“Hi mom!” Caelen greeted as he jogged over and gave her a kiss on the cheek. Aidan did the same thing, which gave Vin time to mosey over. Caelen grabbed his hand and smiled. “Mom, this is Vincenzo.”
“But you can call me Vincent, Vince, or Vin,” he told her automatically.
She looked him up and down with a friendly smile. “Which one do you actually prefer?”
Vin smiled at her. “I guess that if I had to choose one, I’d probably choose Vin. That said, my mom calls me Vincenzo, my dad calls me Vince, my uncle calls me Vinny – which I hate – and most of the guys call me Boss, so honestly, I’m used to them all.”
“Boss?” Caelen’s dad asked from where he was now standing behind his wife.
Vin grinned at him, holding his hand out to shake. “Yeah. I own a few businesses – or actually, my family owns them, but I help run them.”
“Oh? What sort of businesses?”
“I’ve been wondering that myself,” Aidan murmured, since Caelen had been really shifty about avoiding talking about Vin.
“Oh, too many to really count, but the more notable ones are Gentlemen’s Clubs,” Vin informed them.
Caelen’s mom raised a brow and turned her head slightly to the side. “As in Strip Clubs?”
Caelen grinned at her. “Yep! Strip Clubs, a Sex Club, and he even owns an Adult Video Production Company.”
His mother turned her stern gaze on him. “And you thought it would be appropriate to marry this sort of man?”
Her husband put an arm around her and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Oh lay off him, honey. Just look at that car. If our son ever has to quit his job or is hurt in the line of duty, at least he’ll be taken care of.”
She actually did take a good look at the expensive sports car, and then tilted her head side to side in reluctant acceptance. “You have a point.” With a sigh, she took one of Vin’s hands in hers. “Welcome to the family, Vin,” she said as she tugged him close enough to give him a quick hug and kiss on the cheek.
Then she turned and gestured to the lake. “After we eat dinner, I was thinking we could take the pontoon out and fish a bit.”
“Sounds like fun!” Caelen agreed with a giddy grin. To be honest, he wasn’t entirely certain how his parents would react to Vin, but this had gone a whole lot better than he hoped for, and so, he would have agreed to anything she suggested. That said, fishing was one of his favorite things to do, so he was quite looking forward to it. Happy, he laced his fingers through Vin’s and leaned his head against his shoulder.
Relieved that this hadn’t turned into a fight, Vin kissed Caelen’s temple.
***
Caelen watched Vin get out of his nondescript car – which had been changed to a rusty blue Ford Escort to avoid using one car long enough to be noticed. If moods could form colors around a person, Vin’s would be a dreary, drizzly, gray day. This did not bode well.
“What’s wrong?” He asked after Vin had walked through the door and gave him a kiss.
“I’m having the worst birthday!” Vin roared softly in frustration.
“What happened?” Caelen questioned in concern.
“Before I explain, how do you feel about kids?”
“I love them and was thinking about looking for a surrogate soon, but that’s probably a topic for a different day. Why? Did you get someone pregnant?”
“Not recently, no,” Vin stated, flapping his hand dismissively. “I’ve been up all night, so I apologize if I’m grumpy or unfocused. And now I’m curious; a surrogate?”
Caelen nodded. “I’ve always wanted kids, but I was waiting until I got married. Now that I’m 25 and married, I thought it might be a good time.”
Vin kissed him. “I’ll support you no matter what you decide, but you need to know that I don’t really like kids and I’m a terrible father.”
Caelen chuckled a bit dryly. “I sort of knew you might say that.”
“Why?”
Caelen shrugged. “I suppose because you talk a lot about how you have a house full of women, but never really mention kids. When I thought about it, I just sort of assumed that there had to be a kid or two in that house – unless they’re actually prostitutes that you pimp out, which I really hope not, as that’s one of the things I’d probably report you for.”
“Nope, not prostitutes,” Vin assured him. “And you’re right about the kids. I thought I had mentioned them, but I guess not. I don’t really see any of them. I used to go visit the house about once a month, and it was always at night for booty calls, but then I met you and basically stopped going there for that.”
“Really?” Caelen asked in fascination, since he’d never told Vin not to have sex with others. In fact, they’d agreed that they could keep their other sex friends, despite being married.
Vin shrugged. “I mean even though I use condoms and they are on birth control, I ended up having way more kids than I ever wanted, so I got fed up and stopped having sex with them a while ago.”
Caelen frowned. “I think I might need you to explain this a bit more for me.”
Vin let out a heavy sigh and flopped onto the couch in the living room. “It started when I was 18. I’m sure you can imagine the sort of girls I had plenty of access to. This is going to sound really stereotyped, but the majority of my ‘business’ – especially at the time – was in the ghetto. There, the girls are really easy. In fact, I didn’t know it, but a lot of them grow up thinking that if they get pregnant, their baby daddies will have to give them money. It’s apparently a goal to have three kids with three different men, in order to get enough child support to pay all the bills.”
“That’s a terrible idea!” Caelen blurted out in horror.
“Yeah, but these are girls who were raised in poverty. Girls who have no hope that they’d be able to get good jobs and support a family the normal way. Girls who are often prostitutes before they’re even the age of consent,” Vin explained.
“Ugh…” Caelen groaned as a queasy feeling came and went.
“Yeah,” Vin agreed softly, grabbing his hand and squeezing it. “Back then, I wasn’t exactly a stupid kid, it’s just that I didn’t know what they had planned. I thought that using condoms would be enough, but they’d use tricks to make me think I was using protection. Such as purposely taking birth control pills in front of me, without me knowing that they’d replaced the pills with sugar pills. Or scratch the condom when they put it on me so that it would break. I actually thought most condoms were shitty and prone to breaking for a long time. They’d also wait until I was asleep and get me going before I woke up enough to wonder if I was wearing a condom.”
“I can’t believe anyone would do such things,” Caelen murmured in dismay, kissing Vin’s hand that was still holding his.
Vin shrugged. “I know guys who hate wearing condoms enough that they make a show of putting them on, and then take them back off when the girl isn’t looking. I guess I’m just so used to these things by now that I don’t really care anymore.”
Caelen sighed but nodded in understanding. “So, that led to kids.”
“Yep. I have eight official kids in that they were confirmed by DNA test. They all live in the house with their mothers. Also, there are two that are confirmed as not mine, but it would be weird to kick them out when their mothers live there. Plus, they’re literally babies. Lastly, I have two unconfirmed kids who live with their mother in a different house. I don’t see them at all and I’m not even on their birth certificate, but their mom swears they’re mine. She just doesn’t really want anything to do with me and I don’t insist because I don’t need to worry about them being targeted.”