by L. Michael
“Me too.”
“Oh, and maybe you'll want to check that bag again. There's a present from me as well.” Jakob winked at me, blew me a kiss, and left my office. As soon as the door closed behind him, my hand was back in the bag. I chuckled when I saw the small, cute Snoopy figure. Smiling, I put it on top of my screen and got back to work.
The day flew by as I dug through case after case. Tracking down leads and checking the darknet for baddies. Before I realized it, it was time to head home and get ready for my date. Oh my! I was going on a real date.
When I got home, I threw clothes out of my closet, trying to pick the right combination of sexy and sweet. I could do both, right? Yes, I could do both. It took forever, but I finally found the perfect outfit. I settled on the nerd look with dark jeans, a grey dress shirt, a matching vest, and a bow tie. I completed the outfit with my white converse. I looked in the mirror, and I thought I looked cute. I hope Jakob liked it. It’s too late now because Jakob had arrived and was knocking on my door.
“Well, hello, Doctor Baker.”
“Uhm…” Was that good or bad? I glanced down at my outfit. Damn, maybe the bow tie was a little over the top. Or the vest? Perhaps I should have picked something else. I was starting to panic, but Jakob reached out and cupped my cheek.
“Hey, you look fabulous. Just like the cute little genius that you are.”
“You look good, too.” And damn, did he ever. I’m not sure which look I enjoyed more. I was used to seeing Jakob in his expensive-looking suits at work, and I loved looking at his body in a pair of sweatpants. But this had to be the hottest look of them all. Tonight, he wore tight dark blue jeans and a black button-down with the sleeves rolled up, showing off his forearms.
“Ready to go?”
“Where are we going?”
“I know this lovely little Italian restaurant. It´s small, romantic, and I know they don't have any weird looking food.”
“Do they have those red and white tablecloths?” I asked while we walked down the stairs.
“Yes, of course. There are even candles in wine bottles. Very romantic.” Jakob’s hand rested in the small of my back. I leaned into his touch. I felt so cared for and supported when he touched me. Jakob even buckled me in and unbuckled me when we arrived at the restaurant. The restaurant was great, so cute and romantic, with only about twenty tables. I saw Daddy slip the waiter a twenty to get us a table in the corner as far away from the other patrons as possible. The waiter winked and led us to a small booth in the back.
“Here you go, gentlemen. Here are your menus. Our special tonight is the Veal Scallopini. Would either of you care for a drink?”
“Water and two glasses of red wine, please, and we already know what we want. The lasagna with a side salad and tiramisu for dessert for us both, please.”
“Excellent choice, sir. I'll bring your drinks right away.”
I watched the waiter leave before I turned to look at Jakob. “Thank you for ordering for me.”
“I'm sorry if I overstepped. You liked it when I ordered for you at the Rainbow Room, so I thought you'd like it here as well.”
“I do.”
“Good.” Jakob smiled at me and reached his hand across the table. “Is this okay, too?”
“You should have ordered spaghetti with meatballs instead so we could have shared.” I grinned, and the waiter who had returned with our drinks chuckled. Jakob only frowned at me. “Haven’t you ever seen Lady and the Tramp? They share a plate of spaghetti and meatballs.”
“Ok, that makes sense. I should have known that you're talking about a Disney movie.”
“I like those movies.” I shrugged and took a sip of the wine. Most people thought I was weird because I liked them so much. Loving Harry Potter was nerdy, loving Disney Movies was unusual for a grown man.
“I think it's cute.”
“You think everything about me is cute.”
“Well, yeah, actually, I do.” Jakob grinned and took a sip of his wine. “I mean, you´re nice, kind, funny, adorable, smart, and yes, very cute.”
I choked on my wine and stared at him. Jakob only stared back, and I could see that he was serious. “Th-Thank you.”
“But there are so many things I don't know about you yet. So, tell me something about yourself.”
“Is this an interrogation?”
“No. This is a date. It’s a chance to get to know each other better.” Jakob replied, turned my hand and interlaced our fingers. It felt intimate and comfortable. “Why don't I start and tell you something about me.”
I nodded. Yes, that was much better because I had no idea what to say about my life. My life was boring. I was boring, besides being interested in the BDSM lifestyle and age play, there wasn't much more in my life. I worked, played on my own, and lived my life as best as I could.
“Okay, so let's see. My name is Jakob Lannister, I'm 36, and I'm a Detective with the NYPD. Oh, and I'm a Daddy.”
I chuckled but relaxed. “Well I'm Samuel Arthur Baker, I´m 28, and I am an Intelligence Analyst Officer. Oh, and I'm a Little.”
“Very good.” Jakob smiled proudly at me; then, he raised his eyebrow. “Arthur? No, wait. You're 28, and you're a Doctor?”
“I´m… yes. I, um, I finished my doctorate when I was 23.”
“Wow. That’s young. You are a genius.”
I blushed and took another sip of my wine to hide my embarrassment. Before I could stop myself, I said, “My parents always said that I was special. But, in school, um, the other kids…” I sighed and emptied my glass before I looked at Jakob again. “I learned faster than anyone I knew. I could read before most of my peers. I was good at math, not social interaction.”
“So, they bullied you.”
“Yeah, I was bullied so much my parents took me out of school when I was ten and homeschooled me. I already felt different than others, and that made me feel even more like an outsider. I don't like it when people point out that I'm a genius.”
“But you are, and your parents are right. You are special, Sam.”
“They were.”
“What?”
“They were right.” I looked down at our joined hands. “Can I have another glass of wine?”
“Just one more.” Jakob waved the waiter over. We waited for our refills in silence. It was kind Jakob was giving me time to sort my thoughts. I was thankful for his quiet understanding. The waiter refilled our wine glasses and told us that our food would be out soon. I took another sip of wine.
“I finished my undergrad when I was 19 and went to Berkley to start on my Masters. Three months later, there was a car accident. They both died instantly.”
“I'm so sorry, Sam.”
“You know what's weird?” I asked after another sip of wine. Jakob reached over and placed my glass of water in front of me. I wished I could get drunk to tell him all this and then hopefully be so drunk that I forgot that I told him. But Jakob was a Daddy. No, Jakob is MY Daddy, and he is taking care of me. So, I took a sip of water and closed my eyes. “My Mom was already forty-seven when she got pregnant. My Dad was forty-nine. They always worried that they were too old to raise a kid. They sometimes talked about how it would be when I graduated from college, and they would be in their early seventies. I heard them talking one night, and they knew people at graduation would think that they were my grandparents. They said I would probably be an orphan before I turned forty, but I don’t believe they ever imagined that they would die when I was only nineteen.”
“Having a child at a young age is never a guarantee that you see your kid growing up.”
“What?” I looked up at Jakob and was surprised by the pained expression on his face.
“My Mom was twenty when she had me. She died when I was twenty-two. She was thirty-nine when they diagnosed her with cancer, and when she died, she was only forty-two.” Jakob told me. “I have a sister, Meredith. She was only sixteen when Mom died.”
“I'm so sorry, Jakob.”
/> “Thank you.” Jakob smiled at me and started to stroke the back of my hand. “My Dad was a cop as well. He retired four years ago and is going to be sixty next year. Meredith is thirty now. She got married last year and now lives with her husband in Seattle.”
The waiter interrupted us with our food. It smelled delicious. We enjoyed our meal in silence for a bit, then Jakob spoke up again.
“What about your name? Arthur.”
“Oh, that.” I took another bite of my lasagna and chewed before I answered. “Well, I already told you that I was a late child. At one point, they just gave up and thought that they would never have children. Then my Mom got pregnant, and they thought that it was a miracle. So they named me Arthur.” I blushed. “Well, you know…King Arthur.”
“King Arthur master of the Sprinkle Kingdom?”
I laughed. “No. But my Dad was an English Literature teacher.”
“What about your Mom?”
“She was a teacher as well, History and Political Science. It was easy for them to homeschool me.”
“They were both teachers. How come you studied computers?”
“Computers are easy.” I laid my fork down and took another sip of my water. “They're never mean, and if you do it right, they´ll do whatever you expect them to do, not like people. My first cybercrime class at Berkley hooked me. It was a good way to help people without interacting with them. And that sounds stupid.”
“No. Not at all.” I watched Jakob drinking from his wine, while he thought about this. I appreciated that he thought about what he was going to say. “Just take the case we got today. Speaking to Luke was hard. I sat and listened to him, telling me what had happened. I'm not supposed to be emotionally involved with cases, but sometimes it's hard. You don´t get to see this. You look at a screen.”
“And you think that's easy? Do you have any idea what I'm looking at most of the time?”
Jakob paled and shook his head. He reached across the table and took my hand. “I'm sorry, that´s not what I meant. I do know that you see things, none of us Detectives see. But…” Again, Jakob stopped and thought about his words. “They're pictures. Movies. On a screen. It’s almost disconnected. Almost. I was at the hospital today, listening to a young student describe how he got beaten up and raped with a beer bottle. I saw the look in his eyes, and I heard his broken voice. But I never meant that you don't have to deal with the horrors of our job.
“I do see the horrors. It's just without… the connection. They still hurt, and the images still get in my head.”
“Oh, Sweetie. Yes, it’s all hard.”
Jakob squeezed my hand and rubbed his thumb over my knuckles. Again, there was silence. But it wasn't uncomfortable. We ate, exchanged glances, and just enjoyed each other’s company.
“My…Ex was an accountant,” Jakob suddenly said, and I looked up. “He never understood my job. The weird hours, the stress. The emotional and physical demands. When he ended things, he said that he'd felt smothered by my need to be a Daddy.”
“You're a good Daddy.”
“Only for the right boy.”
He winked at me. Instead of answering, I smiled at Jakob and went back to my dinner. He was a good Daddy, and the implication that he would be only for the right boy had my heart fluttering. Could I be the only boy for him? No, there was no question. I knew in my heart I was the only boy for him because he was the perfect Daddy for me. Time would tell if he felt the same way about me.
Chapter 9
Jakob
I was walking to my desk the next morning, after our near-perfect date. The conversation got heavy at times, but overall, I thought it was a huge success. We enjoyed a good meal, and then we went back to my place where we watched some cartoons until I tucked Sam into my bed. The bonus was, this morning, I was able to make him breakfast. We had eggs, bacon, toast, and hairy balls. Haha. Hairy balls. I shook my head. The way Sam reacted to food was sweet.
He wrinkled his nose at the Kiwi and had a wicked grin when he saw that there was a peach as well. Yeah, I did it on purpose. I could have given him cherries or an apple. But serving him a kiwi and peach had just been too tempting. To make Sam laugh and smile was a big goal in my life now, even if it was just a laugh over a Kiwi. I would never be able to look at a Kiwi and not think it looked like a hairy ball. Sam had ruined me.
“What has you grinning like that?” Matt asked when I walked over to our desks.
“A kiwi.”
“What?”
“Never mind.” I sat down and looked through the files and notes someone had left for me. “Anything new on the Lennox case?”
“No. Unsurprisingly, they didn’t find any DNA in any of his wounds. Forensics didn’t find any fingerprints on the bottle.”
“Shit.” That left us with basically nothing. There were no eyewitnesses, no surveillance footage, and no leads. “We should go back to the club and keep asking around. Someone must have seen something.”
“Spending a night out in a gay club. What is that the new gay beat?”
Eddie Curtis sneered as he walked past my desk. I swore Curtis had some kind of secret and was a prick to everyone to make himself feel better. I tried to ignore him, but he pressed on.
“Fucking around a gay bar isn’t police work. Besides, don’t we have better things to do than to chase down a queer beater?”
“Curtis, you wouldn’t know real police work, even if it came up and bit you in the ass.” Enough was enough. “When are you going to admit that you only act like a homophobic asshole because you are so deep in the closet and too scared to come out?”
“Fuck you, Lannister.”
“Jakob!”
Sam rushed into the squad room. He was wide-eyed and pale and held a tablet to his chest. “I mean, Detective Lannister.”
“Samuel, it’s fine. What's wrong?”
“Your case. I found a video…”
“What? There were no surveillance cameras around the club.”
“I know.” Sam rushed over to a wall-mounted monitor. “But whenever a case comes in, I use a program that I wrote, setting some parameters. You know, information about the victim and potential perps. Credit card data, phone data, e-mails, and similar data. It also includes social media and internet web pages.”
“Okay.” I exchanged a look with Matt, who looked just as confused as I felt.
“So, I fed all the information into my program. It works a little like the police database where you can check if there is a similar case somewhere else.”
“Okay, get to the point, Sam.” I said softly before he continued his cybercrime monologue.
“Right, yes.” Sam took a deep breath and looked at me. He was excited, but I also saw the same haunted look as when he checked for pictures of the abused boy. He was devastated. “Someone created a website called Campus Gay-bashing. It went online two hours ago. There´s only one video on it.” Sam tapped away on his tablet.
“Wait. Someone filmed it and put it online?”
“Yes. Look.” The monitor turned on, and the video started to play. I stared at the screen and watched three guys assaulting Luke. I swallowed hard when I heard the verbal insults, and then Luke's quiet pleas for them to stop, and Sam whimpered.
“Turn it off, Sam.”
He turned off the video but did not look up. He stared at his tablet, so I took it from him. I handed the tablet to Matt, who shot a concerned look towards Sam.
“You don't have to watch it, Sam,” I told him quietly.
“I… I already did. I had to confirm that it's Luke’s assault. It was- it was like Boston.”
“Boston?” Curtis asked behind me, and I ignored him. Instead, I concentrated on Sam. No wonder he was so shaken up. It must have caused some sort of flashback. I wanted to take him into my arms, but I didn´t dare. Not in the middle of the precinct. I grabbed his shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze.
“Are you okay, Sam?”
He nodded his head, but his voice was unste
ady. “We're still running it through facial recognition, but I know who uploaded it. The name and address are on the tablet. It´s a student from Luke’s University. I already shut the site down, but- but it was out there. People have been watching it. Jakob, you need to stop them.”
“Wait,” Curtis spoke up again. “You're that shit, tech kid who got Rosek fired.”
“What?” Sam’s head snapped up so quickly I was afraid he gave himself whiplash. “Y-You know… Rosek?”
“I know a damn good cop who got fired because of you. You queer little fag.”
I spun around and stared at Curtis. “Get lost, Curtis, before I forget myself.” Curtis looked past me, puffed out his chest, and glared down at Sam. Sam took a step behind me.
“Rosek should have made a video, too. I would have enjoyed watching it.”
I saw red. Before Curtis could react, my fist connected with his chin, and he fell backward. Then things got interesting. Curtis jumped up off the floor and launched himself at me. We swung at each other. Curtis punched me in the arm, and I landed another punch to his face. It was an all-out brawl. We traded blows until Matt yelled my name and tried to get us separated. Other Detectives were on their feet trying to pull Curtis and me apart.
“Enough!”
The shout was so loud it rattled the windows. Panting, I looked over my shoulder. Captain Benson was coming towards us, and I could see the fury rolling off him, but when he looked at me, I saw the satisfaction in his eyes. I would be in trouble because I started the fight with Curtis, but it appeared that Captin Benson heard what Curtis said. The Captain had made it clear about the precinct’s position when he asked me to mentor Sam. He wouldn't tolerate Curtis’ behavior. But I was in just as much trouble.
“Matt, go and get Doctor Baker’s Supervisor. Jakob, take Doctor Baker to the breakroom and get him some water.” Then the Captain turned towards Eddie Curtis. “And you… my office. Now!”
Curtis glared at me as he walked away. If Curtis didn’t hate me before, he hated me now. I saw red when Curtis insulted Sam. Oh, shit, Sam. I spun around and closed the distance between us. “Are you okay?”