Justin especially has changed so much over the last year. He used to be so frail and thin and pale, and even though he’s still sort of a scrawny guy, he's got a healthy tan and some hard-working muscles to his frame.
Additionally, he, Sam, and Desi have become fast friends. He hid his sexuality his whole life, but since he came out, they’ve been nothing but supportive. I don’t think it was easy to forgive him for punching Sam, and I know that Trip still struggles with it, but Sam and Desi understand him better than most, I suspect.
The one person who still holds Justin at arm’s length is Charlie, which is completely valid given their shared history. Rebel Sky has a standing Sunday dinner with our close group of friends, and when he’s in town, Charlie joins us. It was a bit awkward the first time he and Justin were both at family dinner, but Charlie is kind, if a little cool, toward Justin.
I will say this and nothing else on the matter: Charlie has patronized—extensively—the Jennings’s fencing and supply businesses during his rebuild.
Warwickreallywants me to stay out of that drama, but with the Broken Oak right next door and Oliver’s tendency toward gossip…Wick doesn’t need to know the little side bet Oliver and I have on those two.
I sometimes feel like el viejo—the old man—on the ranch, but when I spend time with my men, they remind me that I am still full of energy and passion for life.
Even though I can't marry them, we have begun to work with lawyers to set up the legal documentation that allows us to take care of each other in times of emergency and when we retire. Maybe that doesn’t sound all that sexy to contemplate, but I have never in my life felt such passion, security, and acceptance.
You don’t have to tell me—I am the luckiest man alive.
* * *
Warwick
We’re already setting up in the main house’s newly renovated kitchen when Sam and Trip walk in the door with the baby carrier. They’re beaming and exhausted. They’ve spent the last six months learning how to be dads, and I feel like a proud uncle to both of them. God, Renée would have loved to see this.
Oh, I see it. I could not be prouder of my son.
I'm distracted because her voice comes to me less and less, though I know it's because I'm happy and settled.
As I'm smiling to myself, my favorite three-year-old comes zooming through the front door past his parents and straight to me, nearly knocking me over with his hug.
“Wick! Wick! Sister got her shots, and she cried. But the doctor gave me a lollipop,” he says, holding up a green Dum Dums sucker with drool sliding down the white stick.
I look up with a raised brow. “You gave himsugar?”
Sam opens his mouth and then shuts it, shaking his head. Trip puts his arm around Sam, kissing his temple. “They were both wailing. Jayden could not stand to see sister in pain, and baby Renée didn't know why brother was crying. It was a mess. So when the doctor took me aside and showed me her candy drawer, I caved. You can blame me.”
He doesn't look sorry. Not even one bit.
Life has changed dramatically for Trip and Sam over the last six months. They’d applied through the state’s Department of Family and Protective Services program to adopt a baby. Though they’d already gone through the classes and been through the home study, they were still under the impression that they’d be on a months-to-years-long waiting list.
While waiting for their turn, an emergency foster situation cropped up, and they showed up at the hospital, ready to care for a baby girl while her mom went through drug and alcohol treatment. It was an awful situation: the young mother had been struggling on her own, clinging to sobriety with her bare fingers while pregnant.
They were two weeks into fostering when DFPS informed them that baby Renée’s birth mother had relapsed and died, leaving behind both Renée and a little boy who’d been staying with a friend.
Sam and Trip agreed to foster him as well, not sure if they’d be able to handle it but unwilling to separate the siblings. The first month was touch and go, full of tantrums and broken heirlooms. His new parents knew a little something about loss and immediately understood what they saw in this small human.
Grief. Deep and wide in such a small body.
Wyatt and Desi paid for the best juvenile grief counselor money could buy, and the extended Rebel Sky family immediately stepped in.
Joaquin, with his steady calm, introduced Jayden to Sisko, and I wonder if those two hadn’t met in a previous life. Sisko, troublemaker that he is, immediately went to Jayden’s side, kneeling to snuffle his hair. We all kind of froze, thinking that the little boy would lose it, but instead, he laughed, a sound none of us had heard from him until that point.
Sisko sank to the ground, and Jayden tucked himself against Sisko’s shoulder, tiny against the large beast. Jayden whispered things into his ear, petting his black mane with gentle hands.
Sam and Trip, standing at the entrance to the stallion barn, wept. An hour later, Jayden stood on his chubby little legs and wiped himself off, then reached for Joaquin’s hand. When they got to Trip and Sam, he let go and hugged Trip’s leg.
Honestly, I may have wiped away a tear or two myself.
After that, things began progressing quickly, if unevenly. Colt taught Jayden how to swim, and it seems that both of them have an energy for play that is boundless. Joaquin and I observe the way Colt is with the little boy, and we share silent looks loaded with meaning.
I don't know that I add much to the proceedings, but I understand that kid. He still has his tantrums now and again, and when they get bad, Trip and Sam call me over. Jayden knows I’m not afraid of his anger, and something about that calms him down. Sometimes we go into Sisko’s stall together and whisper our problems into the horse’s ear.
