Clarity of Lines (3 page)

A guest room.

Ryan looked at me a little apologetically. “Sorry.”

“Don’t you apologise,” I told him. “It’s not my house anymore.”

We grabbed our bags and the gift box from the trunk and walked towards the front door. Cooper asked me quietly, “Have you been back here in the last five years?”

“I spent two weeks here right after we separated,” I told him. “But not since then.”

“Come on,” Ryan said, opening the door. He turned to us and whispered, “Mom’s in the kitchen.”

I took a deep breath and followed Ryan through the front living room and into the large open kitchen, where Sofia was dicing fruit.

She looked well. She was wearing a white dress and her trademark gold jewellery and her brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She looked at me, then at Ryan and finally at Cooper. She recognised him immediately. “Oh my, Cooper? Is that you?”

“Mrs Elkin,” he said politely.

She gave me a tight smile, but then leaned in and kissed Cooper’s cheek. “It’s so good to see you. Ryan never mentioned you were coming.” Then she looked at me. “Did you bring Cooper with you? I thought you were bringing your friend.”

There was a beat of absolute silence then I said, “I did.” Sofia looked at me then at Ryan and Cooper, then back to me. “I brought Cooper…my boyfriend.”

Sofia laughed, but when I took Cooper’s hand, her smile died a slow, painful death. “Is this some kind of joke?”

“No,” I said calmly. “Cooper and I have been together for about six weeks, and we…
dated
for six weeks before that.”

Sofia took a step back from us, looking at the three of us, but her eyes settled on me. “You’re
dating
Cooper?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“No,” she said flatly. “He’s just a boy!”

Before I could answer, Cooper said, “Mrs Elkin, I’m not a
boy
.”

She stared at him. “Did he coerce you into this? Did he mislead you?”

“
What?”
Cooper and Ryan asked in unison.

“Sofia,” I said. “That’s enough…”

“Excuse me?” Cooper said, interrupting me. He was looking at Sofia, and I could tell by the set of his jaw he was pissed off.

I considered asking both Cooper and Ryan to give Sofia and I a moment to talk alone, but she’d gone too far. She’d insulted Cooper.

“Actually, no,” I said. “Cooper you don’t need to excuse yourself, or to apologise to anyone for anything.” I took a step back, pulling him with me. “Sorry, Ryan, we’ll find a hotel.”

“No you won’t,” Ryan said, stopping us. “You’re my guest, you can stay here. And Mom,” he said, looking at Sofia, “they’re together. You need to deal with it.” Then Ryan looked at Cooper and me. “Isn’t that what you told me? I just had to deal with it?”

“Uh, pretty much,” Cooper answered.

I felt a sudden rush of pride for Ryan. He was defending me, probably more so to keep his parents from fighting and him being caught in the middle, but still…his stepping in was heart-warming.

“Wait!” Sofia cried, turning to Ryan. “You knew about this?”

“Yes,” he replied slowly. “I was the one who told you about it, remember?”

“Sofia, it’s certainly not Ryan’s fault,” I said.

She stared at me, long and hard, as though she couldn’t understand. “Are there
no
men over forty-five in New York City?” Then she leant back against the kitchen counter and groaned out a sigh. The fight in her was gone. “Really, Tom?”

I squeezed Cooper’s hand. “Yes, really.”

Sofia shook her head. She still wasn’t happy, but at least she’d stopped yelling. She turned back to her chopping board and took a paring knife to a mango. “I was making a mango salsa to go with grilled chicken for dinner,” she said. “I thought it would be nice food for company. I was trying to be supportive and show that I didn’t have a problem with you bringing a friend.”

“My
boyfriend
,” I corrected her. “And I appreciate the sentiment, but we fell a little short on the welcome.”

She put the knife down, which was probably a good thing. “How about a little warning, Tom? How about a phone call before you got here, to say you’re dating someone who went to school with our son?”

“Okay,” I conceded. “Yes, I probably should have given you some warning. I apologise.”

Cooper squeezed my hand.

Sofia sighed loudly, put both her hands on the kitchen counter and took a breath. Then she faced us and tried to smile. “Apology accepted. Cooper, I’m very sorry for the way I spoke to you. I was taken off guard, and I’m sorry.”

He gave her a curt smile. “It’s fine, Mrs Elkin,” he said, but it was clear to see it wasn’t fine with him at all.

“We might go freshen up,” I told her, giving us all some time to cool down. “Which of the guest rooms is ours?”

She stopped then, and looked down, as though she finally realised I was staying here with someone else. “The blue room,” she said quietly. “Second on the left.”

All the guest rooms were upstairs so I led Cooper back the way we’d come to the stairs in the foyer. I dropped his hand to pick up our suitcases and he quietly followed me up to the room.

I put the bags at the foot of the bed, Cooper closed the door behind us, and I turned to face him. “I’m really sorry about that,” I told him. “I didn’t think she’d take it very well, but she seems to have calmed down a bit.”

Cooper looked at me. “She might be your ex-wife, and she might be Ryan’s mother, and I was taught to show respect,” he said, “but she’s a bitch.”

I cupped his face in my hands, and pecked his lips. “Yes, she was very rude.”

“I was just about to tell her to mind her own fucking business,” he went on to say. “I don’t get angry very often, but she insinuated that you coerced me! Like you were some creeped-out paedophile and I was some innocent kid.”

“I know,” I agreed, but then he cut me off.

“And thank God you stood up for me,” he said, “telling her I didn’t need to apologise to anyone for anything, because I was just about to say something I’d probably have regretted.”

I held his forehead to mine and took a deep breath. “You would have been well within your rights,” I told him. “The fact she’d insulted you is what made me react.”

He twisted his lips into a frowning pout. “Yes, she assumed it was you who coerced me!” he sulked. “When it was
me
who coerced
you
!”

“The hide of her,” I said with a smile. “Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?”

Still pouting, he pretended to have to think about it. “Well, she did hurt my feelings.”

I cupped his balls in my hand. “Does it hurt here?” I asked against his lips. “Want me to kiss it better?”

He smiled. “Would it be considered rude if you were to suck me off with your ex-wife making us dinner downstairs?”

I pulled his bottom lip between my teeth, and stroked his cock through his cargos. “Very rude.”

He smiled. “Then yes, kiss it better,” he said as he rubbed his dick against my hand. I pushed him onto the bed and undid the fly on his cargos. “Tom?”

I freed his cock from his briefs and looked up at him. “Yeah?”

“I think she hurt your feelings too,” he said, leaning up on his elbows. “I think I might need to kiss yours while you kiss mine.” Cooper pulled me onto the bed and within seconds we were sixty-nineing, with our pants around our hips and our dicks down each other’s throats.

At least that way Sofia couldn’t hear him scream.

Chapter Four

Dinner was much more relaxed. Well, Cooper and I were much more relaxed after ‘freshening up’ upstairs. Sofia, on the other hand, seemed more resigned.

She was trying to make an effort. Conversation seemed to revolve around Ryan, which was fine, but she eventually asked Cooper about his parents, how they were and what they were doing. She asked him about his job and he answered politely. He could see she was making an effort and he extended the courtesy, though it was fairly obvious she’d done her dash with him.

Not long after dinner, Ryan wanted to know if he could open his birthday present. He’d been eyeing the wrapped gift box since I put it on the counter. “If everyone’s arriving tomorrow, I won’t have much time to enjoy it,” he said. “Whatever it is.”

Cooper grinned. “You’re gonna love it.”

“You know what it is?” Ryan asked him, and Cooper nodded. Ryan then looked at me. “Can I open it, pleeeeeease?” he whined like a five-year-old.

I said, “Yes, but take it into the living room.”

Ryan got up, Cooper quietly thanked Sofia for dinner and joined Ryan in the living room. And no sooner had I picked up the finished plates and taken them to the kitchen than I heard the sound of paper ripping.

Then Ryan yelled from the other room. “Oh my fucking God!” He then appeared at the door holding the box. His grin was huge. “You didn’t!”

“I did,” I told him. “Direct from Japan. There are only a handful of them in the States until it’s released in the fall apparently, so it wasn’t exactly easy to get. Though it was Cooper’s idea. You can thank him.”

Ryan threw one arm around Cooper, hugging him in a man-hug kind of way. “Thanks, man!”

Cooper looked at him seriously, hopefully. “That means I can play too, right?”

They disappeared back into the living room, and I was still smiling when Sofia walked in with more dirty plates.

“Leave them,” I told her. “I’ll clean up.”

She put them on the sink. “Your birthday gift was a hit.”

“Yes well, he mentioned he wanted it to Cooper,” I told her as I filled the sink with hot water. “I wouldn’t have known otherwise.”

“Ryan and Cooper are still friends?” she asked.

“Yes, why wouldn’t they be?”

She shook her head like I was missing the obvious.

“Look, Sofia, I’m not going to argue with you about him,” I told her outright. “You offered for me to bring my partner, so I did. I’m not hiding anything anymore, Sofia. Would you prefer I lie to you? Would you prefer to find out from someone else?”

She exhaled loudly, but didn’t answer. Instead, she picked up a dishtowel and started to dry the plates. It was like she wanted to say something, but kept stopping herself, and there was a heavy silence between us.

When we’d finished dish-duty, Sofia seemed to be back to resigned. “I’m turning in for the night. See you in the morning,” she said, and without another word, she walked out.

I finished tidying up, checked my emails, watched and laughed at Ryan and Cooper for a while as they played a game I couldn’t follow, but then told them I was heading to bed.

I stripped down to my briefs, climbed into bed and closed my eyes. Not fifteen minutes later, warm hands slid around me and a familiar body pressed against me. Cooper whispered in my ear, “No sleep for you yet. I have somewhere else I need you to kiss better.”

“Is that so?” I murmured.

“Mm-mm,” he hummed. “But it’s inside me…about eight inches inside me. I’m sure you can reach it.”

I laughed into the pillow before I rolled over to kiss him. “I’m sure I can.”

* * * *

Cooper and I woke early, and he decided we should take a walk along the beach, just the two of us, before our day was filled with other people.

He didn’t have to say he wanted some time away from Sofia. I just understood. He held my hand as we walked. He was quiet, but he seemed happy. “I think we should have a swim when we get back to the house,” he told me. “Then we can have breakfast, have another swim and maybe a bit of a lie down before twenty of Ryan’s friends turn up.”

I stopped walking on the beach and pulled Cooper against me. I stared at him for a long moment before slowly sliding my hand along his jaw and kissing him. He melted against me, into me, and when I slid my tongue into his mouth he moaned.

When I finally pulled away from him, he looked dazed. And smug. “What was that for?”

“A thank you,” I told him. “For being here with me. For putting up with my ex-wife for a weekend. It’s a lot to ask of you and I wanted you to know I’m grateful.”

He took my hand and we started walking back to the house. “Well, you can show me how grateful you are by making me breakfast, and then how grateful you
really
are when we have a nap.”

I was still smiling when we walked back up to the house, still holding hands. Sofia had already put out a spread of croissants and fruit on the back patio table. She and Ryan were there and while Ryan smiled at us, Sofia quickly made the offer of coffee and walked inside.

She came back out a few minutes later with a tray of fresh coffee and some mugs, and to her credit, she did try to get along.

After we’d eaten, Cooper declared it was time for a swim. He and Ryan left me sitting at the table and went to get changed, but then Cooper came back and put his hands on my shoulders. He leant down and spoke in my ear. “That includes you.”

Sofia, who was picking a platter up off the table, cleared her throat. “You boys go and swim while I get things ready,” she said, though she was clearly uncomfortable with public displays of affection between us.

I followed Cooper up the stairs and into our room. He was smiling, rather pleased with himself.

“I don’t think Sofia appreciated you touching me,” I told him as I was getting changed into my swimming shorts.

Cooper smiled. “That’s why I did it.”

I tried not to smile. “Be nice. She’s trying to accept it. She’ll be fine with us, you’ll see.”

He lifted one perfectly arched eyebrow. “Tom, are you blind?” he asked. “She’s jealous! She wants you back!”

“No she doesn’t,” I replied quickly.

“Babe, she looks at you all the time. I’m telling you, she wants you.”

“I don’t want her,” I told him. I tied off my shorts and crossed the room to him. “I don’t want her. I don’t want to go back. I’ve never been happier than where I am right now, okay?”

He nodded then his lips curled into a slow smile. “Why do you always know what to say?”

“Years of experience.”

Cooper sighed, then changing the subject, he scrubbed his fingers along my unshaven jaw. “You look hot with scruff.”

“My scruff, as you call it, is all grey along here,” I admitted, rubbing my chin.