Two Hours Later

"I'm not sure why we had that new dishwasher installed," I commented dryly as I watched my son devour the last of his spaghetti and meatballs; his plate looked so clean it almost appeared to have not even been used.  "Good?" I asked my son as he nodded enthusiastically, using the tip of his tongue to swipe a little bit of errant sauce from the corner of his mouth as I grinned over his ingenuity.

I had decided to partly forgo my normal ‘no carbs after 7' rule for tonight, since Justin had served up my son's favorite meal and he had used whole-wheat spaghetti.   I had to admit, too, that Justin's homemade meatballs and sauce were quite tasty.  Justin had always loved to cook, but since he had returned he had embraced his epicurean passion even more avidly and had become quite a good cook in the process.  And the fact that he consistently strived to focus on healthier entrees made me appreciate his efforts even more.  Tonight, then, I decided I was just going to enjoy being with my son and forget about the extra time I would need to devote to my exercising afterward down in our basement gym.  Besides, I could think of some ‘other' exercises that might work off the extra calories and be even more pleasurable.

I shook my head in amusement as Justin slurped up his last strand of spaghetti into his mouth like a little kid as Gus giggled over his antics.  Taking a last sip of my wine, I turned to my son to ask, "Ready to go get cleaned up and ready for bed?"

"Do I have to?" was the predictable lament.

I grinned over at Justin as I nodded, not missing the couple of yawns that had escaped my son's mouth during dinner.  "Yes, Sonny Boy, you have to.  Justin and I promised your moms that we would get you into bed by 9:30.  Why don't you run upstairs and pick out your pajamas to wear and I'll meet you in the bathroom in a few minutes, okay?" I suggested.  "I might have some new bath toys for you."

Gus's eyes lit up in delight; from the moment he was a baby, he had always loved to play with toys while he splashed around in the tub amidst a sea of bubbles, not unlike someone else I knew - at least minus the toys, anyway.  Until Justin and I had moved out here together I had had no idea just how much of a bathing beauty freak my partner was, but he enjoyed a good bubble bath like the rest of them.  I refused to imbibe in such lesbionic nonsense, however; telling my partner that the only ‘tub' I would ever dip my toes into - or any other part of my body, for that matter - was in our backyard hot tub.  I had installed one soon after buying the house, and Justin was an eager and willing participant with me.  The vision of that pliant, soft, and oh-so-sexy body in my grasp while Justin threw his head back in pleasure in the warm, churning water was making me hard just thinking about it as I had to force myself back to the present.

"Yay!" Gus said excitedly as he abruptly pushed back from the table and I refocused my attention on my son.

"Uh, uh, uh," I told him with a patient smile before he had a chance to escape.  "Dirty plates and glass in the dishwasher, please."

He nodded while he carefully balanced the plate and silverware in one hand and his glass in the other as he walked back to the kitchen.  As soon as Justin and I heard the telltale banging of the dishes as they were placed in the dishwasher, we saw Gus take off like a shot past the dining room on his way to the stairs.

Several seconds later, however, instead of hearing my son's cry of delight over his new bounty I heard his  voice filled with fear, and my blood instantly ran cold.

"Daddy!" he shrieked at the top of his lungs, his voice full of panic.  "Come quick!"

I exchanged a worried look with Justin moments before we both pushed back from the table of one accord and rushed toward the steps.

"Gus!" I shouted frantically as I took the steps two at a time with my longer stride.  "What is it?  What's going on?"

"Hurry, Daddy!" was the urgent response as Justin struggled to keep up with my pace. I could tell from my son's voice that he was still in his bedroom as I landed at the top of the steps and took a sharp right toward his room at a full run. "Gus?"

"Hurry!" he repeated urgently as I reached his room in record time.  I was relieved to see Gus appeared to be okay as I observed him on his stomach, peering under his racecar bed.

I frowned as Justin rushed up to stand beside me.  "Gus, what's going on?  You had me scared to death!"

"Daddy!" he cried out, his face full of anxiety.  "He's gone!"

"Who's gone?"

"Snowball!  He's gone, Daddy!"

My eyes flashed over to the now-empty cage lying on top of my son's dresser and I huffed out an irritated breath; I didn't know whether to be more relieved that my son was okay or furious over the rabbit getting loose.  "Shit," I muttered under my breath.  "How did he get out of his cage?" I asked my son a little louder, my voice hard-edged and angry.  I knew that damn animal was going to be a problem from the moment I saw him.

"I'm sorry, Daddy!" Gus cried out in anguish as he stood up to face me.  "I opened the cage when I brought him up to pet him and I must have forgotten to lock it back!" he confessed.

I sighed heavily.  "Gus, how could you have been so careless?" I asked him sharply in rebuke as his eyes clouded over with tears in reaction to the sound of my voice.

Just then I felt Justin grasp my forearm, probably as a silent entreaty for me to think about what I was doing.  I WAS pissed - yes.  But as I looked into my son's worried eyes, my own childhood suddenly flashed into my mind - times when I had done something unintentional or negligent to disappoint my own father and he had responded by slapping me in the face with the back of his hand, throwing me into a dark closet for several hours, or pushing me out of the house in the dead of winter with just my pajamas and slippers on - if I was lucky enough to even be wearing shoes.  I shuddered at the thought as I took a deep breath to calm myself and nodded over at my partner in gratitude as Justin nodded slightly back at me in acknowledgment.

Walking over to my son, I swept his small body into my embrace as I wrapped my arms around him and held him tight.  I felt him trembling and heard him sniffle, making me feel guilty as hell, as I leaned back to look into his eyes.  I gently wiped his tear-stained cheeks as I reassured him softly, "It's okay, Sonny Boy.  Mistakes happen.  We'll find him - he couldn't have gotten far."  At least I hoped so; I had no idea how fast rabbits could travel, but something told me I was about to find out.

He nodded with a hiccup, his face relaxing in relief as I let him go and peered around the room.  At least the rabbit was white - that would help - but it was quickly getting dark, and the longer it took to find him without the added bonus of sunshine, I suspected the harder it would become.

"All right, we need a game plan; let's start in your room and the bathroom over there," I told him.  "You go look in the closet and Justin and I will look in here, okay?"

He nodded, eager to help, as he hurried over to his large walk-in closet, leaving Justin and me alone.  I briefly turned to face him as I replied softly, "Thanks."

Justin nodded back at me again, knowing exactly what I was grateful for, before he squeezed my arm briefly and let it go.

Thirty minutes later, I discovered that finding a rabbit in a house the size of Britin was somewhat akin to finding a hot prospect at the next Gay and Lesbian Center fundraiser; in other words, damn near impossible.  Despite our looking in seemingly every nook and cranny on the second floor, he was nowhere to be found.  I pressed my lips tightly together in frustration as my partner and my son walked up to me in the hallway while I gazed at the open staircase that led both up and downstairs, wondering just how fleet a foot rabbits were when it came to navigating hardwood steps.  There was a runner positioned down the middle of the steps to provide traction, however, and I had seen rabbits literally jumping straight up in the air outside when they were playing with each other, so I knew they could be quite agile.  I suppose it could be possible, then.  If he HAD managed to move to another floor, obviously that would make our ‘mission' even more difficult.

As if reading my mind, Justin asked me, "You don't suppose he's on another floor?"

"He's fast, Daddy," Gus supplied helpfully.  "Whenever we let him out of his cage at school, he's gone like a flash."

"Thanks for the tip, Sonny Boy," I responded dryly as I exchanged an amused look with my partner.  I brushed my left hand through my hair and sighed.  "Well, looks like we'd better start searching the rest of the house, then, because I don't see any way that he could still be on this floor."

I had just started to tell Justin to take Gus and begin searching the downstairs while I covered the third floor when my son shouted out excitedly, "Look, Daddy!  There he goes!"  I followed to where he was pointing down on the main floor, just in time to see a flash of white take a tentative hop toward the study.

"Let's go!" I called out as I took off like a shot down the steps; my feet slid on the hardwood floor as I reached the landing a few seconds later and, grabbing onto the curved, rounded banister knob for support, I made a sharp right turn and hurried down the hall toward the escapee's last-known location, Justin and Gus's footsteps sounding right behind me.

"We got him!" I crowed in triumph as I reached the study and stopped short to quickly look around the room in the subdued lighting; I suppose I expected to see Snowball sitting there on all fours, licking one of his paws like a lazy cat, but I was disappointed.  In fact, he was nowhere to be found.  "What the hell?" I couldn't help muttering in disbelief as I stood there with my hands on my hips.  If I didn't know better, I would have thought the rabbit was part of a magic act and had disappeared right down the magician's top hat.  "I just saw him!  Where did he go?"

Justin and my son looked as dumbfounded as I was as we all spread out and started searching the room; I made sure to close the door immediately so the varmint couldn't escape the room, but I continued to be perplexed as to where he could have gone.

I was stretched out on the floor on my belly a couple minutes later, looking under the leather sofa when I heard my son whisper urgently, "Psst! Daddy!  Come here!" Justin, who had been looking behind the heavy, maroon curtains, walked over to Gus, who was kneeling behind our suede recliner chair as I knelt down beside him.

Without saying a word, my son slowly pulled back the rear flap that covered the inner workings of the chair to expose a pair of red, beady eyes staring back at us.  Shaking my head in amazement, I reached inside with the intention of grabbing the ruffian by the scruff of his neck when the rabbit made a sudden move and I thought better of it.  Thoughts of painful rabies shots flashed through my head as I suggested, "Uh, Sunshine...get a hold of him, will you?"

Justin rolled his eyes over my thinly-veiled anxiety as he reached in and pulled Snowball out by his collar as I merely lifted my eyebrows in challenge.  "Here you go, Gus," he told my son as he placed the errant animal in his arms.  "Sure you can handle him?  We don't want him getting loose again."

Gus nodded as he wrapped his arms firmly around the miscreant and held onto his collar.  "I won't let him out of my sight," he vowed as he stood up with him.

Knowing instinctively that it was important to show that I trusted my son, I nodded.  "I'll follow you up to open the cage so you can put him back in."

Just as I reached the door to follow him, Justin murmured, "Our hero."  Glaring at him in mock reproach, he added with a grin, "I'll go get his bath ready."

Having read Gus a bedtime story about fifteen minutes earlier - ironically about the Velveteen Rabbit - my son had finally fallen asleep next to me in his bed and I took advantage of the relative calm to return to the master bedroom to find my partner sitting up in bed, his back to the massive, mahogany headboard as he perused the latest edition of Art Forum magazine.  He was wearing a pair of lightweight sweatpants but nothing else.  My eyes swept over his smooth chest and long, masculine fingers that always drove me to distraction as I deadpanned, "Reading about yourself again?"

To my surprise, he looked over at me in embarrassment like he had been caught doing something wrong and replied, "Well, it is an honor."

I frowned in confusion as I walked over and pried the magazine out of his hands to discover yet another article written about him, complete with a small, color photo.  It was touting one of his latest pieces that had been displayed at a small studio in Chelsea.  Justin had found that it was easier for him to get his foot in the door in New York City if he concentrated on the more intimate, eclectic art studios, rather than the large, impersonal ones. 

I gaped, open-mouthed, as I quickly read over the writer's brief but glowing commentary on his latest piece entitled Assent, which chronicled Justin's slow but steady rise to recognition in a highly competitive arena.  "Justin, why didn't you tell me about this?" I demanded, somewhat hurt that he would keep this from me.

I make short shrift of my clothing before crawling onto the bed to sit next to him as he replied sheepishly, "I forgot about it until it arrived in the mail today.  The owner of the gallery mentioned it to me a few days ago, but with Gus arriving and all it slipped my mind.  It's not that big a deal, Brian; it's just a small mention in the upcoming events section."

"A small mention? Justin, this is a nationally recognized art magazine, and it's the second time you've been mentioned in less than three years!  This is amazing!" I told him sincerely as he blushed over the tone of my voice.  "Fuck, I'm so proud of you, Sunshine," I whispered to him as I looked at the photo of him in the magazine before placing the periodical down onto the mattress beside me.  Curling my lips under, I added, "Want to celebrate your fame?"

He grinned as our lips came together for a kiss that quickly escalated from playful to passionate.

"Gus asleep?" Justin managed to gasp out in between kisses as I slid my hand underneath his sweat pants to grasp his cock and begin to stroke it.  The shaft was rock hard, just like mine as I growled, "Damn straight he is," before, with one quick motion, I pulled his pants down to pool at his feet and launched myself on top of him.  As I twisted my body to lie on top of his smaller one, our cocks brushed up against each other, the friction causing both of us to groan at the sensation.  "I'm going to fuck you so hard, Picasso," I huskily vowed as I began to rain small kisses down his neck and shoulders on my way to his chest and belly.  "Then I can tell everyone I knew you before you were famous."

Justin giggled as he flopped his hands out to his side and told me, "Then do it; have your way with me."  It sounded like he was surrendering to me so I could do what I wanted with him, but we both knew who was really controlling this situation at the moment, and Justin was anything but helpless where I was concerned.

Nevertheless, not one to pass up such an intriguing invitation, I grinned.  "My pleasure," I told him before I proceeded to do just that.