Chapter 22 Mason #2
In the kitchen he sat down at the table and I sat down across from him, then silence fell. Neither of us seemed to know exactly how to start this conversation.
“How did you end up in Milwaukee?” I asked finally.
“I was driving for Uber and had picked up a couple of army guys who were afraid of flying, but they needed to get home, so, I drove them to Milwaukee from Cleveland.”
“Hell of a long drive,” I said.
“Yeah, swore I’d never do that drive again. But I liked driving… got me out of my head, let me meet new people, let me make a little extra money. The trip was last minute, so they even paid for a hotel room for me for a couple of nights in Milwaukee.”
“I did a little sightseeing, then went on the internet. I hope you believe me when I tell you, I didn’t know you were just a kid,” Lee said earnestly.
“I mean, I thought you were a lot older than eighteen. I responded to an add online… there was a picture of you in a tux. You looked young, yes, but I had no idea you were barely eighteen.”
“That photo… there was something about it… something about your eyes. You were the most beautiful human being I’d ever seen in my life, but your eyes looked… haunted. Lost. It felt like… I could see all the sadness in your eyes that you were trying to hide from the world,” he sighed.
“Did… did you know who I was when I came to Akron?” I asked, my hands folding and unfolding a piece of paper I’d sketched on the previous day. A horrible thought occurred to me. “Do your brothers know?”
“No!” he said emphatically, shaking his head. “No. My brothers hired you, I didn’t know anything about you at first. I lost track of you after my last trip to the hospital… it must have been shortly after that when you changed your name.”
“You… you came to the hospital?” I exclaimed, surprised. I’d never known.
Lee nodded dejectedly at the table, his head down.
“Why?”
“I promised you I wouldn’t leave you. I couldn’t go in the ambulance with you, so I visited you at night. At the hospital, I mean, when you were still in a coma,” he said, his voice hollow. “I was so damn scared for you, Mason.”
He looked up at me, his eyes overflowing with tears.
“I stayed with you until the night I walked in and found you there with Tira Graham. She was there with this detective who was investigating your case. She told me about you saving her granddaughter and they started asking me how I knew you. I knew it was time to go back to Ohio.”
His voice trailed off for a moment, then he spoke again, his voice stronger.
“After Mack died, I did a lot of things I’m not proud of, Mason, but hiring prostitutes was the only thing I did that ever hurt other people.
I didn’t realize what it was like for you, or them.
I thought it was a victimless crime. I didn’t know…
Maybe I didn’t want to know, what their lives were really like. Not until the night I met you.”
I nodded, but then he continued.
“I’ve tried to make up for it, but there’s really no way I can ever make amends.
I’ve been working with some friends of mine to try and build a network of drivers willing to help anyone involved in human trafficking to escape, but it’s never going to be enough.
I promise you, though, I will never give up, and my goal is to help anyone who wants help to escape from the vicious cycle.
“To be completely honest, though, while I didn’t recognize you when you first arrived in Akron, I did figure it out that night,” he admitted, his eyes avoiding mine.
“When you fell asleep in the car on the way home from that hotel. I pulled up and the security light came on. It just made you look so goddamn young…” His voice trailed off. “And your face… looked bruised.”
I winced at the thought of the multiple bruises I’d earned over the years, but then a kernel of anger smoldered in my chest.
“All this time. You knew all this time…?” I demanded, adding up the days.
“Yes, and I’m an asshole,” he ground out, shame emblazoned on his face. “I am so sorry, Mason. I should have told you, especially before—” he stopped, unable to go on.
“Before we fucked?” I demanded, the anger growing inside me.
“Yes! No! I mean…” He stood again, and this time he was the one pacing. “It’s not an excuse for what I did, but it’s not exactly the easiest thing in the world to bring up in casual conversation…
“Oh, hi!” he began, his voice in falsetto.
“Remember me? I came to Milwaukee to fuck you for money, because I thought you were the most beautiful person I’d ever seen, but I didn’t know you were just a kid.
Hey, you don’t mind that I shot the guy who was attacking you, right? And, oh, yeah, can we hang out?”
His voice dropped back to his normal register and he almost whispered, “I was afraid you’d get scared and leave and I’d lose you.”
I glared at him for a moment, but the knowledge that he was right extinguished my anger like a wet blanket. If I’d known, I probably would have gotten back on a plane and gone back to Seattle, never to be seen again.
“You’re right,” I began, but was unwilling to unconditionally grant the point. “But you should have let me make that choice, Lee. I’ve had so many choices taken away from me, and you took another one.”
He winced as I spoke, and I knew my words had hurt. Dammit, he deserved them! Lee dropped his head into his hands, and I could see his shoulders shake. I knew this time it wasn’t from laughter.
“I’m so sorry, Mason. Not just for you, but for the others. The ones before you, I mean,” he said, looking up at me, eyes red and swollen, tears streaking his face. “There hasn’t been anyone since.”
I sighed and handed him a tissue.
“Well, at least you admit it,” I said, my tone exasperated.
He blew his nose, then looked at me, his eyes suspicious.
“…Admit, what, exactly? Did you just record my confession or something?” I saw him brace himself and realized that he very likely could have been arrested and charged with the murder.
“Nah, you admit that I’m beautiful,” I teased gently. My attempt at humor only earned me a ghost of a smile.
I sat there for a few minutes, mulling over all he had shared with me.
“I… I understand,” I said, finally, then sighed. “Or at least, I’m trying to.”
I remembered the pictures from the event Lee mentioned had been on the web posting he’d seen.
I knew I’d looked a hell of a lot older than eighteen in them, which had kind of been the point.
The tux had been a gift from a wealthy customer of Ricky’s, a state representative who had wanted me at the event as arm candy.
Ricky had insisted on the pictures and been so proud of how they had turned out, because he was trying to convince Drey to break into a higher level of clientele, more escort than whore. I just remembered when I put the suit on how fake it all felt. Completely unreal.
“It’s just… it’s a lot, Lee,” I sighed. “Y’know? It was the best and worst time of my life. Worst, because my uncle was trying to kill me. Best, because he died, instead of me. It just so happens to have been you who killed him. I thought the Universe was fucking with me before. Now I know it is.”
He nodded. His green eyes dark. The emotions that had been rampaging through him marched across his face. I saw anger, fear, resignation.
“I understand, and I’m so sorry, Mason. I should have told you the moment I realized who you were. I… I was a coward,” he said bitterly.
I laughed. I couldn’t help it, then waited for him to smile as well at the joke. He was probably the bravest man I’d ever met in my life and he thought he was a coward? He had to be joking.
“What?” He snapped peevishly, his face tight. “I’m glad this amuses you.”
“You’re joking, right?” I asked as I continued, searching his face. “I mean, you are so obviously not a coward. I know a lot of up close and personal when it comes to fear. You are about as far from a coward as it gets.”
I didn’t spot the expected humor in his face. God, could he really think himself a coward? The pained look that crossed his face seemed to confirm it and he looked away.
“Lee,” I said, leaning toward him, my voice softening.
“Most people would have run away that day. Or turned a blind eye. At the absolute most, they might have called the cops for me, but that was extremely unlikely. You did more. You came back into that hellhole and you shot Ricky and saved my life. You bandaged my wounds and you held my hand. He was getting ready to kill me when you shot him, did you know that? That’s what he always did to his victims…
brand them, fuck them, then shoot them. We were well into the ‘fucking’ stage by that point.
I don’t think I’ve told you how much I appreciate you doing that, by the way.
” I said, continuing to try to convince Lee of my sincerity.
“I still have nightmares about him to this day. I shudder to think how much worse they would be if he was still alive.”
Lee looked at me from across the couch, his face a blend of confusion, sadness, regret, and something else. Frustration? Longing? I wasn’t sure. But he was looking at me like I held the biggest treasure in the universe in my hands and he would do anything to earn it.
“You don’t have to thank me for that,” he said hoarsely.
“I’m just so damn angry. Angry at myself for having gone there.
Angry at my damn leg for being too slow.
Angry at the adults who should have cared for you.
Angry at your uncle for…” He sighed, his breath exploding from him all at once. “Fuck. For everything.”
Lee’s chest was heaving as he spoke, the emotions coursing through him barely contained.
“I’m sorry, Mason. So sorry.” As he spoke my own eyes began to cloud with tears. “I’m sorry I was too damn slow to catch Dreyven. I know it makes me a monster, but if I had the chance today, I’d end him without a second thought for what he did to you, and I’d sleep like a baby.”
I used the back of my hand and swiped it across my eyes, clearing them of tears for a moment. No one had ever stood up for me like Lee had. Lee looked at me with that beautiful face and I saw the deep guilt he carried. This beautiful, incredible man, this hero… didn’t understand that he was a hero.
“I’m so sorry, Mason. I’m sorry I wasn’t fast enough. Good enough. Just… wasn’t… enough,” Lee’s tears began in earnest now, sobs choking their way out of his chest. “I’m sorry I didn’t kill him.”
I knew, somehow, that Lee wasn’t just talking to me, he was also talking to the ghost of Mack. I waited a moment, every instinct in my body screaming that I needed to reach out and comfort this man.
“I’m glad you didn’t,” I said finally, my hand reaching out and wiping the tears from his face. I moved and stood in front of him, my hands cupping his face.
“You have enough demons in your own nightmares. You don’t need to add mine.”
Lee looked up at me, the tears he’d shed shiny on his face. He took a deep breath, as if preparing for a blow.
“So, where does that leave… us?” he asked, his body stiff as he asked the question we were both struggling with.
“I… I don’t know,” I said honestly. I saw the pain flit across his face, but he quickly shuttered it.
“Okay,” he said, reaching for his phone. “I understand. I’ll see if maybe you can stay with my friends, John and Anna until— .”
“No,” I said, my hand reaching out and covered his. “No.”
Lee looked up at me in confusion.
“I meant what I said the other night, Lee,” I said, stroking my fingers over the knuckles of his hands.
“I want this,” I said, gesturing between us.
“Whatever this is. Whatever this becomes. Friends. Lovers. Whatever we are, or are becoming. I. Want. This.” I said, punctuating my words with silence. “I want you.”
He looked at me, hope lighting in his beautiful eyes, his lips firming under my gaze.
“You… You mean that?” he asked, hesitantly.
I nodded, every second more sure of my decision.
Suddenly, his arms were around me, pulling me close to him.
“Oh my god, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for forgiving me. I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness, I’ve done just about everything I could to fuck this up…
” he sighed, then one hand fisted in my hair, the other wrapping around my waist. “I was so afraid I’d never get to do this again…
” he said, his lips coming down toward my own, but he froze, just a breath away from me.
“Mason. May I kiss you?” he asked. I just nodded.
His tongue licked gently against my lips in silent question.
I opened my mouth to him, our tongues tangling for a moment of heat and passion.
I slid my own hands down, cupping his ass and pulling him closer to me, our cocks grinding together deliciously as I pressed.
“Lee…” I whispered into his ear, nibbling on his earlobe. “Lee, I want to fuck you.”
He froze, then pulled back to look me in the eyes. His own his face inscrutable for a moment, then turned until we faced each other.
“Are you sure?” he asked, his voice deep, a divot of concern appearing between his eyebrows.
I reached up and smoothed that crease away, laying kisses along his neck, face and forehead.
“Definitely,” I said.