Life Support {ManxBoy} | Mature Content

Chapter 09

Chapter Nine:

"Vance huh? You must be Italian, that's hot." His grandmother chuckled slightly and Cyro could feel himself turning deep red in the face as he resisted the urge to cover Maxine's ears. His grandmother had a habit of being too open with her thoughts at times but thankfully Vance looked just as he always did: a little bored, a little irritated, and totally uninterested as his gran droned on. "Italian stallion, good thing Cyro's not a girl I would have thought you'd gotten a shotgun wedding! Do you think any of your family is mafia in this current day and age? If I had know you were Italian I would have made lasagna-"

"Gran!" Cyro flushed at his grandmother's words. "That's kinda racist."

"I don't mind it, I'm named after my Grandfather Vance and he was a Don so it's whatever." Vance replied flashing a quick wink Cyro's way which caused him to blush deeper for some reason. It had been three weeks before Cyro made good on his promise to introduce Vance to his family, it surprised him how quickly he had been able to get used to living in Vance's apartment. Even more surprising Cyro and Maxine had fallen into an oddly easy routine as Vance was hardly around.

He left early for work and stayed there so late Cyro was nearly never awake when the man came home. Honestly, Cyro wasn't even sure if Vance slept in their bed or if he just came in to change clothes and leave. With it basically just being Cyro and Maxine it had been too easy to get wrapped up in the chaos of suddenly raising a child. It was also becoming more and more obvious that Vance had not even made an attempt to touch him since the night they'd first met, it was as if physical contact had just been thrown out the window completely.

Not that Cyro had time for sex anyways, Maxine had been involved in way too many extra activities when she first moved in, something Maxine had confided in Cyro was her mother's way of keeping Maxine away from her. They had spent the first week trying to maintain the schedule Renee had set up for Maxine but soon found that both of them hated it and cut her extra activities down from fifteen to just two: Sunday morning Violin classes and an Art club that met on the seventeenth of each month. Cyro also took the liberty of moving Maxine into a closer school, as he felt the catholic private school Renee had her attending was far too strict.

Vance didn't seem to care much about any of the changes that Cyro was making but then they only saw him on the weekends but even then it was rare that he wasn't buried deep in his laptop working on something. It had crossed Cyro's mind a few times that he honestly had no idea what Vance actually did for work but the way the man was always busy Cyro had resigned himself to not really caring. He wondered if he should be more upset by Vance complete disregard for him in all aspects but at the same time he felt like maybe it was his fault for never saying anything about it.

Not that he'd know what to say if he did decide to speak up about it, it wasn't that Vance was necessarily hard to talk to it was more so that Cyro just felt like the man didn't care about anything. When he had told Vance that he was going to move Maxine's school he had been so engrossed in his laptop that Cyro found himself wanting to slam it closed on his fingers. He eventually asked Vance if he was listening to him, expecting the man to just nod or shrug but he simply repeated everything Cyro had said to him before finally looking up at Cyro and telling him that he trusted his judgment on the topic. Cyro had stood there shocked for a few minutes even staring bewildered at Vance when he returned his gaze to his laptop.

And Vance had definitely proven that he did in fact trust Cyro completely, he and Maxine spent most of their days together as he got home about an hour before her, he fell easily into helping her with her homework each day and then taking her to the park or out with his friends. His friends all seemed to really like Maxine, minus Jack who grumbled at the idea whenever Cyro suggested bringing her along to any of their outings and then suddenly became busy when he did decide to bring her along. Other than him all his friends thought she was the sweetest thing since sugar and now as they were all sitting down in the dining room it was obvious so did his mother as she was practically melting over everything Maxine said to her.

"So Cyro did you take Vance's last name?" His gran asked suddenly, drawing his eyes away from his mother and Maxine, who were having an adorable conversation of their own. He stared at his grandmother for a moment the weight of what she had just said settling heavily on him. For a moment he couldn't breathe, he had told his family that it had been a rash decision to get married but he had left out a lot of key details. A lot of those key details included the fact that he barely knew Vance at all.

"He did." Vance stated, interrupting the awkward silence that was beginning to fill the table, even the conversation between Maxine and his mother had halted to hear his answer. Vance smirked at him, reaching over he squeezed Cyro's hand in his larger one, they locked gazes and Cyro realized that he was definitely covering for him. Vance knew the truth, he knew that Cyro didn't even know his last name, much less that it was apparently now also his last name.

"Yeah! He's CiCi Ashton now!" Maxine beamed across the table and suddenly he could breathe again as conversation resumed around him, Maxine telling them all about her new school.

Ashton

The name registered in Cyro's mind and he was sure he had never heard it before. He rubbed his forehead for a moment before sighing deeply, grateful the attention was no longer focused on him. He couldn't believe he didn't know that but he wasn't surprised as he didn't know much about Vance in the first place. Mentally he made himself a promise to utilize whatever little time they had during the ride back to the apartment and however much time he had before Vance became consumed by work again to find out as much information on the man as he could.

Smiling to himself Cyro scanned around the table his eyes landing on his grandmother, who was oddly staring directly at him while everyone started at Maxine. She seemed to be staring through him even as she made disturbingly intense eye contact with him. He tilted his head, mouthing a silent 'yes?' to her but her face changed quickly into a much happier one, shaking her head and refocusing her gaze on Maxine.

Hesitantly Cyro did the same.