Published: 10 Feb 2022

Drew

 
The boys had gone upstairs, and Aaron and I were on the couch in the family room. I was flipping through the channels, trying to find something to keep us entertained when Aaron sat quite a bit closer to me and he looked up and asked if this was alright. I told him I liked it and proved it by leaning down and kissed him. Not our usual peck on the cheek kind of kiss like we did when we said hello or goodbye, but I tried to reach into his soul through his mouth with my tongue, while the arm around his shoulder reached for his left breast and toyed with his nipple.

He was returning my kiss, encouraging me by moaning appreciatively as we kissed, his left hand now reaching for my groin, his fingers kneading my thigh on the way, and then cupping and squeezing my boner, which had almost reached its maximum length by this time. I got the impression that not only were we not going to find something to keep us occupied on the TV tonight, but we were going to bed early, real early. And tonight we would share my bedroom for the second time. Although last night was really nice, it wasn’t a sexual evening, it did involve a certain amount of cuddling, of holding each other as we each spilled our guts about our past relationships, our duds. Then we showered together in the morning, to save on the hot water, and I guess, to fully examine one another. No sex, just some more touching and groping.

But now we knew each other, now we were alone, now was our time. We went upstairs to my bedroom and on the way there I told the boys that we were tired and going to bed, but if they needed anything, just knock on the door to my room. Once in my bedroom Aaron insisted on undressing me. I agreed, but only if I could return the favor after he was done. Round one was finished in about an hour and a half, both of us proving to the other just how versatile we were. We needed snacks after and we checked on the boys on our way downstairs. They had fallen asleep, so we got them both ready for tucking in and after our goodnights we closed their door and went to get our snacks.

We both knew by that time that we were totally compatible, and the feelings were exciting to us both. Round two lasted another two hours, give and take on both our parts, no pun intended. We were both very fit, which added to our allure, and we both loved feeling the changes in our muscular bodies as we moved into different positions to ravage each other, Sometimes orally, sometimes anally, sometimes just kissing our new favorite places on each other’s body. It was a lot more gratifying than I ever could have hoped for, and Aaron seemed to agree, as we lay there sharing our afterglow with each other, when he told me that he was now glad we had waited before jumping into bed that very first weekend we had met. He felt we were destined to be together, and I told him I felt the same, for always, I told him.

Tom

 
When Billy told me how crowded the 4^th of July fireworks were I really didn’t believe him, but when Drew pulled into the parking lot at Forge Pond there were hardly any parking spots left, and it was a really large parking lot. Forge Pond was quite a large lake that offered a lot of amenities, swimming, boating, picnicking, you name it, for summer or warm weather activities, Forge Pond was one of the most popular places in the area.

Billy and I gathered the picnic basket and the large blanket, and we made our way toward the large, roofed pavilion that faced the middle to the right-hand end of the long oval shaped lake. Drew and Aaron each carried two folding lawn chairs.
 
 
As Billy and I neared the pavilion we heard a few people (kids) talking and then a couple of them came running up and we were bombarded with questions. Of course, we knew them, we had gone to school with them, that is until I was taken to the shelter in Springfield, but I was back now, not in school yet, but at the end of August I would be. To be honest I was pleased to be remembered, I thought everyone would have forgotten me. As Billy and I answered their questions Drew and Aaron joined us. The guys talking to us recognized Drew right away and the questions flowed, and the answers were freely given right back. It was like a schoolyard discussion, and we also got a lot of help setting up our own area to view the fireworks from.

Once that was done, we left Drew and Aaron to get settled in and we went for a kind of short walk with the four guys we had gone to school with. Once we were away from a lot of the other people there, we had to explain to them about my parent’s deaths, and about Billy’s mom passing and his uncle coming to live with him at Billy’s house, and my coming to live with Mr. Clark, Drew, our 3^rd grade teacher, two of the guys had been in our class that year. The guys were awed that Mr. Clark was going to adopt me, and I chuckled and told them that Billy was living with the new 5^th grade teacher, Mr. Porter, Aaron. He really was Billy’s uncle. We wouldn’t be in his class this coming school year; we would be in Mrs. Wilkins class instead. The guys all thought that was cool and we soon heard music playing and we all left to be with our own groups.

The music was a bunch of patriotic songs and the fireworks started right after the first song. It was so interesting to watch a bright light explode into all those multicolored sparklers in the sky. They were shooting off the rockets from the barge out on the lake, and I figured out that that way, the really hot parts of the fireworks would land in the water, not in the woods surrounding the lake. Drew and Aaron seemed to look a lot at each other, and they almost always smiled at each other as they did, and the other times they looked at each other kind of dreamy eyed. Had they decided to be friends already?

We left the fireworks and went home, all of us were talking about our favorite “explosions” of color, and of course running into some of our classmates and Drew mentioned that he had a chance to introduce Aaron to not only some of the teachers who lived locally, but some of the parents as well. When we got home, we each had one of the great brownies Aaron had baked that afternoon. Once our snack was finished, we said our goodnights and we were all off to bed. That night Aaron came with Drew to do the tucking in routine. Aaron tucked in Billy, and Drew attended to me, but Billy and I each got our foreheads kissed by both and both wished us sweet dreams. That over with, and after our door was closed, Billy and I discussed all that and we decided that Drew and Aaron were going to be really good friends.

In the morning, (I guess I should tell you that Billy always woke up hungry!) Billy was finished in the bathroom before I was even functioning, awake, but not yet out of bed. He told me that he was going downstairs to find those breakfast rolls he and Aaron had brought over for us all to share. Billy thought one of them would hold him over until the adults were awake and fixing breakfast. I finally got up and began my day as usual, in the bathroom, pissing, and sometimes shitting, and then washing up and brushing my teeth. That morning I could hear Drew and Aaron not only showering, but some garbled talking, and I distinctly heard one snippet of their talk, I heard Drew tell Aaron that he loved him, not as much as he loved me, but in a totally different kind of way, a way that made his heart and soul soar, he had fallen deep in love with Aaron, and Aaron responded to him, agreeing totally, he felt the same.

I can’t tell you how happy that made me. I mean, Drew had told me about himself, and of not finding the right guy for him, one that shared his values and wanted him, and only him as his partner, a forever partner, someone to raise a family with, and it sure sounded like he had found that guy in Aaron. I was happy for Drew, I was happy for Aaron, and I for sure was happy for both Billy and me. We might just be able to all live together, but even if we didn’t, we would all be close anyway, I mean that Billy and I were close friends, best friends, and it seemed like our two adults were also now best friends.

Even before Drew had bought me the cool laptop, I had looked up a lot of GAY stuff on the computers at the dorm. I knew what the word meant, but now I knew a lot more. I read up on gay parenting and I thought Drew was doing a great job of it. I had read about adult relationships online, no, not the smutty stuff, the kind of articles you find on a computer with child safety settings turned on. Miss Lyons, my caseworker, had let me see some of those as she knew from Drew that he was gay and I guess she wanted me to know what I might expect, having him as my foster father. None of it scared me, I mean the guy cared about me, and if he was a happy person, well, he’d make a better parent, wouldn’t he?

I finished up real quick and went down to find Billy half through his breakfast roll and he held out the unfinished half and offered it to me, saying he was afraid that if he ate it all he’d ruin his meal, so I ate the second half with my juice as I told him that I thought Drew and Aaron were best friends now. He had this big grin on his face as we fist bumped, which was as much of a celebration as we could do before our adults appeared. Amid all the “good mornings” it was decided that French Toast would make a good breakfast for us all and we all pitched in to get our meal on the table.

After breakfast we decided on a trail ride, but Drew wanted to go to the supermarket first, to replenish some of the groceries we had already gone through. On the way to the market, we had to drive past my old house, the one now rented by those college students, Tony and Bert. Out in the front yard of the house the guys were seen arguing with a short fat man, who kept gesturing at the house. The guys were only wearing their boxer shorts and they both looked like they had just gotten out of their shower.

Drew stopped the car and told Billy and me to stay in the car. Both he and Aaron got out and we could see them walking up to the three men, who were still in some sort of disagreement. Drew tried to introduce himself to the fat man, but the man just shook his head and refused to even shake Drew’s hand, he then pulled out his cell phone and began to dial it. I took out my cell phone even before Drew had left us here in the car and had been filming everything from that moment on, but I now hit one of the preset numbers Drew had insisted I have on my phone, the number for the police department here in town. Of course, once Drew and Aaron had left the car, Billy and I had lowered the windows and we could hear all that was going on out there on the lawn. We heard the landlord had come to the house and when no one answered his knock he had let himself in. He had heard water running in the bathroom and had walked in on the two college students sharing a shower.

He had thrown a fit. He hadn’t known the guys were gay and he wanted them out of his house right away. Drew and Aaron tried to explain to him that there was nothing in their rental agreement that excluded gays, and in fact, it was illegal to do so. I tried to explain all this to whoever had answered the police department phone and that man soon told me that he thought the landlord had finally got his call through, and it was to the police station too. He assured me that a patrol car was on its way, just give them a few moments to get there.

Drew

 
When the police cruiser arrived, I was then a bit nervous, but Aaron wasn’t, one of the two officers was his next-door neighbor! The two of them stood off to one side while the young men and I stood away from the one officer who was taking a statement from the landlord. At one point I heard this officer say, “YOU DID WHAT??, You know that is against the law! You are supposed to give tenants 24 hour’s notice before entering the premises, unless you are invited in!! And what makes you think they are gay, maybe they were just trying to save on their water bill? Being gay is not an excuse for you to throw them out, especially since they have been tenants here for over a year already with no late payments or other offenses against their rental agreement. I would get yourself a good lawyer, those two have a pretty good case against you.” I thought to myself that I should get the young students Becca’s contact information. She already had investigators working to find out about this landlord and his dealings with Tom’s parents.

Aaron and his neighbor came over to talk with us and he also thought the landlord was way out of bounds in his actions and his reactions. It didn’t take long for the police to come to the conclusion that the landlord was at fault here and they were about to arrest him when his tenants put a halt to this and told the officers that they were not going to file charges against the landlord, providing he stayed clear of the property, and let them out of their lease and they would move out in two months. I told them they were being very generous toward the landlord, but they reasoned that this was the first confrontation they had had with him in over a year, but now they wanted to get out but with the new semester starting in August they would need time to find something, even an efficiency, to move into for their last year of college.

Of course, that sparked something in my mind and in Tom’s also by the look he gave me. We both nodded at each other, and I led Tony and Bert off to the side again and we talked about Ollie retiring and moving to Florida at the end of August. I explained the duties for the efficiency to be rent free, which included renting out the growing fields, attending to the occupants of the barn, maintenance of the buildings and the grounds year-round. They could join us for meals and in the use of the pool. I would expect them to keep up their studies, and at times when they really had to knuckle down on their studies, we would help out with the chores we could do.

You’d have thought we had given them early Christmas presents or something. They were very pleased with our offer. I told them we would talk to Ollie tonight, and we’d set up a meeting between them so they could hear from him just what it was he did on the property, and he could show them the apartment as well, and they could make their final decision after all that. So the police ended up escorting the wayward landlord off the property, with stern orders to provide 24 hour’s notice before coming back, or to call and make an appointment with his tenants. He was not pleased, but he agreed to their suggestions, and he did get in his car and drove off.

We left also, after thanking the officers and swapping phone numbers with Tony and Bert. We continued on to the supermarket where between Drew and Aaron, with some help from Bill and me, we got the grocery shopping done, including a short list of items Ollie had asked for. Once home and the groceries put away, Billy and I took Ollie’s items to his apartment in the barn. We told him about Bert and Tony and gave him their phone numbers so they could agree on a time to meet.
 
 
I saw the concerned look on Aaron’s face as Tom and I related to Billy and him how we had offered Tony and Bert Ollie’s job when he moved to Florida. I told him right away that having those two students around would mean we would have more time to spend together. I explained to him that they were a committed couple, just like us. We could look, but we couldn’t touch. Aaron got a big grin on his face as I told him this, then he hugged me and gave me a quick smooch on the lips. I had noticed he had looked around first, so I wasn’t worried the boys had seen us, I knew I would have to have a talk with Tom soon, but not right then. Everything was cool, Billy and Tom were talking to Bert and Tony, telling them all about our horses, the ponies, the dogs and the cats, and the riding trails that Ollie had started on the property. Those four were going to get along great.

We got the grocery shopping done and returned to the farm, and while the boys were talking with Ollie out at the barn, Aaron and I had a kissing session, interspersed with talk about our future. All I knew about Tom’s adoption was that it might just take place before the end of August. Aaron told me that for estate reasons he had been advised to adopt his nephew, Billy, and that he envisioned that happening in July some time, he had no set date yet either. He thought that with us both under scrutiny from the DCFS until after the adoptions, we should save our times together for now for our weekends, when prying eyes were not likely to be watching us.

I told him then about what Tom’s caseworker had told me when I was granted permanent custody. I related how she had said that she knew at that time I was unattached, but she didn’t think it would take long for me to find a significant other, and she had said, in a very coy manner, that the great state of Massachusetts did not frown upon married gay couples adopting. I let that statement settle in Aaron’s mind and then went down on one knee and asked Aaron to marry me, it just felt like the right time to do that, and apparently, he felt so too, and he was nodding his head and saying, “Yes, Yes, Yes”. I stood and we kissed, one of those soul-searching kisses that made my whole-body tingle. I told him that he and Billy should stay over another night, and we could get Becca’s opinion about our marriage and when it should take place. We’d call her in the morning.

But first was our engagement night. The very first thing I did was go to my room and retrieve a gold band, with multicolored stones embedded into it, I had bought from a jewelry store that was going out of business, just last week. They expected the store to be opened until the end of July so there would be time to have the size adjusted if it did not fit Aaron on the ring finger of his left hand. I brought it to the kitchen where Aaron was looking for something in one of the many cabinets. He asked me where I had stashed the bottle of wine we had bought at the grocery store, and I admitted that I had “hidden” it in the freezer, as I thought we might need it tonight. And with that I kissed him again and slipped the ring on the correct finger.

I thought it was a bit of a snug fit, but he said it was perfect, so I took the matching one out of my pocket and handed it to him to place on my ring finger. He did something sweet with it, he kissed it before sliding it on my finger. We embraced and kissed again before I opened the bottle of wine and poured us each a glass of the chilly white wine. While we fixed dinner, we talked about exactly what kind of a simple ceremony we wanted to have and we continued to toss around a couple of ideas until the boys came back from the barn, and their talk with Ollie. They reported that Ollie was looking forward to helping Tony and Bert get settled into his job for the next month.
 
 
Yes, the boys noticed the rings right after we had sat down to dinner. Tom asked if they were friendship rings, and I proudly told him that Aaron had agreed to marry me and that these rings signified that we were engaged to be married. I told both boys that a phone call to Becca was one of the first things we would do tomorrow morning and we would ask her if we should wait to marry before his or Billy’s adoptions, or just wait until after the adoptions are finalized. Billy asked his uncle if they were going to move here to live with us and I piped up and said that was definitely what I wanted, and both boys said they did too, and Aaron sat there and held my hand and nodded, a big smile on his face. I knew that for Aaron, living in the home he had grown up in, and had lost his parents to cancer in, was difficult, and to add to his unease, this was the small home his sister had remained in to raise her son on her own. Moving out here would be a relief for him, and Billy would have his best friend for a brother.

Our lovemaking that night was beyond wonderful, it was what I would call glorious, or magical. It started with our undressing foreplay, interspersed with a lot of kissing and caressing, which ultimately evolved into intercourse. Twice, one round for each of us. Aaron had told me once that he was a bottom, willingly, but I just couldn’t let that masterful uncut dick go to waste when I knew what it could do to my prostate once inside me, so our versatility benefited the both of us, and made for some hot, really hot, lovemaking.

In the morning we barely had time for a cup of coffee when the boys arrived downstairs, and Tom handed me one of the cordless house phones. I knew what that was about, so I called Becca. She had just arrived in her office about a half hour earlier and she started off by telling me that she was glad I had called, that she had some new information for me. I told her I had some new information for her as well and proceeded to tell her that Aaron had accepted my proposal of marriage last night and we were wondering if we should wait to marry until the adoptions were final, or would the courts look more favorable on a married couple adopting each of the boys (another lawyer from Becca’s office was handling Aaron’s adoption of his nephew, Billy). She congratulated us (I had told her that we were all together and the phone was on speaker mode) and told us that a legal ceremony could happen at any time, but yes, the courts did look more favorable on a married couple, just make sure she and Aaron’s lawyer had copies of our marriage certificates before the adoption hearings, and she thought both Aaron and I should be included as an adopter on each other’s case, that way both boys would have two legal parents.

The boys could be heard whooping it up as Aaron and I thanked her and I told her we would most likely have a small service at town hall soon, and later on a big party combining our wedding, and adoptions celebrations together with friends. She said that all sounded reasonable, but could we have our plans made before August 8^th, as she had learned a short time ago that both adoption hearings were to be held back-to-back on the 8^th, which gave us 4 weeks to get married. She then asked me to stay on the line by myself, and Aaron took the boys to the kitchen to start breakfast while I stayed in the family room area to talk to Becca. She began by telling me that the landlord for the home Tom had lived in with his birth parents had an altercation with the current tenants and the police in town had been involved.
 
 
I interrupted her and told her about our involvement with the incident and she then told me that as far as her investigators could determine, Tom’s parents had owned the house at the time of their deaths, whether the title had changed hands or not, the contract they had had with the landlord had been fulfilled and the investigators had determined that an appointment had been set up for the title exchange to take place. The landlord had thought he could keep the money they had paid, and continue to rent the place out and keep that money as well. She felt we had a really good case against the guy, and that would provide for Tom’s future, as the property was now valued at $200,000.00 and with that invested right could provide a good nest egg for Tom to use for college, along with the investments that had been transferred to Tom by the bank.

I gave her the OK to start proceedings against the landlord, by turning over her investigators’ reports to the DA (District Attorney) and once he had been charged, to file suit against him to gain possession of the property for Tom, along with any financial settlement deemed justifiable by the court. She said that the files would be turned over to the DA today, and hopefully our case against him would be filed this week, or early next week, she would keep us informed, and to keep her informed about our wedding plans. I agreed we would, and we said our goodbyes.

When I joined the boys and Aaron I had had a chance to think about all that was going through my mind about everything that was about to go on, the wedding, the case against the landlord, the adoptions, and how to explain all this to Tom, and to Billy, and I would have to tell Aaron about the impending court case to be filed on behalf of Tom, to ensure some sort of lasting legacy from parents who couldn’t have cared a jot about him in the first place. I decided that a long talk with Aaron was first on my agenda, maybe the boys could spend some time having a trail ride with Ollie after breakfast. I would talk to the boys after lunch, with Aaron by my side.

I know the boys had questions about Aaron and I getting married, but we kind of didn’t tell them anything specific, yet. I had a chance to tell Aaron that we two needed to talk about something concerning Tom before we had a “family meeting” about us getting married and we would do that as soon as he and I had a chance to talk together, so I would suggest the boys go for a trail ride with Ollie after we ate. Aaron agreed to this and that is what ended up happening. One call to Ollie and after getting his agreement to keep the boys occupied for at least an hour, maybe an hour and a half, the excited boys were off to ride.

Aaron and I sat together at the kitchen table, and I filled him in about Tom’s life with his parents. He was suitably upset that parents could treat their offspring like that, and he was so happy for Tom that it looked like he would finally benefit from something they had done. With that taken care of, we talked and decided that we would go to town hall and get our marriage license applied for and set up an appointment with a justice of the peace to marry us. Most of this Aaron suggested, as well as where he wanted to get married, right here on the farm, at the cluster of plantings in front of the left side of the front porch. Ollie had tied up some vines at that flower bed and trained them up the posts on the porch to create a little grotto like arrangement where he was going to place a large birdbath that he had ordered from the hardware store in town, but it hadn’t arrived yet, we would find the right day for us to stand in its place to make our pledges of love for each other, and our boys.

Of course, we had to talk to the boys when they returned from their ride and had groomed their ponies. To start with we explained about the rent to own agreement that Tom and stored for his parents, and the letters and account statements that had been with those. The fact that we were going to sue the landlord involved seemed to make Tom pleased. Then we broached the subject of Aaron and me. About how much we admired each other, how we shared similar life experiences, and how comfortable we felt with each other, and we knew that we always would hold those feelings for each other. We wanted to live together and help each other raise their boys. So, since we loved each other, we wanted to live together, and we couldn’t imagine our lives without each other in them, we were marrying and Aaron would join me in adopting Tom, and I would join Aaron in adopting Billy, so each boy would have two dads. The wedding we hoped to have in a week or two, and we hoped the adoptions would take place in early August.

The boys were very pleased about this, and we each had a hug bestowed upon us by each of the boys. We actually wanted them to be a part of all this, so after lunch we all piled in my car, and I drove us to town hall to get our marriage license and pick up some info from some of the justices of the peace to be able to choose who we were going to get married by. The clerk who waited on us was very helpful and it turned out I had one of her kids in my class last year and she wished us luck on our wedding day. She did have a comment or two about some of the JPs we had collected brochures on, and she proved right on the very first one we called. He was a recent college graduate and he and his husband had just started up their own CPA business here in town. They offered bookkeeping, accounting, and tax preparation. They also farmed about 30 acres, and they raised some corn and pumpkins that they sold at a roadside stand they ran in the fall. He was easy to listen to, and he was pleased to have gotten our call and since Aaron was nodding his head, we asked what dates he had open and we chose Friday afternoon, two weeks from now.

So with a date set we began our preparations, the first thing to think about was the invitation list. Aaron had a few close friends in Springfield, mostly teachers he had worked alongside before his move out here to take care of Billy, a neighbor or two out here, and a few people in town he felt close enough to to invite to a gay wedding. I had some friends who were teachers at the elementary school I taught in, and like Aaron, a few neighbors, a few friends, and of course, Ollie, and after thinking about it, Becca and her husband. So, we each had about 20 people we could invite, so once the number was pretty much settled, then it was time to figure out who to hire to cater the lunch we were thinking of having for our reception. Aaron knew of a company that supplied the food, and the tent and chairs, and if we wanted music, they could supply tapes or a DJ.

When we called them their estimate for what we wanted was very reasonable, so we gave them a deposit and booked them. Now the only other thing was, what do we wear? The boys thought we should all were T shirts and shorts, but I spoke up and said I thought, since it was a once in a lifetime kind of thing, that we should dress up a bit, and maybe wear our suits. Aaron said that he thought the same thing, and that he was going to suggest tuxedos, but with it being Summer, and an outdoor wedding, he thought just our regular suits would be fine.

Then we asked the boys what they were going to wear. They looked up at us with big questioning expressions and asked why they had to dress up, and we told them that we each wanted them to stand up for us, Tom and me, and Aaron with Bill, they would be our ring bearers and best men. The shocked expressions on their faces was precious, and I wish we could have caught them on tape or on our cells at least, but it didn’t last long enough before we had our boys in a big hug again.

By this time, it was well after 4 PM and Ollie stopped in to run over a few things with us before he got ready to close up the barn and do the night feedings. We explained about our upcoming wedding and where we wanted the ceremony held and he graciously congratulated us. He then told us that the next day there would be a crew on the property to install the gates at each end of the farm lane. No wiring would have to be run, they operated by solar power, and the storage batteries and the actual solar panel would be installed unobtrusively to one side of the gate, out of sight and tamper proof. He asked if there was just one more car to be outfitted with a remote sensor to operate the gates, looking at Aaron, and I looked at Aaron also and he smiled and nodded yes, only the one additional car. Ollie further explained that the gates would be installed a car length into the drive and side panels would run from the gates to the rather high stone walls at the front, and back, of our lane through the property.

We then showed him where we were going to exchange our wedding vows and he chuckled and told us he really hadn’t been thinking of a wedding being held under the arbor he had created with the vines and plants, he was just trying to keep the flower beds underneath the porch railings clear of the vines and give the flowering plants room to grow, but he stood back and saw that what he had created could be used as a wedding arbor. We made sure he knew we wanted him at our service, and the reception following.

By late in the afternoon, we had sent out the wedding invitations, either by mail for those in town invitees, or by e-mail or phone calls to those who lived out of town. The boys pitched right in, helping to get the physical invitations addressed and then putting the stamps on the envelopes and out to the mailbox for the postman to pick up when doing his deliveries. Since we were all caught up on the chores, we all cleaned up and went out for dinner at Antonio’s Restaurant where we had made reservations for 4 again.

Our meals finished, we went home so Aaron and Billy could figure out what they wanted to move out here from their house. Billy had chosen the bedroom closest to Tom’s as his and he said he liked just about everything just the way it was, but he’d bring his clothing, of course, and his desk from his room at home. He had a TV and disc player, and his alarm clock and a few other small things, but he was looking forward to leaving the old house behind, and the sad memories that house contained.

Aaron pretty much felt the same, his own desk would fit in with mine in the second-floor study/office I had up there, and except for his clothing and some small items he felt he was ready to move in a week or so. I then took them all upstairs to the attic floor where there were 3 storage rooms, two of them already used, just some Christmas decorations, and a few pieces of family stuff I had inherited when my own adoptive parents had passed, and I just didn’t want to get rid of them. Aaron could store some of his stuff up here, there was plenty of space available.

We agreed that starting tomorrow they would get their belongings ready to move by the end of next week, and if they needed help, Tom and I would come over and help them, and to help them move at the end of the week. We had the farm’ s pickup, and two cars. If we needed more than that I could always rent a U HAUL or some other roomy van. The thought of them, well, Aaron primarily, moving into the house with me, well, with Tom and me, it gave me the shivers, the good shivers, like little tingles running up and down my spine, I felt almost the same as when I drove to Springfield to see Tom for the first time at the DCFS facility.

Tom came up to me and asked to have a talk with me, just after Billy and Aaron left for their home. We were about to sit in the family room when he hugged me and when we released each other I noticed he had tears starting to run down his cheeks.
 
 
I looked for any other signs of distress, but all I saw was a really happy boy. He sat cuddled on my side, his arms wrapped around my left arm, his head against my left bicep. I asked if he was happy today and he nodded, saying that since I had come to see him that first time at the dormitory, he’d been nothing but happy. He loved feeling like this, it was so different from when he lived with his parents, and here I was making him so happy by making it possible for his best friend to move here and become his brother. I told him honestly that having him living with me was making me happy too, and maybe that made me more open to finding out that I loved Aaron also, and along with Aaron there was Billy. I thought we were all going to be very happy living together

It was about a half hour after our “talk” that Tom asked me if we could go in the pool for a while before bedtime. I only had to think about that for a second or two and I told him I’d race him to get our swimming suits on. We had a blast out there in the beginning of nightfall. It was about 7:30 PM and dusk was just beginning. From now until late August it could stay light out until almost 9 PM. I tossed him several times into the deep end, and he handled that really well, even staying underwater and reaching the side of the pool. We then played a round of water volleyball before calling it a night.

After tucking him in he turned his head to me after I kissed his forehead goodnight and wished him sweet dreams and Tom sleepily grinned up at me and told me, “You too Dad, I love you”. I left his room with my own happy tears in my eyes.

Our week seemed to go by fast, I think Tom and I were anticipating our best friends moving in with us this weekend. By Wednesday we were dying to see them, so we called and invited them over for dinner. The new gates on the property were equipped with an added sensor that dinged in the house or barn to alert anyone on the property already that someone was arriving at either the front gate (two dings) or the back gate (one singe ding). Tom and I had prepared pork chops baked in mushroom soup with crispy fries and a salad. Our guests arrived and actually helped to get our meal on the table, and we all got caught up on the progress they had been making in advance of their move this coming weekend.

Aaron thought that the pickup and our two cars should handle what they wanted to move here, and said that, if need be, he could make one more trip with his car over the weekend. He had an appointment with a Realtor on Monday afternoon to get a look at his former family home, and the only home Billy had ever known. Billy piped up and said that since they had started sorting out things in the house, he had been sleeping a lot better. He and Tom were talking about Billy donating clothes that were still in good shape, but didn’t fit any more to the dorm that Tom used to live in, and Aaron was telling me about how they had started in the attic and were working their way down through the rest of the house. He said he couldn’t believe all the Christmas decorations his mother, and then his sister, had held onto all these years. He was going to have a ball decorating for the holidays this year.

He looked around the very large open spaces of the first floor and nodded when he had made a complete circuit twice around the spaces and said he had wondered about certain pieces, but he now knew he had made the right choices by not including them in the move, he liked the way I had decorated the first floor very much and he wouldn’t change it for the world, high praise indeed that earned him a big hug and a kiss, a big one of those too. Our guests didn’t stay the night, they said they would save that pleasure for Saturday, after they had moved in.

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