Then it was over, so fast, Ian wanted to shake his head to clear it, thinking he’d imagined the entire thing. Someone was calling the men to the tables and Ian’s father took his arm and led him to one. They sat together and waiting until everyone was seated and quiet. A man Ian remembered from his initiation stood at the head of the table and spoke clearly and loud enough to be heard all around the room.
He was tall, towering over the table, but stick thin, and that thinness reached his lips and cheeks too. He was gaunt looking and a little frightening, like what someone would picture as the grim reaper. “Thank you for coming, gentlemen. This sober occasion is never easy, as one of our own made the ultimate sacrifice for the service of the Gilded Grail. With his sacrifice, the rest of us move closer to our goals, our families are better cared for and protected. For this, we celebrate the life of our fallen, and send his father our respect and condolences.”
The members gave a respectful round of applause, which Ian didn’t understand. Applause wasn’t fitting but it wasn’t like anyone was cheering. Not a smile donned the lips of any of the hundreds of men gathered. Some looked so disinterested, he wondered why they’d bothered to come at all.
“With the addition of Cameron Kent to the numbers of our fallen, another generation takes its place amongst the ranks of the Grail order. Another generation to carry on the ways our forefathers set forth and bring yet another generation into the world. This time is momentous. Though there are many that are trying to take what is rightfully ours, it comes at a time when swift retribution can be delivered. Those that seek the fortunes of the world have not earned it as we, through trials, bloodshed and the sacrifices like our Mr. Kent made for us.”
Ian could barely believe his ears, but what was worse was that was the time some of the men around the room chose to smile. Some nodded in agreement, others stared to James Kent, raising glasses to him. It was horrifying, but Ian couldn’t comment or let his face show his contempt.
“Those new to our numbers, be strong, study, learn our ways and expectations. You will be rewarded with riches and power you couldn’t dream of.”
Ian wanted to puke. The bile was rising in his throat, but knew that if he ran for the bathroom, they’d figure out that he wasn’t there of his own will. He had to sit and listen.
When he glanced to James, Cameron’s father, he was surprised to see him staring at Ian’s father. When he saw Ian was watching, he turned his eyes, but again, something was struck in him.
Later, when the meeting was over, the men mingled slowly, talking in small groups, sipping brandy, and the feeling in the room was as if each of the men thought they ruled the world. He supposed they did, or they had and had plans to regain it.
He followed his father, mostly, except when his father excused himself to use the facilities. Once Ian was on his own, he felt like a fish out of water. There were no eyes on him, really, but he felt as if all of them were staring, they all knew he hated them and everything they stood for. Plans, grand plans to enrich themselves at the cost of others, they floated on that like tiny, gold-rimmed clouds.
He went searching for his father, he found him in deep conversation with James. He ducked behind a statue of a woman in a flowing gown, the gown covering him well. James was smiling, nodding along to whatever Ian’s father was saying.
They started down the hall, and Ian got out before they could see him, watching them emerge and separate as if they hadn’t been together there at all.
Ian’s insides were twisting. He knew something was going on, and he feared that it had to do with him.
When his father found him, Ian didn’t mention a thing. He was growing more suspicious of his father every second. The entire room felt like he was trapped with enemies out to kill him at the very least.
When he got back to the apartment early the next morning, he went to his room and again shut the door to Pat’s questions and Denny’s worry. Lying in his bed, he unbuttoned the suitcoat, running his hand over it. The best of the best. Being raised with it, he’d never understood that before, what the best was. What was the best better than? After he’d found out what the best was, he still hadn’t thought much about it.
Now it all seemed so sinister. Rich, poor, good and evil, such lines drawn in the sand. He saw people like Javi and Pat, Denny, who were so far removed from that.
One thing he knew, he had to keep them that way.
Chapter Twenty-One
When the door closed in their faces, Denny got angry and stormed to his own room, slamming his door. Javi came out of the bathroom, asking about the noise of that.
“Denny’s pissed. Ian is closing himself off to us. He didn’t say a word to either of us, just went to his room and shut the door.”
“That seems to be a thing with him now,” Javi observed, heading to Ian’s door to stare at it. “That look in his eye, it’s getting clearer, Papi.”
“What look?”
Javi turned to him, his eyes unable to meet Pat’s. “That one that says he figures he is stuck where he’s stuck. That one that says he doesn’t want to hurt anyone else with it, and he plans to move forward into his horrible destiny alone.”
Pat looked at the door, like he was looking at Ian, and it did become clear. Javi was right. He was growing reserved in the fact that the Grail would be his life, and he fully planned to push everyone he loved away so they wouldn’t be hurt.
“What the fuck am I going to do?”
Javi led him over to the front door and out of the apartment. Once they were on the sidewalk and strolling quickly away from the building, Javi told him, “Nothing until he shows his hand. I figure he’ll start some big fight with Denny, call his girlfriend a whore or something that would really piss him off so that Denny will move or tell him to leave. Then you? Well, that’s easy.”
“He’s going to pretend to get involved with some guy.”
“Yeah. Exactly. He knows out of everything, that would be the thing that pushed you away.”
“He doesn’t think I’d fight for him?”
Laughing, Javi slapped him on the back. “After some other dick’s been in his ass, you’d still want him?”
The picture of it, Ian kissing and writhing with some other man, it stabbed him in the heart. “I’d want to help him regardless, Javi and you know that.”
“Pat, I know you, and I wish he did. That would hurt you and push you away to an extent, sure. But it wouldn’t fix anything, and people would still get hurt. At least then, he could blame himself for it and not think that you didn’t do enough or whatever idiots get into their minds.”
Pat’s fury came fast and was probably mostly from the picture still in his head of Ian with another man. He spun to Javi, grabbed him by the throat and squeezed, bringing him off his feet by inches. “He’s not a fucking idiot! Don’t ever talk about him that way!”
He couldn’t breathe and all he could do was kick his legs, but he was smiling. Pat set him back on his feet and pushed him, so he stumbled backward and almost fell on his ass before catching himself. “That answered that.”
“What?”
“If you’re still as invested as I thought, so fight for him, Papi, like I should have fought for you,” he said gruffly, rubbing his neck and coughing after he managed the entire sentence.
Pat turned around and looked off in the direction of the apartment. That man, the one there, losing hope, Pat couldn’t deny how much he loved him. He’d crawled immediately into Pat’s heart and staked his ground, owning him in a moment.
“Papi, I lost the best guy in the world because I was stupid and thought I couldn’t get out of the life I was living. It’s because I chose not to get out, but I couldn’t keep a good man in that. I know how he feels. To think of someone as good as you being hurt by our crap, it’s too much. We’d do anything to protect you, and if that means losing you, we will.”
“It’s me, Javi. I’m supposed to protect him.”
“You don’t think that’s the way he
feels about you? That he’s going to want you protected? He’s a man, Papi, and it’s in our DNA to protect the people we love. The country we love, the rights and everything that we love. We take up guns to fight those we think are a threat, we fight with our fists, with our money, picket signs, however we feel we have to. Him? He’s going to do what I did and push you away. He’ll bring in a guy, or maybe you’ll luck out and he’ll just tell you to fuck off. Either way, that’ll be all he needs to do to scream how much he loves you, man.”
“I do too. I, uh, can’t sleep most of the time. I can’t get him off my mind. Whenever we’re near each other, I want to hold him and tell him everything is going to be okay. I don’t know what to do or how to handle this. It’s fucking killing me, Javi.”
Javi took his hand and led him along the sidewalk, playfully bumping into him with his shoulder a couple times. “It’s called love, Papi. That all-consuming, can’t eat, can’t sleep shit that we humans think we live for, or can’t live without, or whatever. It’s the best, the worst and everything in between, but when it’s real, it’s worth the roller coaster.
“The thing is, Pat, seriously? Your acting like a love-struck puppy doesn’t work for you. He’ll not only mow you down and spit you out, but you’ll have deserved it.”
“Then tell me, oh wise Javier of the Duran, what do you suggest I do?”
They stopped and Javi dropped his hand, facing him fully. “Easy, Papi. Stop being a fucking puppy and start being that rough, hard-edged Dom that made me so weak in the knees, I actually considered giving up my exciting, exotic life to settle down in a nice, dark dungeon with you.”
Javi was grinning, that sexy grin and Pat knew the things going through his head, remembering the rough, savage sexual encounters they’d had. “I can’t do that kind of thing with Ian.”
“Why not? Is he less of a man that me? Can’t take being thrown around and fucked hard?”
Pat tried, and failed, not to picture that. Grabbing Ian and roughly pushing into him, hearing his whimpering as Pat took him hard. “Damn it, Javi! Stop!”
After he laughed, he tried to stop himself, and pled with Pat, “Listen to me, Papi, I’m not just trying to get a rise out of you.” Licking his lips, he stared down at Pat’s crotch. “Although, I did always love the way you rise.”
“Javi! I’ll choke you again, I swear to fucking god.”
More laughter from Javi, which was frustrating the hell out of him, but he didn’t touch him again. He thought that would turn Javi on more. “Papi, I’m telling you, he’s lost right now. He thinks he’s all alone in this. He needs someone to take the reins and lead him in the right direction. He’s letting his fear and sense of male duty to protect the ones he loves get out of hand. That’s his only trail right now. If he didn’t follow that, he’d been lost in the woods, man.”
As much as he hated it, Javi made a lot of sense. “He is the one who asked me to back off the relationship stuff so he could keep his head in the game, Javi.”
“Yeah, he was, and look where it’s gotten him. He’s ready to give in to his father and the Grail and get married to some woman and have kids and be miserable not being with who he truly loves and be who he actually is. He’s a gay man in love with a great guy. He’s into old houses and good wine, weird old music-”
“What do you mean?” Pat realized he’d never heard Ian playing music.
“He likes sixties and seventies folk music. Like Bob Dylan and Janis Joplin, shit like that. He doesn’t play it in front of people. He said he knew this guy, tried not to name drop, but he had to, you know, to explain who the guy was. The guy claimed to be the son of Florence Robbins.”
“Florence Robbins? The queen of folk rock?”
“You know that? A nice, law and order white dude like you?”
Pat laughed as they started to head back to the apartment. “I like all kinds of music, Javi, you know that.”
“Anyway, he met this guy, and he was trying to make his own way in the music business, but like other kids of famous singers, everyone expected him to follow in his mom’s footsteps and stuff. Ian said they were pretty tight for a while, met in prep school, one of those fancy academies. He introduced Ian to the genre, and Ian fell for it, but gets shit from his friends. He listens to it with his earphones.”
“You know him better than I do,” Pat declared, woefully.
“No, I don’t. I know one thing you don’t. Now you do. If you do this right, take him, make him belong to you, then you can learn everything you could ever want to know about him over the years you two will be together.”
“Years? You really think he and I could last?”
“Yeah, Papi. I don’t say that to make you feel good. You two belong together.”
Pat took a few more steps then stopped as they got to the building. He looked up, thinking of Ian lying in the bed, sad, determined to protect Pat, feeling hopeless. “Yeah. We do.”
Ian stayed in his room when he was home and hurried in and out of classrooms when at school. He barely spoke to Javi or Pat at all, and to Denny, he gave only the slightest recognition he was in the room at all.
Pat let Javi take Denny for a long walk after the first time it happened to explain what was going on in Ian’s mind. As expected, Denny’s reaction was much like theirs, angry, wanting to force him to talk.
Javi talked him down, had him wait. That wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t easy for any of them. Ian’s behavior was worrying, but Pat knew he’d feel the same way. After some convincing, Denny did as well.
The sixth day after their walk and Javi’s revelation, sure enough, it happened. That night, Javi, Denny and Pat were sitting on the couch together, sharing a bowl of popcorn and waiting to see if Ian would finally emerge from his room. The movie they had on was a comedy, and Denny suggested that if Ian heard them all laughing, he’d want to come out and join the fun, if only for an evening.
Instead, the entire night turned dramatic.
There was a knock on the door, making Denny jump next to him. Patting his leg, Pat soothed, “I’ll get it. He might have ordered a pizza. He hasn’t been eating much.”
“Hardly at all,” Denny corrected.
There was no delivery driver at the door, however. There was a tall black man there, dressed in an ultra-tight charcoal T-shirt, tighter pants and had a baseball cap slung low over his eyes.
“May I help you?”
Lifting his head, the man’s dark eyes laughed as he asked for Ian.
Pat’s back straightened, voice lowering as he asked, “Is he expecting you?”
More laughter, this time from his deep voice. “Oh, yeah, he’s expecting me.”
The way it was said, so confident that Ian wanted his dick, that he may have gone farther than ask him over, but begged for it, it was all implied in that cocky chuckle. Pat was tense enough to shatter, and that’s when Javi stepped in and told the man, “I’ll go ask him if you have an appointment.”
“What the fuck is this? The dude hits me up on Grindr, wants some fun, and I gotta go through his daddies to get me some ass now?”
The shaking in his hands made hm feel like a coward, when in reality, he was trying to hold back from punching the smug face in front of him.
“I invited him,” Ian called from his doorway. “Let him in.”
Javi glanced over to Ian, but Pat couldn’t. If he saw Ian, he knew he’d rush over to him and push him into the room, screaming at him instead of letting him play his stupid game.
As the door closed, the stranger walking toward Ian’s room, Pat had to spin on his heel and head for the kitchen.
Denny met him in there, Javi on his heels. “Pat, it’s not real. Don’t go beating the fuck out of the poor guy. You heard him, he thought he was coming for a piece of ass, not to be in the middle of Ian’s dumb scheme to push you away.”
Denny was right, but his fury was overwhelming his better sense. He slammed his fists down on the counter, shaking the entire thing, and his teeth were gr
inding together as he managed to tell them, “I want to bust him apart.”
“It’s not his fault, Papi. Like Denny said, he don’t know anything except he’s coming here for a piece of ass. Give him a break.”
Pat unclenched his fists and set both shaking hands on the countertop, taking two long, deep breaths, letting them out slowly. “Fine. How long do I wait? Until he’s got his dick in him?”
“Fuck no, man! Go in there now, but don’t bust the guy into pieces,” Denny pled.
With the go-ahead, Pat moved, and moved quickly. He went to the door and tried the knob, finding it surprisingly unlocked. Throwing it open, he saw Ian on the bed with the man on top of him, grinding their hips together, though the man was still fully clothed, and Ian had on underwear. They were kissing so hard that neither of them noticed the new arrival in the room, so he grabbed the man’s arm and pulled him off Ian, growling in his face, “Get the fuck out.”
“Trevor, don’t you move!”
Trevor looked right into Pat’s eyes and weighed his options. Finding them out of his favor, as he was smaller than Pat by height and weight, he gave Ian an abrupt wave and threw out, “Check you later, Ian.”
In a flash, he was gone from the room and Pat turned to Ian, who was getting off the bed, red in the face and furious. “What the fuck was that? You can’t just tell my friends to leave!”
Pat didn’t say a word to him, grabbing him around the throat and pushing him down on the bed. Ian was so shocked he shut his mouth and stared, still as a stone.
Pat turned to the door, closing it and he did engage the lock. When he turned back to Ian, he saw the fear there, and he fed off it. “Enough of this bullshit, Ian.”
With one hand he pulled his shirt from his back and let it fall to the floor, then looked around the room for things he could use.
Ian tried again to get up from the bed, but Pat gave him a glance that told him what an absolute terrible idea that would be.
33 Degrees of Separation (Legacy) Page 18