Tyler snickered. “Don’t worry. We’ll think of something.”
Brandon joined him in restrained laughter. They had to be cautious lest his father become even more suspicious than he already was.
“What are you going to do about your dad being such a dick?” Tyler asked.
“I don’t know yet. I think I’m going to have to play it by ear and figure it out as we go.”
“Fair enough.”
“One of my fantasies is one of the two of you accidentally dropping a brick from the upstairs of the barn onto his head.”
“Oh, really?” Tyler asked. “Do you want me sent to prison?”
“Hell no,” Brandon said. “I’ll be your alibi. You were with me the whole time.”
“What about Joel?” Tyler asked, playing along.
“He’s a kinky bastard—he was there watching us kissing.”
“I’ve always suspected he had a touch of kink in him,” Tyler said approvingly.
Brandon opened the box and rubbed his fingers over the telephone again, automatically smiling at Tyler.
“You’ll need to keep that out of sight around your father. We’ll text and talk and email and use FaceTime and Skype.”
“Thank you,” Brandon said.
“It’s still not the same as being able to be together, to wrap my arms around you, and doing the things we did that weekend in Joel’s basement.”
Brandon dropped his gaze. “That was kind of nice, wasn’t it?”
“Nice? From my side, it was fucking awesome. I’ll have to work harder next time to be sure you get the awesomeness too.”
“Okay,” Brandon agreed with a huge smile of approval.
“And remember, we get that week when he goes off to play golf in California. With him gone, we are finally going to have the time to explore all the things we want to and try some of the stuff we’ve been talking about for weeks now. Have no doubt—we are going to make up for lost time while he’s away. We’re gonna rut like a couple of barnyard animals in heat, constantly for a solid week,” Tyler said with a look of longing bordering on lust on his face.
Brandon smiled at Tyler.
“Brandon!” his father yelled.
“Yeah?”
“Your guests are leaving.”
“I guess that means we’re being dismissed,” Tyler said. “I better go find Joel and make sure your dad hasn’t killed him or something.”
“Don’t worry about Joel. If I had to put money on him or my dad, I’m putting my money on Joel.”
“I’ll remember that. And I think I’m glad he’s on our side.”
“Me too.”
“Brandon!” his father yelled again, louder this time.
TYLER KEPT showing up every Saturday like clockwork. When Brandon’s father switched his training schedule so that he was never home on Saturdays before noon, Tyler started showing up at the school pool to watch Brandon practice. The time Tyler came to one of Brandon’s meets was one of Brandon’s proudest days. He blasted past his competition that day to first place in his event. His father spoke of it as the product of good training, but Brandon knew the truth—he’d do anything to earn one of Tyler’s smiles.
Chapter 12—While the Cat’s Away
BRANDON’S FATHER was scheduled to go out of town that spring for an extra golf outing. It was to be a week of golf, drinking fine bourbons, and smoking imported and expensive cigars, none of which appealed to Brandon, which was just fine because he wasn’t invited to participate in any of it.
When his father talked about canceling the long-standing trip so he could stay around and watch over Brandon to keep him and “that boy” separated, Brandon just rolled his eyes. In the end, though, his father went away as originally scheduled. His father’s solution was to give Brandon another impossible list of chores. The list was so ridiculous there was simply no way any one guy could finish all the items even if he spent every single day for a month working nonstop.
Brandon didn’t say anything to his father, just took the list and mentally dismissed it. He wasn’t even going to bother trying. It was Easter break from school, his father was going to be away, and he planned to spend every free minute with Tyler. Finally they would have the time and space to try all the things they’d been wanting to do but had never had the time or the privacy to explore. They’d talked through many of them, having some amazingly hot phone sex in the process, to the point that Brandon felt he had already experienced those things simply because the images were so crisp in his mind.
The morning he left, Brandon was surprised when his father asked him to drive him to the airport. It was the first time he’d allowed Brandon to drive anywhere since getting his license a few weeks earlier.
“Airport parking is outrageously expensive, so it makes better sense for you to drive me over and then take the car back home. And when you get it there, you are to park it and leave it there except for your daily trips to the pool to practice. Do you understand me?”
“Of course,” Brandon said without any emotion.
He got his father into the airport with all of his luggage, watched him pass through security. He watched his dad’s plane arrive. It was easy to figure out which one was his—there was only one plane at any gate at that time.
He waited and watched as the plane moved from the gate and taxied out to take-off. As he stood watching, the plane turned onto the runway, accelerated and climbed into the morning sky. With a spring in his step that was generally absent, Brandon raced back down to the car and instead of driving home, drove directly to Tyler’s house, even though it was an hour away.
“He gone?” Tyler asked excitedly when he opened the door for Brandon.
“Gone.”
“Good. Come on upstairs with me for a minute.”
They raced up the stairs to Tyler’s bedroom where he pushed Brandon against the bedroom door before it was even all the way closed. Their kiss was so intense Brandon wasn’t able to contain his moans of pleasure and delight.
“Shh. They’ll hear you,” Tyler said.
“Let’s go to my place. There’s no one there, and we can make all the noise we want,” Brandon suggested.
“And we can be naked while doing it,” Tyler added. “I’m all over that idea.”
Coming close to breaking a few speed limits along the way, Brandon drove the two of them back to his house. For the next twenty-four hours, they finally were able to do all the things they’d wanted to do, all the things they’d talked about doing, and all the things they’d imagined during phone sex. And they were all spectacularly good.
With months of postponed sexual fulfillment as fuel, they wasted no time in tearing their clothes off and falling naked onto Brandon’s bed.
The first few times were inevitably fast. But after three times they began to slow down and take their time, being a bit more nuanced in their interactions. There was less urgency, less of a feeling of having to do everything immediately, and they were able to do more exploring, kissing one another in places they had never thought could be hot, but were.
Day after day that entire week they spent practically every waking moment together, talking for hours on end, getting to know each other better, not to mention taking one another to new and undiscovered heights of ecstasy. Together they discovered the pleasures and breathlessness one man could give to another. They relished the intimacy as it cemented their bond.
Their young relationship, one that had always been furtive—a kiss grabbed in haste when no one was looking, frequently only seconds away from being caught—could at last slow down and be allowed the more natural progression all young lovers wanted.
During those days together, they established the foundation on which to build a lasting relationship in the future. Not just a physical relationship but a deeply emotional one that happened to include physical aspects of connectedness.
BUT SADLY all good things must come to an end. After being away for a week, Brandon’s father flew back home. Brando
n was there at the airport when the flight arrived to pick him up. In addition to serving as chauffer, he also had to act as personal baggage slave, hauling his many suitcases from the terminal to the car.
Nothing was mentioned of Brandon’s chore list, but it was obvious with just a cursory glance at the list that nothing had been done. Brandon and Tyler had been more intent on being together and learning more about one another than being responsible. At the pool the morning after his father’s return, one of the staff at the pool greeted them and said, “Brandon, where’s Tyler?”
“He went home,” Brandon said very matter-of-factly.
“Did you see him while I was gone?” his father demanded, roughly grabbing Brandon’s arm.
Brandon wrenched his arm free and said, “Of course I did.”
“I expressly told you that you were not to see him,” his father said angrily.
“And that was ridiculous and you know it,” Brandon said, again proving to himself and the world that he had mastered the ability to keep his anger in check and to project a neutral attitude.
Brandon got into the water to start practice while his father paced on the side of the pool, quietly fuming throughout the entire session.
When he climbed out of the water, Brandon’s father grabbed him and said, “Get dressed. We’re going home. I’ve had it with you and this bullshit. We’re going home so I can remind you of—”
“Get your fucking hands off me,” Brandon said, once again pulling his arm free. When his father made another grab for him, Brandon automatically reached out and gave him a shove, putting his father back against the wall. “Behave yourself,” Brandon said.
“Get your goddamned ass out into the car right now. We’re going home.”
“You go home. I’m going to school. We’re in the home stretch before finals and graduation, and I am not going to let you screw that up now with your bullshit.”
During the day, he briefed Joel on what had happened and managed to text Tyler and give him the news. While he had played it calm and cool at the pool, Brandon had felt anything but. Inside he’d been seething and terrified he was pushing his father too far.
For too many years, he’d been programmed to defer to his father, to let him have complete reign over everything. It felt good to push back, but it also scared the crap out of him since he could no longer predict what his father would do.
That night, not a single word was spoken of what had happened that morning, nor of anything else, as father and son gave each other a wide berth. For the next few days, Joel asked Brandon each morning what had happened and each time was as surprised as Brandon that nothing more had been said.
It was the following weekend when things unexpectedly flared up. Since it was a beautiful late spring day, Brandon had taken his cell phone outside to call Tyler. They were having a great conversation when rather suddenly they were interrupted.
“What the hell is that?” Brandon’s father bellowed, having snuck up on him.
“Excuse me?” Brandon said, quite honestly not clear on what his father was talking about.
“Is that a cell phone?”
“Yes, it is,” Brandon said.
“Where the hell did that come from?” his father demanded.
“It’s mine. Don’t worry about it.”
“I asked you where it came from, and I expect an answer. Did you steal it?”
“Did I what?” Brandon asked in disbelief.
“Or did you steal the money from me while I was in California so you could buy it? It had to be one of those two options because you don’t have any money otherwise.”
“Back off,” Brandon said quietly but with as much ferocity as if he had shouted the words from the top of the highest mountain.
“I don’t fucking believe you, Brandon. After all I’ve sacrificed and done for you, to get you where you needed to be, and this is how you repay me, by stealing from me? I don’t fucking believe you.”
“Stop!” Brandon interrupted his father’s tirade. In addition to being royally pissed that his father was accusing him of such things, he also noticed that his father’s face was getting very red. Brandon could almost see his blood pressure going higher by the second. The veins on his neck stood out and throbbed angrily. “I think you should back off, calm down, and then maybe we’ll talk about this later,” Brandon tried. “Not that it’s any of your business what I do or who I talk to.”
“We’ll talk about this when I say we’ll talk, and I want you to start answering my goddamned questions.”
“Why is it so important to you?” Brandon asked, his anger no longer remaining safely locked up inside.
“Excuse me?”
“I asked why it is so important to you to keep me completely cut off from the rest of the world that you absolutely freak out when you see me using what every other teenager in the country has and has had for years.”
“Who pays for the monthly service? Cell phones cost money. You can’t just steal one and expect it to work.”
“The only person who said anything about stealing something was you. That’s your area of expertise. Not that it’s any of your business, but a friend gave me the phone.”
“It’s that kid, isn’t it?”
“Who is ‘that kid’?” Brandon asked.
“You know goddamned well who I mean. He’s the one that’s to blame for all of your behavior problems. Ever since you met him you’ve turned into—”
“Into a what?” Brandon asked, waiting for his father’s answer to that question.
Brandon was shocked when, rather than continue the conversation, his father simply turned and stalked back to the house, slamming the door behind him. When his father’s tirade had started, Brandon had been talking with Tyler, so he’d left the line open all the time his father was flipping out.
“Are you still there?” Brandon asked.
“Yeah, I’m here. How are you?”
“I’m fine.”
“I’m worried about you. I don’t trust that man. The more I hear him talk, the more concerned I become that he’s seriously unstable.”
“He’s the same way he’s always been.”
“So this is what you’ve been living with for years?” Tyler asked.
“Pretty much,” Brandon said.
“Oh, Bran, I’m so sorry.”
Chapter 13—Revelations
NOTHING MORE was said that evening about his father’s backyard blowup. In fact his father let him sleep in the next morning, and they did something that basically never happened—they skipped practice. His father left and went off somewhere in the morning and was gone for the entire day.
That evening Brandon had a chance to see what his dad had been up to.
“Brandon, I’d like to talk with you,” he said before dinner.
“Okay. What’s up?”
“With your high school graduation coming up fast, I have been thinking about what to get you as a present.” This was not remotely what Brandon thought they were going to be talking about.
“Okay.”
“I’ve reached a conclusion. Since you’ll be entering college in the fall, and who knows what future summers will hold, I realized that this could well be the last chance we have to do something I’ve wanted to do with you for some time. So for your graduation, I am taking you on an extended tour through Europe.”
“Europe? Wow.” Brandon really had not seen that coming.
“I think you’re going to like it—a lot. It’s obviously been a while since I’ve been, but when I was working, I had a number of overseas trips. This world of ours is a huge and exciting place, and there is so much to see. So after you graduate, we will leave on an eight-week tour through some of the greatest offerings of the old world.”
“Wow. That’s incredible. I’m… thank you. That’s a great gift, and I appreciate it. But it will have to wait until another time.”
“What? Why?” His father looked confused.
“I’ve already got pla
ns for this summer.”
“What?”
“I said I’ve already got plans for this summer.”
“What plans?” his father asked, animosity dripping from both words.
“I’ve got a job for the summer.”
“What job? You don’t have any job,” he said dismissively.
“I most certainly do. Tyler and I are working together this summer.”
“No. You’re going to Europe with me.”
“Sorry, Dad, but not this summer. Maybe if you’d said something sooner.”
“You’re not working at some job this summer. This is your last summer to do something fun.”
“I can’t. I’ve already agreed, and I’m not backing out now. And I need some money for when I leave for college.”
The calm that had permeated the house vanished in the span of a single heartbeat.
“Enough of this bullshit, Brandon!” his father shouted while simultaneously sending a stack of papers that sat nearby flying across the room. “What is it with you and that troublemaker? I do not understand. You have turned into an entirely different person since he came onto the scene. You’re not you anymore. What is the hold that that guy has over you?”
“You really don’t get it, do you?” Brandon asked.
“No, I don’t get it, and I wish you’d explain it to me.”
“Are you sure you want me to do that?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not sure you do.”
“Dammit! Tell me what the fuck is going on.”
“I love him,” Brandon said.
“What?” his father said through clenched teeth.
“I love him. And he loves me. We’re boyfriends.” The blank look on his father’s face led Brandon to add a few words that could not be missed. “I’m gay, Dad.”
“No you’re not,” his father said, as if his simple decree would automatically make it happen.
Brandon laughed. He had never imagined convincing his father he was gay would be difficult.
“Yeah, I am. I’m gay. I’ve got a boyfriend. I’m gay and I always have been. I’ve got the support of my friends—”
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