Thanks for the comment, oakdalelover! I was really having a hard time writing the Lucinda scene because it seems that everybody has a different vision of who her character is. Some people like her as the tough, take-no-prisoners businesswoman, while others like her as the witty, clever grandmother to Luke. I just decided to merge those both together and have both of those roles be displayed greatly in this story. Maybe this is a little spoiler, but Lucinda, who is happy for Luke and Kevin now, will NOT be too happy for them down the line!

But anyway, here's part four!

AS THE WORLD TURNS

"The Luke and Kevin Story" part 4

"Remember when we got wasted and crashed in her guesthouse?" Kevin asked Luke as they pulled out of Lucinda's driveway. Realizing that maybe he shouldn't have dredged up mistakes of the past, Kevin quickly apologized. "Sorry about that."

Luke, of course, took the apology the wrong way. "Don't be sorry, Kevin, because I'm not." He didn't want Kevin to be in the place he was in right now, wondering if he had manipulated the situation and forced the other to kiss him.

"Wow, I thought that since you're the one with the new kidney, you wouldn't want to think about getting drunk," Kevin replied.

"Oh!" Luke sighed. "You meant the drinking." For a second, things felt normal, but then he realized that Kevin was going to ask him what he thought he had meant.

Kevin didn't want to act too fast. They came to a red light. He looked over at Luke, who had guilt written all over his face. In the car's seat, he looked about two feet tall. "Luke, I think we need to talk about this."

"Yeah, I think so too," Luke responded, almost automatically. "Listen, can you meet me in my grandma's guesthouse tomorrow, say around 1:30?"

Kevin thought for a bit. "Yeah, sure. What do you want to do?"

"Well, like you said, we need to talk about this."

"All right."

~~~~~~~~~

"How was your trip?" Lily asked when Luke came through the front door. She and Holden were sitting together on the sofa watching the nightly newscast on WOAK.

Luke, who was trying his hardest to pretend to not hear her and get up to his room safely, stopped just short of the first stair. He couldn't do it. He just could not tell either one of them what had happened. It was so hard telling fun, easy-going, tough as nails Lucinda, he could imagine the dreadful pain that would accompany confessing to Lily and Holden.

First of all, Lily would probably rest for a measure every time she'd say the word gay. Holden would immediately say "But we love you anyway." Lily would want to know exactly what happened, and Holden would quietly dance around the subject of coming out to Kevin. And God, if Luke told them about the near-naked kissing, well, that would be it. Lily would go into full parent mode and forbid him from ever seeing Kevin again, again. She'd accuse Kevin of trying to sex up her son. "Well at least Kevin can't get pregnant," Luke would fire back at her.

"It was okay," he finally decided to say. He put his foot up on the first stair, but knew not to waste his time going up. They'd only call him back down again.

"Why don't you come in here and tell us about it," Holden said in that deep farmer boy voice of his.

Luke breathed a quiet "Fine," and joined them in the living room. They were on the couch, so he sat in one of the large comfortable chairs. He knew he would be there for a while. "What do you want to know?"

Lily looked at Holden, not sure how to approach her son. "Did you and Kevin enjoy yourselves?"

"If that's your way of asking if we got drunk, then the answer is no," Luke snapped. He figured he could get out of there faster if he threw a diva tantrum.

"Come on, Luke, don't be like that with your mother," Holden said. "She's worked hard to try to re-establish connections with you. You can at least meet her halfway."

"No," Lily cut in. "He's right. I'm always on his case nowadays, and a teenaged boy needs his space, right?"

Luke didn't know how to respond. He just continued to give her the "I don't care" look that he had perfected over the last couple of months. "Are we finished here?"

"You know what? I'm going to go check on the girls," Lily said, getting up and going upstairs, leaving father and son alone.

Holden wanted to ask Luke how things went with Kevin, but he didn't want to run the risk of touching a nerve. Instead, he decided to address the issue with Lily. "She didn't mean anything by that, you know. She just wanted to know how your day was."

"I know," Luke said, not looking Holden in the eye. "It's just that she keeps prodding and prodding and if I give her answers, she's not going to like them."

"Answers? Answers Like what?" Holden's interest was suddenly piqued. What was Lily not going to like?

"Don't worry about it," and with that rushed reply, Luke went to the stairs.

"I'm sorry, Luke," Holden said. "I'm sorry that things didn't turn out the way you had hoped."

Of course, Luke thought. He just assumes that Kevin didn't like the idea of me being gay. Luke could have told Holden the truth right then and there, but maybe the less his parents knew about anything right now, the better.

~~~~~~~~~

It was after breakfast the next morning when Luke had to keep his little sisters busy while his mom and dad went for her latest doctor's appointment. Just a few more weeks, Luke thought, and we'll have another bouncing bundle of Snyderness in the house. It was a very good thing for Luke, because a new baby was always a good thing, and he was great with kids, but most importantly, some of the attention given to him would no doubt be pushed away. Simply, a baby would make things easier for everyone.

"Luke, can I ask you something?" Faith, the older girl, asked as the three of them got ready to go bike riding.

"Sure, sweetheart," Luke said. He had the perfect charm.

"Well," Faith began, "I've been doing something that I shouldn't be doing, at least I don't think I should be doing it. Luke, why do you and Mommy fight so much?"

Luke was taken aback. "Me and Mommy don't fight at all," he said.

"But I hear you guys, almost every night. And last night, she came into my room and she was crying."

"She was crying? Why was she crying?"

"I don't know. That's why I'm asking you."

Luke looked at her. He wasn't sure how to tell her about this. Was she old enough to understand? "Faith," he started, "Faith, Faith, Faith."

"What's the matter, Luke?"

"What I'm about to tell you is very important," he said. "I want you to listen carefully, okay?"

"All right. Are you okay? Is your kidney okay?"

Luke laughed. "Yes, my kidney is fine. What I have to tell you is something about...well it's something about me. Do you know what it means to be gay?"

"Doesn't that mean happy?" she asked. Luke just loved how cliche the whole situation was playing out. It was the kind of stuff that he and Kevin would die laughing at.

"Well, yeah, but it can also mean something else. You see, you know all about love, right? And how one day you're going to find someone that like a lot, right?"

"Yeah. Just like how Mommy found Daddy. I'm going to find a nice boy too."

"Good, good. Wait until you're at least my age, by the way," Luke said, trying to lighten up. "But anyway - "

"Just like you found Jade, right?"

"Well, kinda. The thing with Jade and me, though, wasn't about love. It was about something else. But listen to me. Sometimes you're going to come across people who don't do what other people do. You're going see guys...who fall in love with other guys, and girls who fall in love with other girls. I...I am one of those people."

"Okay," Faith said, not really understanding the bigness of this moment.

"And you're going to hear things about people like me, bad things, but you can't be one of those people who puts a person down for something that they can't change, okay?"

"Okay. I love you, Luke."

"I love you, too, little girl!" He picked her and Natalie up and they all started to hug and laugh, but Luke still couldn't get over the fact that he had made his mother cry the night before. That was never his intention. He knew that he had to apologize to her, but didn't know how to go about doing it. He loved that woman, no matter what she did to him or said to him. She had went through so much for him. She was going to marry evil Keith Morrissey for him. He couldn't make her cry.

~~~~~~~~~

Holden and Lily sat together in the waiting room at Oakdale Memorial Hospital. A new kid was coming, and they couldn't be happier. Holden was happy because he loved raising children and carrying on the Snyder name. Lily was happy for another reason, a reason that dealt with the fact that their new child was predicted to be a boy. As much as she did not want to admit, she hoped that this one would turn out straight.

"Whatcha thinking about?" Holden asked.

"Nothing," Lily said, but she knew that her answer was unconvincing. "Luke...and Kevin...and this whole damn thing."

"You think they were drinking?"

"No, actually, not really. I was actually thinking about why Luke used to be so adament about seeing Kevin even when he would get him drunk. I mean, back then, nothing made sense. This kid was endangering his life but he still wanted to be with him all the time. Why?"

Holden wasn't sure if it was his place to tell Lily that Luke was in love with Kevin. "They've been friends for years. You can't just end a friendship like that."

"No, I think it was more than that. I think Luke either had or still has feelings for that boy and that's why I didn't want him to go on that trip with him yesterday. There's no telling what they could have been doing up there."

"Well for that to have happened, that would mean Kevin is gay too, wouldn't it?"

"Yeah, and I wouldn't be surprised if this gay stuff was all Kevin's idea in the first place. We should have a talk with his parents."

"No," Holden said. "Let Luke handle it."

"Let Luke handle it?! Luke doesn't know how to handle his life. As his parents, we need to help him."

"Well, I just don't think that we should help him too much. He's gotta find some things out on his own."

"He will. He's going to find a lot of things out in life, and it's not going to be pretty."

TO BE CONTINUED