Calvin pursed his lips and narrowed his gaze on me as he shook his head. He knew I was full of shit, but wasn’t calling me on it. “I like you, Frankie. You’re smart, funny, and not bad to look at.”
“Gee, if you’re not careful you’re going to inflate my ego to the point it’ll push you right out of the room,” I quipped. Calvin merely shook his head again, and I could practically hear him silently chastising himself for even bothering with me. “Sorry, please continue.”
“And it seems you’re a bit of a brat, to boot.” I shrugged, because there was no denying the obvious. I owned that shit and wasn’t going to change to please him. “You have no clue how tempting it is for me to come over there, flip you over and spank the attitude right out of you.”
“Careful,” I warned him, finally feeling like I had the upper hand. “That’s the second time tonight you’ve issued that threat. Do it a third time and I might think you’re being serious.”
“I don’t joke about things like that,” he responded flatly. “I’m old enough to know what I want and observant enough to see someone like yourself who wants to submit but won’t allow himself to.”
“I’m no one’s submissive,” I insisted. Being someone’s slave, licking their boots, letting them strap me to a cross while they whipped me held zero appeal to me. I was so averse to justifying where I was going or what I was doing to anyone that I’d completely shied away from dating in general.
“You might be surprised,” he argued. I glared at him, because he was an idiot if he leapt from me trading blowjobs for money to me wanting to be bound and kneeling at someone’s feet. “Have you ever looked into various kinks or are you basing your assumption on bullshit you’ve seen on porn sites?”
Shit, he sort of had a point. Most of my knowledge had come from porn, but I’d also had a quasi-friend in college who was so desperate to be loved he ignored the warning signs; the guy he was seeing was a fucking sadist.
“I’ll take your silence as a no. I want you to sit down and actually think about what it is that turns you on. What motivates you to do what you do. BDSM and kink are broad terms and mean different things to different people,” he explained, with as much passion as a professor giving a lecture to a room of disinterested students. “It’s not all leather, whips, and ball gags. Some people aren’t into any of that.”
“Are you?” I asked, because it was obvious he wasn’t the vanilla suburbanite parent I’d assumed him to be. Everything I’d thought I’d known about my roommate was crumbling in ways that were hazardous to my libido.
“Nope,” he answered quickly. “I know people who are into the pain, but that’s not something I need or even want most of the time.”
“Then what are you into?” Now that we’d opened this can of worms I was curious to know everything Calvin was willing to tell me.
“We’ll talk about that, but first, I want you to focus on what intrigues you. Take some time this week to clear your mind and do your research. If you still want to know about my kinks once you’ve done that, let me know and I’ll answer any question you ask. But now, it’s time to sleep.”
Calvin left the room without a backward glance, leaving my mind spinning. I felt rooted to the chair, unable to move as I tried to figure out what had just happened.
“Bed, Frankie. You need to sleep.” The stern tone of Calvin’s voice made my dick twitch. As much as I swore I wasn’t into what he was potentially offering, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t tempted to defy him just to see what he’d do next.
3
Calvin
By Tuesday,I was certain I’d misjudged Frankie and his unacknowledged desires. Every morning, he’d been up and out of the house before my alarm went off. I’d hear him come home late at night after I’d gone to bed. He’d changed up his routine, which likely meant he was trying to avoid me. If I walked out of my bedroom to find his keys laying on the kitchen counter, I wouldn’t have blamed him for leaving. It was wrong of me to boss him around the way I had and imply that I knew his needs better than he did.
“You okay, old man?” Ryan asked almost immediately after getting into the car. The kid was too damn observant and knew how to read me.
“Yeah, buddy. Just stressed about some work stuff.” It was close enough to the truth that my son didn’t pry further. He was wise beyond his years and sometimes I felt like he was the parent and we were the children. “What about you? You worried about your evaluations?”
This wasn’t the time for me to dwell on what may or may not happen with my too-damn-young-for-me roommate. I only had a few days per week with Ryan and hockey time was sacred. When Marisa and I had separated, we’d both promised him he’d remain our number one priority, and it was time for me to remember that.
I pulled into the parking lot at the rink and the number of cars already filling the parking lot made me nervous for my son. He busted his ass to be the best player he could be, but this year his sights were set on making the Sharks Major AA squad. I had faith in his talent, but I also knew a bunch of the other players and the competition was fierce.
Ryan opened the door before I had the car in park and rushed inside with his bag. I laughed, because the poor kid was so nervous he’d forgotten his stick in the back seat. Any other night, I’d make him run back to the car to get it, but I could cut him some slack this time.
My phone pinged as I eased my way past the parents of the current group of skaters, but I ignored it. Whoever it was would still be there when the evaluations were over, and if they knew me, they’d understand why I hadn’t responded immediately.
Ryan nearly plowed me down as he sprinted back to the lobby. “Woah, easy there killer.”
“My stick, Dad. I forgot my stick! How’s that going to look to the coaches if I can’t even remember my gear?” Ryan rambled. I didn’t want to laugh, but I did.
I held the hockey stick in front of his face, waving it back and forth. “It’s a good thing I’ve got you covered.” After he took the stick from my hands, I gripped both of his shoulders and forced Ryan to look at me. “You need to relax. You’ve busted your ass to make sure you’re ready for tonight. Now, the only thing you can do is keep your head straight and get the puck into the back of the net.”
“You make it sound easy,” Ryan scoffed.
“It is,” I assured him. “Go out there and pretend like this is any other practice. Forget about the coaches. Forget about everything but your skate. You’ve got this, Ryan.”
Despite his protests, I pulled my son in for a hug. He wriggled away as a few of his buddies hollered for him to hurry his ass up. I resisted the urge to scold them for their language. The stuffy parent in me wanted them to be polite and respectful but I’d been in enough locker rooms in my life to know this was mild compared to some of the shit they said.
