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  “Courageous Love”

  An MM Gay Romance

  Jerry Cole

  © 2020

  Jerry Cole

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This book is intended for Adults (ages 18+) only. The contents may be offensive to some readers. It may contain graphic language, explicit sexual content, and adult situations. May contain scenes of unprotected sex. Please do not read this book if you are offended by content as mentioned above or if you are under the age of 18.

  Please educate yourself on safe sex practices before making potentially life-changing decisions about sex in real life. If you’re not sure where to start, see here: http://www.jerrycoleauthor.com/safe-sex-resources/.

  This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner & are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Products or brand names mentioned are trademarks of their respective holders or companies. The cover uses licensed images & are shown for illustrative purposes only. Any person(s) that may be depicted on the cover are simply models.

  Edition v1.00 (2020.08.19)

  http://www.jerrycoleauthor.com

  Special thanks to the following volunteer readers who helped with proofreading: Big Kidd, RB, Jennie O., and those who assisted but wished to be anonymous. Thank you so much for your support.

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  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  I admired the way the newly fitted suit shined on me in the trifold mirror, as my family’s secretary chewed me out for the hundredth time that week.

  “Are you even listening to me Adam?” Ms. Stacy asked while shoving her tablet forward for me to look at for the fourth time. I glanced at it and saw it was some email with the symbol of my family’s business on the top, but I really couldn’t care less about whatever family business nonsense she was dealing with.

  “Sure I am Stacy.” The suit was black with winding gold fabric that swirled around me. The gold contrasted nicely with my dark brown skin and brought out the gold in my golden-brown eyes.

  I could see her eye roll in the corner of the mirror. She was dressed sharply in a black suit jacket and skirt and a prim white shirt. Her dark black hair was tied up in a neat bun and her pale skin and ruby red lips could make anyone think she was a model and not an administrative assistant. Although, I knew no other job would suit her quite so well with her attention to detail and ability to find me no matter what corner of the city I had crawled and disappeared to as often as I did.

  “Then tell me what I just told you.” She narrowed her eyes at me.

  “Fine, it was something about the business. I stopped listening after that. Every time I’m dragged to one of these ‘family meetings’ it’s for show. I’m the youngest Stacy. I’m never going to have to worry about managing anything.” I pressed down my high top and contemplated what earrings I’d wear with this suit at the party later that week.

  “This isn’t a normal ‘family meeting’, Adam,” she said harshly while exaggerating her air quotes. “I’ve been trying to tell you that something is off about it.” She suddenly sounded genuinely concerned for me.

  I sighed and stepped off of the platform and away from the mirrors. “I’ll take it seriously this time.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t go; Rosidae sent this email...” her voice trailed off as she scrolled through the email again.

  “Make up your mind.” I crossed my arms. “What are my dear siblings planning this time?”

  “It’s just that, well, they insisted that you come home for the meeting today. Usually they don’t care.”

  That was strange. My two older twin siblings Rosidae and Isaac were planning to inherit my family’s pharmaceutical business and had been preparing for it all their life. They never really wanted me to come along and threaten that inheritance, even when I was a baby, but I didn’t plan to anyway. But our parents liked to get me involved just in case I changed my mind. The twins were worried someday I was going to ask for one third of the business and then run it into the ground. It was like they didn’t even know me; who wanted that kind of responsibility?

  “I’m sure they just want to look good for dear Mom and Dad by showing them how much they love including me.” I smiled at her as the sarcasm dripped thick as honey through my words.

  She frowned at my smile. “So are you going to go?”

  “I guess,” I sighed with extra dramatics. “If I don’t, they’ll just end up blaming you for not bringing me.”

  “Your siblings are wrathful.” Stacy shuddered slightly. It was a good thing my parents liked Stacy so much or else my siblings would have fired her years ago since she refused to put up with their scheming. When the terror twins took over the company, I hoped she found a job she deserved.

  “You shouldn’t let them treat you that way,” I said, not the first time I encouraged her to quit.

  I headed out of the tailor’s shop with my brand-new suit and Stacy following behind. I thought I heard her mutter, “Neither should you.”

  ***

  My family’s mansion was a large sprawling Victorian styled manor. The paneling was white and the shingles and detailing were black. I honestly thought it was boring for most of my childhood. The whole drive over Stacy was tapping away on the tablet I had never seen out of her hands the whole time she worked for my family. She had a look of concentration on her face. I wondered if she was trying to figure out what the meeting was about but honestly it was probably only another talk about how good this past quarter had been or something equally as trivial.

  The inside of the mansion was as toned down as the outside. The only decorations were simple marble statues custom made by one of my father’s friends. The floors were a contrasting black speckled marble and the ceilings were high and often decorated with hanging plants that my mother bought and took care of despite the fact she didn’t have a green thumb and constantly had to get dying plants r
eplaced.

  We always had family meetings in the sunroom even when we were kids and they were more about brushing our teeth not stocks. It had three large glass windows that basically took up most of the walls in the room. From there you could see the expertly maintained garden that I had never stepped a foot into my entire life. It did look lovely, at least from that angle.

  When I stepped into the room filled with wicker chairs and murals of roses on the walls, I noticed, sitting in the very center of the coffee table, a suitcase. My gold painted suitcase.

  My siblings had very schooled, concerned looks on their face while my parents sat next to each other holding each other’s hands. Had someone died?

  “Afternoon?” I said as I eased down into the last chair. It looked like they had set it up so I would be on one side of the table and them the other. It made me feel like I was in trouble.

  Stacy stood behind me and I couldn’t even glance back at her for support.

  Rosidae and Isaac were not identical twins but that hardly mattered. They both had the same sharp brown eyes, the same high cheekbones I would have killed for, and had very similar matching black outfits like they were going to a funeral after this. The only difference between the two was Rosidae’s long smooth hair and Isaac’s short cropped hair.

  “Adam,” my father began in his shaky but deep voice. “You know that we love you very much.”

  I felt a nervous giggle build up my esophagus and choke me. “Yeah Dad?”

  “And we’ve been very accepting of your lifestyle, your, your parties?” My mom said the word party like it was a new drug she found out I was taking.

  “What’s all this about?” My legs itched for me to get up and run. I stayed, but my leg bounced. I felt trapped and I knew whatever this was they weren’t going to let me run away from it.

  “It’s our fault really,” my mom said wiping at her eyes. “We should have taught you responsibility at a much younger age.”

  “I am responsible!” My voice squeaked slightly with indignation.

  “Adam,” my father said firmly. “Rosie and Isaac told us about how worried they are about you, and we had to agree.”

  I glanced at them and saw the glee in their eyes while their expression stayed serious. This wasn’t like their normal schemes and I could see how triumphant they felt.

  “We should have made more time to talk to you. Maybe we would have noticed. You are always going to parties, spending money, and when you aren’t doing that, you are just at home.” My mom played with her hair, clearly more upset but trying to hold it back in front of all of us.

  She wasn’t wrong exactly, but it wasn’t like any of that was dangerous. I finished school. I had no more responsibilities to worry about and my allowance was more than enough to cover my spending habits. “What’s the problem?” I asked earnestly.

  “Your siblings let us know that you really have no plans to change your mind on joining in a business partnership.” My father looked me in the eye.

  “Yes?” I had made that clear to everyone, multiple times.

  “So? What are you going to do when we retire and they take over?” My mom asked.

  I was silent. They wouldn’t like my answer. I looked up at them all sheepishly. “What I’m doing now?”

  My parents shook their heads. My dad stood up and picked my suitcase off of the coffee table and put it in my lap. “We need to know you can survive out there without us.”

  “What do you mean?” The suitcase felt like it was already filled.

  “We’re giving you a chance to prove you can make it out in the real world.” My father grinned slightly. “I think, in time, you’ll thank us.”

  I glanced back at Rosidae and Isaac, they weren’t even hiding their grins now. It seemed like they had finally found a way to get rid of me. But what exactly did my dad mean? Where on earth was he sending me?

  Chapter Two

  This is ridiculous,” I muttered as I strained my eyes out of the tinted windows of the family car. We had been driving for hours to my new prison.

  “I know how you feel,” Stacy said next to me, her expression hardened. “They really did it this time.”

  My dad didn’t let me even check through the trunk before he called his car to take me to “my new home”. And at the same moment he let Stacy know that she was going to accompany me there and stay in order to keep an eye on me. I had a feeling that was one of the twin’s ideas. They’d always wanted me and Stacy out of the picture and I bet they were banking on me to fail this little test so it would be a bit more permanent.

  “Do they want me to starve?” I asked the car and received no answer. They were cutting me off. No money, no anything.

  “There’s enough food for a week or two so you can find your footing,” my dad had said as he took away every credit card he’d given me and pocketed my phone.

  “I know you can find a job,” my mother said as she gave me a hug. I couldn’t raise my arms to hug her back. “You are a smart man.”

  “We’ll write to you little brother,” Rosidae said with a fake smile.

  “I bet you’ll end up enjoying it, little brother” Isaac added.

  They never called me “little brother” except in front of our parents. They usually called me “the accident.”

  I tapped my head against the cool car window and sighed. Maybe I was a little more irresponsible than my siblings but I didn’t deserve this either. It felt like I was being cast out. My father kept repeating that this wasn’t a punishment, that it was a test. But I didn’t know how he could see it that way. I was twenty-five, I could decide to leave and not go through with all this, but they were cutting me off either way. My only other option was to live in the city without any support and no money. In complying, at least there was a place I was promised to have; a house my grandparents bought years ago in a quaint little town they found on their way to a business trip. They apparently vacationed there all the time but I had never heard of the place.

  I sat up once I realized we were in civilization again. So far, we had been passing rows and rows of cornfields, but now I could see buildings. Not many buildings, but buildings. We turned into what must have been main street for the little town and passed shops with antique signs and I could feel the car stumble under us with the uneven pavement. I saw all the signs that said: Ravenwood. I guess that was the name of our new home. A few people walking around the shops watched the car pass with fascination. Maybe they’d never seen a car like this before? The car slowly started to go up a rather steep hill, so steep I thought the car might start to slide backwards.

  Eventually we made it and I wasted no time getting out of the car with my luggage, finally free from being practically forced into it for hours. I looked around and saw where I would be spending the foreseeable future. The white paneling, the black detailing… I slowly came to the realization that this house on the hill was a smaller version of the mansion I’d grown up in my whole life. My grandparents must have liked this place so much they spent millions on duplicating it for our manor.

  I turned around and looked back at the town. I could see nearly all of it from the driveway. The town couldn’t have more than ten streets and it was surrounded on all sides by a green forest of corn. It was the kind of town you’d find in horror movies. I turned again and walked closer to the house before stopping in place.

  I hadn’t seen what was behind the house yet.

  “Are you stuck? Why aren’t you moving?” I heard Stacy ask as she hauled her own luggage next to me. “Oh.” She must have just noticed it too.

  On the other side of the hill was a sprawling landscape dotted with thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of headstones.

  “They’ve sent us to hell,” I said, feeling almost faint.

  “What did your grandparents see in a place with a view like this?” Stacy said with clear disbelief in her tone. “Who would want to live next to a cemetery?”

  The car rumbled to life again and I swung ar
ound, my one suitcase clutched to my chest. The car turned around and made its slow descent away leaving Stacy and I with nowhere on one side and death on the other.

  “Come on Adam,” Stacy said, finding some determination out of nowhere. I had no idea how she could manage it. “Let’s get settled. Then we can get to work on getting out of here.”

  I followed her as she marched inside, my eyes never leaving the sprawling cemetery below us until I was in the door.

  ***

  I claimed a bedroom on the second floor of the house. It had two octagon windows with perfect views to the graveyard which I promptly pulled the shades over without hesitation. The house was furnished at the very least with sheets on the beds and only a thin layer of dust. Someone had been taking care of this place for my family and it wasn’t as decrepit as I was expecting. They could have sent me to a one room shack and I’d be forced to live there. I guess I had to be grateful for something.

  After looking around the room I finally confronted what I had been dreading. I opened up the suitcase and started pulling out what they’d packed for me. My siblings both had good style, it was one of the only things we could bond over without it becoming a passive aggressive fight. But if they picked my clothes, they would purposefully give me ugly things. Lucky for me, again, it seemed like this was my father’s handiwork as it was all folded kind of off in the way my mom liked to poke fun at my dad for. He seemed to pick outfits he’d seen me wear before. It wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t awful. But it also didn’t give me a whole lot of options. I sighed. I would have to get a job if I wanted anything else to wear. I hoped the graveyard wasn’t the only place hiring.

  After hanging up my clothes I decided to explore the house. I found Stacy in her own room down the hall setting up the internet connection for her tablet. I missed my phone already.