“You know that your father and I love you, no matter what?”

Well, that came from left field.

The piece of cake completely missed Chris’s mouth and he had to lower the fork back onto the plate and try and find where his napkin went to so he could wipe the frosting off his chin.

“What?” he sputtered in confusion, not knowing what the heck his mom was talking about. He’d come over that weekend since his mom decided to make lasagna, and was now eating his dessert at the counter while his mother made cookies for her book club the next day. His father was busy with work, so he’d already gone off, and who knew what his little brother was doing.

His mother shifted awkwardly as she rolled out the dough on the counter, looked as though she wanted to say something but was holding herself back. “And you know you can tell me anything and we won’t judge you,” she added, which only caused Chris even more confusion.

What was she talking about? His mind was racing, wondering what in the world could have possibly brought up this conversation. The last time his mother had approached him in this manner (bribing him with food and then trapping him before he was half done), was back when he was a freshman in high school and he’d, uh, explored things with one of the girls in his youth group. Well, she wasn’t exactly in the actual youth group, but she was at the camp they were both at…

How his mother found out about that, he had no idea. Oh… and then there was when he was dating Skye, but he tried to forget about most of those details. The memories still hurt from time to time.

“Yeah… I know…” he mumbled awkwardly back. He didn’t have a problem talking to his mother at all. She was easy going and although she tended to get flighty when she was excited about things, he had no problem telling her things if he was having a problem.

“And we won’t judge your friends either, especially since we know you care about them,” she went on, glancing up at him every so often as if she was waiting for him to say something. And he would say something!! If he knew what to say…

Oh gosh, what if she found out about him being Valhalla?? No, that couldn’t be it… why would she be including his friends if it were just about him…? Unless she knew that his friends weren’t all that they seemed to be, either. His best friends were both… not normal people any more. Zia was a cat (that was a shocker…) and Daniel was a knight, just like him. Only… he was a knight of Cosmos, whatever that was.

His mom was talking again, and even though his mind was still whirling, he at least did his best to tune in to what she was saying.

“It’s okay if, you know… a man and… another man like each other…”

Chris nearly spit out his milk. Where the hell had that come from?? Oh gosh, she was getting things all wrong!

“Daniel’s not gay… He’s got a girlfriend,” he quickly explained. Who else could she be talking about?? She’d met Paris, so obviously she wasn’t thinking he was gay! And Daniel… yeah, he didn’t exactly look all masculine and whatever, but that didn’t mean the geeky, literature and writing buff didn’t like girls.

Again, his mother looked like she was holding herself back, and it was getting to a point where he just… couldn’t keep his curiosity to himself.

“What are you worried about mom?”

“I’m not worried about anything, Pumpkin!” she quickly said, seeming flustered and like she didn’t want to talk about things if Chris wasn’t.

Chris sighed at her and after a few minutes of silence, they went on to talking about school. He still had no idea where all of that came from… and he doubted he ever would…