Shattering glass roused Gabe from a deep sleep, and he floundered a moment. His room. Monday. What the hell—?

Shit, Debbie.

He tripped over a pair of sneakers in his haste to get out of his room and down the hall to Debbie’s. She stood in the midst of a sea of broken glass, staring down like she didn’t know how it had gotten there. Gabe identified the shards as the remains of a blue vase that used to sit on her dresser. One of many things she’d ordered off QVC and one of the few she’d ever actually used.

“Debbie, don’t move,” he said. “Are you cut?”

“No.” The bland reply held no emotion whatsoever. She also wasn’t very stable on her feet.

“Okay, hold still for one minute.”

He dashed back to his room for a pair of shoes then returned to her. He gently stepped over the glass so he could pick her up. She was tiny compared to him, and he deposited her on the messy bed.

“Hang out while I get the vacuum cleaner,” he said. No response. “Debbie?”

“Okay.”

Miraculously, she stayed put while he lugged the ancient vacuum upstairs and cleaned up the mess. The biggest shards went into the bathroom trash can, and he sucked up the smaller bits. Debbie watched him with a blank expression, unaffected by the entire thing while Gabe was barely keeping a lid on his frustration. He was exhausted of cleaning up after her, but he didn’t know what else to do.

“Did you knock it off the dresser?” he asked.

“Dropped it.”

“Why?”

“Don’t like it anymore. It’s ugly.”

“So you broke a forty dollar art glass vase?”

“Yes.”

Goddamn her.

She had no concept of money, never had, but this was beyond idiotic. She could have given it away, traded it, hell, tried to sell it on Craigslist. But no. She gave no thought to how hard Gabe worked to keep the mortgage paid and the electricity on and the credit card minimums up to date. Debbie didn’t want the vase anymore, so she trashed it. She trashed whatever she didn’t like at any given moment, including him, and he was done.

“We can’t keep doing this,” he said. “I can’t keep doing this.”

“I could have cleaned it up.”

“You’d have shredded your hands and feet to ribbons.”

“I can clean up after myself. I’m a grown woman.”

“Yeah, and you’re a fucking alcoholic.”

The blankness lifted, replaced by a deadly glare he knew too well. The anger that came before the attack. “Don’t you call me that, boy. I am your mother.”

His own frustration boiled out of control. “You haven’t been a mother to me since I was a child. I am living here taking care of you, not the other way around.”

She launched off the bed, her small hands beating at his forearm and shoulder. “Don’t talk to me like that, you ungrateful brat!”

“I’m ungrateful?” He shoved her back, hard enough for her to stumble against the far wall. “I pay for everything around here. I clean this house. I clean you up when you drink so much you vomit everywhere except the john. I watch to make sure you don’t drink yourself to death, and sometimes I wonder why I bother because you don’t seem to care if you live or die!”

Debbie gaped at him with teary eyes. He’d never gone off on her like that before, but maybe it was past due. He was tired of their merry-go-round of drinking and depression, and he wanted off. He wanted a life, damn it.

“Get out,” she snapped.

“Debbie—”

“Get out!” She grabbed a book off her nightstand and threw it at him.

Gabe ducked and darted out the door, in no mood to deal with her anymore today. She slammed the bedroom door, and that was just as well.

He returned to his room, got dressed, grabbed his phone and locked up. He had no real destination in mind when he got in the car, but it didn’t surprise him when he found himself heading toward Paxtang. Dad would still be asleep, but Bear was an early riser no matter how late he stayed up the night before.

He let himself in. Bear was at the kitchen counter drinking coffee and reading on his tablet. He looked up and instantly knew.

“What did she do?” Bear asked.

“Doesn’t matter. I can’t keep doing this.”

“Never should have been on you to do it.” Bear pulled out the stool next to his, and Gabe sank down into it. “I’m so sorry, son.”

“Not your fault. I thought I could help her. I can’t.”

“Some people don’t want to be fixed. I know me and Richard hurt her a lot of years ago, carrying on while Debbie and me were still married, but we can’t fix the past. If she wants to hold on to it, that’s on her. Not you.”

Gabe hadn’t found out the whole story of the end of Bear’s marriage to Debbie and the start of his relationship with Richard until Gabe was in high school. He’d learned that Bear had cheated on Debbie with Richard, but even after she found out she wouldn’t divorce him. She wanted their family intact for Gabe’s sake, but she was drinking more heavily and becoming more and more unstable.

He only vaguely remembered the incident, but when he was four he’d somehow fallen down the stairs and broken his arm. He learned later that he’d lain there for hours because Debbie was passed out on the sofa, dead drunk. When Bear found them like that, he’d begun divorce proceedings and forced Debbie into rehab. They shared custody for a few years, but she began drinking again. Gabe was eight years old when she passed out in her own vomit, and he was so scared he went out to find a neighbor to help. He was hit by a car and sustained several broken bones and a concussion.

A month later, Debbie signed away her parental rights and Richard officially adopted him. He had limited contact with Debbie for years until she sobered up again. She stayed clean through most of high school, so he’d visit her once a week. He kept her house in good repair. He learned about the cheating, and he began to understand her alcoholism. Their relationship was the best it had ever been.

Until she started drinking again right before his high school graduation. And she hadn’t stopped since.

“I don’t know what to do,” Gabe said.

“Not much else you can do. You’re a good kid, though, trying so hard when she doesn’t really want to get better.”

“I may have to go out of town for a few days for work, and I’m scared to leave her alone.”

“Work, huh?”

Bear had always been super supportive of his work in porn, so Gabe told him about the Puppy Farm offer. “There are some good-looking boys on that site,” Bear replied with a big old grin. “You know who you’re nailing yet?”

Gabe rolled his eyes. “No, and I don’t care as long as the money comes through.”

“I didn’t think you wanted to expand that career too far.”

“I don’t, but I can’t really afford not to.”

“You can if you unload your mother.”

“Unload her how? Get my own place? The house is in my name. I pay the mortgage every month to keep a roof over our heads.”

“Give her an ultimatum. Rehab and zero tolerance, or she’s out.”

Gabe shook his head. “Even if she goes to rehab, the day she falls off the wagon I won’t have the balls to kick her out on the street. She’s got no money that isn’t mine, and as hateful as she can be, she is still my mother. I won’t make her homeless.”

“Debbie doesn’t deserve you, you know.”

“Maybe, but I’m all she’s got.”

“She could have still had me and Richard, but she chose bitterness and anger over forgiveness and friendship. There’s only so far you can go for someone like that.”

“I guess.”

Bear tapped the side of his coffee mug. “Move back in with us for a while then.”

Gabe startled. “Here?”

“Sure. We’d both love to see you more.”

“You see me several nights a week at the club.”

Bear waved a hand in the air. “Seeing you at work’s not like seeing you at home.”

“Debbie will be pissed if I leave her for you.”

“Don’t tell her then. You tell her you’re gone until she gets herself together. Pay the mortgage but the rest is on her. Everything that she does after you leave isn’t your fault. She’s a grown-ass woman and she’s been taking advantage of your generous spirit for years.”

Bear’s voice went up at the end, some hidden anger peeking through. Bear had never been shy about his hatred of Gabe moving in to take care of Debbie, instead of going to college full-time and having a life. Richard pretended he had no opinion, but Gabe knew he felt the same as Bear.

Bear also had a point. Gabe wasn’t his mother’s keeper. She needed to clean up or risk losing her son’s support, period. He wouldn’t kick her out onto the streets, but he could cut her out of his life.

“Adult Protective Services would check on her, right?” Gabe asked.

“Probably. We’ll make sure someone does so you don’t have to make contact.”

“How long can I stay?”

Bear grinned. “As long as you need, my boy.”

“Okay. But I won’t tell her what I’m doing until my stuff is here.”

“Good idea.”

Debbie would pitch a fit and then some. He didn’t need to spend the next couple of days waiting for her to attack him in a drunken, pity-filled rage.

“Besides,” Bear said, “me and Richard will be able to spend time with your Tristan.”

My Tristan.

“That’s going well?”

“Oh yeah.” Memories from Saturday night replayed in vivid detail. “We Skype every day and email all the time. His memory keeps getting better, and I really enjoy the time we spend together. I’ve never known anyone like him.”

“He having any side effects from the drug trial?”

“Some issues with constipation, so he’s taking a fiber supplement. But he said his doctor thinks it’s his system resetting now that he’s remembering to eat regular meals again. Other than that, he’s only mentioned a few bad headaches.”

“That boy’s been blessed.”

“So have I.”

Bear’s bushy eyebrows arched. “That so?”

“Just thinking about him makes me smile. I’m constantly wondering how he is and what he’s doing.”

“How’s the sex?”

Gabe didn’t even pretend to be surprised by the nosy question. “It’s intense. I know it sounds kind of Bella Swan of me, but I feel connected to him.”

“Sounds like a man in love to me.”

“I think I might be.” His heart thumped harder. “He’s the best thing in my life.”

“That’s how I feel about Richard. Always have. Had to give some of that to you when you were born, but I love my two men, even if I don’t say it much.”

“I love you too, old man.”

“Watch it, kid. I may be old, but I can still thump your ass.”

Gabe laughed. Bear had never laid a finger on him, not even a childhood spanking. Probably because Debbie had smacked him around enough behind closed doors, and Bear still harbored some guilt over that. Little boys fell down, roughhoused and got bruises. Gabe never spoke up because Bear and Debbie were always mad at each other, and little Gabe hated seeing his parents fight.

Those early years often felt more like a nightmare than actual memories, and Gabe was more than happy to forget them.

“Since I’m moving back in and will be turning twenty-five in a few weeks,” Gabe said, “do I need permission to bring my boyfriend over?”

“Hell no. Tell him he’s welcome any time, so long as the sound of two old farts fucking doesn’t bother him.”

Gabe snorted. “Well, hopefully the sound of two hot, young guys fucking doesn’t burn your ancient ears.”

“Son, I will be listening with my ear pressed to the door.”

He laughed out loud along with Bear, because he knew Bear would never do that. Bear and Richard respected the decisions he made, both personally and in his sex life, and they’d always given him his privacy.

“So Tristan’s officially your boyfriend?” Bear asked.

Gabe realized what he’d said before. “We haven’t actually talked about it, but I want him to be. If he’ll have me.”

Bear’s expression shifted from amused to serious. “Can I ask you something? It’s more personal than you usually get from me.”

“Sure.”

“Say this drug stops working, or the effects aren’t permanent like they hope for, and he goes back short bursts of memory like before.”

Gabe hated thinking about Tristan’s progress reversing, and he saw the question coming before Bear asked, “Would you stay with him?”

“I hope so. I mean, I was interested before he began the drug trial. I’d like to believe that if Tristan stopped improving, he’d remember enough of me to move forward. That we’d find a way to work it out.”

“Well, that’s honest.”

“It’s all I’ve got. Right now all Tristan and I can do is live one day at a time and treasure every moment.”

“That’s all any of us can do. No one’s guaranteed tomorrow, after all.”

“Gee, that’s a happy thought. Thanks.”

“Keeping it real, kiddo. Richard and me? We’ve been blessed with our time together. I’m grateful every day that he’s not been sick once in the last twelve years.”

“Me too.”

Being twelve years old and trying to understand his dad’s pneumonia could kill him because his immune system was compromised by HIV had been seriously fucking scary. Until that day in the hospital he’d had no idea Richard was positive and had been since before he and Bear met.

Bear leaned back in his chair, grinning like a fool. “So the pup’s coming home.”

“Only until I can get Debbie sorted out.” He was sick of supporting someone who rewarded his efforts by throwing shit at him.

“So should I book your room for one year or five?”

“Fuck you very much. It won’t be that long.”

It had better not be.

* * *

Gabe’s last email said he’d Skype at three o’clock, and at 2:59 Tristan’s laptop chimed. His stomach rolled with a familiar sense of excitement and longing as he hit the key to answer. Gabe’s face filled his screen with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. He almost seemed…timid.

“What’s wrong?” Tristan asked.

“Nothing now,” Gabe said. “I missed you.”

“Me too.” He wasn’t letting Gabe off the hook by virtue of being adorable. “Seriously, what’s going on?”

“Just more drama with my mother.”

“Oh.” He glanced at his Gabe Henson crib sheet. Nothing on his mother except “doesn’t like to talk about”.

“I’m moving out of the house I share with her and back in with Bear and Dad. I need space from her for a while.”

“Do you need help packing? Believe it or not, I’m actually really good at organizing things.”

“No, thanks, though. I’m only taking personal stuff, and I don’t have a lot of it at Debbie’s. Mostly clothes and video games.”

Tristan had a vague sense of being in a house with Gabe. “I’ve been there, right? At your dads’ house?”

This time Gabe’s smile brightened his eyes. “Yes. Two nights ago. We had dinner out, and then we went to their house to—”

“Watch a movie.”

“That too.”

Tristan studied the smugness that crept into Gabe’s expression. “We had sex.”

“We had amazing sex.”

“Only once?”

Tristan listened with rapt attention as Gabe described their entire evening in vivid detail. So vivid that his dick started to thicken by the time Gabe was describing their first kisses in Gabe’s bedroom. Bits and pieces seemed familiar, but he didn’t know if it was because he’d read the details so often, or because he was remembering the actual event. By the time Gabe finished with the blowjob on the couch, Tristan had a hand in his pajama pants and was firmly stroking his erection.

Even Gabe seemed worked up over the retelling.

“You’re someplace private, right?” Tristan asked.

“Yes.”

His own door was shut, so he fished out his cock, spat on his palm and got to work for real.

“Shit, Tristan, are you jerking off?” Gabe asked, a sharp edge to his voice.

“Hell yes, I am. Ever had Skype sex?”

“First time for everything.”

Gabe was sitting in a chair, probably at a desk, but Tristan could see his arm moving. He watched Gabe’s face, and Gabe looked right back. Pleasure rolled gently through Tristan, as much for the friction below as the man in front of him. He imagined Gabe sucking him, stroking him, fingering him—all of the things Gabe had described doing to his body two nights ago. All things Tristan loved.

Gabe came first, with a muffled groan, and the way he tried to be quiet took Tristan over the edge. He made a mess of his T-shirt, but he didn’t care. He could change. All he cared about was the satisfied smile on Gabe’s face.

“Can we do that every time we Skype?” Tristan asked.

Gabe laughed out loud. “Works for me. Listen, I want to see you again. In person. Are you free tonight?”

“Um.” Tristan glanced at his calendar. “No, actually. Noel had to cancel yesterday, so he’s coming by to visit this afternoon at”—he saw the time—“shit, in like twenty minutes. I need to get cleaned up.”

“Yeah, of course.” Some of Gabe’s smile had dimmed, and Tristan hated seeing that. “Tomorrow? I get off work at seven. I can pick you up.”

“Tomorrow works. Will your dads be home?”

“Dad won’t but it’s Bear’s night off, so maybe.”

“Cool. I’d like to meet them. Again?”

“Yes, you’ve met them both before, but only briefly.”

“Okay.” Something a little off the wall occurred to him. “Who’s your best friend?”

Gabe blinked hard. “What?”

“Well, you know Noel, right? He’s been my best friend since college. But if you’ve ever told me about your friends, I didn’t write it down.”

“We’ve never really talked about my friends. I mean, I have friends at the restaurant where I work, and people I know at Big Dick’s. But I’ve always been kind of a drifter, I guess. I drift in and out of social circles.” He stared off in the distance for a moment. “I guess my best friend at the moment, other than you, is Jon.”

Other than you. “Jon who?”

“Jon Buchanan. We met at the gym a few years ago, and we’ve worked out together at least once a week since. We hang out sometimes, and we vent to each other about the crazy shit in our lives.”

“You guys ever fuck?” Tristan was being nosy, but he didn’t care. He was also taking notes.

Gabe shrugged. “A few times when we had an itch to scratch. It was never more than sex, though. And before you ask, we haven’t hooked up since I met you.”

“It’s cool. I mean, I’m sure I told you Noel and I hooked up for a while in college, but we couldn’t figure out the relationship part of it.” Tristan had fallen for Noel back then, and he’d fallen hard. But he was young, had a very active sex drive and wasn’t ready to settle down with one guy. Partying and sowing his metaphorical oats was a bigger priority.

At least he’d never lost Noel’s friendship. And because of Noel, he’d met Gabe.

“You and Noel never got together after the, uh, accident?” Gabe asked.

“No. I’m positive we didn’t, although I’m sure I threw myself at him a few times out of needy desperation.” Tristan hated knowing he’d done it. He knew himself, and he knew how easy it had been to lose all sense of time and think he was back in college again.

Noel had been blessed with the kind of patience that Tristan would never comprehend.

“I’m sure Noel understands,” Gabe said. His tone was flat, kind of off.

He’s jealous.

“He does. But I don’t have any reason to do it again now that I have you.” That got Gabe smiling again, so Tristan figured he might as well go for broke. “This might sound goofy, but are we boyfriends? Or is this like a casual thing for you?”

“It’s not casual for me.” Gabe reached out, then stopped, like he forgot Tristan wasn’t actually in the same room. “I’d like to be your boyfriend, officially, if that’s what you want.”

“Hell yes, it is.” Something bright and warm and joyous burst in Tristan’s chest. “I’ve never had an actual boyfriend before.”

“Well, I’m very happy to be your first. I care about you, Tristan. A lot. And the good news in me moving in with my dads is we’ll have a lot more opportunities to spend time together.”

“Time in bed?”

Gabe laughed. “You are insatiable.”

“Three year dry spell, remember?”

“Yes, lots of opportunities in bed. But please tell me we’ll do some things with our clothes on once in a while.”

“Once in a while. Cross my heart.”

“Good. Because I want to take you to an art museum. I want to take you to a movie. I want to go to a Senators game in the spring.”

Tristan adored him for making plans that far out. “Okay. Can we go to Hershey Park too?”

“Anywhere you want.”

“Awesome.”

Gabe reached out again, and this time Tristan was positive he was touching the computer screen. “Have fun with Noel, okay?”

“I will. I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

“Definitely.”

Tristan closed his laptop then practically bounced into the bathroom for a quick shower. His shirt went into the hamper. He took a second to study his reflection in the wide mirror. His cheeks seemed fuller, his hips less narrow. He was gaining weight, which wasn’t something he’d ever imagined wanting to do back in college.

I’m getting healthy.

He was getting better every single day, and even though his visits with Noel were what he used to look forward to the most, he couldn’t wait for it to be over so he’d be that much closer to his date with Gabe.