- Black Gold 2 - Double Black (6 page)

This was part of the reason why Billy couldn’t let things get out of hand between Cole and Jett. Both were likely to say something they’d regret. Whether this child was Jett’s or just the son of someone Jett liked—the fact that he remembered her name said a lot—ultimately, Jett wouldn’t want to be ugly to him.

“Is it possible he could be yours? He definitely has your temper.” Billy traced Jett’s frown and tried to prod the corners of his mouth up.

“I was barely eighteen. I didn’t…” Jett scowled harder, determined not to smile despite Billy’s efforts. “I wasn’t as careful then. It was before I got snipped, before I had money or success to make me a target.”

Jett studied Billy’s face. “Why do you want him to be mine so bad? It’s like you’re rooting for the kid! You can’t make him mine just by wanting it.”
Billy recoiled from Jett’s accusation. He swallowed hard.
Was he rooting for the kid? Maybe a little. Cole was just so much like Jett; it was obvious that they had to be related.
Besides, if Jett had a child, maybe he’d stick around.

Billy withdrew to his side of the bed. “Well, he had that picture. And you said yourself it was a possibility. Why are you so against him being yours? Would it really be that tragic to have a family?”

“I thought I did have a family.” The bed shifted as Jett swung his legs over the opposite side. He perched there like some bomb waiting to go off. A couple of seconds passed in silence; then he said in a flat, emotionless way, “I saw how he was looking at you. He’s a grown fucking man, Billy. Don’t forget that.”

Billy felt like he’d been sucker punched. “Of course you have a family. I meant someone to carry on your genes. It’s not something I’m ever likely to have or to be able to give you. But if it’s here…”

The rest of it wasn’t worth responding to. Everyone looked at Billy that way at first. The lust would fade. It was clearly not why Cole showed up.
Jett grunted and stood. A weight lifted from the bed but not from Billy’s chest.
“For fuck’s sake. I thought we were past this bourgeois bullshit with carrying on genes.” Jett’s big feet slapped the floor as he stalked around the bed to stand in front of Billy. His dark gaze fixed on Billy’s face, sharp and untrusting.
Jett frequently turned that look on other people, but Billy was never on the receiving end.
“What does Cole get out of this? He hates my guts. You heard him. He thinks I’m fucking trash, just like everyone else from that corn-fed hellhole. He wants money, right?” The words erupted from Jett like being scalded with a pot of coffee. “He tell you some sob story? Do you think he’s ever gonna love me like family? You think I’m ever gonna be ‘Dad’ to him? No. Even if he’s got my goddamn genes, no.”
Billy flinched but didn’t look away. “He’s gay, Jett. You more than anyone know how hard it is to be different in Kansas. He just lost his mother. His father rejected him. Yeah, he’s pinning it on you, but right now that’s easier for him than blaming the man who raised him for abandoning him. He called you ‘father’ all day long. He’s said over and over that he wants you to step up. I think he wants you to be his dad, but in true testimony to how like you he is, he’s going at it in the most boneheaded way possible.”
Jett laughed. It wasn’t a pleased sound, but some of the tension eased. “Gay, huh? Well, that explains it.” He reached out to cradle the side of Billy’s face in one hand. “What do you want me to do about this, baby? Submit to a paternity test? Let him stay here while we wait a week for the results? Would that make you happy?”

“Yes.” Billy pressed his cheek against Jett’s hand, not sure whether this was a victory or if he was driving a wedge between them. “He’s just a kid, Jett. He’s lost everything. His mother, his father… He has nothing and nowhere to go. Even if it isn’t true, is it so wrong to want to help someone?”

Granted, the young man could’ve been lying, but Billy saw Jett’s painful sincerity in Cole. Perhaps that, more than the brooding good looks, was what convinced Billy they were related.

“I know it would be more sensible to investigate him, but I’m going with my gut.”

Jett’s rueful chuckle declared a cessation of hostilities. “Well, I owe a lot to your gut, so I won’t bitch about it.”
He pressed Billy onto the bed and sprawled atop him like a big cat. He kissed the underside of Billy’s jaw, blessing the bruises left earlier. Then he lay still, one arm and leg slung over Billy’s body and his stubbly cheek pressed to Billy’s chest. “Cover us up?” Jett asked, seeming to ask instead,
Can we sleep now?

Billy brought the covers up to Jett’s shoulder. It was early by rock-star standards, and Billy hadn’t been awake long, but he relished the closeness.
Family had meant many things to Billy over the years. He was Jett’s family and knew he always would be, no matter how things turned out. Without Jett, he felt unmoored. Yet there was something to a romantic—or bourgeois—notion of having children. They’d missed out on watching a mini-Jett grow up, and it didn’t sound like Jett would welcome a reversal of his vasectomy.
If Cole was who he claimed to be, he was the only child Jett would ever have.

Right now even Billy wasn’t sure how he’d deal with a baby, but Cole was old enough to fend for himself. Maybe if Jett opened up to the idea of being a father, down the line they could discuss children. None of that would be resolved tonight, though.

To Billy, it didn’t matter if Cole was blood. He was a wounded young man who needed help. What was yet to be seen was what kind of help he needed.
Chapter Three

Cole paced the floor of the guest bedroom, straining his ears for some hint of the conversation going on a few doors down. He knew the place was too well insulated for their voices to carry, but he kept hoping Jethro would have a meltdown and Cole would be able to glean some of what was going on.

After a while, he became aware of a telltale thudding sound and immediately turned on the television to drown it out.
As much as he enjoyed thinking about Goldie having sex, thinking about Goldie having sex with Jethro was disgusting. He didn’t know how Goldie could stomach being some straight asshole’s bitch. It wasn’t that Cole didn’t realize there were plenty of other gay guys who’d leap at the chance—when the scandal broke, quite a few had publicly claimed they’d give up a nut to get Jett Black’s dick in them—it was that Goldie should be above that. He could have
anyone
, be worshipped, be special instead of whatever he was to a middle-aged burnout.
Cole flopped on the bed with a sigh and stared at the ceiling. He’d seen interviews where Jethro talked about their relationship. Right when it seemed like he might say something good about being gay or loving Goldie, he always begged off with some bullshit about privacy or “Billy knows how I feel, and no one else needs to.” Like anyone but Jethro would be so disrespectful as to call Goldie “Billy” like he was some ordinary dork.
Someone on the television was talking about Goldie when Cole finally paid attention. A reporter counted down the top twenty pop-music style icons of all time. The host gushed about Goldie’s ever-changing hairstyles, makeup, and palettes, but Cole hardly heard it as they showed clip after clip of Goldie in stylish, second-skin outfits, dancing onstage at concerts and award shows. The reporter praised Goldie’s “unattainable allure” and spoke of how his style was so iconic because it was “infinitely sensual without crossing the line into crude sexuality.”
Not so unattainable to me
, Cole thought with a secret thrill. Sure, he didn’t have Goldie right now, but he was only a few feet away, and Cole was much younger than Jett and in better shape.
The last video clip, of Goldie on the Grammy red carpet, showed so much skin that Cole considered taking another shower to relive Goldie kissing him earlier.
Then the countdown completed, ranking Goldie as number three. Ahead of him were Madonna and David Bowie. Behind, at four, was Lady Gaga.
“Boo!” Cole shouted in the general direction of the master bedroom, “You were robbed!”

Then Cole noticed Jett Black was on the list at number nineteen and laughed. “They called you a pop-music icon, asshole!”
Neither answered. He could still detect that low-level thumping from the other room.
“Ugh, fucking stop already!”

Cole rolled over, pulled the pillows over his head, and fell asleep. When he woke, bright light streamed through the huge windows beside the bed. He stretched and rubbed his eyes, feeling disoriented. He’d fallen asleep on the Greyhound two nights ago, and now…
As the realization of where he was and whose clothes he was wearing hit home, Cole bolted upright and almost tripped as his feet tangled in the blanket. He caught his balance by grabbing the nightstand and almost toppled the lamp. When the peril passed, he realized the TV was still blaring.
“Hollywood stars are favoring Louboutins this season!” proclaimed a grotesquely chipper middle-aged woman with collagen-plumped lips.
“Oh, but can we blame them?” asked her companion as they sat in front of a video panel displaying a montage of famous feet.
For a moment, Cole understood why Jethro hated the media so much. Then, invoked like a demon by the thought of his name, the video switched to an image of Jethro sitting at a café table on a sunlit sidewalk. He was smoking a cigarette with complete disregard for the lung cancer he was no doubt giving everyone in his vicinity.
A cute girl who looked not much older than Cole appeared to be hanging on his every word.
The collagen-lipped host’s voiceover continued. “Speaking of blame, infamous bad boy Jett Black was spied just hours ago by some keen-eyed photogs eating breakfast at Tresor Bistro in Studio City this morning. The leather-clad hunk seemed to be getting very friendly with an unidentified girl wearing a chic, diaphanous sundress and gladiator sandals. Could it be that he’s returned to his womanizing ways?”
“Well, if he has…” The cohost’s titter and raised brow summarized everything Cole hated about Jethro’s effect on people.

Cole wondered if Goldie had seen that video, what he thought of it, and how he felt hearing people say those things. Without thinking it through, he opened his door, walked down the hall, and burst into the master bedroom.

“Why do you let him do this to you?”

Goldie twitched in his sleep. His eyes flickered open. Goldie sat with a start, eyes wide. His face reddened as he grabbed the sheets to cover his naked chest.
Bruises mottled his throat and arms, and his hair was a wild riot around his face, glowing golden in the beams of sunlight coming in from the windows behind him.

Blinking, Goldie cleared his throat. “Good morning?”
Cole realized how wrong it was to intrude, but he couldn’t tear away his gaze. He stared at Goldie’s red, swollen mouth. The lean, insanely defined chest that

had been exposed above the sheet before Goldie covered up was burned into Cole’s retinas. Goldie’s chest adorned a fair amount of his imagery, but this was the first time Cole had seen it in person.

God, he doesn’t even need airbrushing.

“Sorry, sorry. I um… I’m gonna wait outside.” Cole exhaled slowly and forced himself to leave the room. He closed the door behind him but spoke through it. “Jethro had breakfast with some woman, you know. He mauls you or whatever and runs off to have breakfast with some woman!”

Cole heard movement on the other side of the door. Drawers rolled out and in. A door creaked. Shuffling. A faucet ran for a couple of minutes.
The door opened. Goldie looked shiny and fresh in a loose-fitting, sky-blue linen tank tied with a white silk sash over a pair of pants so tight they may as well have been painted on. He smiled, slipped an arm through Cole’s, and started them toward the kitchen.
“Oh, breakfast with a
woman
, do tell.” His tone was slightly mocking. The wink caught Cole’s attention. “I’m about to have lunch with a handsome young man. Shall we hold a press conference?”
“Well, but!” Cole tried to articulate why it was different. Then he had the thought that maybe they had some kind of sophisticated arrangement.
He felt gullible, young, and Kansan. After spending so much time being liberal and hip as a gay kid back home, it was distressing to feel so sheltered. On the bright side, if there was more to breakfast on Jett’s end, perhaps Goldie would be affectionate with Cole.

But then, Goldie was Cole’s father’s boyfriend. No matter how Cole spun it, that was a little weird.
Cole sighed. “So is Jethro gonna do the right thing? Take care of his responsibilities?”
Goldie knocked his hip against Cole’s, a companionable, if not flirty, gesture. “Do the right thing? I’m not knocked up. It’s all right, Cole. Those people on the teevee machine are just making their living. I think it’s a ridiculously invasive and parasitic way to earn a living, but people seem endlessly fascinated.”

His smile faded. “I guess arguably Jett makes it easier for them to keep tabs on him than other celebrities might. He isn’t of the temperament to hole up in the house.”
There was something else Goldie seemed about to say, but he stopped when they reached the kitchen. “Hasani doesn’t come until lunchtime, but look, he left you some Chex Mix!”

Clearly Goldie had other things on his mind than Cole’s paternity. The slip told Cole that Goldie wasn’t nearly as comfortable with Jett’s behavior as he pretended. Cole gave Goldie an impulsive hug. “I meant, is he going to do the paternity test and help me?”

“Oh!” Goldie blushed and covered his mouth. He whirled to the enormous brushed-steel fridge and pulled open a door. “Um, yes, he said he would. We’ll need to get you tested, and then I guess it takes about a week to get the results. You’re welcome to stay here while you wait. Is that all right with you?”

“Really? I can stay here?” Cole stared at Goldie’s back. Since the previous hug had gone over without scandal, Cole sneaked up and wrapped his arms around him from behind. “Thank you so much, Goldie. I know he didn’t want to. I know you made him. I don’t know what I’d do without you here.”

Goldie froze, and Cole worried he’d felt his boner. Instead of reprimanding him, he turned and returned the hug with a warmth that Cole found unfortunate but not unwelcome.

“Jett isn’t a bad person, Cole. He’s a free spirit and a little wild, but he had a lot to rebel against. He’s not what the media makes him out to be.” Then, seeming to realize that he couldn’t really claim that, Goldie added, “Not anymore.”