Streak - 19. Chapter 19

October 4, 2002

Palo Alto, CA

Brad

“Happy Birthday,” Grace said cheerfully as I walked into my office. Grace was my executive assistant here at Carruthers & Schluter, but she’d been away from the office for the past two months. They’d found a lump in her breast, and it had been malignant, so she’d ultimately ended up having a mastectomy. She’d come back to work on Monday, and it had been a total relief. I quickly transferred the woman who had filled in for her, and in just a few days, between Grace and Alec, my life had gotten a lot smoother, and a whole lot more organized.

“What’s happy about it?” I asked grumpily.

“WeIl aren’t we just a little bit crabby this morning,” she said in a patronizing way.

“We are allowed to be crabby when we turn forty,” I said, but my tone was slightly happier.

“You look like you’re thirty,” she said, trying to prop me up. “I think that as you get older, you actually get more attractive.”

That was really flattering, especially coming from Grace, who normally didn’t toss out a bunch of bullshit. “Well that’s nice of you to say, but you’re not exactly my target market.”

She chuckled. “I’m sure there are a lot of gay men out there who feel the same way.”

“Sadly, you are wrong,” I told her. “Sometimes I think the entire gay culture is built around youth and beauty, and once you get old or ugly, you’re nothing more than flotsam.”

“Flotsam?”

“Trash, garbage,” I explained.

“Would you like some friendly advice?”

“No,” I said honestly.

“Well that’s too bad,” she said. “You keep talking about this like you’re the average 40-year-old gay man. You are not.”

“That doesn’t change anything,” I said.

“If you’re really attractive, you look like you’re thirty, and you’re as rich as Oprah, then I’m going to go out on a limb and say that changes things,” she said.

I shook my head at her, even as I smiled. “So what’s on the agenda for today?” That got us into work mode. I spent the first half hour going through mail and other projects Grace was working on, and the rest of the morning was taken up in various meetings. For lunch, Stef had a catered meal brought in for the entire company, and they had cake and sang “Happy Birthday” to me. It was all very nice, and it was heartwarming to know that people cared enough about me to do this, but it was still depressing. I didn’t want to be old, but even more than that; I didn’t want to be unhappy about getting old. I’d watched Robbie go through his own mid-life crisis, and it had been awful. I was hoping to avoid having one of my own, but it was hard to avoid those feelings. At times, I felt I was at war with myself, trying to conquer my emotions. The battle to get over losing Robbie had been grueling. I was hoping the fight with my mind over aging wouldn’t be as bad.

It was 1:00 by the time I got back to my office. I closed the door and sighed, enjoying a few minutes of solitude. I looked around and admired my digs. We hadn’t moved over here until February, even though we’d planned to make the move in December. There were delays as Stef worked to make things perfect. Luke and I had groused about it, but now that we were here, I appreciated Stef’s efforts. I strode into my private restroom, complete with a shower that I’d probably never use, and freshened up. When I came out of the bathroom, I found two large, handsome men in my office, wearing police uniforms. Grace was with them, looking nervous.

“Bradley Schluter?” One of the men asked.

“That’s me,” I said. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m Officer Delton, and this is Officer Morrow.” I just stared at him, waiting for him to go on. “You’re under arrest for two counts of securities fraud.”

“What?!” I asked, outraged. Morrow walked behind me and grabbed my arm and tried to put a handcuff on me, but I struggled with him.

“Please, Mr. Schluter,” he said politely. “I’m just doing my job. If you struggle, then I’ll have to subdue you, and you’ll just make things worse.”

“Fine,” I said grudgingly, and let him cuff me.

“You have the right to remain silent…” Morrow said, as he began to read me my Miranda rights.

“Grace, go get someone from legal,” I told her, interrupting my Mirandizing.

“On it,” she said, and vanished. Morrow continued to ramble on until he’d finished.

“What the fuck is this about?” I demanded rudely.

“We’ll explain that when we get you back to the courthouse,” Delton said with a sneer.

“You’ll explain it right now,” I demanded. I was so agitated I tried to move my arms around, because I tended to gesture with my hands when I was upset. But when I tried to do that, I found my hands immobilized by the handcuffs, which just pissed me off even more.

Stef and Nathan, one of our attorneys, appeared, and then Luke came in right behind them. “What is going on?” Stef demanded.

“Mr. Schluter is under arrest for two counts of securities violations,” Delton said. “These are related to the recent public offering of Xcaliber Systems.”

I wanted to ask them why they weren’t arresting Stef and Luke, but I remembered that I’d been the only one on the paperwork for that deal. “Let me see the warrant,” Nathan demanded. Delton grudgingly handed it to him. “This is ridiculous! That was probably one of the cleanest deals ever done!”

“You get to explain that to the Federal Prosecutor,” Delton said. “We don’t get to make the call on that.”

“Brad, we’ll have you released as soon as you get there,” Nate said.

I glared at the two cops, and that finally seemed to have an impact. “We don’t write out the warrants, we just carry them out,” Delton said. In other words, they were just doing their jobs. I looked at them, ready to rip them new assholes, and then realized they were right. I knew the score on this. These guys were just average joes, sent to do the bidding of someone else. My anger vanished, shocking the shit out of them.

“Then let’s get going, so I can get released and then plan to ruin the life of the prosecutor who issued this warrant.”

Morrow actually grinned slightly when I said that. “Actually, it was issued by a grand jury, so you’ll have to get mad at them.”

“Right this way,” Delton said, and guided me out of my office.

“We will follow you,” Stef promised.

As they led me through our offices, and I noticed that there were no employees there. I smiled, thinking about how nice it was for Luke and Stef to clear everyone out. They were doing everything they could to make sure I didn’t find this completely humiliating, to spare me from watching our staff as I was marched out in handcuffs. They led me to a Suburban with heavily tinted windows, put me in the back, and then sat on the seat across from me. “I haven’t done shit,” I told them.

“We’re just the guys sent to pick you up,” Morrow said.

“That just means you made a shitty career choice,” I joked.

“You don’t seem very upset about this,” Delton said.

“That’s because I know its bullshit. Besides, you’re right. If I rant and rave at you guys, what good will that do me?”

“Most people don’t think about things as logically as you do,” Morrow said.

“Most people aren’t as rich as Oprah,” I said, reminding them that I had a shitload of money to make everyone involved in this arrest totally fucking miserable. Whatever game they were playing, whoever had put them up to this, I’d make them pay dearly for it. Then I thought about these charges they’d drummed up. Nathan was right; there was nothing wrong with that Xcalibur deal. That must just be a cover to bring me in, so they could hit me with something else. My mind scanned back over the various deals I’d been involved in, and while there were some venal sins, there was certainly nothing to warrant my arrest. In fact, the only thing that could cause me problems was Omega.

The entire battle we’d fought with Omega, the one that had netted us Triton, was fraught with possible problems for me. How would they have found out about that? Who would have told them? There were any number of people, but the one that flashed into my mind was Elizabeth Danfield, Wade’s mother. She’d pieced together my entire plan, including the part where I’d engineered the murder of Brian and Carson. It was primarily for that reason I’d quietly gone to bat for her when she was facing Federal Election violations over that Idaho land deal. But even as I suspected her of engineering this, I reconsidered. Elizabeth Danfield didn’t do things without a purpose, and if she and I fought a war, it would be Pyrrhic victory for whoever won.

I wasn’t really paying attention to where we were going, or to anything else, until Morrow leaned forward and leered at me. “Maybe we can work something out.”

I stared at him, totally confused. “What are you talking about?”

“Maybe we’ll let you off with just a spanking,” then Delton said.

“What the fuck?” I demanded. They looked at each other, and then in one fluid movement, they both ripped off their uniforms, which were evidently held together by Velcro, revealing amazingly hot torsos. I shook my head, even as I grimaced. These guys were strippers. They moved over so they were sitting next to me, and began to run their hands all over my body. “So this was all a set up?”

“It was,” Delton said. “Just relax and enjoy yourself.” He nuzzled his mouth against my neck in a really seductive way, rubbing his hard body against my arm. “We’re gonna make you feel so good.”

I’d managed to control my anger at them before I even got into the Suburban, but I’d let my mind get pretty involved in these fictitious charges, and that meant I was pretty tense. I didn’t respond to them at first, but my mind slowly processed how incredibly handsome these two were, and my body responded to their stimulation. I felt Morrow’s hand running up my leg, and I briefly thought about stopping him, but the words didn’t come out fast enough or maybe I didn’t want them to come out. I tossed my head back, giving Delton’s mouth free access to my neck, and the way he nuzzled me, and growled against my skin, lowered all my shields. By the time Morrow’s hand reached my groin, I was hard as a rock. “Holy shit,” I heard him say.

“What?” Delton asked, and then I felt his hand grab my dick. He smiled at Morrow. “Go for it.”

“What are you doing?” I asked unnecessarily, even as I felt them lowering my zipper.

“Kenny likes to suck dick, and he’s good at it,” Delton said. Presumably Kenny was Morrow’s first name. I watched as Kenny pulled my cock out, sighing with pleasure at his soft touch. He ran his hands up and down in a gentle way, as if inspecting it, while Delton looked down with me.

“You have such a nice dick,” Delton cooed in my ear. I looked down as Kenny lowered his mouth onto my cock. I was going to stop him, I should have stopped him, but as soon as his lips wrapped around my cockhead, I was putty in his hands. Damn, he was good. I couldn’t stop the moan from coming out of my mouth.

I decided, at that point, to just go with it, and they must have felt my body relax. “Happy Birthday,” Delton said, even as he grinned at me.

I blinked at him, trying to focus, which wasn’t easy since the guy blowing me was really good. “Take the handcuffs off,” I ordered.

“You sure?”

“I’m sure,” I said, even as I moaned. I hated being handcuffed or subdued unless it was by someone I had total and complete trust in. That made my mind flash momentarily to Robbie, because he was the only one I’d felt that bond with. I stopped myself from sinking into depression, missing him again, by focusing on the blow job Morrow was giving me.

Delton released the cuffs, and rubbed my wrists seductively, as if to erase the memory of what happened, and then he pulled my hand down to his own groin, to his own hard cock. “You are so fucking hot,” he said.

“Damn, you’re good at that,” I said to Morrow. “With a big dick like this, I usually feel some teeth.”

He pulled off and studied my cock, almost worshiping it, and then dove back down on me. Delton moved away from me and got behind Morrow and started rubbing his ass. He tugged at Morrow’s pants, which were velcroed on too, ripping them off, and then he took off his own. “You like that big dick?” he asked Morrow. Morrow just moaned.

“Fuck him,” I said to Delton, taking charge of the situation, and then I paused to mentally give myself shit once again for being a control freak. Delton smiled and took out his dick, which was nice, and about average size. He reached into his pouch and pulled out some lube, and started slathering it on his cock, and then he started working it into Morrow’s hole. As Delton went to push his dick into Morrow, I stopped him. “No condom?”

Delton smiled. “It’s cool,” he said. “We’re together.” That did a lot to alleviate my own concerns over STDs.

It was so hot, watching them that I pulled Morrow off my cock and kissed him, otherwise I would have already shot. I loved kissing a guy who was good at it, and he was good. Only having his ass pounded was distracting him, and it was hard for him to kiss me and moan at the same time. I broke off our lip lock and smiled at him. “You kiss as good as you suck cock.”

“Thanks,” he said. I grabbed his head and forcefully redirected him toward my dick, and he resisted enough to make it hot. I held his head steady and fucked his face, and then pulled off again to make it last.

“You have me so close. You want me to blast this load down your throat?”

“Yeah,” he said, and broke free from my grip and went back to sucking me, acting like he was desperate for my load.

“Gonna cum!” I said loudly.

“That’s it,” Delton said. “Drown him with that load.” And I damn near did, but not only could that guy suck a cock, he swallowed like a champ.

As soon as I was done with my orgasm, Delton had his, driving into Morrow’s ass with some pretty loud grunts. When he was done, I pushed Morrow upright, so he was kneeling in front of me, with Delton behind him, with his dick still jammed into Morrow’s ass.

“My turn to return the favor,” I said. I leaned forward and pulled Morrow’s G-string down, exposing his small cock, and started sucking on it while Delton gently thrust into him. Every time Delton thrust, a little bit of pre-cum spurted into my mouth. And then Morrow came, and while his dick was small, his load certainly wasn’t. He shot rope after rope of cum into my mouth, and I swallowed it like a champ. Morrow wasn’t the only expert cocksucker in this limo, I thought with a grin.

“Thanks,” Morrow said shyly, as he pulled his dick out of my mouth, and Delton pulled his dick out of Morrow.

“My pleasure,” I said, smiling at them. “So who set this up?”

Delton pulled out a clipboard and looked at it. “Will Schluter.” I rolled my eyes. Christ.

“Alright,” I said. “That was fun. Now take me back to the office. I have work to do.”

“That’s not the plan,” he said. I looked out and saw us driving up to the airport. The Suburban went out onto the ramp and parked in front of Stef’s Falcon.

I took out my wallet and pulled out some cash, but Morrow stopped me. “We’ve already been taken care of.” That was actually pretty sweet.

“And so have I,” I said, winking at him, even as I handed them an extra $500.

“Um, I don’t know if you want, but, uh, if you want to do that again sometime, uh, that could be fun,” Morrow said. “And you don’t have to pay us.” God, he was cute.

“Could be fun,” I said, and got their phone number. It was unlikely I’d call them, but it was pretty flattering that they were willing to be with me for free. I thought about what a nice ego boost that was for me on my birthday.

I got out of the Suburban to find Stef, Will, Darius, and JP standing there, smiling at me. Even though I’d had a fun time with those two guys, I didn’t like being abducted, and I sure as fuck didn’t like being arrested, even if it was fake.

“Very funny,” I snapped at them, which they thought was evidently the case, since they started laughing. “I need to go back to work.”

“You do not,” Stef said authoritatively, which, as usual, checked my attitude a bit. “Instead, I recommend that you board this plane with the four of us.”

“Where are you taking me?”

“All of that will be revealed,” Darius said, doing an imitation of a swami.

I stood there, staring at them, trying to decide whether to get on the plane or not. “Let’s go,” Will said. I realized that I didn’t have much choice in the matter unless I wanted to throw a tantrum, and they’d obviously put a lot of thought into this. It’s not every day I get abducted by my family. I gave them all a dirty look and got into the plane.

We got situated, the Falcon’s engines wound up, and we taxied out to the runway. I glared at them, saying nothing, just so they’d know I wasn’t happy about what happened, even though it had been pretty hot. But I reasoned that if I showed them how annoyed I was, maybe they’d think twice before they did that to me again. We were lucky, in that we were cleared for take off almost immediately; certainly not a given when flying out of the Bay Area. “So where are we going?”

“Someone doesn’t like practical jokes,” Darius said, getting a frown from me, while the others laughed. Of course.

“I don’t,” I admitted. “I’ve always hated them.”

“We figured it was probably the only way to get you to leave work,” Will said, which was incredibly annoying since he was no stranger to criticizing me for my workaholic nature at times.

“The entire company thinks I was marched out of the building, under arrest by the SEC!”

“You are being a bit dramatic, but that is allowed, since it is your birthday,” Stef said smoothly. “The employees were aware of what was happening.”

“Everyone knew about this?” I was stunned that they kept it a secret.

“Only the good actors were allowed to interact with you,” Stef said. “Why do you think there was no one around when you were marched out?” That was a little deflating, since I’d thought they’d left as a sign of respect, not because they couldn’t stop themselves from laughing at me.

“Terrific,” I said, in a pretty nasty way.

“Most people would probably think it was funny, and they’d laugh about it,” Darius said. “Instead of being so fucking bitchy.”

“How would you feel if you were marched out of your office in handcuffs, put into a car, and driven to the airport while the guys who kidnapped you sucked your dick?” I asked icily.

“What did you say?” Will asked.

“I said that they marched me out of…”

“No. You already whined about that part,” he said. I wasn’t whining. “Fast forward to the dick sucking part.”

“Figures that’s where you’d go,” Darius said, making Stef giggle.

“One of the guys blew me on the way, while the other guy fucked him,” I said.

“Those men were very handsome,” Stef said.

“They were fucking hot,” Will augmented. I guess he’d seen them at the office. He must have been there the whole time, the little shit.

“Yes, they were,” I agreed. It was funny to see their reactions. Will and Stef were pretty turned on by that visual, while Darius was grossed out, as usual, when man-on-man sex was discussed. JP looked at the three of them with a condescending smile, as if he were immune from such base, carnal desires.

“That wasn’t part of the deal,” Will said, even as he looked at Stef.

“I did not alter the arrangements to include gratuitous oral sex,” Stef said. “Although that is only because I did not think about it.”

I was as shocked as they were. “You mean you didn’t ask them to blow me?”

Will shook his head. “They were just supposed to pick you up and bring you here, and do a little striptease on the way. Of course, knowing how difficult you can be, I told them it was OK to knock you around a bit, but there was nothing about blow jobs.”

“Ha ha ha,” I said in a snarky way.

“Do you feel violated?” JP asked me. “We can report them to the authorities if you do.” His words were caring, but his tone indicated he was making fun of me.

“No, its fine,” I snapped.

“You do not seem very happy. Did they not do a good job?” Stef asked. Now he was giving me shit.

“The guy who blew me was one amazing cocksucker,” I said, as if I were doing a formal review. Darius grimaced. I focused my attention on JP. “It’s no big deal. I could have stopped them if I’d wanted to.”

“You were handcuffed,” he said.

“True, but I’m also very loud,” I said, and they all laughed, only this time, I laughed with them, as I put my annoyance aside.

“Guess they must have done it because they wanted to,” Darius said.

“Dude, how great a present is that? On your 40^th birthday, you have two hot guys blow you just because you’re that attractive,” Will said. I refused to acknowledge that it was flattering, even though internally I did.

“So where are we going?”

“Tonight, we are going to Chicago,” Stef said.

“We’re having a party for you at Spartacus,” Will said. I frowned, because I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go to a big party at Spartacus. It would be more of that club scene. After my ‘lessons’, our night out, and Dustin’s sweet ass, I was pretty confident that I wouldn’t feel too out of place, but it really wasn’t my deal.

“I think you will have a good time,” Stef said, sensing that I wasn’t all that excited about it.

“Cam will be there,” Will said.

I smiled. I couldn’t help it. “Alright, that may make up for you pissing me off with this abduction.” That got chuckles from all of them.

“You spent time with him recently, did you not?” Stef asked. Of course he’d probe for gossip.

“I did,” I said. “We both agreed with Darius, that we’d moved too fast, so we slowed down and just enjoyed our time together.”

Darius gave me a grateful nod, while Will focused on me intensely. “You fucked him,” he said in an accusatory way. It was pretty frustrating that he could read me so well. Sometimes I felt like he lived in my brain. An out of control teenager, hanging around with my out of control emotions.

I was going to argue about it, but that was pointless. “Well yeah.” That made them laugh.

Will got a little nervous, which told me he’d done something that may annoy me. “I talked to Cam and invited him tonight.” He’d already told me that Cam would be there, so I was wondering what he’d said to Cam to piss me off. I just looked at him, demanding that he go on. “I kind of set it up so you’re his date.”

“What does that mean?” I asked. It seemed like he’d told me the same damn thing, that Cam would be there, three times. I could see no difference.

“It means that he’s expecting you to be there with him, so it’s probably not a good idea to run off with someone else,” he said. Then I got what he was saying, and I smiled broadly, not only because I would get to spend focused time with Cam, but because that meant I could ignore the rest of the bar scene and not worry about picking up other guys.

“Thank you,” I said, and he smiled with relief.

“I figured that’s how you wanted it,” he said. “I’m glad I was right.”

“Me too,” I joked. “So I’m spending my birthday weekend in Chicago?”

“No,” JP said. “We are going to Boston after that. You are spending your birthday with your sons.”

I stopped to think about that, and then I realized how incredibly cool that was. And what was best of all is that all four of my sons had to be involved in this plan. When I’d given each of them one of my and Robbie’s rings, hoping it would bond them together, it had only been a hope. Yet here they were, turning that into a reality, working it out so we could all be together. “That’s awesome. I can’t think of a better way to spend my birthday.”

They all looked a little shocked that I’d appreciated it so much. “I have usually enjoyed spending time with my children,” JP said, giving me shit. “I assumed you would feel the same way.”

“I do,” I agreed, then focused on Will. “Most of the time.”

Instead of saying ‘whatever’, Will gave me a snarky look that had the same effect, and then changed the subject. “JJ has his regional competition this weekend, so on Saturday we go see him skate. He was in first place after his short program.”

“That is excellent,” Stef said.

“He’s really excited that we’re all going to be there,” Will said.

“Whatever,” Darius said. Will glared at him. “Dude, he doesn’t give a shit if we’re there or not. As long as Alex is there, that’s all that matters.”

“That is not all that matters,” Stef intervened. “It is just the most important thing.”

“So you’re missing Zach’s game to come with me,” I said to Will, focusing the attention on his love life for a change.

“He’s jealous that he can’t come along,” Will said. “Not that he’d be able to go to Spartacus anyway.”

“He needs a fake ID,” Darius said.

“That’s not it,” Will said. “No way can he be seen in a gay bar.”

“That is unfortunate,” Stef said. “So this is not an important game?”

“All of their games are important,” Will said. “They have to keep the streak going. But the big game is next weekend, when they play Long Beach Poly.”

“I’ll have to see if I can make that one,” I said, even as I pulled out my calendar.

“Zach said it will probably be their toughest game this year,” Will explained.

“So you are not sad about missing this one?” Stef asked.

“I’m OK with it,” he said. “I went up to see him a couple nights this week, so we had time together.”

“Time?” Darius challenged.

“That’s what we call it when I sink my dick into his ass,” Will said, just to give Darius a visual and truly annoy him. The two of them were tight, but they certainly knew how to push each other’s buttons.

“Well I’m glad you enjoyed yourself,” JP said in his aloof way, which was actually pretty funny.

“Oh we definitely enjoyed it,” Will said with a leer, getting another frown from Darius, and then he got more somber. “We need to probably keep our distance a bit anyway, so this works out.”

“Did something happen?” I asked.

He told me all about these guys who were bugging Zach, and how Zach had faced them at the team meeting. “I wrote down the dude’s name, so if he fucks around with Zach again, I can have his car fucked up.”

“Sounds like something you’d do,” Darius said to me, which was so true it was irritating.

“What’s his name?” I asked, just out of idle curiosity. “Maybe I’ll have his kneecaps broken for you.”

They laughed at that. “David Parnell,” Will said. And with the mention of that name, JP, Stef, and I stopped laughing, froze, and looked at each other. “What?”

“That was Brian’s last name,” JP noted. Will hadn’t connected those dots, and Darius hadn’t either, but now they got it. Brian Parnell was JP’s half brother, the guy who had almost destroyed my relationship with Robbie, and who had tried to bring down our whole empire by aligning himself with Omega. The same guy who had caused a huge rift between JP and Stef. The same guy who I’d had murdered.

“I wonder if there is a connection,” Stef mused.

“I think that is definitely something we should investigate,” JP said. I could tell how uncomfortable this made him. He still carried residual guilt over Brian, blaming himself for giving Brian access to money and power, the same instruments that JP assumed had corrupted him. I didn’t think that at all. I just thought Brian was an evil asshole. “I will make that my responsibility,” he added.

“And will you share what you discover?” I asked him.

“Of course,” he snapped. Just the mention of Brian’s name had made us all pretty tense.

“Zach said this guy is a tool,” Will said.

“A tool is a useful implement in the hands of a skilled craftsman,” Stef said, being philosophical.

“You’re saying that there could be a mastermind behind this?” Will asked. It was funny to see Stef get annoyed that Will had distilled his statement down to something that simple, and it was even more amusing to see how happy that made JP, who usually bore the brunt of Will’s desire to make things easier to understand.

“That is a lot of conjecture,” JP said. “We should not jump to conclusions.”

“I think we were simply speculating,” I said.

“In any event, I would prefer that you not share this with anyone,” JP said to Will, who raised an eyebrow to challenge him. He hated secrets, and sleuthy schemes. “If you must tell Zach, ask him to be discreet.”

“Zach knows how to keep a secret,” Will said firmly. “I trust him.”

It was important to change the subject, because there was no use speculating about this David Parnell guy. “Where are we staying in Chicago?”

“I assumed that JP and I would stay in the condo in Evanston, while the three of you stayed in the apartment above Spartacus,” Stef said smoothly.

“That won’t work,” I told him. “There’s not enough room.”

“There are three bedrooms,” Stef said.

“One of them is occupied,” I said, looking at Will, who was actually blushing.

“Devon was having problems with his roommate, so I told him he could stay there,” Will said.

“That was very nice of you,” Stef said.

“Dude, I don’t think we have enough real estate for you to let every guy you sleep with have a place to live,” Darius said to Will.

“Like you’re a virgin,” Will taunted him.

“I discovered Devon was staying there the last time I was in Chicago. I was working at the dining room table, and he walked out to make himself some breakfast. Stark naked. He was a bit surprised to see me there.”

“I’ll bet,” Darius said, and we all cracked up. “What did he do?”

“Dropped his bowl of cereal on the floor, shattering it into a million pieces, and then ran back to his room to get dressed,” I said, making them laugh even more.

“Is he as handsome with his clothes off as he is with them on?” Stef asked.

“Much more handsome,” I said.

“I have good taste in men,” Will said. I thought of Devon, and of Zach, and had to agree with him.