Later that evening, the four of them settled into one of their hotel rooms, in the same hotel near the hospital that Lisa, James, and Greg had been only a day ago, although to all of them, with everything that happened since then, it felt as though it was a lifetime ago. "Not the cripple and the crazy this time, hey Lisa? Just the two cripples," James joked dryly as he rested on the couch. Blythe just gave Lisa a puzzled look and she shook her head back in response.
"I got mad at the boys the other night, they were getting a bit rambunctious, and all I wanted to do was to sleep, but they were shouting and playing around, I was watching TV and then James launched himself over the couch, landed on top of me and screamed in my ear that there were monster trucks on the television," Lisa laughed.
"And where were you during all this?" Blythe questioned her son.
"He was standing in the kitchen, and being just as rambunctious and excitable, shouting something else. In the end, I ended up snapping at them both; and then James and I started fighting and arguing. I kind of, may of, jokingly threatened to drive away and leave the two of them to hitchhike their way back home," Lisa said, embarrassed.
"Oh, Greg, you know better than to behave like that, you're a grown man now, you're not a little boy anymore. You need to be better behaved than that. This is just like with you drinking all that cream as well," Blythe scolded, and Greg dropped his gaze, just as embarrassed himself, this embarrassment seems contagious.
"Jokingly?" James gawked, "you grabbed your keys and ran out and didn't come back for hours!"
"Hey! I was annoyed at having to tolerate the two of you behaving like hyperactive kindergarteners who snorted a line of coke. Anyway, how are we going to organise… the sleeping arrangements? There's two bedrooms in this room, and one in the other," Lisa interrupted, and that last sentence shut Greg and James up.
"Why don't Greg and James take the other room for themselves, and we can each have a bedroom in here?" Blythe wondered.
Greg narrowed his eyes at Lisa ever so slightly, and Blythe laughed, "it's not my place; but do you really think you were ever going to pull the wool over my eyes about this, Greg? When have you ever successfully lied to me?"
He took a deep, shaking breath; bringing himself down, "I think I need to go out for a second," he snatched up his cigarettes from the table, and grabbed the lighter, turning to go out the door. James glanced between Lisa and Blythe a couple of times, before following Greg out the door.
"Did I say something?" Blythe asked the closed door.
"Yeah, I think so," Lisa sighed, "I should've never told you. It wasn't my place or my news to tell. God, how could I have been so stupid? Greg was just telling me the other day that both he and James are still coming to terms with their sexualities; even though they've been together for quite a while,"
"It was stupid of me, really," Blythe muttered, "stupid and impulsive. Of course, they're going to be extra touchy about it right now, they've just both been beaten within an inch of their lives over their sexuality, and then I go ahead and remind them,"
"I'm sure the bruises remind them enough as it is," Lisa added on automatically before wrapping her hand over her mouth in horror at Blythe's expression, feeling so deeply mortified, and the contagious embarrassment had now spread on to her.
"Seriously, where does she fucking get off?" Greg snarled as he marched down the corridor, "this isn't her fucking news to tell my mother,"
"While I agree Greg, completely, do you not think that she's going to get a sniff anyway if we don't tell her?" James countered.
"Whose side are you on here?" Greg growled, pressing the button for the elevator.
"Nobody's side," James started, and Greg looked at him sharply, "your side of course. But Greg, are there really any sides to this? Your mom seems accepting. Yeah, it's really wrong of Lisa to tell her, that's our news, but I think she probably panicked, or maybe your mom suggested it and Lisa just confirmed it?"
Greg frowned at him before walking into the empty elevator, "you need to be more upset about this,"
James pinched the bridge of his nose with his good hand and dragged his feet following Greg into the elevator, "okay fine, she's the devil incarnate, but she's also obviously told your mom something. So, we need to deal with that. Maybe it's good? I mean your mom doesn't seem upset by it or anything. Maybe she's not a homophobe? Maybe she really doesn't care anymore if you were with me than if you were with a woman,"
Greg frowned again, "not after being with my father for so long. Ideas like that spread like a virus. You remember the same father who tried to kill us?"
"Yes, I do. I was there, I was also being actively beaten up, he dislocated my shoulder and knocked out two of my teeth. It fucking hurt. But maybe she's different is all I'm saying, regardless, we don't have any choice now, she knows. So, we just have to figure it out," James sighed as they exited the elevator.
They walked out and into the smoker's area and sat down far away from everyone else, Greg pulled out a cigarette from his pocket, placed it between his lips and lit it, "here," he mumbled passing it over to James, and then repeating the process with his own cigarette.
"What are you going to do?" James queried.
"I don't know," Greg sighed, his eyes full of defeat, "I suppose I have to tell her, don't I?"
"Well, if she's going to live with us, then yeah, that's probably a good idea," James continued.
"Oh shit, I forgot about that," Greg groaned and rolled his head back, "how the hell is that going to work? We only have one bedroom, and we can't stick my 63-year-old mother on the couch indefinitely. Maybe Lisa will take her in?"
James frowned, "I think Lisa is kind of reaching the end of her tether with you, and me, and your whacky ass family, Greg. I don't think that she's going to be particularly keen to have what is essentially an old lady version of you living indefinitely with her. I'm pretty sure that just over the past few weeks Lisa has deeply regretted her choice to come along to South Dakota with us more times than any of us could count. As much as I hate to admit it… looking back at some of the shit that both of us have done, mostly me, but a bit from you too- I don't blame her. We've not really been very good friends to her lately,"
"Speak for yourself. You're the one who essentially blew up at her. But I do see your point, in saying that there's absolutely no way that she can go back to living with my dad. Never again can that happen," Greg countered, and James just nodded as Greg went on, "maybe we'll just need to move. Find a bigger apartment with two bedrooms. Or something. Until then, I guess she'll have to sleep on the couch, unless Lisa moves in with us, and mom moves into Lisa's place, or we can pass her around the ducklings, and everyone can have a turn," Greg drew back a big drag of his cigarette.
"You know, for the smartest man in the world, you are pretty dense sometimes," James continued, "why would Lisa want to move from her own comfortable apartment and come live indefinitely on our couch so an old lady she didn't invite to live with her can permanently move into her apartment? Or even stupider, why would you pass your mom around to live with the ducklings? Cameron would smother her to death and surely quiz her 24/7 about what you were like as a child and play pseudo psychologist on her, Foreman would probably just be downright cruel and mean, and Chase can barely take care of himself let alone someone else. Is any of that what you want?"
"Well, no, but what do you suggest, Einstein? Because the only way I can see around this is to have mom move in with us, which means we need to tell her that we're together," Greg muttered, stubbing out the butt of his cigarette on the stone wall they were perched on.
"Seems like Lisa already told her that anyway," James muttered, copying Greg, "so there's no reason to hide it anymore. I'm just as frustrated with Lisa as you are, Greg, believe me; but she does have a point. At some stage we would have needed to come out clean. It was one thing to cover it up at the ranch and look at how that ended. But your mom seems to have very different opinions on this than your father or uncle did. And hey, if by some unexpected scenario she does disown you or whatever, then we can leave her here. In that situation I wouldn't see Lisa opposing," to which Greg just nodded and stood up, James got down and felt his back seize up momentarily, "damn soft tissue damage," he grumbled, as he hung onto Greg for a moment as they staggered inside and back towards the elevators, ready to explain everything.
"Hey mom?" Greg half mumbled and half whispered as they came back into the hotel room, "James and I have something that we need to talk to you about," as Greg and James shuffled in, Greg's face looking as though he was as eager for this conversation as he would be to be walking to the gallows; and James was not an awful lot more keen if his body language was anything to go by.
"Of course, boys, come have a seat," Blythe shifted over on the couch as Lisa watched with an eagle eye on the off chance that this went bad- although she seriously doubted it given what she'd learned in her private talks while cooking with Blythe, and then watching her jump into danger without a second thought to protect her son and his partner- then in that case Lisa could intervene immediately. Yet even though she was confident that everything would go perfectly well; once again Lisa felt her heart swell at the bravery that both Greg and James were showing right now, especially given what had just occurred with John only hours before.