Page 68 of Disciplinary Action
“If my life falls apart, it will be nobody's fault but mine. Besides, I wouldn’t want to spend all night searching for you to drag you home when we could be eating cold noodles and watchingRuPaul’s Drag Race.”
Cal’s heart did cartwheels in his chest. “Does anybody else in the world know about your secret obsession with drag?”
Gideon chuckled. “Nope. Just you.”
Cal gave Gideon a chaste kiss. “Get changed, and I’ll cue up season three.”
They spent the next twenty minutes feeding each other noodles in their underwear, laughing at the television, debating style choices, and pointing out who should win and why. It was the first time in as long as Cal could remember where he didn’t feel like there was an agenda or a sick feeling in his stomach. He had never in his life felt so comfortable with another person, not his father, not Bastian. Nobody.
With the food put away, they snuggled on the sofa, Gideon playing big spoon as they teased each other with soft kisses and half-hearted foreplay, neither really interested in doing anything more than just touching and being touched. When Gideon’s hand settled on Cal’s bloated stomach, he tried to brush it away. “Stop rubbing my gut,” he cried.
“I can touch any part of you I like,” Gideon growled playfully, rubbing Cal’s belly as proof.
Cal shivered, smiling as he rocked back against him. “Yes, Daddy.”
“Besides, I like your belly,” Gideon said. “It means you're safe and well-fed and home with me.”
Cal laughed, only half-kidding when he said, “You only say that ‘cause it will be gone by morning.”
Gideon scoffed. “I don’t care about that. I only care about you being healthy. That’s all that matters. In a few short years, I’ll be old, blind, and deaf, and you’ll be stuck taking care of me,” he teased.
Cal rolled in Gideon’s arms, kissing the only part he could reach, the underside of his chin, before burying his face against his chest. “Shut up. You are the healthiest, sexiest, most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. You’ll be sexy at sixty and seventy and…okay, you might look a little rough at eighty, but I’ll be old and blind by then too, so we’ll be old and wrinkled together.”
Gideon laughed. “You’re ridiculous,” he murmured.
“You want to go to bed?” Gideon asked sometime later.
“I’m comfortable right here,” Cal mumbled, half-dozing, burrowing himself deeper into Gideon’s embrace, like he could somehow crawl inside him if he just believed hard enough.
Gideon’s chin rested on the top of his head while his knee was tucked between Gideon’s calves. Cal wanted to stay like this forever, but some small part of him knew it wouldn’t be possible. Gideon seemed more sure each day that he would get Cal back into Harvard, and when that time came, he would have to make peace with just seeing Gideon a few times a year. What if Gideon grew tired of waiting? What if proximity was really Cal’s greatest allure? What if he wanted to be in an open relationship so he could be with other boys while Cal was so far away? Could Cal let him go? He squeezed his eyes closed, willing the thoughts to go away, just for a little while longer.
Gideon rapped his knuckles quietly against the door of the dilapidated hotel room. It was opened by a man in jeans and a flannel shirt. It took a minute for Gideon to realize it was Simmons. He stood back to let Gideon enter. Inside were two other men with a series of tech equipment laid out on an ugly purple and green floral bedspread.
“You sure you want to do this?” Simmons asked. “You really think the Empress is going to feel like talking in the middle of the night?”
Gideon unbuttoned his dress-shirt. “I need to surprise her if I’m going to get her to talk. Besides, she opened the door when she ambushed Callum earlier. I need her weak if I’m going to get her to spill her guts. I need her to think that she’s never really known me at all.”
Simmons shrugged, taking a slug from an energy drink sitting on a scarred desk. “I hope you’re right. Shea hasn’t been able to get shit out of any of them in months.”
“Yeah, well Shea’s not exactly James Bond. He caved five minutes into my first meeting with him. If he’s who you’re counting on to help you close this investigation, you boys better get real comfortable in this hotel room.”
Simmons scoffed, giving a begrudging nod. “Listen, the only way this works is if you get her on tape breaking down the entire operation. She can’t just agree with what you say. She needs to cop to the whole thing herself, and the more people she names, the more pressure we have to break them down later.”
“Yeah, I got it,” Gideon snapped.
The agent didn’t seem to take his short temper to heart. Gideon wasn’t mad at Simmons. He was annoyed that he’d had to leave his warm bed and a softly snoring Cal, who was curled up with Alexa, so he could sneak out to a dirty motel in a seedy neighborhood to get wired up on the off chance he could end this game with Rosalind and Roosevelt Prep once and for all.
“If you think this thing is going south, just give the code phrase and we’ll get you out of there. You do remember the code phrase?”
Gideon frowned. “Yes. I ask her about a glass of water. She’s sixty-three years old. I think I’ll be fine. It’s not like she’s going to try to murder me over a college scheme. I just need to get her talking. Convince her, somehow, that she can trust me.”
“How do you plan on making that happen exactly?”
“I just have to charm her.”
Simmons arched a brow.
Gideon smirked. “What? Are you implying that I’m not charming?”
