All About Justin
 

Chapter 2

 

“Hi, Pop.”

“Hey, Sonny Boy, nice of you to make my once a week call,” Brian said facetiously into his phone.

Gus groaned. “Are you ever going to let that go?”

“Not planning to.”

Gus laughed. “Now I know why people call you an asshole.”

Brian snorted. “I’ll have you know that I have been the recipient of some glowing testimonials lately, so watch the asshole cracks.”

“I could say something about asshole cracks, but something tells me I better not.”

Brian rolled his eyes. “Good choice.”

“And what’s this about testimonials?”

“Oh, nothing … just kidding.”

Gus frowned. When his father said something was nothing, it usually meant it was something. He’d have to look into this when he got home. “How’s everybody?” he asked changing the subject.

“Up to our asses in work.”

“I could have guessed you would be with the new Kinnetik Isles, but what about Justin? Isn’t he taking some time off after his success in London?”

“That was supposed to be the plan, but he’s done a slew of commissions, and now he has a new idea,” Brian explained.

“I could ask if those new commissions meant that I might get my Fur-Harry?” Gus proposed with a laugh.

“Keep laughing, Sonny Boy. No Ferrari for you, until you earn it yourself.”

“That’s what I thought,” Gus sighed. He really wanted a car, even some old piece of junk. “What’s Justin’s new idea? Does he need a filmmaker?”

“Not this time. It’s painting and sketching.”

“Too bad. I could use some extra cash.”

“You need money?” Brian asked, instantly aware that Gus had made that implication. There was being conservative about money, and then there was being cheap. Brian Kinney was not going to be relegated to the latter category.

“No, Pop, I’m fine. But money means new toys, that’s all.”

“Boys and their toys,” Brian chuckled. “Say, Sonny Boy, are you going to make it home for Bree’s birthday?” There was a long silence on the line. “Gus?”

“Um, I…”

“I feel a no coming on.”

“I’ll be studying for finals and finishing up assignments. I…”

“It’s okay, Gus. We’re not having a huge party or anything. Bree’s going to invite five friends for a sleepover,” Brian explained.

“You and six little girls?” Gus asked in disbelief.

“You think I can’t handle it?”

“I know you can’t handle it,” Gus laughed.

“Oh ye of little faith, but you’re probably right.”

“So Justin will be looking after them.”

“As much as possible.”

“You are so bad.”

“Goes without saying. Oh, and Gus, you better make sure you do something special for Bree’s birthday when you finish your year at Penn.”

“Of course I will, Pop.”

“Love you, Sonny Boy.”

“Me too, Pop.”

Brian cut the connection and smiled to himself. He had such a good kid. It never ceased to amaze him that he could tell Gus that he loved him. How things had changed in the new Kinney family!

 

*****
 

“Daddy,” Bree said.

“Yes, Bree,” Justin said. He was fixing Bree and Patrick a snack. They had just come home from school.

“Should I invite Winona to my sleepover?”

“The question is ‘Do you think you should invite Winona?’.”

Bree sighed and picked up a carrot stick off the plate that Justin set in front of them. “I don’t know,” she said with a frown, and then snapped off a bite of her carrot stick.

“I don’t think you should invite her,” Patrick stated emphatically. “I think she’s yucky.”

Justin smiled to himself as he waited for Bree’s reaction.

“You don’t like Winona,” Bree told Patrick.

“That’s right, and neither do you.”

“I … sort of like her,” Bree clarified. “Sometimes.”

“Do you want to invite her?” Justin asked again. He set a glass of milk in front of each child.

“I know she’ll be mad if I don’t. I don’t like hurting her feelings.”

Justin ran his hand over the top of Bree’s head. He loved that his daughter was sensitive to the feelings of others. “You think she would be hurt?” Bree nodded. “Would it make you feel bad if she was hurt?” Another nod. “Then maybe you should think seriously about inviting her.”

Patrick shook his head. “I wouldn’t.”

“But you’re a boy,” Bree said, like that explained everything.

“I think you’ll be spending a lot of time in your end of the cottage with your dads that day,” Justin said squeezing Patrick’s shoulder.

“Yeah,” Patrick agreed.

“Have you decided who else you want to invite?”

Bree looked thoughtful. “Ashley.”

“Of course,” Justin chuckled.

“JR.”

“Are you sure she’ll want to come with all you youngsters?” Justin asked.

“Sure,” Bree replied.

“I think you better ask her.”

“Okay,” Bree agreed. She had just assumed JR would want to come to her party. “I was going to invite you, Patrick.”

Patrick’s eyes got huge and his mouth dropped open. “You can’t have boys at a sleepover,” he informed his cousin.

“Why not?”

“Boys don’t go to sleepovers with girls,” Patrick replied.

“Not until the boys are much older, and then they can hardly wait for an invite,” Justin said with a chuckle.

“Huh?” two voices asked simultaneously. The children looked up expectantly at Justin for an explanation.

“Um… Who else are you going to invite?” Justin asked hoping he could divert the children from that question.

“Maybe Brenda and Hannah.”

“They’re okay,” Patrick said giving his two cents worth.

Bree frowned. “This is very cop-a-clated,” she said.

“Yes, it is,” Justin agreed. “Give it some more thought, and talk to JR.”

“’Kay, Daddy.”

“Eat your snacks and then you can tackle your homework.” Justin went back to the counter to get his chicken ready to go in the oven.

 

*****
 

“Hey Sunshine,” Brian softly called out into the sun porch. Justin had been painting and sketching ever since the dinner dishes were washed and put away. It was now two in the morning and Justin showed no signs of going to bed anytime soon.

“Hey,” Justin looked up from his easel with a sleepy smile.

“Your eyes are barely open. Are you sure you can see what you’re painting?”

Justin’s smile grew brighter. “I don’t need to see when I’m painting you. I can paint or draw you blindfolded,” he said smugly.

“Blindfolded, huh?” Brian said low and breathy. He wrapped his arms around Justin. Justin was still holding his paint brush. “I think I’d like you blindfolded.”

“Yeah?” Justin replied looking up at Brian’s smiling eyes. Justin was beginning to come down from his painting high and now feeling exhausted. He began to lean against Brian.

“Yeah. You, me, a couple of silk ties, our great big bed,” Brian purred into Justin’s ear.

“Mmm, our bed,” Justin murmured as he leaned further into Brian. Brian took the paint brush out of Justin’s hand then stuck it in its container of cleaning fluid before gently leading his sleepy artist toward their bedroom door.

“Nice warm bed with fluffy pillows and a thick duvet,” Brian drawled as he took Justin into their bathroom and sat him on the toilet seat as he turned on the shower. Brian stripped his paint speckled lover before stripping himself then walking them both into the warm spray of their shower.

With the efficiency of years of experience showering and putting to bed his drowsy artist, Brian had Justin showered, dried, dressed in warm sleep pants and snuggled under their warm blankets in under an hour.

“Brian?” Justin mumbled as he was tucked under Brian’s chin, his eyes shut by their own volition.

“That’s me,” Brian whispered as he gently rubbed Justin’s back.

“No blindfold?”

“No blindfold,” Brian chuckled.

“Then why is it so dark?” Justin yawned against Brian’s chest.

“Because you’re asleep.”

“Oh, okay. Night Bri,” Justin murmured as he snuggled even more into Brian’s arms.

“Good night, Sunshine,” Brian replied to his already sleeping Sunshine.

 

*****
 

“Well?” Justin asked Bobby as they were examining a couple of photos of the Kinney ledger.

“If the endowment was a straightforward grant with no caveats then the land belongs to whomever it was given. Loans on the other hand should be repaid.”

“So in theory, the Kinney estate could be owed a lot of money.”

“In theory,” Bobby concurred. “Justin, I have to ask, why? Why are you pursuing this? These grants and loans if made by Kinney to his neighbors were done two hundred years ago. What good would it do to dredge it all up?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Let me be very frank with you. I know for a fact you haven’t discussed this with John, because John would have spoken to me. Can I safely assume that you haven’t talked to Brian about this either?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“What are you hiding? Why are you hiding?”

“I don’t know,” Justin said with some frustration. “I really don’t know.”

“Do you admit that you were obsessed with Kinney and Patrick and their whole romantic mystique?”

“Yeah, I do,” Justin said as his shoulders slumped. “Bobby, I have no fucking clue why this is so important to me.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“What are you implying?” Justin was beginning to dislike being interrogated by his attorney, even if said attorney was his brother-in-law.

“I’m implying nothing. If this ledger does prove to be Kinney’s and the land or the funds are still available somewhere, technically it has nothing to do with you, or me, for that matter. If there are any proceeds to be had, it goes to John and Brian, to Claire, possibly Joan and her daughter. Then there’s Gus.”

“Your point?”

“My point is that you and I are at the bottom of the pile, not that we need any of the money.”

“Money isn’t the point,” Justin almost shouted.

“Then what is?” Bobby asked in his calm quiet lawyer’s voice.

“Roots. Ancestry. A sense of belonging, of community. Of being a part of a bigger picture. Kinney was forced to give up his family and his community because of what he was and who he chose to love. Many of us have had to do that same thing in order to fit in or survive in a world where being different is still not wholeheartedly accepted.”

Justin took a breath out of necessity.

“Bobby, it’s so obvious, at least to me, that my homosexuality is tolerated because I am ‘Justin Taylor’, the little artist that could.”

“That is so not true.”

“Bullshit! Brian always said that there are only two types of straight people, ones who’ll talk bad about you to your face, and the others who’ll do it behind your back.”

“You don’t really believe that, do you?”

“Maybe. Sometimes. Bobby, he grew up being so alone.”

“Who did? Kinney?”

“Maybe, but I was thinking about Brian.”

“Oh for God’s sake, that was years ago. He’s so not alone now and neither is John. They both have family. They’ve both been so fucking happy for such a long time that it practically wipes out those early years when neither one of them had a father. So I ask again, why?”

“Because I have to! I just have to know.”

Bobby burst out laughing. Justin was red in the face with anger and frustration.

“I’d say you were like a pitbull, but you’re more like a Jack Russell terrier with a bone. You’ll never give it up.”

“No, I guess I won’t,” Justin said with a sharp exhale and a smirk. His ire was waning.

“You still want my help with this?”

“Yes.”

“Even though I piss the hell out of you?”

“Especially because you piss the hell out of me. You keep me on my toes. And make me face myself and question my motives.”

“So it’s not all about you then,” Bobby asked with a smile.

“No, it's not always about me. The good of the many...”

“Outweighs the good of the few?”

“Or the one. Yeah, I guess that’s what I mean.”

“Okay, all Star Trek references aside, I will help you, but on one condition.”

“Which is?”

“Tonight, we tell John and Brian.”

“Okay,” Justin said as he got up to leave Bobby’s office. “Oh, one more thing.”

“What?”

“Bree is planning a sleepover for her birthday.”

“Isn’t that over a month away?”

“Forewarned is forearmed.”

“Consider me forewarned,” Bobby said with a smile. “Now, get out. I’ll see you guys later.”

“Later!” Justin said over his shoulder as he left Bobby’s office.

 

*****
 

“You found what?” John asked as they were finishing up dinner. He nearly dropped a dish as he was loading the dishwasher.

“You want to fucking do what?” Brian shouted at the same time.

Justin rapidly explained what Susanna had uncovered and what the general plan was.

“Are you out of your fucking mind? Don’t you have enough work to do without hunting down more Kinney mysteries? Who the fuck cares if there’s another rock out there that might be on Kinney land. We certainly don’t need the money,” Brian ranted.

“And I’m not going to evict someone on a technicality,” John added.

“I’m not suggesting that,” Justin tried to explain. “All I’m saying is that we get the ledger and have it restored. If and only if we can track down the land and it’s laying fallow somewhere, what’s the harm in claiming it? What if it’s a public nuisance? Or a horrible dump site? What’s to prevent us...?”

Bobby loudly cleared his throat.

“I mean, you, the two of you as direct Kinney descendants, what’s preventing you guys from cleaning it up?”

“So let me get this straight,” Brian said as he scrubbed his hand over his face. “You want us to get the ledger, have it conserved and researched to prove that it belonged to Kinney then track down the recipients of the loans and then make them pay up.”

“Yes. NO! Not make them pay up. But what if they’re living under a cloud?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Brian, wait, I think I get it,” John interjected.

“At least one of us does. Can you give me a fucking clue, please,” Brian growled.

“Brian, when you found me and my mother, I had no clue about the Kinney land or legacy, or that the house I grew up in technically wasn’t ours. It belonged to Patience and Aidan Kinney. We had no legal right to it. You did.”

“I know the story. I was there, remember,” Brian snarked.

“Well, what if the descendants of the original loan recipients do know? What if through family stories the explanation of how they got the land they’re living on has been retold and retold throughout the generations.”

“Don’t you think someone would have spoken up by now?” Brian asked.

“Not necessarily. Family stories and legends are usually skewed along the way. It’s like playing telephone, the original story changes to something totally different when it gets to the end,” Bobby added reasonably.

“Okaaay. So what are your intentions?” Brian asked as his gaze bored a hole through Justin and Bobby, Edna's Treasures latest co-conspirators.

“We intend to find as many descendants as we can and with your permission,” Justin said softly as he looked up at Brian and John, “we’ll formally have the papers drawn up so that the land can be given to current tenants.”

“That may not be so easy,” John said.

“We know,” Bobby began. “But we’ll make every effort to make sure no one will lose a home. And who knows, maybe it’ll help someone.”

“How do you mean?” Brian asked, his curiosity peaked.

“Well, what if you were living on a plot of land in a modest home all your life, having inherited that house and land from your parents and their parents? You now want to retire to a warmer climate. What would a reasonable person do?”

“Sell up, take the money and move to Key West,” Brian said with a smirk.

“Right. However, you’d have a problem when the realtor or the county tried to track down the original deed to the place and found it no longer existed, or that the land was never officially yours to begin with,” Bobby further explained.

“So you’re going to right a wrong, then?” John asked.

“If that’s where this leads to, then yes,” Justin answered.

“And if the land is now the city dump? Or an old abandoned mine?” Brian snapped back.

“Then as Kinney descendants and the rightful heirs, we’ll clean it up,” John replied.

“What do you get out of this, Sunshine?” Brian asked as he swung Justin around to look into his deep blue eyes.

“I’m not really sure,” Justin said honestly. “I only know that I have to play this out until the end,” he added as he placed his hands on Brian’s arms.

Brian searched his lover’s eyes for a moment then nodded his consent.
 

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