One Saturday at the beginning of summer, a few weeks after Brandon graduated kindergarten and Lena's hectic school year came to a close, they rented a uhaul to move all their things into their new house.
They really could have spent that night eating some of the leftovers that still filled their old fridge and sleeping on the worn futon cushion that was staying at the townhouse until trash pick-up next week. But Brandon's excitement at the new house was uncontainable and Stef and Lena caved to his eager pleading. The three of them spent the first night in their new home camped out together on an air mattress in the living room.
Lena wanted a week or two to unpack and get settled in before having anyone over. But their friends insisted on coming to see the new place as soon as possible and Stef argued that they could order take-out for everyone and put people to work helping them get moved in.
So for lunch on Sunday, she found herself in a kitchen that didn't yet have a refrigerator, eating pizza off of paper towels and standing around their new wooden table (chairs still in pieces in their boxes) with Stef's mom and a half dozen of their friends. Even Mike had come over with a Lowes gift card for them and a toolbag to help re-assemble bookcases and beds that had been taken apart for the move.
She couldn't have been happier.
Brandon raced around the house; more underfoot than helpful, he kept convincing the adults to take breaks and play with him. On the rare occasion he opened a box to unpack, he found himself so entertained re-discovering familiar items (which up until a few days ago had sat ignored on shelves in Stef's townhouse) that he gave up all pretense at helping and plopped down on the floor surrounded by old newspaper and packing peanuts while he closely examined each object.
Lena had to admit that the extra hands made the work go faster. Sharon spent most of the day following Brandon around, keeping an eye on the endless ball of energy that was a 6-year-old child, so she and Stef were free to focus on organizing their new home.
"Just think," Stef said, balancing a box of dishes on her hip. "By the time Dana and Stewart come to visit next month, we might actually be able to see our own kitchen counter."
Lena laughed. "Hopefully we'll be unpacked well before then. But if not, I think my parents could be bribed into work too."
Mike staggered through the open doorway with three boxes stacked in his arms. "Toys going up to B's room?" he asked, one foot already on the stairs.
"Yes," Lena answered, moving toward him. "Here, let me get one of those."
Mike shook his head. "I've got it. But there's a coffee table in the garage Jenna might need a hand with."
By the time Frank arrived in the early evening (he said he wanted to finish watching the game; Stef confided in Lena that she hadn't been sure he'd come at all and thought he needed the extra time to talk himself into it), all of the boxes were, if not unpacked, at least in the proper rooms and the kitchen and living room had come together decently enough for everyone to sit and relax a bit.
Sharon turned Brandon-watching duty back over to Stef as she stepped into the kitchen to see what she could find for dinner. Until the new refrigerator could be delivered, their food options were limited to what they'd brought from the pantry at the townhouse. Mac-and-cheese was a given, at least in Brandon's mind, and Stef agreed on the condition that they heat up a can of green beans to go along with it. After a long day's work, a glass of wine would have hit the spot, but consideration for Mike's newfound sobriety won out. Lena found a case of room-temperature soda cans and passed them out among the exhausted group of friends and family that filled the living room.
When Mike raised his soda and wished Stef and Lena well in their new home, even Frank drank in agreement. Their friend Arizona muttered something under her breath about wishing them well in properly breaking in every last room and Jenna nudged her sharply with one eye toward Frank, who fortunately hadn't noticed the exchange. Stef reached for her hand and Lena felt her chest swell with a warm fuzziness not caused by the tepid, vaguely aluminum-flavored liquid they toasted with.
She had always imagined starting a family someday, but the fantasy usually involved marriage and pregnancy. The idea of a partner only recently out of the closet, with a recovering-alcoholic ex-husband; a disapproving, conservative father; and a son about to start first grade at her school had never crossed her mind. But now that she had found her family, she couldn't picture it any other way.
After dinner, most of their friends left, but Jenna volunteered to clean up the kitchen so Lena and Stef could have some quiet time with the family. Brandon's bedtime crept closer, but he showed no signs of winding down. "I think your dad carried some boxes of toys up to your room earlier," Lena mentioned. "Why don't you go find a deck of cards or a board game?" If nothing else, a game would get him to sit still long enough that he might realize how tired he was.
Brandon looked to Stef for permission and as soon as she nodded, he shot up the stairs toward his room.
"You're good with him," Sharon said as she came to sit on the couch next to Lena. "He really looks up to you."
"Brandon's a good kid," Lena responded.
Stef leaned back and threw one arm across Lena's shoulders, hugging her into her side. "He'll be calling you 'mama' before you know it," she said before planting a kiss on Lena's forehead.
"If he wants to," Lena said, watching Mike's quiet discomfort and Frank's open frown. "He already has a mom and a dad."
"And now he has you too," Sharon stated firmly, patting Lena on her knee.
The rapid clomping of Brandon's footsteps on the stairs put a stop to that conversation before anybody could say anything else - an interruption Lena couldn't help but be glad for. She knew what Sharon was doing and she appreciated the statement Stef's mother was making, but it was obvious that Frank and Mike weren't comfortable with the idea of her as Brandon's mother yet. And to be honest, she had only been living with Stef and Brandon for a few months - he still wasn't ready to think of her as his mother and, until he did, there was no point in bringing up another point of conflict between Stef and her father. Mike's concern had less to do with Lena's gender than with her role as step-parent; that was a normal reaction she'd seen in many blended families. As Brandon came to accept her as a parent, Mike would too.
"What did you pick out, B?" Mike called.
"Candyland!" Brandon squealed from halfway down the stairs.
A collective groan filled the living room, and Stef waved her hand to hush them. "That sounds great, love," she called back to Brandon. She shook her finger at her dad. "This is your fault," she scolded, too low for Brandon to hear. "He has not put that game down since you got it for him."
Frank chortled, the seriousness of a moment ago forgotten. "Should I feel bad that I find toys my grandson likes?" He sat in a large armchair with his back toward the stairs and the kitchen beyond, but he still turned his face into his shoulder so Brandon would not see him laughing at his game choice.
Brandon jumped around the corner, holding the Candyland box in both hands. "Hey, Mom! I'm a rrhhino!" He stretched out the word in excitement.
Lena paled.
Her silver harness wrapped haphazardly over his ears. Brandon bent over, scraped one foot against the floor, and roared; the bright red dildo bobbed comically on his forehead.
Sharon burst out laughing. She doubled over on the couch, clutching Lena's knee with one hand to support herself. Her other hand pressed against her chest as each spasm of laughter tore through her.
Mike didn't know how to react; he sat frozen in horrified surprise. His eyes darted to Lena and his mouth opened and closed without emitting a sound.
"Brandon!" Stef's voice cut through the room and the child froze. "Don't play with that!" He didn't know what he'd done wrong, but his face crumbled at his mother's tone.
Jenna heard the commotion and appeared next to the stairs. She scooped one arm around Brandon's middle and lifted him clear off the ground, yanking him back into the kitchen just as Frank turned to see what had everyone's attention. The board game tumbled out of his hands and spilled open when it hit the ground, plastic pieces scattering over the wood floor.
Stef jumped to her feet. She squeezed past her cackling mother and distraught girlfriend, ignored her father's questioning look, and didn't even spare a glance for her shocked ex. She followed her son into the kitchen.
Jenna had lifted him up to sit on the table and was just starting to try to calm him down. But as soon as Brandon saw Stef, his lips started quivering again and he reached out for her.
Lena slipped into the kitchen and hung back, unnoticed by Stef and her son. Stef went to Brandon and his scrawny arms reached up to twine around her neck. Stef rubbed his back in slow, steady circles. That ridiculous phallus still protruded off the top of his head, much like, as he had imagined, a rhino's horn. He heaved a sob as he clung to her and Stef tried to ignore the dildo that waggled next to her face with the rhythm of his shaking shoulders.
Jenna saw Lena come in and moved around behind Stef's back to join Lena in the doorway. She squeezed Lena's hand and whispered, "I'll keep the rest of the family in the living room."
"Thank you," Lena replied.
"Also," Jenna smiled, "total blackmail material when that kid's older."
Lena tried to smile past the knot in her throat; it came out as a half-hearted twitch of her lips. She felt too mortified to find much humor at the moment. Jenna stepped into the living room to keep Stef's family occupied.
"I'm sorry for snapping, love," Stef soothed. Brandon rubbed his nose into the collar of her shirt and Stef pursed her lips in resignation as she felt the smear of snot he left behind. "But this..." She leaned back and wiped his tears off his cheeks before unclipping the harness and pulling it off his head. "Is not a toy." She set it on the table next to him and cupped his chin in one hand, turning his face up to look at her. "Okay?"
"It was in my toy box," Brandon argued sullenly. "In my room."
Stef cocked her head. "I don't think so, sweets."
"It was!" he insisted.
"Brandon..." Stef's voice held a note of warning. "You know better than to tell stories."
Lena stepped forward now and placed a hand on Stef's shoulder. Stef looked askance at her, but let go of Brandon's chin and moved aside, opening the small circle she shared with Brandon to allow Lena in. Brandon stared down at the floor, his small ears turning red.
"Brandon, this was in your toy box?" Lena asked.
Stef sighed and shook her head, looking at Lena over Brandon's tousled hair and bent head. She had packed all of Brandon's toys herself; there was no way that she had put one of their sex toys in with her first-grader's puzzles, action figures, and Legos.
"Yes," Brandon replied firmly, his teeth biting down on the end of the sound.
"With all your other toys?"
Brandon shook his head. "New toys." His voice was small and stubborn, although there was a subtle waver to his confident answer. Lena's heart melted with how much he reminded her of Stef - fiercely bull-headed and uncertain all wrapped up together, charging ahead one moment and filled with self-doubt the next.
"Did the box say 'Brandon's toys'?"
Brandon thought. "No, just 'toys.'"
"Oh, honey." Lena was trying very hard not to laugh now as she realized what had happened. When she moved in with Stef and Brandon several months before, she'd put all the sex toys from her apartment into a cardboard box and labeled it "toys." That box sat in their closet and, when they finished house-hunting and were ready to pack up again, it was easy just to throw everything back into that same box. The box that, apparently, Mike had carried in from the garage and put in Brandon's room with all the other boxes of toys.
She wrapped Brandon in a hug. "That box got put in your room by mistake. You didn't do anything wrong, but those still aren't your toys to play with. If you see something you don't recognize, you need to ask your mom or me if it's okay to play with before you take it, alright?"
Brandon nodded, but Lena stepped back to look him in the face. "Brandon?"
"Alright," he said, his eyes sliding from Lena's face over toward the living room. When she didn't say anything or move aside to let him down, he huffed. "I'll ask you or Mom before I play with something that isn't mine."
"Thank you," Lena said. She looked at Stef, waiting for her to re-take the lead on the conversation, but Stef smiled and shrugged. "How about you hop down and go back in with your dad and grandma and grandpa? Get that game picked up and your mom and I will be there in a minute to play."
Again, Brandon looked at Stef for her approval before doing as Lena said. When she gave it, Brandon jumped off the table and skidded over to the living room.
The laughter that Stef had been working to keep back finally burst through and she pulled Lena into a hug. "Poor kid is going to be scarred for life," she groaned. "At least it was clean, right? We washed it before packing up?"
"Yes, thank god," Lena answered. "I'm so sorry; I should have relabeled that box before this move. I didn't think about it getting mixed up with kids toys."
"Oh no, I mean, when we packed, we were planning on doing all the unpacking ourselves. Wouldn't have gotten put in B's room if I hadn't had everyone here helping. So don't feel bad. Stuff happens," Stef said. "Poor B, though. At least he doesn't know what any of it is. I'm going to go grab that box and stick it in our closet." She scooped up the dildo and harness and held it behind her so that nobody in the living room would see it as she moved toward the stairs.
Lena reached out for her arm and pulled her in for a quick kiss. "Maybe hide it behind some of the clothes boxes while you're at it." She gently pushed her back toward the stairs. "And come back down prepared to lose, my love, because I'm going to destroy you in Candyland."