Chapter 31
The next few days passed for Colin in a spiral of emotions. His concern and worry gave way to contentment at time spent with Hernán, and that turned into a fierce protectiveness bringing him back to concern.
Despite the circumstances, he enjoyed being part of small gatherings of people. They saw Jane and Sara for dinner the first night, and lunch the following day. Rudy joined them for dinner out at one of the few restaurants still open, while Nick and Melody occupied a nearby table.
After the first night full of tension and doubt, Hernán also seemed calmer in the morning. When they heard Nick leave for a run while Melody moved around downstairs, he pulled Colin closer to make love. Their kisses were more subdued than before the gossip item. They were more mindful of their moans than in the privacy of the apartment. Still, when Hernán hovered over Colin, his arms holding up Colin’s thighs, sheathed cock carefully sliding inside, the love Colin saw in his face stunned him.
“Hernán,” he whispered.
Hernán cupped the back of Colin’s head with one hand as he lowered himself for a kiss. He rolled his hips, lobbing his thick cock deep inside Colin before beginning to thrust.
As the pace built, the fat head of Hernán’s cock dragged repeatedly across Colin’s prostate, making him clench his jaw to keep from shouting. He shoved back against Hernán, hands on Hernán’s ass to urge him on to a soul-shaking fuck.
The headboard squeaked but Colin ignored a flash of worry Melody would know what they were doing. At that moment, modesty was gone. All he could think about was the firm muscle, glowing eyes, flushed cheeks, and glorious smile of the man pounding him into the mattress.
He barely had time to grab his own dick between their bodies, slick from sweat and precome, before Hernán changed his angle and slid his cockhead directly against Colin’s gland. Fountains of come erupted from his dick.
Hernán claimed his mouth, drinking in Colin’s shouts. Then he shifted again to slide in and back with long strokes, faster and faster, until his body, too, stiffened. His muscles strained and glimmered in the morning light as he fought to draw out the moment as long as possible. Finally he plunged to the hilt inside Colin, crying his passion into Colin’s mouth as he filled the condom.
Collapsing onto Colin’s sweaty and sticky body, Hernán huffed quietly in his ear. “Do you think there’s any chance Mel didn’t hear?”
“None whatsoever,” Colin whispered back. He refused to feel ashamed.
The passionate start to the day led to an intimate breakfast. Within an hour, though, lassitude and even boredom took over as they milled around the quiet house. No messages from the lawyers, no news from his father… Colin felt like a fly trapped in amber.
When Hernán said he’d like to go for a run, Melody accompanied him while Nick stuck around to watch Colin.
Another day passed, and Sofia sent them the final versions of the asylum papers by email. Hernán had collected the supporting statement from Rudy and the hospital records he needed to prove his stabbing, but he hadn’t been able to reach his sister in San Marcos. Sofia filed the papers that were ready and told Hernán they could supplement the record if needed.
“Now we wait,” David said. “It usually takes several months, even as much as a year, before we get a hearing date.”
Colin glanced at Hernán, who seemed alarmed at the delay. “It’s fine, Nán. If you want to move on from the center, remember you can work if you don’t get a hearing in six months. You can start school. You can do anything you want.”
Hernán rested his head on Colin’s shoulder.
On the fourth morning in Provincetown, Hernán sat at Colin’s shoulder when his video call with Maryanne connected. Colin used Skype to keep in touch and continue to do work for the Immigration Initiative. They had quite a bit of follow-up to the lobbying visits to attend to, including sending thank-you letters and providing additional information and position papers.
Maryanne’s image said, “Oh, hi Hernán. Your classes really miss you. Nancy is taking them through the materials but you have a real connection with the students.”
“I miss them too, Maryanne. Hopefully we’ll find a solution soon and I’ll be back.” They hadn’t told Maryanne much more, but she’d seen the tweet about the two of them. Colin opted to leave it at that, and let her believe nothing more than a desire to avoid paparazzi motivated their absence.
At the end of the call, she said casually, “Oh, I almost forgot. Colin, a Latino man showed up at the center to ask for you. He refused to leave a name or say what he wanted.”
“It might be nothing,” Colin said to Hernán after the call ended.
“Or it might be Cuernos.”
By the fifth day, Colin’s father reported no trouble had come to his parents or siblings. “We’ve had some press inquiries and a few photographers hanging around, but that’s it,” Dad said. “I’ve talked to my security group, and we’re going back to our standard levels of protection. You keep your team as long as you need to, though.”
“Thanks, Dad,” Colin said. “We’re trying to figure out what to do, but it’s like proving a negative. How do we know if the threat has gone away unless we resume our lives, and then what do we do if we’re wrong?”
“You’ve impressed me with your dedication to this, Son,” Dad said. “You’re in a difficult situation but I haven’t seen the slightest doubt from you. There was a time you would have given up already. Your mother and I have talked about it all recently, after what you and Hernán said. Maybe it was our fault you didn’t finish things. What worked for Katherine and Griffin didn’t work with you. We should have seen that was our failing, not yours.”
Colin’s eyes watered. “It really did feel sometimes like you and Mom didn’t believe in me. I was too harsh, though, and I’m sorry. But going through this has made me realize something. If I didn’t stand up for myself or those I cared about before, it was because I didn’t want it badly enough. Now I have Hernán, I think there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to keep him safe. If I could put Hernán on an island away from the entire world, I’d do it. That makes me understand the way you and Mom were with me better. I probably never said it, but thank you for loving me so much.”
His father seemed flustered, and his voice was husky. “You’re welcome. And your Hernán was right, by the way. There’s nothing funny about my stubborn, independent son deciding he can do good by running for Congress.”
Colin’s cheeks burned. “I didn’t say I was going to do it—” but Dad cut him off.
“I like the sound of Senator Felton, by the way. Or not. Whatever you choose to do with your life, your mother and I are proud of you.” He cleared his throat, and signed off.
On Thursday, the sixth day, Hernán’s phone rang. He looked down and said, “It’s Sofia.” Connecting the call, he said, “Hi. What’s new?” He listened for a few moments, his brow furrowing as the lawyer talked. Finally he said, “Okay, I think I understand. I’ll let everyone know but you’re right. It’s probably nothing.”
He hung up and said to Colin and Melody, “It’s a little weird. Sofia called the CIS field office to make sure my application was properly on file and to check if there was any word of a possible hearing date. The woman she talked to checked the computer and said it was odd, the files had been accessed by a different office. Apparently the clerk shouldn’t have said anything because she wouldn’t answer more questions. Sofia asked her to report it to her supervisors, just because it seemed unusual.”
Melody frowned. “Is it possible ICE had already started to look at you, Hernán? Perhaps as a result of the gossip item?”
Colin nodded slowly. “That makes sense. We were worried about the risk of deportation. It’s one of the reasons we rushed to get the application on file.”
They discussed it a little longer, but could come up with no new interpretation.
By Friday, even Colin had started to go running with Hernán and the security team. He had to do something active and hoped the exercise would help him generate some strategy.
Almost immediately he lagged behind. Nick slowed to keep pace with him while Hernán and Melody ran a half-block ahead, up the middle of a deserted Commercial Street.
In a conversational tone Colin couldn’t have managed then, Nick spoke up. “On open-ended assignments like this, Mel and I usually rotate in other team members for the weekend to give us a chance to see our families. Do you have any concerns about that?”
“No,” Colin wheezed. “Sorry, it didn’t even occur to me.”
Nick chuckled. “No worries, but my wife has plans for me to clean out the garage this weekend.”
Rudy would be disappointed to learn Nick was married to a woman, Colin thought. “When do you leave?” he managed to ask as they tackled a slight hill on Commercial Street.
“I’ll get someone out this afternoon to replace me, and come back on Sunday if nothing changes. Mel will stay until I return and then head to Boston for two days. That way we keep continuity. Hey, let’s move over to the side.”
Colin heard the sounds of an approaching car from behind them. Nick maneuvered him to the curb and put a hand on his shoulder to stop him from running. Placing himself between Colin and the street, Nick angled his body toward the oncoming car. Colin noticed Mel doing the same thing with Hernán ahead.
A blue Mercedes S55 moved smoothly along the road, driven by a Caucasian man who appeared to be middle-aged. Colin relaxed marginally at the sight, as did Nick. The face he could see through the car window looked familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it. The Mercedes passed Colin and had almost reached Hernán, similarly standing behind Melody, when it hit him.
Gerald Nimble.
There was no time to tell Hernán to hide his face. Through the rear window of the car, Colin saw Gerald glance at Hernán, and then do a double-take. A moment later, the car sped up.
“Oh shit,” he breathed, and Nick looked at him quickly. His hand immediately dropped to the holster he wore under his running clothes. “No, nothing like that,” Colin said. “It was just someone I didn’t think we’d run into here in the off season.”
They jogged to catch up with Hernán and Melody. “Nán, did you see?” Colin asked.
Hernán nodded. “Gerald. I’m pretty sure he recognized me.”
Melody asked, “Should we be concerned? Is he tied to the Cuernos people?”
Hernán shook his head. “No, it isn’t connected. He’s just this asshole who we had a bad experience with a few weeks ago.”
Colin grunted his agreement. “I wish he hadn’t seen us, but it doesn’t really affect the reason we’re here.”
Nick’s temporary replacement, a heavily-muscled and curly-haired Latino named Jaime, arrived early in the evening. While Jaime received his instructions and briefing, Hernán whispered to Colin, “Rudy’s going to flirt with this guy even more than Nick.”
Jaime looked around the main floor of the house to get his bearings, and observed tersely, “Not crazy about all the ways in and out of the ground floor.”
Nick shrugged. “We keep the two doors onto the rear patio locked, and from the living room we have good sight-lines across the entire floor.”
Shortly after the briefing, Nick drove away and Melody escorted Jaime up to the room where he would sleep.
On Saturday afternoon, Rudy came by the cottage again. When Melody let him in, he flopped dramatically on a love seat in the living room, the back of one hand held to his forehead.
Hernán chuckled. “A little hung-over today, primo?”
“Sí, pero estoy aquí por tu novio.”
“And just why are you here for my boyfriend?” Hernán asked, eyebrow arched.
“I said I’d show him the art museum. Do you want to come with us?” Rudy asked.
“I think I’d rather go for a run.” He turned to look at Jaime. “Is that all right? If you go watch Colin, and Mel takes me running?”
The big guard nodded and Rudy’s face lit up. “I’ll feel so much better with you there,” Rudy cooed. “You look like you could take on four Cuernos single-handed.”
Jaime blushed slightly but was saved from answering when Colin came downstairs. “Hi Rudy. Ready to go?” Colin bent to kiss Hernán’s cheek, and then let Rudy lead the way. Jaime followed a few steps behind.
Melody came into the room and asked Hernán, “You ready for our run?” He grabbed his shoes, laced them up, and waited outside until Melody had secured the house again. They took off in the direction of Herring Cove beach.
Colin laughed with Rudy for the entire twenty-minute walk to the museum. Rudy was full of stories, about Hernán as a child, about the waiters from Bulgaria who worked in P-town for the summers, about love affairs that crashed and burned.
“What happened with the guy from Vermont?” Colin asked. “Hernán told me about him. Sounded like you were kind of hooked on him.”
Rudy sighed dramatically. “Oh, I was. He came back to see me a few weekends later and oh my were we good together. Then he invited me to visit him at his college. We went to a faculty event the first night I was there. I tried to be demure and ladylike. No, I really did, Colin! But someone was playing the piano, and I simply had to perform my tribute to Adele. Anyway, I thought we were all having a good time but my professor was not amused. So that ended tragically, like all the others.” He winked. “The piano player came to see me the following weekend, though.”
Colin made appropriate noises and said he would have loved to see Rudy’s routine. Walking up the path to enter the art museum while they chatted, the door opened and Gerald Nimble stepped out, eyes on the ground. He hadn’t yet noticed them.
“And speaking of tragic endings,” Rudy said loudly.
Gerald’s head snapped up. Colin watched multiple emotions surge across his face as he registered Rudy standing with Colin, flanked closely by a large man. What might have been a spark of longing as he looked at Rudy quickly turned cautious. A cold sneer twisted his features when his eyes landed again on Colin.
“Don’t tell me you’ve moved on from Hernán already,” Gerald drawled. “What an interesting item that was in the Post. So, you spirited Hernán away to Washington, and now you’ve brought him back. Is that to trade him in? I do understand Rudy’s charms to the unwary.”
Colin felt his ire grow, but he ordered himself to say nothing.
Rudy had less restraint. He tossed his hair dramatically out of his eyes and leveled his gaze on Gerald. “Well, if it isn’t my ex. How awkward,” Rudy snapped. “Bought yourself any new boy toys lately? Blackmailed anyone else into your little sex games?”
Gerald snarled, “Watch your mouth, Rudy. We have a contract.” Rudy snorted, and Gerald glared at him. “I don’t have to blackmail anyone into bed.”
“Oh, yes? Like Hernán wanted to go to your house,” Rudy said dismissively.
“There was no blackmail involved. I just told him what I wanted—”
“And threatened to have him fired if he didn’t comply,” Colin said savagely. So much for staying out of it. “I was there, Nimble, at Veranda. I heard what you said to him.”
Gerald’s gaze flickered between Colin and Rudy. A touch of uncertainty vanished in a burst of malice. More wheels turned behind his gray eyes, and he growled. “Ah, Jim Felton’s son. Jim’s a director on the board of the fund. That’s why I was…”
He shook his head pityingly at Colin. “Couldn’t fight your own battles, could you? Had to call on daddy and his friends?” That struck Colin right in the gut, and Gerald showed a little tooth in his grimace. “I suppose it’s what comes to me for not doing the right thing in the first place,” he said.
“What, learning no means no, and staying away from people who find you repulsive?” Rudy asked sarcastically.
Colin saw a flash of pain cross Gerald’s face. “I suppose you mean you found me repulsive all those years, when you were taking my money and eating my food?” The tone was smug and dismissive, at odds with the wound showing in Gerald’s eyes.
Rudy flared up indignantly. “I never asked for anything. You just threw things at me. I was stupid enough to think I meant something to you and that you wanted to give me gifts. Until you sent me away to bring in someone younger.”
“Don’t deny it, you were bored with me,” Gerald hissed.
“Bored with your snotty friends and you showing off your money.”
Jaime broke in, his deep voice cutting through Rudy’s high-pitched squawk of outrage. “Mr. Felton, sir, we should go inside.”
Colin nodded but before he could move, Gerald sneered at Rudy. “What I mean about doing the right thing is calling Immigration.”
“What did you do?” Rudy demanded, his voice reaching even higher decibels.
“Just what I said. I called ICE in Boston this morning to alert them to an undocumented immigrant hiding in Provincetown.” Glaring up at Jaime, Gerald added, “He’s apparently here to cause trouble, given the thugs he brought with him.”
Colin clenched his fists to keep from throwing a punch. He’d never hit a person in his life but Lord, he wanted to lay Gerald out.
“You malicious piece of shit,” he said in a low, dangerous voice. “Is it any wonder no one will be with you unless you force them or buy them? Well, you’re too late to cause trouble that way at least. Hernán’s application for asylum is on file already.”
Rudy gasped suddenly and grabbed Colin’s arm. “What Hernán said last night, from when his lawyer called.”
“What do you mean?” Colin asked, frowning.
“She said someone at CIS or maybe ICE accessed Hernán’s records improperly. What if it has to do with Cuernos?”
“I don’t follow,” Colin said, but Gerald interrupted before Rudy could answer.
“The Cuernos del Diablo gang? What could they possibly have to do with this situation?” he demanded with a snort.
“It’s the reason Hernán came to this country in the first place,” Rudy said, glaring at Gerald. “He was running for his life because Cuernos targeted him in El Salvador.”
“Because he’s gay? I knew it,” Gerald gloated.
Colin almost let his fist fly but Rudy beat him to it. Grabbing Gerald’s jacket in his hands, he shoved him back against the door of the museum.
Almost in tears, Rudy said, “How could I have ever felt anything for you? You are such a pig. Yes, Hernán is gay. He was nearly killed because he was gay and then you tried to force him to have sex with you. How are you any better than a rapist? I don’t care what our contract says or what you do to me. If anything happens to Hernán because of your evil bullshit I will let everyone know about the clothes in the trunk and the role-play. Do you understand me, pendejo?”
He shoved Gerald to the side and flung open the doors of the museum. “Come on, Colin. I need some class after stepping into the gutter with this pinche idiota.”
Colin followed warily after Rudy, aware of Jaime looming behind him. He turned slightly to see Jaime bend and whisper something in Gerald’s ear. Gerald turned pale and scurried off down the path to Commercial Street.
Inside the museum, Rudy had stepped to the right of the door and leaned his back against the wall, his eyes glassy and his chest heaving. Colin put a hand on his arm.
“That was perfect, Rudy. I wanted to punch him, but what you said was better.”
Rudy tried to blink away tears but his eyes filled. “I used to think I loved Gerald,” he whispered. “I’m so stupid.”
“No, just hopeful. You’ll find the man deserving of your love one day.” Colin pulled him into a hug. “Hernán’s going to be so proud of you, and I am too.”