AllFreeNovel
Share Us
In a consensual way. Of course.
I hadn’t heard from him, though, and I was starting to doubt that I would. Barry was confident I just needed to give him time, but he was also anxious for Minty to kneel for me sooner rather than later. Every day the kid stayed away was a day Barry worried for his life.
I worried some too, even though I barely knew him. There’d been that undeniable fire in his eyes, followed by such angry submission when I pushed him against the door of my office. He was more than just a twink with a hard-on for pain. He was a mess.
I loved messes. And I especially loved cleaning them up.
The rain patter on my car’s roof halted when I pulled in beneath the carport. The night was chilly, and I could smell a hint of wood smoke from a neighbor’s fire. Autumn would fade into winter soon enough, with its gray, cloud-heavy skies, and this rain was just the start of it.
Inside, I hung up my coat and toed off my sneakers. Carrying the bag of food into the kitchen, I stored Betsy’s meals in the fridge for tomorrow. Bets loved Mom’s spaghetti, and I looked forward to seeing her smile when she realized what I’d brought.
I couldn’t shake the lingering tension from the final interaction with my dad. It was like talking to a monster wearing a beloved face. Heartbreaking. I had no idea how Mom handled it day in and day out. And, God, the stuff he’d said to Bets before she’d moved to the facility…
Cruel things.
Betsy had laughed them off. Somehow, she’d taken his personality change post-stroke better than any of us. “He’s not our father,” she’d say to me with that small impediment that marked her speech. “He’s someone else now, and he’s mean.”
Simple.
But Mom told me that Betsy had cried a lot at first, saying she missed her daddy. It was just for me that she played brave, Mom claimed. Even though I was the older brother, and I should have been the brave one for her instead.
I’d barely settled in on my sofa with a bag of chips, determined to get my mind off things by flipping through cable TV channels until I found something compelling enough to make me stop, when a knock came at my front door.
It was a quiet but firm sound. I wasn’t expecting anyone, and I almost ignored it, but it came a second and third time, so I peeled myself from the green sectional and passed through the hallway to pull open the front door.
The night had settled in dark and hard, and so had the rain. It came down in buckets and rushed down the street. The front porch light was pale, almost as pale as the soaking wet boy in front of me.
Blond hair slicked against Minty’s forehead, glistening wet in the low light. His blue eyes were shadowed to obscurity beneath the hood of his jacket. Minty looked like a scared, half-drowned kitten. He opened his jacket, pulled out a sheaf of papers, and shoved it at me. The contract.
My blood rushed. I licked my lips before speaking. “This is unexpected.” I made a show of glancing at my watch. “It’s nearly eleven at night.”
“You’re awake,” he stated.
“You could have called first.” I ticked a brow up. “Manners, and all that.”
“Your address is on the letterhead,” he said, shaking the contracts and what looked like his STD results at me. “I didn’t want to wait, and I didn’t want to call. I’m ready. Now.” He sucked in a breath. “When can we start? Tonight?”
I stared at him, noting the way he trembled all over. He had a manic gleam in his eye. He wore loose jeans and a sheer, lavender, women’s blouse beneath a soaked jean jacket with a built-in sweatshirt hoodie. My gaze lingered on the livid marks on his neck.
“Come in,” I said, guiding him into the hallway. “Put your shoes there.”
He did, shaking so hard he almost fell over as he toed them off, foot-to-foot.
“Jacket,” I reached out my hand for it. He handed it over. I hung it on the rack beside my own coat. “This way.”
He followed me without question deeper into the house. I led him to the kitchen, sat him at the table, ignored his confused expression, and turned to put a kettle on the stove. Somehow the moment seemed to call for tea, but I didn’t keep any in the house. I did have some discount decaf instant coffee, and it would have to do.
While Minty sat in impatient, shivering silence, I made us both mugs.
“Well?” he asked, as I took the seat across from him at my round wooden table. “Can you hurt me tonight?”
I sipped my coffee and gestured for him to do the same.
With an annoyed grimace, Minty took a swallow. “This is gross. Worse than the stuff at my mom’s diner.”
“Yeah, it’s crap.” I sipped some more. “Drink up.”
Narrowing his eyes at me, Minty took another taste, and then another. The shaking in his body slowly calmed, but I could still see his pulse thundering beneath his bruised throat.
