“And slow down in the house! Do you want your father to whip us all?” Rick lay back on the couch and smiled to
himself. He could scarcely believe how
much he enjoyed the boys’ company. He
closed his eyes and tried to imagine what things would be like for him if he
and Jack had never met. Try as he may,
he could not. He remembered Troy, the
very man Jack had saved him from--literally.
The night he left Troy, they
had been at the bar and had gotten into an argument. Whatever it was over, he could scarcely
remember. But he remembered quite
vividly trying to walk unsuccessfully away from Troy. Troy
had quite literally dragged him outside and was beating him up in the parking
lot. Jack came outside just then and saw
what was going on. He pulled Troy
off Rick and started beating him up, asking how it felt to be on the receiving
end of an angry fist. When he had beaten
Troy till he could barely move, he
helped Rick back inside and cleaned his wounds.
Then he asked him out to dinner.
Seeing Jack single-handedly beat Troy
to within an inch of his life made Rick apprehensive. However, something inside him clicked and he
felt he could really trust the man who had just saved his life. They refused to rush things, having only
dinner together for four months. Then
one night, Jack stayed at Rick’s house for the first time. After that night, Rick rented his house out
and moved in with Jack. The rest, as
they say, is history.
He had seen times when Jack had
been no different than Troy, except
that Jack had never beat on him. He had
been physically hurt by Jack, but never badly, and he was rarely mean to
him. I
know it was abuse, he thought to himself, but he hasn’t done anything like that in so long that I feel like he’s
changed. I can’t believe that it would
ever happen again. He closed his
eyes, listening for any sound to come from either of the boys’ rooms. It was dead quiet, except for Bobby tossing
his pillow around and jumping on the bed.
The quiet was so calming, within minutes, Rick soon was fast
asleep. He was still sleeping when Jack
came home from work. Jack woke him just
enough to lead him to bed. When he lay
on the bed, he turned over and went back to sleep.
