Kalen refused to get in his brothers car at the end of the day, which resulted in a short argument in the parking lot, and then Kalen looking very proud of himself in the back of Tyler's car as they drove to the closest coffee shop with a drive through. They ordered their drinks, paid, and then pulled into the closest parking space.

"Am I going to be dropping you off at home after this?" Tyler inquired from the driver's seat, putting his car in park.

"Ugh," Kalen groaned loudly, and James heard the sound of his seatbelt being unbuckled, and then his boyfriend shifting around in the back. A glance at him confirmed his suspicion that Kalen was arranging himself to sprawl across the back seat. "I already know how the whole thing is going to go".

"You do?" James inquired, turning as far to the left in his seat as he could manage to look back at Kalen, who was sipping at the straw of his blended coffee with a thoughtful expression. Despite the fact that it was November in Illinois, meaning it was ducking cold outside, Kalen had insisted on getting a cold coffee.

"Of course I do, it's my father," Kalen grumbled, sighing and pressing his drink into the cup holder of the door supporting his upper body. "We'll have dinner or something as a family because that's what my mom is gonna wanna do, and he'll try to be civil but it will prove to be a task too hard to bear and he'll say something".

"So you're not going then?" Ty assumed and Kalen groaned loudly.

"No. I will. I can put up with my father for an evening if it makes my mother happy," Kalen explained, not sounding too pleased. "Also, I think I'll hear about it for the rest of my life from my brothers if I don't show up, since I already told them at lunch that I would be there".

James shot his boyfriend a surprised look, since he had been unaware of this, but Kalen wasn't paying attention to him. "Well," James began, "it's good that you're not planning on backing out on them, since I am pretty confident that your brothers wouldn't hesitate to show up to my house and carry you, kicking and screaming, there".

The huff that left Kalen could be interpreted as both a noise of annoyance, or a laugh. It was impossible to tell which. "Yeah," he agreed, vice light hearted, "older brothers suck".

"Ace used to make James sneak into peoples houses and steel things he wanted," Tyler chimed in happily and James sighed at the inaccuracy of that statement.

"Don't make it sound like we were some crime duo who terrorized the neighborhood with grand theft," he protested, and Tyler rolled his eyes.

"What?" Kalen inquired from the back, golden eyes wide.

"This happened like, twice, and we didn't really steal anything. Ace had a friend growing up who would take his toys and stuff, and he wanted them back. He would ask the boy if he wanted to go out and do something with him, and I would sneak into his window and retrieve the stolen item," James explained, shrugging. "It wasn't really a big deal. Arthur's room was on the first floor of his house and his window didn't have a screen". For a moment, James paused, thinking about his brother. "I know a lot of people complain about being the youngest, but being Ace's younger brother really was never bad. We never fought, just snapped at one another every once and a while but that wasn't a big deal. I got along well with his friends so they always included me in what they did, and he got along with, well, Tyler, so there was never a problem there... He was just a good brother. All he wanted was what was best for me".

His breath felt uneven then, and his eyes misty, so he took a sip of his coffee. While he was drinking, he felt Kalen's fingers grasp at his for just a second before slipping away, fingers cold from holding his coffee. It made James's smile against his drink.

"Being the youngest Bradford kind of sucked," Kalen said after an appropriate lengthed pause, and James relaxed at the subject change. It wasn't that he didn't want to talk about Ace, but he seemed close to crying at the moment and that was something he didn't want to do. "A lot of people assume it's because I just got lost in everything, being the seventh boy, but that's really not the case. I was in the family's spot light. Brad is almost eight years older than me, so all of my life he seemed like an adult, like a third parent who would give me pretty much everything my parents wouldn't, and if I couldn't get it from him I had five other brothers I could harass until got what I wanted, and none of them liked to say no to me because I was the baby". Kalen took a deep breath. "I am literally so incredibly spoiled".

Tyler choked on his drink in surprise.

It was kind of true, James thought, but not completely. Yes, Kalen had been given all of the things he had ever wanted in his life, but it wasn't like he had everything he wanted. His brothers were constantly keeping him away from friends and potential partners, keeping Kalen away from any relationships outside of the family. Maybe it was this that made the spoiledness manifest in his boyfriend in a different way than it did in most. His family's isolation of him prevented him from acting spoiled in situations outside of his family. Never once had he pushed James to pay for him, or give him something. He had always been reasonable.

He was about to point this out, starting with a very soft, "Kalen," but he was immediately interrupted with a shh, as if the boy knew what he was going to say and didn't agree, or didn't think it was worth stating.

The sound made Tyler laugh, and James shot him an unamused look.

"No, James. I am. I've gotten everything my entire life because people didn't want to say no to me, and I foolishly expected nothing to change when I came out, and now my father is telling me no".

"Didn't your brothers tell you no when you tried to make friends?" James cut in, peering back at the other boy who frowned at this.

"Well, technically, no. They just said no to a lot of other people. I wasn't ever really trying to make friends. I just didn't want them to be so mean to people, and I didn't want people to be afraid of me," Kalen explained.

"You didn't want friends?" Tyler asked with a frown.

Kalen sighed. "Never had them before. Didn't see what the big deal was. It seemed that I had six older brothers who could do the same things for me that friends did for other people so I didn't really get it. Since meeting you guys though, I can totally see the appeal".

Green eyes rolled in response to this, and Tyler grumbled, "Yeah, thanks," before taking the lid off of his drink and licking at the whip cream. "So what are you going to do about your father then? How are you going to turn his no into a yes?"

When Kalen didn't immediately respond to this, James looked back at him, only to find the other boy in deep thought, expression troubled. James shot a quick displeased look at Tyler for bringing up what had been bothering Kalen most for the last couple of days, and then climbed out of the car, leaving his coffee behind in the cup holder. "What are you doing?" Tyler asked, narrowing his eyes when James didn't respond and simply shut the door in his face.

James immediately opened the door to the back seat, ignoring the small noise of protest Kalen made when his legs fell out of the car, no longer supported by the door. The sound shifted into something more pleased a moment later when James crawled into the back, placing his body on top of his boyfriend's.

For a minute they struggled to close the door again, and then for a second minute they shifted to get comfortable, but when they finally stopped moving, with Kalen's hips hugging James's waist and James propped up on his arms to hover over his boyfriend's face, both of them were smiling.

"Are you two serous right now?" Tyler inquired from the front seat and James ignored him in favor of kissing Kalen's lips, and then dragging his lips lightly over his neck. At the sensation, Kalen laughed, his body squirming beneath James. James felt something cold drip onto his arm and turned his head to see a splash of Kalen's blended coffee melting on his bicep. As if Tyler could see this—which he couldn't since they were directly behind his chair— he grumbled, "don't you dare spill coffee on my back seat".

As James ducked to lick the liquid off his arm, Kalen laughed a little harder, his body shaking against James's. As a result, more of the drink splattered against James's skin. "Alright, I'm going to take this from you". James removed the drink from Kalen and slid it into the cup holder before looking back down at Kalen. Happily, Kalen hummed, and then raised his arms to wrap around James's neck. "I'll always say yes to you," he said softly, for only Kalen to hear. If he said it any louder, Tyler would have laughed.

"You're a liar," Kalen accused at the same volume, though his smile didn't slip from his face, so James suspected he was being teased.

"When have I ever said no to you?" He inquired, eyebrows raising.

A soft breath was released from Kalen's lips, and then the boy was raising his head to bring his lips to James's ear, his legs tightening around his waist to bring their groins together. James's breath caught, and he was almost too distracted to process the words Kalen whispered in his ear. "You said no the one time I asked you to fuck me," Kalen reminded, bringing James back to that night in Kalen's room, his boyfriend's hands insistent on his belt buckle.

With an aroused groan, James turned his face towards Kalen, bringing his lips to the side of his mouth and then using his tongue to forcefully part his boyfriend's lips.

For a minute they continued like this, kissing carelessly and messily, tangled up in the back of Tyler's car. Sadly, it didn't take long for them to be interrupted by Tyler unbuckling his seatbelt in order to peer between the two front seats back at them. "That is literally making the most disgusting noise," he accused and James groaned, lifting his head to roll his eyes at his best friend. "Do you guys need me to leave the car to you for a while?"

Tyler winked, and James scoffed. "What? No".

"You'd do that?" Kalen inquired, sounding breathless. The face Tyler made said the answer to that question was obvious— obvious enough that Kalen shouldn't have needed to ask.

"Of course!" Tyler assured. "I'm a great friend. Also, James really needs to get laid".

With a scoff, James pushed himself up off of Kalen, putting distance between them so he didn't circum to the urge to kiss him again. He sat on the other end of the seat, pulling Kalen's feet into his lap, which his boyfriend took advantage of by pressing his foot into James lap, making him jolt.

Both Tyler and Kalen laughed at this, and James sighed heavily, shooting Ty a look that his best friend rolling his eyes and turning around. Then, James reached a hand down to Kalen's ankle, wrapping his fingers around the skin under his pant leg, shifting his foot away from his half hard cock.

"So," Tyler began, "You ready to go home, Kal?"

Kalen groaned, prompting James to lightly squeeze his leg, reminding the boy he was there for him. "Everything's going to be fine, Kal".

The boy in question just looked at him for a long moment before sitting up and kissing the corner of his mouth. "Yeah," Kalen said, addressing Tyler though his focus and eyes were still on James, his right hand coming up to wrap around the back of James's head, playing with the hair there. "Take me home please".

"Alright," Tyler nodded, looking back at them once more. "I don't want to break up the moment or anything, but one of you has to come up here and sit in the front seat. I'm not your fucking taxi driver".

"I'll come!" Kalen explained happily, in a way that made James wonder if the boy had tricked him to come into the back seat in order to steal his seat in the front.

With one last kiss pressed to James's mouth, Kalen crawled over his lap to exit the car, careful not to kick or knee James anywhere truly important.

As Tyler drove them to the Bradford's house, chatting with Kalen in the front seat, James sulked in the back seat and passive aggressively

drank the remainder of Kalen's coffee.