Second Chances (26 page)

When I went out, he was standing, just looking up at the stars. It was warm and the sky was clear. I could see his expression in the light of the moon and gently told him, “It’s going to be okay.” He didn’t say anything for several long minutes.

Then so low I could barely hear, he said, “You’ve been telling me all along and I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want it to be true.” I almost said something, but decided to hear him out. He was so sad. “It’s not that he’s gay, Mark. I’m not a hypocrite. I just want him to be safe. You and I know how people can be, but we can take care of ourselves. Those two….”

I nodded and went over to lay a hand on his back. “Yeah, I know. Be happy they picked each other if Jason’s going to be gay. We know he’ll be treasured. And, Antonio, your son’s in there right now looking like he lost his best friend. He thinks you hate him.”

Before the words were completely out of my mouth he was in the house again, hugging his boy and telling him everything was fine, he was happy for him. He explained to the boys what he had just told me. I stayed outside and let him have the moment with them. I might love all three of them, but this was something a dad had to do.

We all sat down with Jeanine and Gary later that weekend and had the same conversation. They weren’t surprised. Seems Jason sometimes forgot to shut his door completely when he had late night phone calls with Robbie, and it seemed they got a little… heated. If the two boys could’ve crawled under the carpet, pulled it over themselves and died, I think they would have. Antonio just made choking noises. I went into the kitchen and bit into a dishtowel to hold back the laughter.

We agreed that it would make us all more comfortable if they’d wait to take the next step until Jason was settled in at college. Surprisingly, they agreed. They’d already had this talk and thought they needed to be sure it was what they both wanted. Jason looked so much like his dad, ears burning as he admitted to being a virgin. Robbie looked a little embarrassed, and I guessed at its cause.

I laid a hand on his and said, “Robbie, it’ll be your first time too.” He looked at me, shaking his head, not looking at anyone, especially Jason. “Look at me, little brother.” When he looked up into my eyes, I told him, “It’ll be your first time with someone you love. If you two choose to honor each other, it’ll be making love, not having sex.”

His eyes teared up and he nodded, and gripped my hand so tight it hurt. “Thank you,” he mouthed to me. “I love you.”

March 2010

“
Y
OU
can open your eyes now,” Antonio said. We’d been driving for what felt like hours and the blindfold idea was wearing a little thin. The boys hadn’t been made to wear one, but all the bitching in the world didn’t sway him. So I’d manned up and bravely sat there in silence the whole way. The three of them ignored me. Bastards.

When I slid the bandana off my eyes, I looked around and saw… holy shit but it was beautiful out here. The truck sat in a dirt driveway that ended in front of what looked like a two-story farmhouse. There were big century-old oaks, and azaleas lined the front, a mass of pink and white blooms. I could see that a small creek ran behind the house, and it was so quiet. Peaceful. There wasn’t another house in sight.

“Man, it’s nice out here. What’re we doing here though? Ah, a picnic?” I asked as I saw Robbie and Jason grab a basket and cooler out of the bed of the truck. They laughed and bumped shoulders and moved to walk around the house toward the stream. I glanced over at Antonio and knew I must’ve looked totally confused.

He turned me to face the house and stood behind me, his head resting on my shoulder. “Tell me what you see, baby.”

I took it all in, and said, “Reminds me of those beautiful old houses from the turn of the century that someone renovated into a bed-and-breakfast. It’s pretty off the beaten track for that, though. But it’s pretty as a picture out here. Kind of makes me think about the house Dad talks about his grandfather owning up in Demorest.”

It started to dawn on me when Antonio laughed. “This is it, isn’t it? This is the old Jennings farmstead? Damn, I wonder who owns it now. Think they’re home? Maybe they’ll let us go in and look around. Have you talked to them?” I asked all excited.

He laughed into my ear and kissed it. “You could say that, I guess. I have a key. Want to take a look while the boys set up out back?” I started to walk toward the house and admired all the care that’d gone into keeping everything looking original. And the yard was just fantastic. Antonio opened the front door and we went in.

The entire entryway and front room were heart of pine flooring and perfectly restored. The banister on the stairway going up looked to be stained mahogany, and the old-fashioned stair runner was embellished with tea roses. The front room to the right was lit up with the early afternoon sun, and I could just picture Dad as a little boy sitting in here with his grandfather, listening to stories and drinking lemonade.

We walked down the hallway and into the kitchen, and I was surprised to see the whole area had been gutted and updated with state-of-the-art stainless steel appliances. A great old plank dining room table offset all the shiny stuff though.

“Antonio, this’s great. The owners really took care of the old place. Think they’d mind if we went upstairs?” I asked.

“Nah, let’s go check it out.” We went up, and I stroked the banister and felt how smooth and well-maintained it was. There were four bedrooms and two baths, all remodeled and decorated period. Except the master bedroom. It was redone in rich paneling and creams, with a fireplace on one wall, facing the king-size bed. I wandered over and admired the room, imagining the love here. And then I spotted the picture on the mantle.

It was me and Antonio. My arm around his shoulders, in San Francisco. I looked back at him, puzzled. “What’s this doing here?” I asked.

He came over and gave me a quick kiss. “I bought it for you. It’s yours,” he said.

I laughed. “Well, duh, I remember when you bought it. That guy took the picture with your phone and you had it printed and framed for my birthday.”

He pushed me a little, making me step backward. “No, you don’t understand.” Another little nudge. “I bought it.” Pushed me and my knees hit the edge of the bed. “The whole thing.” One last nudge and I went over backward onto the bed, and he crawled on top of me. “I bought the house and all the property.” Kissed me. “On both sides.”

The kisses made me fuzzy but I fought it. “Wait, wait. You
bought
it? When? How?” I managed to get out. He bent to kiss me again and I stopped him. “No, damn it, tell me what you mean.”

He sighed and pulled back and straddled my hips. “Just that. I took part of the money from the buyout and bought this for you. For us. Now before you complain,” he shushed me before I could get the words out, “it’s a great investment. And I know we can’t live here all the time. Your commute would suck.”

He ground his ass on my crotch, and my cock decided to take notice. “Wait, stop that,
oh fuck
. I want to talk about this.” He had other things on his mind than talking though, and as usual, I had to be the strong one. “No, baby, stop. The boys, if they come upstairs.”

That froze him in his dirty little tracks. He fell off to the side and grumbled, “I should’ve sold him to the gypsies.”

“Oh, I’ll make it up to you,” I said and groped him. “But, Antonio? This, this is… I just don’t have words for it. It’s a piece of my family’s history. That you would remember and,” I had to swallow down my emotion, “and want to make it a part of
our
family.” I just shook my head.

“Baby, your family
is
my family now. I want the boys to have something that has some meaning to it. I didn’t have that growing up, and I know Robbie didn’t. You and your dad, you mean so much to all of us, and now that we have the money to do things,” he shrugged, “I just wanted to make him happy. Make you happy.”

“Thank you, Antonio. You
do
make me happy. Every fucking day, you make me so happy, I can’t believe it,” I said. I leaned over and kissed him and palmed his crotch again.

He pushed up into my hand, and I shoved a hand inside his jeans. “Think you can come in the next two minutes?” He groaned and nodded. This was my new favorite game. Giving him a time limit, and if he didn’t get off within that time, he didn’t get to. ’Til the next day. He’d gotten
very
good at this game.

I popped the button on his jeans and pulled his hard dick out. He lay beside me and wasn’t allowed to move anything but his hips. I could go as fast or slow as I wanted but the grip had to stay the same firmness. He’d learned that if he timed it just right, he could get extra friction on the head when I went for an upstroke.

I glanced at my watch and grabbed his cock and said, “Go.” He started to fuck into my hand, and I took a few slow, long strokes. Just to tease. His groan made me chuckle but he had some tricks of his own too. “Please, sir, I’m begging you. I’ll be such a good boy for you.” Ah, shit, that just wasn’t playing fair. I jerked him hard and fast to reward him.

“Ah, fuck, sir, please let me come, please,” he moaned and begged. My hand flew on his cock, and he started bucking like crazy into my hand. “Please… please… please,” he chanted, and I let him off the hook, leaning over and catching his mouth in a kiss and stroking him hard and fast.

He gasped into my mouth. When his dick swelled and he shot, my hand filled with his load. I kept kissing him, drawing it out and bringing him down slow, until his breath was back to normal.

I got up and went down the hallway to wash my hands while he recovered. When I went back into the bedroom, he was still laying there watching me, eyes full of wonder and love. “What did I ever do to deserve this? Deserve you?” he asked. I sat back down beside him and rubbed his chest, thinking how long we’d waited to be together.

No one’d been more surprised than I was when I saw Antonio’s truck, a U-Haul trailer attached to the bumper, in the parking lot when I came home from work right before Christmas. I went inside and found him asleep on the bed. When I sat on the edge, his sleepy eyes looked up and me and smiled a slow, lazy grin. “Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown,” he purred out.

I bent over and gave him a long hot kiss. “What are you doing here, baby? I thought you were working through Christmas and coming in for New Year’s?” He stretched like a cat and I appreciated the naked lines of his body. It had only been a month, but phone sex and video conferencing only did so much for a man.

“Apple bought me out,” he said.

“You’re fucking kidding me. They bought UnLinear? When did this happen?” I couldn’t believe it.

“The deal closed and I got the wire transfer in for my stock package on Monday. They have some new product coming out in a year or so and caught wind of how I was using the caseless technology. They want it and the designs and they want it bad. So I told ’em to make me an offer. And fuck it if they didn’t make me a damn good one. I took it and turned the keys over to them and packed my shit up and hit the road. I’m home, baby. For good,” he laughed. I was kissing him so much he almost couldn’t get the words out.

“That’s the best news I’ve had in, God I don’t even know,” I said when I let him come up for breath.

“Well, you’re kissing a very rich man. Guess,” he chortled.

“Don’t care.” And I started to kiss on his neck.

“Umm, keep that up and I’ll give you a blank check. You can be my kept man. Ow!” he yelped when I bit him.

“You’re the one that’s unemployed. I can support you, silly boy,” I joked. “You can lounge around in a jock and eat bonbons. Mmmm, I think I like that visual.” And I stroked my chin.

“We’re rich,” he said again, and leaned over and whispered a number into my ear.

“Shut up.” I nudged him. “Really, I’m fucking stoked for you, but no way they paid eight figures.”

He reached for the phone on the nightstand and handed it to me. “Call the bank and check the balance in our joint account.” I decided to humor him, and dialed the automated teller. And dropped the phone when the balance was read off.

“We can do anything we want from now on. Buy anything. Help our families. Put the boys through school anywhere in the world. You can start your own nonprofit,” he said.

“No, baby, this’s your money. You earned it and—” I started before he put his hand over my mouth.

“Do you remember all those years ago when,” and his voice cracked a little, “when I couldn’t pay Jason’s child support and you offered to loan me the money?” I nodded. He took in a deep breath.” I think I fell in love with you that day. Nobody else in my life would’ve taken a chance on me like you did. I told myself, if I ever made it big, you’d be the reason. You were the first one who ever really thought I was worth believing in. Fuck, Mark, that gave me the balls to even try to get UnLinear started. You were my partner even then.”