Lovingly Yours

by Jerry Cole

  “How’d he do, Margery?” I took over for her, wheeling Harold down the ramp to the entrance.

  “HE is right here and I am fine!”

  Margery and I looked at each other over his head and exchanged a sad look. Asking was just a formality. He wasn’t getting worse, but he wasn’t getting better either. At the moment it seemed like everything in his life was stuck in a stalemate.

  What was meant to be a week-long trip had slipped into a month. And what was meant to be an opportunity for healing had turned into a cold war. The only thing that had changed was that I had become the go-between for these two men. It was an improvement, but Harold’s doctors were becoming less and less optimistic about his future, and every day I kept thinking of all of the things they needed to say before it was too late.

  “Have you heard from Janet?”

  “No, I left her another message.”

  “That girl,” Harold spat. He’d been trying to convince her to return for days. He was getting tired of being nursed by “two homos” and wanted to see his grandsons. Janet hadn’t said no, exactly, but her answer was pretty clear. She’d sacrificed all she was willing to sacrifice to help her father deal with his illness. It was Josh’s turn.

  “Hey, Ian!”

  Patrick Dunlevy walked across the street toward us. He had a way of moving that made it seem like he was never in a hurry. He always seemed to be posing for an invisible camera. The top button of his tailored dress shirts was always open and he wore a permanent smolder. We’d run into each other more than a few times over the last few weeks. I was slowly beginning to understand what it meant to be a Dunlevy. It meant that nearly everything in town was owned or operated by you or somebody who owed you a favor. It meant that women with aspirations watched you as you walked by and men invited you to places you didn’t deserve to be.

  But what I couldn’t get over was his smile. It was bright and cheerful, but his eyes were dead, like a snake. Every time he smiled at me, I felt like I was looking at the mask that hid a monster. It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

  “How are you today, Mr. Green.”

  “Fine, and yourself?”

  “I can’t complain,” he shrugged.

  “What brings you here?” Harold looked up at the boy with genuine concern.

  “Just some routine tests. You know how particular insurance companies can be,” he said.

  “Well, stay on top of your health. You don’t want to end up like me.”

  “Hey, you keep up the good fight. I’m sure with Ian and Josh at home to help you out, you’ll recover in no time,” he said cheerfully.

  Harold snorted.

  “Oh, Ian. Tell Josh to give me a call. We should really catch up.” He handed me a gold-embossed business card and smiled even brighter.

  “Will do.”

  “Is that necessary?” Harold sounded alarmed.

  “Oh, we’re just going to catch up. It’s been years since we saw each other. Since he’s in town it would be nice to say hello, have a drink, and catch up on old times.”

  He said it so naturally, you could almost forget that the two of them had a history together. His smile only faded slightly as he spoke. Maybe he was trying to provoke me, but I was too dense to be so easily rattled. I knew that Josh wouldn’t meet with him even if I begged him. He’d told me as much. But what concerned me was the ruthlessness I saw in his eyes.

  Josh said he was used to getting his way. I believed him. He was, after all, a Dunlevy.

  “I won’t hold you two up,” he said. “Have a great afternoon.”

  He walked by us and into the hospital that had a whole wing named for his grandfather. Harold watched him go with fearful eyes.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  Harold shook his head and continued to watch the man disappear into the hospital. We climbed into the back of the waiting taxi and rode home in silence. Josh pulled into the driveway a few minutes after I’d helped him settle in his new chair in the living room. The tricked-out recliner looked like something out of Star Trek. It reclined all the way into a bed, had heating, cooling, a massage function, compartments for everything, even special hookups for medical equipment.

  As much as Harold resented the fact that he needed it and the fact that it was his son who’d bought it for him, it was one of the few concessions that kept the peace. That, and the shaved ice that he brought home every time he knew Harold had an appointment. Today was no different.

  “How did it go today?”

  Josh kissed the top of my head and put the shaved ice in the freezer. There was no point in giving it to Harold directly. He would never accept it.

  I grabbed him by the wrist and led him out of earshot before I handed him Patrick’s card.

  “He says he wants to talk,” I said.

  “Fuck him.”

  “I know, that’s not the issue.”

  His eyebrows shot up.

  “Your dad got really weird when he heard it. He never looks good after treatment, but he looks even more green around the gills than usual.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Got any idea why?”

  Josh shook his head.

  “Ask him. He seems like he likes you.”

  “He tolerates me.”

  “That’s still better than hating you. Ask him and see what he says.” Josh turned away before I could respond and bounded up the stairs. The sound of the shower running confirmed for me that the conversation was over.

  Friendly bumped my leg gently, alerting me to my tapping hands and the fact that I was biting my lip.

  “Okay, let's go find out,” I said, returning to the living room with the shaved ice in a cup.

  Harold was aggressively flipping through the channels when I walked in, but it was clear his mind was elsewhere.

  “So, are you going to tell me what’s going on or should I just guess?”

  Harold looked at me quizzically and then put down the remote and turned in his chair.

  “If there was ever a time for you to be a little bitchier, today would’ve been great.”

  “Why should I be bitchy? Patrick never did anything to me.”

  “If my wife’s ex-boyfriend came sniffing around her after we were married, I would’ve bloodied his lip just for breathing,” he snorted. “I guess you really are the girlfriend. Where’s your killer instinct, boy?”

  “They broke up ages ago, and Josh doesn’t want to see him anyway. Why should I get upset?”

  “Josh doesn’t want to see him?”

  I nodded and he shook his head.

  “You really are a fool. Did Josh ever tell you about him and Patrick?”

  “Yeah,” I waved a dismissive hand.

  “Did he tell you how he stalked that poor boy, and when he finally got him alone, he...damn near ripped the boy in half. He couldn’t sit down for a week. Did he tell you that?”

  “He…”

  “I bet he made it seem like they were in love.”

  I stared at him blankly, not knowing what to say. He took that as an affirmative and twisted his face up as if he smelled something awful.

  “Yeah, that was his story. But I know better. I saw what he did to that boy. He had red marks and bruises all over him. I even read the letters he wrote. My son was obsessed with that boy, and he made his life a living hell. So, don’t go telling me now that he doesn’t want to get his hands on him again. I just don’t know what the hell Dunlevy has up his sleeve. Why would he want to see Josh of all people?”

  "If that's what happened, why didn't you turn him in to the police or get him some counseling? Why send him away to military school?"

  Harold twisted his mouth around as if the words he was about to say were made of glass and he had to carefully spit each one out.

  "He was still my son. Even though I know what he is, I still had to look out for him. I just couldn't take his side. He was wrong and I couldn't pretend like he wasn't."

  The way Harold told
the story painted a completely different scene than the one Josh had described. My mind went back to the day I woke up in the hospital after being attacked. I knew something horrible had happened but it took me a while to fully comprehend it all. The pains in my body were the ultimate proof that what the police had described as probably the incontrovertible truth. I couldn’t run from it. I couldn’t imagine Josh as the perpetrator of such a crime, but I’d been fooled before. Too many times, in fact.

  The thought made my chest tight and I fought back the desire to gag. I wasn’t in any position to argue the facts of the case with Harold. I wasn’t there, and the only person who really knew for sure if that afternoon was the culmination of a romance or the scene of a crime was Patrick. It was his body, after all.

  For the first time, I doubted Josh’s story. I didn’t believe Harold’s either, but it was the first time I’d allowed myself to see any shades of gray in what had been a very black and white situation. Until that moment I had never doubted Josh or his goodness. I had never considered that a younger, less wise Josh could have gone too far and crossed the line. Not my Josh. Not the one I knew and loved.

  “Maybe he needs closure,” I offered.

  “Or revenge.”

  “Either way, Josh won’t go, so we don’t need to worry.”

  Harold took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair, his eyes closing heavily.

  “Even if Josh doesn’t go, doesn’t mean Patrick will give up. Dunlevy’s are good at getting what they want in the end.”

  If I was honest, at that moment I hoped that Patrick Dunlevy would just let it go. There were too many questions I didn’t want to have to ask and too many answers I wasn’t sure I was ready to hear. I wanted to keep believing in my Josh, without the complications of a questionable past.

  I left Harold to rest until dinner and escaped into the spare bedroom that had become a makeshift studio. I still had deadlines to meet, despite the major disruption to my regular routine. However, my mind kept roaming back to a moment I didn’t often think about. The moment when I finally understood that what my foster father and I did in secret was not okay. It wasn’t something that kids and adults should do. It wasn’t just a secret, it was a crime.

  That moment was always the most shameful one for me because until that moment I had been a willing participant. I had even enjoyed most of it. I liked being held and treated special, and the things he asked me to do almost never hurt. When it did hurt, he would stop and apologize right away. My adult brain knows I was too young and too innocent to understand. But it didn’t make the memories feel any less dirty. It didn’t take away the sting of wondering if there was something seriously wrong with me.

  After nearly an hour of trying to concentrate, I gave up and took a shower. I didn’t stink but I felt dirty. That was something I would have to take up with my therapist when I called to check-in. I came down into the kitchen and found Josh making dinner. Shaolin and Friendly were both eating by the back door. Everything seemed normal. It was me who was strange.

  “Hey, chicken again tonight,” he said, slicing the cutlets with a large knife.

  I leaned against the broad expanse of his back and wrapped my arms around his waist. Close to Josh was always a safe space. His hugs were always warm and his smell was always inviting. Today, however, even the safety and security of his body couldn’t make me feel whole again.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Josh

  If there was one good point to my father refusing to change anything in the house it was the fact that he’d held on to my bed. The full-sized bed meant that Ian was forced to curl up next to me. Most nights he would rest his head on my chest and fall asleep like that. And nights like tonight, when the light from the moon would hit his sleeping face just right, it took everything I had not to take advantage of that closeness.

  But tonight was different. Tonight, it was Ian whose wandering fingers wouldn’t leave me alone. He pressed his body against mine, rubbing his heated skin against mine. I woke up to him looking at me from under heavy lids, his face flush and his body on fire. The look of him was enough to hold him down and shove my cock in him. I wrestled his hands away from me and pinned him beneath me.

  “If you keep that up, we aren’t going to get much sleep tonight.”

  He wrapped his arm around my neck and looked up at me with wide eyes.

  “I’m not tired.”

  “I am.”

  “I’ll wake you up.” He rubbed his thigh against my crotch.

  “I had a long day. I might not be able to give you what you want,” I argued.

  He lifted his head and licked my chest.

  “Don’t worry, I’m willing to take the risk,” he purred into my ear.

  I felt the stitches holding my self-control together begin to snap.

  “My father—”

  “Is asleep downstairs after a long day,” he kissed me hard, slipping his tongue into my mouth and stirring up my desire. “Right now, I want you inside me.”

  He reached between our bodies and grabbed my stiff cock. I took his lips again, tasting him as he stroked my cock in his hot hands. He moaned into my mouth and arched his back so that our bodies were fused together. I pulled away long enough to pull his pants off and kick mine away. He reached for my body and teased my nipples.

  I trapped his hands and pinned them above his head. He wriggled a little but didn’t fight back. I tasted his skin, licking his neck and biting at his ears. He sighed and moaned, his cock leaking as I moved down the length of his body. I stuck my tongue out and licked the length of his cock, making him jump and shiver. His fingers thread through my hair and held my head down as he thrust his hips into my face. I obliged him, taking his hard length into my mouth and sucking roughly until he was panting and writhing on the bed.

  “Josh, I can’t—” his words were cut off by a hard spasm and the release of hot cum in my mouth. I spit the thick liquid into my hand and massaged it into his tight, waiting hole.

  “Oh baby,” he moaned as I spread his thighs and lifted his knees. I drove my cock into his body with a hard thrust. He cried out and I captured it in my mouth, letting him taste himself on my tongue. His hands gripped my ass, encouraging me to draw deeper into his body. I obliged him. Pleasure spiraled through my spine and out to my limbs as I came closer to an orgasm. Ian gripped my ass harder, biting his bottom lip and moaning loudly. The sound of his pleasure bounced off of the walls and spurred me on, plunging into his body with reckless ferocity.

  I came hard. Stars danced in front of my eyes and I collapsed on top of him. He wrapped his arms and legs around me and held me against his body until my breathing slowed and I regained use of my legs.

  “Shit,” I rolled over onto my back. “What got into you...besides me?”

  He chuckled at my stupid joke but didn’t say anything. Instead, he turned onto his side and cuddled up against me.

  “I love you,” I whispered into his hair as sleep crept over me and I closed my eyes once again.

  I woke up again because the warm body that had been pressed against mine was gone and the cool early morning air had made my naked ass uncomfortable. I looked around for Ian in the dull light of the early morning. I didn’t hear the shower running or smell coffee brewing in the kitchen. I slid out of bed and reclaimed my underwear before walking across the hall to check if he was working.

  No such luck.

  I was about to panic when the sound of retching echoed in the hallway. I walked into the bathroom and saw Ian crouched in the dark, his head hanging over the toilet.

  “Are you sick?”

  He looked up at me with lost eyes.

  “Ian?”

  He shook his head and swallowed hard.

  “Did you eat something strange?”

  “No, I just…” his eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry.”

  “What are you sorry for now? I told you there was no need for apologies between us.”

  “I need to know, Josh. I
need to know for sure that things between you and Patrick were mutual and consensual,” he said.

  “Of course they were. Why would I lie to you?”

  “Maybe, maybe they weren’t and you just thought they were. Maybe he didn’t know how to tell you no and—”

  “That never happened. I’m sure of it. Where did all of this come from anyway?”

  He sat back against the bathtub and crossed his legs.

  “Your dad said—”

  The mention of Harold was enough to make me see red.

  “I don’t care what Harold told you,” I cut him off.

  “Would you listen to me for a second? Your dad said that you were obsessed. He saw the letters and the marks on Patrick’s skin. He said Patrick was confused and you wouldn’t back off.”

  “And you think I’m that kind of guy? You think I just steamrolled the kid into a relationship with me?”

  “No, but I know it happens, especially when you’re a kid. You don’t really know what you want or what's right or wrong. You might think you like something or want something and not really understand what you’re doing. Maybe you were in love but it wasn’t the same for him. Maybe he was just...experimenting.”

  “And I was so blinded by my hormones that I couldn’t tell the difference?”

  “You were older and bigger than he was.”

  I snorted and folded my arms across my chest.

  “I might have been older and bigger but he always had the upper hand. ALWAYS! He’s a fucking Dunlevy. If he wanted to, he could’ve had my balls in a sling with just a few words to his daddy. He didn’t. HE chased ME, Ian. Not the other way around.”

  “I’m just saying, maybe he remembers it differently,” Ian closed his eyes and let a tear fall down his cheek.

  “Even if he does, that was years ago. What does that have to do with you?”

  He gave me a sad smile without opening his eyes.

  “I’ve been asking myself that question all night. Why does it matter to me? Why do I care? I just, can’t escape the idea that maybe I was wrong. Maybe I didn’t see something that was right in front of my face,” he took a shuddering breath and opened his eyes. “Again.”