Love And The Real Boy - Coming About, Book 2 (13 page)

John-Michael looked away and then looked down at his hands. “I’m not really sure what to say to that.”

Rich’s stomach rolled sickeningly. This was the first time he truly realized how horrible the anti-gay hate speech he’d spewed at Justice really was. No one should ever have to feel like this, wondering if someone could actually hate them just for whom they chose to love. Of course, John-Michael hadn’t said anything of the sort, but he hadn’t said anything at
all
.

Why wasn’t he saying anything? Rich hated feeling insecure, and he automatically converted the emotion to anger. Who the hell did this guy think he was, coming in to Rich’s house and judging him?

Rich knew it was irrational, even as his mind went there. He’d been so geared up for hatred from John-Michael for one thing that when he didn’t get it, his primal inner jackass latched onto his brother’s hesitation—
read: presumed homophobia
.

There was no putting it back in the box once his brain got its teeth into the idea.

Rich stood up, walked to the front door and opened it wide, so hard that it slammed back against the doorstop. “Tell you what. You go on back to your nice little hetero life, and when you figure out what to say, give me a call.”

“Jesus, Ricky, just gimme a second to wrap my brain around—”

“It’s
Rich
, goddamn it!”

John-Michael raised his hands again as if to say ‘don’t shoot’ and stood up. “All right, bro, calm down. I just need to think—”

“There’s nothing to think about. I can’t change who I am.”

“That’s not what I meant…” John-Michael started, but then he clamped his mouth shut in frustration. “Look, I’ll leave if you want. Maybe we can talk later when we’ve both had a chance to calm down.” He took out a business card and laid it on the side table on his way out, not making the mistake of trying to hand it to Rich.

Nothing else needed to be said because in Rich’s mind, John-Michael had already left him again. He punctuated the loss by slamming the door shut behind his brother.

Hours later, Rich sat in the dark with what was probably his fifth beer, but he’d lost count.
Alone again.
It had been a nice, momentary dream to think about having a family. But he knew better than to let himself get used to it. He’d only hoped for a moment, but it still hurt to lose it. Sitting alone in the dark, he found himself thinking of Patrick—thinking maybe, just maybe, he could call him. He didn’t.

Chapter Eleven

Patrick was worried. Rich never showed up at the marina the day before, after John-Michael showed up. They’d made plans to go pick the Camaro up from the auto shop, so Patrick didn’t know how he was getting around. And if he was getting around, he wasn’t getting
around
to the boat…because it was midmorning and he’d seen neither hide nor hair of Rich so far.

Patrick was embarrassed that he was worried—it wasn’t as if he was Rich’s boyfriend, or even wanted to be. Just because they were fucking didn’t entitle him to be privy to Rich’s comings and goings. But he thought they’d at least developed a sort of ersatz friendship, in which they shared their troubles, because neither of them had anyone else who’d understand to share them with. So it stung a bit that Rich hadn’t filled him in on what happened with John-Michael, or contacted him at all.

Laying fresh teak flooring on the foredeck of the sailboat was intricate, grueling work, but it didn’t engage the mind. This left Patrick plenty of time to obsess and worry. But after he whacked his thumb with his mallet for the third time, he decided it was time for a hydration and mental health break.

He’d just finished draining a half-gallon bottle of Gatorade when he saw a flash of sun glinting off a car pulling into the parking lot—a fuck-me red Camaro. Patrick couldn’t talk himself out of staring as the low door opened and Rich stepped out. He was completely decked out in a perfectly tailored steel gray suit, and his eyes were hidden behind dark wraparound sunglasses.
Like a boss
, Patrick thought.

Rory and Justice followed Patrick’s attention until they caught sight of him too. “Uh-oh,” Rory said under his breath, but Patrick heard.

“Uh-oh? Uh-oh what?” he demanded.

Rory sighed, set down his mallet, and stood up. “
The Iceman cometh…
” When Patrick gave him a confused look, he sighed. “Ugh. Look, I know you guys have been…um, sleeping together or…whatever, but you don’t know him that well. Rich has been one of my closest friends for a while now—recent events notwithstanding,” he said with an apologetic glance at Justice. “But he’s always been a closed-off sort of guy when it came to anything personal. I’d say cold, even.

“But since he’s been working on the boat…I don’t know, he’s loosened up a lot. He’s seemed way more relaxed until…well, now. He’s obviously got his walls back up, so something’s happened.”

“I don’t really understand,” Patrick said. “I know he’s got the suit and everything, but maybe he’s going to work.”

“Nah. No one knows Rich like Rory does,” Justice said, adding a murmured “thank fuck.” He squinted out to where Rich was striding down the main pier with purpose. “I think what Rory is saying is that we should be prepared for the return of Admiral Douchebag.”

Patrick merely grunted, because he knew some things they didn’t. They didn’t know about Rich’s childhood. Rory knew bits and pieces, but they didn’t know about John-Michael or Rich’s deep-seated fear of seeing him. Patrick knew, but judging by the look on Rich’s face as he approached the boat slip, he was going to be shut out with the rest of them.

Ashamed of the twist in his gut suggesting of feelings he shouldn’t be having, Patrick climbed down to meet him on the dock. Taking a nonchalant approach, he smiled at Rich. “Nice, you got your car back. How’d you get over there?”

Rich pushed his sunglasses farther up on the bridge of his nose, but didn’t remove them. Even though he was looking up at Patrick, he somehow managed to seem like he was looking down on him. “I took a cab. I can afford it.”

“‘Course you can. I would’ve been happy to take you, though.”

“Well, it’s done now, so…”

“O-kay,” Patrick answered, drawing out the word. “Nice suit.”

Rich fiddled with a cufflink and shifted, as if he had somewhere more important to be and Patrick was slowing him down. “Yes. That’s why I stopped by. I’ve gotten an important new account, and I’m going to be putting in a lot of extra hours working on this campaign. Since I’ll be working with a team, I have to spend a lot of time in the office. I won’t be working on the boat anymore. I figured it was only polite to tell you in person.”

Patrick rubbed the back of his neck and wondered why he got the feeling like this brush-off was about more than the restoration work. “Understandable, mate. We’re good. You wanna maybe come over to mine after you finish work tonight?”

Rich was already retreating, mentally at least, if not physically. “No. I’ll be working very late.”

“Sure, sure. Oh, hey, how’d it go with J—”

“I have to go,” he interrupted sharply, turning on his heel and walking away, just like that.

The little bastard
, Patrick thought.
He thinks he’s going to get rid of a red-blooded Irishman just like that, eh?
He scoffed. That man was in for a rude awakening. Patrick didn’t take well to being blown off. Blown, sure. Blown off? Nope.

He went back to laying boards in a much better mood. He had a plan. Rich was going to hate it—which meant it was bloody perfect.

* * * *

Rich kept a spare key to his house underneath a terra cotta flowerpot on his front stoop. Patrick knew this because he’d seen him use it that first day Patrick had driven him home. Rich had left his house key on the keychain with his car keys—the ones he’d given to the mechanic—so he’d had to use the spare to get in.

It was awfully fortuitous for Patrick that Rich had left it in the usual hiding place, considering he was sitting in Rich’s living room in the dark, waiting for the man to get home. Yeah, he was going into full-on crazy-stalker-bitch mode. It was obvious that Rich wanted to end their fling regardless, so who the hell cared if Patrick pulled the crazy out? But for fuck’s sake, he wasn’t getting the brush-off without an explanation, and maybe even a ‘nice-knowing-ya’ fuck for the road.

Mostly, Patrick just wanted to get Rich angry and off-balance enough to admit what was really going on; whatever it was most assuredly had to do with John-Michael. He wasn’t exactly ready to let go of their budding connection, and he had a feeling that Rich was just pushing him away because that was what he was used to doing when shit hit the fan.

Patrick tensed when he heard keys jangling outside the front door. When the lock clicked and the doorknob rattled, his fingers tightened on his borrowed glass filled with the whiskey he’d brought along.

“Showtime,” he whispered.

He could only see Rich’s silhouette backlit by the porch light when he stepped through the door. It closed softly behind him, and the house was once again draped in complete darkness. Moving with barely a sound, Rich kicked off his shoes and shrugged out of his suit jacket, hanging it in the hall closet. He did it all by rote, never turning on a light—which was to Patrick’s advantage for the element of surprise.

When Rich was halfway across the room, Patrick flicked on the tableside lamp, illuminating his little corner of the couch. “Hi, honey. Welcome home,” he deadpanned. “How was your day?”

“Jesus,
fuck!
”

Patrick wasn’t sure he’d ever seen someone actually jump from fright—not really. But Rich jumped a foot in the air and three to the side, dropping his briefcase and scattering papers everywhere.

Instead of cowering or clutching his figurative pearls, Rich threw his hands up, ready to fight back. Patrick was impressed. But he steeled himself for the tirade as recognition slowly dawned on Rich’s face.

“What in the ever-loving fuck are you doing in my house? Are you
kidding
me right now?” he yelled.

That pissed Patrick right off. Like Rich could pull a ‘Mr. Hyde’ on everyone and blow off the restoration, and no one was going to have shite to say about it?

“Oh, cop on, mate. You’re obviously off your nut, showin’ up to the dock all suited up for a carry-on. You eat me ’ead off, and blow off me
and
the work without so much as a by-your-leave. Leastways ya could’ve given us a farewell shag, eh?” Okay, so the last bit was a little much, but once Patrick got his mad on, it was hard to calm down.

Rich blinked at him, then scrubbed his hands over his face, suddenly looking weary and defeated. “I don’t understand what any of that means.”

“Pardon?”

“What you just said. Apparently you go all…Irish when you’re really pissed off.”

Oops
, Patrick thought. And here he’d been trying to make a point. “Okay, let’s see if I can’t translate that to Yank. You can’t just show up all suited up with your war-face on, basically telling me—and the crew—to sod right off, and then leave without another word. Not after John-Michael showed up.

“You couldn’t think that I wasn’t going to need more information. Look, I know I’m not your boyfriend…but I’m somebody.”

Rich sighed and flopped down on the couch beside him, looking utterly bushed. “Yeah. Yes, you’re somebody.”

“Good. Now that that’s settled, have some whiskey. We’ll get you nice and lit, and you can tell ol’ Patrick all about it.”

Before Rich began telling him about the encounter with John-Michael, he filled Patrick in on some more of the details of their childhood—for context, he’d said. He went into specifics about his mother’s drug use and how often they’d lived in their car, and how often her boyfriends had tried to abuse them. Patrick was simultaneously horrified and awed; it was so much for two children to have survived and have turned out even the least bit normal.

He swallowed thickly. “What happened when you talked to your brother?”

“It was good at first, and then it all went to shit.”

Rich downed another two fingers of Patrick’s favorite mid-grade whiskey, and tipped his glass for a refill. Patrick topped him off but only poured a pinch for himself. One of them should probably stay sober, at least for now.

“What brought on the shite, then?”

“Well, J-M had just finished telling me how great his adoptive family was, and I asked him why he waited until now to look for me.”

“What’d he say?” Patrick asked, leaning forward and propping his elbows on his knees.

“He said it was because he had a son now.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. He said he wanted the kid to know his uncle—he wanted us to be a family.”

“And what did you say?”

“I told him I was gay.”

Patrick choked on his whiskey, because that was the last thing he’d been expecting. “What the bloody hell for?”

“Are you kidding? I don’t know the kinds of things he was raised to believe. I didn’t want to get all attached to this new family, only to have him find out about me and walk away! Best to find out in the beginning.”