“I would suggest you eat something,” Gio said. “You barely ate anything last night. By the time lunch rolls around, you’re going to feel sick.”

“Sorry, I’m just not hungry today.”

I stared at the scrambled-egg-and-bacon smiley face I’d constructed on my plate and wished I could eat something just to appease Gio. I didn’t want to admit the reason I had lost my appetite, but it was difficult to hide anything from him.

“You don’t regret what happened between us, do you? I would never forgive myself if—”

“God, no,” I said. “I regret that less than anything that’s ever happened in my life. It was incredible.”

Gio watched me closely as he bit into a slice of cantaloupe and licked a stray trickle of juice from his bottom lip. His easy sophistication guaranteed that he looked amazing no matter what he was doing.

“So you’re worried about sitting in on the business meeting today. You don’t know what to expect.”

I had gotten an impromptu promotion that morning. Or maybe a better way of saying it is Gio had decided to expand my duties from menial tasks to sitting in on business meetings with his associates.

“It’s just that I don’t know the other men. Are they like my father?”

Gio raised a brow. “What do you mean, like your father?”

I fidgeted, not wanting to be entirely honest. What I had to say might offend him, and that’s something I never wanted to do. But he would push until he got his answers, so I decided I might as well talk.

“I mean do they work for you… like that?”

He laughed, his blue eyes crinkling at the corners. “You want to know if they’re violent men? If they hurt people for a living?”

“Yes,” I said. “Do they do the piano wire stuff?”

“Piano wire?” Gio shook his head. “Did your father tell you he uses piano wire on people?”

I nodded. “He mentioned it once when he was drunk. Among other things.”

Gio reached across the table and tipped my chin up, gently forcing me to make eye contact with him. “Your father isn’t a contract killer. The only thing he does for us is a little coercion. Sometimes a threat is all someone needs. If that doesn’t work, a little fist action usually does the trick.”

“But who does he use fist action on?” I hoped it wasn’t innocent people.

Gio sighed. “You’ve seen the casino downstairs, but what you probably don’t know is that I have an arrangement with a guy named Z who handles sports bets for people. Sometimes those people sort of borrow money from us. If they can’t pay it back, your father and his buddy Paul get sent to encourage them to figure out how to come up with the money. It’s not that big a deal, and honestly I don’t have much to do with that part of the business. For me, it’s just a side project. One of several things I dabble in.”

“Does my father make thirty thousand dollars a year?” I asked.

“More like half that, I would imagine. He’s something like an independent contractor, and he doesn’t get paid unless he gets results. Think of it as a commission-based job.”

“But he comes in to work every day, right?”

Gio was already shaking his head. “He hangs out in the casinos every day. Z knows where to find him if he needs him. He makes a fair living, I suppose, but I’ll tell you the most interesting part.” Gio leaned in like he had a juicy piece of gossip. “Your father owes Z more money than some of the guys he’s going after. Sometimes Z will take it out of his pay, sometimes he won’t. I think it depends on what kind of mood he’s in.”

“So you don’t work directly with my father?” I asked.

“We’ve only met a couple of times. He really works for Z, who works for me. So technically, I suppose you could say your father works for me.”

I felt the familiar shame wash over me. “My father is such a liar, I swear. I didn’t know he was just hanging out at casinos all day and beating somebody up every now and then. He basically doesn’t have a job at all. He’s like one of those guys who loiters down at the hardware store hoping someone will pick him up for an odd job.”

“Look at me, Peter.” Gio drummed his fingers on the table until I finally looked up. Then he smiled. “It doesn’t matter what your father does or how much he exaggerates. Not only did he make one hell of a great kid, but he brought you over to meet me and got you this sweet assistant job. You’ve got to give him props for that.” He laughed. “I almost canceled that appointment, you know.”

“Really?” That took me by surprise. “Why didn’t you?”

He shrugged. “Something told me not to. When I get a feeling deep down in my gut like that, I always listen.”

“And now?” I don’t know what I was asking. I just knew I wanted him to go on talking. It made me feel good to hear him talk.

“And now here we are. You’re happy, right? Don’t you feel safe?”

“Yes.” My voice was small, but I meant it so much. I had been working for Gio for a month and living with him for two days, and already I felt more settled than I ever had.

“Tell me,” he said. “What do you like about being here with me?”

“Well, I don’t have to watch my mouth,” I said. “In fact, you encourage me to speak my mind. You don’t yell at me. You don’t stay drunk all the time. You smell good.” I rubbed absently at the perma-bruise on the back of my arm. “You don’t make me feel ashamed. And I like not eating cereal for breakfast every morning.”

“Is that right?” Gio eyed my picked-over plate, and I blushed.

“You know I usually eat. I was just worried about hanging out with—”

“A bunch of men like your father,” he supplied. “Rough drunks who could turn mean at any second.”

“How do you understand me so well?” I asked.

“I don’t understand you at all, Peter. There is no way I could possibly relate to you or empathize with your feelings. I wasn’t raised by an abusive father. My family always had money. My mother didn’t have two children by two different men, then dessert them both and end up in a mental institution.”

I gasped. “How did you know? I’ve never told anybody.”

Gio’s eyes, which I’d seen burn bright with passion and frost over in anger, now faded to a soft chambray, and he smiled. “You’re under my protection, remember? I can’t look out for you if I don’t know what I’m up against.”

“I don’t know her anymore,” I said.

“I know, and I’m sorry for that. I can’t understand you, and I can’t know how you feel, but I want to make your life better.”

I sniffed, feeling the burn of tears that wouldn’t fall if I could stop them. “So I’m a charity case for you.”

Gio came around to my side of the table and pulled me from my seat. He wrapped his arms around me. Strong arms that felt warmer than I ever knew arms could feel. His fingers wound in my hair, and he pulled me against him, pressing my cheek to his chest.

“You are far from a charity case. Do I seem like the kind of man who does anything out of the goodness of my heart? Would you think me the type to sacrifice my own happiness for someone else’s?”

“Yes,” I said, nodding and sniffling.

A low laugh rumbled deep in his chest, vibrating against my ear. “You would be wrong, then. I don’t pull the short straw, Peter. If the odds aren’t stacked in my favor, I don’t bet on the game.”

I pulled back and looked up at him, confused. “What does that even mean?”

“It means I feel like I’m getting more out of this arrangement than you are. You being here makes me happy.”

He bent down and took my lips in a gentle kiss, making love to my mouth with his. I had never realized how amazing it felt to kiss someone. When I’d seen other people do it, it just seemed like part of sex. Something you did to hopefully get laid.

Gio had changed my mind about that. Kissing him was like a main event in itself. I could have let that man lick and tease and ravish my mouth all day long and never gotten tired of it. Unfortunately, we couldn’t do it all day. Too soon, he pulled away and gave my hair a playful roughing up.

“Time to get dressed. We don’t want the guys showing up while we’re in our underwear.”

I looked down at my Calvins. Actual Calvin Klein briefs, which I had bought with my very first paycheck. If there was one thing I’d learned from my first day on the job, it was that you never know when you’re going to have to drop trou in someone’s living room. I wasn’t about to get caught in dingy two-year-old Fruit of the Looms again. Now I had Calvins in every color I could find.

“I’d rather stay like this all day,” I admitted.

Gio glanced down at my Calvins, and I glanced down at his paisley silk boxers. Both of us were hard.

I hadn’t gotten a chance to explore his body the night before. I’d been too overwhelmed, and he’d been too eager to initiate me, I think. But now I had the strangest urge to touch what he had between his legs. The bulge was irresistible.

Before I even realized I was doing it, I had reached out and touched him through the fabric. The feel of hardness beneath the slick silk was intoxicating. I rubbed it gently with only my fingertips, like I might break it. Like it was a precious artifact and I had been entrusted with its care.

Gio let me play for a moment, then he grabbed me by the wrist, reached down and released his cock from waistband of his shorts, and guided my hand back to it. My fingers went around it, and his went around mine, and he showed me what he liked.

He stroked his cock firmly with my hand, and as he picked up speed, his breaths came faster as well. It was thrilling to have my hand used in such an intimate way, and I watched in naïve fascination as he worked himself with my fingers.

I licked my lips as I stared at it, and Gio, who never missed anything, caught me doing it.

“Would you like a taste?” he asked breathlessly. “Go ahead, sweet pea. Put your mouth on it.”

I bent down and barely the brushed the head of his cock with my lips. He slowed his strokes and squeezed a little harder, his movements intense and deliberate.

I darted my tongue out and into the slit, and tasted the milky droplet that clung there. Then I gave the tip of his cock a soft, open-mouthed kiss, running my lips gently down the sides and swirling my tongue around it.

Gio tensed, and thick, hot jet of cum spurted into my mouth almost without warning. He groaned long and deep as he filled my mouth with yet another jet, and another. I didn’t think to swallow, and rivulets of his seed spilled out of my mouth and down my chin.

I closed my mouth and swallowed what was left, smacking my lips.

“Mmm…” I said, looking up at him with a grimace.

He laughed, and I knew I must have been a sight with my wild, surprised eyes and cum-soaked chin. He pulled me up and kissed me, licking into my mouth and tasting himself on me. Then he pulled back and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“You made a mess, Peter.”

“Me?” I asked incredulously? “You’re the one who made the mess. On me.”

He chuckled. “Go get cleaned up. We’ve got about an hour before people start arriving, and we both need a shower.” He swatted me playfully on the ass, and when I yelped, he looked stricken. “Sorry. I forgot you were still tender.”

“It’s not too bad,” I said. “The cream really did help.”

He kissed the top of my head. “I’m still sorry. Now hurry up and get a shower so I can get mine.”

* * *

When meeting time rolled around, Gio and I were squeaky clean and suited up, both of us in blue. We studied ourselves side-by-side in the bathroom mirror before the guests arrived.

“We look damn good,” I said.

“A matching pair.” Gio smoothed my lapel and pinched my cheek. “And no one would guess you had my cum on your face not an hour ago.”

I grinned so hard my face was in danger of cramping. “I liked it,” I said.

“Not as much as I did, I’m sure.” He moved behind me and grabbed onto my hips, squeezing slightly so that his fingertips tickled just inside my hipbones. As I laughed and squirmed, he bent down and sucked on my neck, leaving a wet spot.

I wiped it away. “Don’t mess me up. I need to look professional.”

“Oh, that reminds me. I have a notebook and a pen in the office for you.” He walked briskly out of the room and across the apartment to his office, which I had rarely had occasion to set foot in.

I groaned as I followed. “I got enough of taking notes in school. Can’t you just get a tape recorder?”

“That’s not the point,” he said. You need to make yourself useful. Or at least look useful. You can’t just sit there looking pretty. They’ll wonder why the hell I invited you to join us.”

“Why are you inviting me? I don’t understand.”

“I want you there. That’s all the reason you need.”

“But you act like they won’t appreciate me being there.” I was getting nervous again, and the fact that I had no food on my stomach wasn’t helping.

“They’ll be fine with it as long as you have a purpose. Nobody wants a stranger listening to his business for no reason. We discuss some sensitive issues.”

“Great,” I said. “Can’t I just go watch TV? Or how about giving me some errands to run?”

Gio found a notebook in the corner of his hutch and handed it to me. A pen was lodged in the spiral binding.

“Take notes,” he said. “Do your job.”

A few minutes later, there were three well-dressed men sipping lemonade in the living room.

Frank, a forty-something Italian guy with chubby cheeks, slicked-back hair, and a shiny goatee, had claimed the center of the sofa. He sprawled out, claiming as much real estate as humanly possible.

Teddy squeezed in next to him, trying to make himself even smaller than he was. He had an unassuming encyclopedia-salesman demeanor, and from his aggressively receding hairline and button-busting paunch, I guessed him to be about fifty-five. His nose was so distractingly thin, I had to wonder if it compromised his sense of smell.

Z, the man Gio had explained was my father’s boss, had taken one of the two chairs in the room. From Gio’s description, I had expected some cigar-smoking tough guy, but the reality was quite a different story. I estimated him to be in his late twenties or early thirties. He was rail thin—like drug-addict thin—with black spiked hair and a long silver earring dangling from his left ear. His face would have been handsome had he not had sunken eyes and razors for cheekbones.

All three men stared openly at me when I entered the room, and I thought for one irrational moment that I might have still had something on my face. Or maybe something about my demeanor screamed, I lost my virginity to Gio Rivera.

Gio made introductions, and we all shook hands. Then I had to find a seat. It was either slide in next to Frank on the remaining sliver of sofa or sit on the floor. I moved hesitantly toward Frank.

“Take my chair, Peter,” Gio said.

“I can’t do that. This is your meeting.”

“It’s okay. I forgot Frank takes up four city blocks. I’ll get another chair from the office.” He disappeared and returned carrying a huge armchair like it was nothing.

The man was strong, and as I watched him I fantasized about him carrying me like that. Picking me up and holding me in the air while he fucked me. I had seen that on porn videos before and had thought it looked uncomfortable, but now I was dying to try it.

Gio set the chair right next to mine and started things off. It was clear from the get-go that I wasn’t going to understanding much. The other four men had prior knowledge of the situations they were discussing, and they didn’t take the time to spell it out for me.

I just wrote down some of what they said and tried to look halfway intelligent. About ten minutes in, I caught myself doodling pictures of skulls and roses. Theo always said I was pretty good at drawing, so I had practiced a lot in school when I was supposed to be taking notes. Apparently old habits died hard, because here I was doing it again. Only this time I was getting paid for it.

The group brainstormed ways to squeeze more money out of the ventures they were currently working while minimizing risk. I eventually came to understand that risk meant losing money or getting caught by the law.

I wasn’t naïve enough to think anything this crew did was legitimate, but hearing it talked about so freely was disconcerting. I found myself imagining a few scenarios that involved cops busting down our door and hauling us all off to prison.

I got especially nervous when they started talking about candy, which I figured could be translated to drugs. They used a lot of code words, and I was only able to figure out a couple.

After the business discussion was done, conversation turned to matters of a more personal nature. Everyone asked about Frank’s sick mother, and he said she was going to have to go to a nursing home. Then Z droned on about the walking pneumonia his mother had suffered through last winter. Teddy recommended some herbal remedy he had recently started selling, and everyone scoffed.

Once when I glanced over at Gio, he shot me a subtle wink and a smile. That made the entire meeting worth sitting through.

I was a little surprised that Gio didn’t say much. He smiled and nodded at the guys every now and then.

When he got up to refill his lemonade, he refilled mine, too. I thanked him and took a swallow, trying not to look too obviously lovestruck as I gazed at him over the rim of the glass.

I also tried not to look at his body. Every time I did, I pictured what was underneath his immaculate suit, and my face got hot. Once, he adjusted his dick subtly in his pants as he re-crossed his legs, and I swear I started getting hard from that one simple movement.

“So what’s up with the assistant?” Z’s blunt question snapped me out of my fantasies of Gio and brought me back to the uncomfortable present.

All eyes were on me.

Gio shrugged. “He’s taking notes for me, like I said.”

“He go to college for that?” Frank asked. “Looks like he’s still in high school.”

“I just graduated,” I said indignantly.

“Do you know shorthand?” Teddy asked. “My sister takes shorthand dictation for a law firm. She went to night school to learn how to do it, and now they keep her busy all the time.”

I shook my head, wondering what the hell shorthand was.

“Let me see,” Z said, waving me over with the hand that wasn’t clutching his lemonade glass.

“Excuse me?” I asked.

Z waved his hand again, this time more animatedly. “Bring it over here. Let me see what you got there.”

Gio didn’t intervene, so I got up out of my seat and walked the notebook over to Z, blushing all the way to the ends of my hair. This was the moment of truth, when they would find out I was nothing but a fraud.

He took the notebook from my hand and studied it for a long time, flipping the pages back and forth with his free hand as the notebook sat on his lap. “This is good work, kid.”

“Thanks,” I said, unable to believe my ears. Was he being serious?

He held the notebook out to me, but when I tried to take it back, he held on.

“Maybe I’ll get you to take some notes for me sometime,” he said with a cocky grin.

Gio laughed, but it wasn’t genuine. Not at all like the ones he reserved for me.

“He works full-time for me, Z. I don’t allow moonlighting.”

Z shrugged and let go of the notebook, causing me to snatch it too hard and stumble back a step. Then I returned to my seat, flustered.

I knew I shouldn’t have attended the meeting. Gio had said the other guys wouldn’t mind as long as I had a purpose for being there, and Z had just discovered I didn’t. Well, not a legitimate one, anyway.

Why the hell had I drawn those doodles?

I looked to Gio for support, but he was staring at Z. There seemed to be an unspoken showdown going on between them.

After a few seconds, Z broke eye contact and smiled. “Looks like you’ve already got your boy trained up right. Tailored suit, no shoes. Better watch out, or he’ll be taking your place.”

Frank stopped picking absently at something on his neck and joined the conversation. “Mother always made us take our shoes off when we came in the door, too.”

Z glanced toward Gio’s apartment door and smiled, then gave me a look I couldn’t decipher. That is until I realized there were no shoes at the door. My shoes were in Gio’s closet, placed neatly below my suits.