Gunnar's Guardian Read online

“Uh, huh,” the kid half-grunted.

  The only reason I was still standing here instead of being in a nice cool shower was because, like it or not, this guy was my neighbor. We were going to be stuck together, so to speak. “Good to meet you.” I turned to head down my driveway. His voice stopped me.

  “Gunnar Prince. It’s good to meet you.” The kid held out his hand in what I knew was a half-hearted gesture.

  Prince? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. If ever a kid lived up to a last name, this was it. There was a regal air about him. Rarified. As if his shit didn’t stink. At that point, I didn’t have the energy to tell him otherwise. “Good to meet you too.” I took a deep breath and reached out for his slender hand. It had been my intention to give him a quick, hard pump. The kid obviously hadn’t been taught how to shake like a man, or if he had, he’d forgotten. His wrist was limper than week old lettuce.

  When our palms slid together, every thought of teaching the kid a lesson flew from my mind. My entire body tensed, with my gut feeling like it was in free-fall. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. There was no way I could be attracted to this bratty boy. I was tired after working a long shift, not to mention annoyed over not already being in bed. It was hot as fuck out here and holding the kid’s–Gunnar’s–hand wasn’t helping matters.

  Gunnar pulled away as if he’d been burned. He stared at the palm of his hand for a few seconds. I couldn’t help but wonder if he was looking to see if his skin had been singed.

  I may have been out of the dating game for a while, but I knew when a man was attracted to me. It was bad enough that I wanted to bend him over the moving truck’s ramp and fuck him into the next county, but adding in the very obvious fact that he would let me, was enough to send me running for the hills. That was it. I was out. Not just out, but out. “Good to meet you. Gotta run. Need to grab a nap in the A/C before my next shift starts. Keep the music down.” I started to walk away, knowing that every second I stood near him was one second closer to me making my raunchy fantasy come true. It was Gunnar’s parting shot that stopped me cold.

  “There’s no electricity, Dad.” His words were followed by an eyeroll that looked like it hurt.

  “What the hell do you mean there’s no electricity?” It was a bright sunny day, so there was no streetlights on and I couldn’t see lights on in my neighbors’ houses. Come to think of it, I didn’t hear the mechanical roar of air conditioners. Shiiiit. Instead of a nap in the deep freeze, it looked like I was going to be sweating my balls off.

  My shoulders slumping in obvious defeat, I headed back toward my house, pulling my keys from my pocket. With every step toward my front door, I felt absolute exhaustion creeping over my entire body.

  After I let myself into the house, I flipped the living room light switch out of habit. I was shocked when the room lit up. Why the hell would Gunnar say there was no electricity?

  A moment later it hit me. I burst out laughing so hard that I needed to brace an arm against the back of a chair. The electricity wasn’t out, Gunnar hadn’t bothered to call the utility to have it turned on.

  Dumbass…

  2

  Gunnar

  Ten minutes after Kennedy let himself into his house, my hand was still tingling. I kept looking down at my palm, thinking there would be something there. Some residue that the rude-ass cop left behind. Not only could I feel the ghost of his touch, but my cock had woken up and taken notice of my burly neighbor.

  Officer Asshole wasn’t bad looking for an older man. He stood well over six feet tall. He was stacked, but not bursting out of his uniform like some ‘roided out dickhead. His dirty blond hair was cut short. It looked to me like his usual style was a crewcut that had gotten to the shaggy stage. Kennedy’s eyes, though, they were the most vivid blue I’d ever seen. They reminded me of the Mediterranean after a storm. My dick twitched at the thought of those eyes staring up at me while he sucked me off.

  Shit, I needed to stop this train of thought before it left the station. It was my cock that had gotten me into this mess. Now I was lost, with no idea how to find my way back and no plan on how to move forward. Not that it mattered. I could never go home again. I should have known better. I should have done better, but that was all water under the bridge now.

  I’m gay. It took me a long time to admit it to myself. Much longer still to say the words out loud to someone else. There had been hints along the way. School friends that made my heart beat faster. Teachers I couldn’t take my eyes off of. I’d still been unsure about who I was and all that, when I saw Drew Brees in a tight pair of football pants. There was no way I could deny who I was any longer. I wanted him in a way that kept my dick perpetually hard. That ass sealed my fate in more ways than one.

  My father, August Prince, owns a chain of successful car dealerships in Rockport, Gloucester, and Manchester-by-the-Sea. He wasn’t selling rust bucket Chevys or Fords. No, his stable included BMW, Mercedes, Porsche, and Infinity. High-end cars for high-end people, as he was fond of saying.

  I was supposed to be the heir to his kingdom. Pun intended. The last thing I wanted was my entire life mapped out for me. It’s what I got though. Four years at Boston University, then I would have been off to Harvard Business School if I hadn’t fucked everything up.

  My grades had never been the best. I hated every second of what I was studying. It was like a switch flipped in my head against being a business major. I did what I had to do to get by. At first. My grades got worse as freshman turned to sophomore year and so on.

  I screwed the pooch senior year. Looking back now, I regret tanking the final semester on purpose. I never attended one lecture. Never handed in a paper or took an exam. BU expelled me. Told me, in so many words, that I wouldn’t be allowed to return under any circumstance. They wanted their spots filled by students who were there to learn, not pooch screw.

  Predictably enough, my father went nuclear. Called me every name in the book. Moron. Fuck up. Shit heap. And those were the tamer ones. Things still would have been okay if I’d let it end there. I didn’t.

  Out of all the things I’d done to fuck up my life, the one thing my father couldn’t or wouldn’t get past was the fact that I am gay. No son of mine is going to be a ______. Fill in the blank with the gay slur of the week.

  After the dust started to settle over my being expelled from college, I was feeling antsy, caged in. One night when my parents were out to dinner, I invited over some company. Male company. He was fucking me so hard that the headboard of my king-sized bed was knocking into the wall behind it. I was having the time of my life until my parents burst into the room and caught me with my legs up in the air as I urged my partner to, “fuck me like he meant it.”

  It turned out my mother wasn’t feeling well, so they’d ended their night early. When they’d come into the house, they’d heard the bed knocking against the wall and thought it meant I was in trouble. I was, but only after I’d been caught.

  My father wanted me out of the house the second I had my pants back on. He’s a real prince among men. Pun definitely intended. My mother stood by and watched with her lips zipped. I grabbed what would fit in my school backpack and was out the door.

  I’d spent the last month crashing on friends’ couches, wearing out my welcome, friend by friend. Just when I was down to my last sofa, I’d gotten a text from my father. It hadn’t been much, just one line, “Your things are in the driveway.”

  Hence the U-Haul. I’d been in for a bit of a surprise when I’d gotten home. Three suitcases and a couple of boxes filled with toiletries were sitting in the driveway. There was no furniture. No 65” plasma television. No sound system. Not even my fucking alarm clock.

  Mavis, our live-in cook, had been the one to meet me in the driveway. She’d been more of a mother to me than Athena Prince had ever been. It was Mavis who soothed my fears, bandaged my cuts, and was there for me in the middle of the night when I needed someone to talk to.

  While I did my best to hold back my anger, she explained what was
going on. Mavis told me the old man only wanted me to have the clothes on my back. She’d managed to get him to agree to letting her pack whatever would fit into my suitcases.

  At that point, I was grateful to have my clothes, but the only place I had to keep them was in my Dodge Charger, which was thankfully paid off. If it wasn’t, I had a feeling my father would have insisted on keeping it too.

  I’d been trying to figure out what my next move was when Mavis held out a medium-sized manila envelope. It had my name on it in my mother’s handwriting. Not expecting much, I’d torn it open. Two things tumbled out: a letter in her elegant scrawl and a stack of cash.

  The letter explained the cash was from money she’d been squirreling away from her weekly allowance. There were three separate admonitions not to spend it too quickly or frivolously. This was all I was going to get from either of them. It was time to make my own way in this world.

  Thankfully, the last couch I was sleeping on belonged to Bryce Hopkinton. I’d been friends with his son, Randal, since kindergarten. Bryce was a property manager who had several homes available to rent. I picked the townhouse next to Kennedy’s because it was the cheapest thing he had. The cash from my mother amounted to a little under ten thousand dollars. I didn’t know how long I’d be living off it. I didn’t know anything right now.

  A bolt of thunder startled me out of my thoughts. While I’d been reliving my greatest hits, a storm had moved in. One drop of rain hit my face. It was quickly followed by another and another. Before I could move, it was pouring and I was soaked to the skin.

  I was wrong when I said I didn’t know anything. I knew I was wet. And miserable.

  3

  Kennedy

  Even at half past one on a Monday afternoon, my brother Hennessey’s bar, Bait, was hopping. It was mostly known around town as a cop bar, but anyone was welcome. I shouldered my way through the crowd to the table at the back, next to the kitchen. Two familiar faces were waiting for me, my brothers, Ozzy and Dallas. Both were dressed for work, Ozzy in his Gloucester fire department uniform and Dallas in the emergency services uniform he wore as an EMT.

  “Where’s Hen?” Turning around in a slow circle, I didn’t see our other brother anywhere.

  “He’s in the back dealing with some issue with this week’s tequila delivery.” Ozzy ran an absent finger along the edge of the wicked scar that started near his left ear and ended a few centimeters shy of his mouth. I knew instantly there was something up with him. Now wasn’t the time to bring it up.

  “Christ! I order the same shit every week. Why do they have such a hard time getting it fucking right?” Hennessey sat down hard in the seat next to me. His long blonde hair was piled atop his head in a messy man bun. He was a handsome guy, but the hairstyle in combination with his scruffy beard did nothing for him.

  “Did you figure it out?” Dallas asked. He took a sip from the Mountain Dew in front of him. It was all Dallas drank, during the day, anyway. I never understood it. That shit looks and tastes like warm piss. Not that I would know what that tastes like, but it sucked, regardless.

  Hennessey rolled his icy blue eyes. “Come in tonight, I’ll be debuting a new tequila.” He threw a careless hand in the air. “Whatever.” He turned to me. “What the fuck is wrong with you? You look like shit.” A bright smile lit up his grumpy face. Nothing made my brother happier than giving me the business.

  “I worked a patrol shift last night.” I signaled the bartender for a black coffee. I was going to need something to keep going.

  “Jesus, I heard it was busy. Full moon brings out all the crazies.” Ozzy shook his head. He’d stopped touching his scar and was checking me over like Hennessey had done earlier. Say what I would about my brothers, they always had my back.

  “I spent half my shift in the ER getting two rival street gangs treated for cuts and broken bones and that wasn’t even the craziest part of my day.” Shit, I should have kept my mouth shut. I was so damned tired. I hadn’t been able to sleep at all after my impromptu meeting with Gunnar. I did manage to jerk off, so that was something, I supposed.

  The bartender set my coffee down in front of me. It was ninety-seven degrees in Gloucester with no hint of the usual sea breeze. What the hell had I been thinking ordering something hot to drink? Maybe I was losing my mind?

  Hennessey’s light eyebrows shot high. He could sense my distress. His icy eyes lit up like a kid at Christmas. “You met someone, didn’t you?”

  “Of course I didn’t meet someone. What the hell are you talking about?” I did meet someone though, but not the kind of someone Hennessey was hinting at.

  “Come on, man. Spill it. I can see it in your eyes.” Dallas batted his long red lashes at me. “We’re going to get it out of you one way or the other. Why not make it easy on yourself?”

  As much as I hated to admit it, Dallas had a point. They would get it out of me one way or another. By any means necessary, if I knew Hennessey. I sighed dramatically making them think they were really twisting my arm here. “When I got off shift this morning all I wanted to do was sleep for a couple of hours before I had to go back into work. When I got home, there was a U-Haul truck being unloaded by some kid.” I mentally crossed my fingers, hoping that explanation would be enough to throw them off the trail.

  “Kid?” Ozzy grimaced.

  “Jesus Christ, sicko! He wasn’t that young. At first, I thought he was like seventeen or eighteen years old, but after listening to his tale of woe I’d guess he’s about twenty or twenty-one.” Not that I cared.

  Ozzy started to laugh. Motherfucker. My brother knew I hadn’t been talking about some ten-year-old kid, he just used that as an excuse to get me to spill my guts. And it worked.

  “I don’t understand,” there was a gleam in Hennessey’s blue eyes. Oh, he understood all right. “How did this boy keep you from grabbing any sleep?” His eyes opened even wider. “You fucked him, didn’t you? In the U-Haul?” He was rubbing his hands together as if he were about to hear something juicy.

  “No! I didn’t fuck him.” I sure as hell wasn’t about to tell them that I’d wanted to. Badly. “He’s as dumb as they come. Fucking millennials. Kid didn’t even know he had to call the electric company to have the juice turned on.” Okay, that was a little mean. At least I’d gone over and explained the situation to him. The temperature would be back up in the high nineties that afternoon and no one deserved to battle the heat out with no air conditioning or refrigeration. It’d been my one good deed for the day. Gunnar didn’t even thank me. Little fucker. Although, to be honest, I don’t think he believed me at first.

  “I suppose you brought him over to your house and cooled him down.” Ozzy fanned his face for emphasis.

  “Christ, no! I gave him the number for the electric company and went back home.” With a raging hard on. Gunnar had opened the door wearing only boxer shorts. I’d said what I needed to say and practically ran from the place, guaranteeing I kept my hands to myself. They were on my cock the second the door was shut and locked behind me, make no mistake about that.

  “I know these kids don’t have the brain God gave an ant, but how the hell didn’t he know you needed to have the electricity turned on?” Ozzy wore a puzzled look on his face, causing his scar to twist even more gruesomely against his face.

  “Let’s just say this kid wasn’t raised with a silver spoon in his mouth. It was platinum, studded with diamonds.” I had done a little bit of research on Gunnar Prince once my ravenous dick had been satisfied.

  “You live on a nice middle-class street and all, but what the hell is a kid with that kind of money doing moving into your neighborhood?” Dallas turned to Ozzy, and then Hennessey, for an answer to his question when all I could do was shrug my shoulders.

  “His name is Gunnar Prince. Apparently, he is, or was, the heir to the Prince family dynasty of car dealerships. I don’t know any details, but it seemed like the two of them were most definitely on the outs.” Gunnar had muttered that he was no o
ne’s son. If that didn’t scream family troubles, I don’t know what did.

  “His father is the douche on television telling people how simple it is to drive away in a new Mercedes?” A grimace twisted Dallas’s lips. “Sure, I can afford a Mercedes on an EMT’s salary. I’d have to live in the damn thing, but I can afford one.” Dallas rolled his green eyes. “Kid must be a chip off the old block.” Dallas looked as if that didn’t make Gunnar worth much of anything in his eyes.

  For some reason Dallas’s attitude lit a fire in my belly. “I think something bad happened to him. I’m guessing he came out and things went south from there.”

  Dallas leaned in closer. The superior look was gone, replaced by one of concern. “You think the old man gave him the boot for being gay?”

  “I don’t know. The kid didn’t seem to be in much of a mood to talk. We both rubbed each other the wrong way.” That was the understatement of the century. “He called me a fucking Boomer, for Christ’s sake.” That comment, more than anything else he’d said, pissed me off the most.

  Ozzy slapped a meaty hand on my shoulder. “Don’t feel bad, old man. Those kids think anyone older than thirty is ancient.”

  I threw his hand off me. “I am older than thirty.” Only by a few months, but that wasn’t the point. “Asshole.” Maybe it wasn’t Gunnar Prince. Maybe everyone was just rubbing me the wrong way today.

  “Okay, so you didn’t fuck this rich bitch. What’s got you so riled up?” Hennessey wore a serious look on his face. He wasn’t messing with me this time, it was a real question.

  “I don’t know.” It was the damnedest thing. I really didn’t know. My heart pounded like I’d run a marathon and my skin had tingled all over when we shook hands. The only explanation for that was my being attracted to him. Which really was ridiculous. I had to be at least ten years older than him and judging by the way he spoke to me, he wasn’t interested in some broken-down traffic cop. Which I most definitely was not.