by Tinnean
“Hullo.”
“Hi. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Come on, come in!” Marti ordered.
“Hold on a minute, guys.” A tall, good-looking blonde wearing shorts and a T-shirt that read, Because I’m the Mommy, that’s why! tugged off their Star Wars and SpongeBob T-shirts. She had a figure that belied the fact that she’d given birth to twins twice. “Okay, you can deal with your shorts yourselves.” She seemed a little out of breath.
They kicked off their sandals, peeled off their shorts to reveal their little-boy swimsuits, and grinned and jumped into the pool, all of them obviously comfortable in that element.
I recognized the man strolling across the lawn and toting an ice chest from the framed photograph in Wills’s apartment, although he’d worn a tux in that and was now dressed more casually. His shorts were denim cut-offs, and across his T-shirt were the words I’m with Beautiful. The light-blue tee brought out the color of his eyes and hugged muscular arms and a well-defined chest.
I figured those muscles must run in the family.
“Hey, Ha.” Wills greeted his cousin. “How was the drive up?”
“Not bad. Fortunately the boys napped most of the way, so I didn’t have to hear ‘Are we there yet?’ fifty million times.”
“They came up from Long Island,” Wills told me.
Harry Matheson dropped the ice chest and engulfed Wills in a bear hug. “Hi, cuz.” He was a couple of inches taller than Wills.
“My ribs, Harry! My ribs!” But he laughed and hugged him back before letting him go. “I’m getting you wet.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’ll get soaked once the kids come out of the pool anyway. It’s good to see you again. It’s been too long.”
“You know how it is with work. Hi, Brynn. You’re looking good.” He kissed her cheek.
“Thanks. That’s nice to hear. Harry tells me that all the time, but that’s his job.” She grinned and then turned to me, her fair eyebrows raised.
“This is Theo Bascopolis.” Wills twined his fingers with mine. “He’s… mine.”
I blinked in surprise. I hadn’t expected him to be so open about it.
They both looked from my lover to me and back.
“Mrs. Matheson.” I held out my hand.
“Oh, please, call me Brynn.” She took my hand but stepped closer to kiss my check as well. “Otherwise I’ll think you’re talking to my mother-in-law.” She was almost as tall as her husband.
“And I’m Harry. Aunt Jill mentioned something about Wills having a surprise for us. I’m just glad it isn’t another scar.”
“Brynn. Harry, I understand you’re responsible for the scar Wills has on his… butt.” I watched my language. There were children around.
Harry shook my hand, his grin rueful. “Am I ever going to live that down?”
His pretty wife laughed. “Not likely, Ha. How you could think Wills was making a play for me…?”
“Well, if you weren’t so beautiful, it probably wouldn’t have crossed my mind.”
She laughed and pinched his chin. “I’m not, you know, but I love that you think so.” There were shouts from the pool, and she gave a distracted smile. “I’d better go watch my demons.” She stripped off her shorts and tee to reveal a sarong-style two-piece bathing suit covered in vivid splashes of red and orange.
“Hey! Those are my children you’re talking about like that!”
“Right.” She grinned. “My demons, all of you.” She brushed a kiss over his lips, crossed to the ladder, and climbed down sedately.
“She’s pregnant again. We just found out.”
“Harry, that’s awesome!” Wills pounded him on the back.
“Yeah. She’s hoping since Uncle Jack gave Aunt Jill a little girl, I can do the same for her.”
“Twin girls would be so cool.”
“Yeah, they would.” He turned to me and studied me carefully. I was glad the suit I’d chosen to bring was plain—staid and fully lined instead of the low-rise trunks or square cuts I usually wore. “So you’re with Wills?”
“Yes.”
“Well, he always did have a weakness for redheads.” He noted my raised eyebrow and grinned, a hard twist of his lips. “Break his heart and I’ll break your neck.”
Wills touched his arm. “You don’t have a problem with it, Harry?”
“Idiot.” He cuffed Wills’s shoulder. “I don’t have a problem with Uncle Pete, so why would I have a problem with you? The only thing that surprises me is that it wasn’t Michael. You and he were always so tight.”
Michael? That was the third time that name had come up today. I sent a glance in Wills’s direction. He sighed and looked away, but not before I saw the sadness in his eyes.
“I guess you might say I wasn’t Michael’s type. He liked ’em blonde and curvy. Or brunette and curvy. Or….”
It still hurt him that his friend had preferred girls to him. I squashed down the stab of jealousy. Wills is with me now, and that’s all that matters, I assured myself.
“Ah. Got it. Smug prick.” His cousin obviously didn’t think much of this Michael, whoever he was. “I know he’s dead, Wills, but that doesn’t change the fact that I never did like him very much.”
“You didn’t know him.”
“Did you?”
“I thought I did. Michael was my best friend from the time we moved here when I was twelve,” Wills told me.
“I take it something happened to him?”
“He died of autoerotic asphyxiation.”
“He scarfed?” I didn’t say how stupid I thought that was, but the disapproval must have been clear in my voice. Harry nodded in agreement, and Wills looked at me in surprise. “There are other ways to make yourself feel good. Besides, it’s too easy for things to go wrong.”
“He was my best friend,” Wills repeated. “Even after we graduated from college I still considered him my best friend. Maybe if I’d been… I don’t know, more of a friend to him….”
“More of a friend to him?” Harry cuffed the back of his head. “You hauled his ass out of hot water more times than I can remember.”
“That’s what friends do.”
“Did he do the same for you?”
“There was never any need for him to.”
“Well, then would he have?”
“Sure he would.” Wills sighed and then shrugged. “I’d like to think he would. I let him push me away, Ha.”
Jealousy reared back up. I didn’t want to hear this. It tore me up inside. “I’ll get you a beer, okay, babe?”
“Uh… sure.”
But I was already on my way back to the house. I stopped by a chaise and grabbed a towel, which I wrapped around my waist, then climbed the steps to the screened-in porch and crossed to the back door.
Jack Matheson was alone in the kitchen.
“Oh. Mr. Matheson. Hello.”
“Bascopolis.”
“I was just getting Wills a beer.”
He opened the fridge and took one out. “Here you go.”
“Thanks. Uh….” I scrambled for a topic of conversation. “That’s a lot of buns.”
The table was loaded down with hot dog and hamburger buns, bottles of ketchup and mustard, a large wooden bowl filled with salad greens.
“I doubt there’ll be any leftover. Once my brother Jake gets here—”
“Oh, Harry and Brynn are here.”
“Harry’s his youngest son.”
“Wills mentioned them. Something about Harry shooting him in the ass with a nail gun.”
He laughed, looking so much like Wills that it almost took my breath away. “We managed to keep it from Jill for the longest time, and when she finally found out, I don’t know which pissed her off more, that it had happened, or that we hadn’t told her.”
“You’ve got a great family, Mr. Matheson.”
“Yes.” He sobered. “I’d… uh… I’d like to talk to you.”
“Sure.” I felt myself tense up.
This was where he told me to get the fuck out of Dodge.
“I understand you’re unemployed.” His stance was less aggressive than it had been when we’d first been introduced earlier in the day.
“Actually, it’s more like a sabbatical, Mr. Matheson. I was in public relations”—just a little white lie. Charming people had been part of my job. I should be able to charm my lover’s father—“until recently, and…. Well, there are only so many ways to kiss ass. Sorry.” I gave him an easy grin. “I have a degree in accounting, and I’ll be putting that to use as soon as we get back to DC.”
“I see.” He relaxed. “So you are planning on working.”
“Of course. I never had any intention of sitting around the house watching Jerry Springer and eating bonbons.”
“How people can air their dirty laundry on national television like that….” He shook his head. “My son tells me you have a… healthy portfolio.”
“Yes, sir. My partners and I own shares in Microsoft, Google, Dell, a number of other corporations.” Including a certain blue-chip one. “We also rent out three of the floors of the house we own in DC. That covers the mortgage and maintaining the property.”
His eyes widened. “So one might say that you’re… comfortable.”
I grinned at him. “That’s how I always looked at it.”
“Hmm.” He relaxed even more. “You understand why I’m concerned?”
“Of course I do. And if I had a son, I’d be just as concerned about his happiness. As a matter of fact, I’d be ready to neuter anyone who made him unhappy.”
“Do you have children, Theo?”
It was the first time he’d called me by my first name. “No, Mr. Matheson. I’ve always been gay.”
“Whereas Wills has only recently come to this conclusion himself. This comes completely out of left field for me. All the girls he dated…. Every time I turned around he seemed to be seeing someone new.”
I made a noncommittal sound. The way my lover sucked cock proved he’d had at least one boyfriend, but I didn’t want to consider his past lovers—male or female—and I certainly wasn’t going to discuss them with his father.
“If it makes you more comfortable, you could always consider him bisexual. Scientists are propounding the theory that we all started that way to begin with.”
“That’s true.” He sighed. “Wills is very good with children, you know—his brother and sister, their friends, his cousins’ children. By choosing this lifestyle….”
“Excuse me for interrupting, Mr. Matheson, but this isn’t a lifestyle one chooses, any more than you had any choice in being heterosexual.”
“Yes, but… Theo, the possibility of Wills having children of his own if he goes this route becomes exponentially diminished.”
I’d never ever allowed myself to consider having children, but the thought of Wills and me raising a family…. “There’s always adoption or surrogacy through in vitro fertilization. Other gay men have done that.”
“He could leave you for a woman. How would you feel about that?”
If Wills left me, it would destroy me no matter who he left me for. “Mr. Matheson, he could just as easily leave me for another man. That’s a chance I have to take, that I’m willing to take.”
“I’m not saying that Wills would do that. He’s a good son, a devoted brother, a fiercely loyal friend. I assume he’s told you about Michael?”
“Only that Michael was his best friend while he was growing up. It was obvious that talking about him was painful, so I didn’t push.”
“They met just after we moved here; they were in the same sixth grade class. Michael was… I always worried that he would be a bad influence on William, but thank God it didn’t turn out that way. William would come home with a skinned knee or a bloody nose, acquired while getting Michael out of some crackbrained scheme of his, but more often than not it was William who kept a rein on their escapades. My son told me once he couldn’t understand how Michael could think his parents didn’t love him.”
I could understand it—my parents, or at least my father, no longer loved me—and suddenly I felt a connection with Michael.
“I asked William if that had ever worried him,” Mr. Matheson continued, “especially after I married Jill and we had John Robert and Marti.”
“What did he say?”
Mr. Matheson laughed softly. “He said, ‘Don’t be an ass, Dad.’” The smile left his face. “I regret Michael’s passing, as I would the senseless loss of any life, but I can’t say that I regretted it when he and Wills seemed to grow apart.”
If I’d had a friend like Wills when I was growing up, I’d have moved heaven and earth to keep him in my life. And I imagined my life would have taken quite a different turn, but I could hardly say that to his father.
“I….” I licked my lips. “I feel you should know that I’ve asked Wills to move in with me.”
“Jill told me. Making an honest man of him?”
More that his son was making an honest man of me. I smiled but said nothing.
He sighed. “As I’ve said, Wills has always been a good son. You might not be aware of it, but he’s the child of my first marriage.”
“Wills said something about his mother being killed in an accident when he was five.” I didn’t say that Jill had also mentioned it. He might not approve of his wife talking about the family outside the family. That was the way it was in my family. “That had to have been devastating to you both.”
“Yes. I never thought… I’ve been blessed with two loves in my life, Theo. Wills’s mother was the first and Jill the second. I didn’t have as many years with Sophia as I would have wanted, but, God willing, I will with Jill. The last thing I want to do is….”
“What are you two talking about so earnestly?”
I jumped. “Wills!” Once again, he had been so silent in entering the kitchen I hadn’t heard him come in. I did hear the tension in his voice, see it in the lines around his mouth. I had a suspicion he knew what we’d been talking about.
“You were so long getting my beer, I thought you might have gotten lost, Theo.” He went to the fridge and took out a beer. “Here. Have a Michelob, Dad.” Then he took the beer from my hand, unscrewed the cap, and brought it to his lips. I watched his throat ripple as he swallowed, and I swallowed myself and licked my lips.
“Your dad and I were just chatting. He was telling me about your mom.”
“Yeah?” He relaxed.
Mr. Matheson opened his own beer. “Wills looks a good deal like her.”
“She must have been a beauty, then.”
That seemed to startle him. Did he think I didn’t appreciate my lover’s looks?
“How… er… how did you happen to meet my son?”
“Now, Dad. You know Jill told you I met Theo when he was visiting a friend in the hospital.”
“Yes, Wills, but what I don’t understand was what you were doing in the hospital at the same time. You….” Jack Matheson suddenly went pale. “It wasn’t your back, was it?” He spun Wills around and ran his fingertips over the long, curved scar on his back.
My lover put down the beer, turned, and hugged his father. “No, Dad. My back’s been fine. My boss is a friend of Theo’s and Paul, his business partner. I needed to bring Mr. Vincent up to speed about a job I had just finished troubleshooting, and since we were short on time, he suggested I come to the hospital with him.”
“Wills? What’s wrong with your back?” I asked.
“Thanks, Dad. Now I’ll have the both of you worrying about me. Nothing is wrong with my back, babe.”
“He was in a serious car accident a few years back. We… we thought we were going to lose him.”
“Wills.” I felt myself turn cold.
“But you didn’t lose me,” he said patiently. “I’m fine, and all I have to show for it is a couple of scars.”
“And a kidney with a fraction of its usual function.”
“It works well enough, a
nd the other one works fine. There’s no need to make a big deal over it.”
I smacked him on the back of the head.
“Hey!”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I told you.”
“Not that it almost killed you!”
“It didn’t—”
“Jesus. You could have died!” Uncaring that his father was in the same room with us, I pulled him into my arms and held onto him. I could feel that scar under my fingertips. “I’d have lost you before I’d ever even found you!”
Wills stroked my back. “It didn’t happen. Please don’t cry,” he whispered.
I let him go and dashed the heels of my hands across my eyes and cheeks. “Sorry.”
“Oh, babe….”
Mr. Matheson handed me a napkin and cleared his throat. “With a name like Bascopolis, I assume you’re Greek?”
“Yes. The name was originally spelled differently, but when my great-grandparents came over, it was changed on Ellis Island.” I’d asked Poppa why Grandpa had never tried to have it changed back, but he’d just muttered something about Uncle Lykaios, the black sheep of the family. I’d been impressed when I’d learned he’d been a hit man for some minor gangster in the thirties, but Poppa had said, “He brought shame and disgrace on the name. It is better people do not know he is our blood.”
He probably felt that way about me too. I was always afraid to ask my sister if he’d blotted out my name from the family Bible.
“So you met and… er… started dating. What does your father have to say about this situation, Theo?”
“About Wills moving in with me? Nothing. It’s none of his business.”
“That’s cold, don’t you think? Are you ashamed of what you have with my son?”
“Of course not! Why would you suggest that?”
“Well, you’re not informing your family.”
“I said nothing about not informing my family. I said I wouldn’t tell my father anything. I’ve written to my mother and sister about Wills.”
Wills had picked up his beer but paused before taking a sip. “You have?”
“Of course.”
He looked happy to hear that. I wished I could take him to meet them.
His father frowned. “I don’t understand.”