Love And The Real Boy - Coming About, Book 2 (16 page)

The morning rush had passed, so he was able to get their orders and get back to the table quickly.

He fiddled with the stirrer in his cup for a few tense seconds until he finally decided it was best just to get it over with. “I guess we should talk about the other day.”

John-Michael sighed and took a swig of his coffee, wincing from the heat. “Yeah. Look, I’m sorry about what happened.”

“
You’re
sorry? I was the one who queened out all over you. I know I overreacted.”

“Um…not sure I know what that means. But yeah, I’m sorry. The gay thing did take me off guard a little bit, but it’s not like I have a problem with it or anything. It’s just that…I don’t really personally know any gay people. And I have this sort of childhood idea of you, and I just needed a minute to reconcile this new picture. I would never offend you on purpose, though. You can’t think it would matter to me.”

He looked honest and sincere, and something inside of Rich relaxed and let go. Maybe it would be okay. “I was already on edge…anything could have set me off.”

“How about we start over? Clean slate,” John-Michael said.

“Sounds good. So…you have a kid.”

“Yes.”

“How’d that happen?”

John-Michael coughed, possibly choking on some of his coffee. “Come on, Rich. I know that being gay doesn’t mean you don’t have a basic understanding of human reproduction.”

“Well, thank you for the ringing endorsement of my people. We’ll be sure to honor you at our next club meeting.”

“Funny.”

“I try.”

“I’m sure you do. But you’re an uncle now. You’ll have to try harder.”

Rich was the one choking after that. “Um…How old is Josiah?”

“He’s four. Smart as a whip.”

A genuine grin lit up John-Michael’s face when he talked about his son.
So this is what a father is like
. “Are you and his mother still together?”

That smile disappeared in a flash, and Rich mourned it a little. “Nah. Rachel and I were never really together. We just fooled around every now and then. The pregnancy was a surprise—I won’t call it a mistake—but she had never had any intention of having children. She planned on going to med school. She was going to have an abortion, but I begged her not to. Not that I think it’s wrong, necessarily…but I already loved him. I told her I’d pay for her care, and then I’d raise him by myself. He deserved a chance.”

“Wow,” Rich said. He didn’t have any other word for it. Some might argue that it wasn’t right to bring a child into the world knowing that he’d only have one parent, but as someone who hadn’t even had
one
competent parent, Rich thought it was fan-fucking-tastic.

As if he’d read his mind, John-Michael continued. “I really wanted to give him something, you know? Something that we didn’t have. I wanted to be a real father. Like I said, he deserved a chance.”

“Yeah,” Rich said, his voice breaking. “How’d you get so cool?”

“Must have picked it up from my big brother.” John-Michael laughed and kicked him under the table.

“Ass,” Rich retorted.

“Save it for your boyfriend.”

“Gross.”

“Hey, you’re the one doin’ it,” John-Michael said with a laugh in his voice, but then he sobered abruptly. “There’s another reason why I finally looked you up.”

“You realize you’re going to give me a heart condition.”

“Indeed.”

“Ugh. Just make it quick.”

“You remember that house we lived in when we were little, before things really went to shit with Mom?”

“Yeah. I’m surprised you remember. You were probably around Josiah’s age when she moved us the first time.”

“I just remember bits and pieces. Anyway, it turns out that the house was actually owned by her parents, our grandparents on the Dalton side.”

“Huh. We never met them.”

“Apparently that’s because they had a falling out with her before I was born. They didn’t get along or really speak at all, but they allowed her to use the house rent-free to help her out with us, provided she stayed clean. Obviously that didn’t happen.”

“How do you know all this? You were practically a fetus when we lived there.”

John-Michael chuckled and swatted at him, and for a moment, it was like they were kids again. “I’m getting to it! Impatient much?”

“Jesus, while we’re young!”

“Turns out the parents still owned the house when they passed away.”

“Oh,” Rich said, disappointed. He’d entertained a brief moment of hope that there were more long lost family members out there lurking around.

“Yeah. So they still owned the house, but it was closed up. They directed in their will that the house be kept in escrow and then deeded to us when we came of age. Problem was, I was adopted, and you stayed in the system until you were eighteen, and then you were in the wind. And we both changed our names.”

“So the estate lawyers couldn’t find us.”

“Exactly. I guess one of them finally stuck with it long enough to dig up my adoption record, and that’s how I found out about all of this.”

“Okay, but what’s that got to do with you looking me up? I mean, no offense, because I’m glad you did…but I already have a house. If there’s something I need to sign or whatever, hand it over. You should have the house.”

John-Michael was shaking his head before Rich even finished talking. “No, that’s the thing. The place is evidently a total dump now. It used to be nice, but the neighborhood went to shit and no one was taking care of the house. The city has been after the lawyers to get us to do something about it—renovate, sell, bulldoze, whatever.”

“Have you seen it?” Rich asked. He felt a pang of sadness at the thought of literally the
only
decent home he’d ever had crumbling in some shit-hole neighborhood.

John-Michael shrugged his big shoulders. “Nah. I guess I didn’t want to go alone.”

“Then let’s go together.”

“Great,” he said with a genuine smile. “Once I’m off-duty, I’ll call the lawyer and set it up. In the meantime, I really want you to meet Jos. Do you think we could get together this weekend after I bring him home?”

Rich’s heart flipped at the thought of meeting his nephew for the first time. What if the kid hated him? People skills obviously weren’t his thing—much less tiny-people skills. “Um…sure. I’m busy this weekend, and I have a huge presentation I’m gearing up for work, but how about lunchtime on Thursday? It will be right before my presentation—it’ll take my mind off of it,” he said with a nervous smile.

“Perfect! And look, I want to start off on the right foot with him regarding your being gay. I figure if he knows from the very beginning and sees that I’m cool with it, it won’t be a big deal. I know he’s seen kids from preschool who have gay parents, and he’s never cared enough to ask me about it. So how about you bring your boyfriend?”

Rich could feel himself start to sweat. He really didn’t want to let on that he had no personal life to speak of—just one friend who was mad at him and a…fuck buddy? Jesus, that sounded pathetic.

“You do have a boyfriend, don’t you?”

“Um…yes?”
Why the fuck did I just say that?
He hadn’t wanted to seem sad and pitiful, but how much worse would it look when he showed up without his imaginary boyfriend?

John-Michael chuckled and gave him a crooked smirk. “Are you asking me or telling me?”

“T-telling you. His name is Patrick.”
God and Patrick forgive me, I’m a lying sack of shit.
He just had to hope and pray that his somewhat friend and occasional lover wouldn’t mind playing the make-believe boyfriend for a couple of hours. What a mess.

Chapter Fourteen

Patrick smiled at Rich from the driver’s side of his truck. At the risk of a heavy-handed reference, Patrick thought the guy looked as nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof. He could imagine the prospect of being in a houseful of Irish-Catholic O’Dowds probably seemed a daunting prospect to a man who’d been an orphan for most of his life.

Snickering to himself, Patrick pried Rich’s fingers from their grip on the center console and laced his through them. The man’s normally tan complexion was a bit pale, and sweat was beading at his temples. Patrick gave an encouraging squeeze and winked at Rich.

“It’s really not such a big deal. There’ll be so many bodies running about, so much food and shouting over the rugby matches, no one will even pay that much attention to one extra person.”

Rich glared at him, and Patrick had to smother a chuckle.

“Not helpful.”

“Oh relax, you’ll be fine. They’re just people. Besides, this is nothing compared to what meeting your nephew will be like.” He tossed an evil grin over his shoulder.

“Thanks ever so,” Rich grumbled. “Like I really need a reminder.”

“Look, my family is nice people. And you…can be,” he said with a smile so that Rich would know it was a joke. All it got him was an eye roll, but at least it looked like he was relaxing some. “They love having visitors. It’s just one more person Ma can feed and Da can talk sports with—and my brothers and sister will be more than happy to have an extra person to whom they can tell embarrassing stories about me.”

“I don’t know a damn thing about sports.”

Patrick shook his head, keeping his eyes on the road. “Doesn’t matter. Just let him talk at you and nod every now an’ again, and he’ll be happy as a pig in shit.”

“Doesn’t sound too bad…I guess.”

“I mean it. There’s nothing to be nervous about.”

“Right. It’s not like I’m your boyfriend, so they shouldn’t have to grill me or anything.”

That time the eye roll was Patrick’s. He was as relationship-phobic as the next guy, but to his thinking, just saying it over and over again didn’t make it so—actions spoke louder than words.

“Absolutely. Although I’d be more than happy to pretend if it would keep the womenfolk off my back about my love life.”

“They know you’re gay?”

“Oh, sure. If I’d’ve tried to hide it, Ma would have sniffed it out anyway, and then been pissed that I didn’t tell her. So I figured I may as well be honest. They’re Irish—they’ve got plenty enough other things to be fired up about besides homosexuality.”

“Huh.”

Rich looked as if he were processing that bit of information. Other than Patrick’s epic fuck-up in front of Rory and his friends, Rich must not have any experience with coming out…or being open with anyone. This would be a new one for him.

“Um…” Rich began. “Speaking of pretending…”

“Uh-oh.”

“I sort of panicked and told John-Michael I had a boyfriend.”

“I don’t guess it’s really any of his business, is it then?”

“Yeah, no. But. I kind of told him I’d bring my
boyfriend
with me to meet Josiah—that’s his son. He wanted to present the idea of me being gay to the kid as something normal, a ‘no-big-deal’ kind of thing, and he thought if I brought my boyfriend, we could accomplish that. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I’m basically a workaholic with no social life to speak of.”

“I don’t know, your work felt pretty ‘social’ the other day,” Patrick said with a leer, remembering their little midnight photo session.

Rich laughed, and Patrick was pleased to see the hunted look start to leave his eyes.

“So not the point.”

“Sorry, sorry. I’ll behave. What are you going to do?”

“Well…” he said, drawing out the word, and then turned in the passenger seat to lay full-on puppy dog eyes on Patrick. “I was hoping you’d come.”

“Mr. Langston!” he said with mock affront. “Are you suggesting that I should deceive your family members through lies, treachery, and subterfuge?”

“Um. Yes?”

“I’m shocked. Shocked and appalled.
Flabbergasted
, even!”

“All right, God, you’ve made your point. So will you?”

“I’d be delighted—on one condition.”

“Oh, hell. What is it?”

“That you do the same for me—”

“That’s fine, whenever—”

“Today.”

“
Fuck
.”

“Later. Right now, we’ve a herd of O’Dowds to deceive—right now. Here we are!”

* * * *

“God, I need a cigarette,” Rich said, running a shaking hand through his hair as they walked up the drive to Patrick’s parents’ home. Patrick looked at him, dressed to perfection in a suit that even to Patrick’s unpracticed eye had to be designer. His longish dark hair was precisely quaffed back away from his face, leaving an unobstructed view of his smooth skin and piercing amber eyes. It was misting outside, and tiny raindrops were collecting on his shoulders, in his hair, and on his eyelashes. It was mesmerizing.

Patrick had to shake himself to get his brain back on track. “You don’t smoke.”

“Not really, not now, but I used to. Transitioned from three packs of Camels a day down to nicotine-flavored air like Capris only when I’m pissed off or anxious…or wasted,” he answered with a fleeting grin.