3-Ties That Bind (7 page)

“Jesus.” He took the boy in hand, dropped his bag, closed the door somehow all at once. “How long have you been like this?”

“Couple of days,” Glen admitted.

“When you’re better, I’ll spank the shit out of you for not calling me sooner,” Derek murmured, his tone gentle but his words serious.

“Not that bad.”

“Bullshit.” He didn’t need to take a temp to know Glen’s was high—the boy was radiating enough heat to keep Chernobyl running. He guided him to the bedroom, sat him on the edge of the bed and ran a bath for him, keeping the temperature neutral. Got him stripped down—and shivering—and put him in.

Glen resisted a little—“Not a pussy,” he muttered—but Derek was insistent, and finally the boy settled into the tub, where Derek sponged his skin from burning hot to a more satisfactory cooler temp. Glen remained still under his touch, his head back against the towel Derek folded for his comfort, eyes closed. He didn’t think the mood had anything to do with Glen’s flu. But as the boy got more comfortable, he settled in and finally opened his eyes with a drowsy look on his face,

“Didn’t mean to make you mad,” he said.

“Too late.” But the anger had long dissipated. Glen was too sick—too stressed—and Derek would never forgive himself if something happened to this boy.

His boy. Because he wasn’t looking for just any sub, but rather, someone who would sub for him and him alone. Who would surrender to him in ways Glen wouldn’t for anyone else. “I’m not just here for you for sex, all right? I thought you got that.”

Glen shrugged, like he didn’t want to deal with it.

“Stay put—I’m changing your sheets.” He walked away before Glen could argue, stripped the bed and made it quickly. Dumped the dirty laundry in the washing machine, collected ginger ale and crackers from the kitchen and went to fetch the boy.

There was already Tylenol on the night table. He didn’t know if Glen needed a doctor or if he’d seen one on base, but those would be his next questions.

He grabbed a pair of sweats and brought them into the bathroom. “Let’s get you cleaned up and into bed.”

“Thanks,” Glen murmured, shifted so the water splashed around him a little.

“You haven’t seen anything yet.” Derek soaped him up, washed his hair and rinsed him off with the reverence he’d only held for one other person. And when Glen stood on shaky legs, the fever still obvious in his flushed cheeks, he walked with him to the bedroom. He took Glen’s temperature—still 101 despite the cooling.

The boy was just about the get into bed when his cell rang. He sat on the edge of the bed and took the call, which ended up being from the doctor on base. Reported his fever and then said, “No, I’m not alone. I have a friend of mine. He’s taking care…yeah.”

He held out the phone and Derek took it to listen to the doc’s instructions, which included a brusque recap of
it’s the flu, no antibiotics, keep his damned fever down and don’t let him do anything stupid.
“Got it.”

“No improvement—or if he gets worse—call. You’ll have to bring him in,” Doc said. “I expect this will last another twenty-four hours, at least.”

Don’t ask, don’t tell, but they had no reason to assume he was anything but a friend…and he was.

He handed the phone back to Glen, who assured the doctor that he wouldn’t overdo it, and then the boy hung up and crawled into bed.

“Are you staying?” he asked Derek.

“Whether you want me to or not.”

“Sorry…didn’t mean to worry you. Hate being sick.” He buried his face in Derek’s shoulder as chills racked his body again.

“It happens to the best of us.”

“Not to me. I wasn’t allowed to be sick,” he admitted. “Couldn’t be sick or scared or tired. Couldn’t lose. Needed the winner’s mindset all the damned time.”

He didn’t sound bitter, just very matter-of-fact, which, to Derek, made it worse. “Sounds intense.”

“It was all I knew.” Glen shifted, kicked the covers off restlessly. “Fever’s breaking.”

Derek went and grabbed another cool washcloth from the bathroom and rubbed Glen’s face and chest as he lay back against the pillows.

“When I met John, I was at the breaking point. The swimming wasn’t doing it for me. I was losing focus. Something else was driving me.”

“And John brought it out for you.”

“Yeah.” Glen’s voice sounded far away, halfway between sleep and memory.

Derek let him drift off, suddenly too caught up in his own memories…and worries.

He was a good Dom. A good man. But living up to John…

Glen didn’t even call you when he was sick.

That had hit him like a physical blow.

Derek handed him the glass of soda. “Drink. Take your pills. And just relax.”

“An order?”

“Direct.”

Glen barely got the pills down before he was asleep. Derek’s flight home was booked for the next morning—two days before Christmas Eve. He moved it twenty-four hours ahead, would play it by ear, because there was no way he was leaving Glen this sick and alone.

Now wasn’t the time to bug Glen about coming home with him, either. Derek had accepted that wouldn’t happen, pretty much assumed Glen would still be away over the holidays, too. No doubt, Glen would be the one to volunteer to work so pilots with families could be with them.

He brushed some damp hair from Glen’s forehead as he sat next to him on the bed. Switched on the TV and tried to figure out who he was angrier at—himself or the boy.

In the end, he decided it was his fault and ended up taking Glen’s hand in his.

He was dreaming—and he was stripping from the incredible heat. Maybe his helo crashed and he was crawling in the desert looking for help. He called out but didn’t recognize his own voice.

“Glen, come on, it’s all right.”

Derek.

Derek was touching his head, whispering. Fuck. Glen was hot and cold…remembered that he was down with the flu, that he was home in his own bed.

“Glen, you with me?”

He opened his eyes and stared up at Derek. He couldn’t say anything, but it didn’t matter. Derek was in control, taking care of him. Cooling him, heating him…not leaving his side. He knew he slept, but for how long, he wasn’t sure.

But finally, he was awake and, although still dizzy, he was able to open his eyes for longer than a minute or two.

“Hey, bud.” Derek ran a hand through his own hair. He looked tired.

“How long have you been here?”

“A little over twenty-four hours. You said you’d been back for a couple of days, though.”

“Yeah.” He accepted a long drink of fizzy soda before lying back on the pillows. Remembered talking, and then he was back asleep.

And then he realized he could hear the strains of an argument. He didn’t know if it was day or night—or what day it actually was—because the fever still held him in its grip.

But when he heard the words, “What are you doing with my son?” it was as if he was seventeen years old again and getting caught in John’s apartment.

He’d been half-dressed, his ass sore from the much-needed spanking John had recently delivered, coming out of the bedroom.

John answered the door in only a towel, and yeah, it looked bad. Looked exactly like what you’d think happened just happened, and Glen was frozen to the spot, staring at his mother standing there.

“Glen Michael Rhodes, what are you doing?” The look on her face was anger blended with disgust.

And still, he couldn’t speak. John had asked her to leave immediately but she refused.

“He’s coming home with me,” his mother said.

“No.” John held firm, even when she’d threatened him with the police. Maybe he, like Glen, knew she’d never embarrass herself with a court case of that nature.

That evening, for the first time in nine years, Glen didn’t go to swim practice, spent the night curled in John’s bed, scared to go home and not sure how to go forward.

Eventually, he got up and pushed the covers aside. Went home and had the huge, blow-out fight with his parents he’d expected, packed and went back to John’s.

He’d enlisted in the Navy three months later on his eighteenth birthday. He’d tried to keep swimming—John encouraged it, said he’d help finance it as well—but Glen’s heart was no longer in it. Truth be told, he wasn’t sure it ever had been.

Now, he forced himself out of bed. It was dark out and he stumbled a little as he headed toward the voices.

His worst nightmare had indeed forced her way into his townhouse and Derek was telling her to keep her voice down.

“And who are you?”

“I’m his friend,” Derek told her diplomatically while Glen waited in the shadows of the hallway, wishing the whole damned thing would go away.

“Friend?” she sneered. “I know what
friend
means to your kind of people.”

“I’ll bet you do,” Derek continued in his unflinchingly calm tone that must be making his mother angrier.

He couldn’t let this happen again. And this time, Glen found his footing, moved forward with a purpose he finally understood and told her, “Get the hell out of here.”

She turned and stared at him. “You can’t talk to me like that.”

“I just did. I cut you off the way you cut me off,” he told her. “We have no more relationship.”

“I’m trying to save you, Glen Michael. I don’t want you to burn in hell for this…lifestyle. A good man would repent,” she pleaded. The sickening part of all of it was that she truly believed this bullshit.

Derek’s stance didn’t change—but he looked right at Glen even though his words were directed to Glen’s mother. “Your son is probably the best man I know. I’m honored to be a part of his life. And you can leave now.”

“You’ll burn in hell too.”

“I guess we’ll be seeing you there,” Derek said.

She turned her fury from Glen to Derek. “You men corrupted my son. He wasn’t born like this.”

He had been—and there was nothing more to say, except, “If you leave now, I won’t call the police.”

Derek pointed, went to put a light hand on her shoulder to guide her out of the front hallway and she flinched. “Don’t you touch me.”

“It’s not contagious, you know,” Glen said. “Or maybe it is.”

With that, she turned her icy facade to the outside and left.

“I’m guessing I just met one of your good reasons for not wanting anything to do with parents,” Derek said.

All Glen could do was nod. He wanted to apologize, but it was as if all the strength had been zapped from his body.

He thought they could never humiliate him again, but he’d obviously been wrong, and still, Derek had handled it so well.

“You didn’t deserve that,” he said tiredly.

“Neither did you,” Derek said.

Glen nodded, because he wasn’t sure of much, but that he did know. “Sorry.”

“S’okay.”

“They’re religious. Middle-class. My father had no tolerance for anyone who wasn’t like them. So they never practiced what they preached.” Swimming would’ve been a way out of the small town for him—which was exactly the escape he’d wanted. Or so he thought.

Instead, he’d moved two towns over after he’d saved enough money to move off base. Didn’t feel guilty about not getting out, because in so many important ways, he had.

Chapter Eight

Derek took a few deep breaths because he didn’t want Glen to see how close to over-the-edge angry he was that a mother could treat her son that way. Didn’t want Glen to think for one second that he was angry at him for anything his mother did or said. He wished he could’ve saved Glen from hearing any of that.

Glen, who stood in the doorway, bare-chested. His cheeks were flushed from fever—anger—his body language reading tight and defensive. “Why now after all this time?” he muttered.

“Promise of the end of the world brings out the insanity in some people.”

“She never needed an excuse.”

The anger would come out now, mainly to cover the shame. But Derek had to tread carefully. The fever still had Glen in its grips—he wouldn’t be thinking all that rationally anyway but coupled with something this extreme happening… “Why don’t you get back into bed—get some more sleep?”

“Can’t sleep now.” Glen shrugged. There was a sudden look of defiance in his eyes that made Derek want to hug him…and put him over his knee.

“You can’t let her get to you.”

“She’s been doing it for years. Just when I think I’ve made it out, she shows up to berate me about who I am or what I am. So don’t tell me to not let her get to me like it’s so goddamned easy. It’s great that your family’s so accepting, but you haven’t lived through what I have, so don’t pretend you know everything.”

“Don’t do this, Glen.”

“What?” He brushed past Derek and headed to the couch. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that, for the boy, seeing her made all the old feelings rush back. It wasn’t the gay part Glen was ashamed of—it was no doubt the kink. Why he’d never been able to let it go…why he needed it so badly…and that was something Derek wanted to help him deal with.

“It’s not her—it’s you. You’re the problem.”

“Then get the fuck out,” Glen told him. “Because I sure as hell don’t want to be your problem.”

“You’re pushing your luck with me, boy.”

Glen’s chin jutted. “Like I said, then leave. I’m not asking you to handle this.”

“But I’m doing it anyway. It doesn’t matter if she never accepts you. You have to accept yourself,” Derek said.

“Put it on a greeting card,” Glen muttered, and that was exactly what Derek wanted to hear.

“I gave you the rope and you just hung yourself,” he growled and then he moved to action.

Glen immediately regretted his words, saw the look in Derek’s eyes and knew he was in for it. Before he could back away, Derek had him in a hold, had him cuffed and helpless before he could utter any kind of apology. But the hold made him angrier and he fought, told Derek to get the fuck off him.

“Not a chance, little boy,” Derek told him. And then the man had him over his knee—he had the element of surprise on his side, plus he made use of the fact that Glen wasn’t exactly steady on his feet yet.

“No—not like this.” Glen struggled, but his sweats pulled down easily and Derek’s hand met his ass with a hard slap.