“It’s okay, my dad’s gay. I see worse than that all the time,” said the boy. “And he’s got the worst taste in men. I’d pay good money to see you and Officer Friendly there in bed.” He grinned, intending, Tristan thought, to shock.
“Save your money for college,” said Tristan. “Jeff’s your dad?”
“Yeah, he, you know, ensured the dynasty before he went over to the dark side. I live here half the year and the other half with mom in Denver,” he said.
“That must be odd; did your mom remarry?” asked Tristan.
“Why do you want to know?” said the boy.
“I don’t know. Your dad’s got my date ‑‑ I’m just making conversation.” He sighed.
“Business parties suck,” said the boy, and Tristan had to concur. “My name’s Edward, by the way. My dad calls me Ned. Please call me Edward.” He rolled his eyes. “Ned, man, it’s like some English mystery on A&E. Hello, Ned. Morning, Ned. What’s up, Neddie,” he practically spat. He started to take a sip of his beer, but Tristan intercepted it.
“Here,” he said, taking it away and pouring it out into the planter next to him. “I’m listening, so vent, don’t drink.”
“You shit! I’ll just go get another one,” he said petulantly.
“Fine, but talk to me first. I’m bored. Amaze me, Edward. My name’s Tristan.”
Edward barked out a laugh. “Your name means, like, of the sorrows, or something, doesn’t it?”
“Actually, according to one Web site I saw, it comes from the Celtic or Gaelic word drest, the word for riot or tumult. I’m sure my parents would have sheared off if they’d known that. It fits, though, according to those who know me.” He grinned and watched the boy digest this.
“I heard my dad jerking you around,” said Edward quietly. “I hate these parties; he’s like some petty noble plotting to enlarge his holdings. He won’t be satisfied with what he has, ever. It takes up a lot of time to be that acquisitive.”
Tristan bit his lip. His dad had been so different, perhaps less financially successful, but nevertheless, now irrevocably gone as well. “Well,” he said carefully, “it’s not like you need him to watch your Little League games anymore, right?”
Edward let out a breath. “I guess.” He chucked the pod of some kind of plant over the fence down to the hillside below. “The cop’s your guy, right? You’re together?” he asked.
“Yeah,” said Tristan, liking the way it sounded. “The cop is my guy.”
“My dad used to make fun of him,” he said, then laughed. “But it turns out he’s some kind of financial genius, and now my dad wants him in on everything. I think he barely puts up with my dad. Sometimes I can see it in his eyes that he’s losing his patience, like tonight.”
“Michael isn’t likely to let someone put down his friends.” He didn’t know how he knew it was true, he just did. “He’s very…protective.” He thought about the helmet and sighed.
“How long have you been ‑‑” began Edward, but they turned when they heard footsteps behind them. Tristan’s heart skipped a beat when he saw Michael meandering along the lit pathway with Jeff, Edward’s father, at his shoulder.
“Oh, shit, here he comes,” said Edward, standing quickly.
“Neddie!” snapped Jeff. “I thought I told you to finish your homework while the guests were here.”
“I was just taking a break, Dad,” Edward said, hanging his head. “Sorry.”
Tristan looked up at Michael with a bright smile, only to have it falter at the look on his face. “What?” he asked, as Michael came over to pick up the beer bottle, saying nothing. He walked the distance back to the house alone, throwing the bottle into the trash. Jeff, Edward, and Tristan stood uncertainly till he returned, still saying nothing.
“Michael,” said Jeff, breaking the silence. “I’d prefer it if you took your friend home now, and in the future, will you let your friends know that to be a guest in my home requires that they be role models for my son?” He turned on his heel. “I thought you, of all people, wouldn’t condone underage drinking. Come, Ned, your break is over.”
Tristan remained grimly silent in the face of the pleading look thrown at him by Edward. He clearly would be in far more trouble if his dad knew his little Neddie was drinking the beer. Tristan kept his mouth shut, walking in silence behind them, next to Edward, two penitent children being chastened by adults, and he burned with shame and injustice, wanting to take Michael’s head off at the root. He reached over carefully when the two grown-ups, as he now was beginning to think of them, were distracted, to squeeze Edward’s hand sympathetically. The boy looked so pitifully grateful; he wondered if it would be possible for him to introduce Edward to his little brothers, who were basically good kids and might have liked to befriend him. He kept all his thoughts from Michael. Rage flowed through him, and the evening, for him anyway, seemed to be completely ruined.
“Thank you so much for inviting us,” Michael was saying, holding the investment proposal in his hand. “I’ll read this over and give it a lot of thought, okay?” He reached the door and only then did he look behind to see if Tristan had followed him. “Well, ’bye,” he said to Jeff as he stepped out onto the porch.
“Thank you for everything,” Tristan told their host stupidly, hating himself for observing the niceties with this so-not-nice man. “Good night.”
Michael was still silent as he walked to his car, the sound of his footsteps reverberating on the quiet street. Tristan found himself thinking that in this, Michael was all cop and didn’t really hold it against him. He’d seen the beer sitting there empty by Tristan and had no earthly reason to think it wasn’t his. It wasn’t his job to listen to excuses, he just had to act, every day, on what he saw and let the lawyers argue later. Tristan understood this in the abstract, but still would have liked the benefit of the doubt. Plus, it was just one lousy beer, wasn’t it? He’d had more than that with his dad when he’d been alive, and Tristan had been much younger then.
“Say what you have to say, Michael,” said Tristan, “My car is across the street. It’s been a long night.”
“So you thought you’d liven it up with a little beer?” he asked.
“It may interest you to know that not everyone is ready to throw the death penalty at someone who drinks a beer before their twenty-first birthday,” said Tristan.
“I know that. They don’t need to. Who do you think I help dig out of cars and take to the morgue every Friday and Saturday night? Have you forgotten you’re driving, Sparky?”
“No, I haven’t forgotten; I’m just adjusting my destination,” he said tiredly. “I’m going home. I’ll see you around, Officer.”
“Is that your answer for everything? Just leave if someone doesn’t like what you’ve done? Don’t you feel anything is worth changing your behavior or your ideas for? Is having a beer so important that you’d just move on?”
Tristan was enraged. “You didn’t even talk to me in there; you just treated me like I pissed on the rug and then marched out, towing me in your wake like a bad dog. Jeff sneered at me the minute I arrived, kept talking smack, but nothing shamed me the way you treated me in front of them in the end did.” He got out his keys, glad his dad’s old BMW had heated seats. The evening had grown cold, and his blood colder, as he walked away from Michael.
“Look, I was embarrassed, I admit it,” said Michael. “Jeff’s boy has some problems and has had some trouble with the law, and I saw you drinking with him and thought, Oh, shit. He doesn’t get that this kid will look up to him and see someone to admire and emulate. Jeff had to practically surgically remove him from a bad crowd when he put him in private school. I know you’re a good guy, but it’s so important to show kids like him that alcohol isn’t a panacea, you know?”
“I know. Thank you for everything, okay? I really just want to…”
Michael suddenly shifted, and without warning, caught Tristan in his arms, their lips meeting, their tongues sliding together like a
dance.
“I just…” said Tristan between invasions, his body reacting instantly to his lover’s nearness.
“Sparky, I don’t want you to go, please,” he said, his hands on either side of Tristan’s face. “Come home with me.” He looked at Tristan then, nudging Tristan’s mouth with his lips, teasing, licking, his body starting a slow grind and burn that Tristan felt to his toes. He tasted Tristan’s lips, and then, his eyes questioning, he sighed deeply. “I’m so stupid.” He rested his forehead on Tristan’s, his hands sliding down his arms and catching Tristan’s hands in his own.
“What?” asked Tristan quietly. He didn’t understand what was happening, his head still spinning from the assault on his lips.
“It wasn’t your beer, was it?” Michael’s voice was so low it came out more like a moan.
“Nope,” said Tristan. His throat closed. He was silent, not trusting himself to speak.
“Why didn’t you say something?” said Michael.
“Edward’s dad is so charming, I couldn’t help but be in awe,” he said dryly.
“Follow me home?” asked Michael. “Please?”
“I told Edward that you were my guy, and then you treated me like warmed-over vomit. Is that going to happen every time you think I’ve made a mistake?” he asked, needing to know. “’Cause I’m going to tell you right now, I will not stay with someone who thinks they have the right to treat me like that. I had a dad. He was a great man, and you’re not him. He never made me feel the way you did tonight, even when the house caught fire…just so you know.”
“That’s probably what made you such a good person, huh?” Something in Michael’s tone of voice caught and held Tristan on the edge of the moment. “Sometimes I get so busy protecting the world from its own stupidity that I forget that it’s okay to be kind. My mom tells me that a lot.”
Biting his lip, Tristan tried to decide how much he wanted to say. “I poured that kid’s beer out into the planter and told him he could vent instead of drink, because I’d listen.” Tristan held his breath, wondering if Michael could see as clearly as he did that they were on the same page.
“Oh, Sparky.” Michael stroked Tristan’s face with the back of his hand. “I briefly forgot how very, very shiny you can be.” He pulled a thick strand of hair free from the blue silk tie and held it to his lips, seeming to inhale it and caress it and rub his face on it at the same time. “I have a bed of sorts set up in front of the fireplace in the living room and a fire all ready to go. Please come home with me. Help me light it up, Sparky, will you?”
Tristan swallowed hard, looking at the amazing, upscale houses behind him. “After this dump? A classy establishment like yours is just what I need,” he said, finding Michael’s lips, which moved in as soon as he felt the tension leave Tristan’s body. For a long moment they stood like that, lips joined and tongues entwined. Tristan broke the kiss to get into his car. “By the way, Edward said he’d pay good money to see us in bed together; maybe you should write up a proposal on that for your next little investment soiree.”
“Sparky!” Michael barked with laughter on the way back to his car. He turned around with his hands over his face. “The things you say!”
Chapter Ten
It wasn’t hard to follow Michael’s truck down the hill and through town to his little house. Michael waved him into the driveway first, coming in behind him to sandwich his car between the house and the garage. Before Tristan even got out of the car, Michael was there, opening his door and taking him in his arms again.
“Is that your sword or are you just glad to see me?” he teased as he pulled Tristan to standing. “I can never remember that you’re taller than me until we’re standing like this. It’s different from what I’m used to.”
“Why is that?” asked Tristan as he walked around to the trunk, opening it and removing a small duffle. “Don’t like looking up?”
“No, it’s not that,” said Michael. “I find I like it rather well, actually…” He took Tristan’s hand and led him to the back door, using his key to open it and walking immediately to the panel to turn off the alarm. “I like it a lot.” They stood in the dark kitchen together, holding hands.
Tristan had so many plans for this moment. He’d thought in obsessive detail about what he’d do with Michael when they were alone again. Just how he’d touch him and what he’d say. But standing there with only the porch light illuminating his face in the shadows of the kitchen, each and every one of those ideas fled, and he was content to stand and watch and wait, and see if the elemental nature of their first night gave him clues about what to do on their second. Minutes seemed to be ticking by.
“Fire,” said Michael after a while, as though he’d had a long conversation in his head, but the only word that came out was that one. “Come with me.” He motioned, and Tristan followed. There in front of the fireplace was, indeed, a futon covered in soft, fluffy-looking blankets and pillows. It was far enough away from the fire to be safe from stray sparks that might fly through the chain curtain, but close enough to be warm and smoky, and Tristan longed to lose himself there with Michael.
“Here,” said Michael putting a match to the kindling he’d laid out earlier. “Sit here and let me look at you.”
Tristan sat, perversely as though he really were the character Kenshin from his comic books, his knees folded, his feet under him, his hands on his thighs, waiting.
“I’ve been wanting” ‑‑ Michael took the blue fabric holding Tristan’s hair up and pulled on it ‑‑ “to do that since I saw you come through the door at Jeff’s house tonight.” Tristan’s hair fell to his shoulders like liquid fire. “Oh, Sparky.”
“I think…I think I’ll sit here till you figure out what to do with the rest of my clothes,” said Tristan looking straight ahead.
“I was watching you at Jeff’s,” said Michael. “Imagining this.” He moved behind Tristan and slid his arms around his waist, slipping the tunic wrap out of Tristan’s hakama and sliding his hands under the fabric, up and up, to graze Tristan’s nipples. He untied the simple garment and slid it off Tristan’s shoulders, kissing skin as he uncovered it.
“Were you?” said Tristan, putting his hand over his shoulder to touch Michael’s hair as Michael kissed the nape of his neck. “I think I like that.”
“Mmmhmm.” He fumbled with the fastenings on Tristan’s pants. “These are different,” he said, running his hands over the ties. Tristan took his hands and walked him through it, first untying the knot in the front, then untucking the toggle, the front ties, and the obi. “There’s, like, a board in there?” he asked, feeling the stiff part of the pants in the small of Tristan’s back.
“Yep,” said Tristan, feeling like there was a board in front too, with Michael touching and undressing him. Baring his skin. Breathing hot breath on his neck and bare shoulders. “What about your costume? Let’s get that off too.”
“What?” asked Michael.
Tristan turned and began unbuttoning Michael’s dress shirt. “Seriously, you’d think a whole group of intelligent men and women could come up with something better for Halloween than business casual.”
“I guess,” agreed Michael, laughing and fighting his way out of his clothes. “Look, I wanted to say again how sorry I am that Jeff was such a shit-heel.”
“Just Jeff?” asked Tristan, his hands stopping on Michael’s boxers. Michael was still toeing off his shoes so he could shed his trousers.
“No, Sparky, I have a very, very personal and detailed apology to make for my behavior, but on behalf of Jeff, because he’s not likely to change, I’m just going to say sorry.”
“I’ll take it,” said Tristan. “I liked Edward, his kid. My brothers would like him. I wish I could have gotten his e-mail address or something. He seemed so…isolated. I understand that half the year he stays with his mom in Denver?”
“You know more than I do, then. I just heard from Jeff that he’d gotten in trouble, smoking dope and hanging with a ba
d crowd. He got picked up once by the police for underage drinking.” Michael, wearing only his boxers, sat next to Tristan on the makeshift bed. The fire warmed his skin, its glow throwing interesting shadows on the wall.
“It’s sad, Michael,” Tristan sighed. “The way his dad talked to him…”
“Maybe he earned it?” asked Michael. “Sometimes teenagers can be a trial even to parents that love them.”
“I’d give Jeff the benefit of the doubt, but really, the way he talked to me? Did I earn that? I didn’t do anything other than knock on his door,” Tristan said, clenching his teeth. It was pretty clear he wasn’t going to get over that feeling any time soon, he thought, surprised at how angry it made him. It wasn’t that being disrespected was new to him, but being treated like that at a party based on his looks and perceived relationship with his date was. “He treated me like a rent-boy.”
“He did,” agreed Michael, who stretched out and watched him carefully.
“Am I likely to get that a lot?” he asked, thinking Michael would know what he was in for with his own friends.
“What, you mean, people treating you like arm candy? Probably. I think you’re pretty.” He batted his eyes.
“Michael,” Tristan warned.
“No, really. I’m older, you’re still in school, good-looking, and there’s probably financial inequality. Yeah, you’re a rent-boy all right.” If Michael hadn’t been smiling and trying to grab his balls when he said that, Tristan wouldn’t have taken it as well.
“I’ll be your rent-boy,” said Tristan, straddling Michael. “I like being your arm candy.” The way Michael was looking at him right then sent his blood thundering down to his cock. “I like how you look at me. I really, really like it.” He ground his hips against Michael’s for emphasis.
“Do you?” Michael asked. “Yes…oh…I guess you do.” Michael bit his lip.
“I can make you want me.” Tristan caught Michael’s hands in his and held them over his head.
“Oh, yes, you most certainly can do that,” said Michael thickly.
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