Summer Son (22 page)

“I… uh….”

“Or we could try and fit me in alongside it.”

“What, are you trying to make a football fit up there? No, thanks.”

I chuckled and licked a wet stripe from the collar of his shirt up to his ear. “All right. Next time, though, if you’re horny, just let me know. I’d be more than willing to oblige.”

“I’m horny,” he said immediately. “Really, really.”

“How long ago did Harrison fall asleep?”

“Hours ago, now.”

I pushed him to his feet and yanked his pajama bottoms down to his knees.

“Oh God.”

I attached my lips around the head of his cock and sucked lightly, batting his hands away when he tried to grip my hair or fondle his own balls or do anything other than stand there and take it. I knew from experience he wasn’t particularly dick orientated. He’d told me before that since he discovered there was sexual pleasure to be found from his ass, he hadn’t found stimulating his cock nearly as exciting.

With that knowledge at the front of my mind, I reversed our positions so Zane was kneeling on my desk chair, his arms balanced on the backrest and his head pillowed on top of them, his ass stuck way up in the air.

I left him like that only long enough to run to the bedroom for lube, then returned to him and squeezed a blob right on his hole.

“Holy shit,” he muttered.

I grinned at his back but said nothing. The glass dildo was surprisingly heavy and very well made; that much was clear. I teased him for a moment with it, spreading the lube around with the blunt head before sinking it into him, inch by torturous inch.

That made him groan, long and low.

“Better yet?”

“Getting there,” he said with a hard grunt as I found a sweet spot.

The dildo settled against his taint with no trouble, confirming what he’d said before—that this was a favorite toy. Instead of thrusting it into him, I tapped the end of the toy, making it move inside him. When the light taps didn’t get the sort of reaction I’d hoped for, I started hitting it a little harder, secure in the knowledge that its set of heavy glass balls would stop it from going too deep.

“Don’t you dare come on my nice chair,” I murmured in between kissing up his ribs, where he was particularly ticklish.

“It’s—oh, fuck, Ellis—it’s leather. It’ll wipe off.”

“Not the point.”

I decided to give him a helping hand, so to speak, and after angling the dildo so it was pressed against his prostate and a few tugs on his cock, he was spilling into my hand and trying to muffle his groans in the crook of his elbow.

Since Zane looked totally wiped out, I took pity on him and picked him up, cradling his body carefully against my chest, and walked him through to the bathroom, where I dumped him rather unceremoniously into the tub.

“If you hadn’t just reamed my ass, I’d be mad at you for that,” Zane said, pouting up at me.

I placed a kiss on his bottom lip and turned the shower on. Cold.

He moved fairly quickly at that.

Chapter 16

“E
LLIS
!”

“What?”

“Linda’s calling you!”

I was elbow deep in bath water and shirtless, having learned long ago that it was best not to wear anything clean or dry while trying to get Harrison bathed. He was cool with bath time, thankfully, and liked to make a mess. The more bubbles the better.

“Baby, I’m kind of busy,” I said as Zane ran through to the bathroom, clutching my ringing phone. “Answer it.”

“Hello? No, this is Zane. Ellis is giving Harrison a bath. Can you hold on a sec? We’ll swap.”

It took a few moments to rearrange us both so Zane knelt on the mat next to the bath to supervise while I sat on the toilet lid, rapidly rubbing at my arms with a hand towel.

“Hi, Linda, sorry,” I said as I picked up the conversation.

“It’s fine. I just called to let you know we’ve got a date booked for a hearing.”

“Oh. Okay.”

We’d sort of been expecting this since Oliver’s little visit. I’d got the impression that he thought he was going to get his way, one way or another, and since sweet-talking me hadn’t worked, he’d moved on to the next stage of his plan.

Sometimes it was scary how well I knew him.

“It’s just a hearing, not anything to worry about at this stage,” Linda said. “Basically Oliver’s going to say he wants full custody, we’re going to say why that’s not a good idea, then the judge will decide whether they want to hear full cases from both sides.”

“Okay.”

“Are you all right with all of that?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it sounds fine. Do I need to do anything?”

“No. You don’t even need to be there if you don’t want to. If you do, you can sit with me. Harrison won’t be allowed in, though.”

“That’s fine. I can get someone to watch him.”

“Excellent. It’s booked for the eighteenth, at ten. Please don’t be late.”

Zane looked fairly horrified, so I knelt down again and splashed water at Harrison to make him laugh.

“It’s fine, I promise,” I said, even though I wasn’t quite feeling that secure myself. “It’s just a hearing. It might not even get to court.”

“Do I have to be there?”

“No…. I think you have a class.”

I knew he was scared, but the relieved look on his face hurt, just a little bit. I wanted him there to support us, to support me, and even though Linda had my back, it would have been nice to have Zane by my side.

T
HE
MORNING
of the hearing, I dropped him off in Manhattan, needing to get downtown anyway. He kissed me hard before sliding out of the car. I’d already dropped Harrison off at my mom’s, so I had time to swing round to pick Linda up on our way to the courthouse.

Since it was family law, the building was small and the rooms inside smaller. It was more like an office block than the imposing image of a court. In the room we’d been assigned, there were two desks and a haphazard row of chairs behind for anyone who wanted to watch. Oliver had brought his new boyfriend with him, and I wished again for Zane.

The judge came in, we all stood up; she sat down, we did too. I pondered on rituals and must have looked like I was daydreaming because Linda jabbed me sharply with her elbow.

As the judge—an older woman with elegantly styled blonde hair—read over the notes of the case, I fidgeted, earning me another elbow to the ribs.

“Sit still,” Linda hissed.

I sat back and ground my teeth together instead.

“Good morning, gentlemen, counsel,” Judge Munroe said. “Okay, let’s get going. I’m happy to hear what you all have to say, and from there we’ll decide if things are going to stay as they are, change here today, or if we need to take this further and have a full case hearing at a later date.”

She nodded to Oliver’s lawyer first, a sleek-looking guy with an expensive suit, who stood and inclined his head.

“Thank you, Judge Munroe.”

I forced myself to listen as he laid out Oliver’s argument: he was in a better position financially than I was, he had a more secure job, a more stable relationship, a house rather than my little one-and-a-half bedroom apartment. He could give Harrison more than I could. He would be a better, more appropriate full-time guardian.

Then he moved on to Zane, and I thought I was going to have to excuse myself to throw up.

Zane was, apparently, a dangerous and unstable man who had been previously involved in New York gangs, and they believed he still could have connections with illegal activity in the city. He was a Muslim immigrant who had been questioned by the police in the murder of a rival gang member yet still lived with Oliver’s son (his son!) with unrestricted access to my baby.

Linda poked me again and scrawled something on her notepad.

1st gen. Imm.???

No
, I wrote.
Born here. American! Not religious
.

Then I underlined
American
a few times to make my point.

When the lawyer was done, he sat down, looking pleased, which made me feel worse. Then Linda stood, and I should never have doubted her.

“I wish to start by addressing the matter of Zane Hadlin, if I may,” she said, and then she waited for the judge’s nod of approval before continuing. “What you have just heard is racial profiling at its very worst. Zane is not Muslim. He’s not Egyptian either. He’s an American who was born and raised in this country. I shouldn’t have to say this, but I will—he has absolutely no links to terrorism, either here or abroad.”

She paused then, for effect, I’m sure, to let this statement sink in.

“However, the subject of Zane is not one that we’re here to talk about. The reason for this meeting today is to determine who should be Harrison’s legal guardian.” She paused again, took a sip of water, then continued. “When the divorce of Mr. Price and Mr. Broad was being finalized by this court, a paternity test was conducted at Mr. Price’s behest. At that time, Mr. Broad strongly opposed having this information made public. It was a decision they had both made, as parents, that it didn’t matter whose sperm was used to create their child. They would both love and care for him regardless of his genetics. Then it was discovered that Mr. Broad is Harrison’s biological father, and Mr. Price stopped caring. He broke the first promise he’d made to his son.

“That sounds harsh, but it’s true. The paternity aspect of the divorce was settled. Mr. Broad, as Harrison’s biological father, was granted custody of his child, and things moved on. Until a few weeks ago, when Mr. Price decided he would not return Harrison at the end of his agreed-upon visitation hours and would hold the child hostage instead.”

I had to admit, once she got on a roll, Linda was awesome. There were points when I cringed, mostly because she was talking about me and that was weird, and she talked about me as a father, and that made me feel so exposed. But that was the reason we were here.

“Mr. Hadlin has offered to leave,” Linda said as she wrapped things up. “He has offered to break off the relationship with a man he loves deeply and a child he cares for very much, in order to ensure that Mr. Broad retains full custody of his son. If he thought this would make a difference, Zane has offered to return to the small town in Vermont where his family lives to protect the people he loves.

“There is no reason to remove Harrison from Mr. Broad’s custody. Nothing but misguided prejudice that opposes the loving relationship between these two men.”

When she sat down again, I reached for her hand under the table and squeezed it gently. That was it—we were dismissed while the judge considered the case, for as long as it took.

There was a small cafeteria in the basement of the building, but when I saw Oliver and his people heading for the elevators, I took Linda to one of the small vending machines at the end of the hall instead, and we ducked into an empty conference room to talk.

“What are you thinking?” she asked as I sipped at what was supposed to be a cappuccino. It tasted like dirty water.

“That I really don’t want to lose my son,” I admitted. They were difficult words to say.

“That’s not going to happen, El,” Linda said firmly. “Honestly, I think the judge is going to throw the case out. It’s ridiculous. But if Oliver wants to jump through hoops and pay for the privilege to do so, it’s not my business to stop him.”

“It’s worse because he never wanted Harrison before now. A few months back, he was willing to give up everything because Harrison doesn’t share his fucking DNA. He has no right to ask for him back.”

“Not even asking for him back,” she said. “He’s asking for something that was never his in the first place. Not his alone.”

“Yeah,” I said, fiddling with the rolled top on the paper cup.

Linda pulled out her iPad and started fiddling with it, answering e-mails or something, and I loaded up a game on my phone to pass the time. It took about an hour before we were called back into the courtroom, giving me plenty of time to consider what my life would be like without Harrison in it. I didn’t really like the options and decided ahead of time that I would never, ever stop fighting to get him back. I wouldn’t slip quietly into the background, like Oliver had done. He would be so sick of me constantly demanding more time with my baby that he’d give Harrison back just to make me go away. I could be that persistent, if I had to be.

When word came through that the judge would be making a decision that afternoon, after her break for lunch, I chanced it and called Zane and asked him to come down to the courthouse.

“What, now?”

“Yeah,” I said. “If you can. I mean, if you’re busy, that’s fine, but I kind of…. I need you.”

“I’ll be there,” he said. “It’s going to take about thirty minutes for me to get across town at this time of day, though.”

“That’s fine. They’re just breaking for lunch.”

“Meet me out front?”

“Yeah,” I said, relieved. “Yeah. Thank you.”

I turned back to Linda, who had been watching my conversation.

“He’s coming?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“He’s a good kid.”