“Why are you unbuttoning your shirt then?”
I looked down and quickly re-buttoned the tail end of my shirt. When did I untuck it? “Fucker.”
“We have,” he looked at the clock, “twenty minutes.”
“Which I’m going to use to eat before my two-hour ride to the penitentiary.” Every fourth Sunday I visited Dave in prison. He was to be released next month. After that he was off to Sweden. “I can’t miss today.”
“I could eat you now, and you could eat a hamburger on the way.”
Damn his smile. I hesitated while buckling my belt. My eyes floated to his crotch. “Tonight,” I said breathily. “Cai will be home tonight. He can babysit.”
“He’s getting in from Europe. Twelve hours of flights and airports. I don’t think he’ll be into much more than sleeping.”
I gave up and went over, pressing our hips together as I lay atop him. “Then Darryl can babysit.”
He locked his legs around my waist and slid his hands up my sides. “Did I say happy birthday?”
I scowled. “I thought we decided we weren’t mentioning it?”
“Twenty-nine. A year from thirty. Maybe we shouldn’t have sex. We have to start thinking about your heart.”
“If I didn’t have to go, I’d show you exactly how virile I can be.”
He leaned up and whispered into my ear. “You could spend that two-hour ride with my come inside you.”
“You’re killing me,” I groaned, inhaling raggedly.
Peter and I had finally settled the monogamy argument. We didn’t choose it because of society; or because we needed to be faithful to prove anything. We chose to be monogamous because we didn’t want to worry about condoms and HIV. It was hedonistic, really. But it worked for us. Which is why Peter surprised me with his next statement.
“Marry me.”
My head jerked up from the crook of his neck. I stared into the depths of his eyes. “What?”
“Deaf in your old age?”
“Marry you?”
His hand rested on my chest. “Your heart is beating really fast. Is that fear or excitement?”
“It’s both. And confusion.” When Peter said he was romantic, it was in the way that I was romantic. A blow job and an “I love you” before rolling over and falling asleep. ‘Marry me’ was definitely outside our normal routine.
“Stuart asked…he asked if I wanted to adopt him.”
“Oh.” I climbed off him to think. I needed to get my head in gear. The other one.
“Do you not want me to?”
I smiled and laughed, shaking my head. “I brought with up to him last week.”
“Okay.”
Inscrutable bastard. “Okay?”
His nose twitched. “I want to adopt him. Legally, marriage makes sense.”
That was the Peter I knew. “That settles that then.”
“Okay.” He smiled and bit his lip. That was when I knew it meant more to him than a legal issue.
“How do you manipulate me after three years?”
He pushed to his knees and wrapped himself around me from behind. “Because you love me.”
“I love your cock.”
DWS—Driving While Stunned
By the time Cai turned seventeen, he was six foot two inches tall. He seemed to tower over me even back then. I thought he was well over that when I picked him up at the airport.
“I thought teenagers stopped growing at eighteen?” I hauled his bags into the trunk. He must have brought half of Europe with him.
“It’s only an inch and half?” He opened his winter coat and looked down at his, in my opinion, too tight jeans. “Am I too tall?”
“No,” I assured him. “But did you eat in Europe? You’re a stick with a head.”
“Oh. Um. There wasn’t a lot of time for food.”
I took off his hat and mussed his hair. The snow looked strikingly white against the black sheen. “You look great.”
“Peter couldn’t come?” He checked the front seat and scrunched into my Aston Martin.
I shut the door after joining him in the car. My new baby purred to life. “He has finals. We were expecting your flight later tonight. How did you get here two hours ahead of schedule?”
“Money?”
“You had money left after you bought most of Europe?” I pulled onto the highway.
He laughed. “Most are presents for Stu.”
The thing about Cai was that his moods were unstable. I never knew what his reactions would be to something. The roads were icy and the weather snowy and cold. I was reluctant to upset him while driving in sleet. But Stuart was excited about the adoption, and it was likely the first thing he’d hit Cai with.