Trust in Oneself, Draft 1, CH 23 (Patreon)

“Paul, how are you?” his mother said with relief before he could greet her.

Paul leaned against the building’s metal wall, looking up at the gray clouds filling the sky. He hadn’t wanted to make this call inside Dietrich’s office, or even in his gym. “I’m fine mom, I—”

“Why didn’t you call me sooner? Why was your phone not taking calls? Do you have any idea how worried I was after I received that cryptic message from someone I never even heard of? All your friends would tell me was that you were fine.”

“I’m sorry, mom. Things…escalated.” It had to be something Shila did, not that he felt his mother would take the news someone had cut her off from him well. “I don’t know why you couldn’t call me, but that was for the best. I’m back in San Francisco now and—”

“Good, they wouldn’t tell me where you were, either. Does that mean you’re back to looking for a lab to work at? You know that if things get too difficult, or you’re running low on money, you can move back to Minneapolis. Your room is always available to you here and you also have friends here—”

“Mom.” He hated cutting her up, but she would go on about the good points of him moving back home now that he had his doctorate. “Look, I’m sorry if this is coming out of left-field, but did you know Dietrich Orr was my father?”

She was silent for long enough, he worried. “Not until your graduation. I never knew his name. It…never came up.” His sigh of relief was loud enough, she asked. “Paul, is everything okay?”

“It is now. The worse that might happen is that I’ll have to take a job working for him, but that’s not too—”

“Paul Heeran, I raised you better than to let some man bully you into accepting anything. I don’t care if that man’s supposed to be your father. He’s still some stranger who had nothing to do with you until now.”

“Mom, I’ve known him for a couple of years now. He didn’t know we were related, either. He was just Madoc’s boss and a guy I got to know.” He didn’t add anything, not even his usual comment about having danced with him. His mother knew what else that implied. “But I am his son, and that means I’m part of his family, and his family kind of runs the city, so—”

“What do you mean they run San Francisco? I’ve never heard the name Orr in anything I read about it.”

Paul chuckled. His mother learning as much as she could about the city he lived in, was her way of finding things she pointed out to show they weren’t as good as in Minneapolis. “They don’t hold official positions, they just make sure things go the way they want and that benefits the city. Mom?”

“Get out of there, Paul.”

“Mom, it’s okay, they—”

“No, Paul, listen to me. Do you know what you just described? You don’t what to have anything to do with men like that, Paul. Trust me.”

“Mom, I know it doesn’t sound ideal, but—”

“Paul, they’re criminals.” She lowered her voice. “They’re mobsters.”

The way she said how he’d been trying not to think about his… family bothered him.

“They aren’t that bad,” he said, and felt like he was lying. Dietrich wasn’t that bad, and Madoc said he used a stronger version of Paul’s power on him. He had the sense the rest wouldn’t be any better. “And I need their help. The power I got from them isn’t like the others and I need them to show me how to contr—” his mother’s phone hitting a hard surface stopped him. “Mom?” as he was about to call for her again, he heard something that sounded a lot like a body dropping to the floor. He’d heard plenty of those in the last few days.

Dread mounted as he waited for someone from the Chamber to take her phone and let him know what he had to do to see her again. When that didn’t happen after a few seconds, and he couldn’t make out someone else walking around, and new dread formed.

He shouted for her. She wasn’t exactly young, and he’d shocked her with the news he was magical.

He hesitated to end the call, but he was the only one there. No one could call for help in his stead.

He called 911 and hurried to explain he’d been on a call with his mom in Minneapolis and he’d heard her fall and hadn’t acknowledged his shouts. He was afraid she’d had a heart attack.

The dispatcher was surprisingly calm to his ear, and he listened as she relayed the information to the Minneapolis emergency services. She told him what was happening, and while a part of Paul wanted to scream at her he wasn’t a child and he knew the ambulance would be there as quickly as they could, more of him was relieved she hadn’t simply to him it would be okay and disconnected.

He heard the paramedic speak to each other as they exited the ambulance and the medical speech was surprisingly calming, even if he didn’t understand most of it. It reminded him of one of the lunchrooms at university, with all the medical students talking over their classes.

Then they sounded concerned. They called his mother’s name. There was talk of her pulse and breathing, her being unresponsive. Their tone was professional, but hurried. Paul couldn’t follow it.

Then came the words he dreaded.

“She’s in good hand,” the dispatcher told him. “The hospital will contact you once they have more news. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

You can stay on the line, he wanted to scream, let me have a lifeline to my mother. You can’t abandon me like this.

“No, thank you for everything you did.” And so she wouldn’t be the one cutting him off, he terminated the call himself,

* * * * *

Paul stared at his phone, still waiting for another update.

The hospital had called just as he closed the door to the hotel room to let him know his mother was fine. It hadn’t been a heart attack, but they were keeping her overnight, because she’d hit her head in the fall and that they would call him with any other news.

So he sat alone in the hotel room, staring at his phone when what he wanted to do was go to any of his friends and have them distract him.

The problem was that, except for some friends from his classes, he liked and was interested in all the others. Certainly, every friend with which he could talk openly about what was happening would be affected by his power, and then all they’d want to do was have sex.

Sex was not something he wanted right now.

Fuck, what he wanted was for his mother to hug him and tell him everything was going to be okay.

How old had he been the last time he’d felt like this?

The knock at the door had him halfway there in the irrational belief it was her, here to comfort him. The realization it had to be one of his friends hit too late for him to stop from opening the door.

The rat on the other side of the door looked him up and down. “You’ve looked better,” Judith said, then stepped into the room and Paul moved out of the way reflexively rather than being bowled over by a Hertz woman.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, closing the door.

“Really? Who else was Roland or Thomas going to call to check in on you?”

“Madoc?”

“Probably. You were at the gym when you vanished.”

“Do I want to know how you found out where I was?”

The smile she gave him had been known to cause men to walk into walls. Paul had seen it happen twice. “You are so sweet when you can’t think.”

“I can think—” then his ears folded back in embarrassment. “Trevor.”

“And the uncountable ways he had to find out stuff through Royal Security.” She looked him over again. “I’d have never guessed.”

“Guessed what?”

“That you’re an Orr.”

Paul’s shoulder’s sagged. “Yeah. I—”

“Oh no, you don’t.” She was in his space and he had to back away. “I did not come here to witness a pity party.”

“I know. You came here to check in on me so you can tell the others how I’m doing.”

She raised an eyebrow. “And what? You want me to tell them you’re a miserable mess?” She shook her head. “I do that and they’re going to be banging on this door, then you’re new power is going to make them want to bang you and—” she stopped. “You know, that might be fun to watch.” She shook herself before Paul had the chance to object. “No, no. I’m not here to get off on you guys having sex. I am here to cheer you up.”

He narrowed his eyes. “And how do you plan on doing that?” He’d known her long enough to be wary of any time she said no to anything sexually related. Thomas still didn’t believe there wasn’t some connection to the women’s version of the Society for how sexual the women in his family were.

She gave him another of her intellect-shattering smile. “I’m taking you shopping.”

* * * * *

How had he let this happen? He wondered as he juggled bags containing kid’s clothing, a box of toys, and more boy’s outfits over his shoulder. He’d grown up watching the Hertz’s women pull men along with their smiles and beauties, got them to help with errands no sane men wanted to take part in.

First Thomas’s mother, with his father, or any men she came across when she needed help, then Judith once she was old enough to realize the power she had.

He knew better than to let them rope him into this.

He followed Judith into the baby furniture store.

Evidently not.

She stared as she studied the crib on display, and he quickly searched for the boxed version. There was no way she could expect him to carry that on top of everything else already in his arms.

Wait.

Why would she want him to carry a crib?

Why was she even looking at a crib?

“Oh my God.”

She grinned at him.

He when through more items he’d been too distracted to notice. Like the color of most of the clothing she’d bought, as well as their size. Ryan’s color was red, not orange, and those were too small, even for a boy his age.

“Really?” he asked. And she squealed and jumped in place as she nodded. He stepped forward to hug her and was reminded of everything he carried. “Okay, we need someplace I can put these down.”

* * * * *

Paul looked at the boxed crib on the floor next to the table and was amazed at the ease with which one smile had gotten a passerby to carry it to the food court where they now sat, untouched food before him. Judith was eating…well, for two.

“How did it take so long?” he asked. “I mean, yeah, Trevor has guys to work his horniness off with, but neither of you are exactly shy about letting us know how often you’re going at it.”

“Magic,” she answered before slurping her peanut butter milkshake.

“Don’t they usually use magic to make sure a kid is happening?” Paul had given him a five-second rundown of how men as gay as the Society went about ensuring they had kids in the same breath as he said he didn’t know if he liked the method.

“Knowing how to make sure it happens helps make sure it doesn’t.” She took a bite out of the burger.

“Why wait three years? I saw how you two were with Ryan. We all expected there to be a dozen of them by the time the year was over.”

“Just seven,” she replied before popping an onion ring in her mouth. Paul thought that was an oddly specific number, but she continued before he could ask about it. “Trevor didn’t want us to have kids one after the other like a machine. That’s too much like what that elder of his is doing. So we agreed that we’re waiting a couple of years between each.”

“Okay, but since you said you wanted seven of them, you two are—”

Red for Ryan, Orange for the next one. Seven in total.

“Please tell me you are not seriously going to saddle your kids with being a rainbow.”

She grinned.

He chuckled. “They are going to hate you so much when they become teens.”

“Then they can go to their father for comfort.”

“Still, you’re going to want to pick up the pace if you don’t want to be old before the last one comes about.”

Her smile let him know she was already working on that. She had said Trevor decided to take their time in between.

“Has Thomas talked to you about kids?” she asked after taking a bite of the blueberry turnover.

“Last time was a while ago. It’s why I know about how they use magic for that. He didn’t seem impressed.”

“Really?” She paused with the burger to her mouth, then took a bite.

“Why?”

“I overheard him and dad talk a few days ago. Thomas was asking him what it was like to raise him and Roland. Like when they were babies and toddlers. When I asked him about it, he sort of evaded answering by saying he wouldn’t do it until he found the right person.”

“Well, that sounds reasonable of him,” Paul said, and she raised an eyebrow. “You want me to pry and get him to spill whatever it is you feel he didn’t tell you, don’t you?”

“There’s the smart tiger I know and love. You’re going to make your family proud.”

“Proud, sure.” He looked at his plate of chow-mein and tried to force his appetite back. “Have you talked with Vic recently? Do you know where he stands on him or his sons officially joining the Society?”

“He shouldn’t bother,” someone said. “Bunch of assholes, the lot of them.” The tiger stepped to the table and looked them over. Behind him were two other men. A bison and a deer. The two men were dressed casually but carried themselves in a way that reminded Paul of some of the Chamber’s people.

“First off,” Adam said, as Paul started asking what they were doing here. “What the fuck were you thinking going to that hole for a place to stay? You do know we own hotels actually worth setting foot in, right? Second,” he cut off Paul, about to point out he wasn’t rich, like all of them. “If you’re going to hide out somewhere, be fucking there when I go to pick you up.”

Paul waiting.

“What do you have to say for yourself?” Adam demanded.

“You could have called.”

The tiger snorted. “And watch you run for the state line? No thanks. You have no idea how lucky you are Dietrich called to tell us you were at his club because Arnie and Aaron were fighting over who was going to lead the team hunting you down.”

Judith snickered.

“Do you have a problem?” Adam demanded of her.

She shook her head. “I’m just amused at how dramatic you are. I didn’t realize it was a family trait.”

“And who the fuck are you?” Adam demanded.

“Are you implying I’m dramatic?” Paul asked,

She ignored him in favor of Adam. She smiled at him. “I’m Trevor’s wife.”

“Am I supposed to know who that is?”

Her smile brightened. “He works at Royal Security.”

“What does where he work…” he narrowed his eyes. “Are you fucking comparing me to Aaron? I am nothing like him. He takes a side glance and turns into an attack on his honor. That’s dramatic. I’m efficient and I don’t like wasting my time. There’s nothing dramatic about that.”

“If you say so.” She slurped her milkshake.

Paul stared at Judith. He knew the Hertz women were a force to reckon with, but he didn’t know they were ballsy enough to take on an Orr.

“You should go with him,” she told Paul. “He wouldn’t be in such a tizzy if it wasn’t important.”

“I’m not in a tizzy,” Adam snapped.

“Oh, so it isn’t important and Paul can stay?”

“No fucking way. Arnold’s going to rip my balls out if I’m not back with him.”

“See, tizzy.” She smiled. “You better go, Paul.”

“Are you sure? What about all these?”

“Oh, don’t worry about that.” She turned her smile on the two security men with Adam. “I’m sure one of those strong and virile men will be happy to help carry all of this, won’t you?”

“I’ll doing it,” the bison said, raising his hand, then hurried to lower it as Adam glared at him.

“Just who do you work for?” the tiger demanded and Judith chuckled, “you know what, fuck it. I have better things to do than question your manliness right now.” He looked at the deer. “What about you? You feel the need to help her out, too?”

“No, sir. With all due respect to the lady, I don’t carry people’s packages.”

“She ain’t no lazy,” Adam grumbled as he walked away.

Paul had to agree, as he followed them. Judith was no lady.

She was a Hertz Woman.