Reclaiming Hope Page 2

  Riley’s tone and words sounded dismissive, but his slumped shoulders and constant fidgeting conveyed remorse. Kollin wanted to push Riley about why he’d left him hanging in the wind, but there had to be a better place for that conversation than the multipurpose room at HOPE.

  Instead he asked, “So now that you’re presumably not falling apart, what exactly are you doing here?”

  “I, um… had to talk with Dr. Maggie. I’d like to start the preparations for metoidioplasty. I need a second recommendation first.”

  “Metoidio-what?”

  Riley shifted in his seat and looked down at his hands. “You know. Bottom surgery.”

  “Oh….” Kollin blinked. He shouldn’t have been that surprised. Riley always said he wanted both top and bottom surgery as soon as he could get it, but Kollin had trouble reconciling the man in front of him with the same Riley who had very obviously had female sex parts down below.

  Kollin recovered quickly enough and genuinely smiled. “That’s fantastic, man. I’m really happy for you.”

  Relief flooded Riley’s eyes, and he smiled. “Thanks, Koll.”

  Kollin kicked at Riley’s shoe. “Well, now that my life isn’t in the shitter and yours seems to be going well, think you can handle being friends again?”

  Riley’s cheeks tinged pink, and Kollin almost laughed. He’d never seen Riley so bashful. “Yeah. I think I can handle that.”

  “Want to grab dinner tonight, then? My treat.”

  “Yeah?” Riley stared at Kollin, his eyes wide. “Just like that, huh? You haven’t changed much.”

  Kollin shrugged. Technically all hadn’t been forgiven, but he didn’t want to ruin their already rocky reunion. “No point in holding a grudge. Chili’s at seven?”

  Riley nodded and stood. “Sounds good. I better get out of here, then.” He took a couple of steps and turned back to Kollin. “For what it’s worth… I really am sorry for going radio silent on you like that. I’ve regretted it every single day.”

  Awesome. That wasn’t super cryptic at all. Kollin offered Riley his most reassuring smile—one he’d learned from Adam. “Don’t even worry about it.”

  Chapter 2

  “AND THERE hasn’t been anyone since Liam.” Kollin set down his fork, and their server appeared out of nowhere to sweep away his salad plate.

  “How long ago did you two split?” Riley asked. Kollin had lived such a normal, happy life since they’d last talked. No part of Riley’s story even remotely resembled Kollin’s, and Riley had no desire to share his disastrous past after listening to that fairy tale. Fortunately he’d become adept at deflecting over the years. Turned out most people loved talking about themselves, and a few well-timed questions worked wonders for avoiding topics he didn’t want to touch.

  Kollin scrunched up his face as he considered Riley’s question. “Before Christmas, so about six months, I guess.”

  “Sounds like you got everything you used to talk about.”

  Kollin quirked up his eyebrow. “A series of failed relationships?”

  “No.” Riley laughed and then mumbled through his grin, “Jackass. Supportive family and a colorful dating scene. A few meaningless hook-ups. College education. Lots of friends.”

  Kollin shrugged and played with his discarded straw wrapper. “I just got lucky with Adam and Eli. You know that. A few boyfriends and a handful of guys who never made it past the second date hardly count as successful, but I guess I’m doing better than the last time we talked. I remember whining to you about that idiot Jase.”

  Riley shook his head. “You didn’t whine. I never knew what to tell you, though. It’s not like I had any experience.” I didn’t even want to look in the mirror at myself, much less let someone else see me naked. Riley shoved the self-deprecating thought to the back of his mind.

  “Well, what the hell have you been up to? My past is easy with school and more school, but you….” Kollin waved his hand up and down at Riley. “You’ve clearly had a more eventful four years than I have. You look great, by the way. Totally hot. I definitely would’ve said yes to the date I thought you were going to ask me on at the bookstore.”

  Riley’s cheeks warmed at Kollin’s offhand compliment. It wasn’t the time to turn into a Blushing Betty. He’d been crazily, over-the-top, and also very much secretly in love with Kollin back when they were in high school. Riley had felt the same familiar twinge in his heart when he first saw Kollin again, but he chalked it up to nothing more than a flicker of remembering one’s first love. No use giving himself away, after all those years, because of some casual praise.

  Kollin laughed, and his dismayed eyes met Riley’s. “Oh God. I just thought. How embarrassing would it have been if I’d actually asked you out?”

  The warm feeling in Riley’s stomach disappeared, replaced by the sudden urge to vomit. Kollin’s disgust sounded more along the lines of what he was used to—men embarrassed to be with him. Riley had become used to the derision, but hearing it come from Kollin amplified the rejection tenfold.

  Clearly unaware of how deeply his comment pained Riley, Kollin sounded just as happy-go-lucky as ever when he pressed Riley again. “Seriously, Ri. Come on. Tell me what you’ve been up to. I’m dying to know.”

  Riley stared at his water glass and wiped away a drop of condensation. Determined not to cause a scene in the middle of their dinner, he cleared his throat. “Well, I guess the most obvious things are I got on T—testosterone—and I had top surgery done.”

  “I’m so happy for you, Ri.” Kollin had already told him once, but Riley’s insides still turned gooey—even with Kollin’s sting of dismissal still fresh. Kollin couldn’t totally understand Riley’s feelings. No one could. Explaining how it felt to be trans was impossible, but Riley had always found Kollin’s unconditional acceptance overwhelming.

  “Thanks.”

  The server arrived with their meals, and once he was gone again, Kollin pointed his fork at Riley. “Now, start at the brutal beginning, from the moment you stopped talking to me, and tell me everything.”

  Kollin’s tone was light and his smirk playful, and another twinge of regret jolted through Riley. He’d missed their banter and was glad to see Kollin really hadn’t changed much. His hair still had streaks of color in it, purple and somewhat faded—he’d probably be dying it soon—and though still long, it was different. It was wilder all over and longer in the back. Some strands curled around his ears while others stuck out willy-nilly on the sides.

  His sea green eyes still sparkled with never-ending mischief, but they reflected more of the world’s weight in them. They were less trusting and more scrutinizing than before. The hair on his face was so short, Riley couldn’t tell if the scruff was intentional or a product of laziness. Judging from his lithe body, he’d stayed in shape over the years, but whether from gym workouts, basketball, or simply good genes, Riley didn’t know. The last of Kollin’s baby fat had disappeared, making his cheeks hollow out a bit whenever he clenched his jaw.

  He was gorgeous.

  “Ri?”

  “Uh… right. Sorry. Just trying to figure out where to start.” Sounds better than “Your stubble-covered jaw distracted me.” Riley pushed his food around and gathered his thoughts. “I started spiraling down after Christmas that year. Actually it started before then, and I think you could kind of tell. You started asking me questions I didn’t want to answer. I didn’t want to put something else on your plate, so I bailed. If I’m being honest, I wasn’t ready to deal with everything I felt at the time either, and I knew you’d push me into talking about it.”

  “Shit, man. I’m sorry.”

  “No. Don’t be. This whole thing would’ve been easier if I’d let you in. You were a good friend, and you didn’t deserve my treating you like that.” Kollin nodded once and sat back in his seat. His jaw twitched, possibly from anger, but this time instead of finding it sexy, Riley felt guilty. Something else to deal with later. “Anyway I stopped going to class. I’d made s
ome friends, but none of them really knew me. I felt like such a fraud, and I knew—or thought I knew—if they found out the truth about me, they wouldn’t want anything to do with me. Even though Mom and Dad cut me off financially, room and board were already paid for, so I stayed on campus. I, at least, had enough sense to look for a job, since I knew I’d be homeless after May.

  “I lucked out and found a part-time job at a construction company that April. Turns out all that work we did at H4H really paid off. They started me out just working small stuff, but within a couple of months, they took me on full-time.”

  Kollin sat forward, a big smile on his face. “Wait till Adam and Eli find out. They’ll love that.”

  Riley laughed. “Adam looked proud as a peacock when I told him. That’s for sure.”

  “Oh geez.” Kollin rolled his eyes. “He’s liable to make us all build the new addition to H4H, instead of hiring now.”

  Riley’s grin faltered, but he recovered quickly and moved the conversation away from the new addition to H4H. “What can I say? That job saved me from crawling back here for a place to live.”

  “Ri….” Kollin reached across the table to grab his hand. “No one would’ve thought badly of you if you had. You know that. Hell. I’d’ve ended up there if it weren’t for Eli.”

  “I know, but I already felt like such a failure. I mean, I couldn’t even be born in the right body, you know? That’s how I saw it. I felt as if I’d screwed up my very first act on Earth.” Riley shook his head and looked at his plate. “I thought going off to college would magically change everything, and it just… didn’t.”

  “No shit, Sherlock. Life’s rarely that easy.”

  Riley sneered at Kollin, but Kollin’s brash truthfulness felt like a soothing balm. The last thing he wanted was for Kollin to tiptoe around him, using platitudes he didn’t need to hear. “I found a shitty apartment. I mean it. The place was a dump. Remember room eighteen at the inn? It was worse.”

  “No fucking way. Nothing livable is comparable to that.”

  “Minus the shit everywhere, then. But it was cheap, and I wanted to pour every bit of money I had into savings. I lived off ramen and sandwiches. Found a therapist who helped me get onto T. It took a while to get the dosage right, but within a few months, you could really tell that I’d put on some muscle weight and had started growing a patchy beard. I kept to myself, mostly, at work, so at first no one noticed. But then the foreman pulled me aside one day.”

  “Oh shit,” Kollin interrupted.

  “That’s what I thought, but I was lucky as hell. He has a trans sister, and he was cool about it. Helped me cover everything up with the other workers, so that, when they did start noticing, he blew off their comments or changed the subject. I told them I’d just joined a gym and gotten lazy with my shaving. After a while, he even found me a better place to stay that was still in my PB-and-J budget. I worked hard and learned a new skill every chance I got, until I had enough saved for top surgery. That was about a year ago.” Riley omitted the shadier details of his past and swallowed down the guilt that bubbled in his stomach for telling half-truths. “Now here I am, hoping to get cleared to start the last phase—or the last physical piece, anyway.”

  Kollin’s eyes, which had been bright, clouded over for a moment, and then his face broke into a wide smile. “I know I’m a broken record, but that’s amazing. You’re really like a new person. It’s somehow both so strange and so natural.”

  Riley laughed and smoothed his hand down his chest. “I know what you mean. I’ve lived it every day, and sometimes I still wonder how the hell this is my life.”

  “You deserve the good things. Not to be dramatic or anything, but you helped save me back in the day. Adam and Eli were great and all, but you kept me sane. I’m sorry if I let my own drama overshadow your issues. I think I’m just now realizing how insensitive that was of me.”

  Riley shrugged. The last thing he wanted was for Kollin to feel guilty. “We were kids. That’s how we were supposed to be. Besides, like I said, I wasn’t ready.”

  “Speak for yourself. I’m still a kid. There is no part of me that feels like an adult.” Kollin scratched the back of his head. “I know I have all these responsibilities now, but they don’t really feel real. Adam says it’ll always be like that.”

  “Sounds like something Adam would say.”

  Kollin pushed his mostly empty plate away. “Now you gotta tell me the good stuff. When you weren’t sitting in your shitty apartment and out building stuff, what were you doing?”

  Riley’s face fell. Kollin’s dating past, though limited, was normal, if a bit angsty. Natural teenage-drama bullshit. Riley hadn’t fared as well and wasn’t so sure he wanted to admit as much to Kollin. He currently felt as if he were wrapped in a quilt of Kollin’s acceptance, and he wasn’t quite ready to lose that warmth. Once Kollin found out everything he’d done, he would surely lose that hint of pride he saw behind Kollin’s eyes every time he looked at him.

  No. That was definitely not the time to get into Tony—or any of the other one-night stands—or the terrible addiction Tony brought into his life. “I think that’s a story for another night. I need to get back to my hotel. It’s been a long day, and I have an extra-early appointment with Dr. Maggie, since she’s squeezing me in.”

  “Oh yeah. Of course.” Kollin raised his hand for the check. “I didn’t even think of that. How long are you in town for, anyway?”

  Riley looked down at his hands, unwilling to meet Kollin’s eyes. “Going back tomorrow, if I can. Greg, my boss, told me to take whatever time I needed, but I need to save personal days, and I need money. Hotels are expensive, and I’ve already been here for a few days.”

  Kollin huffed. “You’re a fool for paying for a hotel. You could’ve stayed with us. You know Eli and Adam would love to have you just as much as I would.”

  “Yeah. Adam said as much earlier, but like I said, I wasn’t sure. Didn’t want to impose.”

  “I get it, but next time. Okay?” Kollin signed the receipt and stood as he pocketed his wallet. “You can’t go running off on me just when I get you back.”

  Riley smiled, and his insides snuggled down deeper in that warm blanket. “You got it.”

  KOLLIN TRIED to wipe the frown off his face as he slid his key into the front-door lock. Suspicion over Riley’s story niggled at the back of his mind. They hadn’t talked in so long that Kollin didn’t know if he could really trust his hunches anymore. Deflection had always been part of Riley’s personality, but Kollin didn’t like having it turned on him. He was exhausted by the constant teeth pulling he’d performed that night to get the smallest bit of information from Riley.

  Kollin shoved the door open and hung his keys on a hook in the foyer. “I’m home,” he called out.

  “In here,” Eli shouted. Kollin followed the sounds of the TV into the living room, where Eli reclined in his La-Z-Boy. “How was dinner?”

  Kollin fell onto the couch. “Good. It was nice catching up.”

  “Good. He say why he shut you out for so long?”

  Kollin didn’t miss the hint of resentment in Eli’s tone. He knew Eli was still pissed at Riley. After all, Eli had dealt with Kollin’s feelings of abandonment, not once, but three times, between his birth parents, Adam, and then Riley. But Eli would never say a word against Kollin’s birth parents in front of him, and he’d use his last breath to defend Adam, so that left Riley to shoulder all of Eli’s blame. It wasn’t fair, but Kollin didn’t know how to fix it either.

  He prepared himself to go to bat for Riley and took a deep breath. “The quick and dirty version is he was struggling and couldn’t deal. Didn’t want to disappoint us. Sound familiar?”

  Eli rolled his eyes. “At least Adam only left for a few days. Four years is some shit.”

  Kollin grinned at the predictable response. If he ever found a partner who loved him even half as much as Eli adored Adam, he suspected he’d have more love than most.

&
nbsp; Kollin shrugged. “Just sayin’. He had his reasons, and it’s not my place to judge.”

  “You and Adam are way too nice.”

  Kollin sighed. “Thanks, Dad. Way to be proud of me for exercising forgiveness toward one of my closest friends. I don’t remember you holding a grudge against Adam.”

  Eli sat up in his recliner, clearly agitated. “That was completely different.”

  “How so?” Kollin asked, and irritation underlined his words.

  “We were practically married, for one. And again, a few days versus years, for another. And because I said so,” Eli said. His voice trailed off as he sat back in his seat again. “Anyway we’re talking about Riley, not Adam. What’s he up to?”

  Further argument would prove pointless, so Kollin dropped the matter and filled Eli in on what little he’d learned about Riley’s life. Eli nodded and mmhmm’d in all the right places as he listened.

  When Kollin finished, Eli cocked his head. “Sounds like his little sabbatical started out rough, but he’s doing okay now. Steady job, looks like a man, preparing for whatever comes next…. Why are you so worried about him?”

  “Is it that obvious?” Kollin asked and looked back at Eli with a grin. “You’re not usually this perceptive.”

  Eli smirked, but Kollin could see a teasing glimmer in his eyes, beneath the affronted look. “I’ve learned a thing or two over the years. But yeah. It’s pretty damn noticeable. You keep biting your lip, and your foot hasn’t stopped bouncing since you sat.”

  Kollin sighed and deliberately stopped bouncing his foot. “I dunno. I just got the impression he was trying too hard to show me how perfect his life is.”

  “But that kind of makes sense. Right? He bailed on you for years. He’s not going to waltz back in town and dump all of his problems on you.”