“Kind of?”
“He was friends with someone my mom knew.” It was the truth. Eli was partners at the psychology office along with my mom’s psychologist.
“Was he older than you?”
I nodded.
“How did you guys become friends?”
“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “He just started to care, I guess.” But not really. “He listened to me when he knew my mom wasn’t around. He came to my track events and took me out to dinner after. He was…”
“A father figure type.”
I glanced at James. How could he pull that out of what little I had said?
“Was he the friend you moved in with after high school?” I nodded. “You agreed to move in with him because he was giving you what you had needed and wanted. Such as the attention and time. Right?”
I nodded.
“If he had wanted, would you have agreed to be his boyfriend?”
“Yes. He seemed to care. The day of the party, I thought things might be advancing and moving in that direction.”
“So up to that point though, he kept his hands off of you?”
“For the most part. He’d hug me and stuff. I…” Quickly, I closed my mouth, unsure of what else I wanted to admit to James.
“What?” he pressed.
“I tried to show him that I would be a good boyfriend. I did stuff around the house to show him, and he always liked it.”
“Back up a sec, Brandon. You said he’d hug you and stuff. What’s the stuff part?”
My face grew warm, and I could feel swelling in my dick as I thought back to the times Eli would paddle me or spank me. I loved the sting from his hand or the throbbing ache from the paddle. I literally would get off on it. Eli understood that and said it wasn’t weird. But I didn’t think James would share those same thoughts.
“It’s okay, Brandon. We don’t have to talk about it now.” I nodded, and before I got lost in thoughts of Eli, James started talking again. “Did you see your friend leave the party?”
“Yeah, he knew Sebastian. He told me that he was going to get the car, and we’d leave. I had grown ill over the evening and hadn’t gotten any better. He went to go get the car … and never came back.” I looked up at James. “He left me.”
After three years, I would think that I’d be over it and wouldn’t feel the pain in my chest and stomach at the memory. But the truth was that it still badly hurt.
“Before you fell asleep, you mentioned that you are alone now that your mother is gone. You’re not alone, Brandon. Are you familiar with the Hawaiian word ‘ohana?’”
“Yes! It was in a movie I saw when I was a little kid.”
“So you know what it means?”
“Family.”
“Not just blood-related though,” James added.
“Like an extended family of friends. I remember the movie.”
“Good, Brandon. What I wanted to talk to you about is along those lines. I’ve cared for and watched over a handful of young adults in my home. I have a small ‘ohana.’ There is no one staying with me now, and I would like to invite you to stay with me.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. I would like to help you readjust to life outside of what you’ve known for three years.”
