Breaking-In, CH 07 (Patreon)

I stand and stretch. Kat looks my way from her office, but this isn’t the oddity it was only a couple of weeks ago. I can’t remember the last time I stayed late at the office. No, I can. It was before I broke my legs. Since coming back to work, even if I wanted to stay late, I have someone waiting for me at home.

I’m not angry at them for it. I’m not, really. It’s just that it never occurred to me in all my dreams of finding myself a man who would treat me the way I wanted to be treated, that there would be consequences to this treatment. Sure, he bandages my wounds, seals my cuts, but there’s little he can do about the whole body soreness that our sessions leave me with.

Yes, I’m referring to the sex… mostly. Those fighting sessions also take a lot out of me. I’d love to think my body will adapt, but I know Tristan will just find ways to push me further.

So, this job has been little more than my job since coming back. I don’t have my nightly sessions to look forward to, and no, I’m not angry about that. Going home is far more appealing now.

But it also means I’ve barely touched my personal projects. I’ve only had a chance or two to look into the financial threads still dangling from the Mexico job. I saw enough there I want to make more time for it. Maybe I can sneak out and—

Nope. No sneaking out on him. He’d kill me and make it painless, too.

I can do it from my system, but I’m not risking our security. Emile needs the stability. He’s been in a few more fights. The school hasn’t called, but Tristan noted how he favors his right arm, and I’ve seen the bruises during training.

I fill a travel mug with coffee and down it. Again, I tell myself to stop by the store and buy better quality beans. This is the only place I can enjoy the nectar. It should be better. I leave the mug at my desk. It’s the only place it’s safe since Tristan can’t come here.

I’m down in the lobby, swiping my card, when I notice the look Karl gives me.

“I’m okay,” I say.

“I didn’t say anything.”

I put my hand on the scanner. “I’m just tired.”

“Still haven’t said anything.”

“It’s just different from what I thought it would be.”

He closes his book.

“I love them both. I really do, it’s just—”

“Both?” is that envy in his tone? Hope? Or just my imagination?

“Him and our son.”

He frowns.

“It’s exhausting having a family.” I still smile. It doesn’t affect his frown.

“I didn’t know that was something you wanted,” he states, opening his book again.

“I didn’t. Didn’t know it would be part of the deal. But I wouldn’t change it.”

“Lucky you,” he says flatly.

I grin. “Definitely.” And I head out.

* * *

“Honey! I’m home!”

No answer, but there’s typing in the living room, and grunting upstairs. Emil’s working at his laptop, school books spread on the couch next to him. He doesn’t even look up as I walk by the archway. The grunting’s still going on when I reach the bedroom. That’s not where it’s coming from. I get out of my clothes and follow my monster’s sounds.

My, admittedly minimal, workout room underwent an upgrade when Tristan moved in. Gone is the all in one machine that was in the center, as well as the small rack of free weight. In their place are six professional grade machines using pneumatic and magnetic resistance, as well as the rack. Now, those weights go up to a hundred-fifty pounds.

I watch him, naked, seated and pulling down the bar in a what could be called mechanical way. The movement is perfect. Not because I know what those look like, but because he’d settle for nothing less.

He looks at me, his gaze drops to my crotch, so he knows what effect he has on me. He doesn’t react. He doesn’t even pause the appreciate the sight. He raises the bar until the optimal position to stress his muscle, then pulls it down. There it no jerkiness, no yanking. I don’t even way to think what weight he has is set for. I’ve hung from the bar once without it moving.

When he releases the bar, I approach and sit before him.

“Evening, handsome,” I tell him, and wait.

I can’t quite tell the process yet. What dealing with his ‘boxes’ involve, beyond him willing himself to control them, but it takes him a few seconds to disengage from being focused on working out, to focusing on me. He doesn’t smile, but he loses some tension.

And gains an erection.

I smile. It’s early enough. We might get in some training before dinner. He lean in, ignoring the knocking at the door, Emil can deal with whoever that is.

“How do you want to take me?” I ask, and now he smiles.

“Grandma!” Emil exclaims.

I freeze and Tristan has me on my back on the floor hard enough I see stars, but that doesn’t keep me from expecting the following.

“Grandpa!”

“Stop,” I tell Tristan, and he growls. Fuck, I want him to take me right now. “Tristan, we have visitors.” Oh, he is pissed. “My grandparents.”

And then he isn’t anymore. The way he controls those boxes, his emotions, can be terrifying at times. I feel his erection go down. I’m still hard from what we almost got up to. Behind his eyes, I see calculations running.

“They can’t set foot in my workroom.” He gets off me, then pulls me to my feet.

“That’s a given.” I head for the bedroom.

“Dad, Pop!” Emil yells. “We have visitors!”

“It’d be best they stay out of our bedroom.”

“We’ll be there in a bit!” I yell back, then lower my voice. “You have the picture frame in from the gun rack.” One of my rule for the house was that Tristan couldn’t have his collection on display. Outside his workroom. I had to listen to him explain how it wasn’t a collection, just weapons he could use should he need to defend the house against attackers.

I decided to point out that when someone could use every gun ever made expertly, what he accumulated was considered a collection.

“Gabrielle will be able to tell.”

“Not like they’ll care. You grab a shower. I’ll keep them entertained.”

“Keep them out of the pantry.”

“What did you do?” I ask, dressing. Getting home to find changes have been made has become normal. I usually find out over dinner, or when something I need to prepare dinner isn’t where it should be.

“Installed a rack for two M1 carbines. I haven’t had the time to finish the sliding shelves to hide them.”

“Where are the shelves in the meantime? I’m going to have to cook something for them.”

“The garage.”

I’m dressed. He’s in the shower. I’m down the stairs, trying to figure out what I can make that will feed five people when the smells reach me and I realize I won’t have to do that much cooking.

“Again,” Gramp says from the kitchen, “please call me Franklin, or Gramp. Grandpa makes me feel old.”

“Gramp’s what Pop calls you.”

“I don’t have a trademark on the name,” I say, entering. Grams is at the stove, and one of the two ovens is on. “To what do we own the pleasure?”

“It’s Thursday,” Gramp replies. “We let it slide while you were healing, but we missed last week for no good reason and when you didn’t call to let us know what the plans were, we figured it might be simpler if we came to you.” He smirks. “Did we interrupt anything?”

“Yes,” I reply, taking on my phone to check the date. It is Thursday.

“Sorry,” he replies, not one bit sounding like he is. He’s still smirking.

What did I do last week that made me forget Thursday? Other than Tristan, he’ll have me forgetting to breathe if he put his cock to it. These last weeks have been a blur of work and training and resting and sex. I have no complaints, but maybe I need to set reminders.

“What can I do to help?” I ask Grams, putting the phone away.

“Do you have anything to make a salad with?” she asks, “or has Tristan turned you into a pure carnivore.” Before I can ask why she’d think that, she opens a lower cabinet and reveals boxes and boxes of pemmican.

“Dad doesn’t force us to eat them,” Emil says.

“He considers them optimal,” I add.

“He isn’t wrong,” she says. “I wish that’s what we’d had when we were deployed.”

“What are you talking about?” Gramp says. “You could turn those MREs into four star meals with all the love you poured into them.”

“Only you were able to taste my love, Franklin. I had to endure what they were.”

“You didn’t cook for her?” Emil asks.

Gramp smiles. “I value my life too much.”

“Grams has strict rules as to who can cook for whom,” I add, then head for the fridge and take out vegetables.

Tristan joins us as I’m finished with the salad.

“Franklin, Gabrielle, this is a surprise.” He’s dressed in jeans and a shirt.

“Seems we interrupted something,” Gramp says.

“Franklin,” Grams chastises him.

“You did, but your company makes it worth it.”

Gramp knows about the reservation. Tristan told me how me ensconcing myself to Mexico without telling them let to their meeting there and is what sent my monsters to save me.

“Tristan,” Grams said, stirring the large pot with the stew she prepared. “Are the Ruttger and S&W you have behind the table in the entryway meant to be noticeable?”

“I told you she’d notice,” Tristan says. “Did you know they were there, Franklin?”

“No, but I noticed the bayonets you have attached to the coat rack. Do you want us to go around the house and evaluate your security measures?”

“We’re good,” I say. I’d rather not have them poke around. I’m only confident Tristan did not put Semtex through the house, not certain.

“If you say you are, then I expect it’s true,” Gramp says, but it’s with that tone he reserves when he thinks someone’s making a mistake.

It might be interesting to put the two of them to the test one day, when it comes to properly securing a home, and see which one puts the least weapons theirs. Maybe I can suggest that to Grams for their next vacation.

“Alright,” Grams says. “Ten minutes and the stew will be reheated and the bread will be warm.” She puts a pie in the second oven. “I’ll heat the pie when we’re close to dessert and—”

The knock at the door has all of us, except Emil tense.

The police have a very specific way of knocking. A, you can’t ignore us, way of knocking. None of us here is wanted, but we have all dealt with them often enough to have learned to recognize it. Again, except for Emil, although he does pick up on the tension.

Tristan is headed for the door and I’m immediately behind him.

He opens the door, and I hear the gasp from outside. When I look around him, the two officers have a hand on their sidearm.

“Can I help you, officer?” Tristan asked.

I see the man swallow as he moves his hand away from the gun. On the other side of the road, faces appear at the windows.

“There have been reports of vandalism,” the officer says.

“So I’ve heard,” Tristan says, again in an utterly casual voice.

“The description we were given was that of a black man in his—”

“What?” I exclaim, shoving Tristan out of the way, well, trying to. In the end, I squeeze between him and the door frame. Only Tristan moves Tristan. “What the fuck is that?” I demand, and he takes a step back, hand going back to his weapon.

“Sir, please keep your distances.”

“So you can do what? Accuse my husband of being a vandal? Of destroying stuff just because he’s the one black man living in the neighborhood?”

“Graffiti,” Tristan says.

“Whatever,” I snap. “This is the fucking twenty-first century. We’re fucking moved beyond racial profiling. My husband doesn’t bother with painting murals.”

“That isn’t what graffiti is, Alex.”

“I don’t fucking care,” I snap. “They’re accusing you of—”

“We aren’t accusing anyone of anything, sir,” the man says in a tone that tells me to watch what I’m saying.

“No, really?” I reply. “Then what are you here for? Ask him if he happens to know who did it, because all blacks know each other? They’re all part of the same gang, and you can’t give a fu—”

“Alex,” Gramp snaps, and hearing him use my name shocks me in silence. I never had the chance to tell him I’d stopped using Bart.

“Officers,” Grams said, slipping between us. “I hope you’ll forgive our grandson. He’s been convalescing and getting back on his feet has been stressful. Now, what is this about?”

Gramp pulls me into the house.

“They—”

“Lower your voice.”

I ground my teeth. “They have no business coming here and accusing him of—”

“They haven’t accused him of anything.”

“They are—”

“Alex, they aren’t.”

Again, the use of my name stops me.

“They aren’t the corrupt cops that beat you before we found you. Or the corrupt people in authority you hear in the news all the time. There was complaint, and they need to investigate it.”

“It was probably that woman across the road who called them,” I snap.

“It wasn’t Helen,” Tristan says as Grams closes the door.

“How do you know?” I demand.

“She likes me.” I roll my eyes. Like that would stop anyone. “Trust me, Alex. This was nothing. It was bound to happen at one point. As you stated, I am the only black man in the neighborhood. We should eat. It will help calm the nerves.”

Like it’s that easy to get over the fact now everyone is going to think Tristan’s a criminal. My protest dies to the feeling of his hand rubbing my back. And I give into his urging.

Grams’ cooking is, as usual, amazing. And Tristan was right. Eating calms me enough I did enjoy the conversation and company.

* * * * *

There is something in the way Tristan pulls me to him as he sits on the bed that makes me wary.

“Please don’t be angry,” he said.

“That’s not a good way to start.”

“I called the police.”

Yep, that was the sound of my brain derailing. “You—why?”

“For the reason you told them. I am a black man in a neighborhood without one. Prejudice is still rampant and people will notice if they ignore me. Now, I am simply another statistic. I blend into the background.”

“You should have told me.” There’s a lot more anger in my voice than I intended.

“I didn’t expect them to react this quickly to a vandalism complaint. Even considering the median wealth of the area, it should have taken at least one other complaint before they sent someone to look into it. I was going to tell you tonight,” he says as I open my mouth to snap at him again. “But events happened that prevented me from doing so. I am sorry.”

A lot of my anger dies with that. This wasn’t some secret plan of his. It was just bad timing. Now I’m just left with fear. Fear he’s going to be taken from me. Fear I’m going to be alone again.

He pulls me next to him as he stretches on the bed, and this time, I don’t mind that he’s gentle as he chases my fears away.