33 Degrees of Separation (Legacy)

by Rain Carrington

  “Are you up?”

  The rumble of the voice through Pat’s chest made Ian laugh. “Yeah. I was just thinking how I didn’t want to wake you.”

  “You didn’t. I just woke and heard you breathing faster.”

  He could listen to that sound all day, Pat’s deep voice, coming from deep in his chest. “That felt so good. Thanks, Pat.”

  “No need to thank me. This is where I’m supposed to be.”

  Ian moved his head so that he could see Pat’s face and Pat was staring off, as if deep in thought. “Heavy concerns so early in the morning?”

  Pat glanced down at him, smiling. “Nah. Just thinking about that diner. I wish we could bring that cook here and have him or her make us breakfast again. As much as I have to jog off the calories, I could sure go for those biscuits and gravy.”

  Ian laughed and rolled off him, smacking him with the pillow. “You’re awful! Now I’m starving.”

  “Me too. Anywhere around here to eat?”

  Ian thought about it, and wanted to take him somewhere great, but nothing compared to the diner, which gave him an idea. “Nah, but there’s cereal.”

  “Cereal is perfect. Better for us, anyway.”

  When Pat got up from the bed, Ian watched every move, loving and hating it when he pulled the shirt back over his head. He hated to see the muscles covered, but when Pat raised his arms and everything elongated, Ian thought he’d blow a load in the sheets.

  “I haven’t been this ready to pop since I was a kid and wasn’t getting any.”

  Pat chuckled and said, “Yeah, well, you’re still not getting any.”

  Ian groaned, falling back on his pillows. “Torture. This is torture.”

  “You haven’t seen the torture I can dish out, boy.”

  Pat was watching for his reaction, and Ian knew he loved it as Ian’s breath halted in his lungs and he thought he’d choke on his own tongue.

  The wild, wicked laughter carried Pat out of the room and down the hall, tapering off as Ian found he could breathe again and wanted to scream in frustration. “Fucking torture,” he repeated to himself, although he was smiling.

  They ate cereal together, and Pat was right, it was like eating cardboard compared to the delicious food they’d had at the diner. Biscuits and gravy one day, hash browns, thick sliced bacon and eggs-over-medium the next. Hush puppies, western omelets, all the things he’d never tried before and were rising to the top of his favorite food list.

  While they were eating, Denny stormed out of the hallway, cursing under his breath.

  “What’s wrong, Den?”

  Denny threw him a dirty look, so Ian backed off the question, but the next person to come out of the hall, Cara, was heading right for Denny, daggers in her startling green eyes.

  “Dennis, we weren’t finished.”

  Denny dismissed that with, “I am.”

  Cara was a beautiful woman, long blonde hair that hung in waves down her slim back and athletics build, creamy dark skin, showing all the best of her mixed races of German and Jamaican. “Dennis Glover, if you think you can give me an ultimatum and get away with it, you’re sadly mistaken.”

  Pat and Ian were both trying to melt into their chairs, but Denny looked right at Ian, pleading for help. “Will you tell her?”

  Pat turned then and told Denny, “Denny, please.”

  Denny seemed to remember they had to be careful about what they spoke about in the apartment. “See,” he told his girlfriend. “That’s what I mean.”

  Cara gazed around from ceiling to floor and over to Ian. “Hi, sweetie. How are you?”

  Ian couldn’t help but rise from his chair and go to her, kissing her cheek and hugging her as he confessed, “Been better, but I have a gorgeous bodyguard out of it.”

  Cara seemed to just then notice the newcomer to the apartment. “Oh, yeah, I heard. Hi,” she said to Pat, offering her hand. He rose and shook it, nodding to her.

  Ian thought to be the peacekeeper. “Why don’t you two go and talk, somewhere quiet? Denny, don’t be a Neanderthal and try to tell her what to do, and Cara, he’s only worried about you.”

  Cara kissed his cheek and whispered, “I’m a big girl.”

  “Still.”

  Huffing, she succumbed to his charms, his fluttering lashes and whimpering voice. “Fine, Ian, but you know me, I don’t like being told what to do.”

  “I know, I know. You had to have been a nightmare to your poor parents.”

  “My mother, sure, but I’m a daddy’s girl.”

  “Yeah, tell me about it, I’ve been threatened by the man a hundred times,” Denny piped in.

  “For good reason, obviously,” she threw to him, then got her purse from the kitchen counter. “I’m going. I’ll meet you in the commons at three. If you’re not there, fuck you.”

  As she left the apartment, Ian didn’t mean to laugh, but he had to, and Denny glared at him for a moment before he started laughing too, though he protested, “This isn’t funny!”

  “The situation, no, but the way she gets you so mad and frustrated, that’s funny.”

  “You suck, Ian.”

  Denny sat at the table with them as they retook their seats. “I guess I have to kiss her ass.”

  “Like you mind that so much,” he commented then scooped a spoonful of flakes into his mouth so he couldn’t get himself in more trouble.

  “Shut up.”

  Pat was being fairly quiet until then. “Denny, she’s got a point, but so do you. Talk it out. It’ll be okay. I’m…I’m somehow going to make this all okay again.”

  That broke his heart, Pat thinking he had to fix everything. That was too much weight, even for those broad shoulders. “No, I will.”

  The narrowed eyes that glared at him said differently, but Ian was stubborn when he wanted to be and stuck his chin out defiantly.

  Denny came to the rescue. “I didn’t mean for a fight to start between you two. I’ll work on her, you two just work, together, to make us all safe.”

  After a shower, he dressed and made it to class on time, Pat waiting for him out in the hall. Ian felt terrible for that, but Pat said if he was to act like a bodyguard, he needed to play his part well.

  They walked to the next class slowly, as it was an hour after the first. Coffee in the commons, Ian describing all the finals he’d be up against in a very short time.

  “I remember that, the last string of tests. It’s intense, bitter-sweet and scary. I mean, most classes, especially for your Masters, won’t keep your degree if you fuck up your finals, but still, there’s that nagging thought.”

  “I know, and missing a week isn’t helping my fear.”

  “I can help you study. I used to be pretty good at it.”

  “I bet. Did you know you wanted to go into the FBI when you were in college, or did that come later?”

  “Always, but I didn’t start off being. I had to be accepted, so I joined the reserves to get some military training. I figured that could only help, and it did.”

  “Did you…go to war?”

  Pat’s eyes clouded, but he answered easily, “No. I was…lucky.”

  Ian watched him, and he saw Pat’s mind working. There was so much he didn’t know about the man, but it wasn’t the time to find out. He had to go to class. “When we go talk or whatever we’re doing, will you please tell me what’s going on?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  Ian got up to head to class, but Pat grabbed his hand to stop him. “Listen, I know there is so much going on, but put all that aside as best you can and get through the rest of your schooling. Like I said, you’ll regret it if you don’t and I don’t want you to live with regrets. They…they weigh a person down until it’s hard to stand up again.”

  Ian nodded, knowing he had to try. “That house you’re buying, you wouldn’t want it done by a man without a degree.”

  “Exactly,” Pat said, laughing.

  Once he was in class, he did put his mind into it, g
oing so far as to ask the professor for an appointment to get his work to catch up from the last week he’d missed. Pat met him outside the classroom, grabbing his hand and asking, “How’d it go?”

  “Good. I feel like I can do this. All of it.”

  “You got that from one class?”

  He didn’t want to seem overly confident, but there was a point in the classroom, when Professor Tucker was describing the building codes for restoration of a home over a century old, Ian pictured it, getting his hands dirty, helping with the work instead of making the plans and handing them off to the carpenters. Getting a piece of crown molding in his hands and gently sanding it until the ages were swept away and it was once again new and beautiful.

  He knew he could do that. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind. He’d follow the codes, he’d recreated the home, letting the sunlight dance on the original wood floors and he’d know he brought something back to life that meant something.

  He knew he could beat the Grail. They were destroyers, out to take and kill and rape the world of its money while watching others suffer. If that was his father, so be it, but he refused to make that his legacy.

  They drove to the outskirts of the city and Pat was checking the house numbers of the street they drove down slowly. It was an older neighborhood, late sixties construction, brick ranch style homes with similar layouts, but the neighborhood was old enough that the homes had gotten more unique with renovations and improvements over the years, or had dilapidated enough not to resemble the others.

  Once he found the house he was looking for, he pulled into the driveway and finally explained, “I’m meeting an old friend here. I wanted you to meet him.”

  “Oh,” he said, but he could tell Pat didn’t want to say more in the car, where they suspected a bug might be hidden. “I’d like that.”

  They got out of the car and Pat was the one to reach the front door first, giving it a weak knock. Even that seemed loud in the quiet neighborhood.

  The door opened to a man that blew Ian away at first glance. He wasn’t big like Pat, but he was handsome, Latino and exotic, dark eyes, trim and wiry looking.

  “Hey, Papi, come on in.”

  Ian’s head spun to Pat at hearing the name he was called by the man, but Pat kept moving, not meeting his stare. Once inside, the man went to the door and looked out, like he’d expected them to be followed.

  “If they’re tracking us, Javi, it won’t be by some idiot following us in a car.”

  “Old school, Papi, I’m old school.”

  He closed the door and Ian saw that the place was sparsely furnished, only a loveseat and card table with metal chairs in the living room. They sat in the chairs and Ian’s mind went to the walls, the floors, the squared archway that led to a kitchen that still had the old thin cabinet doors and avocado colored refrigerator of its origins.

  “You tell him much?”

  Ian answered, slightly insulted Javi hadn’t addressed him directly. “He hasn’t told me anything.”

  He got a cocky grin for that, and Javi reached across the table to introduce himself and shake Ian’s hand. “Javier Duran. Nice to meet you, Ian Andrews the third.”

  “I’d say the same, but I haven’t made up my mind.”

  Pat chuckled at that, but Ian was serious. He didn’t know why, but despite his initial notice of his good looks, he didn’t care for the man at all.

  Pat must have felt the tension, as he said, “Guys, mutual outcomes desired here, ya know?”

  Javi winked at him, further pissing him off and then turned to Pat. “Okay, Papi, message received.”

  “Pat, why don’t you explain to me why we’re here?”

  Pat stiffened for a moment but started. “Javi was sent here by Charlie, the one who sent me.”

  “You’ve spoken about him.”

  Pat wouldn’t look directly at him, but went on, “Yeah, sure, I forgot. Anyway, um…Ian, some of the Grail people, the thugs or whatever, they, uh…”

  “What did they do, Pat? Stop stalling!”

  He was vibrating waiting for Pat to speak, to tell him something terrible. It had to be terrible. There was nothing good about the Grail.

  Instead of Pat growing the nuts to say it, it was Javi. “They threatened our friends and told them to forget they ever heard about you or the Grail.”

  Ian’s eyes dropped to the table and he looked at the plastic there, shaped to resemble fabric. Like his life, he’d been made to feel real, but it was all fake. All of it was fake. His parent’s marriage, his own dreams and just about everything he thought was real.

  Well, he wanted to change all that. When his eyes moved up into Javi’s, he asked in a voice that was deeper than his own had ever been, “What do you want me to do?”

  “No way, Ian,” Pat said, surprisingly calm. “It’s not happening. We’ll figure something out to stop them, to keep them from hurting our friends, but you’re not going to be used like bait.”

  “Papi, whoever said bait? He ain’t gonna be bait.”

  “Same difference. He’ll be the one in the crosshairs.”

  As the anger rose in him, he turned his words to Pat, and meant every word of them. “If you can’t help me, then fuck off.”

  Rising slowly from the chair, he gave Ian the most pained look Pat had ever had cast toward him, and then Pat turned to leave.

  As much as he wanted to, Ian didn’t stop him. Once Pat was out the door, Ian caught his breath and slowly said, “Tell me the plan.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The hurt he felt could only compete with his anger, but he knew he deserved the rebuke. Ian had every right to tell him to fuck off. He was treating the man like a little boy, like he was stupid and couldn’t think or act for himself.

  In keeping their feelings tamped down, he was substituting them with acting like Ian’s surrogate father or something. That wasn’t the role he wanted to play. Daddy, maybe, controlling Ian sexually in all the dirty ways they both seemed to crave, but not father.

  He went to the car and sat inside, leaning his head on the steering wheel. Ian was inside, alone with Javi, probably the biggest nightmare of Pat’s life, and he could do nothing about it unless he condoned Ian working inside the Grail against them. With all their technology and rightful paranoia.

  He couldn’t bring himself to do it. To think of Ian in that much danger, it twisted him up inside until he couldn’t breathe. Losing him, right when he’d found him, it was inconceivable.

  The thoughts of Ian, his smile, his stubborn streak, Pat wanted to know more. He wanted to see how he’d smile when Pat surprised him in some way. He wanted to hear Ian’s gentle snoring each night, and watch him take a shower, shampooing his hair, watching the suds slide over his face.

  The mundane, everyday things that couples mostly took for granted sounded like heaven to Pat. And still, none of those came close to how much he wanted to sink inside of Ian and make love to him for hours, so slowly, so sweetly. Then, he wanted to see Ian wincing as Pat held his hair while he fucked him hard, hear him squeal.

  All the things he knew he’d miss if Ian got hurt, or worse, trying to be a hero and save the world from the fucking Gilded Grail.

  Ian came out less than an hour later. Pat had made up his mind to suck it up and try to get Ian prepared for the inevitable, coach him again, this time on how to be stealth, how to fool the men into divulging secrets. Anything. He didn’t have the chance, though. Ian was walking down the sidewalk before Pat could get out of the car, and he had to run to catch him.

  “Ian, listen, I’m sorry.”

  “I’m angry. Go. I’ll get a cab when I get to the convenience store down the block.”

  He tried to touch him, but Ian shrugged it off, stopped and faced him with venom in his voice. “I said I am angry, Pat. Leave me be for now. I’m not kidding.”

  Pat nodded and looked down the quiet street. “Okay. I guess it’s okay.”

  “I’ll be fine. I’m not a child, no matter what you th
ink.”

  Pat watched him until he’d disappeared around the corner of the street and then he stormed back to the house, slamming the door against the wall as he slapped it open. “Javi! What the fuck?”

  “Sit down, Papi.”

  “I’m not fucking sitting. Tell me what the two of you talked about.”

  Javi got up and leaned back on the table. “He wants in, so I told him the tentative plan. We don’t know enough to plan out a lot yet. I can have some of my people do some recon, Ian’s going to learn what he can from the inside, and then we can figure out what we need to do. If you want to protect him, do it the way he can take, not how you think it should be done.”

  Pat lost any rational bit of himself, all patience he had left and took Javi by the front of the shirt, spun him around and slammed him into the same wall that had just taken the impact of the door.

  Javi started his mocking laughter, licking his lips in that way that he knew Pat could barely resist. While one hand stayed up by his head, the other was free to touch Pat’s crotch, searching there for a hard dick he didn’t find. It didn’t matter, though, Javi figured if wetting his lips and his mocking laughter didn’t tempt him, his words would. “There we go, Papi! That’s the Dom I knew. It’s about time you remembered.”

  Pat moved in on him, placed his lips almost to Javi’s, breathing there for a moment, then skirted them over his whiskered cheek to his ear where he gave a whispered growl and said, “I remember everything, Javi. I remember fighting with you, holding you down and shoving my cock inside you dry, hearing you cry out, then beg for more. I remember fucking you hard enough to tear you apart. I even remember forcing my dick down your throat and choking you with it until your eyes watered so bad, you looked like you were crying. Maybe you were. But that is fucking over now, Papi.”

  Javier was shaking and his breath moving so fast in and out of his parted lips he sounded as if he’d hyperventilate, so that was why, when Javi was able to speak, his croaked words shocked Pat to his core. “Good, because that kid loves you, man. He loves you like I wasn’t capable of.”