Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 66022 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 330(@200wpm)___ 264(@250wpm)___ 220(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66022 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 330(@200wpm)___ 264(@250wpm)___ 220(@300wpm)
Maybe I’m just not cut out for this relationship stuff, he thought with a sigh. The two martinis had done their work. Will was tired and depressed. He wanted to talk to Jack. He wanted to see him. Again he glanced at his watch. He pulled out his cell phone, checking for any missed calls or messages. There were none. Jack hadn’t called him back. For whatever reason, Jack needed his space tonight. Well, Will would give it to him. If one embarrassing confrontation with his son was enough for Jack to chuck the whole thing, then maybe Will had been fooling himself about what was happening between them.
Though Jack was the older of the two, maybe when it came to this he was still a teenager, too tentative and uncertain to follow his feelings. For the feelings were definitely there, no matter how circumstances contrived to mess with them. Will closed his eyes, recalling how hot Jack had been as he’d ripped Will’s shirt from his body, his lust palpable, his desire fierce. How he had thrilled to Jack’s newfound assertiveness.
That was no experimenting on Jack’s part. The time for that had passed. Jack had wanted Will as much as he wanted Jack—of that he was certain. And beyond the sex—they were friends. He’d left his friend in a time of need, turning inward to nurse his own wounds, forgetting how scary all this must be for Jack.
He flipped open his phone again, sending a text to Paul saying he was going to take a cab home, and to have fun. Outside as he waited to hail a taxi, he tried once more to call Jack. Again he got voice mail. A part of him wanted to go straight to New Rochelle, but his pride got the better of him. If Jack didn’t want to see or hear from him, he was damned if he’d force himself on him.
Things would be clearer in the morning. He hoped.
~*~
Jack squinted one eye open. His two sons were peering down at him, Eric with a frown, Jason with a look of concern. “Dad? You okay? Did you fall asleep here?”
Jack shifted in his recliner and groaned. A stab of pain shot through his left shoulder as he moved. He must have fallen asleep on it.
He sat up, pushing his hair from his forehead. His head throbbed and his mouth was dry as cotton. “Boys. What are you doing here? What time is it? I didn’t hear you come in.”
“It’s ten o’clock,” Jason answered. “We actually called first, but it went straight to voice mail.”
“No, of course you didn’t hear us come in,” Eric said huffily, talking over his brother. He picked up the empty bourbon bottle from the floor and waved it toward his father. “What’s this? We’re lucky you didn’t give yourself alcohol poisoning or drink yourself into a coma.”
“Shut up, Eric,” Jason said, taking the bottle from his little brother. “Dad’s a grown man. If he wants to tie one on now and then in the privacy of his own home, it’s none of your business.”
Jack’s bladder was bulging uncomfortably. He stood, pushing his way past his sons with a gruff, “Excuse me. There’s fresh juice in the fridge. Put on a pot of coffee, will you? I’ll be right down.” He walked stiffly toward the stairs, refusing to give Eric the satisfaction of anything less than a ramrod-straight back and purposeful stride.
Once upstairs he peed and then turned on the water in the sink. He dunked his head beneath the faucet, letting the cold water wake him up more thoroughly. Jesus, had he really consumed that entire bottle of booze? Was he sliding back to where he’d been those first few months of mourning after Emma’s death?
What was he mourning now? The loss of Eric’s innocence? Or of his own?
Obviously Eric had filled Jason in on all the sordid details of what he’d witnessed the evening before. Jason, who lived two hours north in upstate New York, was single and a research scientist for a pharmaceutical company.
Jack could just imagine Eric’s outraged, frenzied call the night before. “Jason, Dad is a faggot. A filthy, perverted faggot who hires male prostitutes he brings to the house for sex.”
Jack was saddened by the realization his youngest son was a bigot. He and Emma had consciously strived to make sure their children not only tolerated but accepted other people’s differences. He’d thought they’d done a pretty decent job, but evidently not.
Though he knew this wasn’t necessarily fair. Eric was still in shock. Even if he were theoretically tolerant of others’ differences, it was quite another thing to see your own father kneeling before a naked man, that man’s spunk splashed on his face.
With a sigh, Jack turned off the water and grabbed a towel. He was only putting off the inevitable. Though he didn’t plan to tolerate any more of Eric’s attitude, he owed his boys some kind of explanation.