Nobody's Son (2 page)

Shaun tried to ignore the flash of heat that ran through him at that. “I’m one of the rarities.” He turned most of his attention back to the screen in front of him. “Born and raised in Atlanta. Well, East Point, technically, but ITP, at least.” He used the common abbreviation for “inside the perimeter,” the part of the Atlanta metro area that fell within the I-285 interstate bypass that encircled the city.

“Got you beat there,” Con said, picking up another cord. “Born at Grady, right downtown. Didn’t move away until after college.” He sighed. “Take my advice. Never relocate for a man.”

It was still new for Shaun to have people assume he was gay. Not that they were entirely wrong, and hell, he worked at a gay resort, and how many straight guys would do that? But after years of first assuming he was straight and then not being so sure himself, he hadn’t gotten used to being somewhere that defaulted to the other side of the equation.

The alarm on his cell phone sounded, and Shaun reached into his pocket and pulled it out to silence it. “Gotta hit the road in a few,” he said. “Jimmy’s supposed to cover until Phillip gets here.”

Phillip Hawking worked the weekend late-night shifts, but he was a student at the University of Georgia, forty-five miles away, and had a work-study job there too. He couldn’t always make it to the resort by the time Shaun’s shifts ended, so Jimmy usually filled the gaps.

“Jimmy’s on his way.” Shaun glanced over to see Mikey standing just inside the side door. He smiled at Shaun. “He asked me to let you know. You should join us for dinner!”

Shaun smiled back but shook his head. “Sorry, can’t.” He logged out of the new computer, giving a smile as it actually responded. “You guys have extra fun for me.”

He realized after the words were out of his mouth how that sounded, considering he’d said them to one-third of a three-way couple.

But Mikey just grinned. “Next time,” he said. “I’ll tell Jimmy to put it on your schedule if I have to.”

Shaun chuckled as he bent to grab his backpack from under the desk and slung it over one shoulder. “See you guys in the morning.”

He headed outside and crossed the gravel road toward the parking lot where his car sat tucked in a shaded corner. Even with that, he knew it would be an oven inside. The late-afternoon August sun beat down on the back of his neck, though at least the humidity was lower than it had been the past week or so.
Small mercies
, he thought as he unlocked and pulled open the door and climbed inside. Thank everything that his air-conditioning worked well.

The drive back to Atlanta took the full hour and a half he expected, the worst of it on the Downtown Connector, the stretch of highway where Interstates 75 and 85 converged into one mammoth road that snaked through the middle of the city. Shaun half smiled as he passed by Grady, the huge public hospital for which one of the curves in the road was named, since the interstate had been built around the structure. Like Con, and thousands of other babies each year, Shaun had been born there too.

Twenty minutes later, Shaun exited the interstate near the airport and navigated the surface streets toward home. Shaun’s gran had lived in a little East Point bungalow all his life, and all his mother’s life before he came along. The neighborhood was on the upswing again, houses selling and renting to young professional couples who fixed up the run-down structures, but the area was still mostly populated by black families like Shaun’s, many of whom had lived there for generations.

Most of the houses and businesses also still had iron bars over the doors and windows, remnants of the years when poverty, crime, and depressed property values had taken their toll. The Rogers’s house had not only bars but also a security system, something Shaun’s mom had insisted on as soon as she’d been making enough to cover the monthly fee.

Not that securing their home had done anything to protect her.

Shaun parked in his usual space at the side of the house and slipped in through the kitchen door, trying not to wake Gran.

“Is that you, baby?”

Shaun smiled and shook his head as he crossed to the living room door. “And who else was it gonna be, Gran?” He crossed over to where she sat in her well-loved recliner and bent to kiss the cheek she tilted toward him. “You up watching the late shows again? It’s past your bedtime, you know,” he teased, though it wasn’t even nine yet.

Sherry Rogers drew herself up in her seat and gave him a look over the rims of her glasses. “I do believe I am old enough to make my own bedtime, young man.”

How a sixty-five-year-old gray-haired woman wearing a flowered housecoat could still make him feel five years old, Shaun would never understand.

Shaun straightened and hiked his backpack back onto his shoulder. “I gotta hit the hay early tonight. Early shift tomorrow.” His shifts usually started later in the morning, but Sundays meant most weekend guests would be checking out, so he went in earlier to take care of all the paperwork. At least things should run a little easier with the new computer.

Sherry patted his hand. “There’s a big bowl of chicken and dumplings in the fridge for you, honey.”

Shaun’s stomach rumbled, reminding him that it had been a long time since his lunchtime pancakes and also that he’d left his turkey sandwich in the fridge at work. He’d have that for the next day, then, assuming no more gorgeous men showed up bearing food.

“Thanks, Gran.” Shaun bent to kiss her cheek again. “I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

He stopped by to grab the bowl from the refrigerator in the kitchen on his way to his room in the basement. The main house had just two bedrooms and one bath, but they’d finished the basement when Shaun was a senior in high school so he’d have his own space during college. Shaun had lived there for three years, riding MARTA back and forth to the Georgia State University campus downtown—before spending his senior year in a dorm, mostly to save travel time because his schedule was so hectic.

After graduation he moved back home, bringing the small fridge and microwave back with him so he could have drinks and snacks and occasionally dinner in private. He loved his gran, but she was his grandmother, after all, and sometimes he wanted to eat his chicken and dumplings in his underwear on his bed. Like now.

He set the bowl in the microwave and turned it on before stripping out of his clothes and tossing them into the hamper in the corner. He’d fought off his gran’s insistence on doing his laundry. He’d let her do a load now and then when he had a tight schedule, but she was retired after forty-plus years of working as a school lunch lady, not to mention raising a daughter and helping raise him. She deserved to take it easy.

The microwave dinged, and Shaun pulled the bowl out, using a towel to insulate the hot ceramic, and grabbed a spoon. He flopped onto the bed, resting against the pillows and the wall behind them, and ate his dinner rapidly. It tasted amazing, like everything else his gran made, but he didn’t have time to linger, not if he wanted to get a decent night’s sleep.

When he finished he got up and crossed to the bathroom, where he rinsed out the empty bowl. He’d take it upstairs to the dishwasher on his way out in the morning. He washed his face and hands and brushed his teeth, flipped off the light, and headed for bed.

He paused on the way, as he always did. Hanging on the wall next to the bedroom was the shadow box that held his mom’s picture, her black-wrapped badge, and the flag that had lain over her casket. He touched the edge of the frame and remembered her smile for a moment before turning away.

He climbed into bed, but as he plugged in his phone to charge overnight, it chimed, alerting him to a new text message. He didn’t get many. He pulled up the screen and opened the message.

Hello, son.

A chill ran through Shaun. “What the fuck?” he muttered, as his phone chimed again.

I know this comes as a surprise. I only recently learned about our connection. I’d like to meet you.

Shaun managed to get his shaking fingers to work to type a reply:
Who is this? How did you get this number?

A minute passed, then:
My name is Willis Erwin. A friend of a friend told me recently that your mother had a child not long after she and I were together. I hired a private detective to find you.

Jesus. Shaun had no idea what to do. His mama had told him his father wasn’t somebody she wanted in their lives, and Shaun had never had any interest in finding out. He should tell this guy to shove off and leave him alone.

His fingers typed anyway:
I have to think about it. I’ll text you what I decide. Don’t contact me again unless you hear from me.

He saved the contact, set the ringtone to silent, and set down his phone carefully before turning off the lamp.

He lay there, staring into the dark, waiting in vain for sleep to claim him.

“SHAUN?”

Shaun snapped his attention back to Con and Jimmy, who stood to his left behind the front desk. “Sh—oot. I’m sorry. I keep getting distracted.”

Jimmy gave him a long look. “I’d say it’s gotta be something pretty major to have you
this
distracted. Everything okay at home?”

Jimmy knew the basics about Shaun’s family situation. Shaun had opened up to him slowly, explaining over several conversations about how he’d lost his police officer mama when she’d been shot in the line of duty. Jimmy also knew that Shaun’s grandmother, who took over raising him, knew nothing about the type of resort where Shaun worked. Shaun didn’t relish the idea of discussing any of that in front of Con, who he might be attracted to but barely knew. He gave Jimmy a weak smile instead.

“Everything’s good.” He went for the truth, if not the complete story. “Just had trouble getting to sleep last night.” He blew out a breath and tried to refocus. “Okay, so when this is all up and running, the daily reports and files will automatically back up?”

“Yep.” Con nodded toward the hallway. “You’ll have a server in Jimmy’s office that’ll cover this computer and the ones back there. Usually I would’ve done the server and networking part first, but I know you needed the main computer up and running as fast as possible.” He gave Shaun a wink at that. “Once the server’s running,” he continued, “everything will back up to a cloud site online, so even if the building burned down or something major, your data will be safe.”

The door at the side of the office opened, and all three men turned their heads in that direction. Cory and Mikey walked in wearing nothing but flip-flops and tiny swim trunks, with beach towels wrapped around their necks. Shaun could almost hear all the blood in Jimmy’s body rush to his dick. Shaun didn’t react the same way to the other men—though he appreciated they were both good-looking—but he could understand what Jimmy was feeling. Especially with Con standing so close.

“Hi, guys!” Cory called as they sauntered closer, headed toward the door across the lobby that led to the pool enclosure. “Just going for a dip. Don’t mind us!”

Shaun caught Mikey’s gaze, and Mikey blushed and rolled his eyes. Clearly, he’d been dragged into Cory’s plan to get Jimmy out from behind the desk and into the pool with them—and probably back into their bed before much longer.

Shaun knew only basic information about how the three men had met, based on things Jimmy had said randomly during other conversations. He hadn’t talked to Mikey or Cory much, since they spent most of their time back in the city, where Cory had a house. But part of the reason for the new computer system was so that Cory and Mikey could work from the resort more often, and it struck Shaun that Mikey might be a good neutral person for him to talk to about what he was feeling—about his sexuality, and about the idea of coming out. Mikey was Shaun’s age, significantly younger than Jimmy or Cory, and while Shaun didn’t know details, he knew Mikey had come out just a few years earlier and had dealt with disapproving parents.

He shook his head mentally.
Not today
, he thought, turning his attention back to Con and the computer. By then, though, Jimmy was the distracted one, his gaze still following his men as they pushed through the door to outside. Con let out a long, put-upon sigh.

“All right, man. You are
clearly
not going to grasp any of this with your mind and other body parts out in the pool.” He made a shooing motion at Jimmy. “Go on and be with your guys. I’ll work on the other networking stuff today and train you two on all of it at once when everything’s done.”

“Hey!” Shaun protested. “I’m paying attention now!”

“Yeah, but this one isn’t”—Con poked Jimmy’s shoulder—“and I don’t want to go over all of this twice if I don’t have to.” He poked Jimmy again. “Go on. Do your thing.”

Jimmy grinned. “My ‘thing’ and I will be right back!” He dashed around the edge of the counter and across the lobby toward his bungalow, and Con laughed as Jimmy shook his butt in their direction as he went.

“I know I said this already,” Con said as the door closed behind Jimmy, “but I’ve known him a long time, and I’ve never seen him this happy. He’s always been an optimistic guy, and he loves Cory a lot, but it’s like he’s kicked into another gear, you know?”

Shaun nodded. “Happier and… more settled? But not in a bad way,” he hastened to add.

“Yeah.” Con nodded. “Though there’s a lot to be said for settled.”

He fell silent for a long moment, still turned toward the direction where Jimmy had gone, his gaze unfocused. Then he shook himself out of it and gave Shaun a smile.

“Anyway. I’ll let you get back to work, and I’ll get busy on the networking stuff.” He nodded toward the hallway that ran alongside the front office. “I put the equipment back in Jimmy’s office last night, so I’ll start down there. Don’t worry about any weird bumps and noises you hear. That’ll just be me running cable and probably hitting my big ol’ noggin on the underside of desks.”

He punctuated his statement by rapping his bald head with his knuckles, and Shaun let out a soft snort of laughter.

“I can just imagine,” he said. “Try not to knock yourself out. I don’t know how long it takes to get the paramedics out here.”