Page 90 of His Hungry Wolf

I doubted my father would. I was just a burden to him at this point. I was his little gay son who made his life and job harder. I would never make him happy. What was I even doing here?

As the game came to a close with six interceptions driving our loss, I stood behind Papa as he gave the team his losing game speech. Papa emphasized that the loss was everyone’s responsibility. But it was hard to win when your quarterback can’t complete a pass to save his life.

Sure, he would blame the offensive line for not giving him enough time, or the receivers for fumbling his passes. But I had seen more done with less. And that quarterback’s name was…

“Claude!” I said, entering my room and finding him there. “What the hell? What are you doing here? How did you get in? And why are you wearing a tuxedo?”

Claude smiled his brilliant, glowing smile.

“Those were a lot of questions.”

“Then start with, ‘What the hell?'”

Thinking for a second, he said, “I don’t know how to respond to that.”

“Seriously, Claude, what are you doing here?”

“Well, as I remember, you agreed to have me as your date for this event. Did you think I was just gonna forget about that?”

“Stop it, Claude. Tell me, what you’re doing here?”

“Making a grand romantic gesture?” he asked apprehensively.

“But you left me. No explanation. No warning. You just left.”

“Yeah,” he said, embarrassed.

“Where’d you go?”

“To have a hard conversation.”

“I see. And what was that hard conversation about?”

“About why I keep leaving you,” he said humbly.

I stared at him with my mouth hanging open. Nervously, I asked,

“And why is that?”

“It’s something called generational trauma.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s when someone experiences something bad, and they teach their child how to react to it and they teach their child, and they teach their child. It’s a demon thing.”

“As the gay son of a toxic-male father, I can tell you, it’s also very human.”

“Maybe not,” he conceded.

“Okay, so why are you here?”

“I’m here to fight for you. Or, more precisely, to fight myself for you. And I want you to know that I will continue to fight until I have you. And I get that I keep disappearing on you. And that you might not want to forgive me for it. But, I’m here. And I will keep coming back… at least until you learn to better secure your doors.”

“So, you’re planning on stalking me. Is that it?”

Claude bobbled his head. “Maybe with a little breaking and entering.”

“Is criminal behavior a demon thing, too?”