Chapter 1

1: Not Exactly in High Demand

“Are you sure about this, Wiley?” Jackson Ledbetter asked. He gave me a skeptical look as we sat in the car while snow swirled about the parking lot. “I don’t want you to get your hopes up.”

“You know me,” I said. “Never met a heartache I didn’t want to stop and get to know better.”

“I’m serious.”

“We’re not turning back now, if that’s what you’re asking.”

We were at the Boston Home for Boys, a drab looking place with too many bare windows, housing too many unfortunate souls that had fallen through the cracks of America the Exceptional, including a deaf boy with HIV who wasn’t completely horrified at the prospect of being adopted by two gay men.

“You’re not having second thoughts, are you?” I asked.

“I don’t want you to be hurt. He may not want us. You got really upset the last time, you know.”

“I’ll cry about it later, but right now we’ve got things to do, so get your Yankee ass in gear and start stretching your pelvic muscles. This might be the day we have a baby, Ledbetter.”

“This could also be the day we don’thave a baby, Cantrell. As a gay couple, we’re not exactly in high demand when it comes to orphans needing the perfect family. Besides, we’re only fostering, at least right now.”

“Could you be more negative? Honest to Christmas!”

“It’s called ‘managing expectations.’”

“It’s called bullcrap.”

“I don’t want you to be hurt,” he said earnestly, taking hold of my arm in a possessive sort of way. “We’re starting to get our lives back into the groove, Wiley. We’ve finally got to a point where we can start thinking about the future. We haven’t been able to do that for a long time now. Just go slow and be careful. We’re never going to be able to replace Noah…”

“Don’t drag him into this!”

“Be careful. That’s all I’m asking.”

There was a wretched pleading in his eyes that gave me pause.

I frowned as I thought about Noah, how we had lost him, how he’d hit a growth spurt at puberty that his damaged internal organs could not survive.

Six years had gone by, but that horrible time seemed like it had all been just yesterday.

“I ambeing careful,” I said very quietly.

“I’m just not sure you’re ready.”

“I am ready. We’re doing this so Noah’s death will mean something. Did you forget that?”

“I haven’t forgotten.”

“He taught me something.”

“I know, Wiley…”

“He taught me how to deal with kids like him. And now I’m going to do it. We’regoing to do it, Jack. We’re going to find some traumatized, messed-up kid and love him back to the real world. And if we can do that, then Noah’s death won’t have been some pointless, stupid thing. It’ll mean something good could come out of it. And I don’t know about you, but I need to know that his life wasn’t just a cosmic joke.”

Jackson sighed with a sort of despair.

“I’m one of those people who needs to love my babies, Ledbetter,” I added. “All I ever wanted in life was to have kids. Not very sexy, but there you are—and don’t say I didn’t tell you that the very first time I met you.”

“When you said you wanted a dozen kids, I assumed you were exaggerating.”

“I was,” I said. “I’ll settle for six or seven.”

“Six or seven! Jesus, Wiley!”

“Or even just one. And it could be the one inside this building, so let’s go.”

I got out of the car and shuddered at how impossibly cold it was.

“Come on,” I urged as he fiddled with the keys. “It’s so cold my dick is going to freeze and fall off.”

“God forbid!”

Jackson took my hand.

“Just be careful,” he said again as we hurried to the entrance.2: I Want to Be Your Friend

“He’s in his room,” Heather Duport said as she led us up a set of claustrophobic stairs. “He should be playing with the others in the common room, but…”

She shrugged as if to suggest that seven-year-old Tony Gorzola did not exactly play well with others, which was what every report in his rather lengthy file said, and not just once.

Miss Heather’s accent was so thick you could stage a Boston Tea Party on it. The way she said “yard” rhymed with God, and she tortured her vowels like a proper Yankee. Everyone up in this cold hellhole known as Massachusetts spoke like they were chewing on frozen potatoes.