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His gaze landed on Noel, and his lips curled savagely. “Where did…?” he began, and his eyes widened. “You?” He pointed at Noel. “I know you.” He turned on David in an instant. “You get that man out of this house right now. I knew it. You brought home that stripper last night.” He actually bared his teeth, a bit of spittle flying to the floor. “Just what I need. My son being caught with a… what? Stripper, rent boy… or do they just called them man whores?”
“That’s enough,” David snapped. “Noel is my guest, and I don’t have to explain a damned thing to you. But since you’ve got yourself all worked up, I brought him here because he was hurt and needed help.” David had had enough. “This is my home. It was left to me and not you because your own mother knew just the kind of man you had become. You and Rachel, the damned thief, are no longer welcome here. And as for Noel, he’s a better person than you are, that’s for damned sure.” David saw his father’s phone on the counter and tossed it at him. “Now get out and don’t come back unless you can be civil.”
“Civil?” his father ranted in return. “Civil? You think I should be nice to the whore you brought home? Jesus Christ, David, where is your sense of decorum?”
David’s teeth hurt he ground them so hard. “Get out now. I won’t allow anyone to talk that way in my house.”
“I was born here….”
“Again, your mother left it to me.” He enjoyed pointing that out, because the vein on his father’s forehead throbbed when he did. “Along with everything else. So just go before I have to call the police. And what kind of story would that make? Your own son throwing you out of the house?”
“You wouldn’t dare…,” his father spat with a glare, crossing his arms over his chest.
David took a deep breath and calmed himself down. “That isn’t going to work. Remember, I’m your son, and I can be just as stubborn and just as big a pain in the ass as you can. You taught me well, old man.” He glanced at the door and waited for his father to leave. Then he closed the damned door after his father and locked it. One thing was for fucking sure, he really needed to have the locks changed and fast.
“Do you want any more coffee?” David asked Noel, who looked completely shell-shocked.
He slowly shook his head. “Do you fight like that all the time?”
“No,” David said. “That’s the first time. Usually, I just go along with what he wants because it’s easier.” He finished his coffee and put the mug in the sink. “Do you want to sit and watch TV or something?”
Noel didn’t move. “What? You just had a knock-down, drag-out fight with your dad, and you’re acting like it was a walk in the park. You threw him out of your house, and…. Why would you do that? I mean… yeah, your father is a real douche, but….” He swallowed, and David sighed, sitting next to him.
“My father is selfish, and he doesn’t care about anyone. Certainly not me, and the things he said about you, well. This is my home, and you are a guest in it. He doesn’t get to talk to anyone like that.”
“So this is about me and what he said? Because I don’t care. What your father says doesn’t mean anything to me. He can’t hurt me because I don’t put any value on his opinion. As far as I’m concerned, he might as well be a giant toad.” He shrugged, and David tried to process Noel’s meaning.
“But he called you…,” David began, and then stopped because he couldn’t bring himself to even say the words. “How can you just take that? I want to take him out back to the woodshed.” David paused and then started laughing. Thankfully, Noel did too. “I don’t know where that came from.”
“Too muchLittle House on the Prairiewhen you were a kid?” Noel quipped, which only made David laugh harder.
“God, no.”
Noel slid his mug away. “I don’t want you to turn your back on your family because of me. I don’t have a family, and I wish I did.”
David took his hands, gently rubbing the backs of them. “And I have a father who told me that I shouldn’t have helped you because of the damned optics.”
“But he’s running for office.”
“Yeah. An office there’s no way he can win. Not in a million years. But he’s willing to put his son through the meat grinder, lie, and God knows what else for something he’s surely going to lose.”
Noel leaned forward. “He must think he has a chance of winning.”
David shrugged. “I suppose miracles can happen.”
“Maybe he expects to get something else out of it,” Noel said. Not that it mattered to David. His father had his own agenda, and whatever it was, he was looking out for only himself.
“That’s possible. He’s made himself a public figure, and he has more contacts now and has met a ton of people.” David didn’t really care about any of them. “But it doesn’t really matter what he thinks he’s doing. The price is just too much, and I’m not going to let him pull me into his game.”
Noel nodded but frowned. “And I don’t want you fighting with your family over me. If you have issues with your father, that’s fine, but I can’t be the reason you walk away from them. My only family is an aunt in Grand Rapids who I talk on the phone with a few times a year. She sends me a card on my birthday and Christmas.” Noel swallowed, and David tried to understand. “I’ve been alone for a long time, and that means that there’s no safety net. If I need something, there’s only me I can count on.” He got up and hobbled back to the stairs. “I think I should go.”
David jumped up and hurried over. “You don’t need to.” He caught Noel as he tried to take the stairs and lost his balance. David guided Noel to one of the living room chairs. “How about I promise you this. My father and I do not see eye to eye on a lot of things, and right now I’m fighting with him, but it has much less to do with you than the fact that he wants me to do things that I just can’t. Okay?” He also was not going to allow his father to speak the way he had about any guest of his. David’s blood still boiled at the things his father had said about Noel, but he kept that to himself because it seemed to upset him.
Noel lowered his gaze to his feet. “I don’t want you to end up like me.” He lifted his gaze. “I don’t have anyone….”
David touched his chin. There was so much he wanted to say, but it all seemed trite in his head. “I still don’t think it was right for my father to say the things he did.”
“But was what he said wrong?” Noel asked. “I take off my clothes for money. It’s what I do. And some of the other guys have… well… let’s say, taken things further. I might not let guys pay me for sex… and for the record, there hasn’t been anyone at all in that department for a while… before last night.” Noel actually blushed, and David found it adorable. “But I’m not worth fighting with your family.”
