The Long Way

by May Archer

  Cain paused in the middle of the room, looking around. “I have no idea where to even begin,” he said. “There’s a file cabinet, but… Maybe it would be hidden?”

  “Does he have a safe?” Damon asked.

  “Nah, not here. Not that I know of, anyway.” He moved to a large painting of a horse suspended on the wall next to the door and lifted the edge to peer behind. “Nothing here.”

  “Check behind the other paintings and maybe in the closet,” Damon instructed. “Since you’re more mobile. I’ll sit at the desk and check the file cabinet.”

  Long minutes ticked by, and neither of them made a sound. Damon diligently sorted through bills and receipts, but he’d already known when he’d found the cabinet unlocked that he wouldn’t find anything useful in here. He huffed out a frustrated breath, and let his eyes track Cain, who had found a cardboard banker box at the bottom of the closet and was determinedly searching through it, as though his father might have absently chucked evidence that could implicate him in a felony into a random box and shoved it in a closet.

  Still, the utter absorption on the man’s face and the graceful movement of his fingers were soothing and maybe a little bewitching. Damon had to force himself to look away.

  Behind Shaw’s desk was an enormous window that looked out on what had to have been two or three acres of manicured lawns burnished pink-gold in the evening light. It was pretty, but empty… much like the house itself.

  Damon’s eyes drifted down to the credenza below the window, where several perfectly-posed family portraits rested. His eyes caught on one of Cain, back when he must have been seven or eight. His dark hair was longer and neatly parted to one side, his deep blue eyes huge and innocent, and Damon had the strongest urge to grab this younger-Cain and take him to safety, far away from Emmett Shaw and his bullshit. He shook his head. There was another of a blonde girl who must have been Cain’s sister, and several more of a young Senator Shaw standing with his wife. But the middle picture caught his attention and held it.

  “Cain? What’s this?” he asked.

  Cain came toward him, feet hushed on the plush carpet, and paused at his elbow before picking up the frame to look at the picture more closely. “Oh,” he said softly, the single syllable sounding both fond and sad. “These are the Seavers, the McCanns, and my family. You probably recognize most of them. See? The tall, thin one is Bas, and Drew is the one with his arm around his shoulder. They both filled out a lot, huh? The scrawny one there is me,” he chuckled. “And the slightly-less-scrawny one with the cowlicks is Cam. That’s his dad behind him. And my parents. Mrs. Seaver with the blue headband, and then the McCanns, before their divorce. Mrs. McCann was a stunner back then, wasn’t she? And the girls on the stairs trying to look like grownups are my sister Cady and Drew’s sister Amy. They were best friends.”

  He sighed and sank back against the desk. “I remember when this picture was taken - the first time we all got together at my parents’ cabin in the Smokies, not long after they bought the place. The first of, like, a hundred times we all vacationed there. My parents gutted the whole cabin and added on a third floor - it’s all modern now. It’s still one of my favorite places in the world, but I liked it better before,” Cain mused.

  “Does your family still own the cabin?” Damon asked, his heart racing.

  “Oh yeah. But we haven’t been there much since Amy McCann and the Seavers died. It’s just not the same, you know? It was a family place back then, and the Seavers and McCanns were part of our family. My father’s gone maybe three or four times this year for the fishing, and maybe a month ago, the whole family went, along with a couple of my dad’s donors.” He made a sour face. “That was the first time my dad brought strangers there. Though, you know, if anyone officially asked, I’d probably have to lie and say the Stornoviches were old family friends, too, not campaign contributors.” He rolled his eyes, but when he looked up and his gaze met Damon’s, he frowned. “What?”

  “Your dad has a secluded cabin that hardly anyone has been to?” Damon asked sharply. “Don’t you think it’s possible whatever evidence he kept could be there?”

  “I… I mean, I guess? Shit.” Cain ran a hand through his hair, tousling the strands to inky spikes, and Damon couldn’t help but cup his hand around the back of the man’s neck, pulling him in for a short kiss.

  “What was that for?” Cain asked when Damon pulled back. Cain’s fingers traced the contours of his own lips, like he still felt Damon’s imprinted there.

  Good.

  “How about because you’re fucking adorable? How about because I can?”

  Cain’s eyes flashed with something Damon couldn’t name, then he lifted himself to his toes and threw his arm around Damon’s neck, pulling him down for another kiss. Damon’s injured leg twitched, but he steadied himself with a hand on the desk and returned the kiss enthusiastically.

  He pulled back a second later, and they both smiled.

  Christ, they did not have time for this, but Damon wouldn’t do anything to stop it. If the past year and a half had taught him nothing else, it was that life could change on a dime. He’d take his happiness wherever he could find it.

  Cain set the photograph precisely back on the credenza, and giving one parting pat to Damon’s abs, he went to put the banker’s box back in the closet.

  “Wait,” Damon said, his distracted brain finally catching up to something Cain had said earlier. “Did you say Stornovich?”

  “Yeah. Uh, Adam and Ilya, I think. Father and son. They’re in real estate investments, which is not particularly exciting, but whatever.” Cain shrugged as he straightened and dusted his hands off. “They weren’t exactly friendly, but then hardly any of my father’s donors are. With the exception of the Fassbenders.” He grimaced as he joined Damon. “Shit. I really need to call them, and I totally forgot to pick up a charger at the store. The damn thing is back in Boston and I don’t have a spare. Remind me later?”

  “Cain,” Damon said, interrupting him with a hand on his arm. “Have you ever heard of SILA?” He could hear that his voice was rougher than ever, with a combination of excitement and worry.

  “I don’t think so?”

  “It’s a crime syndicate. The word is Russian for power.”

  “Oh! Wait, yeah. This reporter at my dad’s fundraiser did a whole big story on —.” His eyes went wide. “Wait, are you saying—?”

  “What I’m saying is that the Stornoviches are a pretty well-known family inside SILA. They were nearly indicted by a grand jury last year, but managed to skate. It’s not hard evidence, but it’s a damn interesting coincidence.”

  “Wait, no. These guys weren’t criminals. They were, like, short, portly, balding dudes who liked golf. One was old enough to be my grandfather. No guns, no… leather trench coats.”

  Damon raised one eyebrow.

  “Whatever. Trench coats seem like a mobster thing to wear. My point is, these dudes were super normal. They looked like bankers… or like what they are, real estate investors.” His voice was begging Damon to agree, to say that the men Emmett Shaw had invited into his family home hadn’t been criminals, that such a thing was impossible. But they both knew it wasn’t.

  “And what would you say your father looks like, Cain?” Damon asked gently.

  Cain squeezed his eyes shut, and once again, Damon wrapped an arm around the back of his neck, this time lending him support.

  “I remember thinking, back at his fundraiser, that my dad looked like this normal guy who liked to tailgate and eat Cheetos.” His eyes flew open. “He is that guy, you know, Damon? God. He used to make model cars with me when I was five or six. We watched football. Though, granted, I wasn’t usually paying attention.” He gasped out something that was a cross between a laugh and a sob. “How can he be a normal person and an evil mastermind at the same time?”

  “It’s gonna be okay, baby,” Damon said, pressing his lips to Cain’s hair. In truth, he had no idea if it would be okay, or eve
n what okay looked like in this situation. He led Cain out onto the second-floor landing and jerked his head down the hall. “I kind of wanted to see your room while we were here,” he teased, hoping to make Cain crack a smile. “Check out all your soccer trophies or whatever.”

  But Cain shook his head. “I don’t have soccer trophies. And there’s not a single thing here that I want to claim as mine,” he whispered. His eyes swam with pain and confusion. “Just… get me out of here, Damon.”

  Despite his earlier tease, Damon couldn’t have agreed more. This seemingly innocuous house - the perfect facade hiding a multitude of dirty secrets - chilled him to the bone, and he couldn’t wait to get Cain out of there. He wrapped an arm around Cain’s shoulders, squeezing gently so as not to disturb his injury. He only wished he could shield Cain from the other painful things in his life just as easily.

  Chapter 14

  “You sure you don’t want any more?” Damon asked, eyeing the sandwich in front of Cain at the small table in their hotel room.

  Cain nodded woodenly. He’d taken two bites of the turkey sub, but it tasted like sawdust and the idea of eating another bite made him nauseous - perhaps not an uncommon reaction to finding out your father, who you already thought was pretty much the embodiment of evil, was actually even more evil than you’d thought.

  His hands were cold, despite the warmth of the room, and he shivered as he chafed them together.

  “Want me to fix your bandage again?” Damon asked, but Cain shook his head. Damon had already redone it when they’d first checked in and nothing had changed. It still ached, but not nearly as badly as it had the day before.

  Damon stood, using the table to lever himself up, and he tugged Cain’s hands until he was standing, too. He guided them both to the end of the bed, then tore off the bedspread and sat down, tucking Cain in next to him and wrapping him up in his strong arms. He rocked them both quietly for a minute, and Cain was grateful for the silence. He had no framework for processing what he’d learned tonight.

  “Tell me something about your father,” Damon said, like he was asking for a weather report.

  Cain stiffened. “Damon, please. Not now.”

  “No, I don’t mean something that’s going to help us investigate him or lead us to evidence. Tell me a good thing, Cain. Any good thing.”

  “I-I can’t think of any right now,” Cain said crossly. “All I can see is that he has been a selfish, manipulative asshole for years. He’s murdered people. He knows fucking mobsters. In the grand scheme of things, does it matter that he volunteered as Cady’s soccer coach, or that he sang in the church choir?”

  “Did he?” Damon asked. “In the church choir?”

  Cain sighed. “Yeah he’s a tenor and my mom and Cady are sopranos. They used to sing solos sometimes at Christmas.”

  “And what about you?”

  “I sound like a cat whose tail’s been stepped on,” Cain said wryly.

  “I don’t believe it,” Damon said, sounding like he could very easily believe it.

  Cain chuckled. “Oh, believe it. I was better at debate team.” He remembered himself as a scrawny high schooler, nervous in front of the podium. “My father used to coach me in debate stuff. Like, give me pointers on my speeches, and show me how to refine them. And then he used to listen to me practice a dozen times, until I had it down.”

  “That’s a really good memory,” Damon said.

  “But is it?” Cain wasn’t so sure. “All I can think of now is what his real motivation must have been, you know? Why did he want to help me? Was it because he wanted me to follow in his footsteps, or lie for him?” He exhaled and felt Damon’s arm squeeze him more tightly.

  “You can’t think like that,” Damon said. “You’ll drive yourself crazy. Remember, Cain, nobody is just one thing, you know? Nobody wakes up in the morning twirling their mustache and saying, ‘How can I be eeevil today?’ And that includes your father. He’s a bastard, but he also enjoys Cheetos and football. And he loves you, I’d put money on it, even if it’s not in the way you want or need him to love you. I’m sure he thinks he’s doing the right thing for you and the rest of your family.”

  “You’re talking about a man who paid someone to have sex with you, to make sure you were implicated in a crime you didn’t commit,” Cain reminded him. And just saying the words made Cain feel like he was going to heave. How could Damon be so calm?

  “Yeah. I know.” The pressure of Damon’s arm didn’t ease or hesitate, even for a second. “I’m also talking about your dad, Cain. Those things aren’t mutually exclusive.”

  Maybe. Maybe it was okay to believe there was something decent lurking somewhere inside his father. But… “All I can think is, he’s out there condemning people for being gay like it’s this huge fucking sin, a crime against God. And meanwhile…”

  “Yeah,” Damon agreed. “There is that. The hypocrisy is strong.”

  “But thank you,” Cain whispered, letting himself lean against Damon’s side a little more fully.

  “For what?”

  “For not expecting me to hate him.”

  Damon shrugged. “Come on. It’s not that easy. It’s not black and white.”

  “It’s taking me a long time to figure this stuff out, I guess.”

  “But you’ll get there eventually,” Damon assured him, pulling him more tightly against his side. “I swear.”

  Somehow, when Damon said that, Cain almost believed him.

  It occurred to him that this was usually the time when his mind would start to focus on all the ways this situation could be worse, but tonight he had no urge to play that game. Not when he could focus on the warm weight of Damon’s arms around him, and almost imagine a future out there that might actually be better than what he had now.

  Damon shifted and winced, stretching his injured leg out in front of him, and Cain stood quickly. “Oh, hey, I bought something for you at the pharmacy today.”

  He grabbed the white paper sack he’d left next to his bag of clothes and removed a bottle.

  Damon squinted. “Lotion?”

  “Yeah, lavender and something else. Something that’s supposed to be good for easing muscles,” Cain said, giving the label a cursory glance. “I got it so I could rub your leg for you.”

  “Rub my leg?”

  “I notice you digging your fingers into the muscles all the time when you don’t think I’m watching,” Cain informed him, plopping down beside him once more. “And I figured it’d be even better if I did the whole leg, you know? Since you won’t take the stupid pain pills.”

  Damon blinked, his face a total blank, and Cain shrugged to hide the pang of rejection that squeezed his chest. “I mean, I don’t have to. Or you could use it yourself, maybe. I can leave it in the bathroom for you,” he said, pushing to his feet.

  Damon grabbed his wrist before he’d taken a step.

  “You… bought that earlier so you could rub my leg,” he stated slowly, like he wanted to get the facts straight in his mind.

  Cain turned beet red. God, it sounded so stupid. He was no massage therapist. He had no clue what he was doing, or whether it was even a good idea. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

  “Sorry,” he whispered.

  Damon’s right hand came up to capture Cain’s left. He removed the bottle of lotion and set it carefully on the bed. “What. The. Hell. Would you be sorry for?” Damon asked softly.

  Cain squeezed his eyes shut. “I wasn’t thinking. I don’t really know what I’m doing, obviously. And I-”

  Damon’s hand came up to cup Cain’s jaw. “I can’t believe you thought of it,” he interrupted in a whisper. “I legitimately can’t remember the last time someone thought of me that way, except for yesterday when someone remembered to bring my pain pills because I’m a stubborn ass, and that was you, too.”

  “Well, that’s… dumb,” Cain blurted. “Why wouldn’t they? You’re… you’re… amazing.”

  “Amazing?” Damon’s eyes crinkled at the corn
ers again, and he looked so happy Cain couldn’t even be embarrassed. He rolled his eyes instead.

  “Well, when you’re not picking music, calling me kid, or giving me the silent treatment,” Cain clarified. “Then, yes. Amazing.”

  Damon’s hands found Cain’s hips and pulled him closer until he was standing between Damon’s spread knees. His face moved forward to nudge the hem of Cain’s shirt with his nose, planting a kiss just above the button of his jeans.

  “You can’t just add qualifiers after the fact,” Damon told him, nuzzling higher. “You said amazing.”

  Right then, Cain wouldn’t fight Damon on amazing or any other adjective he wanted to use to describe himself. His breath hitched as Damon’s lips moved around his stomach and up to his chest, dropping small kisses like scattershot wherever he could reach.

  It was just… sweet, Cain realized, his heart kicking up. He’d never experienced anything like it, and he found himself responding to it way too quickly, his heart thumping harder and his cock thickening behind the seam of his pants.

  Damon noticed, and his hands curved further around Cain, holding his ass while he moved his kisses further south.

  But Cain didn’t want to simply get lost in Damon again.

  “Hey. Do it my way first.” Cain stepped back abruptly and dropped to his knees, working to remove Damon’s shoes and socks, and then throwing them toward the door. He opened the button of Damon’s jeans and pulled down the zipper. Damon stood, his hand braced on Cain’s head for balance, so Cain could yank his jeans to the floor.

  Of course, once the jeans were down, Damon didn’t let go, which meant his boxer-covered crotch was directly in line with Cain’s mouth. Cain looked up to find green-gold eyes latched onto his and he leaned forward, pressing a kiss to Damon’s half-hard dick.

  Damon shuddered, and Cain took that opportunity to push him gently back onto the bed.

  “Shirt,” he told Damon. His eyes still locked on Cain, Damon pulled his long-sleeved t-shirt off and threw it on the floor near his jeans.