“Maybe I like my space.”
“Maybe I don’t.”
Rob sighed heavily. This boy would not let him set boundaries. He didn’t really want to, anyway, and dearly loved to sleep with someone else. Everything he’d given up, and he missed sleeping in bed with another person more than almost all of it. Rob was breaking all the rules, breaking everything for this boy, breaking it beyond repair.
It had already broken, anyway. He was only admitting it.
“C’mere, kelpie.” Rob wrapped around him firmly: legs tangled over his, body half-covering him, arms over Bastian’s. He suspected Bastian would sleep better like this. “Better?”
“Uh-huh.” Bastian’s voice came out soft and sleepy. “Night, Daddy.”
Rob held Bastian in the darkness and still didn’t understand.
Chapter 3
Bastian wore his Speedo under his warm-up pants so he wouldn’t have to change. He examined himself in the mirror. “I don’t want anyone to see your handprints.”
“God, I love you in that Speedo.” Like he’d always wanted to, Rob reached over and palmed him. Bastian arched shamelessly into his hand. “Bratty baby,” Rob murmured. “I forgot to ask you last night. How often do you get yourself off?” He kept stroking Bastian.
Bastian reddened. “Honestly?”
Rob dropped his voice. “Honestly.”
“When I wake up and when I go to bed and sometimes right after school.”
Rob sighed. “I can’t stop you. But I can get you a phone. And you’ll be calling me when you do it to ask permission.”
“I have a phone.”
“I don’t want you calling me on your phone.”
“You’re smart, Daddy-O.” He paused. “Are you gonna say no?”
“I might, if I’m busy and I can’t talk. You’re going to learn patience. Daddies make their boys learn patience and self-control.”
It was hard to leave the room after so much had happened. But Bastian trotted at his side like normal, drowning in his black hoodie: unbearably adorable. Rob started the car after reminding Bastian to buckle his seat belt. “You can kill this kid. These are your best events. You can slaughter him if you try.”
Bastian nodded.
“I mean it. You can do this. Do you understand? If you won’t do it for anything else, do it because Daddy asked you to, okay?”
Bastian nodded again.
They split off at the locker rooms and met at the pool, Bastian wrapped in a towel. Rob had found them a seat in the stands, and they watched the other races. He didn’t look at Bastian. Rob wanted to put an arm around him. As a coach, could he maybe get away with it? Probably not.
“You can do this.” He whispered it to Bastian one last time. “Kill this kid.”
“I will, Daddy.” Bastian’s reply came so low no one could hear.
He broke the state record in both the 100 and 200m breaststroke, Littleton at least two body lengths behind in both. Rob had to lift Bastian out of the pool. The other boy managed to gasp out a congratulations.
“Thanks.” Bastian’s breath hitched.
Jackson looked him up and down. “You deserved it.”
Rob rubbed him down with a towel as he shivered. “You’re going to get named All-American. You’ll end up invited to all sorts of meets now.”
“I’m done.”
Rob’s stomach dropped. “You’re what?!”
“I’m done. We can talk about it later. But I’m finished.”
Bastian emerged from the locker room in his hoodie and warm-up pants. “Let’s skip the ceremony and get some burgers, Daddy-O. I’m starving.”
Wordlessly, Rob took him outside. When no one else was in earshot, once he’d glanced around and no one could see, he grabbed Bastian by the shoulder. “You explain to me what the fuck you mean when you say you’re done. You just broke three state records. Name your goddamn college, Bastian.”
Bastian laughed like nothing was funny. “You really, really wanna know why? It’s not nice and it’s not pretty and it’ll fucking horrify you, Daddy-O.”
Something in Bastian’s tone told him this wasn’t bullshit.
Bastian held up his hand. “You never asked me where I got this. Don’t you think it’s weird, for a teenager to wear a pinkie ring?”
“I never thought anything of it.”
“It belonged to my twin brother Brendan.” He smiled a little. “His girlfriend gave it to him? When we were twelve, he dove into the wrong end of a pool. No one was watching. It snapped his neck. But we were swimmers, and we were good swimmers, so back into the pool, Bastian. Nevermind it killed your brother, Bastian. My father left and my mother moved us from Charleston to Savannah, ‘cause she grew up here. I had to leave my friends, and it’s not like I had many. But I did have like, one, my best friend. I had to leave him, and you don’t keep up with your friends when you’re twelve. So I lost my brother and I lost him. He’s probably getting the shit kicked out of him for being gay right about now with no one to help him. They were awful to him even then.”
Rob stood still in the drizzle, unable to compose any answer, grasping for something, for anything to say to this boy standing with his hands jammed down into the pocket of his hoodie. And even worse than not speaking, he couldn’t touch Bastian again, not now, not here, when he only wanted to sweep him up and hold him. He finally stumbled out a response.
“What was his name? Your friend, I mean. You could call him now.”
“Audie. And no, it would just be weird. But anyway, I hate the pool. I hate swimming. I only did it because everyone thought I should. Like I told you, it doesn’t matter. And now it’s finally over. I’m never getting in a goddamn pool again. I think I’ll try running. I always wanted to run. But I never had time.”
“That’s …” Rob trailed off. A hard lump formed at the back of his throat. He’d forced Bastian into this. He’d told him to get into the pool. Loneliness radiated from him, a loneliness that, if Rob had been honest, he’d always suspected. But Bastian had never let him see just how deep the cracks ran. Bastian had handed Rob this trust, but never let him see what it meant, and now it almost brought to his knees.
Bastian had retreated into his hoodie. “Yeah. Well. Maybe it explains some of the shit you read in my file and I know you read it and don’t lie. All the fights were about Audie, by the way. Kids would try to beat him up and I’d kick their asses.” He paused. “Can we stop talking about this now? You know why I don’t wanna swim, so I answered you.”
Rob still couldn’t speak. He knew he should and he couldn’t. “I don’t know what to say.”
“I didn’t expect you to say anything. You asked a question and I answered it.”
“Oh my God, Bastian.”
“Save it.”
“For what? What situation could possibly be more worthy of blasphemy?”
“War. Famine. Plague. I don’t fucking know.”
“Close your eyes.”
“What?”
“Close your eyes. I’m holding you so tight right now. I’m holding you as tightly as I possibly can.”
Bastian squeezed his eyes shut. At first he seemed to be imagining it as hard as he could. But Bastian was trying not to cry.
“Oh honey, let me take you home.” This hurt too much. Bastian opened his eyes into the drizzle. They were red and shiny as he and Rob trudged toward his car.
Bastian looked out into the rain. “My mom’s gone for two weeks. It’s no hurry.”
“Hey.” Rob dared to touch his shoulder, quickly, enough that Bastian looked up at him. “How about this. How about I never call you kelpie again, number one.” That got a tiny smile. “Number two, if I don’t have to take you right home, how about we get you some running stuff? And then we can lie and say I offered Mass in the hotel room in the morning for you.”
“Okay with me.” Bastian sounded tired.
“C’mon, sprite.” Rob popped the car locks.
“Sprite? Like the drink?”
Bastian actually laughed.
They stopped for junk food on the way back to Savannah, because Bastian wanted it and right now Rob would give Bastian anything. He kept his hand on Bastian’s thigh all the way down the interstate. When they hit the city limits, Rob took the exit to the sporting goods store, removed his collar in the car, threw on the NISCA swim T-shirt he’d bought at the championship, and took Bastian inside. He bought him new running shoes, socks, and clothes.
“You don’t have to do this,” Bastian kept saying.
“What the hell else do I have to spend money on? Do you know what they pay me, and then give me everything I need to live on?”
When they finished, Bastian slumped in the seat. He didn’t say anything: Rob could see the exhaustion etched on his half-lidded eyes. They stopped at school so he could get his car, and Rob followed the new Ford Explorer to an enormous, rambling farm in the middle of nowhere: no one to see them, or wonder why Rob’s car was parked out there.
“They’ll deliver pizza out here.” Bastian climbed out of the driver’s seat. “And my mother travels all week. School isn’t supposed to know. She only comes home on the weekends. You can come over whenever.” He looked away when he spoke. “I hate being alone.”
Bastian broke Rob’s heart over and over. It made everything worse. Bastian was starting to show him the cracks, the bad parts. If he was this lonely, Rob was taking advantage of that loneliness. It made him no better than Bastian’s social studies teacher. Rob became a predator, feeding off a child’s sadness to get what he wanted.
“I have stuff I need to do.” Rob didn’t have a goddamn thing to do. He didn’t look at Bastian.
“Okay.” Bastian spoke quietly. Rob turned to see him look up and roll his eyes. “I get it. You don’t have to lie. Christ.” His voice had changed: louder, more abrasive.
Rob knit his brows. “What?”
“Just you told me earlier you were free all day. You can say, ‘Bastian, I don’t feel like hanging out with a kid. I got what I wanted and I’m done.’ Jesus. At least be fucking honest. No one else is. Nut up, asshole.”
Rob whiplashed at how fast Bastian slammed from the hurt child he’d seen to the sarcastic brat he was used to.
“No, Bastian.” Rob actually backed up a step. “No, honey. It’s not like that. I don’t want to take advantage of you being lonely. I can’t do that to you.”
“You. Aren’t. Taking. Advantage.” Bastian spoke through clenched teeth. “I am asking for you. I pick you. I am old enough and smart enough to know what I fucking need and what I want and I want a daddy and I want you to be my daddy. So be my daddy or don’t but don’t fucking act like I’m too goddamn wounded to make a decision for myself.” He turned and walked away, but stopped at the door.
“Are you fucking coming in, or are you gonna drive away like a pussy and pretend to be a priest again? Because I won’t tell, you don’t have to worry about that. I’d be just as mortified as you.”
Rob blinked at him, at the simplicity of the choice in front of him, at the sheer rawness of Bastian’s emotions — he couldn’t parse the anger from the sadness or the rage from the loneliness or the despair woven through it all.
He could fix it. Bastian had all but told him how to fix it.
He started walking towards the back door, the kitchen door, it looked like, a big picture window to the right hung inside with netted glass globes. Bastian didn’t go in. He stood on the concrete patio at the threshold, arms crossed. Rob stopped in front of him. He didn’t speak.
“Do you wanna do it?” Bastian still sounded angry, but he had gone from crossing his arms to hugging himself.
Rob nodded.
“Say it.” It came out like a dare.
“What do you want me to say, honey?” Rob wanted to touch him so much, but Bastian held himself tight, drowning in his hoodie, apart from everything.
“Tell me you still wanna do it. Tell me what you want.”
Rob groped back for the words he’d used last night. “I want to take care of you. I want to make sure you behave. But that’s only part of taking care of you, Bastian.” He hesitated. “If it’s what you want.”
“If you’re really my daddy, you know what I need. You don’t worry about what I want.” Bastian hugged himself tighter.
“Even if I am your daddy, I need you to consent.”
Bastian was quiet. “I respect that. Fine. I’m saying the words, Rob. I consent. I’m not saying them again. You believe me or you don’t. Either I’m smart enough to say them or I’m not. Your call.” He turned and walked into the house.
Rob followed. The use of his real name didn’t escape him.
It opened into a huge kitchen, all modern lines and faux-farmhouse, updated appliances and an enormous butcher-block table. Nothing old, nothing antique, nothing passed down: everything purchased and selected to look that way. Bastian collapsed into a chair. “Welcome to chez McCarthy. There’s coke and whatever in the fridge. Here you get stuff for yourself because I’m too damn lazy to do it.”
Rob sat. “Bastian, I’m a guest. Use your manners.”
Bastian looked down. He got up and looked in the fridge. “Would you like coke or water? We have Coke and Sprite and there’s some sweet tea I made back there.”
“Sweet tea, please.”
Bastian filled two glasses with ice, poured them tea, and handed one to Rob. He flopped back in the chair.
“Sit up straight. You have company.”
Bastian rearranged. “Can I get you anything else?”
“You’re starving. You said they deliver pizza out here?”
They ordered pizza. Rob told Bastian about growing up on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay, about having his own boat, about crabbing.
“I learned to swim almost as soon as I could walk because we lived right on the bay and my mother was so afraid of my drowning. My father used to swim so soon he had me doing all the different strokes. I started swim team when I was five.”
“So did we.” Bastian looked down at his pizza. “Brendan liked the pool and I did whatever Brendan wanted. And Brendan wanted to swim.” He paused. “We used to go to the beach in Charleston sometimes, and I’d swim out as far as I could. I miss that. I used to love the ocean. Not now. I wouldn’t wanna swim in it now. But then I did. I’d still like to go to the beach, though. I wish we had a Tybee house.”
“Next year. I’ll take you next year. Or even this summer.”
Bastian nodded.
“Would your mother freak out if I took you? Will she freak out about …” Rob trailed off. She would find out sooner or later.
Bastian shrugged. “She doesn’t notice what I do. We’re just like, roommates. She sort of broke after Brendan and as long as I did what she expected, namely swam and got good grades, she didn’t care. She still doesn’t.” He looked down again. The pizza boxes littered the table.
“Good hosts pick up.”
Bastian busied himself clearing the table. Rob got up to help him. He smiled a little. “Good guests help. What do you want to do at UGA?”
Bastian reddened. “Pre-med. Then I wanna do veterinary studies at Clemson. They’ll drop off the dogs tomorrow. We have four German Shepherds. The cats are around somewhere. Bastard cats.”
Rob laughed. “You’re a dog person?”
“They’re bastard cats. You don’t understand. All cats are, like, designed by nature to be bastards. The ones who aren’t are these weird outliers. We have one weird outlier. His name is Cap’n Crunch. He’s black and missing half an ear and he’ll sit on your lap all day. But only if you can find him. Because, see, even Cap’n Crunch is a bastard. He hides. He hides from me. And I like, feed him. You can’t trust a cat.”
“I always liked cats.”
“Nope. They’re my mom’s. We have three. Miss Priss, Cap’n Crunch, and Thing, like from the Addams Family, because he’s got all this long
thick fur. You have to catch him and brush him all the damn time and he hates it and then he likes it and goes all kitty-limp and stupid. He’s probably my favorite. But he’s still a bastard.”
Rob laughed again. “If you’re a vet, you’ll have to deal with cats all day.”
“Nah, I wanna be one of those vets that deals with everything. Not just small animals for me. I’ll do lizards and snakes and ferrets and kinkajous and all the craziness, too.” He smiled. “I wanted a fennec fox until I found out how much they pee everywhere. But I do have … well, she’s asleep right now, but want me to wake her up? She’s fun. Not real smart, but they never are.” Bastian absolutely grinned, like Rob had seldom seen. “I found her when she was teensy and took care of her.”
Rob’s stomach flipped. What the fuck did Bastian have?
“Okay, your face is too awesome. I’m getting her.” Bastian got up and walked out. He came back, arms cuddled full of gray and white fur, a long bald tail, and a pointy face peeking out.
Rob stared. “That’s a fucking possum.”
“Her name is Ziggy Stardust. She’s like, nine months old or something. She uses a litterbox and sleeps in a big enormous enclosure out in the garage but comes out and hangs with me when I’m home. She likes to snoodle around or cuddle as much as the dogs. I have to be really careful about her diet and give her lots of exercise, so we go on walks sometimes. I use a cat harness. I found a vet that’ll see her.”
“You’re fucking with me.”
Bastian shook his head. “You wanna pet her?”
“I’ve never petted a possum.”
“Well, come pet one.” He brought the thing over, told Rob to hold out his arms, and suddenly Rob had a half-grown possum in his lap. Bastian laughed and laughed as she sniffed him. When she showed moves towards the remains of Rob’s pizza, Bastian swooped in. “No. That’s not good for her. She can’t eat that. I told you, I have to be really careful about her diet.” Bastian picked her back up and set her on the ground. She wandered around the kitchen, investigating the corners.
“I left her enough food for while we were gone but I hated to leave her.”
For I Have Sinned: Bastian and Rob 1 (Southern Sin) Page 5
