14. Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Thirteen
Arnav
Let him come to you. Don’t push . Yet pushing was exactly what I wanted to do. In my professional life, I knew when to come on strong and when to use the slow-and-gentle approach. This situation called for the latter, but all I wanted to do was the former. Like a bull in a china shop—you might ruin everything before you get what you want. So I sipped my coffee and waited for Foster to share what he could. Of course, I’d already decided to find out as much as I could about this ex of his. To make sure he wasn’t mistreating anyone else.
Or so I told myself.
Foster clasped his hands on his lap. After a long moment of staring at them, he turned his attention to the beautiful, large, plate-glass window with the curtains now pulled back, unlike last night.
The snow had lessened from the blizzard and now fell lazily. The winds had died as well, so the flakes descended in a more orderly pattern. If snow could even ever be called orderly .
“I don’t think he was a bad man.”
I refocused my attention on Foster, even though he didn’t look at me.
He drew in yet another deep breath, then blew it out slowly. “Just…controlling. Which you’d think would be a good trait in a Dominant.”
I held in my snort. But just barely. There were some very unhealthy ways for a Dom to be controlling.
“And slowly I became more isolated. Much like I had been as a kid. He knew that too. I’d stupidly told him all about my upbringing. The bad stuff. He’d use that against me.”
I wanted to know in what way—and about his childhood in general—but his last Dom had used those secrets against him. If I wanted his trust, I needed to make sure I let him keep his privacy as long as he needed to. Instead, I waited for him to come to me.
“And…I don’t know…I didn’t argue. Well, not after the first bit. Defiance was met with swift punishment. Not always physical. No, he was more into psychological stuff. Deprivation, cruelty, callousness. Anything he could do to hurt me and to break me down.”
Again, holding in my anger took effort.
“Then one day he told me he was finished with me. That I could move out. That he’d found someone younger. Someone more attractive.”
“Okay, sorry, I have to say something. That’s utter bullshit. Don’t get me wrong—I’m glad you’re away from that fucker, and I hope you never see him again, and he better hope I never see him because being an abusive fucking asshole is totally unacceptable.”
Finally, he turned to meet my gaze. His eyes were shiny with unshed tears.
“Do you…” I hesitated, not knowing the right thing to say. The right thing to do.
“Can I have a hug?”
I barely had a chance to nod before he lunged for me. I caught him against my chest and managed to put the empty mug on the coffee table before pulling him fully into my arms.
He shook. Is he crying? Yep, that’s wetness . I didn’t care, of course. I only hoped these were cathartic tears. That if something inside him had broken, I’d be able to help him put it back together.
As he clung to me, I held him close while rubbing his back. He’d hinted at physical punishments as well as clear psychological abuse. I’d sort of guessed at some of that. His reactions. His little comments. His wariness around me. Yet he was also comfortable around Dante, who was the consummate Dom so, to me, that offered a glimmer of hope. That he might come to trust I would never—never—do anything to betray his faith in me.
“I’m sorry.” He sniffed and pulled back.
Reluctantly, I let him. I wasn’t going to hold him against his will. “For what?”
“For being a crybaby.”
“Okay, that’s just bullshit. I don’t know if he said something to you or if some asshole kid on the schoolyard used that term—”
“A worker in a group home.” He whispered the words.
Oh shit . This was turning out to be so much worse than I’d imagined. “Do you want to talk about it? How long were you in the group home?”
He sniffed.
I spotted a box of tissue. I snagged it and offered it to him.
His watery smile was somewhat reassuring. He grabbed a couple of tissues and wiped at his nose.
“You can blow your nose, if you need to.”
He blinked.
“It’s all right. Perfectly normal. I do it frequently myself. Seasonal allergies.”
“In front of other people?”
“Well…maybe not before a judge or opposing counsel. But in front of my family? We’re all human.”
The smile widened. “I think I like the sound of your family.”
“Yes, well, they keep me on my toes.” And I’m not going to mention I still live with them .
He blew his nose, then tucked the tissue into his pocket. “I’m okay.”
I questioned that, but wouldn’t say anything out loud. “Can you…do you want to talk about what happened? Before?”
“You mean when I was growing up?” He blinked.
“Yes. I mean, you’ve already said a lot, and maybe it’s overwhelming…or maybe it’s better to just say everything all at once and get it over with.”
“This is a lot of burdening.”
I cocked my head.
“Me burdening you.” He gestured between the two of us.
“Ah.” I offered a measured smile. Just so he wouldn’t think I was enjoying this or getting some perverse pleasure out of his clear pain. “If you’re unburdening yourself, there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m here to listen. I’m not a therapist, but I’m still good at hearing what you are and aren’t saying.”
He let out a little huff of a laugh. Then he rubbed his face. “My mom…had issues. My dad took off when I was little. I don’t remember him. My mom had a…I want to say some kind of breakdown. When I was eight. I was sent to live in a group home while she recovered. Only she didn’t. Well, not for a long time.”
“That had to be rough.”
“Yeah, well…” He swallowed. “I was a scrawny kid. Always picked on. Always made fun of. I mean, those other kids didn’t have parents either, but somehow they were fine with it.”
“Or so they appeared to be.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I figured that out as an adult. Their way of coping with the pain was to harass the new kid. Some kids came after me, but I tried to stand up to them. Wound up getting my ass kicked a time or two. But I kept at it. Then, when I was twelve, I moved into a foster home.” He rubbed his face again. “That was like night and day. Suddenly I was living with a family. Mrs. Stubbs and Papa J. Oh, he was Mr. Stubbs, but he insisted we call him PJ. Short for Papa John. He was…” Foster sniffed. “Like, the best. And there were all these rules about not touching kids and stuff. But if you needed a hug, you could always ask for one from PJ and he never turned you down. Big guy. Like Santa Claus big. And he just smiled all the time. Mrs. Stubbs worked for a doctor’s office, and PJ stayed home with the kids. That was unusual back then. Remember, more than thirty years ago now. Things were starting to change, but men didn’t generally stay home with the kids. PJ did.
“I went to school and then raced home every day. He would be so proud when I showed him my work. My grades improved. I slept through the night. I made friends. And when the kids made fun of my name—what with Foster being the foster kid—he’d stand up for me. Said I had a great name. Because to foster meant to love. To nurture. And he said one day he could see me doing just that.” He sniffed again.
“He sounds like a remarkable man.”
“He was.” Foster rubbed his face yet again. “I went to his funeral. About…I want to say about fifteen years ago. I hadn’t kept in touch, but I saw his obituary in the paper. They talked about the hundred or so kids who’d taken refuge in his home. Whom he’d loved. I just…had to be there. Mrs. Stubbs didn’t recognize me. I didn’t expect her to, what with having fostered so many. I expressed my love for PJ and then moved along. Not long after that, I met Howard.”
“So you were with PJ until you finished high school.”
“Uh, no.” He laughed bitterly. “My mother got her act together and decided she wanted to get me back. No one asked me what I wanted—which was to stay with PJ. I barely knew my mother, and what I remembered was her being unstable. Anyway, I was sent back to her. She worked, and I went to school, and we barely interacted. No joyous reactions when I did well. No congratulations when I graduated with honors and got a scholarship to the British Columbia Institute of Technology.”
I wanted to grab him into an even bigger hug. Sometimes the system really didn’t know what was best for the child.
He huffed. “Except she gave me a home, and me leaving PJ’s meant he could take in another kid in need.”
“That’s a very mature response.”
“Telling myself that was the only way to work through the pain. And I did. When I graduated high school, my mom suggested I move out. I did. And I never saw her again.”
I tried to discern how he felt about that, but I couldn’t get a read on him.
“Then, like six years ago, the police notified me that she’d died. She never married and never had kids. Just left a note about me.”
“Did she…” I swallowed.
“What? Oh no, nothing like that.” He waved me off. “She had a heart condition and knew she was going to go sooner rather than later. She had a nurse who checked in with her three times a week. One day…she was dead.” He let out a sigh. “I would’ve gone to her…if she’d asked. I thought maybe one day…but she never did. And by then I was in the relationship with Howard, and…” He sighed. “I had to ask Howard for the money to cremate her. I think he wanted to just leave her for the government to take care of, but he agreed.”
Jesus, I’m going to fucking kill Howard.
“She had almost no stuff. I found a few old photos and kept them. The rest I donated. In the end, she barely made a blip in my life.”
“You had PJ. At least for that brief time.” Was this the right thing to say? I just didn’t know.
“Yeah.” He finally met my gaze with glassy eyes. “I wanted to keep in touch after I left his care, but the social worker said I wasn’t allowed. I was a rule follower, even back then.” He closed his eyes briefly. “I went by his house when I got the scholarship. I mean, I was eighteen and so wasn’t having to abide by the rules. He was on the sidewalk, teaching a young girl to ride a bicycle. She looked so happy that I couldn’t…” He scrubbed his eyes. “I didn’t want to get in the way of that. He’d moved on. He was taking care of someone else. I just thanked God—or whoever—that I’d had him in my life. That he’d been such a positive influence.”
“I bet he would’ve been proud, but you should also be proud of yourself for putting another child first. Then college?”
“Yeah. I studied construction operations. I wanted to be involved in building housing. That seemed like a good use of my skills. And I had some muscle, so I could do a lot of the physical stuff.”
“That’s can be tough on your body though.”
He waved me off. “I was young. And ambitious. Even when construction was in a downturn, I always found work. And, by accident, I found Howard.”
And here we circled back. “How, exactly?”
“He was the lead architect on a housing complex. This was for-profit housing, which wasn’t my favorite to work on, but the government wasn’t in the business of building homes at that point, and I needed the job.”
“Just like that?”
He indicated a so-so motion with his hand. “We didn’t hit it off at first. I found him arrogant, he found me abrasive. But I was only abrasive with him. Something about him just got to me, and so I was always reacting. Then one night, after everyone else had gone home, we had it out. To clear the air.” He laughed. A grating sound. “After shouting at each other for about twenty minutes, we…” He clapped his hands together. “We realized we batted for the same team. We realized we were…compatible.” He arched an eyebrow.
I knew what he meant, and so nodded.
“He drove us to the nearest motel, and we…discovered how compatible we really were.” He shrugged. “I gave up my apartment and moved into his house a month later. Two months after that, I tendered my resignation at work. And then became his fuck toy for about ten years.”
My breath caught. I hadn’t realized he’d been in that dysfunctional relationship for so long.
“Then he dumped me, and I tried to find a job in Vancouver. Except I couldn’t afford to rent in the city and I had no savings and no car.” He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, what was I thinking, right? Apparently nothing intelligent.”
“And he ended the relationship, you said?”
“Yep, told me to get out. That he’d found someone…livelier.” He held my gaze. “Meaning twenty years younger than me.”
“Shit.”
“Precisely. Howard is a big bear of a man. Attractive to boot. He’d have no problem attracting the twinks. And he found one to his liking. I was simply an inconvenience. And I didn’t have a leg to stand on. I hadn’t been filing my taxes, so I hadn’t told the government we were common law. At that point, it felt a little pointless. I got my taxes filed—having to explain to them how I’d had no income for ten years and wasn’t just not reporting it—and then picking up the pieces. I found a construction company in Mission City that was hiring. The foreman saw potential in me. Or so he claimed. Once I’d been working for him for six months, he sent me back to BCIT for my construction-supervisor certificate. My skills were rusty, but not that much had changed. With my new credentials, the foreman put me in touch with a friend of his who needed help. For all of my”—he waved his hand around—"piss-poor judgment in men…I was good at helping people build stuff. Been doing that ever since.”
“Here in Mission City?” I was certain I didn’t remember spotting him.
“Well, for those first few months. The job he helped me get was over in Abbotsford. I lived in a rental over there.” He gestured around. “This is his house. Well, his rental house. We were sharing a beer when he told me about the mess his former tenants left. I offered to help him out—for free. I still owed him big time. He wouldn’t accept the help, but he offered me a huge discount on the rent. Like a quarter of what I was paying for a crap-hole apartment in Abby. I moved the next week and have been slowly fixing this place up. He buys all the supplies and stuff. I just provide the labor.”
“Sounds like he’s getting the better end of the deal.” Free labor? Foster should’ve been getting free rent.
He shook his head. “That place in Abby had black mold. No, I needed out, and there’s not much rental supply in the area. I had just landed a new construction project in Mission City. This is perfect. I don’t have to drive back and forth over the bridge every day. And I’m working for a not-for-profit. I may be making a bit less money than if I were working for a for-profit developer, but…” He shut his left eye, as if in contemplation.
“You feel better about yourself?”
“Yeah, that.”
“It sounds like you’ve made a good life for yourself.”
“Except…” He swallowed, looked down at his hands, then finally looked up to meet my gaze. “I’m lonely.”
That, I understood. “Which is why you went to Kink.”
“Which is why I went upstairs with you in Quinton’s house.”
Right. Somehow I had trouble reconciling that man with the one before me. Perhaps because at Quinton’s, Foster had seemed full of bravado and confidence. At least until he ran. I’d had no idea about the complex man underneath.
“What do you want, Foster? Right now. What would make you happy?”
He held my gaze. “For you to be with me. In my bed.” He waved his hand, as if swatting away a fly. “Not the dog bed. The real bed.”
“Okay.” Is this the right thing to do? He just unburdened himself. Am I taking advantage? Is it taking advantage if he’s the one doing the asking? Doing the offering? I eyed him. “How would this work?”
He scratched the back of his neck. “Well, I’ve got lube and condoms. So yeah, if you wanted that. Or I can just give you a blow job—if you wanted that.”
Is he making an assumption about me? “Uh-huh.”
“What? Am I getting something wrong?”
“Well…” I cleared my throat. “It’s just…” Heat crept into my cheeks.
He laughed. “That’s not how you see this going?”
“It’s not that. Just…most people see me as a Dominant and assume I also prefer topping. I can top, but I prefer bottoming.”
“I get it. Howard was a bear, but he didn’t have any interest in topping. That’s why we were, uh…”
“Compatible?”
“Yeah.”
“Let this be the last time we speak about Howard and his sexual preferences. Unless you feel like sharing, of course.” Because dictating who he could or couldn’t talk about was way too controlling, and he’d had enough of that for a lifetime.
Foster scooted closer. “I’m good if I close that door forever.”
Forever’s a long time. Ten years was a long time . Still, for today, I was completely fine with locking Howard away behind mental doors. “So you’re in the mood?” I wasn’t certain I was, but giving this a try worked for me. I was attracted to Foster. Making him feel good would be a priority. And, hell, if we weren’t compatible in all the ways that mattered, then finding out now and maybe moving away from a romantic relationship and into something platonic might be in order. Regardless of how things turned out, I wanted to be his friend.
And I hoped he felt the same way about me.