Title: Petals (don't laugh too hard. It's a working title until a better one comes to mind.)
Disclaimer: If I owned them, there would be an E&C mud wrestling contest at least once a week. Whee!
Notes: This is a long and dark one, folks. Sorry. Also, there be slash and real-person fic ahead, so move along if that bugs you.
******
There were times when Jason Reso wanted only to find a way to strangle himself with the microphone.
"Bobby in housewares, we need a pricecheck at register eleven on a box of Sylvania light bulbs."
Jay sighed quietly, forced a smile, and choked down the urge to pull a plastic bag over his head and inhale deeply. Of course it would be his luck that a customer would pick the one box of light bulbs on the shelf that wouldn't scan and then go to the register being worked by the checkout person ten minutes away from going home. Much as he wanted to tell the customer he hated her and wished a deadly plague on her grandchildren, he kept the tight smile. The anal retentive assistant manager, a tiny redhead named Kristin, took great pleasure in making her underlings suffer. She was also a strict advocate of the "service with a smile" policy.
"Thanks," Jay mumbled half-heartedly when Bobby in housewares showed up with a new box of lightbulbs. Bobby shrugged and started to walk off, pretending to throw the plastic conveyor belt seperator at a nonobservant Kristin. It was enough to make Jay chuckle lightly in appreciation. Thanking whatever god or demon was keeping at eye on him that the new box scanned without a problem, he collected the money and sent the woman on her way, idly checking his watch at the same time. Seven and a half minutes away. He fully expected Kristin to march up to him, chest puffed out to show off her latest push-up bra, red-orange ponytail bobbing high atop her head, and gleefully announce he had to stay to pull another shift. She didn't, though, and he was seriously beginning to wonder if she'd been replaced by an alien pod.
"Welcome to Super Stop-n-Shop," he greeted without looking up at the next customer, just immediately running the items over the scanner. "Did you find everything okay?"
"Well, actually, I was looking --"
"That's great. We like to keep our customers happy while providing a wide variety . . ." He trailed off, blinked, and looked up with his brow creased to see a puzzled but amused face staring back at him. "Shit."
"Long day?" The customer asked with a wry grin. Jay shook his head and went back to scanning.
"You have no idea."
"Yeah, you're probably right," the customer agreed without argument. "Anyway, I was looking for the new issue of Metal Maniacs and I couldn't find it."
Jay looked up through blond lashes, revealing a displeased expression. "We don't sell that. We're a 'family store,'" he explained with a pointed glare to Kristin. "The people-in-charge decided that magazine was promoting 'the degredation of Canadian youth' or some other crap."
The customer raised his eyebrows and dug his wallet from his jeans. "You, uh, don't sound like you enjoy working here."
"I don't, but it pays the bills," Jay shrugged, accepting the money handed to him, overjoyed to see it was exact change. "See ya," he said while handing the receipt and plastic bag of items to the customer. The customer, in return, nodded and walked away.
Faith restored in humanity, at least for the time being, Jay turned an almost convincing grin to the next person in line.
The remaining five minutes of his shift ended uneventfully, and as usual he gave Kristin his best Nazi salute behind her back on the way to the staff room to get his jacket. Sometimes he honestly thought she knew everything he did around her and only used that to her advantage. He secretly suspected she was going to whip out a video tape one day and show every rude gesture and insulting face he made at her.
Stepping outside the door, Jay inhaled sharply and was forced to pull his jacket tighter around him. The cold front the weather forecasters had predicted for next week had apparently not heard the news and blew in early. The wind was swift and with an icy chill, against which his light spring jacket was not much help. Already cold fingers fumbled clumsily with the jacket zipper, stopping immediately when he noticed the customer he'd been talking to earlier seated on a nearby bench. Somehow, even despite the forceful wind, he was managing to keep the Cliff Notes: French I book he'd bought open and at the same page, a skill that intrigued Jay to no ends.
Well. Might as well have someone to talk to while I freeze to death.
"Hey," he announced his presence with only that and a dull thudding sound when he sat down heavily on the bench. If the customer was startled at all, he hid it well by simply turning the page and offering a Lifesaver from the roll he'd just bought. Jay took it gratefully and popped it into his mouth. "What're you still doin' here?"
"Waiting on my ride."
Jay nodded to himself and leaned back in his seat, taking the opportunity to actually look at this other person now that he didn't have to worry about Kristin sprouting another head. Shoulder length, slightly wavy blond hair fell over the man's -- boy's, Jay corrected himself -- shoulder. A pronounced jawbone was just barely visible through the hair, and Jay found himself drawn to the unusual features. Lips poked out into a natural pout models paid thousands of dollars to achieve, and strikingly high cheekbones led to a pair of hazel green eyes that seemed to be scanning the book in his lap but not really reading it.
All in all, Jay noted with a tinge of red rising in his cheeks, he'd definitely go after the guy if that guy was actually a girl.
"Adam."
Jay blinked. "Huh?"
The customer looked up to show his eyes were much greener than Jay had originally guessed, revealing almost eerie resemblance to a cat's. "My name's Adam. I figured I might as well introduce myself."
"Oh." Jay breathed a quiet sigh of relief that he hadn't been caught staring. Or maybe he had, he realized, once he saw the way the other boy's mouth was trying not to turn up into a smirk. "Uh...yeah. I'm Jason, but --"
"Jay. I like that better." Noticing the light frown, Adam shrugged. "I saw it on your nametag."
Unnerved a bit, Jay tore his eyes from Adam and went back to staring out into the almost empty parking lot. "What school do you go to?"
"Who said I go to school?"
It was Jay's turn to shrug this time. "You work in a place like this long enough, you figure out that you can learn a lot about a person by what they buy. You bought a Cliff Notes book -- French, even, which means you're either traveling or hoping to impress some girl --, a roll of Lifesavers instead of a candy bar, which means you either don't like chocolate or you're trying to diet or something like that, and a TV Guide, which means the French book," Jay continued with a small grin, "isn't impressing the girl as much as you hoped and you're spending your weekend at home."
Adam raised his eyebrows but couldn't quite keep from smiling in response. "The book's because my father's opening a business in Paris and wants me to go with him when it opens next year, I don't care a lot for chocolate, and I spend all my weekends at home."
"Hmm. Well, I was a little off. That happens sometimes," Jay answered nonchalantly. "I'm usually pretty right, though. It's a great way to hit on girls, too. I mean, who else but a single college kid would come through buying two boxes of cat food and a box of macaroni and cheese?"
"Yeah," Adam replied absently, brow narrowing just before he slammed the book shut and disgustedly shoved it back into the bag. "I can't make any sense out of this stupid language."
"Could be worse," Jay reasoned. "He could be traveling to China or something."
A mocking shudder was the only response Adam gave.
"So you never did say what school you went to."
Adam's shoulders slumped just enough to be barely noticeable. "Oakley."
Try as he might to hide it, Jay was unable to prevent his eyebrows from lifting. Oakley, short for The Oakley Institution for Accelerated Youth, was the foremost private school in Ontario and one of the most exclusive the entire country of Canada had to offer. It was for that reason that it was primarily attended by the children of Toronto's wealthiest and most successful businessmen. Despite its name, it was publicly recognized as more of a school for those businessmen to showcase their extravagance rather than to celebrate any amount of intelligence its students may have had.
"Well. You, uh, must be pretty well off," Jay commented dryly, not really having much anything else to say. Adam shrugged indifferently, eyes still focused on the sidewalk beneath his feet.
"I guess."
"Whoa, hold on." Jay sat up suddenly, startling Adam into looking up. "You go to freakin' Oakley and you're shopping at the Canadian equivalent to Wal-Mart? What's wrong with you?"
Adam gave a shy little grin that he didn't particularly feel at all. "I'm not my father's son voluntarily. I don't flaunt my money just to taunt the less-fortunate."
Jay snorted. "Shyeah, whatever. I sure as hell would if I was loaded like that!"
Though he rolled his eyes, Adam still had to laugh. He wasn't given a chance to respond, however, as a black Lexus pulled to the curb, not a scratch to be seen on its surface and the windows tinted to the point it was nearly impossible to see inside. The driver's side door opened and a short man, middle-aged, Jay guessed, from his receding hairline, stepped out and motioned for Adam.
"This is insane. Is his name Alfred?" Jay asked, a twinge of bitterness making his words much sharper than he'd intended. Adam flinched accordingly as he rose to his feet and picked his bag up.
"Huh uh. Mike, actually."
Jay shook his head in amusement. "Insane."
"We could give you a ride back home, if you want."
"Nah, that's okay. I'll walk. Thanks anyway."
"No problem."
Jay watched with hardly concealed fascination and even a bit of jealousy while the driver walked around and opened the back passenger door, an act that evidently embarrassed Adam. A few seconds later the car drove out of sight, leaving Jay alone on the bench. That was until, of course, he heard a hauntingly familiar voice off to his right behind him.
"Is loitering your new hobby?"
Jay cringed, not having to turn around to know it was the assistant manager from hell harrassing him. "I've gotta do something for extra cash, since I don't have a stick up my ass and can't get a management position."
Kristin rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips -- tiny hips, Jay noted. She'd be so easy to snap in half . . . he was fairly certain a disgruntled stockboy would pretty soon. "Well, if you're just gonna stay here anyway, why don't you come back in and work another shift?"
"Why?"
"Why not? You don't have an excuse not to."
Jay suddenly dropped to his knees, patting the ground and crawling around the bench. "I can't see! I lost my contact!" An elderly couple about to enter the store stopped and came closer to him. "Oh, thanks. Could you help me? I've got bad eyes and I just lost a contact. I was about to go to my house where I have to take care of my five brothers and sisters all by myself, since my father died last year trying to save a group of nuns from a burning convent and my mother ran off with a Brazilian model named Carlos. My manager, though, wants me to stay and work rather than go home to Katie, Carla, Jacob, Lisa, and little Andy with the peg-leg, and I can't work without my contact."
Kristin's mouth dropped open in shock, and she shook her head at the couple staring at her like she was Satan himself. "He's an only child!"
"Poor thing," Jay shook his head sadly. "She's a pathological liar. She hasn't been right in the head since that accident with the koala bear in Australia a few years ago."
The couple wisely backed up into the store, which isn't to say they didn't give Kristin the meanest glare they could manage. She turned her enraged eyes to Jay, still on the ground and with a perfectly straight face.
"You had damn well better be putting in your two weeks notice tomorrow," she almost hissed, turning on her heel and stalking back through the sliding doors. Jay waved innocently.
"I love you too, snookums! But wait, do you still want this month's child support check?"
Kristin flipped him off and disappeared from view. Jay laughed as he rose and brushed his jeans off, smile broadening when he saw Bobby give a thumbs up from where he stood by a Pepsi machine inside.
So he'd made a new friend and pissed his boss off again. Yeah, it looked like his work was done for the night. With a slight bounce in his step, he turned and began walking towards his apartment.
Adam, meanwhile, was bored senseless and staring blankly out the window, watching without interest the street lights passing overhead. The ride would have been completely silent if it hadn't been for the classic rock station playing from the speakers behind him and Mike humming along, if a bit offkey.
"I've asked you not to do that in public," Adam noted once the songs inevitably gave way to commercials. The driver glanced into the rearview mirror to see Adam watching him intently.
"What, hum? I'm not that bad."
"No, open the door for me. It's embarrassing."
"Sorry. I forget sometimes. I just do it so often for your father --"
"I'm not my father," Adam shot back with a venom that made Mike immediately turn his eyes back to the road. "And if you ever compare me to him again . . ." It was an empty-ended threat, but one said with such hateful determination Mike knew better than to challenge it. He cleared his throat instead and decided to change the subject.
"So. Who was that boy you were talking to?"
Adam's cheeks flushed indignantly, knowing already where the conversation was headed. "Someone I met," he answered defensively, folding his arms over his chest as if daring Mike to say something else.
"Adam, you know your father doesn't approve --"
"Yeah, I do, and I don't really fucking care what my father does and doesn't approve of," Adam interrupted, eyes practically blazing with anger. "Believe me. Every goddamned inch of my back knows he doesn't approve of anything I do."
Mike, having been the family's head butler and chauffeur since long before Adam's birth and also in charge of babysitting him for most of his life, knew his limits with the boy. He also knew he'd overstepped those boundaries about a mile back. Adam was generally a sweet-natured, easy going seventeen-year-old, but any mention of his lifestyle or his father, especially in conjunction, and he gained the same angry intimidation that had put his father amongst Ontario's wealthiest. Mike, of course, said nothing of that.
"I didn't mean to upset you," Mike apologized quietly, not bothering to look in the mirror. He didn't need to; he knew Adam was trying to stare a smoking hole through his head. "I was just . . . I'm trying to look out for you, Adam."
"If you really wanna look out for me, don't baby me. I can handle myself just fine."
Mike kept his mouth shut and pulled silently through the house's gates, down the long driveway, and into the garage. Adam was out of the car and headed for the door leading into the kitchen before the key was even out of the ignition. He very nearly ran over the other housekeeper, a petite woman with graying hair, olive skin, and eyes a deep mahogany color that appeared black in some lights. This was one of them.
"Sorry," he mumbled his insincere apology, making a beeline for the stairs and forcing the woman to hurry to keep up with his long-legged stride.
"Adam?" She sat the can of wood polish she'd been carrying down on the counter and chased after her current ward, cursing him inwardly for being so much taller and still taking the steps two at a time. "Adam, what's wrong? Are you okay?"
"Fine."
The door slammed shut without another word, and it was only a few seconds before a Type O Negative CD was blaring loudly from his stereo. Sophie gave an exasperated sigh and turned to see Mike coming through the door, refusing to look up from the floor.
"What'd you say this time?"
Given no response, she huffed and went back to polishing the cherry wood cabinets.
Disclaimer: If I owned them, there would be an E&C mud wrestling contest at least once a week. Whee!
Notes: This is a long and dark one, folks. Sorry. Also, there be slash and real-person fic ahead, so move along if that bugs you.
******
There were times when Jason Reso wanted only to find a way to strangle himself with the microphone.
"Bobby in housewares, we need a pricecheck at register eleven on a box of Sylvania light bulbs."
Jay sighed quietly, forced a smile, and choked down the urge to pull a plastic bag over his head and inhale deeply. Of course it would be his luck that a customer would pick the one box of light bulbs on the shelf that wouldn't scan and then go to the register being worked by the checkout person ten minutes away from going home. Much as he wanted to tell the customer he hated her and wished a deadly plague on her grandchildren, he kept the tight smile. The anal retentive assistant manager, a tiny redhead named Kristin, took great pleasure in making her underlings suffer. She was also a strict advocate of the "service with a smile" policy.
"Thanks," Jay mumbled half-heartedly when Bobby in housewares showed up with a new box of lightbulbs. Bobby shrugged and started to walk off, pretending to throw the plastic conveyor belt seperator at a nonobservant Kristin. It was enough to make Jay chuckle lightly in appreciation. Thanking whatever god or demon was keeping at eye on him that the new box scanned without a problem, he collected the money and sent the woman on her way, idly checking his watch at the same time. Seven and a half minutes away. He fully expected Kristin to march up to him, chest puffed out to show off her latest push-up bra, red-orange ponytail bobbing high atop her head, and gleefully announce he had to stay to pull another shift. She didn't, though, and he was seriously beginning to wonder if she'd been replaced by an alien pod.
"Welcome to Super Stop-n-Shop," he greeted without looking up at the next customer, just immediately running the items over the scanner. "Did you find everything okay?"
"Well, actually, I was looking --"
"That's great. We like to keep our customers happy while providing a wide variety . . ." He trailed off, blinked, and looked up with his brow creased to see a puzzled but amused face staring back at him. "Shit."
"Long day?" The customer asked with a wry grin. Jay shook his head and went back to scanning.
"You have no idea."
"Yeah, you're probably right," the customer agreed without argument. "Anyway, I was looking for the new issue of Metal Maniacs and I couldn't find it."
Jay looked up through blond lashes, revealing a displeased expression. "We don't sell that. We're a 'family store,'" he explained with a pointed glare to Kristin. "The people-in-charge decided that magazine was promoting 'the degredation of Canadian youth' or some other crap."
The customer raised his eyebrows and dug his wallet from his jeans. "You, uh, don't sound like you enjoy working here."
"I don't, but it pays the bills," Jay shrugged, accepting the money handed to him, overjoyed to see it was exact change. "See ya," he said while handing the receipt and plastic bag of items to the customer. The customer, in return, nodded and walked away.
Faith restored in humanity, at least for the time being, Jay turned an almost convincing grin to the next person in line.
The remaining five minutes of his shift ended uneventfully, and as usual he gave Kristin his best Nazi salute behind her back on the way to the staff room to get his jacket. Sometimes he honestly thought she knew everything he did around her and only used that to her advantage. He secretly suspected she was going to whip out a video tape one day and show every rude gesture and insulting face he made at her.
Stepping outside the door, Jay inhaled sharply and was forced to pull his jacket tighter around him. The cold front the weather forecasters had predicted for next week had apparently not heard the news and blew in early. The wind was swift and with an icy chill, against which his light spring jacket was not much help. Already cold fingers fumbled clumsily with the jacket zipper, stopping immediately when he noticed the customer he'd been talking to earlier seated on a nearby bench. Somehow, even despite the forceful wind, he was managing to keep the Cliff Notes: French I book he'd bought open and at the same page, a skill that intrigued Jay to no ends.
Well. Might as well have someone to talk to while I freeze to death.
"Hey," he announced his presence with only that and a dull thudding sound when he sat down heavily on the bench. If the customer was startled at all, he hid it well by simply turning the page and offering a Lifesaver from the roll he'd just bought. Jay took it gratefully and popped it into his mouth. "What're you still doin' here?"
"Waiting on my ride."
Jay nodded to himself and leaned back in his seat, taking the opportunity to actually look at this other person now that he didn't have to worry about Kristin sprouting another head. Shoulder length, slightly wavy blond hair fell over the man's -- boy's, Jay corrected himself -- shoulder. A pronounced jawbone was just barely visible through the hair, and Jay found himself drawn to the unusual features. Lips poked out into a natural pout models paid thousands of dollars to achieve, and strikingly high cheekbones led to a pair of hazel green eyes that seemed to be scanning the book in his lap but not really reading it.
All in all, Jay noted with a tinge of red rising in his cheeks, he'd definitely go after the guy if that guy was actually a girl.
"Adam."
Jay blinked. "Huh?"
The customer looked up to show his eyes were much greener than Jay had originally guessed, revealing almost eerie resemblance to a cat's. "My name's Adam. I figured I might as well introduce myself."
"Oh." Jay breathed a quiet sigh of relief that he hadn't been caught staring. Or maybe he had, he realized, once he saw the way the other boy's mouth was trying not to turn up into a smirk. "Uh...yeah. I'm Jason, but --"
"Jay. I like that better." Noticing the light frown, Adam shrugged. "I saw it on your nametag."
Unnerved a bit, Jay tore his eyes from Adam and went back to staring out into the almost empty parking lot. "What school do you go to?"
"Who said I go to school?"
It was Jay's turn to shrug this time. "You work in a place like this long enough, you figure out that you can learn a lot about a person by what they buy. You bought a Cliff Notes book -- French, even, which means you're either traveling or hoping to impress some girl --, a roll of Lifesavers instead of a candy bar, which means you either don't like chocolate or you're trying to diet or something like that, and a TV Guide, which means the French book," Jay continued with a small grin, "isn't impressing the girl as much as you hoped and you're spending your weekend at home."
Adam raised his eyebrows but couldn't quite keep from smiling in response. "The book's because my father's opening a business in Paris and wants me to go with him when it opens next year, I don't care a lot for chocolate, and I spend all my weekends at home."
"Hmm. Well, I was a little off. That happens sometimes," Jay answered nonchalantly. "I'm usually pretty right, though. It's a great way to hit on girls, too. I mean, who else but a single college kid would come through buying two boxes of cat food and a box of macaroni and cheese?"
"Yeah," Adam replied absently, brow narrowing just before he slammed the book shut and disgustedly shoved it back into the bag. "I can't make any sense out of this stupid language."
"Could be worse," Jay reasoned. "He could be traveling to China or something."
A mocking shudder was the only response Adam gave.
"So you never did say what school you went to."
Adam's shoulders slumped just enough to be barely noticeable. "Oakley."
Try as he might to hide it, Jay was unable to prevent his eyebrows from lifting. Oakley, short for The Oakley Institution for Accelerated Youth, was the foremost private school in Ontario and one of the most exclusive the entire country of Canada had to offer. It was for that reason that it was primarily attended by the children of Toronto's wealthiest and most successful businessmen. Despite its name, it was publicly recognized as more of a school for those businessmen to showcase their extravagance rather than to celebrate any amount of intelligence its students may have had.
"Well. You, uh, must be pretty well off," Jay commented dryly, not really having much anything else to say. Adam shrugged indifferently, eyes still focused on the sidewalk beneath his feet.
"I guess."
"Whoa, hold on." Jay sat up suddenly, startling Adam into looking up. "You go to freakin' Oakley and you're shopping at the Canadian equivalent to Wal-Mart? What's wrong with you?"
Adam gave a shy little grin that he didn't particularly feel at all. "I'm not my father's son voluntarily. I don't flaunt my money just to taunt the less-fortunate."
Jay snorted. "Shyeah, whatever. I sure as hell would if I was loaded like that!"
Though he rolled his eyes, Adam still had to laugh. He wasn't given a chance to respond, however, as a black Lexus pulled to the curb, not a scratch to be seen on its surface and the windows tinted to the point it was nearly impossible to see inside. The driver's side door opened and a short man, middle-aged, Jay guessed, from his receding hairline, stepped out and motioned for Adam.
"This is insane. Is his name Alfred?" Jay asked, a twinge of bitterness making his words much sharper than he'd intended. Adam flinched accordingly as he rose to his feet and picked his bag up.
"Huh uh. Mike, actually."
Jay shook his head in amusement. "Insane."
"We could give you a ride back home, if you want."
"Nah, that's okay. I'll walk. Thanks anyway."
"No problem."
Jay watched with hardly concealed fascination and even a bit of jealousy while the driver walked around and opened the back passenger door, an act that evidently embarrassed Adam. A few seconds later the car drove out of sight, leaving Jay alone on the bench. That was until, of course, he heard a hauntingly familiar voice off to his right behind him.
"Is loitering your new hobby?"
Jay cringed, not having to turn around to know it was the assistant manager from hell harrassing him. "I've gotta do something for extra cash, since I don't have a stick up my ass and can't get a management position."
Kristin rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips -- tiny hips, Jay noted. She'd be so easy to snap in half . . . he was fairly certain a disgruntled stockboy would pretty soon. "Well, if you're just gonna stay here anyway, why don't you come back in and work another shift?"
"Why?"
"Why not? You don't have an excuse not to."
Jay suddenly dropped to his knees, patting the ground and crawling around the bench. "I can't see! I lost my contact!" An elderly couple about to enter the store stopped and came closer to him. "Oh, thanks. Could you help me? I've got bad eyes and I just lost a contact. I was about to go to my house where I have to take care of my five brothers and sisters all by myself, since my father died last year trying to save a group of nuns from a burning convent and my mother ran off with a Brazilian model named Carlos. My manager, though, wants me to stay and work rather than go home to Katie, Carla, Jacob, Lisa, and little Andy with the peg-leg, and I can't work without my contact."
Kristin's mouth dropped open in shock, and she shook her head at the couple staring at her like she was Satan himself. "He's an only child!"
"Poor thing," Jay shook his head sadly. "She's a pathological liar. She hasn't been right in the head since that accident with the koala bear in Australia a few years ago."
The couple wisely backed up into the store, which isn't to say they didn't give Kristin the meanest glare they could manage. She turned her enraged eyes to Jay, still on the ground and with a perfectly straight face.
"You had damn well better be putting in your two weeks notice tomorrow," she almost hissed, turning on her heel and stalking back through the sliding doors. Jay waved innocently.
"I love you too, snookums! But wait, do you still want this month's child support check?"
Kristin flipped him off and disappeared from view. Jay laughed as he rose and brushed his jeans off, smile broadening when he saw Bobby give a thumbs up from where he stood by a Pepsi machine inside.
So he'd made a new friend and pissed his boss off again. Yeah, it looked like his work was done for the night. With a slight bounce in his step, he turned and began walking towards his apartment.
Adam, meanwhile, was bored senseless and staring blankly out the window, watching without interest the street lights passing overhead. The ride would have been completely silent if it hadn't been for the classic rock station playing from the speakers behind him and Mike humming along, if a bit offkey.
"I've asked you not to do that in public," Adam noted once the songs inevitably gave way to commercials. The driver glanced into the rearview mirror to see Adam watching him intently.
"What, hum? I'm not that bad."
"No, open the door for me. It's embarrassing."
"Sorry. I forget sometimes. I just do it so often for your father --"
"I'm not my father," Adam shot back with a venom that made Mike immediately turn his eyes back to the road. "And if you ever compare me to him again . . ." It was an empty-ended threat, but one said with such hateful determination Mike knew better than to challenge it. He cleared his throat instead and decided to change the subject.
"So. Who was that boy you were talking to?"
Adam's cheeks flushed indignantly, knowing already where the conversation was headed. "Someone I met," he answered defensively, folding his arms over his chest as if daring Mike to say something else.
"Adam, you know your father doesn't approve --"
"Yeah, I do, and I don't really fucking care what my father does and doesn't approve of," Adam interrupted, eyes practically blazing with anger. "Believe me. Every goddamned inch of my back knows he doesn't approve of anything I do."
Mike, having been the family's head butler and chauffeur since long before Adam's birth and also in charge of babysitting him for most of his life, knew his limits with the boy. He also knew he'd overstepped those boundaries about a mile back. Adam was generally a sweet-natured, easy going seventeen-year-old, but any mention of his lifestyle or his father, especially in conjunction, and he gained the same angry intimidation that had put his father amongst Ontario's wealthiest. Mike, of course, said nothing of that.
"I didn't mean to upset you," Mike apologized quietly, not bothering to look in the mirror. He didn't need to; he knew Adam was trying to stare a smoking hole through his head. "I was just . . . I'm trying to look out for you, Adam."
"If you really wanna look out for me, don't baby me. I can handle myself just fine."
Mike kept his mouth shut and pulled silently through the house's gates, down the long driveway, and into the garage. Adam was out of the car and headed for the door leading into the kitchen before the key was even out of the ignition. He very nearly ran over the other housekeeper, a petite woman with graying hair, olive skin, and eyes a deep mahogany color that appeared black in some lights. This was one of them.
"Sorry," he mumbled his insincere apology, making a beeline for the stairs and forcing the woman to hurry to keep up with his long-legged stride.
"Adam?" She sat the can of wood polish she'd been carrying down on the counter and chased after her current ward, cursing him inwardly for being so much taller and still taking the steps two at a time. "Adam, what's wrong? Are you okay?"
"Fine."
The door slammed shut without another word, and it was only a few seconds before a Type O Negative CD was blaring loudly from his stereo. Sophie gave an exasperated sigh and turned to see Mike coming through the door, refusing to look up from the floor.
"What'd you say this time?"
Given no response, she huffed and went back to polishing the cherry wood cabinets.