Hearts of Deceit (ManxMan)

Ch 16: The Letter

I glanced at the box every now and then. The one with the Walkmen and the tape left by my father. I hadn't opened it. It'd been years and I swore a little to myself that I  had considered it once, coming back to New York, all those ages ago. Then the follies of being in a relationship had caught up to me. Tulach's Pub was demanding work and what little time I had, I'd stuck to coming back to Elise's shop and carving up anything I could  in the little corner that was my office. 

"You should start selling," Elise would tell  me every now and then. As had James and Declan and even Misha. I couldn't. It was, in some logic that worked out in my head, an insult to my parents' memory. Carving up wood was now a sacred ritual to honor them. And for a while, it had been a way to cope.  With the loneliness. With the hurt and the pain. With being who I was. 

The very least I could do was open the damn walkmen and listen to the tape my father had left me like he almost knew death was imminent. Of course he didn't. Who could have predicted they'd have a run in with some street hustlers linked to Seraz's father? I hadn't known exactly what happened that night when they were coming back from an outing but there was an absence of anything valuable in their car. 

It didn't matter when the police went around to take statements. Dominic Seraz's father was an alpha. A rich and powerful alpha. My parents were deltas. The cops and the investigation vanished after a week. No leads supposedly.

I'd been thinking about my parents death a lot lately. The numbingly haunting emotion sitting always at the periphery of my mind was brought to the forefront whenever I stepped into the old house. Elise and Declan's parents had kept it just as it was, the flower pots in the same place, the TV not having moved an inch, my old rock band posters hung on the walls of my baby blue painted room. Elise's father was especially adamant about keeping it the same. 

Why was I thinking so much about them?

Maybe it was the guilt. Moving to Portland. Refusing to come back for years. Not listening to the tape he'd left me. Maybe it was Seraz and the Blue Dragons. I hadn't talked to Dominic in ages and beside the fact that he had broken James's heart, I hadn't thought about him much. Not until I had met Hans. And the three men who'd taken some control over my life since a month ago when the hotel had been shot up. 

Now, thoughts of Dominic and my parents, my friends, and my desolate love life seemed to be bouncing around in my head. The feeling of isolation was slowly spreading and growing like some nasty tumor.  

"I never did tell you what that letter was about. The one Tony gave to me," I jumped as James spoke. There had been a ghostly silence since we'd walked into my parents home. Just like me, James had been walking around slowly, feeling his way through the house and around the various knickknacks although that was more for practicality then sentimentality on his end. 

I slumped down on the old couch my mom had loved before looking up at him.

"No. You never did. Do tell."

There was a silence where James took the time to look sufficiently  uncomfortable before taking a tentative seat on a sofa he felt for nearby. 

With a huff and a folding of his white cane he took out the crumpled piece of paper Tony had given to him from Dominic all those months ago. The way it was crumpled  and looked ready to split into tatters made me think he  had kept it in his pocket for quite a while. James coughed a  little.

"He...wanted to make a proposal. I knew about Hans a bit ago but wasn't sure who he was.  Dominic told me that once he got some omega, he would be ok with us being together as long  as  this omega was presented as his spouse, and I stayed quietly in the background."