Bound by Lies (14 page)

Just like with Dad, it’ll follow me everywhere. Something else to haunt me. Just what I need.

You can leave,
his mother’s familiar voice in his head tells him. Seductively, she adds
, It would be easy—just grab your things and go. You could get in your Jeep and drive. No looking back. Go back to Florida or go somewhere new, somewhere where no one knows you at all. A fresh start.

But then he thinks of Emma Leah, and how whenever Brayden is home she tries to be near him, sitting by his side on the couch, cuddling up against him as they watch television or telling him about her day at school over dinner at his Nana’s table. There’s a light in her eyes whenever she looks at him—a heady mixture of trust, love, devotion and pure innocence. It’s one of the best things about his life, now. He has someone who cares about him that much, who needs him that much. And if he chickened out now, what would become of Emma? That light may not die completely, but it would surely darken and dim. She would pull away reflexively at the bite of disappointment, just as he’d done when his mother disappointed him, choosing the ethereal promise of her own dreams over her very real responsibility to her child.

I could never do that to Emma
, Brayden knows.
I will never hurt her like that.

If you don’t go, you must stay
, his mother’s voice riddles to him.

That’s what moves him, stripping away his tangled worries, clearing his head just enough to get him to his feet. Empty, turned inside out and despondent, he creeps to his shirt. Grabbing it up, he turns it right-side-out. The floorboards cooperate and in near silence, with a glance to the front door, he pulls the garment over his head.

When his face is through the neck of his shirt, he sees Jenner watching him from his seat on the floor. Arms braced on his knees, still but alert, Jenner holds him there with his eyes—dark pools of promise and secrets now shared between them.

Dread swells. Brayden’s heart leaps up into his throat, beating frantically.

“Stay,” Jenner beseeches him. “Please. It’s not even dawn.”

“M-my family expected me back hours ago,” Brayden hears himself explaining with a clumsy tongue and stilted words. Already, he feels the awful urge to add the honorific of ‘Sir’, just to please Jenner, to use respect as a means to placate. “They might be worried. If I call to say I’m okay, it’d wake my cousin Emma.”

Focusing only on whether or not he’s forgetting anything and the quickest way to get out of there, the weight of Jenner’s stare unsettles Brayden. Because for the first time, he has some idea what’s behind it. It’s not the first time Jenner has looked at him in that way, but never before did he suspect the particular manner of the man’s interest.

Brayden goes to the door. Fully clothed but simultaneously completely naked while in the presence of the one person on Earth with a lover’s thorough knowledge of him, Brayden itches to be alone and look for new ways to bury stark truths.

His hand is on the doorknob when his skin prickles with restless tingling; sensing Jenner has come after him and is now standing there, right at his back, mere inches away again. Resenting that Jenner so easily makes him feel like prey, Brayden freezes where he is, waiting, expecting to be touched without understanding whether he wants that or not. His scalp tightens, his mouth goes dry and his stomach knots.

Exhaling around the lump in his throat, he makes a soft sound. Jenner advances ever closer. Brayden can feel the heat of him—his breath, his body—and fixes his stare on the curving lines of the wood grain in the door.

“You’re scheduled next for Tuesday,” Jenner says quietly, his deep voice a low rumble in Brayden’s ear like the thunder before a storm. It’s the same way he spoke when laying out all of the rules of protocol, reining in Brayden’s anxiety with the skill of a professional. Brayden slips a little back into that submissive mindset, and worries at how much better it makes him feel, right away. “Will I see you? Will you come to work?”

Work
, Brayden thinks with dismay.

“I don’t know,” he says honestly.

When Jenner next speaks, there’s a plain urgency to it, as some manner of fear affects him. “This isn’t anyone’s business but our own. Even Max, Art—I won’t say a word. I swear it.”

That almost makes Brayden smile, but the turmoil churning in him squelches it. “I just don’t know if I’m comfortable working for you anymore. Let me think about it. I can’t think right now. I just need to go home.”

“Okay.”

Resignation. Finality.

Brayden turns the lock and pulls on the door. Jenner’s hand darts out, pushing it back closed. Frowning heavily, Jenner turns Brayden around to face him and, before Brayden has time to react, surges in to kiss him one more time.

Brayden’s lips part to voice a protest but then Jenner is on him, his lips silken and so very soft as they close around his own. It’s tender and unhurried. It makes Brayden feel uncomfortably exposed and scared but it also thrills him on a level he doesn’t even begin to understand yet. He kisses Jenner back but keeps his eyes closed.

“Please let me see you again,” Jenner whispers against his lips.

But already Jenner has taken more than Brayden had in him to give, so Brayden pushes him away, slipping out the door and running down the steps in search of air and escape.

Ruth ‘Nana’ Clare is woken at just shy of four o’clock in the morning by the sound of someone opening the back door and entering her house. As her bedroom is on the first floor, at the rear of the building, she is easily roused by the faint noises. She pulls on her robe and seeks the source of rustling in the kitchen, staying to the shadows until she sees, for certain, that it is indeed her grandson, home at last after a long night out.

“I knew you’d get here sooner or later,” she says, surprising Brayden. He stands by the sink, holding a glass and drinking water from the tap. The lights are all out, so all she can make out is his form in the moonlight.

“Jeez, Nan, you scared me!” He blows out a breath and adds, “Go on back to bed, I just needed a drink.”

“You haven’t had enough to drink?”

The teasing in her question is borne of curiosity, not accusation. As she flips on the small light over the stove in order to see him more clearly, he squints against the glare and mumbles, “That’s not why I was out.”

She stares at him, examining him from a few feet away. “Have a seat, child. You look like hell warmed over. I’ll make you some breakfast.”

“No thanks. I’m just going to head upstairs, I think.”

His eyes are bloodshot and he seems sad to her. Trying to puzzle out why, she chances, “It’s not drugs, is it?’

“No, Nana. I don’t do that stuff. Really, time just got away from me. I was with a, uh, friend from work.”

“Well, I’m glad you have a friend,” she says softly. “Is everything okay?”

She hovers by one of the kitchen table’s chairs, gripping the back of it. Hiding behind his curtain of hair, Brayden shrinks under her scrutiny. It’s evident to her that he wants to be out of there, away from her questions, so like his mother, and also his mother’s father, that it pains her. So many people that she has cared for and tried, somehow, to help, but they didn’t want it, couldn’t accept it. She has never understood the reasons why they kept their secrets, pulling away from her, slipping into shadow rather than choosing love and light. She stands her ground and does all she knows how to do—try to reach him, somehow.

“I’m guessing that’s a no,” she sighs when there is no answer. “What can I do to help? Just tell me. That’s what family is for. At least in my opinion, which I know might not count for much.”

Brayden’s eyes skate around the room, and she tries to follow where they land—Emma’s new backpack, sitting by the door and bought for her, recently, by her big cousin; the pantry, overflowing with food from the latest grocery run, also paid for by Brayden’s salary from the bar; back to where he’d come from, past the back door and the world beyond.

He asks, “You’re glad I’m here?”

That moves her. She steps forward and grabs up his hand, holding it in hers. He tries to inch away and get free of her, but she clasps his fingers and squeezes lightly. “I’m
grateful
you’re here. You know that. Don’t know what I’d do without such a thoughtful grandson. Now, what’s this all about?”

He shakes his head, his face unreadable, like a mask. “I won’t let you and Emma down. I promise.”

“Good. I’m glad. We both need you here, you know that much, but maybe you need us too. You don’t have to keep everything to yourself, sweetheart. I’ll gladly listen if you want to talk. And if there’s something bothering you, which it seems there is….”

He pulls his hand away. It slips free and he sets his glass by the sink. “I’m gonna jump in the shower and try to get some sleep.”

Nodding slightly, she relents, watching him go. He hurries from the kitchen, up the stairs and away.

“You’re here.”

“So are you.”

Max stands frozen in mid-step in the hallway of their house after doing a double-take at seeing Jenner in his bedroom, sitting on his bed and holding his cat, Pussy.

She continues to stare. Jenner doesn’t blink, he only waits for her to say something else or leave him alone.

“I’ve been feeding her for you,” Max tries, nodding at his pet. When there’s no response, she adds, “You’re welcome.”

Stroking the feline idly, Jenner’s face is astonishing in its total lack of emotion. It brings him much contentment to watch Max try to puzzle him out and fail in the attempt. Complete control, always. When parts of his life fall into disarray, he reorganizes, strictly, the other areas to make up for it.

“Do we have a problem here? Did I do something to piss you off?”

“Nope. No problem,” Jenner says with a quirk of his upper lip, dismissing the idea.

Not buying it but satisfied enough for the moment, Max hardens, concealing her feelings as well and sighs, “Whatever,” leaving her housemate to his demons.

Jenner watches her go. Pussy starts to bat at a stray thread hanging from the sleeve of his shirt, rolling onto her back to get a better angle at it. Repositioning her with a glower, Jenner resumes his brooding.

It’s been about eight hours since Brayden left the apartment and the passing of each one has only increased Jenner’s sense of foreboding. But he has no idea what to do. In the moment, everything had seemed perfect. It was only afterward that Jenner’s gloom had settled in, realizing Brayden had been a virgin, glimpsing the possibly dark motivations for Brayden’s preference for bondage and submitting, fearing that the next time Jenner sees his new slave it will be to receive his resignation. That’ll be it. Brayden will be gone.

You scared him off. It’s your fault. You brought it on yourself.

He’d never want to stay with someone like you. He’ll quit, vanish, and go searching for someone better. Someone kinder.

Pessimism is a cloud over his head, a defense mechanism. Beyond those negative instincts, Jenner tries to figure out if he’s the bad guy in all of this. And, if so, how to set things right. It would be maddening to lose something so incredible, so soon after getting his first, decadent taste.

His phone bleeps in his pocket.

Cursing, he digs it out and answers the call only after registering the number on the ID.

“Yeah,” he says, wearily. “Hey, Cal.”

Callum Parrish, Jenner’s older brother, is their father’s son through and through. Callum tells Jenner, abruptly, “Mom’s having everyone over for dinner. You should come.”

See the way he talks to you? Your own brother? He doesn’t care. He hates you, just like everyone else. You’re an item on his To Do list. You’re the role you fill, nothing else. Why do you even bother? If they knew who you really are, they’d despise you; shun you as a freak, a disgrace to the family. You’re not the strong, proud, noble son; you’re nothing but a pretty lie.

Logically, he knows it’s just a sour mood, but lingering bitterness causes him to respond, “I’ve been great, actually, thanks for asking. The bar’s doing really well and I met a swell girl. It might be love.”