“Oh, damn, Cain. I’m so sorry.”
Cain shook his head, looking lost. “Don’t feel sorry for me. Believe me, I don’t deserve one second of your sympathy.”
“What happened?” Damon demanded.
“What do you think? My father threatened to out Jesse - to take away his scholarship, to get him kicked out of school.”
“Fuck.” It was no worse than Damon had been expecting, the tip of the iceberg in terms of the senator’s sins, and yet the bleakness in Cain’s voice made him wish the senator was standing right in front of their car right now.
He stepped on the gas harder.
“I told Jesse…” Cain licked his lips. “I told him it didn’t matter. You know?I have a trust fund! We can get jobs! We can be together!”
Damon winced and Cain caught it. He chuckled darkly.
“Yep. Yeah, you know what happened after that. And I mean, I can’t blame him. We barely knew each other, and it waswaytoo early for that Romeo and Romeo shit. Besides, it was my fault we got caught in the first place. I accepted all that. What killed though, was that he couldn’t distance himself from me fast enough. Told me I needed to get over this stupid shit, use my head. This was just a phase he was going through, and I’d taken advantage of his inexperience. The whole nine.”
“Taken advantage ofhisinexperience?” Damon sputtered. “Are you fucking kidding? When you were no more experienced than he was? This guy sounds like an asshole, Cain.”
Cain shrugged. “Maybe. But we weren’t even eighteen yet, you know? He was young, and so was I, and he was scared because my father had threatened him.”
“None of that was your fault. Your father threatenedyouevery bit as much.”
“Maybe,” Cain agreed. “But it was still my fault.Myfather, right?”
He gave Damon a pointed look, and Damon sighed. Yeah, he’d fallen into similar guilt-by-association thinking where Cain and his father were concerned.
“And I was the one who’d wanted to mess around, to take a chance.” He sighed. “I haven’t talked to Jesse since then. We haven’t kept in touch, not even on Facebook.”
“Well, yeah! Whywouldyou?” Damon demanded, still annoyed. Big blond asshole jock could line up in the middle of the road along with Cain’s father so Damon could mow them both down.
“Apparently, I’m the only one who didn’t keep tabs on him. My father’s known exactly where he’s been. Penn State undergrad, just like he planned, and then on for his MBA. And Jesse managed to land a coveted entry-level job at one of the biggest advertising agencies in Manhattan. He’s engaged now.”
Damon frowned. “And that bothers you?”
Cain laughed shortly. “That he’s graduated and gotten engaged? Fuck no. I’m glad for him, and whoever the woman is.”
“A woman.”
“Yep. Turns out itwasa phase.” He waved a hand negligently in the air. “Or whatever. No, what bothers me is that my father knows all this because he’s been monitoring Jesse this whole time. Know how Jesse managed to land that prestigious job? One phone call from my dad to an old friend of his.” He turned to look at Damon. “And with one phone call, he could take it all away.”
“Right. Well, sucks to be Jesse, and I mean that sincerely. But what does that have to do with you now?”
“What?”
“I don’t understand what that has to do with why you won’t stand up to your dad now.”
“He could destroy Jesse’s life. Hurt him. Kill him,” he whispered.
“He could likely get Jesse fired,” Damon allowed. “From a position that Jesse may or may not have earned in the first place.”
“But…”
“No, wait. Cain, seriously? Is this the way he’s been controlling you this whole past year?”
One look at Cain’s ravaged face confirmed it was.
Damon put on his blinker and pulled into a scenic overlook by the side of the road. The view of the valley beside them was gorgeous, but he barely noticed it. He twisted in his seat and grabbed both of Cain’s hands in his own.
