Page 30 of A New Chapter
“Nah, you said he likes computers, right? He decides he wants to go into coding, we’ll let him intern at our place.”
“So about that party, we’ll come, but we might not be staying all night. I mean, we’re a definite maybe. I want to make sure Clay will be okay staying with Chad and Ina, and I don’t want to leave him alone yet.” Kent had met Chad and Ina and Rom’s nephews at the wedding and hit it off with the family.
“Oh, sure, that’s fine,” Kent said. “Hey, family and work have to come first. Believe me, I know that. My dad disowned me when I came out. Lucky my mom still kept some contact with me, but had to be sneaky, right? I hope your attorney dry-fucks those people with barbed wire. Poor kid’s lucky he didn’t get hurt or killed on the way to your place. Fucking assholes.”
Once Rom ended the call, he lay there, processing. What he’d experienced in his life was the polar opposite of the brothers’ experience, and he knew it. He was lucky.
Damnedlucky.
Not that he lost his parents, but that he’d had Chad and Ina and they only let supportive people into his life.
“When do you want to ask him, Master?”
“Soon as we pick him up.” They were supposed to head over to Chad and Ina’s tonight for dinner, so Rom texted her the question about if Clay could stay overnight next weekend.
Which, of course, received a resounding yes.
When they picked Clay up that afternoon, Rom waited only as long as it took him to safely leave the pick-up line and pull back out into traffic.
“We have a question for you, and you can answer yes or no. There is no wrong answer. But a friend of ours invited us to an event at their house next weekend, and it’ll probably last late, so they invited us to stay over in their guest room. Would you be okay spending Friday and Saturday nights with Ina and Chad and the boys? You can say no.” Rom glanced in the rearview mirror. “I should add, they have a pool.” He smiled.
Clay laughed, but it sounded nervous. “Do I have to tell you right now?”
“No, not at all. Why don’t you wait until after tonight, when you get to see their house and spend more time with them?”
Clay nodded. “Thank you.”
“The other option would be that we go and only stay a few hours, while you spend the evening with Chad and Ina, and we pick you up and bring you home. But he’s the friend who let us get married at his house. He heard about everything that happened and kind of wants to give us a mini-honeymoon. There won’t be any kids there, so we’re not trying to exclude you, but it’s not a kids’ party.”
Clay seemed to relax a little over that. “Okay. Thanks.”
But when they returned home and swung through the store downstairs, they found they had a visitor.
* * * *
Colton’s eyes widened a little to see Kent sitting at one of the tables in the classroom and schmoozing a totally entranced Sherry, Lucy, and about five other grannies.
“Kent? What are you doing here?” Colton asked.
He grinned as he stood. “Hiya.” He held out his hand to Clay. “Kent Corwin. Nice to meet you.”
Clay shook with him. “Clay Oa—Quinn.” He smiled at Rom. “It’s going to be Quinn as soon as the adoption goes through.”
Kent ruffled the boy’s hair. “Excellent. Ain’t it great when you can pick your family? Beats the heck out of the other kind, sometimes.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Listen, I was talking to Rom this morning, and I had to be in the area.” He retrieved something from under the tables, what looked like a laptop case, and waved the trio over to an empty table, where he set the case down and opened it.
“They said you might be interested in coding at some point.” He pulled out what looked to Colton to be a brand-new laptop, and a couple of books. “These are good starting points, even if all you want to do is play around, right? I figured you probably don’t have a laptop yet, and you’ll want one for school, at least.”
“Oh, my god, thank you!” He threw his arms around Kent in a hug while Kent grinned at Colton and Rom and gave them a knowing smirk.
By the time he left nearly an hour later, Kent had not only won over the grannies, but Clay, too.
Clay headed upstairs with his new computer to get changed and start his homework before they headed to Chad and Ina’s for dinner.
“I think it’s safe to say he’s going to be okay with us going to Kent’s next weekend,” Rom whispered as they followed.
