Love in La Terraza (12 page)

Cain nodded his agreement there, peering down at his own swollen tummy, now stuffed with pasta. He rubbed the rounded mound, lightly patting his belly which had Henry chuckling.

“No, I’m not laughing at you; I’m laughing at that new boyfriend you seem to be so curious about.”

Cain winked then whispered, “You forgot sexy.”

Henry rolled his eyes before shoving him with the pad of his foot.

“Yes, he’s sitting right here.”

Cain sat up straight at hearing that, shaking his head.

“You’d like to speak with him?” Henry asked.

Cain shook his head a little more emphatically, not enjoying the evil expression on Henry’s face.

“I’m supposed to be meeting his parents this coming week, so I certainly think it’s fair that you get a crack at him. Hold on for a moment. I’ll hand him the phone.”

Henry was doing his best to squelch the satanically evil giggling as he held out the phone.

Cain threw his arms into the air, mouthing the words,
You are fucking dead!

He took a deep breath and grabbed the phone, hand shaking slightly as he placed it up to his ear. “Hello?”

“Mr. Elliott, it’s so lovely to
finally
have the opportunity for a little chat.” Henry’s mother had a soft, sweet voice, every bit as warm and welcoming as Henry’s smile and those dark brown eyes.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Mrs. Abrams, and please call me Cain.”

Henry was making weird faces at him, while tugging on his genitalia in an attempt to make Cain laugh, thereby forcing him into making an ass out himself while on the phone with the man’s mother.

Cain turned his back to Henry.

“Only if you’ll call me, Darla. I’m very much looking forward to meeting you when we come up for a visit next month. I can’t tell you how comforting it is to know Henry has made so many new friends.”

“Thank you, Darla. I feel pretty fortunate myself.”

“I do pray you don’t think ill of me about before. I was certainly not attempting to pry into the private details of your relationship with my son.”

“No, ma’am, I’m sure you weren’t.”

Cain glanced back at Henry who nodded while whispering, “Yes, she was.”

He shot the man a nasty look, knowing full well Henry hadn’t a clue what the hell they were even talking about. Cain laid down on his stomach, eyes bugging out slightly in discomfort, and he made a solemn vow to never again eat that much food in one sitting.

“I don’t wish to keep you, dear, I really just wanted to hear your voice and let you know how grateful I am to know you’re looking after my son. He has a propensity for working too much, and I worry about his health as a result.”

“Well, he hardly works at all these days,” Cain said, grinning evilly himself as he heard Henry scoffing from behind him.

“He must like you a great deal, then,” Darla said with a sigh. “That’s music to this mother’s ear.”

Cain gasped, holding in his yelp when Henry bit into his ass. He reached back and slapped the crap out of him. It was pure reflex, but the loud smack startled them both.

“Thank you, Mrs…Da…Darla,” Cain stuttered, rolling over to see Henry frowning as he rubbed at the newly forming red handprint on his hip. “I’ll give you back to Henry now.”

He passed the phone back, smiling sweetly and able to tell Henry was itching for a little payback. Cain reached back to rub his ass, reminding the shit head who had started it in the first place. He felt the ridges made by the impression of Henry’s teeth in his ass, but he wasn’t bleeding. It had startled him more than anything.

“Yes, Mother, I love you, too.” Henry smiled. “I’m glad to hear that. He is a nice boy. Yes…love you, too. Give Dad my best.”

Henry ended the call then screamed, “Ouch, dude!”

Cain was laughing under his breath. “I don’t wanna hear it, Nosfer-ass-tu…you sick-o little butt vampire.”

That had Henry laughing, though still rubbing at his hip. “Not my fault you rolled over. Looked like two fuzzy cantaloupes…and I do love me some melon.”

“You’re the biggest fuckin’ pervert I’ve ever met in all my life.”

Henry smiled, showing off all his pearly whites. “Baby, you say the sweetest thangs.”

“You can shelve the southern-boy flirting.” Cain groaned, rolling onto his back. “I’m too stuffed to feel even remotely sexy so you’re wasting your time.”

“You feeling sexy isn’t really a requirement for me. That warm tight hole of yours is incentive enough.”

Cain laughed, holding his stomach and groaning. “Fuck, we should go for a walk or a run.”

“
Noooo
can do!” Henry yelled. “That would be a die-rect vie-o-lation of the naked weekend—unless you intend on risking arrest for public indecency, that is.”

“You are so full of it. You just make this shit up as you go along.”

“However.” Henry walked across the floor on his knees and insinuated himself between Cain’s legs. “I’m more than willing and able to assist you with some physical exertion.”

Henry was now on his hands and knees, hovering over Cain.

“How could you possibly wanna have sex with me right now? You have to be every bit as miserable and feel as hideous as I do?”

Henry took Cain’s hand and placed it between his legs so Cain could feel he was getting hard. “My dick doesn’t give a damn about your feelings—or mine, for that matter.”

Henry moaned, taking his hand away once Cain started jacking him off. “Oh yeah, just like that, baby.”

Cain opened his legs wider, unable to prevent the wicked grin spreading across his face as Henry’s fingers worked their magic on his hole.

“This is so wrong,” Cain mumbled.

“I’m about to make it so right,” Henry said.

Chapter Six

Cain had done his best to prepare Henry for the meeting with his family, but Henry still appeared to be mildly shell-shocked. They were all staring, his parents, aunt, and cousin Charlie—who was visibly confused as to how Cain had landed such hottie. Henry was certainly on his best behavior if nothing else as the six of them, currently crammed around the dining room table in the modest, two-bedroom ranch which sat in a subdivision on the southeast side of town called Richwood—a baby boomers’ haven from back in the day.

It didn’t help matters that his parents suffered from a nasty affliction of low-grade hoarding, an unforeseen side effect of discovering the home shopping channels in the mid-nineties. Paul and Jean Elliott had shit crammed into every nook and cranny—much of it still in the unopened boxes it had originally been packaged in. It bordered on a sickness, one Cain continually threatened to treat with a match if they didn’t rein it in.

The antique china cabinet sitting along the west wall of the dining room was too large for the room as it was and stuffed so full Cain feared it might pop open at any time, killing them all in some sort of freak retail avalanche.

“He’s so tall!” Paul bellowed, looking Henry up and down.

The fact was made more evident as everyone in Cain’s family was short. Both Cain and Charlie towered over their parents at five foot, six inches. It would’ve been amusing to anyone on the outside looking in, like a pack of hobbits were hosting a dinner for the Jolly Green Giant.

Cain’s father and sweet little mother, who everyone referred to as Momma Jean, were each a bit on the round side—full figured as Momma Jean liked to say. Neither one of them seemed to age, looking exactly the same for as far back as Cain could remember. He’d begun to fear they’d made some sort of unholy union with Beelzebub, and while praying for their tainted, unholy souls, he crossed his fingers in hopes he’d age even half as well.

They’d nicknamed Cain “String Bean” as a child and, to this day, enjoyed whipping that one out at inopportune moments. His cousin, Charlie, had been dubbed “Lil’ Dumpling” as he’d been on the chunky side growing up. Cain could eat anything and never have it come back on him while Charlie had to work to stay fit, merely one more thing he resented Cain over—not that he’d ever cop to it.

Paul became suddenly more excited, blurting out, “We should all run out of the house screaming ‘
giant!’
while Henry chases us around the yard! It’ll freak out the neighbors!”

Henry’s mouth opened, but nothing came out, as if he wasn’t sure whether or not Paul was being serious.

Cain placed his head in his hands, mortified.

His father had volunteered to help with their church’s annual July Fourth fireworks display, and the ringing in his ears hadn’t quite subsided. Apparently, none of the geniuses helping out had the forethought to bring ear plugs.

“Whose bright idea was it to let him anywhere near explosives?” Cain asked.

Paul turned to Henry. “We hate our neighbors! They’re all assholes!”

His cousin, Charlie, laughed to the point of bordering on tears as Momma Jean and his Aunt Tracy each pointed Charlie’s direction.

Momma Jean reached over and smacked Paul upside the head. “Stop talking! You’re breaking
our
eardrums!”

“No!” Dad yelled back, looking disgusted. “You know I hate beets!”

Cain was ready to crawl under the table and die, even though Henry seemed to be amused by it all. “Thanks so much, Charlie. Great call on the fireworks.”

“Does anybody see beets on this table?” Momma Jean asked, attempting to sort out where his father had pulled that from in the first place.

“Be glad your homos, boys!” Dad screamed. “These women never listen!”

“It’s not my fault,” Charlie clarified. “I was in charge of getting volunteers, and he begged me.”

“Having a vagina makes you blind not deaf,” Aunt Tracy said to no one in particular as she spooned a helping of mashed potatoes onto her plate.

“Mother, please,” Charlie pleaded, his lip curling as if something in his tummy had just soured.

Momma Jean and her sidekick, Aunt Tracy, had always been attached at the hip. Born only a year apart, they looked exactly alike though Tracy was taller and had lighter colored hair. They were the real team, and the husbands were merely there to do the heavy lifting. Tracy had been married and divorced twice while Mamma Jean stuck with the “one who brung her,” as she liked to say. Basically, that left poor Dad to do the heavy lifting for two.

Charlie rolled his eyes at the ladies who still cackled over Tracy’s short-but-to-the-point Vagina Monologue. “The poor guy said it had always been his dream.”

Charlie didn’t need to say anything else. Dear old Dad had a storied reputation for
big
dreams.

It was a quality Cain came by quite naturally. Of course, Cain was a little more monogamous when it came to his big dreams. He had very few and was exceedingly faithful to them. His father was quite loose and freewheeling when it came to dreams—like a street hustler and his Johns. Once Paul had his fill of one experience, he was on to the next big thing.

Momma Jean claimed to be truly surprised he’d never attempted to trade her in for a newer model, but for whatever reason, she was Paul Elliott’s one and only constant.

“If you came around more often, Cain…” Momma Jean trailed off, knowing she didn’t need to go any further.

“Yeah-heah!” Charlie said, nodding in agreement. “It would be awesome to have a little more help around here.”

Henry placed his hand on Cain’s arm. “I’m likely to blame for that, I’m afraid. Been keeping him all to myself.”

“Aw, already taking bullets for his man… Well, that’s just…” Momma Jean placed a hand over her heart, “the sweetest.”

She took to fanning her face as Aunt Tracy rolled her eyes. “Careful boys or she’ll blow, and once the geyser over there gets going, there’s no stopping her.”

Mamma Jean shot her sister a most hateful-looking sneer, but Tracy wasn’t too far off the mark. His mother had always had a bit of a soft heart.

Paul chuckled, somehow not needing his hearing to know they were poking fun at his wife.

“While we’re on the topic of what would be awesome, perhaps you could do me a favor and stop torturing Em, Charlie,” Cain said, smiling sweetly.

“I’m not torturing the girl. I told her no.” Charlie was instantly pissy. “Torturing her would be stringing her along and never committing one way or the other.”

“What’s all this about?” Momma Jean asked, both her and Tracy’s interests now piqued.

“Charlie refuses to let Eduardo do the flowers for Emily’s wedding,” Cain explained, not intending for it to come out sounding like a child tattling on his sibling—something Henry took note of as his eyebrows hitched.

“For your information, Eduardo is every bit as anti-Conrad Haven as I am. That prick has done everything humanly possible to discourage any sort of queer community projects or programs in this town. And I’m not about to apologize to you or anyone else for both having and sticking to my principles. I will not now nor will I ever take one cent of that pig’s money.”

“Wow!” Cain shook his head, sucking down some iced tea.