Survive and Conquer

by Andrew Grey

  Eric raced away, then returned seconds later to take Chase into the sunroom. He pointed to where the completed model sat on one of the shelves that ran around the entire room just below the ceiling. “Dad said I could put it up there,” he said proudly.

  “Did you have fun doing it?” Chase asked.

  “Yeah. It was cool, and I could follow the instructions.” Eric could barely sit still. “Dad said that if I’m good, he’ll think about getting me another one for my birthday.”

  “You did a really good job.” Chase figured things that required instructions and steps were good for Eric. It taught him to follow directions, and putting Legos together took time and patience. He’d talk to Newton about getting him another set.

  Newton called Eric back, and Chase followed, picking up the bag of food he’d brought and taking it to the kitchen. He put the aluminum foil pans in the oven to keep them warm and went to sit near Newton as he controlled the chaos that seemed to be getting ready for bed.

  Rosie came to say good night. “I’ll check on you before I go to bed, I promise,” Newton told her. “I can’t go up the steps and come back down again.”

  Rosie hugged Newton and Chase before going upstairs. Eric came down in his pajamas, and they both got hugs again. Newton checked that Eric’s new nighttime heart monitor was in place and that his phone was receiving the signal. Then once he was upstairs, the house grew quiet. Newton sighed, and Chase went to the kitchen, made up two plates, and brought them in.

  “Oh God,” Newton groaned as he took the first bite. “Did Garth make this?”

  “Yes. I called and told him I needed something nice and simple that I could keep warm. He made the pesto with chicken and added just a little pepper to give it that zing.” Chase took a bite, and the flavor was incredible, finishing with that hint of heat that added a level of complexity to the dish. “Are you in as much pain as I think you are?”

  “Probably.” Newton removed the ice and set it aside. “I’ll be all right. It’s just a sprain, and I’ll be okay with some rest. The muscles in that ankle aren’t that strong to begin with. It will feel better in a few days.” He ate some more, and a little of the tension left his face, though the wrinkles around his eyes told of Newton’s discomfort. “Thanks for bringing this. I really needed to see you. The last few days have been…. I should be used to handling all of this by myself by now. But this stuff with Mom is only adding another layer of stress.”

  “Has anything else happened?” Chase asked, then took another bite. “Sorry, we should have something to drink.”

  “There’s Pellegrino in the fridge,” Newton offered.

  Chase got two cans of the blood orange soda, handed one to Newton, and then sat down again.

  “No. Nothing else has happened, but the whole incident has raised hackles at work, and my boss called me in to find out what was going on. I explained it to him, but they have to investigate everything. Of course, after they stopped by and found nothing, I hurt my ankle. It’s been a crappy day.”

  Chase set down his plate and took Newton’s hand. That simple touch warmed his heart, and as he watched, some of the stress leached out of Newton’s expression.

  “But it’s getting better now. How was yours?”

  “Equally bad, and it isn’t going to get much better. I have a client meeting tomorrow afternoon that I’m dreading because they aren’t going to like what I have to tell them. It’s part of what I do, but clients sometimes kill the messenger.” Chase picked up his plate again. “You need to eat.” He motioned to Newton, who began eating the pasta once more.

  “I worry.”

  “Of course you do. She’s your mother, and this kind of break is going to be hurtful.” Chase leaned closer. “At least you’re dealing with it. And your mother is going to have to realize that you’re the parent now. Mothers always see their kids as children, no matter how old they are.”

  “Yup.” Newton went back to his dinner, humming lightly under his breath. “This is so good.” He groaned softly, and Chase felt the sound deep inside. Damn, he wanted to hear that sound again, only maybe sometime when Newton was upstairs in his own bed, the two of them behind locked doors. Chase swallowed and leaned closer. Newton smiled and did the same, their basil-spiced lips meeting in a flurry of heat.

  Newton stilled and then grinned against his lips. “I’m waiting for one of the kids to come down.”

  “I know exactly what you mean.” Chase grinned in return, meeting a half-lidded gaze with his own. “I know we can’t, but if we were alone, I’d carry you upstairs, get you comfortable, and do my best to rock your world.” Chase thought for a second and snorted. “God, that sounded so cheesy. I think I need to say things in my head before I actually utter them out loud.”

  Newton swallowed hard. “It didn’t sound cheesy to me. It’s been so long since anyone was interested in me, other than as a son or parent, that what you said sounded smooth and kind of sexy.”

  Chase put his hand on Newton’s forehead. “Nope, no fever.”

  Newton shook his head. “Come on. I’m a forty-two-year-old gimpy guy with two kids. I don’t exactly have guys beating down my door. There’s one of the ladies at work, Jolene, you might have come in contact with her.”

  Chase had a number of times.

  “She tried to fix me up with a friend of hers a few years ago. That was a disaster. We never actually went on the date. She set everything up and started to tell him about me. The thing was, she mentioned that I was a really great guy and that she had known me for years. Jolene is a talker.”

  “God, yes. Get her on the phone, and she can fill the rest of your day.”

  “Exactly. Well, she mentioned that I had two kids. I had adopted Rosie about six months earlier, so she was three, and he about flipped out. She never got to the part about how I used a cane. That didn’t come up before he had the date canceled and was running the other way. To her credit, Jolene told him off and said that if he was that big a buttwad, she wasn’t going to have anything to do with him either.”

  Chase nearly did a spit take with his pasta. “I’m willing to bet that Jolene’s words were a lot more colorful.”

  Newton set his plate on the table, grinning. “Apparently she told him that if he couldn’t give a guy like me a chance, then he deserved all he got at the bars and that she’d make him a regular appointment at the clap clinic. Of course, she didn’t stop there.” He sat back, and Chase leaned forward, waiting for the punch line. There had to be one. It was Jolene, after all, and she always had to have the last word. “I heard this part. She and I were at lunch, and we saw him parking his car in the lot. She walked up to him in his red Corvette, wagged her pinkie, and said, ‘Compensate much…?’ She patted the top of the car and clicked her tongue. ‘I’m sorry about your penis.’”

  “She didn’t!”

  “I swear to God. She told me that a Corvette is the ultimate compensation car, and she seemed to know what he was compensating for.” Newton wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “There are times when she will say anything.”

  “I take it he wasn’t a very good friend.”

  “I guess not. She was really mad at him. Not that I could do anything about it. The guy was entitled to his feelings, and Lord knows, I don’t want to go out with someone who will run for the hills when he finds out I have kids. Hiding it is only going to borrow trouble later.” Newton picked up his plate and finished his helping of pasta. “That was so good.”

  “Garth sent dessert too. The man makes the most amazing key lime pie, so I asked him to put in a couple slices.” Chase finished his pasta and took the plates to the kitchen. “Do you want it now or should we wait?” he asked, poking his head back into the living room.

  “Don’t you have more work you need to do?” Newton asked.

  “Nope. I got everything done at the office, and miracle of miracles, I’m caught up. So we could watch a movie if you’d like.”

  “Cool.” Newton pushed himself up o
ff the sofa. “I need to go up and check on the kids. If they’re awake, I’ll say good night. But I want to make sure they’re okay.” He used the banister to lever up the stairs.

  Chase looked through the DVD collection while Newton was gone, weeding through the Disney and animated titles for something a little more grown-up. There wasn’t a whole lot there, but he found a couple of movies.

  “Guardians of the Galaxy?” Chase asked as Newton came back down the stairs.

  “That’s great. I haven’t watched a movie that wasn’t Mulan, Frozen, or The Lion King in so long.” Newton sat down on the sofa with a sigh. “Both kids are sound asleep.” He checked his phone and then set it aside. “If Eric’s heart rate starts racing or slows, I’ll get an alarm on my phone.” Newton sounded exhausted.

  “Do you really want to watch? Maybe you should just go up to bed.”

  Newton shook his head. “I just need a little quiet.” He stretched out on most of the sofa, put the ice on his ankle, and pulled a throw over himself. Chase got the movie in and going, turned out the lights, and sat at the end of the sofa, gently lifting Newton’s legs and setting them on his lap. He made sure the ice was in place and settled in to watch the movie.

  “Chris Pratt is really hot,” Newton said.

  “Yeah. I love the prison scene when he’s in only his skivvies. The man fills out those shorts.”

  Chase slowly rubbed Newton’s legs, and he relaxed. They got about halfway through the movie and Newton began snoring softly. Chase didn’t move and just let Newton rest as he watched the rest of the film. Newton woke up at about the time that the bad guy was getting his and Star-Lord and his team saved the day.

  “Do you want me to help you upstairs?” Chase asked when Newton stretched his arms over his head. His shirt rode up, giving Chase a glimpse of honey-gold skin around his belly.

  “Honestly, I don’t want to move,” Newton said.

  “How is your foot?” Chase had removed the ice to keep it from getting too cold.

  “It’s okay. I’m going to take some ibuprofen before I go to bed. Hopefully that will help with some of the swelling.” Newton blinked a few times. “At least it was the bad one. If it had been my good foot, I probably would be in a chair while I recovered, but I’m used to babying this one.” He sat up, carefully putting his feet on the floor. “You know, I can deal with the breathing issues, the flashbacks, and even the other health issues that spring up out of nowhere half the time. But not being able to walk very well really sucks. But I guess I’m lucky.”

  Chase didn’t understand that. “Because you survived?” he guessed.

  Newton leaned back, closing his eyes. “Well, yes, I suppose there is that. I did survive, when so many others didn’t. There are times I wonder why I did. What did I do to make some higher power happy so they said, ‘Hey, kid, you get to live through this.’” He wiped his eyes. “I know that’s kind of simplistic, but it’s the only explanation I have for that. But I know I’m lucky, because I should have lost my foot. It had become so incredibly infected, and gangrene was already setting in by the time I could get it looked at. The injury that set everything off wasn’t that bad or that big, at least on first inspection.” He swallowed and leaned back.

  “You’re not ready to tell me what happened.”

  Newton shook his head. “Any more than you’re rushing in to tell me your deepest, darkest secret.” He met Chase’s gaze with such intensity that Chase wondered if Newton could see his soul. “And that’s okay. It’s not easy to share something that, like it or not, has become a part of our very essence. There are so many times that I wish I’d been somewhere else or someone else. But then I know I wouldn’t be the person I am today. I’d have gone into the corporate world, and I never would have encountered Eric or Rosie. My family would look different. My entire life and everything that makes it up would be different. Even my values and outlook wouldn’t be the same as they are today.” Newton shifted, resting his foot on the coffee table and placing the ice pack back on his ankle. “I don’t think I’d know myself if I hadn’t been there.”

  Chase nodded. “Yes. I know that’s true for me. But I’m still trying to figure out if that’s a good thing or not. Maybe our lives would be better if….” He paused and blew out a shaky breath. “It takes trust to talk about all this stuff.”

  Newton smiled slightly. “Yes, it does. Sharing the worst things in your life requires a lot. It’s like letting someone else see my pain, but they know there’s nothing they can do to take it away. I will live with what happened and its aftermath for the rest of my life. And it’s likely that what happened shortened my life.” Newton chewed on his lower lip, abusing it slightly. “When I considered adopting Eric, I actually asked myself if I would be around long enough to see him grow up and if that was fair to him.”

  Chase stood and took the DVD out of the player, unable to look at Newton because things were becoming so raw and he needed a minute to deal with it. While not going into detail, Newton had indeed shared some part of himself that was nearly overwhelming. “I never wanted to have kids. I was afraid of how I would react around them.” It was hard for him to admit. “I didn’t know if I could handle it.” Chase put the DVD in the case and closed it, then turned off the television and the player. “I love Eric and Rosie. They almost instantly touched my heart, but they scare me too.” He lowered his head, afraid to turn around. “They still do in some ways.” He was being enigmatic, but his heart pounded in his chest as his past bubbled forward in his mind.

  “I think you and I have talked enough for today.” Newton sighed. There was something raw and chillingly close in his voice. Like his emotions were just as near to the surface as Chase’s, threatening to break through in a pretty messy way.

  “Let me help you up the stairs.” Chase turned and guided Newton to a standing position, taking part of his weight as they made their way to the steps. It was slow going, but Chase got Newton up to his room.

  Chase stood outside the door to the bedroom, glancing inside the spartanly decorated room. He turned across the hall to Eric’s room, the door open, a light glowing just enough that he saw the trees and dinosaurs painted on the walls. It was the perfect boy’s room, and Newton had gone to a lot of effort to make it special for him. Chase suspected Rosie’s room was similar, but yet Newton’s room was little more than a monk’s cell. Clearly his efforts all went for the children and not himself.

  “I’m okay now.”

  Chase stepped closer to Newton. “You’re so much more than okay.” He slid his hands along Newton’s cheeks and around his neck, drawing him closer. The kiss was intense from the very start and only grew more heated with each passing second. Chase’s head spun, and he took a wobbly step back. It took all his willpower to pull away as each cell in his body pressed him forward. He swallowed, blinking rapidly. “I think I’d better go now.” He tried to catch his breath. He had to put some distance between him and Newton. “It’s getting late, and….” He turned to look toward Eric’s bedroom. He might have wished that things were different and that he and Newton could just fall into bed, but that wasn’t possible. Newton was a father, and there were the kids’ feelings and needs to consider. Besides, Chase could be patient, and he was certain that Newton was worth waiting for.

  “Yeah,” Newton breathed.

  Chase stepped closer, whispering softly enough that only Newton could hear. “If you weren’t hurting, I’d take you in there and make you want to scream loud enough to wake the dead. But the kids are right there, and you need a chance to rest.” He tugged Newton into a tight hug. “But I can hold off.” He locked gazes with Newton. “I have a feeling that you’re going to be well worth it.” He captured Newton’s lips once again until Newton pressed to him. Then Chase backed away, head whirling, and lightly stroked Newton’s cheek before taking the few steps to the stairs. He turned to wish Newton good night, then used the banister to steady himself as he went down.

  Chase turned out the lights and
made sure the door locked after him before going to his car to drive home to his empty house.

  Chapter 5

  THE FOLLOWING Friday, a file landed on his desk with a thud, and Newton lifted his gaze to where Jolene stood across from him. “I think this is one that’s right up your alley. I don’t have any room in my schedule, and I was hoping you’d be able to take it.”

  Newton didn’t touch it right away. “And I’m just sitting here twiddling my thumbs,” he teased with a smile. They both knew Jolene never asked for help unless she was buried ten feet under. “What is it?”

  “Mother fighting for custody of her kid. Father is in jail, but will probably be getting out soon. His parents are fighting for the son because they say the mother is neglectful. I did a home visit and found a woman struggling to make ends meet, but the home was clean and she was feeding her son. The parents have more money than God and are really pressing for custody. She has custody now because the father was in jail for child abuse. He apparently has a temper.”

  “So when he gets out, he isn’t going to live with the mother and his child, but most likely with his parents.” Newton was getting a good picture of what the parents were trying to pull. Get custody of the son in their names, but the father would be the one raising—and most likely terrorizing—his son. “Of course I’ll take over the file.” He opened it and did a quick review. “I see the in-laws have called to report her on a number of occasions. Was there anything factual to what they were saying about her parenting skills?”

  “Not that I saw. She wasn’t inattentive when I was there, and as you can see, the reports are vague with no real supporting evidence. The sheer number of calls is what put her on our radar.”

  “Then I’ll take it from here.” He sighed as she sat down. “So this is a sit-down kind of visit.”

  “How are things going with you and your hot man?” She winked at him. “I saw him at the courthouse a few days ago. He stopped to talk for a few minutes but then had to run off to court.”