Streak - 7. Chapter 7

September 11, 2002

New York

 

 

Will

 

I watched my father making the moves on this hot blond twink, and smiled at how impressive he was. “He learned pretty fucking fast,” I said to Chris Mendoza.

“No shit, and he snagged that dude,” he said.

“Who is he?”

Chris shrugged. “Some dude I’ve been working the past couple of times I’ve been here.”

“Dad cock blocked you?” I teased.

“Something like that,” he said, grinning at me.

“Are you OK with this?” I asked him.

“Fuck yeah,” he said. “I wasn’t into that dude.”

“I meant are you OK with Dad going off and fucking that dude?” It really wasn’t my place to butt into Dad’s relationship with Chris, but I was drunk enough not to care about that.

“Yeah, I’m fine with that,” he said. I looked into his eyes, trying to see if he was telling the truth, but he just looked back at me in a cocky way. He seemed pretty sincere to me, but got that I wanted an explanation. “We have fun together. We’re not a good couple, though.”

“Because you’re both tops?” I teased.

Only he didn’t laugh. “That’s a big part of it. If we were going out, neither one of us would really be satisfied.”

“Maybe,” I said. “I thought I was a bottom, a total bottom, but then I met a dude who has damn near turned me into a top.”

“That’s you, not me,” he said, in kind of an annoyed way.

“Whatever,” I said, just to bug him, but then I was totally distracted by a dude I recognized: I saw John Carullo dancing with some dude who was younger than him, but in really good shape. I watched Carullo carefully to see if he was into the dude, but he wasn’t, they were just dancing. “I’ll be back.”

I went out onto the floor, dancing my way through the crowd, until I came up behind Carullo. He’d been a football player at Stanford, and still had the body and the muscles of a linebacker. I wrapped my hands around his head to cover his eyes, even as I molded my body to his dancing moves. “Guess who,” I yelled over the music.

He turned around, saw me, and smiled really big. “What the fuck are you doing here?” He gave me a monster hug in the middle of the dance floor, while everyone else just kept dancing around us. I saw the guy he’d been dancing with give us both a dirty look as he walked away.

“Teaching my dad how to pick up dudes in a gay bar,” I said, making him laugh. He led me off toward the back room, and I just managed to sneak back there with him without any of my relatives seeing us.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call you,” he said.

“It’s fine,” I told him. He looked at me with desperation in his eyes, telling me that he needed me again. I kissed him, to tell him I was glad to help out.

He maneuvered us into a corner, and resumed our liplock, even as he massaged my ass. “Turn around,” he ordered.

“You gonna fuck me?” I asked him, in my slutty voice.

“I’m gonna fuck you,” he said, the raw masculinity of this guy just oozing off his words.

I turned my head backward and leaned back so I could whisper in his ear. “You are gonna feel so good inside me.”

I heard the condom wrapper tear open, and I handed him a lube packet, which he squirted on his dick. I felt him put some in my ass, and then he pushed up, trying to line his dick up with my hole. I reached down and guided him in, both of us sighing with the sheer ecstasy of fucking each other. “Fuck that’s good,” he said, almost a growl. “So fucking good.” He slid in and out of me in a very firm, very dominant way, but it was slow enough that we didn’t invite too much attention, and so we’d last. We fucked for a really long time, until I felt him pick up his pace, heard him grunting, and then almost puked when he wrapped his arms around my abdomen and squeezed, even as he jammed his dick as far up my ass as it would go.

When he was finished, he loosened his grip on my torso, and lowered his hand to my cock. It took him almost no time at all to make me blow my load all over the wall. “I am so glad I ran into you,” I said, when I was done panting from my orgasm.

“I’m glad you did too,” he said, and gave me a nice kiss. “This time, I’ll call you.”

“Do that,” I said. I watched him saunter away, with the same cocky walk that Zach had. My spirits had been so high after seeing Carullo and fucking him, only now they plummeted down. Maybe it was the walk, or maybe it was because Carullo had been a football player, but he reminded me of Zach, and I suddenly felt like total shit.

I rationalized things by telling myself that I hadn’t done anything wrong. Zach and I were allowed to fuck around with other people. But I knew that if he found out I’d done that, he’d be hurt, and I knew that the suspicion that I was doing it drove him crazy.

In three days, on the 14^th, he would play in the first game of De La Salle’s season. It was their home opener against Mitty. While he was playing in his opening game, I was supposed to be in Boston at my birthday party. I pondered that for a minute, then decided, in a mildly bitchy way, that I should be able to do whatever the fuck I wanted for my birthday. I wanted to be with Zach. I wanted to be there to watch his first game of the season. I didn’t want to be with anyone else; I wanted to be with him.

 

September 13, 2002

Boston

 

Wade

 

“Good morning,” I said to JP, as I walked into the kitchen. We were the only ones up so far.

“Good morning to you,” he said. “Do you have classes today?”

“No,” I said. “I have a weird schedule. I have classes on Monday and Wednesday night, and on Tuesday and Thursday morning and afternoon.”

“That does seem a bit unusual,” he said. “But you have nothing on Friday?”

“No, I actually get that day off,” I told him. “I’ll need it. This is going to be a lot of work.”

“I would think that after Stanford, you would be used to it,” he said with a smile.

“I am,” I agreed. “And I’ll be fine. But it’s no cake walk.”

“If it were, you would not be challenged, and you would not like it,” he said logically. “How are you doing?”

“You mean after yesterday?” We’d gone to DC for the big dedication ceremony of the ‘Victims of the Terrorist Attack on the Pentagon Memorial.’ It was built over a grave for five unknown victims of the attacks, plus parts of twenty-five other people that couldn’t be identified. They’d found my father’s body, so he wasn’t one of them, but his name was on the memorial. It wasn’t all that interesting, as far as monuments go; it was just a big cube with the names of the victims who had died in the Pentagon, and on the plane that had crashed into the Pentagon. “It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, but it was still sad.”

“That seems to be how everyone dealt with the ceremony in New York on the 11^th,” he said. “I think that is a good sign, a sign that we are all moving on with our lives.”

“I think so,” I agreed. “What’s gotten better for me, more than anything, is that I can think about my father, I can remember him, and not get depressed like I used to.”

“I would have to believe that would make him happy,” he said with a gentle smile.

“I think you’re right,” I agreed. “Beau, Mary Ellen, and Ethan all seem to be at about the same place as I am. But not my mother.”

“Indeed?”

“She is still so bitter about the divorce that it seems to cloud everything for her. She had a hard time not being completely bitchy, which ended up being a lot worse when Mary Ellen egged her on.” Mary Ellen had a field day with Mother, and it had taken all of my decorum to keep from laughing at them.

“That is unfortunate,” he said, but didn’t seem overly upset about it. I wasn’t either. “You seem to be happy.”

“You mean with my life in general?” I asked for clarification, but he seemed worried that I thought he was trying to probe my mind.

“I did not mean to pry.”

“You’re not prying, and that’s a nice observation to make,” I said. “It’s also true.”

“I am glad,” he said, smiling at me gently even as he let down his stoic shields. It was moments like these when I could almost see inside him, to see how proud he was of me, and how much he loved me.

“Matt and I are at a good place, a really good place,” I told him. “After the nightmare of 9-11, and all the crap he put me through, I just felt like I had to keep my distance from him, to save myself. I didn’t take into consideration how messed up we both were after the attacks. So after we started to rebuild our relationship, I’d feel myself being drawn back into him, only to discover it was happening, freak out, and then push him away.”

“And you have gotten over that?”

“I have,” I said. “I realized after that whole deal with Alex that I wasn’t giving him credit for maturing and recovering from all the bullshit, and I was giving myself too much credit. Somehow, all the pain that he put me through, and all the pain that I put him through, seemed to just balance out. It’s in the past, and I really don’t think about it now.”

“It does seem as if you two are destined to be together,” he said.

“I hope you’re right,” I said. “I’m doing well with all of my siblings, and I’m so happy to have Riley and Maddy here. They’re really a lot of fun.”

“I agree, although toddlers are a bit taxing for someone like me, who is older and a bit too frail to roll around on the carpet with them.”

“I disagree,” I said. “I think that if you would let yourself go, and you’d get down and roll around with them, you’d find that it actually made you feel younger.”

“Perhaps,” he said. “I am glad you survived yesterday and are in such good shape.”

“I miss my father, but when I think about him now, I feel good about him, and about us. That epiphany, that progress I made from hating him to loving him, I owe that mostly to two people.”

“I would think that Matt would be the primary person deserving of your accolades,” he said in his stuffy, academic way.

“Every time I tried to write Matt out of my life, or replace him with someone else, I’d remember that. I’d remember how he jumped in and saved me from that hell, from being molested every time I was at the Compound,” I said, referring to my mother’s home in DC. “You’re right, I owe him for that, and it isn’t a debt I can repay. It will probably always be there as a safety catch, to make me stop and think about our relationship when I’m really pissed off at him.”

“I was very impressed by the way both of you handled that situation: Matt, for the way he stepped in to save you; and you, for the way you recovered from it. I have not seen someone approach therapy with such a zeal as you,” he said, and I was stunned to see the admiration in his eyes.

“And you are not curious as to who the second person is?”

“I am interested, if you want to share that with me,” he said, cracking me up.

“The other person is you. You and I are such kindred spirits, and even when I felt like I was an orphan, someone with no father, you were there for me. You guided me, and you loved me, when my own father did not, would not, or could not.”

He stared at me, somewhat stunned, because neither one of us was normally this emotional. “I told you once that I would be proud to have a son like you, and that I would be glad to adopt you.”

“And I think what I was just saying was that you did indeed adopt me, whether you knew it or not,” I joked, smiling.

“I knew it,” he said. He reached out and held my hand, in a very loving way.

And then, with incredibly bad timing, our conversation and our intimate moment was interrupted when the kitchen began to fill up with the rest of our crowd. Even as the others began to fill the room, we exchanged a loving glance.

One of the nurses, and the maid, had volunteered to make breakfast for us, so as they began to cook, the smell seemed to rouse the rest of our residents and guests. We had quite the full house. JP and Stef had stayed in the guest room on our level, while I’d put Brad in the room we’d set aside for our new baby, with a temporary bed in there for him. Darius and Will shared the guest room on JJ’s floor.

“Good morning,” Alex said pleasantly, as he walked into the kitchen. He was, surprisingly enough, the last one down for breakfast.

“Good morning,” I said. “Don’t you have a class today?”

“I do indeed,” he said, as he looked at his watch. “In about an hour, so I shall have to make this a rather speedy breakfast.” The bacon and eggs they were cooking was like an assembly line, where as soon as they made some, they were absorbed by our group. We gave Alex priority since he was on a tight schedule.

“What’s our plan for today?” Will asked.

“We really hadn’t formalized anything until this evening, when we planned a birthday party for Maddy,” I said. “We thought we’d have a joint one, and celebrate Riley’s birthday a day early.” Maddy was born on September 13, while Riley was born a day after her, on September 14. Riley and Will shared the same birthday.

“That way we can celebrate your birthday on the 14^th,” Matt said, winking at Will.

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Will said nervously.

We all looked at him, waiting for him to say something, but he didn’t until Brad prompted him. “Go ahead.”

“I want to go home for my birthday,” he said. “Well, actually I want to go to Concord. I don’t want to hurt your feelings, and I really appreciate you wanting to have a celebration for me, but I really want to go back.”

“You don’t want to miss Zach’s first game at De La Salle,” I said.

“I don’t,” he said. “I don’t mean to offend you guys.”

“It’s your birthday, you should be able to do what you want,” Matt said. The transition in his relationship with Will over the past year had been stunning. From two guys who all but hated each other, now they had a bond that was so tight, sometimes it almost made me feel a little jealous. It was typical that he’d back Will up like that.

“If you go, I’ll go with you,” Darius said. It was even more predictable, that he’d also back Will up. For some reason, they all looked at me, as if this were my decision.

“I won’t be offended at all,” I said, “but then again, you’re not taking my plane back early.” I’d said that to prompt Brad or Stef, since they controlled the airplanes.

“I think we could have my plane take you back,” Brad said. “Then I can fly back with Stef and Grand on Sunday.”

“You’re all OK with that?” Will asked.

“I guess,” Tiffany grumbled, pretending to be annoyed. Will rolled his eyes at her, and she smiled at him. “Be nice to get rid of you.”

“I’ll bet people say that about you all the time,” Will said, and then changed tactics. “Is that realtor lady coming to the party tonight?”

“You mean Victoria?” Matt asked. She and Tiffany had been dating, sort of. “She’s hot.”

“So are you two together?” Will asked Tiffany innocently. Tiffany was so irritated by that, it was funny, and her irritation only got worse when we laughed at her.

“We’re just friends,” she insisted.

“You should invite her over so we can all meet her,” Darius said, raising his eyebrows suggestively. “Maybe she’d like to be my friend too.”

“That wouldn’t be your smartest idea,” Tiffany snapped, inadvertently revealing that she was pretty into Victoria. JJ was snickering at Tiffany, and how annoyed she was.

“I, for one, thoroughly enjoy Victoria’s company,” Alex said smoothly, bringing some class into the conversation. “I do hope you invite her tonight.”

“We’ll see,” Tiffany said.

“I must be off,” Alex said. “I will see you for the festivities this evening.”

“Yes you will,” Will said, flirting with him. It was funny to watch JJ almost turn red with anger at that; he didn’t understand the difference between harmless flirting, and a real seduction attempt. Fortunately, Alex did.

 

September 13, 2002

Boston

 

Will

 

“Thanks for going back with me,” I said to Darius. We were sitting in the stands of the ice rink, watching JJ practice. It would have been boring except JJ was showing off for us, and because we had each other to talk to. I didn’t get to spend nearly enough time with Darius.

“No problem,” he said. “That way I can get back to LA on Sunday, or maybe even Saturday night.”

“So you’re not just doing this to spend my birthday with me?” I asked, pretending to pout.

“It’s not all about you, not even on your birthday,” he joked. “Zach will be happy to see you.”

“He will be,” I said confidently. “He’s been kind of bummed that I’m not going to be there. He doesn’t say anything, but I can just tell from the tone of his voice.”

“You gonna tell him you’re coming?”

I shook my head. “I’m going to surprise him. I already called Frank and lined it up with him, so he’s saving us seats. He always gets there early so he can sit close to the front.”

“Can’t you see better when you’re higher up?”

“Yeah,” I said. “But when he goes, or when I go, the big reason is to support Zach. If we’re closer to the field, he sees us.”

“What, he stares at you guys throughout the game?” Darius asked, giving me shit. “What do you do, give him signals so he knows what play to run?”

“Ha ha ha,” I said sarcastically. “When he does well, he looks at us, and we cheer, and it makes him feel good.”

“What if he fucks up?”

“Then we smile and cheer anyway, to prop him up.”

“What happens if you miss a game?” he asked, implying that Zach was totally dependent on me.

“Then he’ll do just fine,” I said, probably a little too obnoxiously. “Dude, it’s not like he has to have me there, but it makes him happy if I’m there, and it makes me happy to make him happy.”

“Cool,” he said, dropping that subject. “Dad sure did well at that club in New York.”

“No shit,” I agreed. “Did you fuck that chick you were dancing with?”

“In the back of her car,” Darius said, cracking me up. “Dude, Dad and I both put you to shame.”

“So after Dad fucked that dude, but before we left, did you see me?” I asked, taunting him.

“I did not,” he said, smiling.

“Let’s just say you and Dad didn’t put me to shame,” I joked, cracking him up.

“I’m betting you snagged that biker dude,” he said, referring to this guy who had been wearing a biker vest, but had zero muscles, so it had made him look hella lame. Darius and I had joked with each other at his expense for much of the night.

“Nope, ran into John Carullo. He’s the football player from Stanford, who’s a friend of Matt and Wade’s.”

“That dude?” Darius said. “Be careful. You piss him off; he can crush you with his bare hands.”

“I didn’t piss him off,” I said, raising my eyebrows. “I made him real happy.”

“Gross,” Darius said, since that had popped a gay sex visual into his head. JJ finally finished up his practice, and we all walked back to their house. It was hard to imagine a more convenient location.

Despite the emotional crap we’d dealt with over the last two days, we were determined to make tonight a lot of fun. Wade made some quick changes, and turned it into a party for all three of us: Maddy, Riley, and me. By the time we got back from the rink, the kids had just woken up from their afternoon naps, so I’d gone to Tiffany’s floor to play with them. I was having a really good time with them when I was distracted by the sound of the elevator door as it opened. I looked up, totally surprised to see Cody there. He looked at me nervously, because he’d been avoiding Dad, and the rest of us, but I knew that no good would come of giving him a bad time about it. Besides, he was here as our guest, and it was my obligation to be a good host. “Hey there!” I said enthusiastically. I jumped up and all but ran over to him and gave him a big hug. I could feel him embracing me; feel how distraught he was about being here and how much he appreciated me doing this.

“It’s good to see you,” he said, as he pulled away from me.

“The hug was nice, but I need more,” I said, and pulled him in for a kiss that was probably way too intimate.

“You get sexier every year. It’s scary to think what you’ll be like when you’re twenty-five,” he said.

“Hot” I joked. “I’ll be hot.”

“You already are,” he said.

“So tonight, at midnight, I turn sixteen. You know what that means?”

“That you can drive,” he said.

“If I was in California, maybe,” I said. “But I’m in Boston; and in Massachusetts, the age of consent is sixteen.”

“Oh it is, is it?”

“It is,” I said. “And I want you for my birthday present.”

“We’ll see about that,” he said, blushing a bit. It was so funny to make the ultimate player lose his footing.

“Have you seen anyone else yet?”

“Just Wade,” he said. “Hey Maddy!” I didn’t bug him after that, I just hung out with him and played with Maddy and Riley until it was time for dinner.

“Look who’s here,” Tiffany said, when she came in to get the kids ready to go downstairs.

“Hi,” Cody said. He got up and gave her a friendly hug, and a friendly kiss. “It’s good to see you.”

“I know,” Tiffany said, cracking us up, and then she got serious. “Thank you so much for coming out for Maddy’s birthday.”

“I’m trying to stay in her life,” Cody said.

“I’m sure she appreciates it,” Tiffany said. “I know I do.”

I gave her a strange look, since she was being nice to Cody, but I got what she was doing. He was really freaking out now. I could almost see him losing his composure in front of us as the time for dinner drew closer. “Hey,” I said, to get his attention. “This is going to be fine.”

“This dinner is going to be a nightmare,” he said.

“That’s a distinct possibility,” I joked, since our family meals could be pretty exciting at times. “But it won’t be because you’re here. You are welcome here. You belong here.”

“After the way I treated your father, and Stef, I probably should just leave.”

“Let’s assume that both of them are really pissed off at you, even though I know they’re not, and let’s assume that they’re even rude to you, which they won’t be: I got your back.” I put my hand on his shoulder, and saw his eyes tear up.

“And so do I,” Tiffany said. “No one wants to mess with a bitchy pregnant woman.” That made us laugh, and took us away from our maudlin moment.

“Come on,” I said, taking Cody’s hand. “You’re my date tonight, but that’s not official until midnight.” I led him down the stairs to Matt and Wade’s floor, then down the really ornate staircase to the ground floor.

We walked into the dining room, and everyone froze. Dad and Stef gave Cody particularly unpleasant looks, and Matt looked pretty irritated too. I felt Cody all but freeze next to me, as he recoiled at their animosity. “I need to go to the bathroom,” Cody said to me nervously, desperate to escape.

“Want me to go with you?” I asked in a whisper.

“I’m fine,” he said, and shook his head at me as he walked to the bathroom to get away from this crowd.

As soon as he was gone, I glared at Dad and Stef, so intensely that they both recoiled just like Cody had, but I settled my attention on Grand. “That was one of the rudest things I’ve seen in a long time. He was all but chased out of here by their nasty looks,” I said, gesturing at Dad and Stef. “I cannot wait until tomorrow, when I can explain this to Grandmaman.”

Only this time, Grand was in my corner. “I could not agree with you more,” he said to me, as he focused his own eyes on Stef and Dad. “I think that you two should remove yourselves from this gathering until you can behave in a civilized manner.”

Matt was totally cowed by that outburst, so he snapped back into line pretty quickly. Grand and I ignored him. “You two aren’t treating Cody like the friend he’s been to you,” I said to Dad and Stef coldly. “It’s a shame you’ll miss dinner, but try to get your act together in time for the birthday cake.”

Dad and Stef glared at us, then looked at each other, and then seemed resolved. It was pretty amazing how well they communicated without using any words at all. “The reaction you took to be animosity was merely surprise,” Stef lied, trying to smooth things over.

“It doesn’t matter what you meant by it, or how I took it,” I said to him firmly. “What matters is how Cody saw it.”

As if by mentioning his name I’d summoned him, Cody walked back into the room, looking nervous but resolved. Dad walked up to him, held out his hand like he was going to shake it, and then pulled Cody into a big hug. “It’s my turn to be pissed at you, but I’ll probably forgive you, just like you forgave me,” Dad said.

“Probably,” Cody joked. Then he walked up to Stef, bowed in a cavalier way, and kissed Stef’s hand like he was a princess. We all laughed at that, even Stef, and with those simple gestures, the tension evaporated.

Alex came home, and we introduced him to Cody, and then started to really enjoy ourselves. We had a great dinner, had cake with the kids, then sat around and opened presents with them. They got tired, and went to bed, and then it was my turn for presents.

Stef handed me a package, one that looked about the same size that a shirt would come in. I unwrapped it and opened it up to find a bunch of papers. “What’s this?” I asked him.

“We did not do anything for your birthday last year, nor did we celebrate it the year before, so we thought we would try to make it up to you. That is the deed for the building that Spartacus is in, and those are the certificates transferring ownership of the bar to you.”

“You’re giving me the building and the bar?” I asked, stunned.

“We are,” he said, making sure I knew he was including Grand in his gift. Grand just winked at me, making me chuckle. “You are quite good at handling Josh, and I think this will be a good learning experience for you.”

“Thanks,” I said. “That was really nice.” I thought about how cool the apartment was, and couldn’t stop myself from smiling like an idiot.

“You are welcome,” he said.

The next gift I opened was from Dad. It also had papers in it: the title to the Ferrari he had at Escorial. I’d told him I wanted to buy it from him, but he told me he’d give it to me for my birthday. It wasn’t a surprise, but it was a really nice present, and it was even more special because it was the Ferrari Robbie had given him when he’d been trying to get back together with Dad back in 1999. “Thanks,” I said to Dad.

“What is it?” Matt asked.

“The title to Dad’s Ferrari. You know, the awesome yellow 360 Modena Spyder,” I said. “The one with the glass hood.”

“Dude, that’s pretty flashy,” Darius grumbled. “Doing some showboating?”

“Whatever,” I said, because that annoyed me. I didn’t want the Ferrari because it was flashy. I wanted the Ferrari because it was a blast to drive. It hadn’t met a corner it couldn’t rip up. It went from 0-60 in 4.2 seconds, and it had a slick, 6-speed manual transmission that was smooth as silk. With the mid-engine design, it was so balanced, it handled like a fucking dream. That car would be awesome even if it looked like a Ford Focus, but it was cool that it looked so much better.

I got some cool presents from everyone else. It was a really nice party. We’d hung out for a really long time, just talking and having fun, until Dad looked at his watch in a meaningful way. “The plane takes off at 8am tomorrow,” he warned me, and that was the cue for all of us to head back to our rooms.

“Sounds good,” I said, even as Darius and I grumbled to ourselves about how early that would be. “I’ll meet you upstairs,” I said to Darius.

“I’m gonna crash. I’ll pack in the morning,” he said.

“Fine,” I agreed grudgingly. I went over and thanked Stef and Grand again and finally went to go take the elevator up to the fourth floor. Just before the doors closed, Alex jumped in.

“Made it,” he said, smiling.

“You have good timing,” I flirted.

“As it is just after midnight on your birthday, I would submit that is true,” he said, grinning at me. Then he shocked the shit out of me by all but lunging forward and sucking me into a very aggressive lip lock. God, he was sexy. His lips just played mine perfectly; we were so in sync, it was almost surreal. I felt myself completely losing myself in him, and felt my body responding to him, aching to be with him. The elevator dinged for his floor, and we stepped out so we were standing in the small vestibule. “You’re legal now, in Massachusetts, I hear,” he said in his sexy voice.

“I am,” I said, and kissed him again. He broke off our kiss and headed toward his room. I followed him until I glanced at JJ’s door, then I froze. When I stopped, he turned around and gave me a confused look. “I want to do this, but I can’t,” I said, as I put my hand on his chest.

“I am certainly not trying to force you,” he said, acting all insulted.

“You’re not forcing me. It was hot, and I want to be with you really bad,” I said. “But I can’t do that, because JJ has a massive crush on you.”

“JJ has a massive crush on me?” he asked, incredulous.

“You’re not blind,” I said. “You have to see the way he looks at you, the way he all but worships the ground you walk on.”

“I had not thought it was so serious,” he said. I wanted to argue with that, but I decided it was more important that he knew what JJ’s deal was.

“It is,” I said. “Be gentle with him. He’s pretty inexperienced.”

“I understand,” he said. He gave me a nice kiss, walked into his room, and shut the door, not quite in my face, but almost.