Authors: RJ Scott
“I’m going to offer him a place at the D,” Jack added. He felt a little hurt at Steve’s words, despite knowing they held more truth than he cared to admit.
“That’s more like the kind of help he’d need. I’m saying that without knowing the full details of the case. Can I have some of my people talk to you or to him?”
“That would be great. I’ll text the information over now.”
They ended the call with good-byes and general chat about Beth and the kids, and as soon as they finished, Jack sent over the information that Ethan had provided. He opened the envelope of cash he’d collected, and removed all but two hundred dollars, then went and sat by Kyle’s bed.
Kyle opened his eyes and blinked up at the ceiling. Jack watched him from his seat next to the bed. He’d pulled some pretty big strings to get into this room and to be named as the contact for Kyle. Nothing legal, of course, but enough to take responsibility for medical bills. They wouldn’t give him any information, but Kyle had been labeled homeless, and Jack was pretty sure than the Campbell-Hayes name was enough to add weight to the assertion that Jack was his best bet for getting him out of the hospital.
There were no drugs in Kyle’s system, that much Jack had gleaned from the soft low chats between the nurses while Jack pretended to be asleep. Kyle was underweight, dehydrated, and had acute bronchitis. Jack had been in the room eight hours now, sending Liam home with the car, warning Riley that he wouldn’t be home until tomorrow and asking for someone to come and pick him up. He hadn’t heard back from Riley yet, but he wasn’t worried. Actually, all that time he’d sat, he’d been focused and anxious about Kyle. About what the hell he could say to the man when he woke that wasn’t words of pity or derision.
He wouldn’t mean to, but by offering Kyle a place to stay, could that be taken as criticism of how Kyle was living now? And how would he get Kyle to trust that Jack, or anyone who worked for him, was nothing like Hank Castille had been?
“Fuck me,” Kyle murmured from the bed before screwing his eyes shut.
“Kyle?” Jack asked.
Kyle turned his head slowly and opened his eyes. He didn’t seem at all shocked that Jack was by his bed, although his hand went to the buzzer and hovered there.
Jack didn’t say anything; he merely held up his hands in innocence.
“Wha’ the fu—fuck happ—happened?” Kyle asked. He looked tired, and his voice cracked as he coughed.
“You collapsed and I called 911.”
“Fuck.” Kyle screwed his eyes shut again.
“I have it covered.”
“Damn right you do, rich man,” Kyle snapped. “I never asked—” He coughed again, and Jack moved to offer him water. Instinct and fear had Kyle pressing the buzzer. “I called them,” he warned.
“I was going to just get you some water.” He waved at the plastic cup and jug on Kyle’s bedside cabinet.
The door opened and a nurse walked in, checked Kyle’s vitals, and hovered. “Good to see you’re awake Mr. Braden.” She fussed around him, then stood back. “The doctor’s run all the tests. You’re on a drip to get your fluids up, you have bronchitis, and we’re treating that. We’re keeping you in tonight, but the doctor said it’s likely that you’ll be released in a couple of days with meds for your chest. Now you get some rest, and you’ll be right as rain come tomorrow.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Kyle said.
Jack could hear the exhaustion in Kyle’s voice, but there was respect there. She left with a smile at Jack, and finally it was the two of them.
Kyle broke the silence first. “I don’t want you in the room. Not when I’m sleeping.”
Jack wanted to argue, but if he was ever going to get to talk to Kyle, he had to respect the man. He stood up. “I’ll be outside.”
“I don’t want you outside. Go home, leave me alone.”
Jack nodded. He didn’t want to do that. He wanted to take Kyle back to the Double D now, wanted to get him to a safe place where he’d be looked after. All he said, though, was “No problem.” He pulled out a pen and wrote on the back of Kyle’s notes, then took out the envelope and placed it in Kyle’s top drawer under a box of wipes. “Couple hundred in there,” he said.
“I don’t want your fucking money.”
Jack ignore him. “I’m already covering your medical bills. What’s two hundred more?”
“I don’t owe you a thing. Take your fucking money, and I’ll pay you back for the fees. You’re gonna have to wait a while, but don’t think you’ll get the money out of my body.”
Jack’s chest tightened. He hated that Kyle thought that way.
“You want to pay me back, okay. Draw up a schedule when you’re better, but you don’t have to pay me back. Ever. I wrote our address on the paperwork. Double D Ranch. There’s a place for you there, a house I want to convert, somewhere for LGBT kids who’ve been thrown out. I want you to work there. I’ve left you enough for a bus fare. You want it, you come find me.”
Kyle narrowed his eyes. “That’s it?”
Jack nodded. “That’s it.”
Kyle turned in bed away from Jack, offering him his back. “Now fuck off,” he said.
Jack left the room, made sure the same contact details were with the nurse who had looked in on Kyle. He stood at the reception considering what to do next. Cab all the way back to the D, or get a room? He moved into the parking lot, stepping aside as a car drove in.
“Hey, cowboy, you looking for a ride?”
Jack smirked as he turned to face the source of the voice. Riley, with the window of his beloved Land Rover right down and a smile on his face.
Jack’s worries melted away. Thinking about Kyle and worrying about him moved to one side as love filled the space. Riley had come to be with him.
“I’m game… but don’t tell my husband.”
Riley grinned at him. “Best get in, then, before I change my mind and go back for that cute blond on the corner.”
Jack climbed into the passenger seat and allowed himself the hug he knew he would be getting.
“You okay?” Riley asked.
“So much to tell you,” Jack responded. He looked at the digital clock—it was one in the morning. This had been one hell of a long day. “Are the kids okay?”
“Carol came back for the night, and Robbie and Eli are staying over.”
Horror filled Jack. “In our bed?”
All Riley could do was laugh, the fucker, but Jack couldn’t bring himself to worry. Robbie and Eli could fuck all over their room as long as it meant Jack and Riley were in this car together.
He wished every person on this planet could feel what he felt for Riley. All-consuming, frustrating, intense, supportive, total love.
Especially Kyle.
Kyle deserved something good for a change.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The morning of Riley’s birthday was chaos. A whole week had passed since he’d gone to find Jack at the hospital in Round Rock. Since then they hadn’t had a moment to themselves. He thought Jack hoped Kyle would just appear one day, but nothing so far, and reports from the PI—Ethan or something—had said that Kyle had gone back to his regular routine. Nothing had changed.
Which made for a sad, introspective Jack, who craved hugs and alone time.
Riley could get with that. He loved alone time with Jack, but when Jack had interrupted him for the fifth time last night when he was mid calculation, Riley had snapped. Of course snapping led to
sorrys
, which resulted in sex—
near-silent sex
in their room—and now Riley was a little sore and a whole lot tired.
Added to which Connor and Lexie were climbing all over him, Max was bouncing on his feet, Hayley was chatting on and on about seeing Logan at tonight’s celebration dinner, and suddenly all Riley wanted was to hide under the quilt.
Jack waded in, scooping children out of the way and crawling on the bed, a card in his hand and Connor swinging from his neck.
“Happy birthday, Riley,” he said, giving him the card, then kissing him good morning.
Hayley started singing “Happy Birthday,” and by the time they all sang “
Happy birthday, dear Daaadeeeee,
”
Max was offering a small smile despite not joining in. Jack leaned over the side of the bed.
Riley grinned. What else could he do? Years before, birthdays meant partying until all hours, random fucks, drinking, and spending money like it was water. Now he had his children, his husband, and his puppy….
Wait.
What the hell?
Jack leaned over with a squirming black Labrador in his large hands, its tail wagging so hard, it nearly wriggled from Jack’s hold.
“He’s only just peed,” Jack informed Riley, but Riley wasn’t listening. He held out a hand, and the puppy bounced from Jack to him. A little piece of Riley melted. “So you’ll be okay,” Jack added.
“Oh my….” Riley didn’t finish the sentence. “Is this my birthday present?”
Lexie scrambled to pat the puppy, Connor sat back and watched, and Max pointed directly at it.
“Toby,” he announced loudly. “Toby the dog.”
Riley went nose to nose with the wriggling, happy puppy. “Hey, Toby.”
Toby licked his nose with tiny puppy licks, then nipped the end of it with his sharp little teeth.
“Ow,” Riley cried, and everyone laughed.
Hayley slid off the bed. “I need to check my levels. Don’t let Toby do anything cute while I’m not here.”
That was going to be difficult. Toby was damn cute lying there on his back with his belly exposed and four tiny paws waving in the air. Riley was kind of speechless. He’d never had a dog as a kid, and he’d always wanted one. Steve had dogs—two boisterous retrievers—and Riley had loved visiting.
Now they had their own puppy.
Add in planning a wedding celebration, and this was the perfect birthday.
That was until everything was quiet. The puppy was asleep in a small bed in the corner of the kitchen. Connor and Lexie were playing within the fenced porch area, Hayley was studying, and Max had decided puppies were smelly and disappeared to the sensory room. Which left Riley and Jack with coffee on the porch.
Riley relaxed, answered some texts from family and friends, then, with his feet up on the railings, he lay back.
“I don’t believe this,” Jack muttered from next to him. He had an article open on Riley’s iPad.
“You break it again?” Riley teased.
Jack had this habit of touching buttons all over the show to try to get back to what he’d been reading. Riley found it amusing that someone as clever as Jack could be so clumsy with his large hands on the screen. He never failed to tease Jack about it, especially last week when he’d caught Jack asking Hayley for help
“No….” Jack sounded distracted.
“What’s wrong?”
Jack huffed and passed the iPad to Riley. “Look at that shit.”
Riley turned the iPad and saw the title: “Texas county clerk refuses gay marriage licenses.”
“Again? I thought that had all died down now. It’s been four weeks.”
“Read it all.”
Riley skimmed, then silently handed the iPad back. Sometimes he was ashamed of his fellow man, in particular the idiots in Texas who were calling for secession because it was now legal for a man to marry a man, or indeed a woman to marry a woman. Riley had read some shit in the last month, from saying the vote undermined traditional marriage, which was an old argument, to how bestiality would be legal next, which was a new one to Riley, although Jack said he’d heard it before.
“They can posture all they want,” Riley said. “But nothing can change the vote.”
“What if we went to get a license and it happened to us? How would we feel?”
A lightbulb went on in Riley’s head. Jack had seemed incredibly invested in everything that was happening out there, to other couples like them. Riley felt selfish that he was sitting pretty on the ranch, already married, and with the satisfaction that Texas now had to acknowledge his and Jack’s status as a married couple. “Do you wish we had to get a license?”
Jack settled back in his chair. “Sometimes. I’d like to walk into one of those places and ask for a license and have them tell me no, so that I can file a complaint and raise awareness and actually feel like I’m doing something.” He snorted at what he’d said. “Yes, I get that is a bunch of crap.”
Riley dropped his feet to the floor and turned in his chair to face Jack. “We are Mr. and Mr. Campbell-Hayes. You want to make a statement about how we feel, then there are other ways we can do that.”
“Like?”
“Get Sean to do an article? Interview us? Make this wedding celebration a statement, not only for ourselves, but for every doubter out there.”
Jack raised a single eyebrow. “Really?”
“Why not?” Riley asked with a wave of his hand. “You want solidarity, you want to underline what has happened? Then let’s make this day something we can share with the entire state of Texas. Hell, the world.”
“I don’t want journalists at our wedding celebration,” Jack interjected.
Riley agreed with that sentiment. He’d been at the sharp end of journalistic fantasy for many years, him and the Hayes family en masse.
“This is different, though.” Riley held out a hand, which Jack took instantly. “We should contact Sean. He’d be our first port of call anyway, and he’d know some journalists he trusts.”
“And you’re sure.”
“More than.”
Riley did have a few doubts, but he wasn’t going to discuss them at length with Jack, not yet. This could be the worst decision they ever made, or the best. Whatever it turned out to be, it would be a
goddamn
statement that people would remember.
“Did Eden call you about the bridesmaids?”
“She did.” Riley counted out the names on his fingers. “Hayley, Leah, Sarah, Emily, and Annabelle. Oh, and Lexie of course. That’s six. Right?”
Jack let out a whistle of relief. “That’s what I said.”
Riley laughed. “She’s double-checking our figures. Did she also ask you if you were okay with blue as a theme?”
Jack nodded. “And about the tables.”
“The tables. Yep, I got that one too,” Riley confirmed.
“The question about round or square?”
“Yep. I said round.”
Jack looked horrified. “Fuck, I said square.”