Indiscretion (Inequitable Trilogy Book 1)

by Lesli Richardson

  Elliot enjoys it when I do dark, depraved things to him. When I use him. Something inside him needs that level of brutality sometimes. To be taken to a feral place and stripped bare of his humanity.

  One of the things I love so much about Jordan is the gentle tenderness of his soul.

  He makes me feel like I’m not a shitty human being.

  There has to be a way to make this work.

  Has to be.

  I refuse to give up on him, or us.

  I focus on the heads of our cocks, slowing my strokes and prolonging this. “Give me a week,” I beg. “Have you put in your notice yet?”

  Yes, it’s mean of me to make him answer when he’s wearing that gorgeously glazed look in his eyes. “I…I haven’t. I mean, I was going to this afternoon. before I go home, and—”

  I kiss him again to shut him up. “A week.” I say it with my lips pressed against his. “Please, Jordan. Give me a week.”

  “O-okay, Sir.”

  Relief washes through me. Now that I know this is a thing, a bad thing, I can fix it, stop it. Derail it and get us all back on track. I know I can.

  I will not accept any other alternative.

  Unfortunately…that’s not how life works out. And, a week later, I can’t lie to Jordan that I’ve made no progress with Elliot. When we wake up that morning, he sadly tells me that he’s going to put in his notice that morning.

  Still, I make love to him, crying.

  I’m crying again two weeks later—and so is he—when he makes one last sweep of the apartment for his things and then removes his bracelet and hands it to me. I don’t want to take it, but he puts it in my palm and gently closes my fingers around it.

  I need him to stay, but I also cannot fault him for leaving.

  Because he believes Elliot should be our next president.

  “Please don’t leave me, Jordan. I love you.”

  “I love you, and you are the man of my dreams, but there isn’t enough room for me between the two of you. Elliot needs you.”

  Wanting something to work out a certain way, wanting it badly enough, is far from a guarantee that’s the direction life’s curveballs will break for you.

  The silence echoing through the apartment as he closes the door behind him one last time guts me. I refused to take his keys back, because I still hope he won’t do it. That he’ll get downstairs and turn around. I can still taste his last kiss on my lips as I crumple to the floor, sobbing with his bracelet in my hands and cradled against me, still warm from being around his flesh.

  I hate myself for being too weak to walk away from Elliot, and for being unable to make this fucking work.

  Just like I couldn’t will Brad to survive, or force my body to comply to help him that day.

  Now I have to find a way to survive on my own.

  Because my boy’s right—Elliot needs me.

  But I have no idea if I’m strong enough now.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Now — Early March

  11 months until Iowa

  This brings me to the present.

  Here I am, sweat trickling between my shoulder blades while I stand in the shade of an oak tree and watch the entrance to the office building where Jordan works on the FSU campus. It’s early March and feels like a goddamned muggy furnace, even in the shade.

  Fucking Florida humidity.

  It’s a little before five, and he’s due to leave work any time now.

  I still have no fucking clue what I’m going to do even though I swore to myself this time I would approach him.

  What do I even say to him?

  I haven’t talked to him, haven’t texted with him in three months, and I feel like I’m going to crawl out of my goddamned skin. I once again think about texting him, but…

  What if he doesn’t text me back?

  This is the fifth time I’ve flown down here and watched him…

  Stalked.

  If I’m honest, I guess the word I’m looking for is stalked.

  Because I know nearly everything about him right now except the two things I’m terrified to learn—does he hate me for letting him leave, and has he found someone else?

  The last time I flew down here, I followed him around on a Saturday while he ran errands. I rented a car, staked out his apartment building, and nearly freaked when I saw him getting on a bus. I followed it and almost missed it when he got off outside a Target.

  Followed him around inside the Target.

  I know, I know. I might have a…problem.

  He wasn’t paying a damn bit of attention. Had his earbuds in, presumably listening to music on his phone, but there was no characteristic bounce in his step. None of the times I’ve stalked him have I seen that.

  He still looks like I feel.

  Heartbroken.

  It made my heart simultaneously ache to see him so sad but gave me hope that maybe he is still my boy.

  A couple of times, I thought about walking up behind him and clamping a hand onto his shoulder, scaring the crap out of him for not having better situational awareness, and…

  I couldn’t.

  One time, I approached him from behind and, when he turned to look at something on the shelf, I chickened out and edged past him, out of his line of sight, and quickly kept walking without looking back, so he wouldn’t see my face. When I turned the corner at the end of the aisle, I glanced back, and he still wasn’t paying a damn bit of attention.

  Which brings me to today, the here and now, as I stand in the shadows and wait.

  It’s been over five months since Jordan left DC. What do I even say to him? Especially after so much radio silence between us. I can’t promise him that if he comes back our situation will ever change.

  I can’t promise him we’ll be a triad, and I can’t quit Elliot, rightly or wrongly. It’d be cruel to drag Jordan back into this emotional quagmire, wouldn’t it? I know I can’t make myself break up with Elliot.

  Jordan was absolutely right—Elliot needs me.

  Worse, I need him.

  Unfortunately, things are slowly deteriorating between me and Elliot. My anger and grief and pain are keeping me away from him, because I don’t want to hurt him. I don’t want to say things I can’t take back.

  I don’t want to blame him.

  Meaning I’ve been neglecting him. I haven’t had the energy to push him to let me in. It’s been easier to bounce off his orbit and careen around on my own rather than trying to insert myself into his life and schedule.

  That hurts, too. That he’s not fighting for me. For us.

  Maybe I don’t deserve either of them.

  When Jordan emerges from the office building, I perk up but then I want to fucking scream at him.

  Head down over his fucking phone, again, which he carries in his right hand, his left holding the strap of his messenger bag, which is slung across his body, and earbuds in.

  Oblivious to the world around him. A fucking innocent babe in the woods, the perfect victim.

  Like he’s learned absolutely fucking nothing from his years with me.

  Today, I’m going to do it. I’m going to follow him, walk up to him outside his front door, and fucking scare the crap out of him.

  Then I’m going to drag him into his building and spank his gorgeous little ass for not paying better attention before I make love to him.

  If he’ll let me.

  But as I follow him and I realize we’re taking his usual shortcut across campus on a trajectory that likely leads to his apartment…

  I once again chicken out.

  I stay close enough to keep an eye on him and intercede should it be needed, my heart aching that I can’t protect him all the time. As we approach his apartment building nearly twenty minutes later, all courage once again flees me.

  I remember too much.

  The tears rolling down his cheeks that horrible afternoon.

  The choked sound of his last words to me before he left.

  “I love you
, and you are the man of my dreams, but there isn’t enough room for me between the two of you. Elliot needs you.”

  My steps slow and I hang back until I watch him safely disappear into his building.

  I can’t keep doing this. This isn’t just masochism, it’s the bad kind of masochism—emotional masochism.

  I’m becoming addicted to this dark, nasty feeling sloshing around in my gut.

  It’d be easy for pain and resentment to compound and blossom until I can’t stand the sight of Elliot and I nuke us and am left with absolutely nothing.

  This isn’t healthy. The psychologist is sick and tired of my goddamned shit.

  Leaning against an oak tree, I stare at the entrance to Jordan’s building as my hand slips into my pocket to finger his bracelet. Jordan has a tiny studio loft, lives by himself.

  Yeah, I talked my way into the building on an earlier trip. The super was easy to con. Didn’t even have to lie too much. Flashed my White House ID badge at him, said I work for the White House, implied I was Secret Service, and that there were security issues I had to investigate to make sure Jordan was safe. That it would only take me a moment, and I needed the man’s discretion, because we didn’t want to worry Jordan needlessly.

  I even asked him to come inside the apartment with me and stand in the doorway while I walked around the tiny place with my tablet held up, like I was scanning for electronic bugs.

  Fucking idiot.

  The super, I mean.

  What I was doing was taking pictures and video, because I’m that damned sick and twisted, I suppose.

  My poor boy.

  That was last month. Jordan had been living here nearly five months at that point, and he had barely any furniture, not even anything on the walls, the bed still on the floor.

  Nothing.

  Bleak.

  Much the way my own soul feels right now.

  My sweet, innocent boy’s living in pain. If I drag him back to DC…

  That would make me a shitty, selfish person, wouldn’t it? Hurting the two men I love so goddamned much? Killing Elliot inside a day at time, him knowing I’m with Jordan, and yet leaving Jordan stuck in an emotional limbo I can’t promise him will ever change.

  Because if I did bring Jordan back, I know damn well if Elliot ever demanded I permanently end things with Jordan.…

  I would.

  The dream I had of us being a triad will never come true. Rationally, I know this.

  Letting Jordan go is, in the long run, the kindest thing I can do, even if it kills me inside and hurts Jordan now. He’s young—he will heal and find someone else. Jesus, he’s so goddamned young, why should he be saddled with me?

  I suppose that’s why I’m still with Elliot now. Because after all of this, I can understand his fear, his crushing, crippling indecision, even if mine come from different places than his.

  Regardless, nothing’s getting resolved right now. I leave DC in a few days. I’ll be traveling with Shae for the next several weeks, an overseas, multi-country trade and diplomacy tour that’s supposed to help cement certain treaties, which will be a springboard for setting up an easy empty-net slap shot for Elliot in terms of getting him elected and starting his first term on the right foot.

  I’ll table this until after that’s out of the way. I’ll be able to take several days off after our return. Ironically, Elliot’s going to be here in Tallahassee in just a few days. He’s got meetings with state government and DNC party officials, and I think he’s spending a night in Shae’s house here so he can get away from press for a night.

  I finally force myself to walk away and head back to my rental car.

  Later that evening, I’m sitting in a seat on the last flight of the day to DC, which I booked at the last-minute instead of waiting until tomorrow morning’s flight. Before we push back from the gate, I’m staring at my phone.

  At the airline’s ticket app.

  I can book myself a seat on a flight from DC to Tallahassee three days after we’re scheduled to return from Shae’s trip.

  Except I don’t know if life will interfere. If work will interfere.

  I take a deep breath, hold it, blow it out.

  The thought of Jordan meeting someone else, of some other man getting to love him—own him—shreds my soul.

  The boy is perfect for me.

  So is Elliot.

  I should let Jordan go.

  I should suck it up, release him, and let him move on.

  My finger hovers over the purchase button.

  Elliot needs you.

  Jordan’s eighteen years younger than me. Young enough to be my damn kid. He’s got his master’s to finish, which was selfishly interrupted by me tugging him into our chaotic orbits the first time around.

  I’ve been selfish for too damned long.

  Right?

  Yet I still hit the purchase button and then thumb the side button on my phone to confirm I want to buy the ticket by using the credit card number stored in my phone’s wallet.

  Once the e-mail confirmation hits my inbox, I turn off my phone, stow it in my carryon, and lay my head back against the seat.

  I’ve got several weeks to regret this and talk myself out of it.

  To rationalize myself out of it.

  To talk to Elliot and pin him down once and for all to firmly committing himself to me and to us. To swear to me that, once he’s elected, I’ll be his body man and we’ll at least be able to spend every night together. That once he serves his two terms in office, then he’ll be mine.

  Or, if he doesn’t win, that he’ll finally commit to being with me, openly or not.

  That’s…what, ten years, right? If he wins election and then gets re-elected?

  I’ve already got more than that invested in us.

  I can’t discard him just because this shit’s difficult.

  He loves me, and I know this.

  Except knowing isn’t enough. Not anymore.

  Not when I know I could’ve asked Jordan to marry me, and he would have.

  In a heartbeat.

  I need a firm commitment from Elliot.

  But the ticket is there and waiting for me. It means that, for the next several weeks, maybe I can limit my obsessions about Jordan to those few minutes immediately after waking and before going to sleep. The ticket is my security blanket.

  Twice now, I’ve allowed an indiscretion to turn into an obsession.

  Twice now, I’ve ripped my own heart out by not being careful.

  There’s no way in hell I can continue like this. I need resolution.

  As the flight attendants go through their pre-flight safety speech, I turn my head to look out the window to my right. Out there is the Tallahassee evening, darkness sweeping through the landscape as the sun sets.

  Out there is my bright, beautiful, sweetly innocent boy, sadly alone in his small, painfully barren apartment.

  He’s too good for DC. He’s too pure and kind.

  That city would eventually chew him up and spit him out and erase everything about him that makes Jordan the light that he is.

  I feel guilty as fuck for letting him go, for breaking his heart. He gave me his virginity and his love and his trust, and all I was able to give him in return was heartache, and yet he still found the space in his soul to selflessly put others before himself.

  Elliot needs you.

  If it wasn’t for me, Elliot would have ended up roped into The Family, courtesy of his sister, and shoved even farther and deeper into the closet than he already is. He would’ve been miserable for an entire host of reasons more than he is now.

  He’d be dragged onto a track he felt he couldn’t escape, used by others who think he’s something he’s not, and made into a tool for their purposes. I’ve been doing a lot of digging. When Elliot declares, I know damn well The Family will make another serious run at him, because the potential to have him in their pockets is far too good to pass up. Especially since he’s a Democrat.

  Should
they stumble upon his secrets?

  Then he really won’t be able to escape their clutches.

  I have to protect him. I can’t leave him alone and aching and vulnerable.

  My sad, sweet boy is right in more ways than one.

  Elliot needs me, and the country needs Elliot now more than ever.

  I suppose if my boy can be so selfless…well, so can I.

  Maybe one day it won’t hurt so fucking much.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  The evening before I’m slated to leave with Shae on her multi-country trip, I head over to Elliot’s once I know he’s returned to his residence for the night. He doesn’t know I’m coming but I haven’t been able to see him in private since my return from Tallahassee a couple of days ago.

  It’s been far longer than that since we’ve had the time or privacy to play or make love. It’s been months.

  Not that I’ve really felt like doing either, unfortunately.

  I feel rapidly swelling guilt over the airline ticket confirmation sitting in my e-mail inbox. I should cancel it, get a refund, and walk away once and for all. Rededicate myself to Elliot, reciprocated or not.

  But…

  I can’t.

  I check in with Elliot’s on-site detail before I head to the house, where I let myself in with my key.

  He doesn’t have the alarm turned on.

  Goddammit, Elliot.

  I know he’s surrounded by Secret Service, but fuck. What the hell is it about these two boys of mine that make them think they’re invulnerable?

  That thought literally pulls me up short.

  Boy, not boys.

  I only have one now.

  Although, in my heart, Jordan will always be my boy. I’m never going to be able to release him there and don’t want to try.

  Besides, Elliot isn’t so much my boy as my pet. I think if everything else were settled he’d be happiest sitting at my feet and snuggled against me with me scratching his head like a Labradoodle.

  I know he’s upstairs because the downstairs is dark and I hear the TV on in his bedroom. I silently make my way up the stairs and down the hall. The lights are off and he’s sitting propped up on pillows in bed, dual images from the TV reflecting in his glasses, but he’s asleep. I suspect he’s also naked, even though the sheet is pulled up around his waist, because he’s shirtless. In his lap and on the bed next to him, on the far side, are several thick binders, full of prep material, most likely. It looks like he was reading and fell asleep because the one in his lap is open.