“My parents are suing me,” Bas told his friend.
“What? You’re kidding, right?” Adam rushed to his side to look at the papers. “What are they suing for?”
“Everything. The money, the house, anything they can get their hands on. Claiming I forcibly influenced my gran to change her will. That she wasn’t in her right mind when she made the change. They are going to try to convince the court it was her stroke that did it. But she changed the will long before the stroke. She knew they’d do something like this. She warned me. God, why do they hate me so much?” His guts seemed to be twisting and twirling with the thought of another confrontation with them.
“Call your attorney,” Ru said, coming up behind Adam. “You said your gran planned for it. Let them know. It’s not even your problem to deal with. Don’t let it tear you up. Your gran loved you. She wanted you to have everything. We can all testify to that. Even in the end, that lady had bigger stones than anyone I’ve ever met.”
“I just keep thinking that someday they will realize that they do love me. Doesn’t every kid want that?” Bas swallowed back the tears. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t cry over them anymore.
“I hear you. Can’t say I don’t still feel the same way about my dad. But we’ve got some pretty great people in our lives who love us for who we are, not what we can bring them.” Ru clapped his hand on Bas’s back. “Mr. and Mrs. C are like a mom and dad to me. I know they are the same to you. Now call your attorney, and let’s get back to work. We have more painting to do. And tomorrow you and Adam are having a spa day, so we need to get as much done today as we can.”
“Spa day?” Bas looked at Adam, who shrugged. “Have you ever been to a spa?”
“They do massages and stuff, right? No biggie. Ru said it would be good for us to relax.” He glanced at his boyfriend. “Planned the whole day. Car picks us up at eight tomorrow morning. Not done ’til like five.”
Bas stifled a laugh. He had a feeling Adam was in for a major surprise tomorrow. At the spa, people would be touching him and looking at him like he’d never experienced before. Bas couldn’t wait to see Adam after a deep-tissue massage. If the guy could get through that and a salt scrub, he’d be jelly. Beautiful jelly, since Adam was a hot little boy-next-door type, but jelly just the same.
“Let me go call my attorney, and we’ll get back to painting.”
