by Trina Solet
*
Driving home, Leon tried to decide if he wanted to stop somewhere and grab dinner or throw something together at home. At the same time he tried not to think about Phillip. Nothing could keep his mind off that man though. With those broad shoulders and those sad eyes working against him, Leon didn't stand a chance.
Sometimes it seemed so possible, like something was really going to happen between them. Filled with a delicious, prickly tension, a moment would stretch out and Leon felt like he would simply fall into Phillip's arms and then just live there. Then in the next moment, the tension was broken as Phillip retreated into his shell. As he turned businesslike again, Leon was left to wonder if it was all on his side and Phillip was just being nice.
It didn't matter though. Hopeless or not, Leon wasn't equipped to take him on. Every time he went out to have fun, to meet someone, his past stalked him. The terrors of his childhood lurked in corners and hid in shadows. No matter how hot the guy was or how nice he seemed, being alone with him and feeling his touch always brought back the worst of his memories. Like flipping a switch, an intimate moment turned into a waking nightmare. Leon pushed the guy away, stammered an apology and ran.
He couldn't do that to Phillip. He couldn't go after him and then fail him in the end. Phillip was just a sweet dream, something to make him smile as he ached inside for what he couldn't have.
Just as he was both resigning himself to his fate and feeling sorry for himself, Leon heard a funny noise coming from the front of his red Ford Focus. As he shut off the music to listen, the noise got a lot worse.
"Oh, fuck."
Chapter 21
Leon had called in that morning to say that he might not be on time because he had to take his car in for repairs. He arrived only a few minutes late, rushing into the office with his suit jacket off and out of breath. It was a good look on him. Phillip only wished he was the one who had stolen his breath while kissing and undressing him.
While chastising himself for his inappropriate fantasies, Phillip barely heard Leon's apology.
"Sorry. They didn't have a loaner for me. One of the guys who works there dropped me off," Leon said as he stood in the doorway of Phillip's office and put on his jacket.
"You're barely even late," Phillip said as he watched Leon pull his clothes into place. Much of the time Leon's suit jacket would end up hanging over the back of his chair, when Phillip was out of the office especially. His tie would be loosened by the end of the day, his collar enticingly unbuttoned, his shirt sleeves rolled up. Leon had the attire, but he just couldn't stay all buttoned up, comfortably imprisoned in a suit the way Phillip was.
"Usually I like to be here first and impress you with my eagerness," Leon said.
"You have nothing to prove," Phillip told him.
"I'll prove it anyway. You're a good boss, you deserve to get the best out of me," Leon said with a smile.
Before Phillip could deny it, the phone rang and Leon went to answer it.
Leon obviously had a higher opinion of him than he deserved. A good boss wouldn't even think of hitting on his employee like Phillip was doing more and more often. The number of times he had to remind himself that Leon was off limits told him that he was standing on dangerous ground.
Work wasn't a safe haven for him any more. Phillip had always placed work at the center of his life. It was where he felt in control. Work was his refuge, a cocoon of facts and numbers with no uncertainties or anguish. Now he had Leon right outside his door – a temptation within easy reach and out of bounds.
When it was time to get Ant, Phillip stopped next to Leon's desk to let him know he was leaving. "I'm going to get Ant now."
"Yes!" Leon said and did a fist pump. Then he grew serious, wanting to make sure he had a reason to celebrate. "You are bringing him back here, right?"
"Yes, but just because I bring him here doesn't mean I expect you to babysit," Phillip told him, but Leon objected.
"Why not? Asking me to babysit Ant is like giving me permission to goof off for half the day."
"I've noticed that you're still doing your job in addition to babysitting," Phillip pointed out.
"It's no chore. I love that little guy and I like helping you out," Leon said and looked away like he was embarrassed by what he said.
"It's only until I find the right daycare place."
Leon turned to him again. "What could be better than right here? He can stay here after preschool. We can even give him his own little desk." He pointed to the different places in the office where they could put it.
Phillip had to admit it was a cute idea but not practical. "As much as I like the sound of that, Ant should spend time with other children."
"OK, I won't get used to Ant at the office," Leon said with a pout.
When Phillip came back with Ant, he watched a smile light up Leon's face as Ant ran over to him.
"Am I glad to see you," he said to Ant. "I need your help big time." Leon had Ant help him "recycle" some printouts into paper airplanes.
For the rest of the day, Ant split his time between Phillip and Leon. That way both of them could get just enough work done.
Close to five o'clock, Phillip overheard Leon on the phone trying to arrange for someone to drive him to pick up his car from the mechanic. It seemed like he wasn't having any luck yet. As Phillip went over to his desk, Leon sighed and got ready to make another call.
Phillip stopped him. "I can drive you to pick up your car," he told him. "Sorry, I overheard you talking to your friend."
Leon hesitated to take him up on it, but then he got a what the hell look on his face and he agreed. "It's not too far out of your way."
Ant was also delighted to hear that Leon was getting a ride.
"Are you coming home with us?" he asked hopefully as they all went down to the parking garage.
Leon riffled his hair. "No, you sweet thing. I'm going to get my car from the mechanic. It's being fixed."
"You have a car?" Ant said, impressed.
"Sure I do, and it's red."
"I'm gonna have a red car too when I'm growed up," Ant decided.
"Not a gray one?" Leon asked as they approached Phillip's gray BMW.
"No," Ant said, shaking his head like that choice was unacceptable to his little boy sensibilities.
"He gets that from Tony," Phillip said as he buckled him into his seat. The mention of Ant in a car also made his chest hurt. Just don't be too much like your dad, he wanted to say to him.
Leon must have noticed his mood because he touched him on the arm lightly as they took their seats in front.
"Heavy thoughts sometimes sneak up on me," Phillip said as he started the car.
As he drove and Ant chattered from the back seat, his mood lifted and his mind started to wander. Sitting so close to Leon made him uncomfortably aware of his body every time. He imagined how it would fit against his own, how it would feel under his hands. Traffic was snarled, Phillip's hands were on the wheel, his eyes straight ahead, but Leon was all he saw and felt. The heat of his skin and the hardness of his flesh were already making an indelible impression on Phillip's senses.
Traffic moved, Ant and Leon chatted happily, and too soon, they were at the mechanic's.
"Already?" Ant asked as Leon said his thank you to Phillip and promised to see Ant soon.
Seeing his disappointment, Leon turned to Phillip.
"Can I take him in? He might like to see inside?" he asked, pointing his thumb toward the mechanic's shop.
"I wanna see your car," Ant said eagerly.
Phillip agreed and watched them walk in with Leon holding Ant's tiny hand. After a little while, they came back. Leon didn't look happy and Ant was shaking his head.
"It's no good. They didn't fix it," Ant announced as he climbed back into his car seat with Leon's help.
"I can take you home. Unless you're going to wait," Phillip offered.
"It won't be fixed until tomorrow," Leon said. "If you don't mind, I do need a
ride."
"The red car has to sleep over, now we can we take Leon home?" Ant said in a hopeful voice as Leon got back in the front seat.
Phillip correctly assumed that Ant meant home with them.
"To his home, yes," he told Ant to clarify. But then he thought better of it. Turning to Leon, he said, "Unless you want to come to dinner." The offer made his heart beat faster. As he waited for Leon's answer, he tried to breathe evenly and not give away how he felt. Even as he told himself this was going to be only a casual, meaningless visit, he couldn't deny his mounting excitement. The way he wanted this told him just how stupid it was to ask Leon to come over, but Phillip still held his breath and hoped for a yes.
As Leon hesitated, Philip worried that he had given away too much. But that wasn't it. It seemed that Leon wasn't sure if the invitation was real or something he was supposed to refuse. That's why he didn't answer right away. Phillip was going to put more effort into convincing him when Ant jumped in.
"We can eat spaghetti. Uncle Phillip makes good spaghetti."
"I'll even make meatballs this time," Phillip offered to sweeten the deal.
Convinced of his sincerity by the mention of meatballs, Leon accepted.
They went home together and then there was a flurry of activity in the kitchen as they started dinner. Ant loved to get involved. Leon picked him up to reach the things in the top cabinets then swung him around to hand them to Phillip. Every step took about five times as long as it should have, but it was a lot more fun.
Phillip suddenly felt Leon sidle up to him. He had set Ant on a barstool and they were both eying the meat Phillip was rolling into meatballs.
"Can I have some of that? I want you to try my version," Leon asked. He then put mozzarella in the center of each meatball.
"He's putting cheese in. That's good," Ant said with a look of approval.
"You want to make some?" Leon offered him.
Phillip didn't like the idea of Ant contaminating his hands with raw meat, but he didn't want to spoil their fun. Ant dove in eagerly. All three of them made meatballs, more or less. Ant's were just worked over lumps of misshapen meat.
"I always bake mine. I hate frying," Leon said when he saw Phillip pull out the frying pan. "Come on, stick them in the oven so you're not stuck standing over the stove."
"OK, but that's not very authentic. My Italian ancestors will never forgive me, or Franny and Moe either," Phillip said as he got out a baking pan instead.
"Tell your Italian ancestors it was my fault," Leon told him.
He was right. Phillip didn't want to be standing over a frying pan when he could be spending time with Ant and Leon instead.
As he arranged their mismatched meatballs in the pan, Leon told Ant, "If you have a party, you can put little meatballs on toothpicks."
"Yes. Let's have a party," Ant said.
"We are having a party," Leon told him.
"Yey!"
"Right," Phillip agreed. "This is a dinner party."
It was a funny thought. This was nothing like any dinner party he ever hosted. Phillip had dinner parties infrequently and had them catered. Leon was now telling Ant about mini pizzas. Ant listened with his eyes wide.
He seemed to like talking about food. Phillip wondered if he might not be a chef when he grew up. Tony was never much into cooking. His only interest in food was eating it. Their parents called him a bottomless pit.
"And what are you thinking over here?" Leon asked, seeing that Phillip was distracted.
"I was just picturing Ant in a chef's hat."
"Ooh. Where can we get one of those in his size?" Leon asked eagerly.
"I was thinking that he might be a little cook in the making," Phillip said, looking at Ant fondly. He got a cookbook off a shelf so Ant and Leon could flip through it for ideas. Leon told Ant to pick out a recipe for their next dinner party.
"This one!" Ant said pointing at a picture.
"That's a cake," Leon said.
Ant agreed that it was.
"OK. We have our dessert. Now pick out something for dinner."
Ant pointed at another cake, and Leon and Phillip exchanged a look over his head.
When it was time to start the pasta, Leon took a picture of Ant holding the big pasta pot. In Ant's hands, it looked enormous.
"You can show it to your Gran-gran so she'll know how strong you are," Leon said as he sent the picture to Phillip's phone to pass on to Lilly. "You want to break some spaghetti?" he asked Ant.
"I don't usually break them," Phillip said.
"Not you. Ant is the strongman. He's breaking them," Leon said then he leaned in to whisper to Phillip. "This is no time to be a culinary purist. And, yes, there will be bits of spaghetti everywhere for you to clean up."
Feeling him so close, Phillip shivered. His defenses broke down so easily over nothing. It was a really terrible idea to spend time with this wonderful man. But how could he deny himself just a little bit more of Leon's company? It wasn't just for his own sake though. It was good for Ant to spend time with someone who wasn't as closed off as Phillip.
Around Leon the atmosphere was lighter and more cheerful. Phillip didn't know how he did it with all those demons from his past. It seemed it was Phillip who carried his ghosts with him. All the time he felt like he had to struggle to hold his pain back from Ant, and that meant holding himself back from him too. Ant deserved better.
Phillip had trouble breaking through the shell of his own making. Whenever people gathered, Phillip was always the subdued one. At parties, Ken used to walk off, get into a dozen different conversations then accuse Phillip of ditching him to go mope in a corner. He would have to make more of an effort for Ant's sake, but with Leon around, he didn't have to worry.
Chapter 22
Dinner was lively with Ant getting pasta sauce on his nose and Leon calling him Rudolf the red nosed reindeer. Once dinner was over, they played cards with chocolate chip cookies as their currency.
"Don't let him win too many," Phillip whispered to Leon. He had leaned toward him and got to see his smile up close. For a moment he felt drunk on the sight of him. Even as he drew back, Phillip desperately wanted to feel that smiling mouth against his own.
This time, Ant didn't win every hand, but he still won plenty of cookies.
"That's your last one," Phillip warned him as he watched Ant greedily stuffing his mouth with his winnings.
He pouted and complained of course, whining that he had "winned them". With his face covered in cookie crumbs, he didn't get much sympathy.
After that they watched some cartoons and one nature documentary at Phillip's insistence.
"Your documentary put him right to sleep," Leon said seeing Ant curled up against Phillip on the living room couch.
Phillip smiled down at him and got up gingerly. He let Ant lean on a throw pillow so he could clear the coffee table of snack plates and cookie crumbs. Leon picked up a few things too and helped carry them into the kitchen.
That's where Phillip realized he was for all practical purposes alone with Leon. Looking for something to do, Phillip started loading the dishwasher. It could have waited, but with Leon so temptingly close, he couldn't leave his hands idle.
Again Leon helped. Seeing a toy in the dishwasher, he laughed.
"For some reason Ant likes to sneak his toys in there for a bath." Phillip held the toy and stared at it, but he was really thinking about and trying not to look at Leon. Something about his laugh had set Phillip's heart racing. Phillip wanted his mouth to memorize the exact curve of his lips. He wanted to swallow his laugh and carry it inside him forever. He wanted Leon so much, he was dizzy with it.
Finding the tension filled silence unbearable, Phillip forced himself to start talking. They were cleaning up the dinner dishes so that seemed like as good a subject as any to try and take his mind off wanting Leon.
"I'm cooking all these foods I would never make for myself," he said.
"Like meatballs?"
"I haven't made them in so long. Since college when I made them a few times for my college friends and for Tony too when he was around. Tony loved a meatball sub. The bigger and messier the food, the more he liked it." As he spoke, Phillip realized that he had neglected to tell Ant about that even as they were eating meatballs for dinner. "I have to make sure I tell Ant all the little things I remember about Tony. I don't talk to him enough about his dad. Remembering him is still so painful and I don't want Ant to see that."
"You'll have plenty of time to tell him," Leon assured him and touched his arm briefly.
Phillip hoped so, but sometimes he felt like his grief ran so deep that it was all there was to him. Not now with Leon there, and his touch setting off sparks that ran up his arm right to his heart and his cock. Leon made him feel like he never had before – off balance, feverish with desire and capable of doing something very stupid.
With the dishes done, Phillip rushed to leave the kitchen for the relative safety of the living room. In there Ant was adorably hugging a toss pillow as he slept like a little angel.
"Should we leave him there?" Leon asked seeing that Phillip only gazed at Ant without making any move to disturb him. He just didn't have the heart.
"He sleeps on the couch all the time, the one in my office. If he wakes up at night and I'm in there working, he comes over and sometimes he falls asleep."
"He must like you," Leon said with a smile.
"He's only three. He doesn't know any better."
"I'm not three," Leon said and stared at Phillip pointedly. "Don't look so surprised. Why do you think I'm here?"
"We kidnapped you."
Leon chuckled. Though Phillip stared at his happy face and flirtatious eyes as if mesmerized, he felt that the danger was minimal with Ant only a few feet away – his guardian angel even in sleep.
"That was a lot of fun. Thanks for inviting me," Leon said grabbing his suit jacket off the back of a chair and getting ready to leave.