Calder nodded, sniffling, wiping at his tears as they fell onto Robby’s cheeks. “Yes, angel. You just keep your eyes open and it’s all yours. I swear it.”
“Good,” Robby managed, his laugh somewhat garbled. “You’re so going to regret this bargain someday.”
Calder shook his head. “Never. I’ll never regret it.”
“I love you,” Robby said before giving a slow blink. “I’m so tired.”
“Me too, angel, but you gotta stay awake.”
“Don’t be mad,” Robby said just before his eyes slipped shut.
“No. Come on, angel.” He shook Robby. “Wake up. Wake up.”
Paramedics burst through the door, and suddenly, Calder was pushed to the side, forced to stand there and watch helplessly as Robby slipped away from him. All he could do was pray over and over again.
“Please don’t take him from me.”
Sundays at the farm were, by far, their busiest days. Down the hall, towards the kitchen, there was the sound of voices chatting and dishes clattering and footsteps bounding up and down the stairs. Robby smiled as he stood before the mirror attempting to tie his tie. Even twelve months after his father shot him, Robby only had limited mobility in his right arm, which forced him to attempt to do almost everything left-handed, but he refused to be ungrateful. He was alive. He wasmorethan alive.
He was alive and blissfully happy.
He felt the weight of Calder’s stare a split second before he looked up to catch his gaze in the mirror. He was already dressed for church, minus his suit jacket, which Robby imagined was somewhere thrown over a chair. He bit his lip, raking his gaze over Calder from head to toe. His husband was still the most beautiful man he’d ever seen. Calder came to stand behind him. “Here, let me,” he said, gently batting Robby’s hands away.
Robby leaned back into him, letting the warmth of Calder’s body seep into his back as Calder took care of him, something it seemed he’d been doing pretty much since the moment they’d met. Robby liked to think he took care of Calder too, at least in all the ways that mattered. “Thank you,” he said, smiling at Calder in the reflection.
“Anything for you, angel. You know that.” Calder finished, nodding at his handiwork, before turning Robby in his arms, pulling him back towards the bed and sitting on the mattress, tugging him down into his lap. “Are you nervous?” he asked.
His pulse skittered at Calder’s question. “I’d be lying if I said no. But I suppose giving a sermon isn’t all that different from learning my lines. Except, I never had to write my own lines before and I could ignore a bad review, but I can’t ignore a bad grade.”
Seminary school was far more difficult than Robby had ever imagined, but he felt called to it. The moment he’d made his decision, he’d felt at peace, and Calder had never questioned his decision. He’d only worried about the possibility of the school rejecting Robby’s application due to him being an out gay man married to another man. But, it turned out, the Episcopal church allowed both women and gay married men as priests.
Calder cupped his face in his hands. “You’re going to be amazing. You’ve got this. You’ve yet to get so much as an A minus in any class you’ve attempted.”
Did he have it? This was the only part of his life where Robby found himself questioning his abilities. He’d used his savings to buy the farm from his father’s estate. The only people surprised by his father being the farm’s financial backer after everything that happened had been the media and possibly the ATF.
Transitioning from Hollywood to life at the farm wasn’t as hard as Robby had imagined it might be. After the circus that had ensued following the death of his father and Samuel, the country seemed peaceful. It had been a nice place to recuperate from his gunshot wound.
“There’s a first time for everything,” Robby reminded him, wrapping his arms around Calder’s neck and wincing.
“Shoulder bothering you today, angel?”
Robby nodded. “Ezra accidentally kicked me there yesterday.”
Calder shook his head. “That boy is a menace.”
Robby smiled ruefully. “Who taught him what a roundhouse kick was again?”
Calder snickered. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I also told him that we don’t roundhouse kick people for fun.”
There was a bang against the door frame, and then Ezra was standing before them. “But it wasn’t for fun, Uncle Calder. It was a battle to the death. I had to defend my kingdom from the one armed man.”
“That would be me,” Robby supplied helpfully.
Calder leveled a look at Ezra. Robby called it his Daddy look, though that word took on an entirely different context when Calder leveled that look at Robby. “Have you forgotten our talk about the difference between real and make believe?”
Ezra dropped his head. “No, sir.”
“Good. Are Beau and your mama almost ready?” Calder asked.
