“What Logan? You can tell me.”

“I called him a fag. I’m a bully.” Fresh sobs.

Jack went from the crouch to sitting cross-legged in front of his broken nephew. “Why are you crying?” he asked.

Logan looked up at him. “I’m scared.”

“Of what?”

“I… I… d-don’t know,” he hiccupped.

“I think I know,” Jack said. He decided that shocking Logan out of this crying the best way to handle things. “How about this: you deliberately hurt that boy and now you’re worried that you’ll be found out and you’re scared of getting in trouble? How about: you were a selfish kid who is thinking of himself?” Jack kept his tone even.

Logan’s eyes widened. “No,” he blurted. “I didn’t deliberately—Uncle Jack, you have to believe me…. I keep thinking about Cory’s face. He started to cry and he walked away, and I stood there though everyone was laughing. It wasn’t that, I have new classes, new friends, and I ditched Cory. I wanted to be with these new guys, and I didn’t fit in. They wanted me to prove myself, and I don’t know why I did it.”

Peer pressure, the need to be accepted; Jack could get behind that. “Okay, I get that.” He paused as he considered what was the best thing to say. “What would you do differently if you had the time again?”

“Go after him, apologize, hold his hand and make it right. I would tell him he’s my friend and that I was so sorry.”

“And why haven’t you? When did this happen?”

“Last week. He’s tried so hard to put up with my shit, but that was the worst I could do. He won’t talk to me at school, won’t answer my texts. He unfriended me on Facebook, blocked me on Twitter.”

Jack didn’t completely understand the whole social network pressure but he identified one missing connection immediately. “Why didn’t you go to his house?” Jack pushed.

“I want to, but I don’t know what to say. I stand outside and I never go up to the door.” Logan stopped and scrubbed his face with his hands. “Please don’t hate me,” he said, miserably.

Jack held out a hand, and Logan took it cautiously. “What you did, what you said, that isn’t the Logan I know, but I won’t ever stop loving you. I will always love you. Never doubt that.”

“I’m sorry.”

Jack squeezed his hand. “It’s not me you need to apologize to.”

Logan started crying again. “I know.”

“How about we get back and drive out to see Cory? Maybe see if he wants to talk?”

Logan gazed hopefully through the tears. “Really? Maybe if I explain, you think he’d listen and not punch me to the ground?”

Jack shook his head. “I don’t know what he’ll do, but let’s get to the core of this and try to fix what’s wrong.”

“Don’t tell my dad yet,” Logan blurted out.

Jack held out a hand to Logan and together they stood up. He wasn’t going down the path of not telling Josh at all, but that wasn’t what Logan was saying. Don’t tell my dad, yet. Seemed to Jack that Logan wanted help to fix this.

“We’ll tell him after.”

The car ride was quiet at first. Questions filled Jack’s head. Was Logan gay? Did Jack need to be doing something else about talking about how he’d felt at Logan’s age? Also, why did a normal, happy kid like Logan all of a sudden get in with the wrong crowd? Ask anyone who knew him, Logan wasn’t the kid who bullied others. He was smart, quiet, and he loved everyone. Part of Jack wished he had Riley with him, but this was something he and Logan had to do together.

“I’m not gay, Uncle Jack,” Logan said softly. “Not only gay anyway. I don’t know what I am.”

“It doesn’t matter if you are gay or bi, you know.”

“No, I know. I like girls and boys. I mean, I really like Cory, and maybe…. I don’t know, I….”

“It’s okay, Logan. You don’t have to define who you are at your age.”

Riley had enjoyed both sexes but had defined himself as straight, until Jack landed in his life, of course. He’d spent way more time with women. Jack stopped himself from suggesting that Logan talk to Riley. One thing at a time.

“Love is love,” Jack said instead.

“I know.”

“Let’s try and fix this, right?”

They arrived at a sprawling white house in a street of similar homes. Logan unbuckled himself but didn’t leave the car. Jack took his belt off, but Logan held out a hand to stop him.

“I need to do this myself.”

“Okay, I’ll be here.”

Logan settled his breathing, then, with one final look of despair at Jack, he left the car. Someone answered the door pretty quickly, and Logan went inside. Jack was giving this thirty minutes, then he was going to see what he could do in mediation.

He didn’t need it. The two boys came out of the house, walking together, not laughing or smiling, but walking close, like friends might do.

Logan opened the front door. “Uncle Jack, can Cory stay at the ranch with me this weekend?”

Cory held back. “Logan, I said no.”

“If that’s what Cory wants,” Jack said with as much diplomacy as he could manage.

“I’m okay, Mr. Campbell-Hayes. Maybe another weekend.”

Logan looked at his friend, disappointed. “Cory?”

Cory reached out and squeezed Logan’s hand. “I’ll text you, okay?”

“Promise?”

Cory pulled Logan into a hug, then stepped back and pulled out his cell. He typed something so fast his fingers were a blur on the tiny keys. A chime indicated Logan had received a text.

Logan looked at his screen and grinned. Then he hugged Cory and climbed into the car.

Logan looked at him sideways, and Jack telegraphed a message with a raised eyebrow. Is everything okay?

Logan nodded, then bit his lower lip. Jack knew what Logan wanted to say.

I hope so.

Only when they were at the end of the street and on their way back toward the D, did Jack ask the one burning question. “What did he text?”

“That he may be gay, but don’t expect him to help me sort out my shitty clothes choices.” At that Logan looked down at his worn jeans and flannel shirt. “Don’t know what he means,” he said.

Jack chuckled and glanced down at the adult version of what Logan wore. “Me neither.”

Logan settled back in his seat. “Thanks, Uncle Jack. Can I ask you something?”

“What?”

“Can I do some paid work with the horses, maybe in the holidays? After I’ve worked off being grounded, that is.”

“Of course, the offer is always open.”

“I want to save up enough to replace Sarah’s bike.”

Jack was proud of his nephew. He wasn’t sure what Josh would make of what Logan had done, or Riley come to think of it, but Jack was determined that Logan would face all his monsters and come out a winner.

It was what uncles did best.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Riley glanced at the screen of his cell. He’d not long left yet another frustrating meeting with the CH investors. Riley was disappointed because they wouldn’t simply sign off on the new field, and he had the headache from hell. He’d stayed up way too late poring over reports for today’s meeting and was paying the price. He half considered not answering the call when he saw it was Lisa. Maybe just ignore his sister-in-law’s call so that he could get out of the building and into his car, but he didn’t. Family always came first.

They exchanged pleasantries in that formal way they’d fallen into recently. Lisa and her fiancé Ed lived in San Antonio; she and the kids had moved there a year earlier. Somehow since then they’d moved apart, and Riley felt like all he did was remind Lisa of a life she’d rather forget.

The point of the call was that she and Ed were in town, and could they visit this evening for an hour or so? With times agreed, they ended the call, and Riley made it to his car. He sank into the cold leather seats and let out a sigh of trapped tension. He knew damn well the investors would back his choices in the end, but they made every step of it so damn hard.