Author's note: Thanks, Sam, for rescuing and providing this first time author in this fandom with your beta skills. So all the mistakes are mine because sometimes I'm too stubborn to listen to whom I should. *g* Trisha was sure that some time between counting the vegetable crates her company was delivering to Leguma (Gus' organic restaurant in New York) two days prior and the amazing sex she and Gus had had this morning, he had explained yet again why they were driving all the way to Pittsburgh for a visit with his parents - or rather his dads. But whenever Gus started with the Sunshines and Daddies and Pops and (God forgive him) one or two Sluts and Whores, she knew she would be more successful at understanding the dynamics of the zucchinis lying in the crates in the trucks. Very early in their relationship Gus had tried to tell her that in order to talk about grandmas and grandpas, uncles and aunts, and brothers and sisters that were but weren't and would fight tooth and nail to prove they were he would need graphics and diagrams and DNA proofs. He had been painting her toenails then and it had taken him ten seconds of silence to notice her staring at him mouth agape. He just shrugged and started talking while the nail polish made her toes pearl colored. By the time her fingernails were pearl colored too, she asked him to get out his photo album and start over. Trisha had thought she had understood every little bit of everything, but with Gus' family there was always something new happening. Still, they were all the same. The explanation could wait another couple of hours until they got to Bri- Tin, but then Gus started to sing and she could only take so much of his singing around their apartment. And if she told him anything - no matter how nicely she did - he would just sing louder. Seducing him was much more effective. Talking was second best. "Why are we celebrating your dad's forty-fifth birthday again?" Gus pushed his glasses up his head and she promptly put them back in place. "I love this song." "Huh?" "You do this all the time. I start to sing and you want to talk. Or have sex." "That's not true." Gus moved his tongue inside his mouth and waited. Yes, there was sex, of course. What could she do if annoyed and cursing Gus was adorable and gorgeous and all hers to do as she pleased? Most of the times, anyway. Knowing he had gotten her in her lie, Gus smirked, batted his pornographic blue eyes at her and reached for the MP3 player. She was faster and forwarded to the next song. "What the fuck, Trisha?!" Thank God he was also easy. Fluttering fingers on the shell of his ears, any of them, any given time, and he was as gone as an ice cube under the sun. "It's Pops'," he said in that tone that announced that he had lost the battle, not the war. He wished! "I know it's Mr. Taylor's. I just thought you considered the two of them your dads." He smiled and everything in him grew softer. "Of course I do. And Pops is something you'll only understand when you meet him." Trisha kind of understood her boyfriend. Each of the few times she had talked to his Pops on the phone, she got a whole new concept of "Sunshine". "Anyway, they had a dinner celebration on Pops' birthday. It was last Tuesday." "I know. I answered the phone when he called to thank us for the gift, remember?" "Just the grannies, grandpas - if you can call Tucker grandpa - and uncles for dinner. Grandma Debbie said she would curse him from her grave if he didn't show up at her house," Gus continued as if he hadn't been interrupted at all. He did it from time to time when he decided a commentary or note was not worthy of his attention. She overlooked this bad behavior because he was such a gentleman in so many other aspects that in the beginning, given his background and good looks, she was convinced he was a gay man trying not to be. "Pops loves Grandma Debbie and Dad loves Pops and fears Grandma, so Dad made sure both of them showed up at her house at 7:00 looking fan- fucking-tastic." They shared another laugh, his more affectionate than hers, like he did whenever he talked about his fathers. "Tomorrow will only be the youth and the babies, as Dad put it." Trisha couldn't help but smile while still tending to his ear. "If you don't want me to pull over and make us even later, you'd better stop doing that, sweetheart." She paid him no attention. "Of course, neither Dad nor Pops would mind. However we'd have to tell them, and the Dads love details. No problems there because you know how accurate I can be..." "OKAY! See? Hands in the air! No hands!" Gus smirked and Trisha wondered why she cared. "So if we're the babies, who are the youth?" Gus checked the rearview mirror before changing lanes. "You're aware that if Dad catches you talking like this, you'll be put on his witches' list, right?" Trisha zipped her lips and threw the imaginary keys away through the rolled up window. She didn't want to piss off Mr. Kinney. She was constantly both in awe and scared shitless of the man. Right now being scared shitless was winning hands down. "Will you relax?" Gus said, for a moment squeezing her left hand with his right one. "Dad is a pussycat. Either hold your ground with him or show awe in the first fifteen minutes you are face to face and you'll be good. If neither works, do your best to fall in Pops' good grace. Believe me, it's not hard. Whatever happens first, you'll get almost anything from Dad later." She relaxed a little. "That's what life with Daddy taught you?" "No. That's what I learned when I stopped being a teen and started paying attention to Sean." Whenever Gus talked about the first five years of his life as a big brother to Sean, he got this shadow that made him look twenty-five years older with regret. There hadn't been problems because Sean was black. Gus had sworn it over the last joint they were sharing the first time they had discussed Sean's name in a more profound way. Of course they had both been way too high to make sense, and the swearing could have gone both ways. But Trisha trusted her boyfriend. Gus didn't lie. Besides he wouldn't be with her if being black was a problem. Gus restarted once again like there had not been any interruptions at all, and Trisha let him because she knew he needed it. "But if you want the list, Dad and my mothers, uncles Michael and Ben, Ted and Blake, Emmett and his new significant other, and probably Cynthia and her husband are the youths. Sean, JR and her beau, moi and ma belle (she rolled her eyes), Hunter and his wife, Aunt Molly and Uncle Keith, and very much possibly Aunt Daphne and Uncle Charlie and, of course, Pops, are the babies. Oh, and Pops invited some friends of his from work over to Babylon, too. Don't ask me where they fit." She liked this family better with each passing minute. "It's sweet of your dad to do this for your pops. You said he doesn't do birthdays." "Not his, but he could never really deny Pops anything. So this Friday night you'll have the pleasure of sharing a meal with our ever growing and loving family," she kissed his cheek and this time she did not feel offended when he kept talking, "at our Diner - which will be closed just for us - and dance the night away in the VIP lounge at Babylon. And before you ask, we can go on the dance floor if we want to." "That'll be nice. I've never been to a gay club before," she admitted shyly. "Well, enjoy the show, sweetheart, because your first time will be at the best gay club in town." Gus shrugged again and she braced herself because it usually was the prelude to something Mrs. Marcus called Kinney-dimensioned. "Well, you're with a Kinney. Couldn't expect anything less." She clucked her tongue because she knew he hated it, and in a moment of distraction he got hold of the MP3 player. She desperately looked for something saying this torture wouldn't last long. "Come on, Gus," she pleaded. Too late. "SINCE IN THE WORLD I SAW YOU" He was already singing. "AND IT'S ALL RIGHT BOUNCING AROUND FROM CLOUD TO CLOUD" A sign reading Pittsburgh was twenty miles away wasn't what she was praying for. "EVERYTIME I TRY TO TALK TO YOU" "You... You don't...even...know..." "COMES OUT WRONG AND NEVER TURNS UP RIGHT" "...the lyrics!" "SO I SAY WHY DON'T YOU AND I GET TOGETHER AND TELL THE WORLD THAT LALALALA FOREVEEER" ***** End Part 1. Continue in Part 2. *****