Alarmed, Alex placed his hand over the nurse call button. “Shh…. Uncle, calm down, calm down! I didn’t mean to make you mad. I thought….”
“You thought what? That I’d replace the love of my life with his own nephew mere moments after his passing?” Alfred fixed Alex with the stare designed to back down agents and lesser lawyers. “Listen to me. There will never be another. Byron was my life!”
Alex hung his head, realizing how utterly ridiculous he sounded. “I’m sorry. It’s just I found so many things that led me to believe—”
“What things?”
“For starters, I came home at midnight to find Paul leaving your room, wearing only his shorts.” In spite of the circumstances, Alex’s cock twitched at the memory.
“That hardly points to an affair.”
“The next morning I came to your room while you were in the shower. I found those same boxers in your bed.”
Alfred scowled in disbelief. “In my bed?”
“It wasn’t only that.” Alex cringed, reluctant to voice what now seemed ridiculously absurd.
“Oh, there’s more?” Those thin arms did cross Alfred’s chest then, or as much as the IV tubes and tape allowed.
No getting around it; he’d have to spill his guts about his blatant breach of privacy. Alex steeled his resolve, determined to clear the air and put everything out in the open as he should have from the start. “A few mornings later, I found an empty condom package on your bed.”
Alfred’s shocked gasp quickly changed to laughter, and then he winced, pulling a pillow against his body to brace his incision. After a moment, he calmed enough to say, “Oh, Alex. I was wondering why I found an unused condom in my trash can.”
Alex was certain his uncle had lost his mind. “Sir?”
“It’s Bernard, Alex. I’m afraid the old dear has gone a bit senile. In fact, his fears about his own senility prompted his semi-retirement.”
“He put those things there?” Somehow, Alex couldn’t image the steadfast butler doing something so inexplicable.
“He told me he’s been doing odd things lately and doesn’t know why. However, he’s been such a good friend and loyal employee that I can’t let him go. And for the record, I wasn’t laughing athim.Good Lord, Alex, you should have seen your face!”
Well, he had to admit he deserved a little ribbing. “And you and Paul?”
“Heavens, no! As I said, he’s like a son to me, as you are. I can’t count the number of times Byron and I tried to get the two of you to meet when you were younger. Somehow my plans never seemed to work out.”
Oh. That. “I’m afraid I have something else to confess.”
His uncle’s stern gaze and raised eyebrows once again brought back memories of childhood misdeeds and their consequences. “Go on.”
“I never wanted to meet him,” Alex mumbled.
“Why ever not? The two of you have a lot in common.”
His reasons for avoidance seemed silly now, though at the time they’d made perfect sense. “The truth is, I was jealous of him. I got to go with you on vacations, but he got to come here or stay with you in Bishop. I went away to boarding school while he spent his weekends at the beach or hiking in the mountains with the two of you.” Sadly, he recalled the postcards and letters, rambling ad nauseam about P.J. this and P.J. that. The love-starved child Alex saw it as betrayal, and the knife twisted in his heart with each new letter.
Alfred’s expression softened. “Oh, Alex. I didn’t know you felt so strongly. You never said anything. If you had, you know I would have….”
“Stood up to Grandmother? No, she wanted me to have aproperupbringing, which meant being raised by servants and teachers, and seeing my family only on holidays.” Alex reached out to brush his fingers along Alfred’s hand—once more resting on the bed—carefully avoiding meeting his uncle’s eyes. Expressing his feelings to another was hard enough without being scrutinized. “I know you cared about me. Back when I was a kid, I used to hope one day you’d let me come live with you.”
“You never knew, did you?” Alfred asked in amazement, as though realizing, too late, that he’d withheld critical information capable of clearing a client from a life behind bars.
“Knew what?”
“Alex, when your mother died I tried to adopt you. Back then a gay couple adopting wouldn’t have been allowed.”
“You did?” A burden carried on Alex’s shoulders for twenty years suddenly lifted, his uncle confirming what he already knew deep down—he’d been wanted and loved. Byron had alluded to adoption, even if his uncle had never mentioned it before. To know Alfred hadn’t intentionally left him in the care of two cold, unfeeling people because he couldn’t be bothered with the responsibility of a child came as a tremendous relief.
Gazing off into space, lost in his own thoughts, Alfred finally answered, “Yes, I did. Until your father stepped up and demanded custody, and the best way to protect your interests was to award you to my parents. He didn’t stand a chance against them.”
