Love And The Real Boy - Coming About, Book 2 Read Free Page B

J-M.
    “Yes, honey. The couple who came today want to start the adoption process,” Elke began, but she still looked decidedly uncomfortable. “It’s wonderful news, but…” She paused as if choosing her words carefully.
    Oh, fuck it. “ But , they only want him. Right?”
    “Right,” she confirmed with a sad smile. “I’m so sorry, honey.”
    He’d known it was coming, but hearing the words was still like a knife to his gut. Knowing he would finally be separated from his brother, probably for good, was untenable. He closed his eyes against the unwelcome pain. He had no right to feel it—not when John-Michael was getting a chance at a better life. Ricky took pride in that, if only a small amount, that he’d managed to keep his brother alive and safe, to give him that chance.
    He smiled through his tears at the well-meaning couple—kind people that they were. “It’s good,” he said, meaning it. “Let’s go tell John-Michael the good news.”

Chapter Four
    After the designated week, Rory felt almost one hundred percent again. The smile he bestowed upon Rich when asked was nothing short of miraculous.
    “All right, now are you going to tell me how you did it, or what?”
    Rich smirked, greedily drinking in the need, the dependence that he hadn’t gotten from anyone since John-Michael left. It was probably all kinds of fucked up, but feeling that way again was like having a piece—just a tiny one, mind—of his brother back again.
    Rich set his favorite coffee mug on the kitchen table and sat down beside Rory. “Well, since you asked ever so nicely,” he began, with an eye roll for good measure. “I had a foster sister once who had all of the same symptoms as you. They cured her by cutting wheat gluten out of her diet. I’m betting you have a gluten allergy like she did, but you should go back to the doctor to be sure.”
    “I’ve never even heard of gluten.”
    Rich nodded, because he hadn’t either, before Susan. “I think people first started realizing just how many things contained it when contaminated gluten in dog food started poisoning family pets. It’s in damn near everything that isn’t picked from a tree or dug from the ground—even salad dressing.”
    “Wow,” Rory said, then he slapped Rich on the back. “Thanks, bro. Looks like you saved me—again. You must be, like, my guardian angel or something.”
    Rich glowed from the praise. He couldn’t help it. Rory inspired all of his latent caretaker tendencies.
    Suddenly, Rory’s face clouded and he frowned, a line forming between his thick, black brows.
    “What?” Rich asked, wary now, pulse inexplicably thundering.
    Rory looked at him as if he’d never seen him before. “You said…foster sister, didn’t you?”
    Oh, shit .
    “You told me you grew up in Fresno with your parents, that you were an only child. What the fuck, man?”
    Rich lowered his head, resting his forehead on the table between his elbows, and grasped the back of his head with shaking hands. He didn’t want this. He’d buried it—all of it. It was all too painful to dredge up and still go on. But he knew Rory wasn’t going to let it go.
    “I’m sorry I lied to you. But my past is not something I talk about. Ever.”
    “Dude, I thought we were friends…”
    “W-we were— are! ” Rich flung his hands up in the air with exasperation.
    Rory just crossed his arms over his chest and gave Rich ‘the stare’—the one that never failed to get him his way.
    “Fine, I’ll tell you, as long as you promise that once I’m done you won’t ever bring it up again,”
    Rory seemed to think it over for half a second before he nodded. “Deal.”
    Out of options that didn’t include losing Rory’s friendship and the little family they’d built, Rich told him as much as he dared—nowhere near the whole story, but enough. He spoke of things he’d never before mentioned aloud, not even to himself. When it was over, Rory just stared at him, ghost-pale with