Page 17 of Disciplinary Action
Cal’s issue with food was hardly Renata’s fault. She had a hard enough time feeding her own six kids on her bookkeeping salary, and he couldn’t very well ask her to buy special food just for him when he could barely contribute more than a hundred bucks at most. He drew up ten units of insulin, pausing when he noticed he was more than halfway through the bottle. He pushed two units back in before squeezing the skin on his stomach and injecting himself.
With the task completed, he put his things away and dropped down onto Bastian’s bed. He looked at Cal, brow furrowed. “How long are you going to keep playing with your meds like that?”
Cal scoffed. “I’ve been using insulin since I was three years old. I know how far I can push it. Besides, a little bit goes a long way.” Bastian stared him down, a disapproving scowl on his face. Cal rolled his eyes. “Oh, my God. I’m fine,Mom.Relax.”
Bastian waved a hand at him and unpaused his game. On the screen, black ops soldiers ran across a jungle landscape, yelling at each other. Bastian continued playing, splitting his attention between the television and Cal. “So, spill it. You obviously weren’t kicked out of school. I’m guessing your little blackmail scheme worked.”
Cal tried not to smile but couldn’t help himself. “Yeah, you could say that.”
Bastian cut his gaze to Cal, giving his friend a disgusted look. “You absolute fucking idiot. You fucking blackmailed him into fucking you again, didn’t you?”
“Am I that obvious?” Cal asked.
“In his office? With that witch right outside gunning for you? Are you crazy?”
“Sometimes, I think you’re secretly a little old lady, not somebody who fucks them.”
“Fuck you. They aren’t that old. Besides, I’d never blackmail some lonely rich lady into doing something she didn’t want to do. Consent’s a thing, dick.”
Cal’s smile faded. “It wasn’t like that. He wanted it.”
“Yeah, okay. If you say so. But it was really fucking reckless,” Bastian said without bothering to look up.
“How? How was it reckless? The door was locked. He gagged me, so I couldn’t make any sound. What’s the worst that could happen?” Cal asked.
“Uh, you have some kind of diabetic crisis with our headmaster’s dick buried in your ass, and he’s forced to explain how he fucked you into a coma and possibly death?”
Cal snorted. “When you put it like that, it sounds dirty.”
“It is dirty, man. Like, Gideon’s one of the few clients who we don’t have to worry is going to be a total fucking creeper. He and Hillary are tight. This could totally blow back on me, on you, on her, and especially on Gideon who’s just some rich old guy with a lot of baggage about his dead husband.”
Cal felt a twinge of something just beneath his ribcage, regret maybe? “First of all, there’s not going to be any blowback. He didn’t fuck me. He just…punished me, and he made me promise I’d checked my blood sugar and that I’d eaten before he’d even agree to that.”
“So, you fucking lied to him?” Bastian countered. “You definitely didn’t check your sugar at school, and I know you haven’t eaten since yesterday. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”
“I know what I’m doing, okay? Besides, I think he actually wanted to punish me. When it was over, he said he’d never intended to kick me out of school in the first place. He warned me not to think I could blackmail him or hold anything over his head. So, he must have had his own reasons for playing along, right? If not, he wouldn’t have done it.”
A shock like ice water ran through his body as a thought occurred to him. What if that was Gideon letting Cal know that there wouldn’t be a next time? What if Gideon didn’t want to see Cal again? For some reason, the notion made Cal want to cry. Maybe he’d overplayed his hand?
“Or are you just telling yourself that so you don’t feel like a dick for blackmailing a guy who gave you a thousand dollar tip that paid for the insulin you just shot yourself up with?”
“It wasn’t like that. Look, you just don’t get it. You weren’t there. Something happened that night between us. There was a thing.”
“I know how intense it can be. I’m not even into guys and I let him have a go at me when I got desperate enough for money. Even though guys aren’t my thing, the adrenaline…it makes you feel things that you probably wouldn’t feel if your body wasn’t all stressed out and shit. But it wasn’t real, man. You can’t keep chasing that high or you’ll take us all down with you.”
Cal made a noise of frustration. “I’m not chasing some…high. That’s not what this is about.”
“You don’t have your dad’s money and clout to get you out of shit anymore. There’s nobody to protect you from the consequences of your actions.”
Cal had never wanted that protection. He would have given anything if his father had just cared enough to let Cal learn even a single lesson on his own. But that wasn’t his father’s style. His father wanted things handled quickly and with as little effort on his part as possible. Cal learned long ago that no amount of bad behavior would ever be enough to garner more than the slightest bit of attention from his dad. There was always a conference call or a meeting or a benefit he needed to attend. Cal was an afterthought, an inconvenience. Cal was the nanny’s problem.
“Look, I’m not going to do anything to fuck with Gideon, okay? I-I like him. I know you told me not to kiss him and that it would be intense, which it was, obviously. But the other stuff…that made it all worth it. It was…nice,” Cal finished lamely.
Bastian paused the game once more to look at Cal. “What other stuff? The forced cuddling?”
Cal shook his head. “All of it. Feeding each other noodles naked, laughing, taking a bath together…just talking. He even took care of me when my blood sugar dropped. It was just nice to have somebody actually pretend to give a shit.” Silence stretched taut like a wire between them as Bastian stared at him. “What?” Cal finally snapped.
“You took a bath together? Fed each other? That’s…yeah, that’s not his usual thing.”
