Couldn’t be helped now.
He collapsed onto Dalton, his cock slipping from his mouth, and rested his sore face against Dalton’s hitching belly, felt the still-hard erection against his neck and throat.
He’d done it.
He had sucked Dalton’s cock.
It was wonderful.
He told Dalton he loved him and slipped off to sleep.
9
BEFORE THE night was over, Dalton fucked him. He offered himself, but they both knew the way it would be between them. Who knew what might happen one day? But that night and through the months to come, it was Dalton inside him.
That first morning, waking in each other’s arms in that no-tell motel, Lucas asked it again for the first time since they were kids.
“Marry me, Dalton.”
Dalton sighed, rolled over, and threw a leg on top of Lucas. “Not that again! Lucas, we can’t get married. We’re never going to be able to get married.”
“I heard about this church,” Lucas said. “They’ve got one in Kansas City. It’s called MCC. It’s a gay church. And they do these things called Holy Unions. They’re not legal of course, but—”
“Then why bother?” Dalton interrupted. “It won’t mean anything, Lucas!”
“But what does that matter? It’s the ceremony, isn’t it? The commitment?”
Dalton looked at him. Kissed him on the nose. “Baby. I don’t need any ceremony except to be in your arms. And I’m sorry, I’m not doing any ‘Holy Union.’ Unless it’s legal, I’m not doing it. And that’s never going to happen. Not in our lifetime.”
It hurt, made Lucas’s heart hurt. But then Dalton was kissing him and making love to him, and he forgot all about marriage and Holy Unions.
For a while.
They learned a lot about each other’s bodies in those months of summer before Dalton had to go away to college.
And way too soon, those days of summer were ending.
10
“ARE YOU sure about this?” Lucas asked for what felt like the millionth time. It all seemed too impossible. Dalton’s parents? Well, they were nothing like his mother. That was for sure. Lucas knew they were why it had taken Dalton so long to come out. Or was about to.
“I’m sure,” Dalton said and kissed him, right there on the doorstep in front of Dalton’s home.
Heart in his throat, Lucas followed Dalton into his house. His very big house. Dalton came from money, and the house was in the nicest neighborhood of Terra’s Gate.
It wasn’t the first time Lucas had been in Dalton’s house, of course. He’d known him his whole life—or at least most of it. The house wasn’t the same one he’d lived in back in those shoestring days. Dalton’s father had climbed the corporate ladder pretty quickly and had considered moving to Kansas City. Thankfully Dalton’s mother prevailed, saying that the quiet of a small town—even a college town—was a better place for Dalton to be raised. Lucas wasn’t sure what he would have done if Dalton had moved away.
The smell of food filled the house. They were having dinner with Dalton’s parents, and Lucas was so nervous he wasn’t sure how he would eat.
Dalton was coming out to his family tonight.
More—he was telling them that they were lovers.
Lucas couldn’t get rid of the feeling that this was a very bad idea.
They already were pretty unhappy with their son for changing his college plans at the last minute. He was all set to go to the University of Missouri in Rolla—a science and technology school. Perfect for Dalton, who had always been one for taking apart and putting things back together (starting with the tying of shoes). But then he had elected to stay in Terra’s Gate instead and go to Wagner University. His parents had acknowledged it was a good school, so they hadn’t fought it too much. They just couldn’t understand why he’d chosen to stay.
The reason, of course, was Lucas.
“I can’t bear to do it,” Dalton had said, and no matter what Lucas did to try and convince him otherwise, his mind was made up. Of course Lucas hadn’t had his heart in it. Which made him feel guilty. But he couldn’t bear the idea of Dalton leaving either.
“Mom?” Dalton called out. “We’re here.”
The one source of relief was that Dalton’s father wasn’t home yet. His Lexus wasn’t in the driveway.
“Hello, boys.”
They turned as one, and there she was. Mrs. Denise Churchill. Looking like she was dressed for a business dinner in a white blouse buttoned high and a black skirt and sensible heels. She was a handsome woman—no, beautiful—with brown hair cupped around her head and face like a bonnet. She was smiling, but it didn’t quite reach her green eyes. She was studying them both, and Lucas couldn’t help feeling that she was actually looking inside his head.
“Hello, Mrs. Churchill,” Lucas said.
“Lucas.” She nodded, then turned to her son. “Do I get a kiss, Dalton?”
“Sure, Mom.” Dalton went to her, and she put her arms around his neck, and he gave her a peck on the cheek.
“I hope you boys are hungry. I’ve made a big beef roast with all the fixings: salad, mashed potatoes, rolls—they’re not as good as what my mother made, but they’re good. Do you like carrots, Lucas? I cooked them with the roast.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied.
She raised a brow high enough that it disappeared under her bangs. “Ma’am? Mrs. Churchill? Why so formal tonight? What happened to Mrs. C? You’re making me nervous.” She gave her son a steady gaze. Then turned. “I’ve made iced tea. Would you boys like some?”
They followed her out of the living room and into the kitchen. It was a big kitchen. Easily twice the size of Lucas’s, with a big island in the middle with both electric and gas burners and a grill. The cabinets were all glass faced, and Lucas knew from experience that all you had to do was touch them and gentle lights came on inside for late-night visits. The floors were heated as well.
“Will you pour, son?” asked Mrs. C.
The pitcher was on the island, along with glasses and lemon slices. Dalton poured and gave the first glass to Lucas—even though he shook his head no—and the second to his mother before taking the third for himself. He pulled Lucas to the counter that separated the kitchen from the dining room and sat them down together.
Again Dalton’s mother studied Lucas. “I made German chocolate cake for dessert. I wish it could have been pie, but they’re not my strong point. Not from scratch, that is.”
“I love German chocolate cake,” Lucas said.
She smiled. “I know. Dalton told me. He said you make one to die for, yourself. I wanted to make sure we had something you enjoyed. I hope it is as good as yours.”
Lucas’s gut clenched. For some reason he wasn’t feeling good about this. He hadn’t before. He wasn’t now.
Mrs. C took a sip of her tea, then placed it on the counter. “Your father should be here soon. I think I’ll fix the potatoes. Would you get the pot, Dalton? Drain it there in the strainer in the sink. That’s a good boy.”
Dalton got up, rolled his eyes at Lucas, and went to the stove. He snagged some oven mitts that matched the kitchen colors beautifully and grabbed the big steaming pot. Then he poured it into the sink.
“Does your mother make mashed potatoes from scratch, Lucas?” she asked, back to him and plugging in a hand mixer. “Or does she use the instant boxed stuff?”
Geez. What the hell was wrong? She had never seemed to love him, but she’d never been like this.
“It depends,” he answered. “If we’re in a rush, she uses the boxed stuff. But when it counts, she makes them from scratch. Sometimes she adds cheese and chives.”
She paused. “Well, I guess with her having to work, she doesn’t have as much free time. It’s good she tries.”
Then she began to make her mashed potatoes, with short orders to Dalton for cream and real butter. She used the mixer with her right hand and took a sip of her iced tea with her left. Then she held it h
igh. “Dalton, dear, slip some vodka in this for your mother. Not too much!”
Vodka?
Dalton got a pained expression on his face, took the proffered glass, and left the room.
Vodka in her tea?
Lucas knew she was no teetotaler, but vodka in your tea? What happened to martinis? The ones she trained Dalton to make when he was a kid and pretty much why Lucas had guessed his boyfriend—
(Boyfriend! He still couldn’t believe it.)
—had all but stopped drinking himself.
When Dalton came back, she was adding the butter to her potatoes and hardly looked as he handed her the glass.
“You didn’t put too much in?” she asked, loud enough to be heard above the noise of the mixer. “You know when I have too much I lose my tongue, and I must keep that tonight!”
The comment did nothing but make Lucas all the more nervous.
When she was finished with her mixing, she was also half-done with her cocktail. She wasn’t playing around tonight. At least with her martinis, she sipped. She put a lid on the pot with the potatoes, checked the roast in the big oven set in the stone wall, and then asked them if they “would like to retire to the living room?” She lagged behind, and it was only when she sat down on the chair next to the love seat that Dalton had insisted he and Lucas use that Lucas saw why. Her tea was near full again and suspiciously lighter in color.
“So how was your day, boys? The summer is almost over. What did you two get up to?” She crossed her legs, and Lucas noticed she was wearing hose. Lucas couldn’t believe it. His mother hated them with a passion. She didn’t like wearing hose at work as an administrative assistant—
“Glorified secretary is what I am,” she would state with a sigh.
—and she certainly wouldn’t wear them at home. Not even for company, and definitely not for Dalton, a boy she had known for pretty much his entire life. So why was this woman wearing them. For Lucas? He hadn’t ever noticed them before. In fact, she’d always worn pantsuits or obviously expensive and even ironed jeans (and who ironed jeans?).
“We went swimming,” Dalton said.
“At Wagner Public?” she asked.
Dalton shook his head. “No. Smithville,” he answered. Which was a lie. They’d gone to a pond that a nearby farmer had dug up in the middle of one of his cornfields and let the rain fill. Apparently he’d made it for local gay naturists, which meant skinny-dipping. Dalton had heard about it from Diego Hernandez and actually gone with a group of guys almost a year ago—
(which made Lucas very jealous until Dalton promised that he hadn’t done anything with Diego or any of the guys)
—after he turned eighteen. Lucas wasn’t quite eighteen yet, but Dalton reasoned that it would only be the two of them. What could happen?
“You didn’t drink, now, did you?” she asked and took a healthy swig herself.
Dalton assured her that it had been nothing but colas. Which was true. What they’d done was make love. Twice. Dalton had even insisted Lucas top him, which wasn’t Lucas’s favorite thing (it almost seemed wrong—it was only the second time he’d done it), but still, it had been bliss. Dalton had loved it, cried out in joy, and being inside Dalton had felt amazing.
Mrs. C turned to him and quite without warning was looking directly into his eyes, seemed to be watching the movie in his mind. He blushed hotly, as if she really had seen what he had been seeing. She pursed her lips, nodded once, and looked away. For a second Lucas thought he would puke.
Then she started talking about what she’d done that day: breakfast with Sharon Solomon and then a meeting for the annual Kingston Charity Dinner—of which she was secretary—and how she was concerned with the lack of donations with any real worth for the auction.
“I mean, please,” she was saying as Dalton’s father came into the room. “A necklace of only six carats? Last year we had one that was 18.6—and I thought that one was rather cheap. How chintzy are people getting?”
“Next year they’ll be donating cubic zirconium, right, dear?” Mr. Churchill added, standing in the doorway like some ancient god.
They all turned in unison.
Lucas actually trembled.
“I know, right?” Mrs. C said.
Dalton’s father was a tall man, taller even than Dalton’s own six feet, and his face looked as if it had been chiseled from stone. His features were hard, and his hair barely looked real, was cut military short on the sides with the top in short frozen waves. He wasn’t as blatantly muscular as Dalton, but he was wide shouldered and very fit. Dalton said he ran five miles every morning before work. He also said the ladies loved him, but Lucas couldn’t see it. The man was as cold as marble. Always had been.
Mrs. C had been the warmth of the family.
It amazed Lucas that Dalton was as passionate as he was. And in retrospect—the sudden understanding hit him in a way that almost made Lucas gasp aloud—what had surely been yet another reason Dalton had taken so long to proclaim his love.
“Good evening, Lucas,” Mr. C said as Mrs. C got up and headed for the bar.
“Good evening, Mr. C,” Lucas replied, trying the honorific he had used growing up and Mrs. C had insisted on earlier.
“Dinner is pretty much ready,” Mrs. C said over the clinking of ice against glass. “All I have to do is put the rolls in. Ten minutes. You want me to do that now or give you a chance to sh—”
“Now will be perfect, dear,” he said, interrupting her as she slipped him a short glass filled halfway with a tea-colored liquid. Scotch? Whiskey? Lucas had no idea. His mother wasn’t a drinker—not even wine. There had been no alcohol in the Arrowood household while Lucas was growing up. No martinis to learn to make. “Dalton, would you take my briefcase up to my study? It’s in the hall.”
“Yeah, sure,” Dalton said, and once again Lucas was alone with one of these unknowable people.
“‘Yeah, sure,’” Mr. C said in a gently mocking tone. “Can you believe that, Lucas?”
“Sir?” Lucas all but squeaked.
“There. See? ‘Sir.’ I don’t know what’s happened to Dalton this past year. He’s lost all sense of respect. I suppose it comes with his age. Thinking he’s a man—”
He is a man.
“—thinking he’s old enough to make the decisions that will affect his entire life.”
Mr. C laughed, and Lucas felt a chill. He opened his mouth to say “Don’t you think he’s old enough to make his own decisions?” because he felt Dalton was old enough, was a man. There were countries where a boy became a man at thirteen. But then he closed his mouth and left it unsaid. He could see that Dalton’s father didn’t agree. Not at all.
“Can I get you a drink, Lucas?” Mr. C asked.
Lucas. Not son. Mr. C had called him son for as far back as Lucas could remember.
He was getting a very bad feeling.
You’re letting your imagination get away from you. You’re just making mountains out of molehills.
Nervous about Dalton coming out. Coming out as gay. Coming out about their being lovers.
“No, thank you, Mr. Churchill,” he answered, all thoughts of calling the man Mr. C abandoned. “I’m not old enough. I’m only seventeen.”
“Seventeen?” the cold giant said quietly. “Really?”
“Not old enough for what?” asked Dalton, returning to the room.
“Of course, he’s only seventeen,” said Dalton’s mother, one step behind. “He’s a year behind Dalton. He’s always been a year behind Dalton, darling.”
“Not old enough for what?” Dalton asked again.
“For a cocktail,” Mr. Churchill stated, almost vaguely, almost as if Dalton weren’t even in the room.
“Dad!”
God! I’ve stumbled into The Addams Family or something.
“I won’t tell if you don’t,” said Mr. Churchill.
Lucas gulped. “Thank you, sir. That’s okay.” And truth to tell, he wasn’t interested. The thought of alco
hol always made him think of a certain forever-ago day with spin the bottle and vanilla-flavored vodka, which had burned and tasted nasty and not anything like the bottle had suggested.
“Suit yourself,” Mr. Churchill said.
Thankfully dinner came as quickly as promised. There was no grace, not even the simple “God is great, God is good, let us thank him for our food. Amen.” that Lucas’s mother insisted they say before every meal. And the meal was amazing. Mrs. C had always been a good cook.
They were soon at the dining room table—it was a strangely cold room, with wallpaper that looked like burlap to Lucas—and Dalton’s parents sat at either end of the table, Dalton and Lucas across from each other. Lucas would have been more comfortable at a table like the much smaller one at home, sitting next to Dalton. Equally thankfully, the odd and disquieting conversation turned much more like the ones Lucas was used to at the Churchills’. Was Lucas sending out college applications yet? What movies were good right now? Which ones a waste of time? Mr. and Mrs. Churchill mentioned the books they were reading—Lucas hadn’t heard of either of them—and was shy when he mentioned that he was reading The Da Vinci Code. Was the book too common for them? Then there was talk about if anyone thought the Chiefs would do well this year, which meant Lucas was completely lost.
It was after dinner that everything went wrong.
11
THE CONVERSATION started with a question.
“So, Lucas, you didn’t tell me what college you’re looking at attending,” Mr. Churchill said over coffee on the patio. It was late summer, and even though it was after eight, the sky was still bright. “Or are you planning on college?”
He’d already asked that, hadn’t he? And why hadn’t Lucas answered? No. He’d started to answer, and then Mrs. C had cut in, asking Dalton if he’d ever finished reading Trainspotting….
A More Perfect Union Page 30