“Oh, babe,” Jaden whispered as he turned his head enough to press a gentle kiss Colby’s neck.
“It hurt to sit down for a week after that. They filmed me three other times.”
Jaden continued to press his lips to the vein in Colby’s neck that was fluttering with his wildly beating heart – the only indication to Jaden that the man beneath him was stressed. Jaden didn’t say a word because he knew Colby had more to say, he knew that once he’d opened those floodgates that everything would have to come out.
“They didn’t use condoms, not ever. I got lucky though because the prison I was in was part of a testing program for PreP. I had to go to the infirmary after that first time because I, um, had some tearing. The doc looked at me like he knew what was going on and he put me on the drugs right away. He didn’t even ask, just gave them to me and told me to come back twice a week for them. I’m clean now, Jade, I swear, but it could’ve been a lot worse.”
“I believe you babe.”
“I felt like such a coward for not saying anything but I couldn’t, Jade. As bad as it was, I was afraid of what would happen to me if I did speak up.”
Jaden’s head lifted and for the first time since Colby had started to speak, their eyes met; Colby’s filled with pain and uncertainty, until he looked into Jaden’s. In their sea-green depths he saw only admiration, in them he saw love.
“You did everything you needed to do to survive, Colby. You did what you had to do so you could come find me. You wouldn’t be here now if you hadn’t and I’m so fucking proud of you for being strong, for being the man who not only searched for me but also the man who found me. You found me, Colby,” Jaden whispered as he linked their hands together, “you’ve found the real me, the one that I hid from the world, the one I hid from my family, the one I hid from….me.”
Colby frowned, “What do you mean, babe?”
Jaden sighed as he pushed to the side of Colby and sat up. He stared down at his hands that were fidgeting in his lap, “I came out to my folks but it made them so uncomfortable that I’ve never lived my life as an out gay man. Not around them anyways. That prom? I chickened out and didn’t go, although I made it up to my date by giving him an awesome blowjob in the woods behind his house,” he said with a smirk as he lifted his eyes to smile at Colby. But then that smile fell, “I, I’m a different person when I’m around them, Colby. I’m their perpetually single, always refusing anyone’s advances son. They’ve had so much pain in their lives, I didn’t want to add to it.”
Colby frowned as he lifted to his elbows, “So you being happy and living your life the way you’re meant to will cause them pain? That’s bullshit, Jaden. Parents should be happy when their child is happy, not when their child is living a lie.”
Jaden slid his fingers through his hair as he sighed, “I know that in here,” he said as he tapped his temple then he pointed to his heart, “It’s in here that I struggle with it.”
Colby sat up and gripped Jaden’s hand, “Does this mean you’re asking me to hide in the closet, Jade? I did that with your brother and, and, and…..I can’t do it again.”
Jaden’s eyes went wide as his head popped up, “No, NO, Colby! I would never do that. I just need you to have some compassion when I struggle, have some patience when I falter, hold me when I cry.”
Colby’s arms wrapped around Jaden, “I will, babe. Always.”
When Colby pulled back he frowned again, “Hey, what about work, what about your job? I never asked if you could take time off or anything.”
“We’re between jobs right now. Next one doesn’t start up for two weeks so I’m off until then. What about you? Don’t you have to work?”
Colby shook his head, “Not until I’m ready to go back. My head wasn’t in a good place after my divorce so Morgan told me to take time off.”
Jaden blinked, “Wait, wait, wait, what? Your, your d-d-d-divorce? You were married?” he said, his voice squeaking at the end.
Oh shit.
How was Colby supposed to explain this?
Time to sink or swim, Colby French, time to sink or swim.
Twenty-Two
“Drake, we’re going to need all hands on deck with this case.”
King listened to Brent on the phone with one ear while his eyes stayed glued to the monitor in front of him.
All he could see was what Row was looking at…..and it was horrible. He wanted to be able to look into Row’s eyes, he wanted to hold him and whisper in his ear that everything would be okay, that they would be okay.
But he couldn’t.
And that was killing him.
“So,” Row began and King could hear the tremor in his voice, “you want me to do what exactly?”
“Right now, until you prove yourself to me, I’m going to hire you as a guard at the facility.”
“The facility?”
“It’s where the class lives.”
“The class?”
Campbell grinned, his yellow teeth gleaming in the fluorescent lights of the office, “They are the class, the men who buy them are the teachers.”
“How, how did you….?”
“Get into this? That was Watson’s idea.”
King sat back in his chair. Watson? That gruff, burly asshole who almost got them all killed while on patrol because he was a careless prick? King remembered that mission really well:
“Something feels off,” King had said as they peered through the tree line at the small village up ahead. There wasn’t a single adult in sight, not one. Just a small group of kids playing soccer in the middle of the street.
“I’ll go check it out,” Watson had said.
“You sure? I can go,” Row whispered.
Watson stood up, “Naw, I got this.”
They had watched through their scopes as Watson had walked up to the kids. He handed out candy bars but then he glanced back to where King and Row and the rest of the men were and then he motioned to one of the kids and the two of them stepped between two buildings out of sight.
“What the fuck is he doing?” King mumbled.
King waited about a minute and when Watson didn’t come out, he stood up and said, “We’re going in.”
There was some grumbling but they all stood and began moving, their eyes scanning every nook and cranny.
King walked up to the side of the building where Watson had disappeared. He glanced quickly and then stepped around the corner. The kid that had followed Watson came darting out, his eyes wide as he rubbed his hand over his mouth and Watson was pulling up his zipper.
“What the fuck are you doing?” King said, frowning because it couldn’t possibly be what it looked like.
“Getting intel on this place?”
“With your dick?”
An evil grin spread over Watson’s face, one that sent a slithering shiver down King’s spine, “Naw. Kid just noticed that my fly was open. He was cool enough to tell me. This place is clean.”
And then the shooting had started.
They’d barely made it out of there alive.
As it was, they had lost Miller when his arm got shredded by a bullet.
“Fucking Watson,” King mumbled under his breath.
“Is Watson here?” Row said to Campbell.
“Naw. He’s overseas. Looking for a new class. He should be back with them next week.”
“And that’s who you want me to guard?”
Campbell dipped his chin in a nod, “Guard, feed, play with, whatever. I’ll send you over to the facility I’ve found so you can get it ready first.”
“Facility?”
“Yeah. I find a new place for every new class that comes in. Keeps things….safer.”
“When?” Row whispered and King knew the man was barely holding it together.
“When what?”
“When would you want me to start?”
“Oh, I sign the papers on the place in two days. You can start after that.”
“You buy a new place for ea
ch class?”
Campbell shrugged, “Yeah. Keep it for the three or four months it takes to get these kids ready and sold and then I sell the building for a profit.”
“Do you ever bring the kids here?” Row said.
“Here? God no. For one thing, I’d lose my liquor license. But there’s also too much risk that someone will talk. Hey, you’re looking a little pale, are you okay?”
“Yeah. Just, seeing King earlier, it’s just getting to me, I guess.”
“You want me to find a nice sub for you to play with? You could fuck King out of your system.”
King watched the monitors, the camera moving side to side as Row shook his head, “Naw, I think I’m just going to head out. Maybe another time though?”
“So, do you want the job or not? It’s good money. We have a doctor onsite to get the kids healthy but the guards and I like to train them, get them ready to take a dick. You’ll like it, I promise.”
“Can I think about it? This is a lot to take in, Chief.”
Campbell pulled a card out of his wallet, “This is my personal cell. You’ve got twenty-four hours, Bates. After that, I’ll have to hire someone else.”
“I understand.”
Row stood and the two men shook hands and then Row was walking out of the building. King watched as he stepped out into the dim light as the sun dipped beneath the horizon. And then Row ran around the side of the building and began heaving his guts out.
King gripped the arms of his chair, ready to push it back and run to his man but Brent clasped his hand over King’s forearm, “Wait. They’ve got cameras watching the parking lot. They’ll pick you up.”
“But…..”
“I know, King, I know. I know how much this is tearing you up, how it’s shredding your insides. But think about those kids, King. We need to time this, we need to do this right or those kids will suffer and so will the next group that they bring in. If we time this right, we can catch both Campbell and Watson when they bring in those new kids. Stay here for them, King. Stay here for them.”
King nodded as he slumped back into his chair.
The back door to the van opened and JD climbed inside. His eyes darted to King’s, “He’ll be okay, King. You’ll make sure of that.”
King nodded again but then his eyes went wide, “Won’t the cameras catch Row getting in here?”
Brent shook his head, “The cameras have a blind spot. We’re in it. It’ll just look like Row walked out of the parking lot. They’ll think he went to catch a cab or something.”
Just then the back door flew open. “Somebody got a mint? Maybe some acid for my eyes,” Row mumbled, his head hanging down as he gulped in air.
King walked over, slid his hand under Row’s arms and pulled him up into the van. Then he wrapped his arms so tight around him that he was certain that Row could barely breathe.
Row didn’t seem to care.
His fingers clutched the back of King’s shirt so tightly that King was surprised he didn’t hear it rip. He wouldn’t care if it did. He’d give Row whatever he needed, always. Including the shirt off his back.
Row released a shaky breath, “That sucked,” he finally whispered.
King pressed his lips in Row’s hair, “Do you need to stop?”
Row shook his head as he lifted it, swiping the tears from his cheeks, “No. What I need to do is stop him, King. And a mint. I really need a fucking mint.”
Brent chuckled as he handed over a red and white tin, “You’ll be just fine, Row. You’re going to be just fine.”
Twenty-Three
Colby sighed as he sat up on the bed. He scooted back to lean against the wall behind it. He was surprised when Jaden did the same thing, especially after the bombshell he’d just dropped.
“After what happened with Wes and then in prison, when I got out my head was in a really bad place. Spike, he, uh, he owns a bike shop. He gave me a job on the spot despite my criminal history and even though he appears gruff and angry all the time, he’s not. He was my savior. He talked me off the ledge more times than I can count. He knew I wanted to apologize to you but he talked me out of doing it right away, said it would be better if I waited and also that I needed to be in a better headspace. He was right. But what he didn’t understand was that I wasn’t only in a bad headspace, I was in a bad heart space too. I knew I needed human companionship, knew I couldn’t spend the rest of my life alone but I was so broken that I couldn’t bring myself to even look at other men. Westley was it for me and I killed him. I deserved to never be truly happy again. That’s where Stacey comes in. She, um, she started hanging around the shop, became my friend….”
“Wait, hold on, so your ex is a woman? You’re bi?”
“No, I’m not. I’ve never even looked at another woman like that. But, like I said, I couldn’t bring myself to look at men, it just hurt too much. Stacey, she was nice. She calmed me.”
“Did she know?”
Colby shook his head, “No, not at first. We didn’t have sex that often because we were both so busy. Me at the shop and then working for Morgan and she was taking online courses trying to get her degree. So, most nights we just fell into bed exhausted. The few times we did have sex, I thought I did okay enough that she wouldn’t notice that I didn’t come. We always used condoms because neither of us were ready for kids so I really didn’t think she noticed.”
“But she did.”
“Yeah, she did. She came to me almost a year ago and said that she needed more, that she wanted intimacy and that she knew she couldn’t get it from me. We parted as friends and I wanted the divorce, I felt relieved. But it also put me into another bad headspace because not only did I fail as a gay man, I failed at trying to be straight too. Where the fuck did that leave me?”
Jaden’s fingers slid into his, “It left you ready for me,” he whispered as he leaned his head down on Colby’s shoulder.
Colby sighed, “It tears me up what this is going to do to your family, though. I’ve already caused them enough pain.”
“Family is many things, Colby. Sometimes it’s the people who share your DNA but sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s people who accept you and love you because they have beautiful hearts. And you were just as devastated by Westley’s loss. Yes, they lost a son and that is something that no parent should ever have to go through but you also lost someone you loved very much, someone who could’ve been your future husband, someone you might’ve spent the rest of your life with had he lived. They need to know that, Colby. They need to know that before their son left this world he was loved by a beautiful boy who is now a beautiful man, a man who their other son is falling for.”
Colby looked like he might argue for a moment but then he nodded. “We need to go to my parents place first. I need to show you something, something that might help when we tell your folks.”
Jaden patted his hand, “We’ll go there while Brent goes to talk to my parents.”
Colby lowered his arm from his eyes and looked at Jaden. “Are you sure we’re both strong enough to do this?”
Jaden slid their fingers together, “Babe, after the last two days, I think that together we’re both stronger than we ever hoped to be. We’ve got this.”
Twenty-Four
Row sat on the edge of the king-size bed in the motel suite staring out the window at….well…pretty much nothing because they were on the beach and he was looking out at a vast, dark, moonless sea at night. He didn’t care though. He was trying not to care about anything. Right now, he just wanted to be numb. He wasn’t even sure if he could handle King around him right now because that would make him feel something.
And, speak of the devil, King’s bare feet appeared on the carpet between Row’s. Apparently his eyes had moved from the dark ocean down to the floor and he wasn’t even aware that they’d moved.
King stood there for a few seconds then he reached forward to the hem of Row’s shirt and began pulling it up his body.
“King, I, I, I
….”
King’s lips pressed gently against, Row’s, “Shhh, trust me babe. I know exactly what you need.”
After another moment of hesitation, Row lifted his arms and allowed King to pull his shirt over his head. King quickly shed his own shirt then reached for Row’s hand and pulled him to his feet. He walked him to the bathroom doorway where Row froze. His eyes darted back and forth between the tub and King almost as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
“A bubble bath?” he finally said.
King just smiled at him and reached for the button on Row’s jeans.
“You’re really making me take a bubble bath?” Row said, his hands holding King’s shoulders for balance as King pushed his pants and underwear down to the floor.
King stood back up, smiled again and reached for the button on his own pants, “No. We’re taking a bubble bath….together.”
Row looked back at the tub…..the standard size bathtub, “You don’t seriously think we’re both going to fit in there.”
King slid their fingers together and walked Row over to the edge, “Of course we are,” he said as he stepped inside. He dropped Row’s hand long enough to sit down, leaning against the back. He put his elbows up and spread his legs, putting the right one up on the side of the tub, “Come on in, babe.”
Thunderstorms on the Horizon Page 11