Empty Nests (29 page)

Bowerbirds

Nested Hearts: Book Two

By Ada Maria Soto

Two very different men have a chance at happiness, but only if they can let go of their painful pasts and allow love to take precedence.

After spending his teens and twenties raising his son, James Maron is now dating Gabriel Juarez, the wealthy and sophisticated CFO of the TechPrim technology empire. But after a life of proudly holding his head above the poverty line with the ethos of work, priorities, responsibility, and thrift, he is not looking for a Sugar Daddy, he does not need to be rescued, and Gabe’s wealth is as terrifying as feeling love for the first time.

Gabe has never been good at balancing his high pressure job with his relationships. Money usually clears most of the bumps, and when a boyfriend walks away, Gabe figures it’s for a good reason. But James isn’t like other boyfriends. He doesn’t want Gabe’s money for one, and if Gabe wants to keep his relationship together he will have to finally face the ghosts of his own past and reconsider his priorities.

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April 10, 2011

N 37° 47’ 06.8”, W 122° 23’ 39.6”

T
HE
L
EMON
Drop Wonder, James Maron’s ’95 Volvo 850, rattled as it pushed between thirty and thirty-five, trying to merge onto the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. Despite the assurances of his mechanic, James always worried the transmission or some other vital part of the car would simply shake out the bottom, leaving him stranded on the freeway and tying up traffic for hours.

Luckily, it
was
late Sunday afternoon and the traffic was reasonably light, giving him the longer-than-average time he needed to accelerate up to sixty.

Usually when he and his boyfriend, Gabe Juarez, spent a night out, Gabe picked him up in either his classic Mustang or his new Tesla. But Gabe needed to spend half his Saturday in his office, so they had ended up taking separate cars into the city the night before. Which was why James dared to risk his car on the Bay Bridge on a Sunday afternoon.

He checked his dashboard clock. If he stayed lucky, he could make it home by three thirty and get to the laundromat. He hated doing the wash on Mondays. The place always filled up with people who didn’t know how to use the machines and ignored basic laundromat etiquette, like don’t leave your wash sitting when there’s a line for the machine.

In the distance James saw flashing red-and-blue lights. Behind him, he could hear an ambulance siren approaching. Traffic slowed and ground to a halt.

“Crap.”

F
OR
THE
millionth time, a load of baseball gear left by the apartment door nearly sent James tumbling. It was one of the very few things he would not miss when Dylan left for college. He checked his watch and saw it was pushing five in the afternoon. He could technically still make it to the laundromat and get a couple of loads through, but the place filled up quick after five and it became difficult to get the good machines.

Dylan came out of his room, his hair sticking up at odd angles from his postpractice shower. “Hey, Dad. I was starting to worry. How did the concert go last night?”

As a last-second surprise, Gabe had gotten them tickets to the California Honeydrops at the Fillmore. After a couple glasses of wine, Gabe had even talked him into dancing. “It was good. Stop leaving your gear by the door.”

“Good?” Dylan tried for a scolding look, but there was too much humor in his eyes. “No, just
good
does not end with you coming home… um… twenty-one hours later than expected.”

Dylan had been nagging him about getting a social life and a boyfriend for years, but James hadn’t realized he would become so nosy about it once it happened.

You’d think he was the parent here.
“The concert ran a bit late, and we got a room in the city.” Then they decided not to leave that room until a few hours after the normal checkout time, followed by a late lunch.

“Which hotel?”

“Does it matter?” James asked as he picked up Dylan’s baseball gear.

“It might.”

“The Saint Francis,” James muttered, deciding to risk a Monday wash.

“Again? Well, here’s to scoring a sugar daddy.”

“What?” James froze for a second as he tucked a baseball bat under his arm.

Dylan headed for the kitchen and rummaged around the fridge. “I mean, a guy with a steady job is a good thing these days, but one who can score you concert tickets and hotel suites on a whim is a pretty sweet deal.” He pulled an apple from the veggie bin.

“He’s not—”

James felt his phone buzz in his pocket. He juggled around the gear until he could pull it out and saw he had missed a call ten minutes earlier.

“He’s not what?

“Hi. It’s me. Stuck in traffic. Seriously, traffic on a Sunday. I think the Niners are playing or something. Don’t worry, I’m on the hands-free setup. Just wanted to say I had a really nice time this weekend. The concert was a lot of fun. The other activities were fun too. Don’t know how busy I’m going to be this week, but I’d love to be able to come up there for lunch or dinner. Catch a movie or something. Oh, Tamyra left me nine messages, the last one informing me that I’m getting ‘Genie in a Bottle’ for my new ringtone. I’m hoping I can pass it off as a postmodern ironic statement or something. Oh look. Traffic is moving. Well, I’ll talk to you later. Drive carefully. Bye.”

James kept the phone to his ear even after the message ended. Dylan stared at him, one eyebrow raised. He had a funny feeling Dylan practiced that look in the mirror. James hung up the phone. “You know what? My love life is none of your business.”

T
HE
DIM
sum restaurant was decked out in so much red and gold it was almost kitsch. But the food was good, and it wasn’t too crowded for a Friday afternoon. The ability to find restaurants that look like they should be average but in truth were excellent seemed to be Gabe’s special gift.

James could only assume Gabe used his car as a mobile office a lot. It could be an hour drive from Gabe’s office to Berkeley, in good traffic, which was no small amount of time to take out of a Thursday afternoon for a lunch date.

His plate had a collection of sticky-bun wrappers and eggroll crumbs. If he kept letting Gabe take him out to eat, he’d go from skinny to flabby pretty quick. He wondered if maybe he should ask Dylan about a workout plan after all. It couldn’t hurt to be in better shape.

James was reaching for another sweet pork bun when a phone rang. He looked at Gabe, then around the restaurant before realizing it was his phone. It wasn’t showing him any kind of caller ID, but that was a sporadic feature. Actually, ringing qualified as a sporadic feature at times.

He answered it while quickly excusing himself. “Hello?”

“Hello, Mr. Maron?”

“Yes?”

“My name is Vice Principal Robert Jessup. I’m calling about your son, Dylan.”

James’s heart leapt into his throat and his mind zipped through an extensive list of worst-case scenarios. “Yes. What’s wrong? What happened?”

“I’m sorry to say that Dylan was involved in an altercation not too long ago.”

“He what?”

“He was in a fight.”

“What?” James knew what he had just heard could not possibly be right, that they must be talking about the wrong child.

“And as I’m sure you’re aware, we have a strict code of conduct at this school, especially concerning our athletes, and—”

“This is a mistake. Dylan doesn’t fight.” James could feel his hand begin to shake.
It has to be a mistake. Has to be. Dylan doesn’t fight. Dylan has a clean record. Too much is riding on him having a clean record.

“I’m sorry, there’s been no mistake.”

“Look. There has been a mistake and I will be coming there and this will get sorted out!” James hung up the phone and went back to the table.

Gabe stood as he approached. “What’s wrong?”

“I have to go. They said Dylan got in a fight. Dylan never fights, but they’ll kick him off the team if they think he did, and—” James felt the anger and confusion get replaced with panic.

“Do you need a lift?”

“No,” James answered automatically as he gathered his coat. “Shit! Yes. I’m sorry. Dylan has the car today.”

“It’s not a problem. Come on.” Gabe waved to Jared and Tamyra, his driver and PA, who were enjoying their own sticky buns at a separate table. “Let’s go rescue Dylan.”

T
HE
CEMENT
-
AND
-
LINOLEUM
halls echoed as James rushed to the school’s main office with Gabe and Tamyra in his wake. In the waiting area outside the administrative offices, Dylan sat on a wooden bench, holding an ice pack to his face. On the other side were three large boys—if they could even still be called boys—one with a bloody nose and the other two holding ice packs to sensitive parts of the male anatomy.

James sat next to his son and pulled him in for a quick but careful hug. “Are you okay? What happened?”

“I’m fine, Dad, really.” Dylan lowered the ice pack. His cheek and eye were bruised and swelling, but it didn’t look too bad. He looked up at Gabe. “Hi, Gabe.”

“Hey there. Nice bruises.”

“Thanks.”

James put the ice pack back on Dylan’s eye. “Now, what happened? You got in a fight? You don’t fight.”

“It was sort of a fight.”

“Sort of? How do you sort of fight?”

Dylan carefully opened and closed his right hand, which was swelling noticeably. “You know Melinda?”

James tried to run down a depressingly long list of Dylan’s girlfriends.

“Lab partner? Chemistry? Quiet, a little frumpy, came around a few times last year?”

“Yes. Right. Lab partner.”

“Yeah. Anyway, I was taking a shortcut between classes around the back of the art shed, and those assholes were there, and they had Melinda backed up against the wall. I mean, she carried my ass through chemistry last semester, and she looked scared, and it looked like things were about to get really ugly so—” Dylan waved his hand a little toward the thugs, then his eye.

James felt torn. Dylan getting kicked off the team or suspended from school could screw up so many plans. Everything they worked so hard for could vanish with the stroke of an administrative pen. On the other hand, he’d raised a son willing to take on three thugs to protect someone weaker.

He pulled Dylan in close, more for his own comfort. “We will work this out somehow. I promise.”

The door labeled Vice Principal Robert Jessup opened, and a small man in a brown suit poked his head out. He looked at James. “Ah, Mr. Maron. Thank you for coming. A moment of your time?”

James gave Dylan a quick hug.

“Want some backup?” Gabe asked.

“Sure.” James had far more serious matters to focus on than questioning why Gabe wanted to join him.

The office was small, with just a desk, filing cabinet, a couple of chairs, and a couch. James sat in the chair across from the desk. Gabe sat on the couch. He stretched his legs out in front of him, crossed them at the ankles, and spread his arms wide, resting them along the top of the couch.

James looked over his shoulder, giving Gabe a look of irritation. He obviously did not appreciate just how serious the situation was, or he would not be taking everything so casually. Gabe just raised his eyebrows, as if asking a question.

James turned back to Mr. Jessup. He could see Dylan’s file open and tried to read it upside down.

“Now, Mr. Maron, as I’m sure you know, all our student athletes sign a code of conduct.”

“He was trying to defend someone else. It’s not like he went looking for or picked a fight.” James could feel his cell phone in his pocket and was already considering calling the number he’d had memorized since he was fourteen.

“The fact is that an act of violence takes two people, and there are appropriate ways of handling situations.”

“Three against one is a little more than two people.”

“Be that as it may, the school still has policies and procedures in place—”

“Bob,” Gabe suddenly cut in, and James whipped around. “Can I call you Bob? From where I’m sitting, Bob, what we have here is actually a very simple situation.” Gabe hadn’t moved from his casual sprawl. “What we have is a young man—a baseball star with classic all-American looks and a spotless record, raised by a single father in difficult conditions, now heading to Stanford on a scholarship—who saw a poor, shy, bullied girl beset upon by
three
nearly grown men. And knowing full well that he was outnumbered and his actions could—and most likely would—lead to severe personal injury, he still put himself willingly at risk to defend this lone student and stop what could have become the worst kind of crime.”

“Who are you?” Mr. Jessup asked.

“Now I’m sure you’ve been threatened by lawyers before,” Gabe continued, ignoring the question. “This is California—‘I’ll see you in court’ is practically a greeting. But you see, there are far, far worse people than lawyers in the world. There are public relations specialists. And I’m not talking about the kind who put out press releases and spin gaffes. I’m talking about the kind who are hired by presidential candidates and paid in cash out of nondisclosed campaign slush funds. The things they could do with a simple little story like this….” Gabe shook his head a little. He brought his arms forward, steepled his fingers, and peered over them.

“Who are you?” Mr. Jessup asked again, a slight stutter in his words.

“Now, this suit I’m wearing cost twenty-five hundred euros. I bought two others at the same time during a conference in Venice. If I’m willing to drop that kind of cash on a whim, what do you think I’d be willing to spend protecting a kid I’m actually reasonably fond of?” Gabe peered at Bob for about five seconds, never blinking, the tiniest smile on his face.