Page 43

(Axel)

The last text Axel expected to receive from Scout was one touching base to see if Axel would be okay with Kong joining them for supper tonight.

Considering their final meal of the day usually took place around eight, since Axel didn’t get off until seven, he wondered what Scout’s plans for the rest of the evening were.

They’d fallen into a pattern of playing video games with Carl or kicking back with movies, which Axel had come to appreciate after so many years of walking on eggshells, wondering what kind of mood his old man was going to be in.

Usually a shitty one.

When he’d come home from the bar on Saturday night, all Carl had told them was that things between him and Kong had gone better than expected; no glasses had been broken, and no alcohol or blood had been spilled.

For the most part he’d left it at that, except to say that there was more to the man than they’d seen and he hoped they’d keep an open mind about him.

Since Axel hadn’t really formed an opinion of him one way or another, that was easy.

It was the history between Kong and Scout that worried him.

A part of him worried that Kong would try to take Scout from them.

He knew it was selfish, but making out with Scout on the beach had shown him that he’d already come to care for him a great deal too.

His brain had already decided that Scout was theirs, but as Axel read that text, a part of him worried that at the table tonight, Scout was going to tell him and Carl something completely different.

Prolong the suck or get it over with?

His finger hovered over the keypad while he wrestled with his response, typing hell no before erasing it and hesitating again.

Fuck it.

Fine , Axel typed, then hit send before he could change his mind again.

Cool. I picked up milk, bread, eggs, cheese, and cinnamon on my way home from the beach, along with some stuff to cook for dinner tonight. I can’t wait to tell you how I did at my first lesson. Hope you’re having a good day at work. I miss you.

As he read the text message from Scout, Axel found himself smiling and thinking back to the night before, when Scout had been rocking against his side as he’d struggled to defeat Carl at the WWE Smackdown vs.

Raw video game. He’d cursed when Carl’s character lifted him up and power bombed him on the top turnbuckle before hammering stiff forearm shots across his chest. When Carl’s character backed away, Scout’s tumbled backward, landed headfirst in the ring, and proceeded to be stomped by Carl’s until his character had caught Carl’s character’s foot and spun him away, giving Scout’s character a chance to get up.

They’d battled back and forth until Carl’s character pinned Scout’s, and Scout slumped against Axel, whining about being defeated again.

In response, Axel had started tickling him, so he’d shoved both hands up Axel’s t-shirt and tickled him back.

All the squirming made his hand slip, so he snaked it up Scout’s chest, found a nipple, and twisted while he squirmed and bucked.

Between the tickling and the twisting, his fingers stopped seeking out Axel’s ticklish spots, and his nails started digging in.

He’d yanked Axel over top of him and kissed him breathless, gasping as his hips canted up and Scout rubbed his lower body against Axel’s until he started grinding on him.

Carl called it frotting, once they’d finished with their sleep pants sticky and their breath mingling together as they’d lazily shared kisses.

When Axel glanced over at him, he caught sight of something that took his breath away.

Carl’s cock was huge, even softening, and holy shit, Axel wanted to lap at the cum that coated his belly and crawled over to do just that.

He’d only licked twice when Scout nudged against his shoulder, urging him to scoot over so Scout could taste too.

The sides of their heads brushed together as they lapped the mess off their Dom, then Scout sucked Carl down to the root and cleaned the cooling cum off his cock, doing such a good job of it that Carl started groaning and his cock started twitching like it was trying to fill again.

Axel was half-hard from the images burning in his mind when he heard a voice call his name and jerked, turning his head to see his old man standing there, watching him.

“Hey,” he said. “You got a minute?”

Blinking, Axel took a half-step back out of pure reflex as he took in his father’s appearance, shocked to see that his clothes were clean and he’d actually shaved and gotten a haircut.

What completely blew him away was his father’s eyes, not bloodshot and dark, but bright and alive the way they’d been when Axel was a kid.

A glance at his phone showed that Axel still had ten minutes left in his break, so he nodded and leaned against the side of the building. “You look good,” Axel told him.

“I’m trying,” his father replied. “But it hasn’t been easy. You look like you’re doing okay.”

“Because I am.”

“Can you tell your friend for me that I said thank you?”

Scowling, Axel stood there gaping at him, completely confused.

“Big guy,” his father said. “The one who damn near tore the door off the trailer the night he came and got you.”

“Carl,” Axel said. “What am I thanking him for?”

“Sending a few old friends my way to shake some sense into me and get me headed in the right direction,” his father said.

“I needed a wake-up call, not only for me but to see what I was doing to you. I fucked up big time. Bigger than words can ever make up for. It’s gonna take me some time and a hell of a lot more AA meetings than the ones I’ve attended before I’m in a place where I can try to repair our relationship.

I just want you to know that I’m going to get there, and I’m sorry.

You deserved so much better than I gave you these past few years. ”

Stunned, he could only stand there as his old man started to turn away. Seeing him about to leave snapped Axel out of the shock his words had brought.

“Dad,” Axel screeched, hurling himself into his father’s arms when he turned around and hugging him tight. “I’ve missed you. This you. I hope you keep with the AA meetings. You were an awesome dad before you started caring about the booze more than you did me.”

His father gasped but didn’t try to deny it. He just squeezed Axel back and hung on tight, not letting go until he started to.

“I’ll tell Carl you said thanks,” Axel told him.

“And I’ll keep doing my best to be the man you remember me as,” his father said, before heading off down the street.

Axel owed Carl a few words of thanks of his own, ‘cause he’d never thought he’d see his old man walking in a straight, sober line past the package store before he headed into the hardware shop.

Was he actually fixing up the trailer? It had needed it for years.

Despite Axel’s best efforts, he’d never been the handyman his father was before he replaced hammers with bottles and stopped reaching for anything else.

Between Scout’s message and the visit from his Dad, Axel headed back inside to finish his shift with a grin on his face and a bit of a bounce to his step.

Since it was a slow afternoon that grew even slower by the time it started to get dark, Axel spent the rest of his shift stocking, managing to refill all the shelves and one of the coolers too.

As he’d taken to doing since the robbery, Mr. Martinez closed with him, double-checking the locks and the new security system he’d reluctantly put in.

Axel knew it pained him to record friends and neighbors as they passed through the store, but once he’d taken the time to weigh it against the safety of his wife and employees, he’d decided to place a rather prominent sticker on the front window to warn people that they were being recorded.

“This way, if they are thinking about shoplifting, maybe they will think twice and just come to us and let us start them a tab so they can get what they need.

That was the kind of people they were. In the time Axel had worked there, he’d never seen them let someone leave without a necessity.

He’d stopped counting how many times someone had arrived at the counter a few cents or several dollars short.

Each time they’d started to put something like milk, eggs, diapers, and even formula back, Mr. or Mrs. Martinez had refused to allow it.

He’d also seen them refuse to accept money for the goods several days to a week later, when the person returned and tried to give them what they felt they owed.

Instead, they always urged them to use the money for the things they needed for themselves and their children.

They cared about the community and, in many ways, had become the heart of it.

After the robbery, people had dropped in out of pure concern.

One had even given them a Rottweiler pup that kept Mr. Martinez company in the office each day.

The man had explained about the pup’s parents being the best watchdogs the man had ever trained, but Axel knew Mr. and Mrs. Martinez saw him only as a treasured companion.

They’d never put him in harm’s way. Axel had been in the back one afternoon, loading boxes on the dolly, only to spot Mrs. Martinez sitting in the office chair with Ralphie the Rottweiler pup in her arms as she rocked him like he was a baby, the pup’s big paws waving happily at her.

He’d never have much in his savings account working there, but he loved it just the same and couldn’t imagine working anywhere else.

“All good for the night,” Mr. Martinez declared. “I saw your friend pull around back. I’ll let you out before the missus and I head upstairs for the night.”

“See you tomorrow.”

“I look forward to it.”

Carl had In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida playing low through the Bluetooth speaker as he straddled his bike, waiting for Axel.