Chapter Twenty-Six
Walking around the back of TJ and Cody’s house, Santino shouted through the back door, hearing TJ tell him to come inside.
Stepping into the kitchen, he saw TJ sitting at the table with papers scattered around him.
“Grab a beer. You can keep me company while I go over the station’s finances.
Now that the case is settled against Cass Paarman and Angelo Ricci, I can see what we have and don’t have. ”
“Have they gone after all their finances?” Santino had been involved in the case against Cass and Angelo for embezzlement and helped track some of the money down. Once they’d pleaded guilty, he’d been removed, so hadn’t been involved since.
“I think they have someone looking into it. Not as good or as quick as you.” TJ leaned back in his chair, stretching his arms over his head. “We’ve been a man short at the station for years. Whenever I brought it up, I was always told we had no funding, and now I know why.”
“So once this is figured out, you can apply for another officer.” TJ nodded.
“It’ll be nice not to work as many hours as I have been.
Some days it feels like I live there. Cody puts up with hardly seeing me some weeks, but once we get this officer, I can take him away somewhere.
I know he wants to see Mama, Jed, and the boys for longer than the couple of days I can usually spare.
” TJ laughed. “Hell, even my parents have a better social life than I do.”
“I met them once in Tea for Two? discussing their next vacation.”
“I don’t blame them. They don’t work now, so why not spend their time doing all the things they put off when they worked and had me?” TJ sipped his beer, then said, “About you and Orsen.”
“I never saw it coming,” Santino murmured.
“Which bit? Him asking you to move in once the house is built or him dumping you?”
“Thanks for putting it that way, and both.”
“Where were you expecting this relationship to go? How long did you think you could carry on as you were? Orsen wants a home, a family. If there is anyone who deserves it, then it’s him. He wants that security, and he thought he had that with you.”
“He’s eighteen, TJ. He has his whole life ahead of him. I’m in my thirties now and ready to settle down, but he’s still adjusting to being in control and making his own choices.”
“So you think he shouldn’t decide how to live his life?” TJ narrowed his eyes as he spoke. “He’s old enough to make those decisions.”
“Well, of course he is…” Santino snapped his mouth shut when he saw the smile on TJ’s face. “Don’t.”
“You contradict yourself, Santino. He’s old enough to live his life the way he wants to, but when he wants to live it with you, you back away.
It took me some time to fully settle into my relationship with Cody.
For a long time, I saw him as the teenager I knew him to be, then he’d look at me and remind me he wasn’t that child anymore.
He’s a couple of years older than Orsen, and both of them have lived different lives, but those lives matured them faster than they should have.
They both know what they want, though I’ll admit in Orsen’s case he somehow has retained a certain innocence, but he isn’t innocent where it counts.
From a young age, he was treated like shit.
You have no idea how many times I tried to get him moved, but it was like hitting my head against a wall.
He suffered, but he managed to stop that from tainting him. ”
“He’s still so young.”
“He is, and he knows it, too. He knows he hasn’t lived the same life as other teenagers, but I guess we don’t have to worry about that now.”
The look on TJ’s face had Santino asking, “What do you mean?”
“He’s in the city with Cody and I’m going to pretend I know nothing about the ID that got him into a gay club.”
Santino shot up, the chair crashing to the floor behind him. “He’s in a gay club? Orsen? He’ll be eaten alive!”
“And he might enjoy it too, then he’ll have the experience you keep talking about, won’t he?”
Santino narrowed his eyes at TJ, clenching his jaw. “You knew they were going.”
“Cody mentioned taking Orsen out to have some fun as the old man he’d been dating couldn’t get his head out of his ass.
I imagine by now, Orsen will have received lots of attention.
Someone looking the way he does will have eyes on him.
And he’s filled out some now that he’s been working out.
” Shrugging, TJ added, “And he knows a little about pleasing a man thanks to you, so I’d say he’ll have a great time tonight. ”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Santino snapped. How could TJ let Orsen go to a club when he was underage? Orsen in a club with men pawing at him and Santino needed to be there because Orsen was his…
“You’re not together anymore, so I had no need to tell you anything.” TJ stood and went to the fridge. “Did you get a beer?”
“Is this why you invited me over? To tell me what Orsen was doing now that he isn’t with me?”
“He would be with you, or he could be in a club with you. Not that I’m saying he should be there, as he’s breaking the law, but you know what they’re like nowadays.”
“Are you trying to make me jealous?” Santino clenched his hands, his jaw hard. “You’re telling me this to make me jealous, so I’ll ask Orsen to take me back?”
“He’s just a kid to you, so you’ve got nothing to be jealous about. You can find yourself a real man now and let the kid live his life. You know, the one you keep telling him to live.”
“I don’t keep telling him—”
“But you thought it.” Santino glared at TJ, who grabbed two beers and shut the fridge.
“Either you want him and actually want to have a relationship with him, or you stop acting jealous at the thought of another man kissing and touching Orsen. He left you because you can’t get past his age.
” TJ tilted his head. “Is Charlie outside?”
Santino’s brow furrowed at the question. They were talking about Orsen not Charlie. “He didn’t want to come in, and he has some of his toys here.”
“Orsen loves you.” TJ sat at the table. “He wants something long lasting with you. He can have a relationship with you and still live his life. He and Cody can go to the city and party, or we can all spend an evening together, but whatever it is he wants to do, he’d made plans to do them with you.
” TJ sighed. “I know how hard it can be to move past the age. We think about how we behaved at their age and compare how we lived, but they’ve lived different lives than us and have different wants as well.
Not every teenager wants to go out every weekend.
Some want to come home to the man they love and relax, safe in the knowledge that they are loved in return.
I don’t think I’m saying anything new here. ”
Santino sat and took the beer from TJ. “I know.” Sighing, Santino sipped his beer. “I do know, but up here,” he tapped his head, “it doesn’t seem to be sinking in, then Orsen began talking about us living together and I couldn’t help saying what I did.”
“If he were older—say, five or six years—would you be so hesitant?”
“No, of course I wouldn’t, and I honestly thought I was moving past it.”
“You told him to meet people and now he’s doing that.
You reap what you sow, Santino, and now you realize you don’t like it, so what are you going to do now?
Do you want him back? If you do, how do you go about proving to him that you see him for more than his age?
Orsen has gone through hell.” TJ inhaled, then blew out.
“I wish I’d done more, but I put my faith in the system and watched it fail him.
I would have stepped in, but I was warned not to interfere.
I lost count of how many times I had Ambrose sleeping it off in the tank while I tried to find a way to prosecute him.
I never found anything and Orsen wouldn’t talk. ”
“You couldn’t do much if neither of them would talk.”
“I know that,” TJ snapped, then held his hand up in apology. “I feel responsible. I should have done something. Anything.” Shaking his head, he murmured, “Doesn’t matter now. He’s free and able to live his life the way he wants to.”
“I want him back, and that is still strange for me to say because I still see his age.” He saw TJ frown and smiled. “I know. When I look at him, I see Orsen and the amazing man he’s becoming, but when I think of him, yeah, his age comes up. I need to work on it because I want him in my life.”
“Then you need to figure out how you’re going to make that happen.
” TJ picked up his phone. “He’s beating the men back with a stick.
” TJ frowned, then shook his head. “Orsen is quite popular, it seems.” TJ’s eyes flicked up to Santino’s, then back to his phone.
“It would seem Orsen wants to have some fun.”
“No,” Santino blurted out, then sucked in a breath because he had no right to say that now. Orsen had ended their relationship and Santino deserved it. Exhaling softly, he nodded. “That’s no longer my decision.”
“Do you want it to be?”
“Yes.”
“Then why are you still here?”
That was a good question. Santino stood. “I think I need to be somewhere else.”