Page 1

Chapter 1

Will

There isn’t a whole lot of privacy on the bus, but I went to the back room, closed the door, put headphones on, and initiated a video call on the television we have hanging on the wall. Everyone would probably hear my side of the conversation, but not Davy’s.

He answered on his phone and I had him move to the media room and call me back. I wanted to see all of him, not just his face.

But then the light hit my boy’s pale blue eyes at the perfect angle when he came on the screen, and my heart hurt because of the distance between us.

“I love you,” I told him. “I’m hurt, but the fact this hurts so much is probably some sick kind of proof of how much I love you. I didn’t need proof, though.”

“I’m sorry, Master. I assume the headphones mean no one can hear me?”

“Correct. They may or may not hear me, but it’s just the band, Ghost, and the bus driver — and it isn’t likely the driver can hear me all the way in the front.”

“What can I do to make things right again, Master?”

“Tell the entire story from the beginning, and your thoughts as you tell the story. Start with when you first became aware of the letter.”

“Bubbles brought it to me. I’ve never received mail at work, and the return address was Alaska, and the last name Jones.I guess Bash saw it and asked Bubbles about it, and Bubbles brought it to me. I don’t know why they showed it to him before they showed it to me.” He fidgeted his hands, rubbed his left forearm with his right hand. “I recognized the name as the person I think might be my grandfather, and I…” He sighed. “I guess I hyperventilated, and Bubbles had to talk me down and remind me how to breathe the right way.”

I nodded. “Realistically, that part would’ve happened whether I’d been in town or not. I’m glad Bubbles was there to help, but I’m also a little pissed it was him and not me, which is unreasonable, so that’s my issue and not yours. I can’t punish you when I’m the one with the problem.” I shrugged. “I mean, I could, but I won’t. Keep going.”

“I opened the letter and read it, and suddenly things weren’t bad anymore. I’d panicked because I thought he’d found out about you and was going to try to blackmail me into asking you to pay him off or something. But the letter wasn’t like that at all. Do you want me to read it to you?”

“I do.”

“I’ll be right back. I’m sorry I didn’t think to bring it with me, Master.”

He was gone less than a minute, which means he probably ran up the steps and back down, but he was barely winded, so he’d been honest about what he was charting on his workout sheet.

He read it to me, his eyes on the paper, and then he looked back up to the camera. “I don’t think he knows about you at all, Master. He wants to get to know his grandson.”

“Are you going to call him?”

He looked down a second and back up. “I already did, Master. I told him about my job, and about self-defense classes, but there wasn’t much more I could tell him. He asked if I was dating anyone, and I told him I am, but then I didn’t feelcomfortable answering more than that, other than how long we’ve been together. I didn’t tell him I’m gay, and he assumed I was seeing a girl. I should’ve corrected him, but I just told him I had to go and that I’d call him in about two or three weeks. He told me he’d pay airfare for me to visit him, but I didn’t really respond to that, except to tell him it was a lot to process and I need some time.”

“So, now he has your phone number?”

He shook his head. “I skipped part of the story when you asked if I was going to call him, Master. I asked Bubbles if I could buy a burner phone from Brain, and he said he’d check. An hour or so later, Bash brought me a phone and told me there was plenty of time on it, and to just bring it back when I was finished with it, even if it took a few weeks.”

I nodded. I knew the bikers had at least one illegal business because I was aware of what they called their whore hotel, so it made sense they’d use burners.

“Explain your thought processes in detail, Davy. Why didn’t you talk to me about any of this?”

“It’s all mixed up in my head, Master. Lots of thoughts kind of jumbled together. Mostly, I know how crazy things are on tour and I didn’t want to add any stress to your last couple of weeks, but I think there was some logic in there about this being my family, so it’s my responsibility to deal with them, and I know you said we’d deal with whatever came up, but I have all kinds of stuff the prison therapist dude said I needed tounpack and work through, but I didn’t see the need, so I never did.”

Well, that part was easy enough to handle. “Sam Levi knows a kink-friendly therapist. I’ll get her name and we’ll make an appointment for you to talk to her. She’ll be fine with our relationship, so you’ll be able to talk freely with her about everything in your life.”

“I don’t—” He sighed. “Yes, Master.”

He didn’t want to, but he quickly remembered that this wasn’t his call. If I wasn’t upset with him I’d have given him a smile, but I kept my face blank and spoke slowly and clearly, enunciating every syllable. “Anything that gives you a panic attack warrants a phone call to me right away. In a perfect world, you’d have called me before you opened the envelope, and you’d have read it out loud to me right then. I don’t care if it’s a work thing, a family thing, or something you remember from your childhood that you hadn’t remembered before. Anything that upsets you is my business.”

And there was one of his lines. I looked down, made a note on my phone with the stylus, and looked back up.

“Did you like your grandfather, when you talked to him?”

“I did, Master. I’ve hated my entire family all my life, thinking no one wanted me, but my dad refused to let his parents see me.” He shrugged. “If Malcolm is telling the truth, but I believe him because I figure my parents didn’t want anyone to see how malnourished I was. My dad cut off all contact, so my grandfather never knew the state took me in.”