Just Like This (Albin Academy #2) - Cole McCade Page 0,136
every new piece. That’ll get me to start submitting my work, right?”
In truth, though...
It didn’t matter if another of his pieces ever made it into a gallery in his life.
He still hadn’t figured out what he’d wanted to prove—to his parents, to some nebulous and unnamed judging eye of society—when he’d set out to create work on its own merits, without the influence of his family’s social status.
But he had a new family now, and they gave him a worth that didn’t need anyone’s standard of merit to be valid. And as long as he had that...
He could fill up their home with painting after painting, sculpture after sculpture, things that he made with his own hands.
Just like he’d made this life with his own hands.
His own hands, and Damon’s.
Maybe it wasn’t perfect. Maybe sometimes they had to lower their voices so they wouldn’t bicker in front of the children, when they started one of their little snip-fights that always ended in kisses and torn clothing on the floor and laughter and wondering what they’d gotten so worked up over in the first place. But he knew, now, what the enough he’d been searching for all this time had been.
That he hadn’t wanted more.
He’d just wanted to belong.
He didn’t need perfect.
He just needed right.
He just needed the light in Damon’s eyes, as Damon whispered, “I love you too, Rian.”
Then sank down to claim Rian’s mouth, drowning him in warmth, in sweetness, in passion, in need.
In a love that was all he would ever want.
That told him all he had ever needed...
Was a love, and a life, just like this.
* * *
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Author Note
I was never adopted, yet being of partially Indigenous descent while never having much contact with the two Indigenous nations I can trace from my family tree means...much of Damon’s feelings came from a very personal place. My father’s side of my family used to have papers declaring our enrollment in a particular nation, generations old and missing long before the days when everything was kept in triplicate and recorded digitally. I spent a large portion of my life searching for those papers, seeking out resources, even learning as much as I could of a dying language, only to realize I was searching for a connection I’d never had but desperately longed for; hungry to be part of something, but reluctant to insert myself where I felt I didn’t belong.
Many people in the U.S. of full or partial Indigenous descent end up feeling displaced—assimilated, something in our past or our families’ pasts pulling us away from our roots.
We often feel lost, and like we can never go home to a place that wasn’t ever home to start with.
So we try to build.
And we hold on to what we build with everything we have.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to Deb for being willing to take a chance on me, and being so patient with me through the struggle to get this book completed.
Thank you to my friends—my chosen family, the Fight Club—for picking me up on days when I felt like it would never end.
And thank you to my porcupine gromp for those late nights sitting quietly on the phone just to keep me company while I wrote frantically...and just for being you. <3
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The Secret Ingredient
by KD Fisher
Chapter One
Adah
All my life I’ve been running. Running through the woods so fast I thought I could leave myself clean behind. Running from the reverend anytime he got that mean look in his eyes. Running to get free.
Now I’m setting down roots. Roots that will grow stronger and deeper with time. Roots that no storm can wash away.
I glanced around the apartment. Our new home. Sunlight bouncing off the yellow walls and settling down on the black and white checked floors. Sloped, slightly uneven ceiling in the living room. Exposed brick wall behind the couch. Windows thrown wide