Love And The Real Boy - Coming About, Book 2 (12 page)

Rich was staring out the window, panting; he didn’t even look at Patrick. “Thanks for the offer, but this is…kind of family business. I think it needs to be just me and him.”

“Aye, then. Don’t worry about the boat today…just call if you need anything.” Before thinking better of it, Patrick leaned over and gripped the back of Rich’s neck, pulling him for a quick, hard kiss.

Rich nodded, but didn’t say another word before getting out. Patrick watched him stand on the curb; his hands were in the front pocket of his thin hoodie, and his shoulders were hunched against the blows he surely felt were coming. He stared at his brother, breathing hard, for several minutes before he seemed to draw up the courage to approach.

Patrick swallowed down his instinct to get out and jump between Rich and whatever pain John-Michael was going to bring to him. Wishing there was more he could do, he pulled away from the curb and left Rich in his rearview.

Chapter Ten

Rich was sweating buckets. John-Michael was staring at him like he could bore holes right through him, and Rich wasn’t sure if it was a good stare or a bad one. Forcing himself to put one foot in front of the other, Rich walked up to where his brother sat on his front steps.

John-Michael gave Rich an enigmatic half-smile that he’d have to be a fucking psychic to read and then unfolded himself. When he stood, Rich had to look up—like
way
up. Whatever kind of family he’d ended up with, they’d certainly fed him well. The kid was built like a linebacker, but to Rich, he’d always be just that—his
kid
brother.

Rich shuffled his feet and rubbed the back of his neck…anything to postpone having to figure out what the fuck to say. John-Michael reached out a big hand to him—for a shake, he guessed. Rich just stared at it like it was going to bite him.
I’m failing at life right now
, he thought, but he still couldn’t find his words.

His stomach clenched while he tried to decide whether John-Michael had come to hug him or punch him. Rich wished he knew so that he could formulate the appropriate response to the intrusion. And he wished like hell for his suit, so he could wrap it around him like armor to keep the world out. Christ, he had to
say
something.

“Um…hey, J-M,” he started, barely finding the will to return the handshake. “Why are you…what are you doing here?”

God, their eyes were the same. Rich had forgotten that. John-Michael had a few laugh lines around his—more than Rich did. That was probably a good thing, right? Maybe he’d had a good life.

Those golden-brown eyes widened, then faintly softened. “Heya, Ricky. How’ve ya been?”

“It’s Rich now,” he said, probably a bit too sharply. But he wasn’t that guy anymore. He couldn’t be ever again.

John-Michael held up his hands in surrender. “Sure, sure, fair enough. I just wanted to see you, man. Actually, no—I needed to see you.”

“So what, that PI just gave you my info without my permission?”

“Hell, no. Emory’s a by-the-book kind of guy. He’d be too afraid you’d sue him. Nah, I stole it out of his briefcase.”

Rich let out a surprised laugh. “Christ, Johnny, I thought I raised you better than that.” Immediately realizing the implications of what he said, Rich clamped his mouth shut and stared down at his feet.
Cue awkward silence
.

John-Michael took pity on him and kept things light. “Wanna hear the worst part?”

“Mmm?”

“I’m a cop.”

“You are not.”

“Uh-huh.” J-M’s eyes sparkled, and he bounced on the balls of his feet.

“The fuck, Johnny?” Rich asked, but he couldn’t help laughing at the big, goofy bear of a man who was his little brother. “C’mon, we should probably get inside. I have some seriously nosy neighbors."

Talk about awkward silence. A half-hour later, Rich and John-Michael sat side by side on the couch, clutching their respective mugs of coffee. Rich wished J-M would just get to the point, but he seemed to be having as much trouble finding his voice as Rich was.

It looked like Rich was going to have to take the lead—just like old times. “So…why’re you here, Johnny? I mean, not that I’m not glad to see you, but…” He trailed off, not really knowing what was the right thing to say.

John-Michael frowned at him and set down his coffee. “You’re my brother, man. I’ve been wanting to look you up for a while now…it just never occurred to me that you might change your name.”

“Why? You did.
Mr. Carrington
.” Rich wanted to hear him say it out loud, wanted him to understand the difference between the two of them.

“That’s different. I got…” He stopped and coughed.

Foot, meet mouth
. “It’s okay to say it, you know. It’s what I wanted for you.”

“Okay.” He cleared his throat and rubbed his sweaty palms on his jeans. “When I got adopted, I kinda had to change my name.”

“And you’re assuming I didn’t?” Rich asked, raising a brow.

“Did you?”

“No.”

“Okay…” He trailed off. The meeting was clearly not going the way he had expected it to.

Rich sighed, deciding to give him a break. “It’s good to see you, Johnny. You look good. Really. So what have you been doing all this time,
officer
?”

“Actually, it’s detective.”

“No shit? Aren’t you kind of young for that?”

“Yup.”

Rich knew there was a story there—one that John-Michael probably wanted to tell—but he couldn’t delay the inevitable anymore. He was shaking all over and feeling more than a little nauseated, but he had to ask the question, that question that could tear him up.

“That’s cool, Johnny. I want to hear all about it. But first, I need you to tell me about your adoptive family…tell me that you had a good life.”

John-Michael paused as if to really give it some thought, and the waiting was excruciating. Rich’s adrenaline was rising so fast that he thought he might really be in danger of passing out cold. His brother twisted his body to face him, laying his arm across the back of the couch.

“Is
that
what you were worried about? Why you were dodging me?”

“What makes you think I was worried?” Rich asked in a shaky voice that belied the confidence of his words. He shouldn’t be surprised, really. He could never put anything past J-M when they were kids.

“Well, gee, I don’t know…I haven’t seen you since I was like twelve, but I like to think we had a pretty good relationship back then. And yet, you were ducking the PI at every turn. Is that why you didn’t want to see me?”

Rich sputtered and glanced around the room, grasping for help that wasn’t there. “Huh. I don’t…”

“Ricky,” John-Michael said, waiting until Rich looked up at his stern face. “Tell me the truth.”

Sighing, Rich took a huge gulp of his coffee to cover his fear. “It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see you…you’re
all
I’ve got. It’s just that as long as I didn’t see you, I could imagine you having some happy suburban life with a dog and a white picket fence. I could imagine that everything I did back then to protect you was right.

“If I found you and it turned out that the people who’d taken you were bad…worse than Mom…then that would be on me. I’ve survived a lot of things, Johnny, but I just don’t think I would survive that.”

John-Michael rubbed a hand over his mouth and blinked rapidly, eyes suspiciously glassy. “Have you been carrying that around all this time?”

Rich nodded, because he didn’t trust his voice not to come out as a sob.

“You think I don’t know what you did?”

Gulp
. Oh, God, this was it. Rich closed his eyes and tensed for the blow. He’d ruined everything…

Strong arms seized him and crushed him into the solid wall of John-Michael. The kid—
ha!—
was doing his best to hug the life out of Rich, and he could hear some telltale sniffling in his ear. Just as quickly, John-Michael pushed him back and bent down so he could make definitive eye contact. “Do you think I don’t know that you saved our lives?”

Then the tears came. Rich just lost his shit right there in the living room. He pulled J-M to him and sobbed into his shoulder, clutching his shirt like he’d suddenly disappear again—and then Rich would be alone. Again.

John-Michael rubbed his back and hugged him hard until they’d both cried it out. Finally, they separated, and Rich attempted to pull himself together. “Jesus Christ, I need something stronger than coffee. You want?”

“Definitely.”

When Rich returned with a couple of beers, he started asking questions. Now that the fear had been set aside, he was overwhelmed with curiosity. They had almost seventeen years to catch up on.

“So your family was good?”

JM grinned. “Yeah, they were great. Jack and Ella Carrington, the perfect suburban parents.”

“Do you have any siblings?”

“Nope. Only child…other than you. My parents were older when they adopted me. They were settled into life and their careers, and they wanted someone to lavish all their attention on. I’m glad—they could have just gotten a dog!”

Rich smacked him with a throw pillow. “Not the same, idiot.” It felt good to laugh with his brother, to laugh with anyone, really. “The PI said you lived up north. Sammamish?”

“Yeah, that’s where I grew up. But now that I’ve made detective, I’m being transferred down here to Seattle.”

Rich’s heart stopped for half a second. His brother was moving here? For good? He would have…family. It almost hurt to hope for such a thing, he’d been on his own for so long. He decided he should take it with a grain of salt. There were no guarantees that they’d have a relationship, even if he moved. After all, Rich had done some terrible things in the last few months. Maybe once John-Michael heard about that mess—and Rich wasn’t naïve enough to think he wouldn’t—he’d want nothing to do with Rich.

“That’s…great. What do your parents think about you moving?” Rich asked.

“Oh, they understand. They’re retired now and doing a lot of traveling. Mom just survived a bout with breast cancer, so she’s sort of in bucket-list mode—even though she’s gonna be okay, complete remission. Besides, it’s only, what, like twenty miles away? Driving distance.”

“True.”

“Emory told me some of the basic stuff he found out about you, but I want to hear about all of it from you. You’re in advertising?”

“Sure am. I’m a junior executive at InVentiv Advertising. I’ll probably be getting a promotion soon, too.”

“Cool deal. What do you do for fun around here?”

“Honestly? I’m kind of a workaholic. I’ll go out to clubs occasionally, but I don’t have a lot of free time. Though actually, I’ve been helping restore a sailboat for a friend of a friend.”

“That sounds kinda awesome, Ricky! Maybe I can come help sometime.”

“Rich.”

“Sure.” That cheeky smile said that he wasn’t going to stop with the ‘Ricky.’

Rich wasn’t sure yet how he would feel about John-Michael meeting his friends—such as they were—especially Patrick.

His next question had Rich wondering if he’d read his mind. “Got a girlfriend?”

“No.”

“Just no?”

“Just no.”

“That sounds like a challenge, brother dear.”

“You’d be mistaken.”

John-Michael just snickered, seeming to enjoy their easy banter. In that respect, it was as if the years fell away and they were brothers, and kids, again.

“Why now, Johnny?” Rich asked out of the blue.

“Why now what?”

“I mean, you’ve been an adult for quite a while now. Why are you just looking for me now? Did something happen?”

The smile John-Michael gave him was sort of sad, sort of wistful. “I should have known you’d get right down to the nitty-gritty.”

Rich snorted. “I don’t handle bullshit well.”

“Thing is, I have a son. I want him to know his uncle, man. Family, it’s important, Ricky—especially for those of us who have very little of it.”

Rich knew John-Michael wasn’t talking about himself. Christ, he was an uncle? That begged the question of how his brother would react when he found out he was gay. He’d like to think that John-Michael wasn’t going to be one of
those
people, but who the hell knew? Homophobes were often a product of environment, and Rich didn’t know J-M’s parents.

Right or wrong, he felt it was best just to get it over with, rip it off like a bandage. “Before you start planning the family outings, you should know that I’m gay. I need to know if that’s going to be an issue for you,” he said and braced himself for impact.

John-Michael just stared at him, blinking owlishly for, like, two whole minutes. “You’re gay,” he finally said.

“I am.”

“I…uh…I didn’t know.”

“Of course not. You were only twelve the last time I saw you.
I
barely knew.”