In the Rough by J.B. McDonald
I remember with pleasure By Degrees, the previous romance by J.B. McDonald, and In the Rough is almost a sequel. Rick and Jay, the two men of this new story, were also in the previous book; Rick is Tim’s older “big brother”, the reference figure social services assigned to Tim when he was a troubled teenager. But Rick is not the perfect man that usually is assigned to this task; he himself was a runaway kid, escaping and abusive father when he was only 13 years old. Rick was only lucky to find Jay before any other potential danger found him, and Jay took him under his wing. Jay who at 16 years old was barely old enough to look after himself, who was already and hustler and a drug addicted, Jay tried to save Rick from all of it, since he was unable to save himself. And Rick obviously falls in love for Jay.
Now 20 years later, Rick is still in love with Jay, but he is also angry. Oh yes, to the reader Rick could seem the perfect balanced man, the mainstay for the unbalanced Jay, but for me Rick is only a very upset man; for almost 20 years he has waited for Jay to change, for finally stop behaving like a teenager and take in hand his life. After that, obviously, Jay would finally realize that Rick is the perfect man the readers already see, and he would fall in love back for him… yes, Rick is always supporting of Jay, he is always ready to help him, even now that he is trying to obtain his daughter’s custody, and he is always willing when Jay is in the mood for some buddy-sex without strings attached, but deep inside Rick is always hoping for more, he is always trying to change Jay, to fit him to the image of the perfect partner that he wants, someone completely different from his own father.
And instead Jay is avoiding all of it, he is avoiding having a serious relationship, he is avoiding having a family, he is avoiding settling down… he is trying to be as far as possible from how his father was. But when his daughter needs him, then Jay understands that it’s time to change his life, and even if not consciously, he is slowly arriving to the conclusion that, since Rick was always there for him, since he loves him and Rick loves him back, then why they couldn’t be a family? What I was probably expecting was that sooner or later one of them arrived to the logical conclusion that being together, and living together, would have solved their entire problem. Since Rick loves Jay, for me it was obvious that he should offer to Jay his heart and his home; since Jay loves Rick, for me it was obvious that he should accept Rick’s help for the well-being of his daughter… but what it was obvious for me, it wasn’t for them.
Sometime I had the feeling that Rick was willing to help Jay, but only so far; he was risking a lot, but not all of him, I had the impression that, in the end, he was not willing to risk his heart. It’s not that Rick is not a good man, it’s probably that he has some hung ups from his past that he has never realized to have: he can’t fully help Jay, risking his heart, since he himself needs to be comfortable with his own trouble. For all the novel, all the people around focused on Jay, and on making him change, to be a better man and a good father, but no one, if not sometime Tim, had the courage to bring aside Rick and tell him to grow. When they were young, Rick thought Jay to be the world; when they got older, Rick thought he overgrown Jay, and now Rick thinks to be better than him since he has a job and a place to stay. In the end, I think that instead Rick has never overgrown his best friend, and Jay still is the older and bigger of the two, who is still taking care of all the people he loves, while at the same time trying to destroy himself due to some bad placed guilty sense.
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Amazon: In the Rough
Amazon Kindle: In the Rough
Series:
1) By Degrees: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/584822.html
2) In the Rough
Reading List:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle