I curled the dumbbell up to my chest in my right hand, counting under my breath as I reached the one-hundredth rep. Then I did the exact same thing with my left hand, letting out a long, slow exhale as I did so. Beads of hot sweat rolled down my forehead and temples, dampening my dark hair and making my reflection shiny in the mirror. I was in my home gym, which was really just the second upstairs bedroom that I had filled with all my workout gear.

When I had first moved back to Vegas, my overbearing father had insisted that I move back in with him and Mom, since at that point they were still married and living together. I’d fought him every step of the way, claiming (truthfully) that I wanted my own space so that I could more easily focus on my future.

I was a freshly-graduated Harvard attorney trying to get established, and I wanted a chance to prove myself outside of my father’s household-name influence. Sure, lots of people might see it as an advantage to have followed in my dad’s clearly-defined footsteps. And I was self-aware enough to admit that, yes, it was a leg up in a lot of ways. Especially when he convinced me to just join his practice as a junior attorney. But even with the advantage of a built-in position at a famous, well-established, respectable firm, it had felt like a massive step backwards for me.

To go from all the freedom of being across the country at college to moving back in with my parents at their massive luxury condo-- it was hard. Granted, the place was huge: six bedrooms, four bathrooms, two formal living rooms, a dining room, a state of the art chef’s kitchen (designed by my mom specifically), and a four-car garage. So even though I lived with them for about six months, I hardly ran into them at all.

Still, it was the principle of the matter; I was in my mid-twenties and living with my folks. And even though I hadn’t been fully out of the closet in college, I had come out to a few guys I knew, purely to sleep with them. That, for me, had felt freeing. And coming back to live with my parents naturally meant that I had to slide even deeper into the closet.

So, as soon as I had collected six months’ worth of paychecks, I moved out and bought this townhome instead. Finally, I had my own space again. I turned the bottom floor into the office and made the upstairs floor suit my needs. My hope had been that putting my office in the house would give me more free time, since it would eliminate the necessity of a commute. But unfortunately, as it turned out, I still spent way more time downstairs in the office than I did up here where I was supposed to actually live. But I leaned into it. I knew there was no point in using the second bedroom as a guest room; I never had guests here that weren’t just clients or colleagues. Now it was my home gym, and that suited me just fine.

Especially because with a high-stress, fast-paced job like mine, I needed a physical outlet for all my excess energy and frustration, and today was no exception. I gritted my teeth, still furious at Rodney’s antics in court this morning. That bastard had gotten me in trouble-- yet again-- only this time with a judge instead of the Harvard staff. It seemed that the years had not matured Barrington past the point of being a tattletale. He was still the exact same obnoxious jerk he had been back in college.

I grimaced, angry with myself for ever having thought of him as a friend. He was part of the reason why I had stopped trusting everyone so easily. Barrington had stabbed me in the back so deeply, so callously, that now I found it hard to believe anyone. And the worst part was that despite how deeply I despised him and all that he stood for, that little annoying part of me couldn’t help but feel attracted to him. That was just the icing on the shit cupcake today had been already.

I had come into the workout room to burn off that frustration, thinking that all I needed was some sweat and fatigue to shake Rodney out of my mind. But nope. No such luck. It seemed like the harder I tried to forget about him, to pretend he didn’t exist, the more clearly defined his image became in my head. I could picture him so clearly: tall (but not as tall as me), broad-shouldered, perfectly-dressed, with those high cheekbones, that wry smile, his surfer-guy blonde hair, and those incredible ocean-blue eyes…

“Damn it,” I swore angrily, nearly dropping the dumbbells on the floor in a fit of rage. God, it was so annoying. Why was he flitting around my brain like this? Like some obnoxious fly I couldn’t quite swat away? How was I supposed to focus on kicking his ass up and down the courtroom when all I could think about was the shape of his ass so smoothly outlined by his tailored trousers? I hated him so much, and yet, it was almost as if I wanted him as badly as I wanted to punch him. He was the bane of my existence. He was the reason I couldn’t even reach a place of Zen here, in this most sacred of places, my home gym.

Perhaps my wires were getting crossed in my muddled-up head. Maybe my hatred of him was somehow crisscrossing with my loneliness and pent-up sexual frustration. Whatever it was, I sure wished it would stop. It was bad enough having to see his smarmy, handsome face in my courtroom, but to have my body responding to it this way… it was simply unacceptable.

I shook my head, breathing raggedly as I stared at myself in the closet door mirror. I gave myself a disapproving scowl and muttered, “Come on, Hud. Get your shit together.”

Just then, I heard my phone ping a few times in rapid succession. I groaned, rolling my eyes as I got up to go check it, expecting a slew of work emails. Or perhaps admonishments from my colleagues or clients about what went down in court this morning. But to my surprise and relief, it wasn’t a work-related thing at all. It was actually just a few text messages from the one person in my life who I knew for a fact genuinely cared about me and my well-being: my dear, doting mother.

A warm smile crossed my lips and I slid the screen open to access the messages. There were three, all of them punctuated with smiley faces and heart emojis. That was pretty standard fare for Lorelai North. She was just as bubbly and yet oddly wise as she always had been. People tended to underestimate her on account of her past, but they didn’t know her like I did.

Others just took one look at her pretty face, former career as a model and pageant queen, and her scandalous divorce and hefty settlement from my philandering father and thought they could peg her as a dumb gold digger. But she was smarter than that, and kinder. In all the years of my life, I had never known Mom to treat anyone without compassion, and it was much harder to deceive her than people assumed. She was smart and beautiful and nice-- a combination nobody expected to find in a lady like her. It was funny, actually; people tended to assume that I was just like my father, but the truth was, I was basically just the male-version carbon copy of my mother. And I was incredibly grateful for that, since she was a much more pleasant person.

Her texts were a roundabout way of asking me to come visit her to catch up. She urged me to take a break from my hard work and come have a home-cooked meal. As much as I wanted to stay on the ball and dig my heels into my work, I knew she was right. I needed the distraction, anyway. Especially if I was going to somehow push Rodney Barrington out of my mind. So, I hammered out a quick response:

Okay, Mom. Sounds great. I’ll just hop in the shower and be there in half an hour.

She immediately replied with three full lines of heart emojis, which made me chuckle. I sighed and headed down the hallway to the large, luxury bathroom, stripping off my sweaty clothes as I went. I tossed the clothes into the laundry hamper and turned on the shower, cranking the heat up. The massive bathroom mirror started fogging up instantly, and I slipped into the big rain shower enclosure. I let out a groan of appreciation as I stepped under the scalding-hot spray, hoping to wash away not just the sweat and grime of a hard workout, but the stress of the past two weeks. That was a lot to expect from a shower, I supposed, but I hoped it would work nonetheless.

But no sooner had I closed my eyes and started lathering up than the image of Rodney Barrington, smirking and sexy as hell, jumped right to the front of my thoughts. Damn it. He really was like getting a song stuck in my head. A very annoying but catchy song. My body started to respond to the image of him, as I pictured what it would look like to see him slowly, carefully strip off his suit jacket, slip off his starchy shirt, and those perfect slacks. I could leave the tie around his neck but loosen it, use it to pull him close to me as I leaned in to press my lips against his. I could almost feel the way he would sigh against me, leaning into my touch and moaning softly as my hand slipped down to cup the growing bulge between his legs…

“Fuck,” I mumbled, opening my eyes. I looked down to see my own cock standing fully erect, the smooth head pink and engorged. I bit my lip, unsure of whether I should ignore it or not. On the one hand, I probably needed the release. But on the other hand, what was to stop my mind from hyper focusing on Rodney?

My cock began to ache and pulse and I decided to bite the bullet. I reached down, bracing myself against the wall with one hand while I stroked my hard, slick cock with the other. I was so tightly-wound that it only took about a minute of fast, hard strokes to explode hot cum all down the shower drain. When I was finished, I rinsed off and stepped out, refusing to look at myself in the foggy mirror as I got dressed again.

I had wasted enough time already. I pulled on a pair of comfortable old jeans and a white t-shirt, sliding on my socks and sneakers. With one quick, embarrassed glance at my reflection, I headed downstairs and out to the curb, deciding to drive myself this time. I slid behind the wheel of my glossy silver Mercedes, revved up the engine, and listened to her purr as I pulled out onto the street. Some people would think I was out of my mind to keep my Mercedes street-parked outside, but the truth was, in my neighborhood, it wasn’t out of place. Hell, my neighbors had a gorgeous, powder-blue restored 1956 Corvette they kept parked right outside. It was a gated community, and I trusted everyone around me, which was saying a lot for a guy like me.

It was only about fifteen minutes from my townhouse to the luxurious, contemporary three-bedroom house where my mother lived alone. I pulled up out front and the porch light flickered on, making me smile. I parked the car and walked up the front steps, admiring the brand-new rose bushes she had just put in. Even here in the desert landscape, my mom was remarkably skilled at coaxing the most delicate and temperamental plants to grow. I tended to think it was her patience that did it.

I reached up to knock, but the door swung open before I could get a chance to, and Mom yanked me into a tight hug, showering my cheeks with kisses. “Oh, my sweet boy! It’s so wonderful to see you,” she cooed, stepping back to look at me with a brilliant grin.

“Good to see you, too, Mom,” I replied, smiling back.

“Come in, come in, sweetheart. I’ve got a pot roast in the oven. Your favorite!” she chirped brightly, leading me down the hall to the gigantic kitchen. It was the pride and joy of the whole house, the one thing she was adamant about when she was in the market for her own place after Dad unceremoniously dumped her for Tiffany.

Mom was retired now, but she still did a lot of charity work as well as running a pretty popular online cooking blog. So, it was important for her to have a great kitchen-- and the realtors definitely delivered.

“Wow, it smells heavenly in here,” I said, taking a deep sniff of the rosemary-and-gravy scented air. “How long’s that roast got left?”

“Oh, just about twenty minutes. You’re just in time,” Mom quipped, bending down to look at the roast in the oven. It was quiet in the house, but I could faintly hear a weird dripping noise from down the hall.

“What’s that?” I asked, gesturing in that direction. She stood up and brushed her hands off on her apron, giving me a reluctant shrug.

“It’s nothing, Hudson. Don’t worry about it,” she said quickly, in that overly dismissive manner that indicated there was, in fact, something wrong. I grinned.

“Mom, is that faucet leaking again? I thought the plumber had come by to fix that already,” I remarked. She sighed dramatically.

“Well, he did, but then it broke again, I guess. I’ve just been ignoring it. I’ve got a big pot under the pipe to collect the water and I just dump it out twice a day,” she said.

“Twice a day? Mom, that’s too much. I’ll go take a look at it. Is there still a toolbox in the hallway closet?” I asked, already heading that way. She gave up on trying to stop me. I grabbed the toolbox and walked into the guest bathroom, crouching down to get to work. In college, I had roomed with a guy who worked part-time as a handyman, so I had picked up a lot of tips from him. It only took me about twenty minutes to get the pipe patched up and stop the leak, and the kitchen timer went off just as I was walking back into the kitchen. Mom gasped with delight.

“Again, perfect timing!” she said happily as she rushed to collect the roast. She plated up the food, pausing to take a few artsy photos of the meal for her blog before we sat down to eat. We sat at the table in the adjoining dining room, and I noted again that while there were lots of photos framed on the walls and shelves around us, every photo was conspicuously lacking my father’s image. That didn’t surprise or bother me, considering what he had done to Mom-- and me, by extension. I still hadn’t quite forgiven him for ditching Mom like that, although she seemed less upset about it than I was. Probably because she saw it coming before I did.

She had married my father when she was quite young-- and he was twelve years her senior. He had plucked her right out of a beauty pageant and made her his wife in such a quick whirlwind that she hardly got a chance to think it over. At least, that was how he told it.

“So, how have you been lately, dear? I saw in the paper last week what happened at the attorney convention, but I couldn’t believe it. Did it really happen?” she asked, more curious than judgmental.

I sighed, setting down my fork. “Yes. I did punch Rodney Barrington in the jaw.”

“Oh, honey. He must have done something pretty awful to deserve that,” she remarked.

“He just did something shady to me back in college. An old grudge,” I said, rolling my eyes. “And now I’ve got to face him in court.”

Her eyes went wide. “He’s taking you to court?” she gasped.

I laughed, breaking the tension. “No, no. Not like that. He didn’t go to the cops. He’s just representing the defendant in a case I’m on.”

“Oh,” she said, relieved. “Is he good?”

“He’s very good,” I admitted bitterly. “Too good.”

“Well, then you’re a good match,” she said with a wink.

“I sure hope so. This is a major case, Mom. This could make or break my career,” I said.

“Did you know he would be the opposing lawyer when you punched him?” she asked.

I chuckled and shook my head. “No. Not at all. The punch was just-- well, it was about college stuff. Old history.”

“What happened, Hud? What did he do?” she asked, frowning in confusion. “How come you haven’t mentioned any of that before? You know you can tell me anything, right, honey?”

I took a deep breath, contemplating it for a moment. Then I decided it was better to just be open about it. Enough time had passed. “Well, he almost got me kicked out of Harvard,” I said. Her jaw dropped and she stopped eating, just staring at me.

“Oh goodness. I didn’t know that!” she exclaimed.

“I know. I kept it a secret,” I confessed.

“But why, sweetheart?” she inquired, almost hurt.

“Because,” I groaned, “I was embarrassed. And because I didn’t want to worry you or Dad about my future. I worked it out with my professors and everything turned out fine, so it doesn’t matter now.”

“Well, it matters enough that you’d go out of your way to punch the guy,” she countered wisely, raising an eyebrow. I couldn’t help but smile.

“You don’t miss a thing, do you?” I said fondly. She laughed.

“You’re my son, Hud. I notice things. I know you better than anyone. And if you’re not ready to give me all the juicy details of what happened, that’s fine. I get that. I just don’t want you to hide things from me for my own sake. Whatever it is, I can handle it,” she said, rather pointedly. I nodded and looked down at my plate, refusing to meet her eyes.

I knew what she was getting at-- the same thing she had been poking at for years now. I knew she suspected that I might be gay, but with typical Lorelai tact, she was waiting for me to come to her about it, rather than pressuring me to do it on her terms. I would tell her someday, once I was ready to be out to the world.

It wasn’t like I was ashamed of my sexuality-- I knew it was perfectly fine and natural. I had accepted it long ago. But the media… they were still obsessed with my family. My father had done a good job of securing that fact. Every scandal sold newspapers and magazines, and I was under constant scrutiny. I needed to prove myself as a good attorney first, before I let the world see me for who I was on the inside.

“And, you know, it’s not healthy for you to let negative stuff like that fester inside of you, sweetheart,” Mom added gently. “If Mr. Barrington hurt you years ago and it’s still bothering you this badly, then maybe you should talk to him about it. I know that sounds like the last thing you want to do, but perhaps it would help.”

I reluctantly looked up to meet her gaze. She went on. “You shouldn’t let something that happened years ago affect your life now. You have to learn to forgive and forget, or at least forgive. I know the forgetting part is a lot more difficult. So, would you give it a try?”

I nodded slowly, knowing she was right, as usual. “You know what? You’re a hell of a lot smarter than anyone gives you credit for,” I told her. She laughed.

“Oh, I know,” Mom teased. “So, why don’t you reach out to him?”

“I think I will,” I said, already reaching to grab my phone from my pocket. My heart was pounding like crazy, but I managed to type out an email asking Rod to meet me at a popular local bar to chat and hash things out. Nothing like a little encouragement from Mom to get the ball rolling. I only hoped this would make things better, not worse.