Chapter 19 - Story Within A Story.

Justin was in the bathroom, standing in front of the sink and brushing his teeth, when Brian sauntered in, already stripped bare.

“I stink,” Brian announced, lifting his arm and taking a whiff of his own pit. “How the fuck can a person get so fucking tired and sweaty just sitting at a fucking desk all day?” He edged past Justin towards the shower. “I’m going to take a quick shower before bed.” Pausing after he slid open the shower curtain, he turned and waggled an elegant eyebrow at his guest via the mirror’s reflection. “Care to join me, Ghost?”

Justin froze, frothy toothpaste dripping down the handle of the toothbrush onto his fingers, as he stared back at the mirror’s image of a naked, inviting Brian Kinney. Brian simply stood there, not pushing, but smiling lasciviously at the boy with his arms held out towards the shower like a game show hostess gesturing towards the prize. Justin was no match for the silly man’s game. With a shy smile, he bent, spit out his mouthful of toothpaste, rinsed the brush under the tap and then turned to face his waiting host.

“Good call,” Brian teased, reaching out to grab the front of the boy’s shirt and use it to pull him closer. “I wouldn’t want a smelly ghost in my bed now, would I?”

Justin bit at his bottom lip sheepishly, his eyes sparkling with quiet amusement, but didn’t answer. He let himself be drawn towards his naked host without any resistance. As soon as Brian had his victim within easy reach, he gave in to his desire and leaned down, one finger under Justin’s chin to raise the pale face and take possession of the boy’s eminently kissable lips. The ghost happily kissed back until they were both in need of a cold shower to cool them off.

Not that Brian was worried about cooling off - he was just getting started.

Breaking away from the kiss long enough to pull Justin’s shirt off over the boy’s head, Brian tossed the fabric aside and then returned to the soft, pliant lips once more. Damn the kid was delicious! And, for a relative tyro, he sure could kiss like a pro. It had to be those juicy, full lips. The more he thought of those lips, though, the harder it became for Brian to remember that the point had been to get them in the shower and then off to bed. Which definitely sounded better than standing here and doing whatever they were going to do in the middle of the bathroom floor.

With the intent of moving things along, Brian hooked a finger through the waistband of the kid’s jeans and yanked till the top button popped. Then he snaked one hand down inside, too eager to root out the funner bits of his ghost’s anatomy to bother with a damn zipper. Justin gasped loudly as Brian’s hand cupped around his balls, giving a gentle squeeze or two and then releasing his treasure so he could finish sliding the pants off the boy’s slim hips. Justin seemed either too shocked or too aroused to object and merely stood there like a mannequin while he was being undressed between kisses. Once all the annoying clothing was gone and the boy was standing there in the buff, Brian took a step back and surveyed his subject.

“Well, you’re as pale as a ghost, that’s for sure,” he teased running his fingers along one creamy pec, down the boy’s abs and then stopping just above the dark blond curls below. “But you certainly feel like solid flesh and bone. Quite a lovely bit of bone, too.”

Brian traced one finger fleetingly across the tip of the young man’s prodigiously straining cock with an appreciative smile, causing the ghost's pale cheeks to pinken nicely and his dick to twitch expectantly. Brian loved how innocent the kid was while, at the same time, he was so agreeably open to every advance. It was a heady combination. But, if he didn’t move on soon, Brian was going to forget the shower altogether.

The Stud tore his attention away from the waiting GhostBoy, drew back the shower curtain and leaned down to turn on the tap. The plumber must have got the new tankless water heater installed without a problem since the hot water came out almost immediately. Brian was impressed and happy that he wouldn’t be standing around waiting for a warm shower for endless minutes. Plus, this meant he could get his ghost under the water that much sooner.

“After you,” Brian offered gallantly, stepping back so that Justin could precede him into the shower enclosure.

The boy smiled at him nervously but only hesitated a moment before he took up the challenge, stepped over the edge of the tub and into the spray from the showerhead above. Brian quickly followed, moving to stand directly behind the shorter blond and pulling the shower curtain closed behind them. Then Brian picked up the bar of soap and used it to thoroughly lather up the boy’s backside, sliding his hands over the slim shoulders, the lightly muscled back, and the trim hips. The only part of the youth that wasn’t on the thin side was his ass which, Brian was happy to note, was nicely plump. He lingered a bit on that feature, enjoying the pleasant way the pair of soapy ass cheeks fit into his palms. The firm, full flesh was so delectably tempting. He gave the twin globes a familiar little squeeze, eliciting an appreciative moan from his ghost in the process. Brian simply couldn’t get enough of that perky, sweet ass. Justin’s ass was made to be fondled. And more.

Brian easily gave in to his desire to become even more intimately acquainted with that amazing ass. He pulled his ghost back, flush against his body, and started to run his soapy hands all over the boy’s chest and abs while his cock settled nicely in the soapy crack behind. Justin let himself sag backwards, his weight supported by Brian’s solid frame, as the warm shower water continued to pelt down on his face. The big guy’s tender ministrations were calming and exciting the boy at the same time. He seemed to have abandoned any trace of his former hesitation though. The ghost was completely under Brian’s thrall by that point.

Eventually, Brian’s hands drifted lower. His fingertips played over the softness of the younger man’s loins, edging towards the patch of thick blond pubes and using the soapy lather to draw esoteric messages on the sensitive skin along the way. The boy twitched a little as Brian’s tickling touch reached a particularly reactive nerve ending or two, but instead of pulling away he pressed back against the bigger frame behind him. Brian was the one moaning then.

Brian took the boy’s actions as an invitation to proceed and gleefully grabbed hold of the pretty pink cock jutting out jubilantly in front of the younger man. Justin instinctively tilted his hips forward into the grip. Then, when he pulled back, it caused his ass to press even more firmly against Brian’s front, and Brian’s cock naturally glided down the soapy crack in an eminently pleasurable slide. Brian continued rutting against the kid’s plump backside while fisting the well-endowed manly bits in front. And, with the warm pattering of the shower on their faces, the excitement of skin touching skin, and the exquisitely pleasurable frotting, it didn’t take long before Brian was teetering on the very brink of no return.

“Brian,” the longing and trust in the boy’s tone told him that his ghost was just as ready.

“That’s my good GhostBoy. Come for me. Come for me now,” Brian whispered into the shell of Justin’s ear as he pulled the slender hips tightly against him with a jerk, sinking his own cock deep between the boy’s creamy thighs and giving one last tug with his free hand that caused the boy to explode with ecstasy with Brian following suit a heartbeat later.  

They stood there after that, each using the other to remain upright while the shower washed away the congealing droplets of cum from thigh and stomach and hands, and the cooling shower water mimicked the cooling wash of endorphins within. Brian felt languorous. It might not have been the wildest fuck he’d ever had, but it had been surprisingly satisfying. If the porcelain tub below his feet weren’t so hard and cold, he might have just sunk to his feet and fallen asleep there. And judging by the boneless way his ghost was slouching against his chest, Justin apparently felt the same sense of lastitude. The younger man compliantly let Brian finish rinsing them both off, then followed as his lover turned the water off, helped him protectively out of the shower, towelled them both dry and led the way to the big, comfy master bed.

They crawled under the covers together, settling into what had become their usual pose - Justin’s head nestled on Brian’s shoulder while the boy curled around the larger man’s side. Brian wasn’t feeling particularly sleepy, but he didn’t feel energetic either. It was more of a relaxed serenity. A feeling that he didn’t remember experiencing before with any prior trick. And what was even more astounding was they hadn’t even really fucked. It had only been a little frotting with a hand job thrown in for good measure. Somehow, though, that brief interlude had felt more elemental, more satisfying, than any fuck in his recent memory. It left Brian surprised and thoughtful, lying there in bed with his arms full of sated blond boy, his mind too full of wonder to let him settle down and fall asleep.

“Brian?” The voice of his ghost sounded as sleepy and quiet as Brian felt. “I wanted to say . . . Thank you.”

“Hmm? Nobody’s ever thanked me for giving them a hand job before, Ghost. You’re more than welcome though. I’m happy to lend a hand whenever needed.”

The soft giggle vibrated through Brian’s skin. He could feel the amused smile as his ghost’s lovely lips, pressed against his chest, curled up at the corners. He reflexively tightened his embrace, twisting his head to the side just enough to leave a small kiss on the tip of the boy’s ear.

“Well, there’s that too,” Justin conceded. “But . . . Well, I . . . I just wanted to thank you for being so nice to me. You know, for not kicking me out as soon as you realized what was what and . . . For letting me stay hidden here. I can’t tell you how much it means to me. Nobody’s ever been this nice to me. This understanding . . .”

Brian didn’t really know what to say to that. He didn't like being thanked for just doing what was right or being called out for his generosity. And he didn’t want to enable the boy's extreme introversion, but he wasn’t going to push him either. He didn’t think it would work, in the first place, and it wasn’t really Brian’s style. Brian had always been a proponent of letting people make their own decisions, even if those decisions were also mistakes.

“I wish you didn’t feel like you needed to hide, Ghost,” Brian responded finally, passively giving voice to his biggest concern for the boy.

“I wish that too.” Justin paused, lost in thought for several silent moments before he continued. “I wish a lot of things about my life were different, Brian . . .”

Since there was no good reply to that statement, both men fell silent again after that. Neither managed to fall asleep for a long time. At least they were in good company while they laid there brooding though.

Brian yawned and stretched his body out across the diagonal of the bed. He smacked his lips a couple times. He grumbled when the morning light streaming through the window blinded him as soon as he cracked open his eyes. He sighed and stretched again. And then his brain kicked in enough that he realized something wasn’t quite right with his morning experience.

Without opening his eyes all the way - because, you know, the blinding light and all - he stretched his left hand out and patted around on the empty bed next to him. His hand did not encounter the warm, cuddly, blond ghost he expected to find there. Braving the morning, Brian opened his eyes all the way and scanned the bedroom, finding absolutely no trace of the boy.

Which was really annoying. He’d rather liked waking up with blond boy in his arms the past couple of days. And he’d had plans for the little ghost this morning. He had hoped to further the boy’s sexual education a step or two. Maybe introduce the tyro to a few more of the pleasures that came with being gay. But, unfortunately, it looked like the ghost couldn’t stay put where Brian could get to him, so morning playtime was off for today.

Brian eventually rolled out of bed, padded off to do his business in the bathroom, and then made his way downstairs in search of his phantom companion. He found a freshly brewed pot of coffee in the kitchen and all the breakfast fixings still set out on the counter waiting for him. But no ghost. He popped a bagel into the toaster, loaded his coffee mug with an inch or so of sugar, and then added some coffee to season it. Then he shuffled out of the kitchen, intent on figuring out where the errant ghost had disappeared to this time.

His first clue was the rhythmic hammering coming up from the basement. What the fuck was the kid up to this early in the morning that involved hammering? Seriously? Shouldn’t hammering be illegal before noon?

Brian traipsed groggily down the stairs to find his handy little haunt diligently slaving away at repairing the smashed doorway into the crawl space. Brian supposed he should be grateful that the kid was helping put the hatchway door to rights again. It had really been destroyed by that sledgehammer Brian had used on it when he needed to rescue Justin from the fire. But, still, Brian wasn’t thrilled to think that the boy was voluntarily reconstituting his former prison. There was no way Brian was going to let the younger man retreat back into that pit.

“The construction worker always was one of of my favorite Village People,” Brian commented sardonically, coming up behind the boy and dexterously grabbing the hammer out of his hand before Justin could make more noise with it. “You’ve got the tool belt - all you need is the hard hat and then you can start doing ‘YMCA’,” he teased, grabbing hold of the leather belt the boy had donned - which was Brian’s by the way, but which definitely looked hotter on the kid - and pulling until his crafty contractor boy was turned around and available for a good morning kiss. “Good morning, Mr. Handyman.”

“Mmmm. Coffee kisses. Nice,” Justin teased back with a smile as soon as he could get in a word and a breath.

“Why so industrious this morning, Ghost?” Brian asked.

“I just . . . I thought I should fix the door, you know. In case . . .”

“Yeah, well, I appreciate you repairing the door so that there’s no hole in my wall, but you’re not going back in there.” Justin opened his mouth as if to protest, but Brian cut him off with another kiss before adding, “it’s not safe in there, Ghost. The wiring is for shit and there’s no light or electricity. Besides, it’s a fucking pit and I don’t want you lurking in there any more.”

“But, I . . . I don’t have anywhere else to go, Brian. Are you going to kick me out after all? I thought you were okay with me being here. I mean, I can’t leave. Not yet. I-I-I haven’t figured out where to go or what to do, and I . . .”

Justin pulled away from Brian, starting to pace back and forth across the space of the basement room, chewing worriedly at his thumb nail.

“Calm yourself, Drama Princess. I’m not kicking you out,” Brian insisted, grabbing Justin on his next pass-by. “But there’s no reason for you to live in this fucking hole, either. I’m fine with you sharing my room for the time being. Or, are you saying you’re sick of me already?” Justin smiled bashfully and shook his head. “Well, if you are, that’s fine. It’s a big house. There’s plenty of other rooms if you feel the need to relocate. Not that I want you to. But we could always finish off one of the spare bedrooms for your stuff and all.”

“Are you sure, Brian? I don’t want to put you out more than I already am. I feel like such a freeloader.”

“I’m fucking sure, Ghost,” Brian insisted and punctuated his statement with another reassuring kiss just so the boy knew he was serious.

“Well, okay . . . Thanks, Brian. Again.” Justin took back his hammer and stepped away from Brian’s arms. “But I really should fix this up for you. You don’t need a gaping hole in your wall. It won’t take me long. I’ve already got the frame rebuilt. I was just going to replace the wood paneling.”

Justin went right back to his work, intent on measuring the next board. Brian took another sip of his coffee and slouched back onto the bench of his weight set, enjoying the show while his ghost did the whole construction thing. The kid seemed to know his way around a hammer pretty well. And, with that tool belt cinched around the slim hips, a sleeveless t-shirt and ragged, torn jeans adorning the boy’s frame, and several nails dangling from between the plump, pink lips while Justin hammered away at his project, Brian thought the kid was incredibly hot. Maybe they could play construction worker later that night . . .

“So, what’s up with this place anyway,” Brian finally asked, his curiosity outweighing the amusement of watching Justin work.

“Huh?”

Brian gestured toward the maw of the pit with his almost empty coffee cup. “Hernando’s Hideaway? The Pit of Despair?” Justin still looked like he didn’t know what Brian was asking so he elaborated. “What’s the story with your hiding place here, Ghost? I mean, it's supposed to be a dirt-filled crawl space, not a hidden room. How'd you work all this?”

“Oh. Well, like I said, it used to be like that,” Justin explained as he continued with his hammering and nailing and sawing. “After my parents decided to redo the entire basement and make it into a really nice, big rec room, they excavated the crawl space and started to put in a bathroom along with some additional storage space. Unfortunately, they only got the rough framing and basic plumbing done before my mother died . . . After that, I guess my father never got around to finishing it. And I just, sorta, made a few additions of my own . . .”

“I see,” Brian mused, glad to finally get at least some answers about his mysterious house. “Well, I’m sure my bagel popped long ago and I’m due for another infusion of coffee, so I’ll just leave you to it and go back to my breakfast. Happy hammering, Ghost.”

Brian had just put his breakfast dishes in the dishwasher when his happy handyman materialized in the kitchen looking pleased with whatever he’d accomplished. Justin advised that the crawl space door was repaired, rehung, and the hole in Brian’s basement wall was once again almost invisible. Brian didn’t really care, as long as Justin wasn’t planning on disappearing into the hole again.

“I’m going to put in a few hours on my novel,” he announced. “I haven’t had much time to write the past few days and I’m itching to get that scene we started on last week finished.”

“I hope you don’t mind,” Justin spoke up with a nervous frown, “but I already added some stuff to that scene for you. You were saying you wanted to flesh out your victim more - add a little more background - so I . . . added a bit.” Justin looked so diffident and worried that it made Brian wonder exactly what had been added. “I doubt it’s any good, but I figured you might be able to at least work with it. If you hate it, you can just delete the whole scene.”

“I haven’t hated anything you’ve done so far, have I?”

The ghost boy simply shrugged noncommittally and didn’t meet Brian’s eyes. Silly, adorable, little twat. Before Brian could get all sentimental and lesbianic, though, he shook his head, turned on his heel and marched out the door, headed for his computer upstairs.

“You coming, Mr. Ghost Writer?” he asked over his shoulder before he got too far.

Brian was gratified to note the shyly proud smile that broke out on his boy’s face before the younger man trotted over and followed him up the stairs.

They arranged themselves as usual - Brian sat at his desk in front of the big desktop computer while Justin lounged on the bed with his tablet - and Brian opened up the document. With a couple of clicks he was at the right chapter and could see that his Ghost had been more than busy, with the ‘bit’ he’d added spanning several pages. Well, well, well. It looked like his ghost certainly had been productive.

Brian dived right into the new material, and found himself caught up almost instantly:

The boy had been cowering in the passenger seat of the car all the way home.

He didn’t know what was going to happen when they arrived, but he knew it wouldn’t be good. The silence in the car as they sped away from the school was heavy and foreboding. Out of the corner of his eye, the boy could see his father fuming, the angry thoughts roiling across the man’s reddened face. He knew the backlash from today was going to be horrible.

Damn the fucking Principal for calling his father in the first place. Who would have thought that his first foray into kissing would end up like this? Fucking Dickhead Dickson. If the damned English teacher hadn’t interrupted and caught the boy just as he’d snaked his hand down the front of the quarterback’s jeans, nobody would have been the wiser about things. But, after Dickson called them out on it and, worse, marched them down to the Principal’s office for a talking to about ‘public displays of affection’, the closeted jock had panicked. Of course the school’s star athlete was freaked out over the possibility of anyone hearing that he’d been making out with another BOY. He didn’t have to be a total ass about it though. The boy was going to be outed as well and you didn’t see HIM spouting off at the top of his lungs and picking a fight right in front of a fucking teacher, did you? After that it was a given that both their parents would be called, escalating the whole thing to another level altogether.

And now the boy’s angry, abusive and totally homophobic father knew the secret that he’d been trying to hide since he turned twelve and first realized he was attracted to boys.

The car pulled up to the front of the house and his father pushed the button on the remote to open up the garage before bounding out of the vehicle. The boy wasn’t going to rush to get out though. He had no reason to hurry towards the punishment he knew was likely waiting for him. Unfortunately, the boy’s hesitation gave his father time to stride around the front of the car, wrench open the passenger side door and forcibly yank the young man out with a pull so strong it practically threw the slightly built youth across the driveway apron. The boy landed awkwardly, toppling over onto his knees and then just groveling there where he’d fallen.

“How DARE you embarrass me like that!” the expected tirade began. “How dare you expose all your vile, obscene proclivities to people who KNOW me? Frankly, it doesn’t surprise me that you turned out to be a disgusting little faggot. I always suspected you weren’t right, but your mother insisted on coddling you like a fucking baby all the time. Well, look how THAT turned out, huh?”

The boy knew it was futile to try and refute anything his father was saying. Anything he said would only make it worse. All he could do was huddle where he’d fallen and wait it out till his father got tired of screaming at him and moved on to the part where the hitting began.

Only, today, it seemed like his father was going to skip right over that part and move on to something even more horrible.

“Well, I’ve had it with you, boy!” the irate and irrationally angry man roared. “I will NOT have you spreading your perversion around. You’re not fit to be around normal, decent people. You’re a fucking abomination and I refuse to let you infect anyone else with your sickness. You hear me?”

The boy ducked his head, hating the painful words almost as much as he hated the blows he thought would be coming.

“You know what? Fuck this. I’m so done with this, boy! I’m fed up to here!” His father gestured with one hand raised a foot above his head. “I won’t have it anymore. I won’t!”

With a last bellow, his father grabbed the boy by the collar of his shirt and hoisted him halfway to his feet before throwing him bodily towards the open maw of the garage. The boy scrambled to escape him, crawling on hands and knees as fast as he could to get away, knowing all the while it was useless. His father was faster than he was. He’d only made it five feet before the first kick landed to his side. And that first kick was followed by several more, as his father herded him along the cement drive, kick by kick, until he got tired of waiting for the boy to crawl along and just reached down, grabbed him by the arm and dragged him the few remaining steps into the house.

They didn’t make it far though. Once they were through the basement door, the crazed older man tossed his burden down on the cold floor, stalked over to the entrance of the unfinished basement storage room, pulled that door open and then turned to confront his son once more. The boy tried to back away from him, scrabbling with his legs to push his body as far back from the oncoming attack as possible without turning his back to the attacker and thereby making himself more vulnerable. But it was all bootless.

In three large strides, his father reached the boy and halted his futile retreat. Then, with angry hands, he grabbed hold of the youth’s left arm and literally dragged the smaller body over to the storage room. The boy tried to resist, scrabbling for a grip on everything they passed, trying to brace his arms and legs against the door frame, but his father shoved and pushed, kicking at limbs that blocked the way, until the boy was forced to let go. Then his father gave one last kick to the boy’s back, propelling him into the darkness of the small room and slamming the door closed behind him . . .

“Shit,” Brian muttered as he read through the rest of the fictional description of Justin’s imprisonment.

“It’s that bad?” the ghost writer asked from where he’d crept up behind Brian to read over the other man’s shoulder.

“No. No, the writing’s great and it’s definitely the kind of thing I was hoping to add to the story,” Brian assured him, swiveling in his desk chair so that he was facing the boy and then pulling Justin down so he was perched on Brian’s knee. “I just don’t like thinking about you having to go through that in real life.”

“Well, you said you were writing about my life, so . . . that’s my life.”

“Yeah . . . What there fucking was of it . . .” Brian felt an overwhelming need to hug the younger man even though he wasn’t normally the hugging type, so he did, leaning his head against the boy’s chest and squeezing the slim waist in a tight embrace before continuing the conversation from that position. “What I don’t understand though, is how you got out. I mean, if you’d been locked in there all that time, you’d have starved to death after Craig offed himself. You must have managed to get out somehow.”

“It wasn’t that hard,” Justin asserted, sounding a tad bit proud as he related that part of his story. “At first I was just too scared and hurt to do anything more than just lie there where I landed when my father threw me into the room. I heard him doing shit out in the other room - there was a lot of hammering and metallic clanking and stuff - but I was too afraid of him to dare to try to get out again. I waited a long time after all the noises ended before I even tried the door but, of course, by then I couldn’t budge it at all. I found out later that Craig had put a latch on the outside and locked it with a huge padlock. But the idiot had apparently forgot about the ventilation shaft in the corner. There are access hatches opening onto the shaft on each floor and it didn’t take me long to break through one of them - they were only latched closed with really flimsy metal hasps. After that, I would just wait till I knew my father was gone or passed out drunk and then I’d sneak out and get whatever I needed.”

“Ah, that explains a lot. I knew you were sneaky . . . But then, why didn’t you just leave - get the hell out of here and go tell someone what Craig had done? The fucker would have been in jail faster than you could say ‘Felony Abuse’. Why would you stick around for more of his shit,” Brian questioned, getting a little heated at the very thought of the hell the kid had gone through at the hands of that fucker.

“I didn’t have anywhere else to go,” Justin replied with a matter-of-fact shrug. “Besides, it wasn’t that bad. My father never hit me again after that. He would occasionally remember to toss some food in at me and whenever he’d get drunk, he’d open the door and scream at me, blaming every horrible thing in his life on me being gay, but he didn’t come inside. He was a little bit claustrophobic, I think. Eventually, I got tired of that too, though, and I took the fucking lock off the outside of the door and moved it to the inside so I could lock him out.” Justin looked up at Brian with smug satisfaction at how he’d managed his situation, making his life as safe as could be expected under the circumstances. “That totally pissed him off and he threatened to bulldoze the whole fucking house if I didn’t open up, but then he went off and got so shitfaced drunk he forgot about it. After that he pretty much just ignored my existence altogether.”

“That explains why the locks I saw were on the inside of the door,” Brian mused as he remembered that strange anomaly.

“Yeah,” Justin continued. “So, anyway, at least I was physically safe down there. And I had a roof over my head, food, water, all the basics. I even managed to scrounge most of my stuff out of my old room and move it downstairs before Craig figured out I wasn’t locked in and threw the rest of it out.” Justin paused for a minute, seemingly lost in the memories flooding his brain, before he finally looked up at Brian with open honesty. “The alternative was me being homeless and penniless, without a job or even a high school diploma, which wasn’t exactly a good option. By that time I was already eighteen so I wouldn’t have even had the option of going into foster care. I would have been out on the streets. So, I just stayed . . .”

“Shit,” Brian replied, his own shoulders slumping with empathy for the boy’s past predicament.

“Yeah. You said that already,” Justin answered, echoing Brian’s mood. “You wanted my life for you story, Brian, so there it is. It sucks, huh?”

Brian got up from his desk chair, padded over to where Justin was still lying on the bed, and plopped down next to the boy. Then, because he couldn’t think of anything to SAY that might help, he resorted to what he was best at - responding physically. He hooked a leg over the boy’s body, pulled the younger man in close to him and started kissing the sad away with all his studly might.

And, for at least a while, it was enough.