Quillon's Covert (3 page)

Marty knew how Martin felt. He also understood that the long ago choking thing, and the surgery, had frightened his dad. And although that fear had subsided, his mom told him that it had forever changed Martin; he never hesitated to stop whatever he was doing and hug, or kiss, or just tell Marty how much he loved him. “He never takes you for granted, Marty,” his mom had said.

He snuggled in a bit more and rested his cheek against the soft fur of Martin’s damp chest. “You tell me all the time, Dad.”

The movie all but forgotten, Martin continued, “You might not think so right now, but one day you’ll look back on these trips and remember them as some of the best times of your life. That’s how I see them.” Marty felt his dad’s lips press against his hair and kiss the top of his head.

He pulled his feet up onto the couch and settled in even closer to his father. “I already do.”

It was their final morning at the cabin, and it felt like they had only just gotten there. Marty spent the morning lugging bags and boxes to the truck. Now, stepping out of the cool shower, he toweled his chest dry.

“Dad!” Marty sprinted into the cabin.

His father dropped the spatula and turned from the stove. “What? What’s happened?”

“Nothing’s happened. Well, I mean, something’s happened…look.” Marty pointed at the middle of his chest.

“Come closer, I can’t see. What is—” Martin scrunched his eyes together. “Is that a hair?”

“Yes!” Marty jutted his pimpled chin out proudly. “I’m on my way now, aren’t I?”

The amusement in his dad’s eyes grew, and Marty watched his dad take a quick glance down the length of his damp body.

“Yep, soon you’ll be Quillon hairy everywhere…and all grown up.” He pulled Marty into a one-armed hug. “Just don’t go growin’ up too quickly on me, okay, Monkey Nuts?”

Marty laughed at the newest nickname and tried to pull away, but it was pointless to struggle against his father’s tight hold.

“You, Old Man, are
really
weird sometimes,” he managed to breathe out. “And your chest hair is suffocating me!”

With the smell of burning bacon filling the air, he finally gave up and hugged Martin back.

Chapter 2 – Puberty Strikes

Marty / 15

“When did you become so grumpy?”

Marty rolled his eyes, sank farther down into his seat, and stared out the truck’s window.

His dad sighed next to him. “It wasn’t that long ago when my jokes cracked you up.”

Marty felt his dad’s stare and tore his gaze from the highway whipping past outside the window, to meet Martin’s. They were driving up to Quillon’s Covert for their annual boys’ break. Dad always wanted to get an early start so they could make it to the cabin before the traffic hit. Getting up there early also meant they had lots of time to unpack, while still having a good part of their first day left. He smiled to reassure Martin. “Sorry. I haven’t been great to be around lately, have I?” There were times he wished he still fell asleep whenever he got in the truck, like he had when he was a kid.

Martin didn’t smirk or downplay Marty’s words like he usually did to lighten the mood. “You know I’m here…if you wanna talk…if something’s bothering you, right?” he asked over the One Republic CD playing.

When Marty didn’t elaborate, Martin continued. “Hey, I get it. When I was your age, I was pretty cranky too. I also thought my dad was lame.”

Marty laughed, taking the bait, and softly punched his dad’s shoulder. “I don’t think you’re lame. Well, not all the time anyway,” he added with a snort.

Martin adjusted his baseball cap and furrowed his brows. “And here I was thinking about letting you drive the rest of the way up. You know, after we stopped for breakfast. Thought I’d ride shotgun. But that’s not something a lame dad would really do, is it?”

“What I meant to say,” Marty quickly corrected with a huge smile, “is that I think you totally rock and all your jokes are killer.”

Martin laughed and pulled into the diner that marked the halfway point of their journey to the cabin. It was usually here that the excitement really hit Marty. This was when the thought of spending two weeks totally alone with his dad, away from the rest of the world, really started to sink in. Usually. While he still felt most of the thrill as they entered the pancake house, the familiar smells and sounds pulled him in, but he couldn’t quite shake his cranky, sweaty, irritated mood.

After placing their familiar order of breakfast sandwiches, Marty brooded over his coffee, and his dad lived up to his recent knack of pointing out the obvious.

“Your pits are soaked.”

Marty twisted the cup around on the table. “Gee, th-th-thanks Dad. I hadn’t nuh-nuh-noticed.”

Martin heaved a low sigh. “Are you using the deodorant I got you?”

Marty rubbed the back of his neck, lifted his coffee slowly, and took a long sip of the sweet goodness. “It’s not really working. I don’t think it’s strong enough anymore.”

Martin drummed his fingers on the table. “Is that what’s got you so grouchy? Why didn’t you just ask me to change it?”

Marty slid down in the booth and kept his eyes on the coffee cup.

“Well?” Martin asked.

Marty stared at the diner’s entrance while absently picking at a zit on his chin. “It’s not just that,” he sighed. “It’s a lotta th-th-things.”

Martin lifted his hat, ran a hand through his short brown hair, and then offered Marty a smile. “Wanna just get the sandwiches to go? We can stop off at the lookout point and eat in the truck, if you want.”

Marty nodded as relief crashed over him. He didn’t trust his stupid cracking voice, yet another reason he didn’t like being in public right now, so he just looked up and nodded.

Martin reached over the table and ruffled his hair. “To go, then.”

Lately the hair-ruffling thing had really started to annoy him, but right now it seemed to take him back to a simpler, more comfortable time.

“How about getting the truck started while I grab our food?” Martin slid out of the booth and dangled the keys tantalizingly close to Marty’s face.

He grinned, snatched the keys from his dad’s fingers before he could have a change of heart, and was out the door.

Marty lay stretched out on the cabin’s sun-drenched, uncovered side deck, with a soft beach towel beneath him. There were deck lounge chairs a few feet away, but they were in the shade of a huge oak tree, and he didn’t feel like moving them. He had one goal at the moment and that was getting as much vitamin D on every part of his body as quickly as possible. He hoped against hope that it might even scorch some of the goddamn zits off his face. He scratched the patch of fuzz just above his dick as the next track of Chris Gaines—who was really the alter ego for Garth Brooks—started playing and hummed along to “Lost in You.” He’d gotten outside before his dad, which meant he’d also gotten to the portable CD player first. He smiled knowing he’d get to choose the music because those were the rules.

Martin walked out onto the deck and stood over him with a Strawberry Crush in one hand and a beer in the other. Marty eagerly took the cold bottle of his favorite soda. Strawberry Crush was getting harder and harder to find, but somehow his father always managed.

“Thanks, Dad.”

Martin bent down, placed the beer next to his own towel, and straightened back up. “Feeling better?”

From the moment they arrived at the cabin, which they’d quickly opened up so the closed up, musty smell could air out, the nearly suffocating blanket of blues had lifted from Marty. His mood had brightened as the tall oak trees came into view and the familiar mountainside beckoned them to their
home-away-from-home
. And now, here with his dad, lying in the sun, drinking Strawberry Crush, his world was about as good as it could get.

But by far, the biggest satisfaction came from shedding his clothes. He’d always enjoyed this part of their trips; it was he and his dad sharing something only between the two of them. This year, though, with his crazy mood swings, being naked next to his dad held a strange, new excitement.

“I do now,” Marty grinned before downing half of his fizzy soda.

Martin lifted his arms above his head, stretched out lazily, before bringing his hands down to his naked butt and absently rubbing it. Marty stared at his dad from behind his shades, thankful Martin couldn’t follow his eyes.

When Martin crouched down to straighten out his towel, Marty couldn’t help but envy his dad’s thighs. They were big and hairy and strong, and everything Marty felt a man’s legs should be. Everything his weren’t—yet. But he was working on it. As Martin went down on all fours to flip the towel’s far corner flat, his heavy ball sack, dangling between his thighs, came into full view. Marty cleared his throat and took another long swig of Crush.

Martin adjusted the bill of his cap, facing it forward, and collapsed onto his towel. He slipped his shades on and hooked his hands behind his head to begin soaking up the sun’s rays too. Marty eyed his dad’s hairy pits and wiped the sweat from his face again, absently thinking he could probably burn to a crisp, but the damn zits would go unharmed. His gaze moved to his dad’s defined chest, then to his flat midriff, and finally down his firm stomach, before he caught himself. What the fuck? You weren’t supposed to notice things like that about your own dad, were you?

Marty pulled his eyes away. Fishing around his side, he grabbed what was left of his soda and finished it off.

“So tell me,” his dad said after a minute, “what else is bothering you.”

“What do you mean?” Marty peeped, and hoped he didn’t sound as guilty as he felt.

Martin laughed but didn’t move from his position.

“My voice,” Marty finally admitted. “I hate how it sometimes jumps and cracks. And the sweating, it’s like one morning I woke up and my pits suddenly reeked! And it’s not just my pits either. I sweat everywhere, my feet, my butt, my balls…just everywhere. And jeez, my balls… it’s not just the sweat either. Sometimes when I’m walking, or when the team’s playing, or when I’m in the tub, or just lying around, my balls start to ache for no reason. Like really,
really
bad.”

Martin’s chest heaved and Marty’s eyes flashed to his dad’s face. “Are you laughing?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to. It’s like you’ve torn a page out of my life when I was fifteen.” Martin slipped his shades down his nose and leaned over toward Marty. “I remember all too well. I know it’s tough sometimes, Spud.” He laughed again but sobered up when Marty didn’t join in on the joke. “Look, it won’t help, me telling you this, but what’s happening to you is completely normal, okay? And it’ll get better. I promise.”

“When?”

Martin grinned and slipped the shades back up his nose. “After it gets a lot worse.”

Marty scowled as his dad fell back onto his towel and laughed softly. “You think my balls hurting is funny, huh?”

His dad’s big hand rested on his furry stomach and Marty watched it bounce up and down with Martin’s continued chuckling. “Maybe a little,” his father admitted.

“Yeah, well,” Marty huffed, “F…” he caught himself before going any further.

Martin grinned and an eyebrow rose over his sunglasses.

“When do I get to start using curse words?”

His dad’s reply was easy, if not a bit sleepy, like he’d already moved on from the conversation and was thinking about a nap. “Not for a long time. And never those two words with me. Granddad’s paddle hangs inside for a reason, Spunky Balls.”

Despite the deep tremor even a brief mention of the paddle sent through him, it wasn’t the main reason he didn’t want to laugh; Marty, on principal, tried not to encourage Martin’s use of the stupid nicknames. But, his efforts didn’t seem to matter, Martin continued to use them and, more often than not, Marty couldn’t keep from laughing. “Hah-hah!” he barked out and shook his head, as much in disappointment in himself for giving his dad the satisfaction, and because he had to admit he found Martin funny most of the time.

A lot can happen in a year. Things change. People change, obviously. But one thing that never changed was the ease that he and his dad shared. They could entertain each other like no one else could, and they could comfort each other too. Sometimes they’d have the deepest conversations about everything and nothing, and then a minute later they’d be goofing off like two fifth-graders.