2. Prescription For Love

In the three years she’d been at the Rivers and the hundreds of hours she and Flann had spent together, Glenn never talked about her past, gave almost nothing away about her present life. If she dated, she didn’t talk about it. She’d never commented on a woman. Ever. Her casual remark about Abby wouldn’t have meant anything coming from anyone else, but from Glenn, it meant she’d noticed.

Flann didn’t like that for some reason. The surge of possessiveness made no sense and irritated her even more. So what if Glenn noticed Abby was a fascinating woman in a very attractive package? Okay, not just very attractive, absolutely smoking hot. Glenn wouldn’t be the only one to notice. Not that Flann should care. And who was to say Abby cared either? She seemed to be all business all the time, except where Blake was concerned. Then she was a mama bear—a lot like her own mother. Abby hadn’t given off any available vibes, at least not in Flann’s direction. Quite the opposite.

“Hell, she might not even have an interest.”

“Come again?” Harper said. “I missed something.”

Flann muttered, “Nothing. Forget it.”

“What’s bugging you?”

“Abby’s got a kid. Maybe she’s straight.”

“I’m still not following,” Harper said, eyeing Flann curiously. “Maybe she is, or maybe she’s bi.

Does it matter?”

“Nope. It doesn’t.” Flann didn’t make a habit of lying to her sister, or to herself. She really couldn’t explain why she just had.

CHAPTER NINE

“Hey,” Margie said with a big grin as she climbed into the extended cab of Harper’s pickup. “I didn’t know you were going to be here.”

Blake squeezed over as far as he could on the rear seat to give her room. Almost half of it was piled with medical equipment and supplies in plastic crates along with a big locked metal box that looked like it was bolted to the floor. He kind of felt like he was in a traveling ER van and couldn’t imagine doing anything like this back home. In his old home, he reminded himself. He smiled, hoping Margie’s smile meant she was glad to see him. “My mom and I were at Presley’s, and I ended up helping build the coop.”

“How’s it look?”

“Awesome. It’s really big. Flann says there’ll be plenty of room for them all.”

“I don’t know how Rooster’s gonna feel sleeping in a coop. Usually he sleeps in a tree,” Margie said. “But it’s not safe.”

Blake pictured the limping rooster alone in the dark and got a tight feeling in his middle. “I guess it’s good he’s got the coop, then.”

Flann said from the front seat, “He’s going to be a lot happier about the chickens than he is about not liking the coop.”

“Yeah, he’ll be busy soon enough.” Margie laughed. “How many are we getting?”

“I figured six would be enough,” Harper said, turning in to Tractor Supply. “Depends on what they’ve got left in straight runs.”

“That means all females,” Margie said at Blake’s questioning look. “Mostly you take your chances on the sex because it’s really, really hard to tell the sex of baby chicks. They all look alike at hatch.”

“Uh-huh,” Blake said, trying to sound knowledgeable when he had no idea what everyone was talking about. Until last year, he’d had a circle of friends whose experiences were pretty much the same as his, even though he’d never quite related to some of their interests and never known why. They’d shared books and music and movies and school stuff, and that was enough. Flann and Harper were older, though, and he hadn’t spent a lot of time with his mom’s friends before this. She didn’t have a lot of time to do much of anything except work. He couldn’t actually remember her socializing with people at work. He didn’t blame her. He knew what time she got up in the morning and when she got home from work. And when she wasn’t at the hospital, she spent as much time as she could with him. He saw her a lot more than some kids saw their parents, even with her crazy schedule.

This was all different, though. Flann and Harper and Margie included him as if they’d known him for a long time. They acted regular around him, not studying him with questioning eyes. At least not very much.

He’d expected the stares and the questions and the comments. He’d watched dozens, probably hundreds of videos on YouTube of trans kids talking about their experiences of coming out, or not. Some were good and others bad, and he knew, or thought he’d known, what he’d be facing. Knowing didn’t make it any less scary, but at least he could practice being prepared. He’d practiced a lot before he’d talked to his mom. That was the hardest, but the most important, even more important than telling Andy and April and Jill.