Page 13 of A New Chapter
“You sure you don’t want backup tomorrow?” Chad asked as he watched the boys playing.
“Yeah. We have an attorney who is definitely an in-charge kind of guy. You met him at the wedding, Loren’s husband Ross.”
“Oh! He’s an attorney? Wow. I thought he was one of your kinky friends.”
Colton nearly swallowed his tongue, but he knew Rom had let Chad and Ina in a little on their dynamic, so they wouldn’t get worried about Rom.
“Heisone of our kinky friends, bro,” Rom said. “But he’s also an attorney. Doubly lethal. I want their parents to be the only ones at risk of going to jail tomorrow.”
“I can’t argue with that logic.”
By nine, Chad and Ina were collecting their boys and saying goodnight.
“So? What’d you think?” Colton asked Clayton once they’d left.
“I really like them. They seem nice.”
“They are nice. And they don’t care we’re gay.” He spotted “a look” on Clayton’s face. “What’s wrong?”
Clayton shrugged, but it took him a moment to say it. “I’m not used to people knowing that. No one else knew it before I told Mom and Dad.”
“Yeah, well, not a problem around here,” Rom said. “Only thing around here discriminated against is peanuts, and that’s because they try to kill me.” He smiled. They’d warned the boy to hopefully prevent any accidents.
“Make sure you take your thing with you tomorrow,” Clayton warned.
“What thing?” Rom asked.
“The needle thing. Mom works for a peanut farm. She always brought peanuts home because they gave them to her free.”
“Yikes. Thanks for the warning.”
Well, that was one way to prevent Colton from wanting to go inside and punch them—Rom could be sneaky and remind him of the inherent hazard of peanut contamination.
Chapter Five
Colton was glad Rom had ordered him to let him drive, because Tuesday morning, he was too fricking nervous. And he was a little surprised that just as they were opening their bedroom door to go make coffee, Clayton emerged from his room, fully dressed and looking awake.
“You’re up early.”
“I didn’t want to keep Aunt Roberta waiting.”
Colton didn’t bother trying to correct him. They’d have plenty of time after today to deprogram Clayton the way Grammy had to deprogram him.
Aunt Roberta arrived earlier than normal so she could be there with Clayton and take him into the shop to work. She’d stay all day, and evening, and make dinner for him.
Ross took the front passenger seat and Colton sat in back with Loren for the drive north. “Don’t worry,” she assured Colton with a smile. “Sir will get them to sign the papers.”
While he appreciated her confidence, he wasn’t so sure.
They made decent time up there. Once they turned off I-75 and headed inland, the landscape quickly turned rural with a side order of depressing as fuck. Every turn they made seemed to take them lower down the economic food-chain, until they were less than a mile from their destination. They were starting with the trailer, and if they didn’t find them there, they’d track them down at their jobs.
Thankgodthey didn’t bring me up here.
He didn’t want to be elitist, but he could only imagine how bleak his own future would’ve been had he ended up here instead of with Grammy.
“Well,thisis a charming little shithole,” Ross drawled as they made the final turn, according to GPS. The clay dirt road appeared to dead-end in a small trailer park that looked like it was in need of a good tornado cleansing. Several overturned garbage cans had trash strewn around them, garbage bags ripped open, and from the look of the place it wasn’t the first time it’d happened.
Didn’t look like anyone cared, either.
