Page 26 of Teddy Tea Time

“If I could be supplied with baked goods like these cookies, I would work here in a heartbeat,” I joke, but the two of them don’t laugh. Instead, they seem to be having a silent conversation with their eyes. It’s humorous to watch their expressions shift while still being annoying that I am left out.

“What exactly do you do for a living?” the receptionist finally breaks away from their apparent telepathy to ask me.

“Right now? Nothing.” I take a bite of another cookie to bring my mood back up from the fucking basement my employment situation sent it to. Cas motions for me to continue when the silence starts to drag on.

“I was working for a title insurance company before they shut down a few months back. Before that, I was an office administrator for a geological survey company. I’ve also done temp office jobs for accountants, scrap yards, lawyers, and even a screen printing company. But that was before I decided to stop hiding all of this.” At the last part, I waved my hand over my whole body.

“Before my last job, I was always masc presenting at work, but being able to work from home allowed me to be the fluid being that I truly am, so I am not willing to go back into hiding just for a paycheck… at least, not until I have no other choice.”

Cas leans in and puts a hand on my shoulder to turn me to face him. “What if you didn’t have to? Do you know anything about invoicing work orders and making travel arrangements?”

23

JACE

The talk with Gerry the other day was long overdue based on the way he has changed since then. I feel dumb as fuck for having not noticed it earlier. By spending my days at the workshop and nights at the bartending jobs, I was essentially giving him the impression that those things are more important than him. My focus was so heavily on making me a good caretaker on paper that I forgot to make sure he was good with everything.

Of course, it doesn’t help that the people pleasing seems to be a genetic trait passed down from our father because the little shit would have never said a word had I not caught him wiping his eyes while sitting on Ash’s lap.

The signs were there all along. I just didn’t see them. He was too well-behaved. All of his mischief was so minor, too. There hasn’t been a single boundary he has questioned or pushed. Kids are supposed to question their limitations, right? Gerry should have been pushing back, trying to find his own control in his life that has spiraled so far in such a short time.

I should have seen it. My years in the system taught me all of the same coping strategies. Good kids don’t get sent back. You want to stay in the good homes, so you swallow the pain and fear. No one wants to deal with a problem kid. That’s what I told myself. That’s what thousands of kids in the system tell themselves every single day just to survive.

Thinking about the conversation with Gerry again prompts me to call Bradley. Nothing in Gerry’s background should have put that fear into him. A fear of me dying? Sure. But nothing should be giving him this fear of abandonment.

“Bradley Sommers.”

The man sounds like he needs a vacation yesterday, but I need to know exactly what my little brother was exposed to before he came home.

“Hey Brad, it’s Jace. You got a minute to look something up in Gerry’s file for me?”

The noise in the background ramps up to include a screaming woman, a baby crying, and breaking glass before he can respond. A few moments later, it’s quieter. He is obviously not at the office.

“What do you need to know?” he asks after I hear the sound of a car door closing. “I was actually on my way to your workshop to check in with you to make sure you have everything needed for Gerald’s school transfer.”

Considering I took care of that last week and emailed the confirmation to him, I have to wonder what the hell he is talking about.

“Sure. I’ll see you in a few, then.”

When he hangs up, I start puttering around with some scrap metal left over from a project I participated in for a kink club in Baltimore. Brass isn’t my favorite metal to work with, but it got the right look they wanted for their slave auction event. I would have preferred to work with bronze or even iron for the restraints, but the client liked the way the brass looked under the lights better. Considering they were all just for show and not actually meant to restrain anyone for real, aesthetics were more important than function.

After shaping one piece of the scrap into a flat ring, I have the brilliant idea to turn one of the larger bits into a wrist cuff. A lot of the people I know who are into a power exchange dynamic want custom collars that don’t scream BDSM to the outside world. A matching ring and cuff could absolutely work as a symbol of ownership.

Brad rings the bell in the back of the building while I am in the middle of sketching possible designs for the acid etching for the pieces. My stomach growls audibly when I notice he grabbed lunch on the way. He hands over the large pizzas after I lock up again once he’s inside.

“Junk food therapy is absolutely a thing, right?”

He looks worse than I thought he would. His left cheek is that sickly yellow color of a fading bruise and the bandage above his right temple reminds me of when Jackson needed stitches after tripping over the lift at the shop he worked at before Steve’s dad hired him.

“You okay?”

He obviously isn’t, but I know he won’t admit it on his own. And I’m right. He says he’s fine. At least he isn’t trying to say he fell. If I had to guess, he got sucker punched and cracked the other side of his head open when he went down. While I am angry that someone did this to him, all I can think of is how I would react if someone hit Ash. Scorched earth would be an understatement.

“I brought Gerald’s file with me if you want to look through it while we eat,” Brad says and pulls a slim folder out of his backpack. “The boring stuff is all digital, but I printed out what seemed relevant. Plus, I hate relying on computers that anyone can access, especially when things are slipping through the cracks at the office.”

I know he is talking about Ash’s background check, but it also feels like there is more going on than what he has already told me.

Instead of questioning him, I leave him to his pepperoni and start flipping through the file. The first few pages are the printouts of Gerry’s basic information. Nothing in those pages should be reason for alarm. The next page is the medical report from the check-up required by social services. I took him to that doctor’s appointment during one of my trips up to visit after the accident. Nothing is surprising there. The next page is a report from the social worker who picked him up from the babysitter on the night of David’s accident.