by H. M. Wolfe
“Don’t tell me, you couldn’t help it and spilled the beans to Ardan.” The redhead flinched at the sound of his friend’s amused voice. “I understand. He’s your soulmate. I would’ve done the same if I were you. However, I hope you didn’t tell him about the... other part. You should keep it secret at all costs.”
“Of course, I didn’t. Who do you think I am?” Alasdair’s heart ached a little at the pleading tone of his best friend’s voice, but it was only for a moment. “I can’t wait to see the expression on my Ardan’s face tomorrow evening. He won’t see it coming.” The redhead closed his eyes, sighing dreamily.
“It will be the same with my beloved Ezra.” Peyton’s light green, warm eyes were shining with infinite love when they mentioned the name of their husband. “You know, sometimes, I still can’t believe how lucky I am to have the heart, devotion, and affection of that amazing man.” They closed their eyes for a moment, a soft sigh escaping through their full, kissable lips.
“Same here, my friend. We have the love of two extraordinary men, the best, most caring husbands and loving fathers. Who would’ve thought we’d have this ten years ago, when we were two sixteen-year-old kids, completely unprepared for the miracle of love? We’ve come a long way, my friend.” Alasdair smiled serenely, as his mind took a walk down memory lane.
CHAPTER 2
Ten years earlier
Carrying a grocery bag under each arm, the man headed straight to the seemingly abandoned edifice at the end of the street. He walked on the cracked driveway, climbed the three squeaky steps to the unkempt porch, and opened the front door before going in.
From inside, the house looked much more welcoming, comfortable even. The walls were freshly painted in a warm tone of beige, the hardwood floor was well maintained, the tiles in the corridor also looked in good condition. A delicious smell of food came from the kitchen, making the man’s nostrils flare and his mouth water.
“I hope you took off your shoes. I just cleaned the tiles, and now, I’m cooking dinner, so there is no time to clean the tiles again because afterward, I’ll have to study for the math test tomorrow, which you obviously don’t care about, thinking I’m here to slave after you, day in and day out,” a kid’s voice yelled from the kitchen.
The man smiled, stepping inside, grocery bags in arms. “Hello to you, too, kiddo,” he said, ruffling the boy’s fiery red hair, after putting the bags on the counter. “I was lucky today and thought to restock the fridge. How about that?”
The teen gave the bags an indifferent look. “Good,” he said in a flat voice. “Now, do you expect me to put them where they belong?”
“No, I just...” the man didn’t continue but started to empty the bags of their contents, putting everything into the fridge and cupboards. “Here we go,” he said.
“Dinner’s ready. Go wash your hands and let’s eat.” The teen’s green eyes were darker than earlier, and he looked really tired.
“I’ll be ready in a minute.” The man nodded in understanding. But instead of going to the bathroom, he stopped in front of the kid, gently putting his hands on his shoulders. “What happened at school today, Alasdair? You know I’m here to listen to you if...”
“It’s getting late, Leon, and I don’t have time for things like this,” the redhead replied, removing the man’s hands. “Of course, something happened at school. I have a math test tomorrow, but you never listen, do you?”
“Sorry,” Leon said, going to the bathroom. “I’ll do the dishes tonight so you can have more time to study,” he added after coming back into the kitchen. “And don’t worry. You’re going to pass that test with flying colors. There’s no better student in that goddamn class.”
“Of course, I’ll pass, and I know I’m the best, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have to study,” the teen said, smiling a little.
After they finished eating, the kid went straight to his room, letting Leon do the dishwashing and cleaning. While the man’s hands were busy with the chores, his mind wandered to the green-eyed boy he shared the house with and who was like a little brother to him.
Alasdair was a sweet, loving, intelligent, friendly kid, who dreamed about being a doctor. Unfortunately, he lacked the financial means to support himself through college because his homophobic bastard of an older brother, who was supposed to take care of the boy, kicked him out of the house.
Once he finished in the kitchen, Leon went into his room to lay down for a couple of hours before starting work on his second job, as a bouncer in a famous nightclub downtown, ‘Bloom of the Night.’ However, he couldn’t sleep as his mind wandered to the time he and Alasdair met, and even before that when Leon had been Leonard Nixon.
But that horrible man was no more. He died in the cage as he deserved, paying for each and every sin he’d committed. The punches, kicks, hits, and scratches, no matter how many, were not enough to pay for the pain and damage he’d caused. In the beginning, Leonard was furious, thinking he hadn’t deserved to be punished, hating everyone’s guts, and wanting to kill every living soul.
And then, he’d met Francis, one of the most accomplished cage fighters he’d ever seen, who could’ve killed him a thousand times but, for some strange reason, decided to spare his life every time the two of them met in the ring. At some point, Francis took Leonard aside and had a long, heart-to-heart talk with him.
The offer was simple: freedom in one year if he changed his ways. Of course, Julianna’s adoptive son had agreed, thinking that he could find a way out of the deal and win his freedom at the same time. But, spending every second in Francis’s company had made Leonard less and less willing to return to his old ways.
He had become fascinated by the other man’s complex personality. By the way he, with his gentle manners and sweet voice, had managed to gain the respect of everyone. Without realizing it, Leonard had started to want to be like Francis, to have the same effect on people he had. With every day that had passed with him imitating the man’s behaviour, Leonard had turned into a less perfect version of the man he admired.
And then, it was when Francis had called him, telling him that Leonard—’little lion’—had grown up and become Leon, that Francis had appointed the reborn man as his heir, revealing to him the hideout where one million dollars, in brand new banknotes, was kept.
Before that, however, Francis had made Leon promise that he would use the money to change his and someone else’s life for the better. As a final act, he had persuaded their manager to arrange a fight, the last one for Leon, between the two of them. Francis had let himself be killed, securing his friend’s freedom.
And then, when he had taken shelter for the night in a derelict house, the former cage fighter had met Alasdair, a feisty little thing, who started to shoot daggers at him. Seeing the scrawny silhouette of the kid, Leon had known that, from then on, he had a purpose in life. And so, about a year ago, the adventure had started.
“Hey, Leon. Are you going to work tonight?” the redhead asked, looking at the man through the open door.
“Yeah, why?” he answered lazily, dragging the words a little. “Are you expecting company? A study group or something?” he asked, without any trace of malice in his voice.
“No, not this time,” the answer came almost instantly in a disappointed voice. “On the contrary, I plan to go to sleep in about an hour, so please make sure all the doors are locked when you leave. Good night.”
“Good night, buddy, sleep tight,” Leon said, getting up to wrap his arms around Alasdair and kiss him on the cheek and forehead.
“Sorry about earlier,” the kid whispered into the man’s chest, “but sometimes, things are complicated even at my age, and... I know I shouldn’t have yelled at you, but I couldn’t stop. It’s the only way to let it all out. Soon, the school will be over for the summer, and there will be no yelling. Promise.” Alasdair raised his head, looking into Leon’s eyes.
“Hey, don’t worry. I’m not mad at you or anything. I’m always here when you
want to yell at someone,” the man said, caressing the kid’s soft, slightly curled hair. “Now, go to sleep; otherwise, you’ll be tired tomorrow for the test.”
Alasdair nodded, leaving the room and closing the door behind him. Leon plopped down on the edge of the bed, thinking about what the teenager had said. So, he had problems at school, after all, as the man had suspected from the start. Probably because of his humble social status that contrasted so much with his brilliant mind.
The rich, entitled, spoiled brats who were his classmates must have been very embarrassed that someone like Alasdair was the best student in the class, in spite of their daddies’ substantial donations. And, unable to compete with the kid, they most likely bullied him, trying to bring him down.
Well, it was about time for him to let Alasdair know that he had the financial means which would allow him to pursue his dream of going to college and studying to become a doctor. Also, Leon decided to tell the kid not to be afraid of being discovered and kicked out of the house anymore, as it belonged to them.
Some weeks earlier, the man talked to a lawyer, one Mallory Ashburn, working for one of the high-profile law offices downtown. The guy helped Leon with all the necessary paperwork, took care of every detail, and to the man’s great surprise, he hadn’t charged him a single cent for all the work.
Breaking the train of his thoughts, Leon checked his watch. It was more than an hour until his shift started, but he decided to go, anyway. The man liked his second job. Almost all people he worked with, the manager included, were decent, treating him with respect. There was, however, one Leon couldn’t stand, an asshole named Gary.
Gary seemed to find great pleasure in chasing away the homeless folks who tried to shelter between the three large dumpsters in the back of the club. They were a pest, not good for the business, Leon agreed with that, but while he and his co-workers just ushered those people away, Gary hit and kicked them, sometimes very hard. The manager had even warned him a few times to go easy on the folks, or else he was going to get fired, but the man just grinned.
When Leon arrived at the club thirty minutes before his shift started, he was greeted by Tim, a tall, hunky, bearded man, who had been the first friend he’d made there. Tim gave the newly-arrived a bear hug, then headed into the locker room to take off the uniform and put on his clothes.
“How was work today? Anything out of the ordinary?” Leon asked, putting his uniform on.
“No, the usual stuff, you know. The occasional drunk customers who flirt too much with our foxy bartender, and pretty much nothing else. Oh, if I remember right, there was something,” Tim said after a moment, an expression of displeasure on his face.
“What? I bet it was that bastard Gary again,” Leon spat. “He is nothing but trouble. He should’ve been fired a long time ago.”
“I agree with you on that, my friend,” Tim replied in an equally angry voice. “And your guess was correct. He kicked the shit out of a poor guy.” The man sighed.
“A customer or a homeless?” Leon asked because he and his co-workers didn’t hesitate to rough up the troublemakers once in a while.
“Second one,” Tim answered. “This time, he was only a kid, pale and skinny, asking for help. He begged Gary to contact his mother, but the motherfucker beat him instead.”
“A kid?” Leon flinched. “Where is he now? Is he still here, still alive?”
“Yeah, the little pesky thing is still there, near the dumpsters, like the garbage he is,” an unpleasant voice announced. Judging by the reactions of the two men in the locker room, it belonged to Gary. “Hey, Leon. Don’t worry, man. He’s not dead. You can take a look if you want.”
Giving Tim a look, his friend went outside to check if the homeless boy was still there. He searched around the dumpsters, but there was no one to see. Leon decided to go back inside when a barely audible whimper of pain stopped him in his tracks. Going in the direction the weak noise came from, he stumbled across a mass of rags and bruised flesh.
The one Tim described as a pale and skinny kid didn’t seem to be much older than Alasdair, probably in his late teens. Moving as slowly as he could, Leon crouched down, cupping the boy’s jaw and gently raising his head, gasping in shock when he saw his face.
It was full of bruises and little cuts, some of them recent, probably put there by Gary’s heavy combat boots, but others were days, even weeks old. He must have been a very beautiful boy once, Leon thought, pain constricting his chest. He still had a perfectly shaped face, full lips, and long, thick, black eyelashes.
Tears were streaming from the boy’s closed eyes, leaving streaks on his pale cheeks. After an intense but short internal debate, Leon made up his mind: he would take the kid home and raise him as he was doing with Alasdair. There was plenty of money for both of them to get a college education and everything else the two of them may need.
With this thought in mind, Leon went straight into the manager’s office and asked for two days off, explaining the whole situation. The boss gladly approved and even gave the bouncer three days off, happy to get that ‘problem,’ as he called the poor boy in the alley, off his hands.
Once the matter was settled, Leon went back to the locker room where, to his great relief, he still found Tim. The two men stepped outside the club, heading to the dumpster area, where the kid was in the same position Leon had left him. Helped by Tim, he wrapped his jacket around the boy’s thin upper body, putting him in the back seat of the car.
Saying goodbye to his co-worker and thanking him for his help, the man got behind the wheel and drove back home. Once there, he took the sleeping or fainted boy in his arms and went inside the house as silently as possible. Surprisingly, Alasdair was in the kitchen, a cup of tea in hand, and a textbook in front of him.
“Oh, my!” he exclaimed, seeing the pale form in Leon’s arms. “Where did you find this guy? What’s wrong with him?”
“In the back of the club, behind the dumpsters. That bastard Gary beat the hell out of him. Listen, would you mind staying with him for a little bit while I run a hot bath?” Leon said in a soft voice.
“Not at all. I could even get him out of these rags and run a routine check to see if he has broken bones or anything like that,” Alasdair offered.
Nodding, Leon went to the bathroom, collecting everything he needed and putting the items in one place, to have them within arm’s reach. In the meantime, the redhead took the other kid’s clothes off, gasping in horror at the sight of his bruised and tortured body. Sensing Alasdair’s hands touching him, the boy opened his eyes, and his lips started to move.
“Please, don’t hurt me. I’ll do everything you want but don’t call Carter. I’ll be a good boy for you,” he said, bringing his palms together in a pleading gesture.
“Don’t worry. You’re safe with me,” the redhead said with a reassuring smile. “I’m Alasdair. What’s your name?”
“E-Ezra,” the kid said in a shaky voice. “Wh-who's that man?” he asked, looking frightened in the door’s direction and pointing to Leon who just stood there.
He was unable to take a step further, staring in shock into the boy’s intense, sapphire-blue eyes, disbelief was written across his face. Which brother does he belong to? the man asked himself. “Come on, kid. Let’s get you bathed,” he said softly.
“Ezra. His name is Ezra,” Alasdair felt the need to inform the man. Then, he helped the boy to his feet, taking him to the bathroom.
Thoroughly bathed, rinsed, dried, clad in a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie generously provided by the redhead, and with a bowl of warm soup in his stomach, Ezra fell fast asleep in the spare bedroom upstairs.
“What are you going to do about him?” Alasdair asked Leon, looking straight into his eyes. “He doesn’t have anyone or anywhere to go to,” he whispered, lowering his head.
“Tim mentioned something about Ezra begging Gary to get in contact with his mother,” the man said with a thoughtful expression.
“And what if you don
’t find anyone?” Alasdair raised his head again, hope shining in his beautiful green eyes.
“Well, then... I guess you’ll get yourself an older brother, kiddo,” Leon answered, caressing the redhead’s strands.
CHAPTER 3
Three months later, Leon was sitting on the bed, back against the headboard, a letter in his hand and numerous others scattered everywhere in the room. As the man read, his vision became blurred from the tears that threatened to spill any moment. That letter, as did most of the others, told the story of friendship and camaraderie between one petty officer and his superior.
The petty officer’s name was Derek Stanley, Leon’s father, a strong, confident, handsome man as his son remembered him. A member of one of the famous undercover operations elite units where only the best succeeded, the then Corporal Stanley was captured by the enemy, who had been informed by a mole about the imminent attack.
When the men abandoned any hope that they would be saved, a courageous major with a handful of soldiers rescued them all. Leon’s father was seriously injured, and the major carried him all the way to the helicopter. The name of the brave officer who risked his own life to save the corporal was Alastair Stark.
Since then, the two men had shared a special bond, fighting side by side, rescuing each other, being there for the other in the most important moments of their lives. Both of them committed acts of bravery and were awarded medals and promotions. As the story unfolded, Leon couldn’t help wondering how the box, which had been found by Ezra while he was cleaning the attic, had been placed there in the first place.
There were only two possible explanations, he thought. Either it had been taken by his greedy aunt, the half-sister of his mother, and that meant he was currently living in her house, or it had been there all this time. If so, he and the boys were living in what was once his childhood home.
