Love And The Real Boy - Coming About, Book 2 (19 page)

The old man gave Aidan a long look, and though his face was stern, his expression wasn’t unkind. “Son, I know you felt more for Emmaline than you ever let on. I know you’ve lost. But your brother lost too.”

Aidan raised his eyes and started to speak. “I’m not finished,” Jonathan barked, and Aidan’s jaw snapped shut with an audible click.

Looking back and forth between the brothers at intervals, he continued. “Emmaline was dear to us all—you lads know her da was like a brother to me. We’ve felt her loss as a family, and that’s exactly the way we’ll continue to feel it. Am I making myself understood?”

“Yes, sir,” said Aidan.

“Aye, yes, Da,” Patrick said at the same time, casting a cautious glance at his brother who wore a wary but contrite expression.

“Good. Your mother’s cooked up a feast for us. We’ll eat together as a family. If you’ve still got some
issues
need workin’ out, you can pound ’em out in the scrum later.” With none of the pomp and circumstance of his entrance, Jonathan turned on his heel and walked off.

Aidan stuffed his hands in his pockets and nudged a rock with the toe of his boot. Patrick watched his shoulders rise and fall with a few deep breaths before Aidan met his eyes.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “That was uncalled for. It isn’t your fault I never worked out my feelings for Emmaline. Shouldn’t ’a said you killed her.”

He was barely speaking above whisper level, but Patrick heard him loud and clear. He nodded and gave his brother an awkward pat on the shoulder. “I get it. It must have been hard, you know, having feelings for her when she and I were together. Sorry I never noticed it.”

“I thought you were gonna marry her,” Aidan whispered.

Patrick heard a rustling noise, and then a voice from behind filled the silence between them.

“Is that true?” Rich asked, standing beside one of the old oaks, eyes wary, arms wrapped around himself. “You were engaged?”

Patrick winced. This was not the way he’d seen this ‘date’ of theirs going. “Rich? What are you doing out here?”

He nodded to his left, and Maran stepped out from behind the tree with her head hanging. She came to stand just behind Rich’s left shoulder. Her skin was paler than normal, which made the blush across her cheeks and neck stand out in stark contrast.

“Oh, well then, that explains it.”

“I’m sorry, Patrick. I was just having a bit of fun. I didn’t think we’d hear…this.”

Patrick sighed heavily. His sister was notorious for eavesdropping, and he was annoyed that she’d dragged Rich into her shenanigans. But he supposed the conversation needed to be had.

He glanced over at Aidan and then back to Maran. “I’d like a moment alone with my boyfriend, if you don’t mind?”

“Of course,” Aidan said, walking briskly, obviously glad to be away from there. He grabbed Maran by the arm, spun her around, and hauled her back toward the house.

That left Rich and Patrick alone in the yard, staring at each other.

“Can we sit?” Patrick asked, gesturing to the hammock that was strung between two smaller trees.

“Sure.”

Patrick hoisted himself up to sit crossways on the hammock and almost went over backward off the other side. It was worth it to draw a tentative snicker out of Rich. Once he got the mesh of rope stable, he patted the spot beside him, and Rich sat down carefully.

Once they’d reached a modicum of stability in the contraption, Patrick and Rich simultaneously laid back and dangled their legs over the side. Patrick used one foot to set up a slight rocking motion. They avoided looking at each other. Instead, they just stared up at the clear blue sky dotted with puffy white clouds.

“Tell me what happened,” Rich finally said.

“Well, you know how I told you that I don’t sail anymore because I was in an accident.”

“Yes,” Rich said in a voice that seemed muted in the heavy, still air of the summer afternoon.

“I’d gone sailing with my fiancée, Emmaline.” When he’d started talking, Patrick had given up pushing the hammock. Rich took over, pushing off with the toe of his polished dress shoe. Patrick found not only the motion, but also the gesture, oddly soothing.

“We grew up in a row house in Cobh—it was actually two units converted into a larger one to accommodate the lot of us,” he continued with a fond smile. “We were really tight with all of the kids that lived in that particular block of houses, but with Emmaline and her brother Thom especially.

“When Mam and Da finally moved us to a bigger house in a different neighborhood, Aidan, Flynn, and I still went around with Emmaline and Thom nearly every day. She and I were the same age, so it just seemed natural that we start dating. The four of us were inseparable, but Emmaline and I had a special bond. She just got me. She never put any pressure on me to be a certain way. I didn’t know at the time why that was so important, because my battle with my self-image and sexual identity was still subconscious at that point.

“The relationship progressed as those things usually do, and eventually I proposed—I know now that the main reason behind that was that I’d always been raised that the next step between a man and a woman after love was marriage—k-i-s-s-i-n-g an’ all that, you know?”

Rich grunted beside him and continued to rock them gently. He didn’t say anything, for which Patrick was extremely grateful.

“We opted for a rather long engagement, and as time went on, my internal struggle moved increasingly external, and I found it hard to ignore my growing attraction to men. Emma knew. She always knew everything before I did. She confronted me about it in that way of hers—calm and rational, but loving, edged with only a little bit of hurt. Finally, I broke down and told her everything. Saint of a woman that she was,
she
was comforting
me
, all the while telling me that I needed to be myself or the part of me that made me human would just waste away. I knew she was right, so we ended our engagement that day.

“I knew we’d always be friends. I could no more give her up than I could one of my own siblings. We reverted back to that place of inseparable friendship while I tried to figure out how to come out to my family. But things didn’t happen the way we planned.” Patrick paused to catch his breath and swallow back the oncoming tears.

“What happened?” Rich prompted softly.

“We decided to go sailing for the weekend on
Lough Mahon
as one last hurrah before we told everyone we weren’t getting married—and before I came out to everyone. Emma was right. If I’d kept hiding things from my family with whom I’d always been so close, I’d lose a part of myself, maybe forever.

“The rest…well, it all happened so fast. I know people always say that when they’ve experienced some kind of trauma, but it really did. A freak storm came upon us. Hurricane force winds capsized my boat like it was nothing but a toy, and she sank almost as quickly. My racing cutter, bein’ the light vessel that she was, waffled on her side for only seconds before goin’ full belly-up. That’s how me an’ Emmaline got caught in the rigging. When the boat sank, I was dragged down probably twenty feet before I finally managed to grab hold of my pocket knife and cut free. I assume the same thing happened to Emma, only she wasn’t lucky enough to have a knife, because she trusted me to take care of things. It was…” he broke off, clearing the unshed tears from his throat. “…tragic.”

“I can only imagine.”

Patrick looked over at Rich and reached out to twine their fingers together. “Oh, I’d bet you could. You’ve had your fair share of tragedy too, mate.”

Rich hummed and stroked his thumb across the sensitive skin of Patrick’s hand.

“I still came out. I felt I owed it to Emmaline to take care of myself and be honest with my family. It was difficult at first, especially since her death was a loss to us all, but we pulled together as a family and dealt with it—though I’ve never sailed without fear since. At least I thought we had dealt with it.”

“You never had any idea that Aidan had feelings for her?”

“Well back then, I was pretty egocentric and self-important—as any young man is wont to be from time to time—but I swear, he never gave me any inkling. He never asked her out before she and I started dating.

“But like he said…it really doesn’t matter now.” Patrick allowed himself a moment more of his pity party before he smiled up at the clouds. “Boy, but she was a fine lass, was Emmaline. Bonny as the day was long, but smart too—sharp as a whip. And she’d call me on my shite, every time.”

He shared a brief but healing laugh with Rich, but sobered quickly. “God, she deserved better than me.”

Rich gave his hand a squeeze and turned his head so that they were eye to eye. “I’m not so sure there
is
anything better than you.”

It seemed like the thought had slipped out without his permission because when Rich realized what he’d said, he turned bright red from shirt collar to hairline. Before he could take it back, Patrick lunged at him, smashing their lips together in a quick and fierce kiss. He had to pull away and lay back down as the hammock threatened to dump them both.

Rich looked at him again, concern causing a line between his brows. “But don’t you miss sailing?”

Patrick closed his eyes against the brief but breath-stealing stab of pain that came with thinking about it. “Like breathing, mate. Like breathing.”

They sat in silence for several minutes, in the comfortable companionship of friends, of lovers, until Rich spoke again.

“I just have one more question, and then we can really stop the heart-to-heart stuff,” he said with a grin.

“Shoot.”

“What…exactly…is a scrum?”

Patrick blinked at him for what felt like a full minute before he proceeded to laugh himself stupid.

Chapter Sixteen

It was rugby. It turned out that a scrum was goddamn rugby. Rich stared warily at the gaggle of men in various states of undress occupying the living room. Shannon O’Dowd and the wives had served enough food to feed an army. The main course was something called ‘bangers ‘n mash’, which was really just sausage and potatoes—so why the hell didn’t they just call it sausage and fucking potatoes?

Naturally, after being stuffed to the gills with heart-attack-inducing food, the men decided they should play a nice sporting game of rugby. And then they all just started changing into their jerseys and shorts right there in the living room. It would normally be a wet dream come true for Rich, except Donal stepped up and shoved some workout clothes into his hands and,
yep
, it looked like they were expecting him to play too.

“Get dressed, Dickey Dazzler,” Donal said.

“What does that…what the
hell
does that even mean?” he shouted at Donal’s retreating back. Donal merely flipped him off over his shoulder and kept going.

“Oh good, you’re in!”

Maran’s voice behind him startled him so much that he almost dropped the bundle of clothes. Would it be impolite to flush them? “What do you mean ‘in’?”

“They’re givin’ you shit, and you’re scrumming with them. That means they’ve accepted you as part of the pack.”

“Oh. I didn’t know I should have been studying the indigenous species.”

“It’s the only way to get by.”

Rich gave Maran a pleading look. “I know I’m apparently expected to drop trou right here in the living room, but I’d prefer not to. Where’s the bathroom?”

“Come on, I’ll show you.” Laughing, she grabbed his hand and led him down the hall. “Right, it’s just through there. I’ll leave you to it. I’ve got to go find a seat in the shade with the rest of the womenfolk.” With an exaggerated eye roll, she spun around and trotted off.

Once alone, Rich peeled his suit off layer by layer. He didn’t have a hanger so he hung each piece over the shower rod as carefully as he could. He stepped into the black athletic shorts he’d been given—and scoffed at how short they were compared to most workout shorts he’d ever seen. Then he pulled on the lycra…jersey, or whatever. It stretched tight across his pecs and abs—it wasn’t as if he’d never seen a rugby player before; he knew that was pretty typical.

The shirt was completely black except for a little white feather logo on the left side of his chest. He was sure wearing all black would feel
really
good outside in the direct sunlight. Checking himself in the mirror, he had to admit he was rocking it. The little shorts showed off his thighs and calves…he’d done a lot of leg work in the gym lately.
Well, if I have to play rugby, I might as well get a turned on fake-boyfriend out of the deal.

Reluctantly, he made his way back into the living room. It looked as though the O’Dowds had invited some other men to join the game, maybe from the neighborhood. Rich even noticed Patrick’s two friends from the other day, Bennett and Neal. He couldn’t help the latent stab of jealousy that leapt up from his gut, leftover from when he thought Patrick was flirting with them.

Rich noticed many of them were dressed in average workout clothes; T-shirts and basketball pants. The few that were actually wearing rugby uniforms wore green-and-white jerseys with shamrocks on them—clearly Irish. When a few of the men finally noticed Rich standing there, the conversation quieted enough that Patrick noticed and turned around. As soon as Patrick saw him, Rich experienced a brief moment of satisfaction as the man’s eyes dragged up and down his body in appreciation. And then Patrick’s eyes narrowed, and he reached over to smack Donal.