Chapter 2
As
he walked into the back third of his loft, which he used as his bedroom and home office, Trevor shook his head at the absurdity of his evening. The only child of a father whose political ambitions had landed him in the apex of all positions—the presidency—and a mother who had given up her own promising political future to play behind-the-scenes puppet master, politics had been the center of Trevor’s life from the day he was born.
A childhood filled with warnings about being careful of his actions lest he land his parents in an above-the-fold article and family time spent focused solely on the next election, had irrevocably soured Trevor on all things political. When he was twelve years old, his parents had suggested he run for student council and Trevor had responded with a snide remark about the uselessness of student government and a pronouncement that his time was better spent on his schoolwork. Thirty years later, he still held the same opinion.
Thankfully, as an adult, he was mostly able to avoid conversations about who was electable or controllable or minable for funds. Except, of course, when he spent time with his parents. Which was why he didn’t join them for any public events and also why he steered clear during election season.
And yet, when he had seen Bradford “Ford” Hollingsworth III ducking into a bar near his house, instead of walking away, Trevor had followed him in, approached him, and then taken him home. Wanting to ignore politics didn’t mean he could avoid basic awareness of elected officials so, of course, Trevor had recognized the son of the man who had hoped to unseat his father but hadn’t had the chance because he had lost in the Republican primary. Bradford Hollingsworth II had a tendency to have his wife, four children, and often his grandchildren near him during photo opportunities, and Trevor had always spent a little too long looking at the senator’s only son.
Sandy brown hair, hazel eyes, and a fit but not particularly muscular build, Ford Hollingsworth was an attractive man. But more than his appearance, Trevor had been drawn to the softness in Ford’s expression when he looked at his siblings and parents and the smile on his face when he played with his nieces and nephews. Trevor was both sufficiently knowledgeable and sufficiently jaded to understand that most things taking place in front of a camera were staged, but he had never gotten that sense about Ford. The freshman representative had a genuineness lacking in other elected officials and those who worked for them.
Or at least that was how Trevor had viewed him before that night. As he took off his clothes, he tried to gather some righteous indignation at Ford’s actions. The man was petrified of anyone finding out he was gay, so Trevor could easily write him off as yet another lying politician. But Trevor understood better than most people how hard it was to live in the public eye, to be chained to the next election cycle, and to have demands from varying sides, all wanting to be heard. Coming out would destroy Ford’s status as the young darling of the Republican party, so Trevor couldn’t judge him for making the choice to keep his personal life personal. Moreover, beneath Ford’s anger, accusations, and fear, Trevor had seen hope, desire, and the same sweetness that had attracted him in photos and videos.
“Doesn’t matter,” he mumbled to himself as he turned on the shower. “The man’s a politician, which means elections count more than family.” And certainly more than a bar pickup, no matter how combustible their chemistry.
He rubbed his palms over his eyes, sighed, and stepped under the spray. There was no reason for him to dwell on what’d happened. Even if Ford hadn’t recognized him or had chosen to stay the night, Trevor wouldn’t see him again after sunrise. Come morning, Ford would go back to pandering to his voters and hobnobbing with the movers and shakers in the Beltway, while Trevor would bounce between Manhattan, Silicon Valley, and anywhere else the latest technology companies seeking investors were located. After growing up with parents who viewed family as a prop and had lovers on the side, Trevor didn’t believe in relationships, and even if he did, a closeted politician wasn’t relationship material.
“Hi.”
The voice was so quiet Trevor barely heard it over the running water. He flipped around, wiped droplets from his eyes, and blinked in surprise when he saw Ford standing outside the glass shower door.
“Is the invitation to stay still open or did I blow it?” Ford bit his upper lip and looked at Trevor from underneath his lashes.
A lightness filled Trevor and he couldn’t contain his smile. “You haven’t blown anything yet, but if you take off your clothes and get in here, I’m sure we can fix that.”
“Okay,” Ford said with a soft laugh.
Trevor quickly grabbed the soap and scrubbed up. He was rinsing off the suds when the door opened and Ford stepped inside.
“Glad you decided to trust me,” Trevor said.
“I’m not sure I do.” Ford shrugged. “But you made a good point about having enough ammunition already.” He gulped. “And I really wanted to stay.” He met Trevor’s gaze and whispered, “Tell me I’m not making a mistake.”
The vulnerability in that question, the desire to trust, tore at Trevor’s chest. He wrapped his arms around Ford and pressed his mouth to Ford’s ear. “You’re not making a mistake.”
With a sigh, Ford relaxed and leaned against him. They stood together, neither talking, for several long seconds and then Ford sucked in a deep breath, straightened, and flicked his gaze around.
“This is a, uh, big shower.”
“Big enough for two.” Trevor tilted his head toward the second showerhead. “And neither of us has to be cold.”
Ford moved his gaze from Trevor to the showerhead and back again. “Do you live with someone?”
Jaw tightening and muscles tensing, Trevor growled, “If I lived with someone, you wouldn’t be here.” Getting married or living with someone wasn’t on his agenda, but if he did take that step, he’d do it right, not like his parents. Marriage should mean love, commitment, and fidelity, not photo ops, business meetings, and nights spent apart.
“I don’t live with anyone either.” Ford sighed and turned on the second shower. “What’s your reason? Everyone knows you’re gay and you were on Forbes’ list of billionaires last year, right? So I’m guessing it’s not hurting your job any.”
“I’ve been on that list for the last five years. I came out when I was eighteen. And no, it hasn’t hurt my job.”
As a college freshman, Trevor had used his trust fund as seed money for his first investment—a dot-com created by his Stanford classmates. He took the profits from that success and invested in two more companies, and then three more, and then four. By the time he graduated from business school, his net worth was higher than most CEOs, so instead of working for someone else, he had focused on what he did best—identifying technology start-ups that needed capital and business acumen. He provided funds and technical advice, and when the companies grew and became profitable, he either sold his ownership interest and walked away with exponentially more money than he’d put in or held onto his shares and profited from high dividends.
“You’re lucky. I’ve heard your parents talk about gay rights and how proud they are of you.” Ford closed his eyes and leaned into the water. “My family wouldn’t support me like that. They couldn’t.”
Ford was right; Trevor’s parents paraded his sexual orientation like a dog and pony show whenever the topic came up. He classified that less like being supported and more like being a prop, but he’d never describe his parents that way to anyone other than them. Besides, to a man like Ford who had to hide from everyone in his life, the reason for his parents’ behavior was probably less important than the result. And the result was that from the day Trevor had come out, he had been supported.
“Is it that they can’t support you publicly or do they have an issue in private too?” Trevor asked.
“What do you mean?” Ford opened his eyes and looked at him in confusion.
“Well, I don’t know if your father has another presidential bid planned, but he’s still in the Senate and he’s still a conservative Republican so being supportive of gay rights could be an issue for him politically. I’m asking if at home, with no cameras or reporters, they’re supportive of you.”
“My parents don’t know I’m gay,” Ford said, sounding almost scandalized at the prospect. “Nobody knows.”
“Seriously? Nobody?”
“No.” Ford shook his head.
“What about guys you’ve, uh”—Trevor coughed—“dated?”
Even with his skin already rosy from the steamy shower, redness rose on Ford’s cheeks.
“I’m not with guys a lot, but when I am…” He looked down and frowned. “It’s not dating. It can’t be. They don’t know me and I don’t know them.” He rubbed his hand over his hair. “It shouldn’t happen at all but sometimes I get weak.”
“Is that what you call what we did?” That possibility bothered Trevor more than it should have. “Because it didn’t feel like weakness to me.”
“You’re right, it didn’t.” Ford absently picked up a shampoo bottle from one of the tiled cubbies built into the walls and poured a pool onto his palm before rubbing it into his hair. “The church I went to growing up, the one I still go to when I’m in Missouri, always said homosexuality was a sin, so when I was younger, feeling the way I did meant weakness.”
“And now?” Trevor asked tensely. As much as he resented his upbringing and his parents’ obsession with other people’s perceptions, some of it had unquestionably rubbed off on him, because while he could understand Ford hiding from the public in order to keep votes and donations, he couldn’t respect a man who hid from himself.
Furrowing his brow in thought, Ford tipped his head back so the water ran over his hair and rinsed out the lather. “I know gay people now. I’ve read the court briefs and decisions, listened to interviews.” He looked into Trevor’s eyes. “No, I don’t think being gay is weak anymore, but I do think it weakens me. Does that make sense?”
“It weakens you or it weakens the freshman congressman from Missouri?”
Knitting his eyebrows together, Ford said, “That’s the same thing.”
“Come on, Ford. Our families sit on opposite sides of the aisle, but we’ve both spent enough time in the Beltway to know that isn’t true.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean the person standing in front of the camera or on the podium says what’s needed to please the lobbyists or the donors or, not nearly as often, the voters. But that doesn’t translate to saying the same thing at home, behind closed doors, and it certainly doesn’t translate to believing a lot of that bullshit.”
Crinkling his nose in disgust, Ford said, “That might be true for some people but it’s not how I govern and it’s not how my father governs. When he talks about family values, he means it. When he refers to his faith, he’s speaking from the heart. We’re not Christmas and Easter Christians. My family is in a pew every Sunday. We tithe ten percent of every dollar we earn, and I’m including the paper route I had as a kid and the babysitting money my sisters earned.”
Trevor wasn’t convinced that was true for Senator Hollingsworth, but he was convinced Ford believed it and wanted to emulate it. “That might work for state office, but unless you want to be a one-term congressman, you’ll need to change that approach now that you’re in DC.”
Narrowing his eyes, Ford crossed his arms over his chest and said, “My father has been in the Senate since I was in the first grade. After thirty years learning from him, I think I have a good handle on the difference between serving my constituents and being self-serving. His votes on the floor have never been for sale and neither will mine.”
Touched by Ford’s dedication to his father, no matter how misplaced, and impressed by his seemingly altruistic perspective on public service, Trevor softened his voice and rubbed his palm across Ford’s arm. “I didn’t mean to insult you or your family. Tell me what you meant about being weakened?”
After a second of hesitation, Ford relaxed his posture. “I meant the same thing as when I said my parents wouldn’t be able to support me. To them, if I’m gay and act on it, I’m choosing a life of sin. They won’t respect it, understand it, or support it. But the older I get, the more people I meet, and the more I learn, the less I believe that.” He swallowed hard and his jaw ticked. “I do my best every day to honor my creator and I can’t believe he would have made me this way if it was wrong.”
Trevor himself was an atheist, but he understood Ford’s point. “I don’t believe any god worth worshiping would do that either.”
“Right. So then I have a choice to make, don’t I?”
“About coming out?”
“I was talking about voting and speaking my conscience. If I say to others what I’ve said to you, I’ll weaken my opportunity to serve. My colleagues won’t trust me. My party probably won’t support me. And I doubt I’ll win another election.”
There was no denying the possibility of that outcome so Trevor nodded.
“But if I stay quiet or worse, vote against my conscience for bills I don’t believe in…” He paused. “Votes that harm gay people, then I’m dishonoring the office and weakening myself, aren’t I?”
In all the years Trevor had listened to his parents talk about legislation or governance decisions, he had never once heard the words conscience and honor. He would like to think that was a difference in vocabulary rather than a difference in philosophy, but he wasn’t sure that was true. Regardless, Ford had once again made a good point about his untenable position and also shown yet another glimpse of his admirable character.
There wasn’t an easy answer to his quandary and certainly not a fast one. But Ford probably knew that already. He wasn’t standing in Trevor’s shower because he wanted advice. He was there because he wanted human contact with someone who wouldn’t take advantage of him, which was the same reason Trevor had brought him home.
“You know, I just realized something,” Trevor said.
“What?”
“We’re wet and naked.”
“You just realized that?” Ford said, arching his eyebrows in amusement.
“Well, we were talking so I got distracted but now that we’re done…” Trevor dragged his gaze from Ford’s face, down his torso, and paused at his dick before returning to his eyes.
“Yeah,” Ford said, his voice thicker. “Now that we’re done…” He followed Trevor’s lead and dropped his gaze to Trevor’s filling cock.
“That shower bench is strong enough and wide enough to hold us both or we can try out the bed. The mattress is firm and the sheets are this insanely soft cotton I picked up in Italy.”
“I have to choose?” Ford asked, the sides of his lips twitching.
Trevor stepped over to him, clutched his hips, and yanked him forward, bringing their groins together. “That depends. Can you spend the night?”
“My flight’s at nine tomorrow morning. I’ll need to leave here at seven so I can pick up my bag, check out of my hotel, and get to the airport on time.”
Pressing his face to Ford’s neck, Trevor inhaled deeply. “I’ll give you an unforgettable wake-up call and send you off with a strong cup of coffee.”
“Trevor?”
“Yes?” Trevor raised his face and met Ford’s eyes.
“I never do this. Even the few times I’ve been with a guy, I haven’t spent the night. You know who I am, so this is different, but I’m still not in a position to… I’m not ready to—”
“Even if they start out wanting to get into my pants, most guys get distracted by my bank account or my parents. I brought you here because I figured someone like you wouldn’t care about either and we could have fun without posturing or nervousness or whatever other bullshit people take to bed when they want something other than a good, hard fuck.” Trevor slid his hands over Ford’s shoulders, cupped his cheeks, and leaned forward. “The only position I want from you is on your back, legs spread. Or on all fours, ass high. Or inside me, balls deep. Think you’re ready for that?”
Shivering, Ford hoarsely said, “Yeah.” He gulped. “I think all of those sound perfect.” He cleared his throat. “Really perfect.”
“Glad we’re on the same page.”