by Trina Solet
Pavel tried to convince him he was "this close" to bagging this hot guy, but eventually gave it up and accepted the platonic ride Leon was offering him. Big, blond and burly, Pavel dwarfed the passenger seat of Leon's Ford.
"Did I tell you about my buddy, Ray?" Pavel asked too loudly as Leon drove him home. He was still talking at the volume more appropriate for a noisy club.
"You mean your fuck buddy, Ray?"
"Yes! Him," Pavel said. He slapped Leon's arm and laughed, probably remembering some wild times.
"Watch it. I'm driving here. Are you going to tell me how you two used to console each other when you had to go home alone?"
"Yes! How did you know?"
"Because you always tell me the same thing when you don't score, and I always say sorry I can't be your fuck buddy," Leon said.
"That's OK. I still love you," Pavel told him and leaned his big head on Leon's shoulder as he drove. Then he reached for the steering wheel, and Leon slapped his hand away.
Pavel never reached for anything else. Drunk or sober, he knew that Leon couldn't handle it.
And he knew why too. Leon remembered how Pavel shook him awake, telling him everything was OK. It took Leon several agonizing seconds to focus on his face and realize where he was. That was when Leon was new in town and he and Pavel were roommates.
After scaring the hell out of him and making him jump out of bed to deal with one of his nightmares, Leon owed him the truth. Leon gave him the short version. Now Pavel was his best friend and totally hands off when it came to Leon no matter how drunk and horny he was.
That's why he would probably be surprised to find out how hard Leon was lusting after his boss these days. Leon was certainly surprised, and it started on day one. Nervous, worried about his first day on the job, Leon had still noticed Phillip's masculine beauty, both hidden and enhanced by that suit. But now he felt like his eyes were really open, seeing Phillip more clearly, seeing his warm and loving heart.
That wasn't a positive development at all. It certainly didn't do anything to cool him down. Every morning, Leon was arriving to work early like some kind of kiss-ass, glancing toward the door every few seconds, waiting impatiently for Phillip so he could spend all day pretending the man had no effect on him at all.
But what choice did he have? He had to hide how his heart hammered in his chest. Phillip was still the same man he had met that first day at the office – serious, formal and reserved. Holding himself back and out of his reach, he only drove Leon to crazy thoughts. He was always tempted to brush up against him just a little, like it was an accident.
Leon craved that jolt, that feverish shudder of deep need. Oh, God, he felt it even just thinking about the man. If he could close that distance, erase the space between them and feel the heat and the steely hardness of his body. He wanted to run his hands all over him, break through the button-down exterior to what was inside.
And then what, crash and burn, get slapped down for acting inappropriately at the office? Or maybe Leon would freeze up, go dead inside as he had whenever a guy made a move on him in the past.
No. What he needed to do was rein it in and act professional. That meant he shouldn't even think about brushing up against him. Phillip was too hot to touch, and with his limited experience and his issues, Leon wasn't equipped to handle him.
The next morning when Phillip arrived at work, it wasn't what Leon expected. He was surprised to see Philip holding Ant's hand and leading him into the office.
On catching sight of that curly, blond head, Leon stood up behind his desk. "Ant-man!"
Ant gave him a big smile. "Leon! You're here!"
"Of course I am. I work here," Leon said.
"And today you do too," Phillip said to Ant. "Hi, Leon. Ant will be spending the day with us."
As Ant looked around with curious eyes, Phillip took him into his office. Leon could hear Ant and Phillip talking as he got together some paperwork. A little later, Leon went in and found that Ant was perched on Phillip's desk, kicking his feet.
"He lets you sit on his desk? Wow," Leon said as he brought in the papers and waited for Phillip to look them over.
"Is it OK, Uncle Phillip?" Ant asked now worried that he was doing something wrong.
"Of course it's OK. I put you there, didn't I?" Phillip said and smiled at him.
Leon couldn't believe that this was his boss. He was beaming at Ant. No doubt about it, that little guy melted his heart.
Just then Phillip got an important phone call. Hearing the name of the caller, Leon quickly handed him the files he needed. Phillip reached for them blindly, and his hand covered Leon's for a moment. Phillip's gray eyes met his. Leon held his breath and waited for the shudder to pass through his body. He heard Phillip speak a few halting words before he blinked and turned his attention to the files in front of him.
Knowing this would be a long and involved conversation, Leon took Ant off his desk.
"You want to meet your coworkers?" Leon asked him.
Ant nodded, but he looked like he was wondering what coworkers were.
"Coworkers aren't fish, so don't get too excited," Leon told him. He gave Phillip one last look as he left. Did he imagine what happened when they touched? Probably. He was starved for sex and scared of it. He couldn't trust himself, but for some reason he seemed to trust Phillip instinctively and with no reservations.
*
Phillip was still recovering from that brief contact as he watched Leon and Ant leave. A stray touch shouldn't have so much power over him. He shouldn't be left feverish and trembling inside, but there he was struggling to speak or form a coherent thought.
Too many distractions had made him careless and now he was paying the price. He found it hard to focus on their most important client until Leon was completely out of sight and he couldn't hear his voice as he spoke to Ant. Then he took a deep breath and gave his attention to business.
A little later he heard Leon and Ant as they came back.
"Your Gran-gran calls you her little man that means you're Ant-man. And Ant-man is a superhero," Leon was explaining to him.
"Ant-man!" Ant said and raised his arms straight up in the air, his fists closed tight.
Leon praised him, "That's what I'm talking about."
He kept Ant busy in the outer office until Phillip went out to see what they were up to. They were sitting on the floor, and Leon was telling Ant, "We'll make up our own story, the Lion and the Ant."
"Uncle Phillip and the Lion and the Ant," Ant suggested.
"That's even better." Turning to Phillip, Leon asked, "You want to be in the story?"
"Yes, I do. Will I be a good guy?" Phillip asked.
"Everyone is good guys!" Ant said.
"Yes, we are," Leon agreed. As he got up from the floor and smiled at him, Phillip's heart beat so fast and hard that he was afraid to breathe. He didn't want to look away from him until Ant jumped up from the floor too.
"Are we going to visit Gran-gran?" he asked.
"Soon," Phillip told him.
During lunch he planned to drive Ant to visit Lilly, but there was something else on his mind as well. Once again he found himself needing Leon's help. He hated to turn to him again, but he felt he was his best option.
He sent Ant to his office and stayed behind to talk to Leon. "Do you mind coming with us when we go to see Lilly? I'd like to speak with her without Ant there, and if you could watch him while we talk that would be a big help. I know it's an imposition but..."
Leon cut him off. "It's not an imposition. Ant is great. I don't mind watching him."
Phillip was so relieved that he forgot himself again and gazed at Leon too long. He had never met anyone who was so good and at the same time sexually irresistible to him. Even as he asked for more of his time, Phillip didn't have a clue how he would ever keep his feelings under control around him.
Chapter 13
With Leon joining them, the ride to the hospital was a lot more fun. Leon and Ant cam
e up with stories that made less and less sense as they went along, but made Ant giggle. Ant was an astronaut and a fish and he had superpowers and ate lots of ice cream. Leon went with the flow easily while Phillip couldn't keep up. Leon scolded him for it, but Ant always came to his defense.
"Look at that, Ant-man to the rescue," Leon said.
"Ant-man!"
In the rear view mirror, Phillip saw Ant raise his arms high. Usually Ant was so quiet, but whenever Leon was around, it was easy to see that Ant was a happy child.
Once they were at the hospital, Phillip saw signs that Ant was starting to become uneasy, like last time. He and Leon held his hands, and Phillip pointed out the gift shop again. "Leon will help you pick out something nice, and I'll go up to have a little talk with your Gran-gran. OK?"
Ant nodded and took Leon's hand with both of his.
"We'll get her something really good," Leon told him.
Even as he walked away from them, Phillip was sure that Ant would be OK with Leon taking care of him.
Once he got up to her room, he saw that Lilly looked better than last time he saw her. She was wearing a thin, blue sweater over her hospital gown. She pulled it closer around her as she sat up higher and also smoothed down her hair. Right away she asked for Ant.
"He's with Leon. There was something I wanted to discuss with you first." Not wanting to keep Lilly from seeing Ant for too long, Phillip got right to the point. "Would you reconsider moving in with me after you're released from here? I would hire someone to assist you until you're fully recovered."
Once again Lilly refused the offer. "Oh, it would be no good for you to have an old lady living with you. I just couldn't."
"OK, then. What if I found a house for you and Ant in Easton? I would pay for it..."
"To live at your expense? I just couldn't."
"But you can't stay home alone with only Ant. You need someone to look after you, and you need a place without so many stairs."
Lilly nodded as if she agreed, but it turned out she had a plan of her own. "There's a spot for me at Morning Glen nursing home. That's where my friend Bernie is. She's been in there ever since she had her stroke. I go and see her whenever I can. That's where I'd like to go if you'd take Ant."
Phillip was stunned. "Ant would live with me?" he asked once he got his voice back.
Lilly looked sad as she answered. "He needs someone younger taking care of him. There are times when he can do more for me than I can for him. And if I croak on him... To have him find me, that's no good. The way I passed out. That could have been it for me." Lilly looked at him expectantly.
"I would be happy to have Ant living with me, but I don't know about Morning Glen," Phillip told her. He quickly looked it up on his phone and he didn't like what he saw. The place didn't have the best reputation. "How about this, when you are released from here, would you let me take you to visit your friend, Bernie? I would like to see Morning Glen for myself, if you don't mind."
Lilly smiled shakily and nodded. "Ant should come too. Bernie would love to see him, and he's fond of her too."
"Of course."
A little later, Leon and Ant came back with a big box of fancy chocolates for Lilly.
"Oh, my. You'll have to help me eat these," Lilly told Ant.
Phillip gave Ant his phone so he could show Lilly pictures of him at the office, including one of him sitting in Phillip's chair. Lilly called him her little working man. Ant managed to look both shy and proud about that.
Phillip and Leon stepped outside so Ant and Lilly could spend time together. As soon as they were alone, Phillip told Leon what Lilly had proposed. He couldn't hold it in. The thought of Ant actually living with him was overwhelming.
"Wow. That's great," Leon said and grinned at him.
"I hope Ant will be OK with it." Phillip was worried but Leon had no reservations.
"He'll love it. I'm sure he'll miss Lilly..."
"I have to make sure that wherever she lives is a good place." That nursing home was another thing that concerned him. Phillip frowned. He had a lot of trouble enjoying the goods news about Ant at the moment.
Leon saw the state he was in. "I think you might be the best thing that could have happened to Ant and Lilly. Try not to worry too much. You're a capable guy. You can handle whatever comes up."
"So far the only reason I was able to get anything done is because you've helped me." Phillip gave Leon his warmest smile.
"All I did was help you shop. I like seeing a little kid happy. I think back to my own childhood. If someone had swooped in to make everything better..." Leon didn't finish. He just shrugged and looked away.
"I'm sorry."
Leon turned to him and smiled. "Look at you. You want to go back in time and fix everything that went wrong when I was kid, don't you?"
"I would if I could," Phillip said honestly and Leon laughed.
"And that's why I don't mind helping you if you need me. You're a good guy doing a good thing."
Phillip shook his head. "Ant is my only family, and I want him to be in my life. I'm doing this for myself."
"And for your late brother too, but you wouldn't worry so much about Lilly if you only cared about getting Ant for yourself," Leon pointed out.
"Lilly matters to Ant so she matters to me too."
"I think it's great that she wants to do what's best for him," Leon said. His face was grave and Phillip wondered what was behind these moments of sorrow that slipped through his easygoing demeanor. It hurt him to think that Leon had some kind of hidden sorrow. It was so unlike Phillip to pry, but he wanted to find out what kind of burden he carried. He wanted to know Leon.
Chapter 14
Talking to Phillip about Ant, Leon couldn't help but think of himself as a kid. He was so glad that Ant had Lilly before Phillip came along. She might be old and frail but she had a good heart.
When he had first met Ant, Leon looked for a some small reflection of himself in that curly-headed boy, but he didn't find anything. There was no storehouse of fear inside that little body. Ant was OK and that was thanks to Lilly. And now thanks to Phillip, he was going to be even better.
The look on his face as he tried to forget about himself and focus only on Ant must have given away too much of what he was feeling because Phillip gave him a look of concern.
"Let's sit down," Phillip said and led him to some chairs in a waiting area nearby.
They sat across from each other, their knees almost touching. Leon could tell Phillip wanted to talk to him.
"You and Ant share a home town, but I got the impression that you spent a very different childhood there. Why was your childhood so unhappy?" Phillip asked him.
Normally Leon wouldn't want to get into all that, but if Phillip wanted to know, he couldn't deny him. Leon tried to sum it up. "Because my mother would set her sights on one thing and turn a blind eye to everything else." Whenever he thought of her in the years when he was growing up, she was looking away. "There was always some man who was everything to her until another one came along. The next guy was the answer to all her problems. This one wouldn't be a dirtbag. He would pay the bills, give us a nice place to live, keep us safe. My father certainly didn't. He came and went as he pleased. I know he gambled, but I don't know what else he was up to. He was quite a character." Leon could still see his big smile and the sparkle in his eyes. Always ready with a joke, his father had the biggest, loudest laugh. Coming to town driving a big car and wearing nice clothes, he was generous with money when it came to treats and toys, but not when it came to paying rent or medical bills. Leon didn't know the difference. "When my dad was in town, those were fun times. He took me places, bought me things, and we had a blast. But then in a day or two, he would disappear. I wanted him to take me with him, take me away from what Mom's boyfriends did to me."
"They hurt you?" A dark look came into Phillip's eyes. Leon knew they must reflect what was in his own.
Leon didn't want to give Phillip the wrong idea. "Th
ey weren't all bad. One guy had two kids of his own. He was nice to me, but he went back to his ex. It was always the worst ones that stayed, or at least they stuck in my mind so it seemed like they were around forever. One of them molested me for most of a year. I was six. It was hell, but the next day it wouldn't even seem real. But if it wasn't real, where did all this pain inside me come from? I was so confused. There was my mom smiling at him, laughing with him, kissing him. That couldn't be the same guy who hurt me. I was afraid to tell her because I thought she might already know. Every time I opened my mouth, the words would just die, nothing would come out. All the pain stayed right inside me, growing all the time. Then he died in a motorcycle accident and it all ended. I just wanted to forget it. But a few years later, another one of Mom's boyfriends left me alone with his brother a few times. I think he knew what his brother was and he did it deliberately. I was older then and more aware of what was happening, but I still couldn't do anything to stop it. Even after it was over, I relived that time in my nightmares and waited for the next time someone would hurt me. Barry didn't disappoint me. He was the next guy in my mother's life, and he was around for a long while. He liked to get creative with his punishments. When I knocked down his beer bottle, he locked me in the dark basement all night. Mom made some weak objections, but she didn't stop him when he shoved me down there and locked the door. Another time he hosed me down and made me stand outside in the middle of winter because I tracked mud into the house. I could see my mom looking out of the kitchen window at me while I shivered and my teeth chattered." Leon felt chilled to the bone just thinking of it. His mother came and went from the window, but she never went out to him. Afterwards she did have some words of wisdom for him. "When I was finally allowed back inside with my hands turning blue and my feet numb, she said Barry was the man of the house and I had to mind him."