“Did she die on the stairs or something?”
“No, she had cancer. She was sick a long time, but I barely have any memories of her. It’s been me and my grandmother in most of my memories. She took us in when my mother got ill, and I stayed with her.”
“She sounds awesome.”
“Oh, she is.” Wiley automatically perked up when he talked about his grandmother. That crazy lady was the center of his happiness and his entire definition of home. “She’s small and full of energy. She runs with this group of close friends and gets into all kinds of trouble with them. You’d love her.”
“I’d like to meet her someday.”
Wiley smiled at the thought of Baer meeting his grandmother. “She’d be nuts about you. When I came out to her, all she said was, ‘About time you told me what I already knew.’ She didn’t even blink, but she does try to set me up with every gay man she meets.” He rubbed his hands on his jeans. “I need to call her and check in. She’s used to me going off in my head and not calling for long periods of time, but this has been the longest.”
“She’s the one who figured out you were dealing with…” Baer trailed off and shot Wiley a look.
“OCD?” He nodded. “I had a fit one time when we were grocery shopping, and she went through the store out of order. I know how that sounds, but my brain didn’t give a shit about logic. It just said that she was supposed to go down each aisle in order, or something bad would happen. I had other quirks, too. Counted so many things over and over, I got behind in school. I had to check my answers several times. I got so frustrated, I started acting out. Got into trouble a lot. But my grandmother couldn’t have handled it better. She got me in to see someone, and it didn’t take long for them to figure out what I was dealing with. She always handled the problem head on. She had meetings with all my teachers after that.”
“She sounds like the perfect grandmother. I’m glad you had her.”
“Still do. And like I said, she’d love you. My grandfather had red hair, so she’s partial to it.” He started paying attention to where they were and gave Baer directions to the doctor’s office.
Some hidden tension uncoiled in Wiley’s chest when they pulled into the small parking lot of the plain two-story building. He’d been there so many times over the years, it felt like a little home away from home. Oh, he’d had more than his fair share of bad sessions where he walked out feeling like he’d been put through the wringer, but it all worked out in the end. Most of the time, he ended up refreshed and on solid footing, like he could tackle whatever the world threw at him.
Baer parked the Jeep under the heavy boughs of a large maple tree that was flecked with bright orange leaves among the green. The sun was shining in the blue sky, and a soft breeze was gently rattling the leaves. If he looked only at the tree, he could imagine they were in a park, relaxing on a lazy Sunday afternoon.
Wiley glanced at his phone. “We’re about twenty minutes early. Do you want to wait inside in the lobby or stay out here? I’ll be about an hour if you’d like to run an errand instead.”
“I’ll stay here and keep watch. Don’t worry about me.”
“Okay, then.” He opened the door, stepped down, and turned to Baer. “I appreciate you bringing me.”
“Like I said, anything you need.”
“I know we’re trying to stay close to home—” he broke off when he called the plantation home and felt heat creeping up his neck. But that was how it felt. Like home.
“We can’t spend our entire lives there,” Baer said. “Life goes on, and your health is important to me.”
“Well, I appreciate this.” Wiley smiled at him and walked into the building.Baer tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, his mind going over everything Wiley had told him. He struggled to picture Wiley getting into trouble as a kid—the guy was just so sweet.
There was a lot he didn’t know about OCD, but he planned to read up on it, so he could understand Wiley better. Was there something he could be doing to help him more? Would it be better to swap bedrooms with Clay and Dane, so Wiley wasn’t bothered with the stairs a dozen times a day?
But even as the thought occurred to him, he remembered that Wiley’s apartment had been on the second floor. He’d obviously chosen it knowing he’d be faced with the stairs each time he left.
He’d ask Wiley what was best for him. Maybe the doctor wanted him to be regularly faced with stairs to help him.