They drove down to meet the bus that morning in Luis’s car. It was one of those unusually breezy, sunny mornings in Bucks County, without a hint of humidity. In fact it was so cool Luis had insisted Hunter wear a light jacket.
Hunter had resisted, and Luis wouldn’t take no for an answer, but when the bus pulled up and Luis saw the other boys weren’t wearing jackets, he smiled at his son and said, “Get rid of the jacket.”
Hunter smiled and pulled the jacket off in a tangle mess. “Thanks, Daddy.”
“Have a good day, sweetie.”
Hunter reached for the door and sent Luis an exasperated look. “Daddy,” he said. “We talked about this.”
“I’m sorry,” Luis said, throwing his arms in the air. “I forgot.” Hunter was talking about when Luis called him sweetie. Evidently, Hunter didn’t like to be called sweetie, especially when all his baseball camp friends were only yards away waiting for him to get out of the car. “I’ll call you buddy, like Dad does. Okay?”
Hunter smiled and opened the door. He patted Luis on the hand. “Just stick to plain old Hunter,” he said. “Buddy doesn’t sound right coming from you.”
Luis blinked. “Maybe I should keep my mouth shut and not call you anything. After all, I’m just your father, one of two people in this world who loves you more than anything.
I’m the one who worries about you, makes sure you eat the right foods, makes sure your homework is done, and makes sure everything in your life is perfect. I’m the one who sits up with you all night when you’re sick. And I’m only one of two people who would lie down and die for you if I had to.” His voice trailed off melodramatically.
Hunter frowned, as if stunned by what Luis had said.
“If it makes you feel better, you can call me sweetie at home when no one else is around.” Then he opened the door and hopped out. Before he closed it, he gazed into the car and said, “See you later. Love you, Daddy.”
“Love you too,” Luis said, feeling vindicated, smiling so wide his eyes slanted. He’d have to remember this conversation. The guilt thing was highly underrated.
When Luis arrived at Roland’s and Josh’s place, he was still smiling. But the smile didn’t last long. Roland and Josh frowned and they spoke very softly. They escorted Luis through a long main hallway filled with gimcrack, then into their vapid media room off the kitchen. They sat him down in a chair without bothering to offer him anything, not even coffee. Luis followed their leads, confused as to what they were doing, without asking questions. He noticed they were both fully dressed, so this wasn’t anything of a sexual nature—you never knew with these two.
While Josh hit a few switches on a complicated-looking remote control gadget, Roland said, “We think you should see this. We don’t want to start anything. But we have to show you.”
They had one of those extra-large—obscene and vulgar, in Luis’s opinion—flat-screen televisions fixed to the wall opposite the seating area. Josh seemed to be having trouble with the remote and Luis was tempted to offer his assistance. Josh held the remote out at arm’s length and tried pushing a few buttons but nothing happened. Then he pushed another button and the bathroom in their pool house appeared on the screen. Although the clarity of the picture wasn’t perfect, it was clearly visible Darius had entered the pool house bathroom and walked into a private stall. Then Josh pushed another button and the scene changed, skipping a scene and switching to a different angle shot by another camera. Now Darius was inside the stall, with an overheard camera looking down at him, holding something under his arm.
“What is this?” Luis asked. He knew they were kinky, but he hadn’t expected them to show him a video of Darius peeing in their bathroom. He didn’t want to appear rude, but sometimes these two floored him beyond words.
Roland frowned. “We have security cameras all over the house and grounds. There is one in each stall of the pool house bathroom, and three in the main section of the bathroom so we can see everything that goes on in there.”
Luis’s head turned. He sent Roland a stunned glance.
“You have hidden cameras in the bathrooms?” Well. Luis was glad he’d never had to use their pool house bathroom. But he and Jase had stayed in their guest house and Jase had fucked Luis from one end of the guest house to the other.
“It’s private property,” Roland said. “We can do whatever we want.”
“Do you have little hidden cameras in the guest house?” He had to ask.
Josh laughed. “No. There are no cameras in there, just outside the front door for security reasons.”
Luis folded his arms across his chest, feeling somewhat relieved. Though having hidden cameras in the bathroom would have surprised him with anyone else, knowing Josh’s and Roland’s kinky behavior he sat back and looked up at the screen waiting for something to happen. He’d always pegged them both as types who liked sleazy bathroom sex. Luis felt a chill when he thought about them being into those golden shower things. “Why am I watching Darius go to the bathroom? If I want to see Darius take a pee, I’ll ask him if I can watch.” His face started to tighten.
Roland pointed to the screen. “Take a closer look, Luis. See what’s in his hands.”
Luis leaned forward. Instead of pulling down his zipper first, Darius pulled an envelope out from under his arm.
Then he started ripping the envelope to shreds, tearing it into tiny little pieces and dropping the pieces into the toilet. After that, Darius punched the wall and kicked the toilet. From this overhead angle Luis couldn’t see the expression on Darius’s face but he could see by the sudden jerks of his arms and legs his mood suggested serious anger. Wwhen he finished punching the wall and kicking the toilet, he pulled down his zipper, peed all over the papers he’d ripped to shreds, and flushed.
Luis rubbed his jaw. “I don’t understand. What’s he doing?”
Roland frowned. “This was taken the day of our Fourth of July party. We just viewed it ourselves yesterday for the first time. This is why I wanted you to see it last night.”
Luis tipped his head sideways. He still didn’t understand.
“Luis,” Josh said, “the envelope Darius ripped up was the proposal Roland gave to Jase. The same proposal Jase gave to you to hold that afternoon.”
Luis’s lips parted but he didn’t speak.
“He must have taken it without you knowing,” Roland said. “Then, for whatever reason, he took it into the bathroom and flushed it down the toilet.”