“I will say that always,” Noah promised, carding his hands through Adam’s hair in a weirdly comforting gesture.
He had never received much affection as a child. It hadn’t been offered or needed, but Adam found he loved the way Noah would pet him, like it soothed something within him to touch Adam. “This would be a lot easier for me if I could just chain you to my radiator.”
“You’re the only person I know who could make a felony sound romantic.” Noah grinned. “And, as previously stated, you have no radiator.”
Adam flopped down hard enough to make Noah grunt. “Details.”
After a few minutes, Noah asked, “What do you want to do for the rest of the day?”
“I don’t know, go on a date?” Adam asked. The concept was as foreign to him as advanced calculus. “That’s a thing couples do.”
“Like, you wanna take me to the movies? Buy me popcorn and hold my hand?” Noah asked, sounding almost as perplexed by the concept as Adam.
“We could go to the movies,” Adam said, propping his chin on his hands that rested in the center of Noah’s chest. “But once the lights are out, I can’t guarantee I won’t try to fuck you again.”
An almost evil grin spread across Noah’s face. “Buy me popcorn and I’ll give you a handjob in the back row.”
Adam kind of liked the sound of this whole dating thing. “Deal.”
*
Adam and Noah woke up at the crack of noon the following day. Their movie date had been fun. Neither had any idea what the movie was about but giving each other buttery handjobs in a crowded theater turned out to be a kink neither of them knew they had, but one both were eager to explore further at a later date.
Adam leaned against the counter, his pajama pants slung low on his hips, watching a very sleepy Noah shovel Cheerios into his mouth. He didn’t get how Noah could eat cereal with no sugar. They weren’t even the Honey Nut Cheerios, just the plain kind. It was weird. How did he live without sugar? Adam took a sip of his overly sweetened concoction of caramel-flavored creamer and sugar with just enough espresso to be able to say he was drinking coffee. He needed sugar to survive.
When the phone started to vibrate between them on the counter, they both froze, Noah leaning forward to see who it was, sighing when he saw the name. “Calliope.”
“Answer it,” Adam said.
Noah swiped to answer, then put it on speaker. “Hey, Calliope.”
“Hi, Noah,” she said, sounding absolutely thrilled over a simple greeting.
She never acted that way when Adam answered. Noah seemed to be everybody’s new favorite. He was unintentionally charming the pants off everybody in Adam’s life. He smiled, sipping his orange juice, letting Noah do the talking.
“What’s up? Any news?” Noah asked, taking another bite of his cereal and munching loudly.
“Not about the priest or even your dad, but…I think I found a lock for the key you swiped from Gary’s.”
Noah’s startled gaze shot to Adam then back to the phone. “You did?”
“Yeah, it took some deep, deep digging. Like, a decade of digging. It took forever because I don’t think the key belonged to Gary. I think it belonged to your father.”
“My father?”
“Yes. While I was cross-referencing all the players like Thomas asked, I came across your father’s will.”
“My father had a will?” Noah asked, seemingly confused.
Calliope paused. “Yes. But he left everything to Gary…including you.”
“What?”
“Holt had named Gary as your guardian. But he was declared unfit to care for you given his record and…uh, lifestyle. So, you were turned over to foster care.”
Adam watched Noah try to process that information. “Hey, I know foster care sucked, but if Gary was your guardian, there’s a very good chance he would have just found a way to make a profit off a defenseless ten-year-old boy.”
Noah nodded, clearing his throat. “So, Gary has whatever this key unlocks?”
“Afraid not. The key unlocks a small storage unit at a place called Sure-Lock Storage.”
“Wouldn’t anything in a storage unit have been auctioned off long ago?” Noah asked.
“You would think so, but no. In addition to handing over his meager possessions and his son to Gary, there was a strange little provision in his will. Part of his life insurance money was to go to keeping that storage locker paid for. The key was to be held by Gary and, upon his death, the contents of the storage unit were to be forwarded to the police.”
Noah’s dad sure did have a hard-on for this Gary guy. What the hell was the deal between them? Were they in love? “Can you send me the address?”
Calliope sighed. “You already have it. Be careful, though. The GPS on Gary’s phone shows he was out at the cabin yesterday but only for about twenty minutes. He could be starting to suspect something.”
“I’m always careful,” Adam quipped, even though they both knew that wasn’t true. When they disconnected, he gave Noah a look. “You up for a drive?”
Noah nodded. “Yeah, why not. Let’s do it.”
Adam checked his phone, finding Calliope had indeed sent the address, but that wasn’t all. She’d sent an email marked confidential. When he opened it, there was a link to a DNA profile. Noah’s DNA profile along with the username and password. Adam flicked his gaze towards Noah. “Why don’t you go get dressed? I just have to email something to my dad.”
Noah frowned but nodded. Adam waited until he heard him moving around the bedroom, looking for clothes to borrow. They needed to go get the rest of his stuff. Maybe on the way back from the storage unit. With one final covert glance towards the stairs, he opened his laptop, which sat abandoned on the dining room table. He hadn’t touched it in weeks. He preferred to work off his phone.
Once he punched in the information, a profile popped up giving Noah his genetic makeup, his ancestry in percentages, but there was also a button that showed familial matches within the database. There were three. All girls. The three matches were siblings to each other but appeared to be Noah’s first cousins on his mother’s side.