leaving me practically destitute . . .’ Like we’re supposed to feel sorry for her after she fleeced our fathers because she didn’t get to enjoy the money? Is she for real?”


Quinne was so disgusted at that point that she just handed her tablet over to Qianna to finish reading and walked away from the whole thing, diving into the pool to literally and figuratively cool off. When Quinne finally finished her laps and climbed out of the pool, Qianna was waiting for her with a towel. The swimmer smiled her thanks and followed back to the lounge chairs before saying anything. She may have worked out the bulk of her feelings but that didn’t mean she was happy about the half-assed explanations Lizette had tried to offer up.


“Hey, at least we got some kind of explanation,” Qianna offered in an attempt to be conciliatory.


“Yeah, not that it’s worth much.”


“It could be worse,” Qianna offered. “She could have kept us and we’d have had to grow up with that as our parenting example.”


Quinne nodded. “True. And, even though we didn’t grow up together, we each had great fathers so I guess it probably turned out for the best, right?”


“Exactly! And now that we’ve found each other, it’s going to be even better,” Qianna, the eternal optimist, ventured.


“All we have to do is somehow convince your dad to stay in Pittsburgh for good and it will be perfect.”


“Right. So, what else can we do to make that happen? I mean, besides just keeping the dads together as much as possible, which we’re already doing. There’s got to be something more we can do. Someone else we can get to help us.”


Quinne thought about it for a few moments and then seemed to come up with a new idea. “What about that friend of Justin’s he talked about? The one he said checked him into the hospital after he and Pops broke up. He said something about how he cut her out of his life too, and it sounded like that was something he regretted. What if we could find her and get her to help us?”


“Brilliant!” Qianna agreed immediately. “The more ties we can reestablish between Dad and Pittsburgh the more likely it’ll be that he wants to stay. But how do we find this person? We don’t even know her name.”


“I think he said it was ‘Daphne’ . . .” Quinne replied, but didn’t get any further before the pair was interrupted by the arrival of a third party.


“What are you two scheming about now?” Brian asked, coming up behind the two bathing beauties without warning. “Haven’t you guys done enough already?”


“We’ll stop when Justin finally agrees to move back here,” Quinne boldly answered her father.


“You can’t force someone to do something against their will. Especially not Justin. Trust me, I know. If you push too hard he’ll start pushing back and probably end up going back to California early just to spite you,” Brian warned, pulling up his own lounge chair next to the girls’.


“We can’t just sit around doing nothing,” Qianna countered, smiling over at the tall, svelte man, who was busy arranging his towel on the lounger and making sure it was angled just right so he could get the most tanning exposure. “I’m not going back there if there’s anything at all I can do about it. I want to stay in Pittsburgh and that’s that.”


“I told you, I’m working on it, QiQi,” Brian tried to contain the girl’s determination.


“Yeah, and if that was all it took, Justin wouldn’t have left you in the first place,” Quinne shot back.


“Ouch,” was all Brian said.


“Sorry, Pops, but the truth sometimes hurts, and your track record sucks,” his daughter offered without really apologizing at all. “We don’t intend to let you fail again. So just consider our help inevitable.”


“Yeah? And what more do you think you can do?” he asked, sounding dismissive, and thus incurring both girls’ ire.


“Well, to start with, we were thinking about contacting that old friend of Dad’s. I think he said her name was ‘Daphne’. We were hoping that, if she’s still in Pittsburgh, she could help us convince Justin that running away, back to the West Coast, isn’t going to help,” Qianna ventured boldly.


“Daphne? Hmmm. That’s . . . not a bad idea,” Brian reluctantly admitted. “I have no idea where she ended up, though. I only saw her once after Justin and I split and she was more than a little hostile towards me. I don’t think she’s my biggest fan. I doubt she’d help me get him back.”


“Maybe not, but she’ll help US,” Quinne stated with confidence. “All we need is a way to contact her and QiQi and I will take it from there.”


Brian chuckled at his self-assured daughter but his smile revealed that he was proud of her all the same. “Like I said, I don’t know where Daphne is today, but her surname is ‘Chanders’ and last I heard she was heading off to med school. Assuming she stayed the course, I assume you might be able to find her through the local medical boards.”


“Great! Thanks, Pops. We’ll take it from here!” Quinne replied, already enthusiastically tapping away at her tablet to try and suss out Daphne’s contact deets.


“Take what from here?” Justin’s suspicious voice asked, surprising everyone as he appeared out of nowhere, coming up behind the conspirators with a tray of drinks for the girls. “Or do I not what to know?”


“Oooo, yay, iced tea. I was just about to get up and go get something to drink myself. Thanks, Dad,” Qianna spoke up, trying to divert her father’s attention. “Q, you want a snack to go with this? I could go get some fruit or something.”


“I’ll go with you, QiQi. I want to grab a yogurt too.” Quinne jumped on the out she was being offered and the two girls skipped away into the house without ever answering Justin’s question.


“Okay, out with it,” Justin asked Brian, his voice following the girls as they scampered off. “What are they up to now?”


“I don’t think I really want to know,” Brian replied without really answering either.


The second the two girls were inside the house and out of earshot of the men, Quinne shoved her tablet in Qianna’s face. “Look! I think I found her already. See, she is a doctor, and she’s working right here at UPMC. This should be easy.”


“Sweet!” Qianna responded and then the two of them quickly collaborated on an email to the young doctor that they hoped would get them the help they needed.


///~///~///~


“Hey, Sweetie!” Emmett greeted the niece who opened the door to him later that afternoon. “I was summoned by the Big Bad, so I’m here. Any clue what it is that he needs that’s such an emergency?”


“It’s not exactly an emergency, but we DO need your help,” Qianna responded, pulling the front door wide enough to reveal Quinne standing off to her side. “Surprise!”


“Wha . . . Okay, either I’m seeing double or I’m having a flashback to that LSD I did a few weeks back,” Em exclaimed, looking confusedly between the two nearly identical girls. “You’re BOTH here now? How did that happen?”


“You’re not seeing things, Auntie Em,” Quinne replied with a huge smile. “Hey!”


“Awww, Q, you’re back! Come here and give your Auntie Em a big hug, Sweetie!” The tall, lanky queen enveloped the unprotesting girl in a bear hug that threatened to squeeze the all the air out of her lungs. “Damn, girl, you have no idea how much I’ve missed you.”


“Same here, Em,” Quinne replied when she finally managed to wiggle out of his embrace.


“So, if you’re back, and together, I take it the rescue mission worked?” Emmett asked, following the girls further inside.


“Yep. Like a dream. And the wedding is definitely off - thank you very much!” Qianna assured him. “Which is why you’ve been summoned. Dad needs help cancelling all the wedding plans.”


“So you got rid of the Yeti? Way to go girls!” Em congratulated them, offering up a double high five in celebration.


“Don’t encourage them,” Justin cautioned, stepping into the front hall where the discussion had been taking place up to that point. “They’re already in enough trouble.”


“Baby! Is that you? Ah, it’s so good to see you!” Emmett gushed, already reaching out to pull Justin into a hug before the man had even answered.


“It’s good to see you too, Em.” Justin hugged him back but quickly retreated from the overwhelming greeting. “I hope you don’t mind, but Brian and the girls said you’d be willing to help me clean up the mess my life has fallen into and, hopefully, mitigate the cancellation fees that I’ll owe for backing out of this wedding at the last minute?”


“Not a problem, Baby. I’m happy to help. And don’t you fear, I’ve dealt with a LOT bigger disasters over the years and everybody always survived,” Emmett reassured him, putting his long arm over Justin’s shoulder and leading the way towards Brian’s office. Then he added over his shoulder, “and you two girls - we’ll talk later - cuz I’m betting there’s a story or two I need to hear from you ladies.”


“If you do get them to talk, then maybe you can explain it all to me too,” Justin suggested with a shake of his head. “I’m still not completely clear on the details.”


The girls giggled but didn’t offer any further help to their beleaguered father, preferring to return to their scheming without any further disclosures. However, before Quinne could shut the front door, another car pulled into the long front drive, speeding along so fast that it raised a cloud of dirt as it rattled across the gravel. Quinne sighed and sagged against the doorframe as she awaited their newest visitor.


“Good to see the gay grapevine is operating at peak efficiency,” was her only comment.


“Who is it?” Qianna asked, not recognizing the car.


“Grandma Debbie.”


“Oooohhhhh . . .”


“Yep. Hope your dad is prepared to be given the full Novotny Guilt Treatment.”


“Should I go warn him?” Qianna asked, looking worried.

 

 

“No,” Quinne advised. “It wouldn’t do any good. He doesn’t have enough time for a clean escape and you can’t hide from her - she’ll find you eventually. Better to just get it over with.” By that point the buxom older woman had made her way up the front walk and was almost upon them, so further strategizing was mute. “Hey, Grandma Debbie. How are you?”


“Quinne? Is that REALLY you?” Debbie asked, squinting at the girl as if she could see through her. Qianna stepped forward so she was no longer hidden in the shade of the door. “Well, fuck me with a tuna fish! Now I’ve seen everything. There really are two of you? I didn’t believe it when Michael told me, but I guess . . .” The twins shared a smile and waved in tandem. “Damn! How the hell am I ever going to tell you two apart?”


“Come on, Deb, you’re not much of a grandmother if you can’t even tell your grandkids apart,” Quinne teased.


“Okay, got it; the smart-assed one is Quinne,” Deb concluded. “Now get over here and give me a hug already, young lady.” Quinne submitted meekly to her punishment, allowing Deb to give her the usual smothering bear hug. “And you too,” Deb indicated that the second girl should prepare to be hugged. “What’s your real name, Honey?”


“It’s Qianna. Qianna Taylor.”


“Welcome to the family, Qianna Taylor!” Deb nearly shouted, and took her second granddaughter into an equally crushing hug. When she was done, Deb looked around herself as if she was missing something. “Okay, where’s my Sunshine hiding? That boy’s got some serious explaining to do. Did he think he could get away with just up and disappearing on me for twelve fucking years and then not get his ass kicked when I did finally track him down?”


“Dad’s in Pops’ office with Em,” Qianna offered up her father without even a second thought. “Don’t be too hard on him, though, Grandma. We kinda tanked his wedding and he’s not in the best of moods.”


“Oh, pish! That’s no excuse!” Debbie dismissed the girls with a wave of her hand and bustled off towards the interior of the house, bellowing as she went, “Sunshine! Get your bubblebutt out here!”


“Poor Dad!” Qianna giggled. “By the way, did I mention I ADORE your Grandmother?”


“OUR Grandmother, Quinne corrected. “You heard her. She gave you the official welcome-to-the-family hug. There’s no escaping now.”


“Did I hear Grandma Debbie?” Gus asked, emerging from the back of the house carrying a well-loaded sandwich that was easily bigger than his mouth. “Let me guess . . . Em told uncle Ted . . .”


“. . . Who accidentally let something slip while eating breakfast with Uncle Michael . . .” Quinne added.


“Who promptly called his mother and blabbed everything to Grandma Debbie,” Gus concluded.


“Who immediately drove out here, hell-bent for leather, to greet the prodigal son upon his reluctant return,” Qianna finished. “That’s what we figured too.”


“Poor Justin. He’s gonna be hugged half to death and then given a twenty minute lecture,” Gus surmised. “Well, at least I’ll have time to finish my lunch.”


“Fine. While you‘re stuffing your face, I’m going to go find Pops and tell him what’s going on. Maybe he can barge in with guns blazing and rescue Justin from Grandma Debbie’s clutches. Then Justin will realize just how much he still loves Pops and they’ll ride off into the sunset together,” Quinne joked as she headed off to locate her father.


Qianna followed on her sister’s heels. “You do know that's not gonna be nearly enough, right? You’ve met my Dad. He’s way more stubborn than that. It’s gonna take more than one foolish rescue attempt to win him over.”


“Maybe. But every little bit helps,” Quinne concluded wisely.


///~///~///~


It had taken more than an hour to get rid of Debbie. Justin endured the lecture he got with relatively good grace but even his repeated apologies didn’t seem to be enough to completely quell the woman. She was only placated when Justin agreed to come to dinner with the whole family the following night. The girls, meanwhile, simply looked on with amusement, rather enjoying seeing one of the adults being treated like a recalcitrant child for a change.


That wasn’t the end of their visitors for the day, though. Just as Britin’s denizens were beginning to discuss their dinner plans - the kids pushing for burgers on the grill outside, Brian complaining about how fattening burgers were, and Justin electing to remain neutral on the subject - the doorbell rang again. Brian quickly conceded defeat in the dinner debate and trotted off to answer the door while Justin took over directing the meal preparations. Justin had stepped outside to start the grill while Gus was deciding between two different chips options and the twins were up to their armpits in salad fixings when the latest guest burst into the kitchen with Brian trailing at her heels.


“. . . Cut the bullshit, Brian. I don’t want to hear it. I still haven’t forgiven either of you,” the petite, curly-headed, tornado growled. “Okay, where is he? He better not think he's going to get out of the tongue lashing I plan to give him.”


“Daphne, can I introduce you to our children?” Brian calmly responded, gesturing towards the girls. “Qianna and Quinne are, I believe, the ones responsible for your appearance here today. And the tall one over there is an all grown up Gus. Kids, say ‘hi’ to Daphne Chanders. Or should I say, Dr. Chanders.”


“Wow! That was fast. We just emailed you this morning!” Quinne declared, setting aside the bowl of spinach she’d been washing to come over and greet the new arrival with a friendly hug.


“Thank you for giving me the heads up about Justin,” Daphne smiled warmly at both girls. “I hope you don’t mind that I just came right over rather than replying to your email, though. I was worried that, if I gave him any kind of warning, Justin would up and disappear on me again. You wouldn’t believe the number of times I’ve tried to reach out to that idiot after he totally ghosted me. He’s not getting away from me again. Not till I give him a large and rather scathing piece of my mind.”


Right then the sliding glass door to the patio opened and the subject of their discussion came back inside. “Okay, the grill is ready. Who wants to be in charge of flipping burgers?” he asked without even really looking around at who was in the kitchen until he noticed the quiet that greeted his words.


“Get your ass over here so I can kick it already, Taylor!” Daphne ordered, causing Justin’s head to pivot in her direction so fast it was likely to give him whiplash.


“Daph? What . . .”


“How DARE you try and just cut me out of your life like that!” Daphne shrilled, punching Justin in the arm to emphasize her point. “After everything we’ve been through! You do NOT get to just disappear on me, Mr. Taylor. And you don’t get to move to fucking California without telling me. And you certainly don’t get to have a kid without letting me know I was an Aunt!”


All through this harangue, Justin continued standing there, mouth hanging open, saying nothing. The twins were holding their breath, hoping that this ploy hadn’t backfired. Brian, on the other hand, was leaning casually against the end of the kitchen island, smiling down on the scene with the utmost amusement.


“Sorry . . .” Justin eventually offered, looking like a sad little puppy.


“You bet your ass you are!” Daphne angrily rejoined. But then her expression perceptibly softened and she added, “Well? Are you just going to stand there, gaping like a fish, or are you going to get your ample ass over here and give me a fucking hug already?”


With his face finally cracking with the beginnings of a smile, Justin shuffled forward until his old friend could grapple him into a huge, lingering, hug.


“You jerk!” Daphne mumbled, then gave her friend one last, extra-tight squeeze before releasing him. “Now, invite me to dinner so I can get the full story on how you somehow managed to end up with twins without knowing it.”


///~///~///~


Daphne stole the beer Brian had just opened right out the man’s hand and then leaned back in her chair with an impish grin on her face. “So, then, how did you guys manage to come up with matching names for the girls when you hadn’t even talked in, like, a year?”


“You know Sunshine,” Brian answered for the two of them. “He’d read at least a dozen psychology articles about how to maximize your child’s future by selecting just the right name and had a list of names drawn up before we’d even decided on the surrogate.” Brian smiled indulgently across the table at his Ex, causing Justin to roll his eyes and shake his head dismissively. “If I remember correctly, the theory was that boys do better with common names but girls excel when they’re named something that lets them stand out. And somehow that led to him declaring that we had to select a ‘Q’ name for the baby if it was a girl. So, after Lizette showed up and dropped a pink bundle in my lap, I just selected one of the names on his list. I had no idea he’d stick to the same list, although it doesn’t surprise me.”


“At least we didn’t both pick the same name,” Justin smiled at his daughter.


“I’m sure you remembered that ‘Quinne’ was my favorite and you probably chose something else just to spite me,” Brian accused, but without any animus in his tone.


“I think that would have been cool,” Qianna put in her two cents. “Back at camp when we were practicing being twins, everyone just called both of us ‘Q’ since they couldn’t tell us apart when we were wearing our hats. It was fun being able to fool everyone.”


“Well, thankfully, you still have different colored hair, so you can’t pull that shit on us,” Gus stated as he grabbed the last slice of watermelon out of the bowl sitting in the middle of the patio table and began to scarf it down like the teen boy he was.


“Don't give them any more ideas, damn it!” Justin warned. “They’ve caused enough mischief this summer. And I haven’t even gotten around to telling them off for contacting Daphne without my permission,” he teased, leaning over to shoulder bump his friend so she knew he wasn’t really all that upset about the circumstances that had brought them back together. “Before I forget, though, are there any other surprise visitors I should be expecting, girls? You didn’t write to my fifth grade math teacher or anything, did you?”


“No,” Quinne answered him with a laugh. “Well, except for Lizette - who sent back this totally lame excuse for why she bailed on everyone - but I doubt she’ll be showing up any time soon. Oh, and, well, we also wrote to your sister, Molly, but we still haven’t heard back from her.”


“Molly? Why the hell would you contact her?” Justin asked, placing his empty beer bottle down on the table and sitting up straighter in a display of anxiety. “I haven’t talked to Molly since before I left Pittsburgh. I doubt she wants to hear from me. How’d you even find her, anyway?”


“When we were still trying to make sure we really were sisters, we did one of those DNA tests you send away for and Molly’s name came up on my list of possible matches,” Qianna explained. “I know you guys never really got along, but I just figured, what the hell. Maybe enough time had finally gone by and she’d got over whatever her problem with you being gay was? Or, at the very least, maybe she’d want to talk to her niece?” The young blonde seemed a little discouraged by the way her father was grimacing at her as she said this, so she added, “and I guess I was also a little jealous of Quinne and all the family she has here. I mean, I didn’t have anyone but you and Grandma Jenn, so I suppose I was just hoping that I could at least add an aunt to the mix, you know?”


“Fuck her,” Brian pronounced with his usual bluntness. “If she’s got a problem with her brother being gay, we don’t need her around. And you’ve got all of us now, QiQi, so you don’t need her.” He reached over to grab Qianna’s hand, giving it a meaningful squeeze before picking up another beer for himself. “You’ve got more than enough family now to keep you busy for years. Trust me, Grandma Debbie alone will have you feeling familied-out in no time.”


They all laughed and the adults offered up a toast in Debbie’s name. At the same time, Quinne, who was sitting on the far side of the her father, had been watching Justin closely throughout this particular interaction. She’d noticed the way Justin followed Brian’s actions and the way he’d smiled involuntarily at the gesture of affection between Qianna and his former husband. It looked like Justin was softening up a bit towards his Ex, which was a good sign for their plans.


But what would clinch the deal? What more could they do to force Justin to see just how good they’d all be together? How could they make this moment - this family - a permanent thing?


Because it was clear to everyone other than, maybe, Justin, that he still loved Brian and that this was where he belonged.


///~///~///~

 

 

Chapter End Notes:

1/12/19 - There. I think I managed to clear up a whole bunch of loose ends and answer some of your questions with this chapter. Now, to work on Justin . . . *writing, writing, writing*. TAG

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