Page 93 of Big Britches
“So, how did you fit in? Obviously, you had an advantage being clear-headed.”
“He was tailoring me for management. He wanted me to recruit. I couldn’t do it. So, I just pretended to be bad at it while secretly looking for a way out. Nearly three years in, I didn’t show up one day because I was on a plane to Georgia.”
“Thank God. Does he know who or where your mother is?”
Pedro shook his head. “No. I was careful. I used an alias, and he only paid in cash.”
“Because he’s a fucking criminal. Pimping underage boys–”
“I was only underage that first year. And to be fair, he didn’t know. I lied about my age. I needed the money.”
“Still.”
“Still,” Pedro echoed. They were quiet for a while–so quiet that, at one point, Pedro thought Titus may have fallen asleep again.
“You still with me?” he asked.
“Always,” Titus answered.
“When I was sitting in that jail cell, I felt like a criminal. I knew then that I needed to tell you everything. It doesn’t feel right having secrets. Not now. I don’t ever want anything between us. I’m sorry if you’re disappointed in me.”
“Stop. I’m not disappointed. As much as it pains me to hear that you were taken advantage of, I saw it happening here, too. You’re not a criminal, P. No matter what kind of mind games Silas is playing with you. And that’s exactly what he’s doing. Whether or not you see it yet–he’s a lot like Escobar. Instead of recruiting poor boys from the street, he gets his workforce from abroad for the same reason. Because he knows they’re vulnerable. It’s deplorable.”
“I don’t know how, but he got Carlos deported. I’m sure of it.”
“Others, too, I bet. Hopefully, INS will take care of him.”
Pedro rolled back to face Titus. Their faces were so close that Pedro could feel the heat from Titus’s breath. “And we’re OK?” he asked.
“Always,” Titus said again. “I may be a little reluctant with the dom-play now, though. Knowing now what you went through.”
“Don’t. Please. I know it’s hard for you to understand, but I need you to be a little rough with me. Forceful. It’s psychological, I know. Those men before, on Holbox, they didn’t matter to me. You do. By showing your dominance—I don’t know. It somehow reassures me that you care.”
“It’s play-acting, you know?”
“I do. But it also pushes my buttons.”
Titus grinned. “Me, too. A little. It’s starting to, anyway.”
The conversation was veering toward their usual morning play. Pedro was grateful for it, taking the wheel. “Daddy had to get me out of jail. I should probably pay him back somehow. Wonder what I should do.”
Titus reached between Pedro’s legs, stroking the half-moon of his crevice, a stray middle finger exploring just a bit further. “I think you should lie on your stomach and relax. Maybe spread your legs a little.”
Pedro did as told, but glanced back, briefly catching Titus’s hungry gaze in dawn’s light. He was creeping low, squeezing and parting Pedro’s cheeks.
“Oh, the lube’s in the bathroom,” Pedro said.
“Don’t worry. You just turn around. Leave everything to me.”
Twenty-Two
Pedro needn’t have worried. The Titus he’d fallen in love with may have been withdrawn and reclusive, but the man he awakened that summer of 1995 was the one the townsfolk of Spoon remembered–headstrong, dedicated, and innovative. In fact, while Pedro recuperated from the trauma of his contrived incarceration–cooking with Roz, playing with Tucker and Shelly in the pool, and continuing with projects he’d begun in the backyard–Titus was a busy little bee.
He’d met with Barb and Roz separately and together, signing loans and completing details for Roz’s Little Rascals Daycare, as well as assisting Barb with insurance and opening an equity line for a separate rental business under the umbrella of Hawthorne House, Inc.
Alden and he met for lunch at the Dairy Dream on Tuesday, weighing the pros and cons to various startups as a replacement to the printing business they were selling, brainstorming potential client bases and equipment costs for each.
Wheels were turning, and Titus felt renewed energy being at the center of various orbiting prospects. He had yet to commit to his father’s ultimate request, but he promised Truman that he would have an answer for him by the weekend.