Chapter Five
Cody
Cody watched TJ spin around, his gun in his hand and pointing directly at him.
He’d expected this response. He knew TJ now held the position of sheriff in Robinson, and Cody was happy for him.
He deserved to be sheriff. He’d worked hard, put the people of Robinson first, and could be relied on when needed.
Watching the dawning realization cross TJ’s face when he recognized Cody would have made Cody chuckle, but he knew what TJ saw.
He had changed. Matured. He no longer had the skinny, scrawny body he had when he’d left.
Not that TJ would be able to tell, considering Cody sat on a chair, but other things had changed as well.
He used his actual voice and not the high-pitched squeal he’d put on to annoy his family.
He’d cut his hair and wore his natural black.
Again, TJ wouldn’t see that. The moon gave some light, but not enough.
Standing slowly, Cody held his hands out. “I’m going to put the light on.”
“Stay where you are. I’ll do it.”
“Okay.” Cody winced and shut his eyes when the overhead lights came on and blinked his eyes until they adjusted.
He watched TJ do the same, then saw his eyes widen as they looked Cody over.
The height. The muscles. Cody looked nothing like the kid who had run away that dark night four years earlier.
“Fuck, Cody. It is you. Jesus. Fuck. Look at…” TJ trailed off, shaking his head. “When…No, why? Fuck.”
“It was time.” Cody sat and placed his hands on the table, seeing the small scars from his time working on a ranch. The home he’d found after he’d left. A place where he’d discovered who he was and who he wanted to be. “How is everyone?”
“Have you spoken to your parents?” TJ hadn’t moved, his gun still held in his hand.
“Are you going to keep pointing your gun at me?” TJ blinked, looked at the gun, then holstered it. “I came here. No one knows I’ve returned and I’m not ready for them to know. Not yet. Soon.”
“Why did you come here, then?”
“I took something that didn’t belong to me, so I came to return it.
” Cody nodded toward the medals he’d put on the counter.
“Those are yours and I had no right to take them, but I was a different Cody then.” He pulled the house key out of his pocket and placed it on the table.
The key he’d taken with him when he’d left.
TJ stumbled over to the kitchen table and dropped into a chair. “Different Cody?”
“Yes. Do I look like the Cody who left?”
TJ’s eyes moved over Cody, and he shook his head. “Shit, Cody. Do you know how long we searched for you? I literally made calls yesterday. Have you any idea what your parents have gone through?”
“They couldn’t handle what happened to me and neither could I. You know I struggled to accept my sexuality. I let that man fuck me to prove I hated it so I could date girls instead. I thought I could handle it. Handle being gay.”
“I found him.”
Cody narrowed his dark blue eyes at TJ. “I made the mistake. Not him.”
“You were fifteen, and he was thirty.” TJ’s jaw hardened. “Statutory rape.”
Cody clenched his jaw. “I wanted it. He gave me what I asked for.”
“You had no idea what he was going to do to you. You were a kid,” TJ snapped.
“He was an adult. He knew what would happen when you went back to his house. He took something you had no idea you shouldn’t have been giving away, and you went off the rails.
Drinking and doing drugs and sleeping around. ”
“You’re right. I didn’t know all the details, but I did it anyway. I had to prove to myself I wasn’t gay, but I was. I am. It wasn’t his fault.”
“And you regretted it, and we had to watch you fall apart. You weren’t mature enough to handle it. You numbed yourself with drugs and booze and we couldn’t help you.”
“Not we, TJ. I refused, and so did my parents.” Cody shook his head, glanced away. Taking a deep breath, he asked, “What happened to him?”
“He’s inside now, but not because of you. He has a thing for young boys. Whether you agreed to have sex with him or not, you were underage, and he knew it. He took advantage and now he’s paying the price.”
“I didn’t want you to do that.” Cody sighed and shook his head. “I knew what I asked for when I approached him.” Cody held up his hand when TJ opened his mouth. “You’re right. He should have refused, but he didn’t, and I never told him my age.”
TJ snorted. “You only had to take one look at you to know you were underage. You were small for fifteen. Most people thought you were younger. He deserved to go to prison.”
Cody ran his tongue over his teeth, eyes on TJ, then nodded.
“You’re right, but I need to take some of the blame whether you like it or not.
I put myself in that position. I went to that bar looking for a man to fuck and I got one.
” Cody paused. “I don’t want to argue about the past. That isn’t why I’ve come back. It was time to come home, TJ.”
“Where are you staying?”
“Here.”
TJ’s head snapped back. “Here? You should go home to your parents.”
“That isn’t where I want to be. I want to be here. This place feels more like home than that house has ever felt. And I put my things in the spare bedroom. Or what was the spare bedroom? It now looks like a little girl’s room with horses and unicorns everywhere.”
TJ chuckled. “That’s Macy’s room.”
“Macy?” Who was Macy? Cody knew no one with that name.
“Toni and Carter’s daughter. When I have the boys, she comes too.”
“I always admired the way the three of you worked things out.” Macy. That was the name they’d chosen. Toni had just given birth and hadn’t chosen a name when he’d left. “What’s she like?”
“She has us all wrapped around her little finger.” TJ smiled. “None of us are complaining. Toni’s pregnant again. They weren’t having any more, then…” TJ’s smile widened.
“That’s good. I’m happy for them. I used to watch you all together and wonder why I’d been born into the wrong family. Wondered how I’d ended up with the wrong brother as my father. Carter and Cass are very different people.”
“You needed to give Cass time to get used to your sexuality.”
Cody hesitated to speak, to tell TJ what Cass had planned for him, then decided it didn’t matter if he told him. It was in the past. “Cass had booked me into a camp over the summer.” He let TJ figure out what type of camp Cody meant.
TJ’s green eyes widened. “A conversion camp? They’ve been banned.”
“Not if you know where to look, and Cass looked, and he found one. That was part of why I went to the bar. I wanted to prove to myself I wasn’t gay, then I could tell him, and it would all stop.
But it didn’t. That night in the rain when you ran after me?
He’d told me I had two weeks, then I was going.
Not that any of it mattered. I am what I am and I’m proud of who I’ve become. ” Cody stood and TJ stood as well.
“When did you get so tall?” Cody now stood a good couple of inches taller than TJ, and TJ stood at six feet. “And wide. You work out now? You hated it when I tried to get you to work out with me.”
“Like I’ve said, TJ. I’ve grown. Things had to happen for me to see who I needed to be.
I like who I am now.” Cody watched TJ’s eyes move over him as he slowly shook his head.
“I’m going to crash. It’s been a long day, and the unicorns are desperate for my company.
” He smiled at TJ. “I decided to sleep in the boys’ room instead. ”
Snorting, TJ shook his head. “Shit, Cody. I can’t believe you’re back. I need to call—”
“No, you don’t.” Cody interrupted. “That’s my call to make, and I’ll do it when I’m ready and not before.”
“Cody—”
“You don’t get to make those decisions for me. I’m an adult. I make them. I’m not that kid anymore, TJ, and you need to get used to it. Things are different now, and the sooner you accept that, the better.”
“What? Why?”
“Because I haven’t come back for them. I came back for you.”
***
Cody lay awake in bed listening to TJ move around downstairs.
Turning up the way he did would have a ripple effect through his family, but that didn’t bother him.
Not with his immediate family, anyway. TJ and Toni and Carter had been more of a family to him than his own, and his growing attraction to TJ had made him realize he might be gay.
That had led to him going to that bar and those hours with an older man.
Yes, he had been young. Underage. But he’d made the decision.
He could look back and accept that he’d been immature, believing he could handle something he clearly couldn’t, but even with hindsight, he had to accept at least a small part of the blame.
He knew others wouldn’t understand, and he wasn’t there to explain it to them.
It had happened. He’d suffered, and almost destroyed his life, but he had survived and had come out of it far stronger.
Those mistakes had been worth it in the long run.
A creak on the stairs had Cody rolling his head on the pillow to face the door.
There was no knock, and he hadn’t expected one.
No doubt TJ was going over what Cody had told him before leaving the kitchen, but he wanted the man to know.
He’d come home for him. Made decisions about his life so he had that chance, and he would prove to TJ he wasn’t that Cody who’d left.
That child who’d walked a path that had almost killed him.
So much had happened to him during the four years he’d been away. The first year he rarely focused on. That year was a hazy memory of drugs, alcohol, sex. All the things he could do to destroy himself, and he’d almost succeeded. When given a second chance, he’d taken it.
Hearing more movement, Cody smiled. TJ looked gorgeous in his uniform.
Cody had always thought so. He remembered the first time he’d really noticed TJ, and it had been not long after Carter had married Toni.
A summer party that TJ had attended after he’d finished at the station.
Even though he was Toni’s ex-husband, he and Carter had been friends and so TJ knew Cass, but somehow Cody had never met him.
Standing on the grass next to the table laden with food, Cody had stared.
TJ, with his short blond hair and green eyes that made Cody sigh.
He’d hidden inside, watching TJ through the window.
Cass had come in and dragged him out. Awkward introductions where Cody barely said a word, and as soon as he could, he’d left.
The man had been more gorgeous up close, and Cody had been hard.
Hard over a man. Escaping to his bedroom, he’d watched from the window, then spent the night thinking about the older man, wondering what it would be like to kiss him and do other things as well.
His orgasm had blown his mind. Cody had to know, was it only TJ he reacted to in this way or other men as well.
That had led him to porn and the growing realization he might be gay. He hated it. Hated everything to do with being gay. Cass didn’t like gays either, but he kept it to himself with TJ being around. He wasn’t going to upset his brother’s friend.
When it had finally come out, Cass had arranged the camp.
Cody refused to go and begged to be given a chance.
He’d find a way. He wasn’t going to be gay, and that had led him to the club.
He’d known what he was doing. He’d known what would happen when he’d left with the man and gone to his apartment.
The sex had hurt at first, but he’d soon realized he liked it.
Liked touching another man, liked doing things with other men.
Sighing, Cody stared up at the ceiling. His brilliant plan to use sex to prove he wasn’t gay had the opposite effect.
Of course it would. He was gay and the consequences of his actions had made him spiral out of control.
TJ had intervened to try to help, and Cody had made a pass at him because he wanted TJ, but TJ had rightly seen him as the child he was, and Cody had split.
Robbing TJ, he’d left, and his life had truly fallen apart.
Some days he marveled at the fact he was still alive, but that gave him the incentive to keep walking.
To keep putting one foot in front of the other.
To make his life better. One to be proud of, and he was.
He was proud of the man he’d become. And now the time had finally arrived for Cody to be with the only man he’d ever wanted.
TJ had no idea what was about to happen.