by T C Heffer
Pete is forced to shake his head, but he can't resist pouting at the man, wanting his surprise already. "No…" he concedes.
"That's better. Now, we still have to complete your outfit for the day, so hopefully this will do just the trick."
Pete recalls what his Daddy said earlier about having to get something out of storage and the pieces of the puzzle click into place. That's why Jeremy was in the basement.
"Close your eyes," Jeremy instructs.
Pete complies, practically vibrating with excitement. He hears the shift of stiff fabric and Jeremy stepping closer to him, and then he gets a whiff of leather, which is odd because Jeremy is still tantalisingly dressed in only a pair of sweatpants.
"Okay, you can look now," Jeremy tells him after several moments of silence.
When Pete opens his eyes again, they go wide because in his hands Jeremy holds a black leather jacket. That explains the smell. The jacket is different from the one Jeremy wore on their date to the 50s diner, slightly smaller and older-looking but still well-maintained. The design and cut is simple, with silver zipper details at the two pockets near the bottom and several parallel lines of black top stitching over the shoulders. Reaching out to touch the end of one of the long sleeves, Pete discovers that the leather, while still stiff, is surprisingly supple and smooth between his fingers.
He knows already that it'll be warm and comfortable.
"This is the jacket I used to wear when I was around your age," Jeremy explains, looking at it with fond reminiscence. "It was my eighteenth birthday present from my sister Jess."
"And you're letting me wear it today?" Pete asks, amazed.
"I'm letting you have it outright," Jeremy corrects.
Pete is stunned and freezes in place. "Wait, what? Are you serious?"
"Deadly. Go on. Try it on."
Pete isn't one to turn down such an offer, so he takes the jacket and slips his arms in the sleeves. He makes a few adjustments to get it to sit right on his frame, but once it's all in place, it feels like it fits him well. He holds his arms out at his sides and looks at Jeremy to get his opinion.
"It suits you, baby," Jeremy says, brushing imaginary dust off of the shoulders. "Just like I knew it would."
"You really don't mind me having it?" Pete enquires. He'd hate to get his hopes up only to have them dashed. "Your sister gave it to you…"
Jeremy cups Pete's cheeks in his hands. "I don't mind at all. It doesn't fit me anymore anyway, so it would just be sitting in my basement forever. This way, someone still gets some use out of it, and I can't think of anyone better to pass it on to than my gorgeous boy."
Pete surges forward and beings their lips together. He injects all of his gratitude into the kiss and moans when Jeremy's tongue invades his mouth. He still tastes of bacon.
"I should go," Pete whispers regretfully when the kiss reaches its natural conclusion.
"You should," Jeremy agrees. "Wouldn't be good to be late. You might get detention, and then I'd have to spank you."
Pete shudders in Jeremy's arms. "God…"
Jeremy bites Pete's bottom lip, leaving a pleasant sting. "Ah, I see now. Something tells me that a spanking wouldn't be a very good punishment for when my boy is naughty, would it?"
Pete can't admit it, so he ducks his head and hides in Daddy's neck, his face aflame all over again.
"I'll have to come up with another punishment then. Maybe withholding orgasms. Would that work?"
Pete whimpers and grinds his rapidly hardening dick against Jeremy's crotch. "Daddy…"
"Yeah, I think that would work very well." Jeremy runs his hands down Pete's back and squeezes his ass cheeks. "We'll save the spankings for rewards instead."
Fucking hell, he's trying to kill me, Pete thinks. How am I supposed to focus in school when he leaves me hard and needy like this?
"Daddy, you're being mean again," he grumbles, leaning back to look at Jeremy with his pout back in full force.
"I'm sure you'll find a way to go on," Jeremy says with a laugh. He walks Pete back toward the front door, opens it and picks Pete's backpack up from the floor. After putting it on his boy's shoulder, he walks with him over the threshold and pecks him on the lips one last time. "Have a good day, baby boy. Try not to worry too much about your Dad, okay? I'll be here when you get home."
Pete doesn't even think about how Jeremy referred to his own house as Pete's home. He just nods like it's all completely normal. Of course his home is with his Daddy. "I'll try, Daddy. When— Actually, you know what, never mind."
Jeremy cocks his head to the side. "What were you going to say?"
"When you see my Dad today, can you make sure he's alright?" Pete entreaties, unable to stomach the idea of his Dad not taking care of himself, even if they're currently at odds. "Like, make sure he's not still drinking and he hasn't started stuffing junk food down his throat or something. I think there are still some leftovers in the fridge from Friday. They should be good, so get him to eat those."
Jeremy accepts the request immediately. "Of course."
Pete breathes a sigh of relief. "Thank you, Daddy."
"It's no problem, baby. Now, no putting it off any more. Off to school, you!"
With much reluctance, Pete walks down the font path to where he parked his Kia yesterday morning. He gets into the driver's seat, puts his keys in the ignition and peers back up at the porch as he turns them. Jeremy is still standing on the doormat, watching him with a smile on his unfairly handsome face, and he raises his arm to wave when he sees Pete looking his way. Pete waves back, reluctantly returns his eyes to the road and sets off for school.
— CHAPTER FOURTEEN —
- Monday, December 2nd, 2013 -
Adam Campbell wakes up with a pounding headache. He picks his head up, looks at his surroundings and is dismayed to discover that he's still in his living room, fully dressed. He must have kept drinking and passed out on the sofa after Pete didn't come home last night.
What is Adam going to do about his son? Just thinking about him and Jeremy exacerbates his headache like nobody's business. He holds a hand to his temple as he levers himself up into a sitting position and spots the empty bottle of whiskey on the coffee table. Jesus, how much did he end up drinking? He swears that the bottle was untouched when he got off work yesterday morning, his phone call with Elaine Wilkinson plaguing his mind. Yeah, he definitely got carried away.
"Good job, Adam…" he chastises himself. "Really mature way to handle your problems."
He should know better. He should've learned that drowning himself in alcohol isn't wise when he tried it after his beloved Vanessa passed, but apparently he didn't.
It takes some effort, but Adam manages to push himself to his feet. He picks up the bottle, takes it into the kitchen and disposes of it in the container for glass recycling like he's hiding the evidence. He drags himself over to the coffee maker and switches it on, needing some caffeine to wake himself up properly.
He wonders what time it is. The sun's up, so it must be morning. Getting the time from the clock on the microwave, Adam frowns because Pete should be getting ready for school right now, bustling about the house in his usual hurricane-like manner. So why is the house so quiet?
Adam sighs when the answer comes to him. Pete mustn't have come home at all, not even after Adam drank himself unconscious. Adam can easily surmise where his son was:
With Jeremy.
"Such a damn mess," he mumbles, running a hand down his tired face. He suddenly feels a lot older than he is—too old to be dealing with all of this stuff.
He wishes not for the first time that Vanessa was still with him. She would know what to do, or at the very least Adam would have someone with whom he could share his thoughts. They were the perfect team, and ever since she died, Adam has had to struggle through parenting Pete all by himself.
It wasn't a burden—he loves Pete more than anything else in the world—but raising a child with two parents is hard enough. Doing i
t on his own? He thinks that, were their positions reversed and he was the one who died instead, Vanessa would've done a better job than him. If nothing else, Adam is sure she wouldn't have confronted Pete while well on her way to getting drunk.
Shaking his head at his past self, Adam pours himself a big mug of coffee and takes his first bitter sip. He can't be bothered to add cream or sugar to it. He doesn't deserve it anyway.
As he drinks, Adam ponders what his next step should be. Here he is feeling sorry for himself at home while his son is off staying with a much older man who likes to be called Daddy. Pete should be living with him until he goes off to college next year, not with Jeremy. Adam still doesn't get it. With his eyes closed, he replays what he remembers of the talk he had with Pete yesterday morning, searching for anything he could've said to avoid sending his son right into Jeremy's arms.
He doesn't like he finds.
The way he spoke to Pete, how he dismissed him when Pete bravely attempted to defend himself… Adam winces when Pete's face flashes behind his eyelids, both stubborn and heartbroken because his Dad had judged and disapproved of his choices. Adam doesn't relish the knowledge that he made his son look at him like that, and he'd give anything to go back and change how he went about things.
Why, oh, why did he dig out the whiskey?
When he's finished his coffee, Adam is no closer to sorting through his thoughts. They're all jumbled up in his head, a tangle of emotions that don't paint a very pretty picture. Again, he'd give anything to have someone to talk to, someone who could help him get his head on straight. But he doesn't. He'll have to work it out himself and reach a place where Pete will be willing to talk to him. Until he does, there's no doubt in his mind that Pete will continue to stay with Jeremy.
Adam feels a paroxysm of anger at his supposed friend.
How could Jeremy do that?
How could Jeremy touch his son?
Pete is an adult, yes, but it's like an unspoken rule in Adam's circle of friends that each other's children are off limits. Adam would guess that it's like that for the vast majority of adult friendship groups, so what made Jeremy so special that he thought he could go behind Adam's back and take Pete for himself? Jeremy is likely sleeping with him as well, and all while Pete is still living at home.
Adam doesn't think he would be quite so annoyed if it happened even a year from now, when Pete was already off at college and experiencing proper independence.
But that wasn't how it happened, so Adam would say that his anger is at least partially justified.
With the decision that he'll be having some choice words with Jeremy very soon, Adam sets down his empty mug and looks at the glass recycling bin again. He should really put it out. He grabs it, takes it outside and sets it down on the curb to be collected, his mood brightening slightly now that he's actually doing something and not just stewing in his feelings. He turns back around and retraces his steps up the front path, intent on having a shower to wash off how gross he feels. He makes it halfway before someone calls out to him.
"Adam! You're looking rough this morning," Elaine Wilkinson observes from where she stands watering the plants in her garden.
The need to be polite has Adam stopping in his tracks. "Hey, Elaine. I guess you could say that."
Elaine puts down her watering can and gives the Chief her full attention. "Are you okay?"
Adam should really tell her that he's fine and continue to go about his business, but he doesn't. He sees an opportunity instead. Elaine already knows about Pete and Jeremy—or at least suspects it—and she's known Pete for almost his whole life. Adam can't talk things out with Vanessa, but Elaine might be a decent enough substitute.
"Actually, is it okay if I stop by in half an hour or so? I could use a talk," Adam requests.
"Oh, of course!" Elaine responds, perking up. She's obviously happy to have the company. "I'll put on some tea!"
Before Adam can say that he doesn't want any, Elaine has already disappeared into her house with speed that's surprising for someone of her age. He shrugs.
Seems he'll be having tea, after all.
* * *
"So, what's this all about, dear?" Elaine asks Adam once they're both seated on opposite ends of the floral-patterned sofa in her living room. Two cups of tea steep on the coffee table.
Adam picks his cup up purely to have something to do with his hands. "It's about Pete," he replies.
"Oh?"
"Specifically, it's about what you saw the other evening."
The bemusement clears from Elaine's face and is replaced by realisation. "Oh yes, the man I saw him with. Did you manage to get to the bottom of that?"
Adam nods slowly. "Yeah, I did."
"Well, don't leave me in suspense, dear! My heart can only take so much anticipation at my age."
Adam cracks a smile. "The man you saw Pete with was a friend of mine, Jeremy King. I actually introduced them when Pete tagged along to a basketball game we had with a few of the other guys two weeks ago, and apparently there was a mutual spark between them because you were right—what you saw was the beginning of a date."
"Oh my!" Elaine clutches a hand to her chest. "That is a surprise. I thought my eyes must have been deceiving me."
"I wish that was the case…"
"You talked to Pete about it, I take it?"
Adam sips from his cup, thinking that he'll need to use a toilet very soon with both the tea and the coffee in his system. "Yesterday. It didn't go very well."
Elaine picks up her tea as well and meets Adam's gaze without judgment. "Walk me through it, then."
Over the next ten minutes, Adam relays to Elaine as much of his confrontation with Pete as he remembers. He's certain that he didn't forget much of it, so he's able to give her a good understanding of exactly what transpired. Her mouth twists into a grimace when he mentions the whiskey, but she doesn't interrupt, and by the time Adam is done, she's looking down into her tea with her brow furrowed in concentration. He allows her time to process everything he just told her and keeps drinking his own beverage before it has a chance to go completely cold.
"Okay, I think I've got it," she says eventually.
"You do?" Adam prompts, on tenterhooks.
"Before I give you my opinion, I have a question—this…'Daddy' thing you spoke of, what exactly does that entail?"
Adam racks his brain for the information he'd seen on Jeremy's computer a few years ago. "He likes being with people who are much younger than him and taking care of them. At least that's what I think. I don't want to even contemplate the alternative."
"Working under the assumption that that's true, here's what I've come up with," Elaine says, sitting up straight. "If Jeremy is the man you say he is, then it seems entirely feasible to me that Pete would gravitate toward someone like him."
Adam is caught off-guard. "It…it does?"
"Yes."
"How'd you reach that conclusion?"
"I'm going to give you some hard truths right now, but please don't think I think ill of you. I know you did the best you could."
Adam becomes wary but forces his mind to remain open. "Alright."
"After Vanessa passed, Pete had just one parent, and because of your job, you weren't around that much," Elaine expounds. "Again, I'm not judging. It's just fact. Your job is very important, and I know Pete well enough to feel confident saying that he would deny he missed out on anything while growing up with you as his father. But I believe that he did, at least a little bit. After his mother died, he missed out on truly being a child."
What Elaine is saying isn't as bad as Adam thought it would be, so he makes a gesture for her to keep talking.
"Because you were so busy, he was often on his own," the woman says. "I didn't mind stepping in every now and then to look after him while you were working and his friend's mother—Steve, was it?—couldn't watch him either, but there was only so much I could do. I wasn't you, you see, so it wasn't the same."
A
dam nods, listening to every word closely.
"Compounding that was the fact that your job can be very dangerous. I don't know if you recall, but Pete used to have nightmares about some criminal taking you away from him as well."
This shocks Adam. He does recall his son having nightmares, but Pete never told him what they were about. "He did?"
"He didn't tell you," Elaine correctly assumes. "My guess is because he didn't want to make you feel bad."
That sounds like his Pete, Adam has to admit. His kind-hearted boy…
"So, as he grew, his need to keep his only remaining parent alive led to him not thinking like a child should. He worried for your safety all the time and did everything in his power to make sure you came home to him at the end of each day." Elaine smiles softly, displaying the affection she holds for the boy. "He actually asked me to help him with some cooking a few months after Vanessa passed, said he wanted to learn more healthy recipes so that there was less chance of you dying."
Adam's eyes sting.
Elaine says nothing about it. "I've seen the two of you interacting from time and time, and it's not like it was with me and my children. You were still the parent when it came down to it, but there was more partnership there. You wanted to take care of him and help him grow into the best man he could be, and in return, he wanted to take care of you and keep you alive for as long as he could."
This part isn't news to Adam. He's always known that Pete is mature for his age, but hearing it from an outsider's perspective is different. Pete shouldn't have had to think like that.
Elaine delicately puts her cup back down on its saucer. "After all those years fretting about your safety…like I said, it seems only natural to me that Pete would be drawn to a man who would take some of that pressure off of his shoulders. If Jeremy truly does that for him—and if there are genuine feelings there—I don't see an issue with it."
"Even with Pete calling him Daddy?" Adam asks, still hung up on that aspect.
"So they're a little different. So what? They're not hurting anyone, and if that part of their relationship carries over into the bedroom, well…" Elaine grins. "Some of the things my late Henry and I used to get up to would put them to shame."