Page 18 of Jack of All Trades

Jack looked over at Maltin and then reached for his hand. As Maltin let Jack take it, he felt a bussing of electricity in their touch. There was little point in denying there was something between them more than surface attraction.

“Okay, give me the details of what you all need me to do, and I’ll quote a price. If it’s acceptable, I’ll start on it today, and I should have something for you in a couple of days.”

“That fast?” Jack squeaked.

“Yes. I have friends that help me get into programs that I wouldn’t normally have access to. Adoption records, for instance. Remember, gentlemen, discretion.”

Maltin felt himself smiling, and Jack nodded, coming to grips that he may have been adopted, no matter all the pictures. “Thank you, sir. We’ll be waiting for your call.”

The ride back was even quieter, but Maltin understood. Thinking of being adopted weighed heavily on Jack. “I’m sorry about all this.”

“Not your fault. At least it would explain why my family could give a flying fuck about me.”

“I’m sure that’s not true.”

Jack groaned, “It’s true.”

Maltin wanted to take him in his arms and hold him, but their heat together was getting worse, and that would result in them fucking, he was sure. As much as that would satisfy him in some ways, it was too soon, too…biological. That wasn’t romantic or special; for Jack, he wanted it to be special.

“So, your name is really Jackson. I think it fits you better.”

“I never thought so. It’s pretentious, and I’m not.”

Sulking like a child made Jack terribly cute. “I don’t think so. I think you’re more refined than you give yourself credit for. You’re articulate, handsome, groomed well. You act like some bum living out of a cardboard box or something.”

“Bum? People that have no homes are not bums,” he scolded Maltin. “God, you really are old-fashioned in your views. No wonder all your cars are old.”

“Well, I’m old, Jack. I may look thirty, but I’m much older than that.”

“That’s no excuse to be bigoted.”

Taking offense to that, he gripped the leather steering wheel cover tightly as he gritted, “I’m no bigot. I was a gay man long before it became cool to be so.”

“Cool? How detached are you?”

“Detached? Do you realize what it was like to be gay in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries?”

“You’re really that old?”

He turned to see that Jack was laughing. “What is so funny?”

“Talk about an age gap. We’re worse than Aaron and Sam.”

“Who are they?”

Jack laughed more. “Never mind.”

After Jack’s laughter finally died, Maltin realized that he was calling the two of them a couple. “Jack, would that bother you terribly?”

“What?”

“Our age difference?”

“You don’t look it, so no. Would it bother you?”

If he was truthful with himself, he’d been attracted to Jack right off, but his trust issues and the love of being alone kept him from allowing his mind to work that out to anything but a transaction for his work. “No, Jack, but…we’re not getting along well so far.”

“I’ve seen a lot of couples. We’re not supposed to be all sweet and sappy all the time. How boring is that? We have…spice! Yeah, we’re spicy. Besides, don’t shifters like to bite and scratch and all that?”

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