I glanced past him to see Brandon kicked back on the gaming chair, controller in his hand. “I wanted to talk to the two of you for a minute. It’s about Chase.”
“Come on in, man.” It was Brandon who made the invitation. Matt stepped aside to let me in. I hadn’t been in their room since before Christmas break, and didn’t miss the fact there were two open suitcases on Matt’s bed. Matt’s eyes followed mine and he blushed. “I’m assuming this is about what happened before breakfast?”
“Yeah, for the most part.” Now that I was in here, I wasn’t sure what I should say. Chase hadn’t given me permission to tell them he was little, and I wouldn’t betray that trust. “I can’t say much, but he’s nervous. He had a rough time at the end of fall semester with a roommate who filed a complaint against him after learning certain things.”
“Did he try to make his last roommate his Daddy, too?” Matt blurted out. The glare Brandon leveled on him made me flinch. “Sorry. Brandon told me it’s not my place to say anything. And you’re probably here because you’re worried about the same thing. I promise, Jayden, I’m not going to do anything stupid.”
“The problem is, you don’t think before you engage your mouth,” Brandon scolded him. “If and when Chase is comfortable enough to say anything, he will. But hewon’tif he’s worried you’re going to blab to people he’s not ready to have find out.”
“I swear, Jayden, I won’t say anything dumb,” Matt insisted. “I was only trying to help him see that he doesn’t have to hide those things from us.”
“How do you even know that much?” We’d been careful, other than this morning when I’d been worried about him.
“Um, the walls are sort of thin,” Brandon pointed out. “If it makes you feel any better, we haven’t heard the two of you having sex or anything like that.” He glared at Matt again. “And we weren’t going to make any assumptions based on what we did hear, but one of us can’t help himself.”
“You did it, too,” Matt protested. “I’m not the one who helped him wash his hands and told him it was okay when he got upset about the egg. You were bad, too. Do you need me, or can I go play with Chase?”
I rolled my eyes. This was one of the most absurd conversations I’d ever been a part of. I looked at Brandon and he simply shrugged. Yeah, we were definitely going to be having a long talk. Soon.
“Yeah, you’re good. Don’t stay out too long. I’ll have dinner ready when both of you get back.”
“Thanks, Brandon.” Matt’s face scrunched up when he said Brandon’s name. Knowing what I knew, it was comical. He got to the door, then turned back, crossing the room in five long strides. He bent down to give Brandon a kiss that got hot enough I felt uncomfortable staying in the room. Finally, I cleared my throat and Matt jumped back. “Sorry. Um, so yeah, I’m going to head out now. Bye Bran, by Jayden.”
“Later,” I called out as he rushed past me, refusing to make eye contact. I shoved aside one of the suitcases on Matt’s bed and made myself comfortable. “So, anything you want to tell me?”
“Nope.” Brandon’s lips popped at the end of the word. “Until I figure out what in the hell we’re doing, and if it’s going to make shit weird for next year, I’d rather not say anything.”
“Fair enough.” I couldn’t exactly demand answers from him when I wasn’t willing to open up more than I had to, either. My phone buzzed and I checked it to see a message from William telling me to take my time. I might regret what I was about to say, but I didn’t stop myself. “So, I have to head out, but if you ever want to go out for the night, I know a place we could go where they’d have fun.”
When I thought about what college would be like, I never envisioned myself subtly suggesting to one of my roommates that we plan on going to a kink club where the boyfriends we weren’t admitting we had, played in a room designed for littles.
“I’ll let you know.” Brandon turned back to his game, effectively dismissing me. I stopped by our room long enough to grab my keys and make sure the chain was locked on the door leading into the rest of the suite. Now that our secret was starting to leak out, I was paranoid one of the other guys would snoop. If they did, I highly doubted they’d be as chill as Matt and Brandon had been.
10
Jayden
William was waitingfor me outside the employee entrance of The Lodge when I pulled into the employee parking lot as his text instructed. “Hey kid, you eat yet?”
I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths. The whole ‘kid’ thing grated on my nerves, but I didn’t want to get into a pissing match with him when I needed his help. The more time I spent with Chase, the more out of my element I felt. Every time I looked online, everything was Daddy this and Daddy that. A few had referred to the grown up in the relationship as the caregiver, and that wasn’t so bad, but I needed to get over the way the word Daddy grated on me if I had any hope of staying with Chase. And I wanted whatever we were building to work out.
“Grabbed a bite before I left,” I told him so he wouldn’t feel the need to take me out to lunch. And it wasn’t technically a lie; I’d grabbed a bag of cookies on my way out of the room because I was fucking starving. As I followed him into the club I said, “Thanks for letting me come and talk to you.”
“Jayden, you’re more than welcome to visit anytime,” he reminded me. He’d said similar things, repeatedly, since he’d retired from the military and moved back to Annandale. I felt like an immature little shit for keeping my distance because I’d convinced myself he was trying to step in to fill a void that I’d rarely felt.
Maybe I had wished there was a dad in my life when I was little and my friends talked about their dads, but Mom was awesome at stepping into both roles. She was just as likely to bake a batch of her to-die-for brownies as she was to help building sets for the school play. She’d bitched every time a call went out for ‘the dads’ to help out, telling me what a misogynistic pile of shit it was for some of my teachers to imply only the menfolk could help out with certain tasks. It had been interesting the day I’d repeated those words to one of my teachers and we’d been called in to a meeting with the principal. To his credit, he seemed impressed that a nine-year-old was willing to call out a teacher, even if my language had been inappropriate.
“I know. And I’m not trying to avoid you or anything. Ask Mom, she’ll tell you I’ve been crazy busy with classes this semester.”
William laughed, shaking his head. “Okay, we’ll pretend schoolwork is what has you preoccupied this semester, even though I have a feeling it’s the cute roommate that’s been taking up your time.”
Ugh. Of all the kink clubs in the area, he had to work at the only one that catered to people like Chase. I would rather discuss these things with just about anyone other than my mom’s brother, and yet, he was the one person who would be able to help me through this crisis. “Yeah, well, it’s not like I’m going to tell her I’m too busy figuring out what in the hell I’m doing with a guy who’s a little, even though I’m not a Daddy, and I can’t figure out how to tell him he’d be better off finding someone who can be what he wants, am I?”
Man, that was a mouthful. It was a good thing I needed to catch my breath, or I probably would have kept rambling.
“Fair point. But, seriously, I’m proud of you for coming to me with your questions. It takes a mature person to do something they’d rather not because they understand it will help them be a better partner.” He pushed the door open and my mouth fell slack. Chase was going tolovethis room. It seriously had everything a little could want, no matter where they were in their regression. William ushered me into the room. “I thought it might be easier to talk in here where you can see a variety of dynamics.”
“But we’re the only people in here,” I pointed out. It was a cool room, but I was still clueless about what I was supposed to get out of this exercise.
