“You don’t park in the garage?” Caelen asked curiously.
“Not this piece of shit,” Vin answered with a shake of his head. “My good cars are in the garage with my dad’s collection.”
“Oh. … Must be nice…” Caelen muttered, only slightly jealous.
“We’ve got a couple of minutes,” Vin said after checking his phone. “I can show you my cars, if you want.”
Caelen chuckled and shook his head. “Not unless you’re going to let me drive them too.”
Vin grinned at him. “How about I bring one of them the next time I visit? Then we can go for a drive.”
“Like a date?” Caelen asked with excitement.
“Of course,” Vin stated with a warm smile. “But first, carry this for me.”
Caelen accepted the fancy cardboard box that had been wrapped in shiny dark pink and gold paper. Meanwhile, Vin grabbed his bag and slung it over his shoulder. A minute or so later, they were walking through the front door.
“Vincenzo!” His mother called out sharply. “What the hell took you so long to get here? Even your uncle managed to get here before you!”
Dave laughed. “That’s cuz I got here Friday night!”
“Sorry mom, but at least I’m in time for dinner,” Vin apologized as he handed his luggage over to a kid that would bring it to his room for him.
She sighed with a look of disapproval, but didn’t say anything else as she kissed him on the cheek.
Vin gestured to Caelen. “This is my friend, Caelen. He’s the one I fucked off to Vegas with.”
“Lovely to meet you,” Caelen greeted with a smile, holding out the present he held.
“Oh, what a handsome young man!” She exclaimed with a smile of appreciation. “And he’s smart enough to come bearing gifts!” She took the present before making a curt gesture with her head.
“Yes Ma’am!” A burly man responded obediently. He waved a wand that detected metal all around Caelen’s body, but it only made a mild noise around his pockets. “Pardon me a moment.”
Caelen retained his calm smile as the man patted his pockets.
“He’s unarmed.”
“Come on mom, you think I’d bring a friend home if I thought he posed a danger to us?” Vin pouted.
“Can’t be too careful,” she stated. Then she gestured toward the dining room. “Your cousins Rachel and Megan are apparently studying to be chefs. They plan to open their own restaurant soon, and since they’re visiting from Vegas, they insisted that I let them make today’s dinner. So, it’s actually a bit of a buffet.”
“Is that you, Vin?!” Rachel called out from the kitchen.
“Hi Rachel! Hi Megan!” Vin called out in return.
Megan poked her head out of the kitchen to look at him. She was 17 and tall enough to be a model. “How DARE you come to our neck of the woods and NOT visit us?!”
“You’re lucky I took the knife from her!” Rachel yelled so that she could be heard. “She made intricate plans to stab you the entire way here!”
“Sorry, I got sidetracked gambling,” Vin lied with a sheepish wince.
“Did you at least win?” Megan demanded.
“Not really,” Vin answered with a shrug. “I couldn’t play anything I’d be accused of cheating at, so I stuck to Roulette. I more or less broke even. But Caelen here is up nearly two grand.”
“Only?” Megan questioned in disapproval. But before either of them could respond, she pointed toward the dining room. “I made a lobster bisque that I’m quite proud of. And Rachel made alligator gumbo. Well, we made lots of things, the point is, go on and dig in.”
By this time, Vin’s mom had sat down and opened her present. It was the designer dress she’d asked for in shades of blue with matching necklace, earrings, a bracelet, and even a ring – all featuring sapphires and blue topazes. “These are gorgeous, Vincenzo!”
“Goddamnit!” His dad roared in dismay. “Now I’m going to have to think twice as hard about her birthday gift!”
“At least you have until December,” Vin replied with a shrug.
Sighing in aggravation, he shook Caelen’s hand. “I’m Markus Matzen, and that’s my wife Lucretia. Welcome to our home. Feel free to eat as much as you want, and if you need anything, just let us know.”
Caelen grinned at him. “Oh, I think I’ll be fine, thank you anyway. Well, unless you happen to have a small island in the Caribbean.”
Markus pinched his chin in thought. “Is it in the Caribbean? Honey! Where’s that small Island I bought a few years back?”
“How should I know? It turned out to be worthless!”
“Yeah, but I might be able to dump it off on this kid!”
Vin snorted a laugh and pulled Caelen towards the table that was covered in various dishes of food. “Don’t pay any attention to him! There are too many people to introduce you to, so if anyone wants to talk to you, make them introduce themselves. Guys, this is Caelen. Be very fucking nice to him, or I’ll break the arm you jerk off with!”
“Got it Boss!” Most of the men cried out in understanding. Those that didn’t and all the women simply waved.
Vin looked around with a puzzled frown. “Hey, where’s Kari?” Because Kari was the only daughter of his dad’s right hand man, and she was always trying to get under his foot and in his pants. It was downright weird for her not to be bugging him.
“Oh…” Markus murmured sadly. “She’s in the hospital.”
Kari’s uncle nodded in grim agreement. “Yeah, it’s pretty fucked up, actually. On Thursday as she was walking home from school, a van full of assholes grabbed her and took her somewhere in the hopes that our group would pay them a huge ransom before they had to send us ALL her body parts.”
“They didn’t expect her dad to have a tracking app on her phone, so as soon as we realized she was missing, I sent a group of men out to her location,” Markus added.
“We recovered her,” her uncle assured Vin. “But she was slashed across the gut when they realized we were there, so she had to have surgery. My brother’s beside himself with anguish and wants to organize as many hits and raids as it takes to utterly destroy the fuckers responsible.”
“That really sucks,” Dave sympathized from across the room. Even though he’d been here since Friday, the subject hadn’t been mentioned yet. “But at least she’s what? 14? 15? That’s a lot better than Vinny being only 10.”
“Yeah but, 14 still isn’t exactly old enough to consent to torture,” Vin pointed out. “Do we know what they did to her?”
“We got to her before they could do more than rape her a couple of times, so in that aspect, it’s better than what you went through,” his dad answered, patting him on the arm.
“Still, I bet she was terrified. Maybe I’ll go see her in the hospital tomorrow,” Vin suggested.
“I’m sure she’d love that,” his mom said as she walked by, pausing to give him a kiss on the cheek.
Meanwhile, Caelen was pressing his lips together and staring at his plate of food. He suddenly understood why his husband was SO very concerned with their safety. He wanted nothing more than to kiss him and hold him tight, but he wasn’t sure if Vin was ready to come out to his parents, and so, he held it back.
***
The next weekend was Caelen’s birthday. Vin arrived on Friday night around 10 PM. Caelen rolled his eyes as he kissed him hello.
“Did you drive two hours out of your way this time?”
Vin gave him a dry look. “Matter of fact, I did.” Then he gestured to his car. “But as I promised, I brought my Gemera. It’s still two hours until your birthday, but I was hoping to bring you to bed and give you a whole bunch of birthday sex tonight. Then tomorrow, we can go for that drive I promised.”