Page 37 of Damian & Jun: Episodes 5-8
The man smiled back as if he could read Jun’s emotions. He settled the blankets around Jun and Damian and pointed to the kitchen.
A short while later, he returned with two coffees, cream, sugar, and a basket of various mianbao, Chinese light bread buns. He set a small stand near Jun where he could reach both coffee and a plate with two of the mianboa without disturbing Damian.
Jun sipped the coffee, soaking in the soft morning light and Richard’s calm presence on the chair nearby, grounded with Damian’s slumbering weight on his legs.
Richard sipped his coffee, looking out the window behind Jun. For a while, he sat, holding the mug between his hands, his thumb rubbing the warm ceramic. “Most moments are normal. For me, there have been five moments where I stood at a turning point. Sometimes you know, in the moment, that it’s pivotal. Sometimes it’s only clear when history becomes written. The night a desperate boy held a weapon in front of my face, I thought I would die. I didn’t think he would make me a better man.”
Jun held his breath, staring at the sharp lines of Richard’s face. A tingling in his head brought him back. He took a breath, breathing in coffee and sipped, still watching the older dom.
Richard went on. “We were neither of us who we are now. I was leading a construction crew. He was failing out of high school. My mentor thought I was wasting my life. My lover was in a different country, becoming things that I wasn’t. In that moment, with the gun in my face, there was nothing but the two of us.
“What I did next wasn’t meant to save him. I didn’t have that much hope.” Richard looked down, his thumb tracing the handle on his mug. “I needed to matter. I needed to strike back at the system that was ruling what I saw as my fate. So I did the opposite of what I was supposed to do; I fought him. And I won, and then I offered him something different. He won’t recognize it for what it was for me, but perhaps you will.”
Richard met Jun’s eyes. “I was fragile back then. Sick inside. I gave him a choice, but it wasn’t for him; it was for me. I was testing the Universe. Could people be good? Could men change? Could I change my destiny? Could he?”
“Every day he showed up for work, it was a mark on the side of yes. Each time I saw him, I promised myself that if he could have the hope to try, then I, who had more, could hang on to my faith in the world.”
“Everything that came after, when he called me from the police station, when I fought for his freedom, that was when he taught me to take risks for what I believed. By then, I believed in him. I couldn’t ask for help for myself, but for him, I would indebt myself and plead. I didn’t have what I needed to help him, but I knew people who did. Risks not worth taking for myself, I took for him. If I hadn’t ever taken those steps, I wouldn’t be the man I am today. Watching him earn his GED was the example I needed to make me admit I wanted something different than building someone else’s property for the rest of my life. Damian, more than the inheritance that came later, the empire that is Reevesworth Industries, was my turning point.”
Richard sipped more coffee, eyes drifting back to the window. “There are people who change you. People you choose to change for, not because they ask but because you want them in your life. Until Damian met you, he was content to be my lawyer and my Pup. He played at being a playboy, but he always came home alone. He had friends around the world but no one close—except us, Matthew included. He became so much more than I ever asked, but he never hinted that he wanted more than what he had.
“Until he met you.” Reevesworth turned his eyes back to Jun’s face, watching him impassively.
Jun’s cheeks burned. He looked down at Damian, asleep in his lap. He ran his hands through the short, tight hair on Damian’s head.
“Damian has been my Pup for years. He will be my Pup as long as one of us still breathes. But for you, Jun, I believe Damian is your Wolf.”
Jun’s skin tingled.
Richard gazed into him. “Wolves mate for life.”
“He still needs you,” Jun said hoarsely.
“There’s no reason he has to choose.”
“You’re offering to share. Don’t say you don’t own him.”
Richard smiled, eyes both sad and fond. “Only as much as he owns me.”
They sat with that knowledge together in the dusky light. Eventually, Jun sipped at his coffee again. It was strong with hints of vanilla.
He broke the silence. “How do I come to belong here as much as he does?”
“Time. Challenges, ones surmounted together.” Richard leaned his head to the side, watching Jun’s face. “Veracity. That is how the strongest things are built.”
Damian
Damian woke to the sound of Richard and Jun trading stories about their childhoods. Jun was talking about his mother.
“Is your mother still alive?” Jun asked Richard.
Damian held still, enjoying the feeling of lying against Jun. He thought he had fallen asleep with Richard, but waking with Jun holding him was a different kind of good. There was a smell of coffee in the air, but it wasn’t enough to make him want to stir, not yet. He wanted to linger in this half-awake state and soak in it, drifting to the sound of two of his most beloved people speaking to each other.
Richard seemed to be drinking and swallowing. A coffee mug was set down. “My mother did the best she could. She and my father were separated. Linda and I weren’t pleasant memories for her. The older I became, the more she saw in me the man who had left her. We didn’t know the Reevesworth side of the family at all back then. There was no money, no support. I spent a lot of time with my maternal grandparents growing up while my mother worked. She dated a lot. When I was sixteen, she left with a new man. He wanted to have a family with her; there wasn’t room for Linda and I in her fresh start. My grandparents disowned her for the decision. Linda was only thirteen.”
Jun shifted ever so slightly. Damian fought to stay relaxed as if he were fully asleep. “So you don’t know if she’s dead or alive?”
“I had my private investigator look her up years ago. She got the second life she wanted. I was a public figure by then. I made sure if she ever reached out the message would come through. The last time we had contact was when I informed her of her father’s funeral.”
