A Younger Man (39 page)

Zane’s mind raced in a thousand different directions, searching desperately for an answer to what had tipped Patty off to his feelings for Noah in the first place. “One of the kids must have mentioned something about you during a visit or a phone conversation, and she must have picked up on something they said or how they said it. She probably drew information out of them without them even realizing what she was doing.” Zane raced through the many things he’d said about Noah to any number of people in the last few months, and he squeaked again. “I’m sure I mentioned you and bragged about you as an employer in a way that kept her on my scent too. At some point she obviously decided it would be a good idea to have someone follow me. Oh God,” Zane’s gaze slid to the pile of clothes on the floor and then to the sliding glass door, and his heart plummeted, “they probably got pictures of what we just did outside too.”

Noah’s eyes slid closed and his mouth thinned down to nothing. “Fuck.”

“I know.” At the sight of the facts hitting Noah, Zane’s heart went from his stomach all the way down to his feet. Suddenly feeling as if everyone in the world could see him naked, Zane grabbed one of the damp washcloths and began to clean himself so he could hurry back into his clothes. Guilt turned Zane’s voice rusty. “If Patty decides to do it, she could ruin you too.”

Noah opened his eyes, and pure black fire lived within. “No, she wouldn’t. Not if she knows what’s good for her.” He shot up from the coffee table, began striding back and forth in a furious pattern, and stabbed a finger in Zane’s direction. “And she’s not going to get away with doing a damn thing to you either. Don’t you worry about this one bit.”

“I don’t see how you can make such an irresponsible statement!” Growing hysteria pushed Zane to screeching levels, but he couldn’t help it. He snatched his clothes off the floor and scrambled into them while watching Noah pace a trail into his hardwood flooring. “She can do whatever she wants now. Of course I have to worry about it.”

“No.” That one word from Noah sounded as if it had come up through his body from the depths of hell. “Nobody fucks with me or my family and gets away with it.”

Oh God.
Zane wanted to grab Noah and shake him.
Why can’t he see?
“I’m not like you, Noah!” Fear grabbed hold of Zane’s tongue and took command. “I don’t have an ex-wife who still cares about me and who supports my sexuality. I don’t have any financial resources to fight Patty, let alone an endless amount, and I damn well don’t have the luxury of just hoping some bigoted judge won’t agree with Patty and snatch my brother and sister straight out of my life!”

Noah shot Zane a glance that made him think he’d grown another head. “Zane,” Noah came over and rubbed Zane’s arm, “take a breath.”

“Don’t tell me to breathe!” Zane raged in Noah’s face. “This is not going to get better by being Zen and breathing!”

“No,” Noah leaned over Zane and roared right back, “but you won’t accomplish anything by losing your shit either! You need to stop and think so that together we can figure out your best course of action.”

The air went out of Zane’s sails, and he dropped to sit on the couch. Images of a frail, slight man, with love shining so bright in his eyes it made him seem like a giant, filled Zane’s head and heart and then cracked right through his soul. “You don’t understand.” Zane wiped away tears before they could fully form, but he still felt broken inside. He looked up at Noah and began spilling his final conversation with his stepfather. “Before Burt died, when he was so sick and barely able to speak anymore, I promised him I would always keep Duncan and Hailey with me. I knew it was what he wanted to hear, what he
needed
to hear, so that he could die in peace. I made him that vow, and I meant it.” Zane parted his lips to go on, but for a moment nothing came out. When he finally found his voice again, it cracked terribly. “If what I’ve started with you gives Patty the ammunition to successfully take Duncan and Hailey away from me then I’ve more than failed my brother and sister. I’ve failed Burt as a son too.”

Noah immediately folded to his knees in front of Zane, and he slid his forearms along Zane’s outer thighs. “No, baby. You can’t think that way. Patty is doing this. She is going against her brother’s wishes and she knows it. Wishes that you told me are registered with the court, by the way. You already have that in your favor. You always have.”

“But fighting this?” Zane screeched. “Being a young gay man trying to keep custody of his two siblings, against a woman who has already successfully raised two sons? Who’s going to pick me?” Zane could already hear Patty’s arguments flinging around in his head. “Patty will say that Burt didn’t know I was gay when he made his claim to want me to have Duncan and Hailey, and so that makes his statement void. You better than anyone knows that reasonable, good people get up in arms and crazy-irrational when it comes to two men being together.” Zane hated thinking it, knowing it would hurt Noah, but he needed Noah to understand the facts. “I don’t have to tell you to look at your dad to know I’m speaking the truth.”

The color left Noah’s face, and he frowned. “Yeah, look at my dad.” Just as fast as those words slipped past the hard line of his lips, Noah pulled back to the edge of the coffee table. A strange glint put warm coffee back into his stare. “Yes. Wait a minute.” Noah grinned wickedly, and even chuckled. “Let’s take a good look at my dad.”

Zane muttered, “I’d rather not.”

“But you should.” Noah’s grin grew even bigger. “He’s a lawyer. Retired, but still a damn good attorney.”

When Noah’s intentions became clear, Zane drew back as if he could disappear into the couch, away from this insanity. “You’re crazy.”

“No,” Noah shook his head, deadly serious, “I’m not. He could help you keep Duncan and Hailey.”

There was no way Hoyt Maitland would represent the man his son was fucking. “Noah, you’re insa—” Tires crunching on gravel out front made Zane snap his mouth shut.

The sound caught Noah’s attention too, and his focus shifted to the front door. A closed door, thankfully. “That’ll be the kids.” He tangled his fingers in Zane’s and hauled Zane to his feet. “Listen,” taking hold of Zane’s shoulders, Noah stood him up straight and looked into his eyes with clarity, “you go home and start gathering the things you’ve always had to keep on file as a way to prove you’re a good provider for your brother and sister. You let me deal with getting you some pro bono legal assistance.”

Going up on his toes, Zane flung his arms around Noah and held on with all his might. Noah slipped his arms around Zane’s waist. The solid frame and heat in the bigger man’s body sank into Zane’s bones and finally started to warm him inside. Zane held on tight and whispered next to Noah’s ear, “Please don’t force a showdown with your father because of me. I don’t want to be another battle between the two of you.”

Noah cuffed the back of Zane’s head and drew his face out of hiding. “Hey,” his eyes clear and bright, Noah brushed his lips against Zane’s, “I would do anything for you.”

Choked up again, Zane buried his face against Noah’s chest. “Damn it, Noah…”

Noah pressed kisses to the top and side of Zane’s head. “We’re gonna make this okay.” He sounded gruffer than usual too. A car door squeaking reached through the cabin then. “Dry your eyes now, though.” Noah offered the hem of his T-shirt. “Don’t let Duncan and Hailey see you upset.”

“Right.” As Zane wiped his face, Noah’s solid, even temperament and kindness filled his chest with the sweetest pain. Zane couldn’t imagine a life without this man—yet some of the insensitive things he’d spewed and shouted only minutes ago slammed back through him and knotted sickness in his belly. Before the kids invaded—he could hear footsteps outside—Zane blurted as fast as he could, “You have to know, when I said what I did about starting something with you, I didn’t mean I’d wished I’d never done all the things I’ve done with you, or regret that I ever met you. I was upset, and the words didn’t come out right. I’m scared of what Patty can take away from me. But you need to know you are right up there with Burt and Duncan and Hailey as the best things in my life. You have to believe me. I-I—”

Noah put two fingers to Zane’s lips. “Hey, shh. I believe you. Don’t worry about stepping on my feelings right now; that’s not what is important. Okay?” Noah’s touch slipped away just as the front door opened. The man easily transitioned to greet Seth. “Hey, kid.” His stare narrowed on the open, empty space behind Seth. “Where are Duncan and Hailey?”

As Seth tossed his keys on the catchall table, he said, “I dropped them off at the cabin a few minutes ago.” He then slid his hazel stare to Zane. “I told them I’d send you on home to them. They’re kind of wiped out.”

Already turning in a circle to search for his things, Zane replied, “Gotcha.” He grabbed his phone and Hailey’s little play purse from the cushions of the couch. “Let me get going then.”

Noah brushed his hand against the back of Zane’s. “I’ll call you later.” His promise to speak to his father lived in his unblinking eyes.

Shit. He’s too much.
With Seth arriving alone—an adult son who obviously knew the score between Zane and Noah—Zane took a chance and lifted to press a kiss to Noah’s cheek. Noah turned his head instead and captured Zane’s mouth with a soft, warm kiss.

Noah pulled away, and a playful twinkle lived in his eyes. “Bye.”

Stunned, Zane said, “Bye,” too. He even managed to say the same to Seth on his way out, and thank him again for looking out for Hailey and Duncan.

Once outside though, Noah’s kiss in front of Seth, and the photos Patty had sent, along with the very real threat of losing his brother and sister, made Zane stumble. Too much had happened today, and the sweeps of extreme emotions Zane had gone through since stepping foot inside Noah’s house earlier left him reeling. He wanted to celebrate that kiss Noah had felt comfortable enough to give him in front of Seth, but he couldn’t forget that Patty held a very real threat over his head. If Zane lost Duncan and Hailey, all the comfort and openness with Noah in the world wouldn’t matter.

Zane would be too gutted inside to know anything but the fact that he’d failed Burt, and that he’d lost his family.

* * * *

An hour later, after Seth had left for his date, Noah picked up the phone. His heart pounded with a ridiculous staccato beat, so hard Noah felt certain that if he looked down he would be able to see its shape through his chest. Still, even though his palms were sweating, he dialed the number that would put him in touch with his father.

After two rings, his mother answered the phone. “Hi, sweetheart,” she said.
Caller ID.
Of course Noah’s father would know who it was and leave his mom to answer the call.

“Hi, Mom.” Although somewhat awkward, at least Cathy Maitland tried to maintain a relationship with Noah; she still told her son she loved him, and she made fumbling attempts to ask about his new life. Noah suspected that much of his mother’s discomfort came from a natural newness to learning she had a gay son, but more than that, not knowing how to manage the strained relationship between the two men in her life.

Noah must have gotten into his own head and paused for too long, because suddenly Cathy said, “Noah, is everything okay?” Concern gripped her voice. “Is something wrong with the boys?”

Crap.
“No, Mom. I’m sorry. Matt and Seth are fine.”
Just do it. Zane needs this.
Noah bit the bullet. “I need to talk to Dad.”

“Oh.” The longest, most strained pause that could exist between two people hung between Noah and Cathy. Noah could close his eyes and see his mother in his childhood living room, beckoning to his father, where the big man sat in his recliner reading a magazine. “Well…”

“I know he doesn’t want to,” Noah ignored the knife to the gut his father’s rejection still evoked in him and instead put his full focus on the end prize, “but tell him it’s important. It’s not about me. Tell him it has to do with a couple of kids who need some legal help.” Hoyt occasionally did pro bono work in his retirement, often on behalf of the rights of children and as an advocate for them in court.

A moment passed, wherein Noah could hear furious whispering through the phone, but not loud enough to make out the actual conversation. Then his father came on the line, saying, “What’s wrong?” The bullet-precise command in Hoyt’s tone took Noah back to his childhood, where he’d never felt safer than when he was with his father. “Who needs help?”

“My friend Zane,” Noah answered quickly. “You saw him at my cabin with his little brother and sister the day you and Matt went to the car show.” Unspoken in that sentence was that Noah and Hoyt had not spoken since the words they’d exchanged that afternoon. Fear that the disgust that had lived in his father that day still festered in him, and would cloud his judgment, Noah added quickly, his heart beating frantically, “Before you say no and that you can’t help Zane because you don’t approve of the relationship he has with me, you have to know that he is the rock for his brother and sister. They love him and need him. And their father, Zane’s stepfather, wanted Zane to keep them together after he passed. Zane has done nothing but work and work and work to keep his brother and sister with him—all without any help. I know those kids adore him, and he is their world, and they would be devastated if some judge came in between them and put them with their Aunt Patty, just because Zane and I have feelings for each other. His aunt wants those kids, and she took a bunch of explicit pictures of Zane and me together, which is offensive as hell on its own to me,” righteous fire burned the fear right out of Noah, “but what is done is done. Zane learned today Patty is going to try to use our relationship and those pictures to take the kids away from him. Zane needs help now. Patty is meeting with a lawyer, and God knows what else she’s already set in motion.” Running out of steam, Noah sucked in more air, his heart squeezing. “You have to do something to help Zane keep them, Dad. You have to.”

“Noah,” Hoyt said. “I can’t—”

“Dad, please.” Hearing resignation in his father’s voice, Noah interrupted, pacing his cabin as he pleaded. “You don’t understand. I fought my feelings for Zane. I really did. I told myself he was too young. I tried to make myself find someone I thought on paper would seem more appropriate for me. But he developed feelings for me too. They’re real. And he’s so special, and he’s so openhearted… I finally couldn’t ignore or pretend I didn’t want him. If he loses those kids because of me, because my feelings were so strong I couldn’t walk away from him, I’ll never forgive myself. I can’t imagine what my world would be like if Janice had tried to take Matt and Seth away from me. It would have killed me if she’d done that and won. Only now, because of what I started with Zane, someone is trying to do that very thing to him. Please, Dad,” Noah’s throat thickened unbearably, and his voice broke, “don’t say no.”