Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

Jaxon

I sighed and tossed my pen onto my desk before leaning back in my seat to stare up at my white ceiling. For the past five days, I’d been burying myself in my job to keep myself from thinking about Eros and Zeppelin. It wasn’t going well, to say the least. I was drowning in thoughts of them.

Two days ago, I’d given up on thinking of Eros as Dr. Hendrix. Every night, I woke up from hot, erotic dreams of Eros and Zeppelin. Sometimes, it was just the two of them, and I got to watch them fuck. Other times, I was fucking Eros. Twice now in my dreams, Zeppelin had fucked me.

How the fuck was I having an identity crisis at forty-three years old? Had losing Penelope turned me off other women? I didn’t think it had. I’d jacked off to porn of men fucking women all the time. I didn’t think I was gay. Was I bi? But then again, I had zero attraction to other men—apart from Eros and Zeppelin, that was. Was this some weird as fuck gay-for-you moment? And if it was, was it temporary, or was it here to stay?

A knock sounded on my front door before Spencer swung it open, Logan right behind him. Their hands were linked, and Spencer marched right inside, pulling Logan along with him, barely giving the other man time to shut the door behind them. My lips quirked in amusement at Logan’s grumpy face.

“No Ezra?” I asked.

Spencer shook his head and released Logan’s hand to head into my kitchen. I stayed seated, watching my son work his way around my kitchen to throw together something for lunch.

“Ezra had to work today,” Logan told me, flopping onto the couch and leaning his head back to shut his eyes. He looked tired. “Spencer dragged me out of bed this morning to come have lunch with you.”

I frowned, opening my mouth to apologize, especially since I knew how tiring Logan’s job could be, but Spencer spoke up before I could.

“You can’t sleep all day,” my son scolded, though his tone was soft and gentle.

“But I’m fucking tired ,” Logan groaned, still not bothering to open his eyes. “You know this week was rough.”

“Lot of cars?” I asked, spinning my chair around to give Logan my attention.

Logan nodded. “Yeah.” He drew in a deep breath, his shoulders rising almost to his ears before they fell again, making him sink deeper into my couch cushions. He groaned. “Group of college kids thought they could race.” He snorted. “Didn’t turn out well.”

“You say that like you’re not the same age as the rest of us,” Spencer called from the kitchen, exasperation in his tone. I snickered.

A smirk twitched at Logan’s lips. “I’m a little older than you, pretty boy. And I’m also not in college.”

I could just picture Spencer rolling his eyes, and my lips tilted up at the corners in amusement. Logan liked to push everyone’s buttons, but when he didn’t, we knew he was spiraling. Since I’d pushed him into therapy when he was in high school, his spirals were much less frequent now—hardly at all. What had happened to him was traumatic, but he pulled through, just as I knew he would.

The image of him in that hospital bed still haunted me. I could only imagine how he felt as the victim.

“Alright,” Spencer said, coming out of the kitchen with a small tray loaded with sandwiches and bags of chips. He set the tray on the coffee table before flopping down beside Logan. I reached forward and snagged a sandwich and a bag of chips. “Lunch is served.”

“Thanks, kid,” I told him. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten, which was unlike me. Christ, Zeppelin and Eros were making me lose my damn mind.

“What’s going on with you?” Spencer asked, frowning at me.

I bit back a grimace. Was I that obvious? I used to be able to hide everything from him that I was feeling. I hadn’t wanted to burden him. When did he become so intuitive?

“Nothing’s going on,” I told him, hoping he would drop it. But no such luck because of course not. He was my son, after all. He was going to pry, just like I would.

Spencer cast me a disapproving look that reminded me so much of his mother, my chest ached a little. She used to give me that same look when I did something she didn’t approve of, too. Or when I hid something from her that was stressing me out.

“Dad, don’t lie to me.” I huffed, feeling like a scolded child. “Something is off. Something has been off since you moved here. Are you not adjusting well? Did something happen? What’s going on?”

Ash meowed and jumped into my lap, nuzzling against my arm. I tore off a piece of bread and fed it to her, avoiding Spencer’s eyes on me. “Dad…” Spencer said, his tone soothing, “you’re worrying me.”

“Yeah, I got dragged out of bed this morning for this talk,” Logan griped before biting into his sandwich. I looked over at him, catching Spencer’s scowl in his direction as I did so. Logan shrugged. “What?” he asked with a mouthful of food, looking at Spencer with a frown as he chewed.

“You are such a pain in the ass,” Spencer hissed.

Logan smirked and swallowed his bite of food. When he opened his mouth to retort an answer that was more than likely not appropriate for me to hear, Spencer and I both said at the same time, “ Don’t .”

“ God ,” Logan groaned, flopping his head against the back of the couch. “You two take the fun out of everything .”

Spencer looked at me, ignoring his whining boyfriend. “Stop evading the question, Dad. What’s going on?”

I sighed and scrubbed my free hand down my face, my appetite officially gone. Leaning forward—and being careful not to knock Ash off my lap—I set the sandwich back on the tray and tossed the bag of chips onto the table. I wasn’t even hungry anymore. Was I ever hungry to begin with? Fuck if I knew.

“When I took Ash to the vet for the first time, the veterinarian… flirted with me. And I was… attracted to him.” Logan was watching me now, too, his tired eyes looking a little more alert. “When his, I think husband, came in, he flirted with me, too. And I’m…” I sighed. “I’m attracted to him, too.”

I rubbed my hand over Ash’s back, unable to look at my two boys. Ash was still itty-bitty, but she was getting a little bigger. Proven when she purred and pushed into my hand roughly, turning in a circle to repeat the process all over again.

“I was confused by my attraction to them, to say the least,” I continued. “I’ve always thought I was straight. Never been attracted to anyone of the same gender before. So, I went to a gay bar down by the college. I got hit on quite a fucking bit?—”

“Of course, you did,” Logan said, smirking. Spencer punched him in the arm. Logan whined and then pulled Spencer into his arms, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. Spencer just melted into him.

“Anyway, I got hit on a lot,” I continued, narrowing my eyes at Logan, daring him to give another smart ass remark. “But not a single soul there was attractive to me—not in the way Eros and Zeppelin had been. There were a lot of good-looking guys at the bar, but none that made me…”

“Want to fuck?” Logan interjected in what he probably thought was a helpful manner.

I rolled my eyes. “Uhm… yeah. We’ll go with that,” I said, shrugging.

“So, you’ve been short with all of us and weird all week because of some gay-for-you kind of shit?” Logan asked like it was such a dumb matter. Spencer shot him a glare. He shrugged. “I know you’re not against poly relationships. Your son is in one, and you never judged the three of us—just told me and Ezra to take care of Spencer. So, what’s the big deal?”

“I’ve always been straight,” I told him in a duh tone.

Logan rolled his eyes. “So? You can be attracted to both sexes at the same time, Jaxon. Hell, you can be pan and have no preference for gender at all and just roll with the fucking flow. Or you can only be attracted to two men in a freak gay-for-them kind of moment. Sexuality is never black and white, dude. I mean, look at Ezra. He’s currently having some pan-awakening moment.”

“He is?” I asked, frowning. Worry for him tightened my chest. “Is he… okay?”

Spencer nodded, his head still resting on Logan’s chest. “Yeah, he’s handling it well.” Spencer shot me a playful smile. “A hell of a lot better than you are.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m forty-three years old, kid,” I reminded him.

Spencer shrugged. “So? Men in their fifties and sixties are figuring out they’re gay and bi, too. We’re always changing and evolving, Dad. Just… roll with the flow,” he suggested. “See what happens. Worst case scenario, there’s nothing there, you have a fling with two other attractive men, and you move on with your life. Or best case scenario, Zeppelin and…”

“Eros,” I supplied when he looked at me expectantly.

“And Eros heal what Mom tore open when she passed away.”

I swallowed thickly, looking back down at Ash, who had curled into a ball on my thigh. “I don’t know if I’m ready to do that,” I confessed, looking back up at them.

Logan shrugged and let his eyes meet mine, pain and something much darker lingering in their depths. “Sometimes, pushing through is the best thing you can ever do for yourself.”

And I knew if anyone knew what it was like to do something that was terrifying and might lead to a dark and dangerous spiral, I knew it was Logan.