Lukas & The Lion

Chapter 25- Desert Springs High School

"You will wait here, my little one. Phone is charged? I put new game for you to play. Drink juice and I be back as soon as is possible. No talk strangers," Ari said as he parked me at a coffee shop in the office park where he had a meeting.

"Yes sir, phone all charged. New game to play, drink juice, wait for daddy, no strangers," I joked.

We'd spent the last three nights apart since Mr. Khorasani had banned him from staying over at their home with me there. Ari was back in his condo and I only saw him for breakfast in the morning and in the evenings when he rushed home from work.

Ari told me later that while his father knew we had played on our unsanctioned trip to San Francisco, he was not pleased about it and had forbid Ari from doing it until I was of age. 

He said it put him at risk if my father found out. Ari hadn't told me that. When his father overheard us in the bathtub, not only was his son disobeying him, he was also doing it openly in his home. Mr. Khorasani hadn't left us unsupervised since that night.

Ari was sleeping in his own condo and when he was at the house, my bedroom door was open so things wouldn't go further than cuddling or kissing with our clothes on. 

It was so hard to say goodbye to him each night, hard to fall asleep without his arms around me; but I'd follow Mr. Khorasani's rules. I would be their good boy. It was better than being sent back to my dad's house with Denise. 

But now we were heading out to the desert for him to drop me at my dad's house for a few days. On the way though, he had a quick business meeting.

Ari laughed, kissed my cheek, then rushed to his meeting. It had been so hard not sleeping with my head on his chest. Mr. Khorasani made him go home by 9pm so we would have dinner with the family and then hole up in my bedroom to talk or in the gym to workout more. He was training me with the small weights, but I was getting good with them.

This was a nice enough coffee house and office park on the outer edges of Los Angeles where, according to Ari, a lot of wealthy Chinese investors liked to build large homes. 

That's not important. What is important is that it was just over an hour from here to Dad's house where Ari would leave me for two nights.  

I love my dad but his girlfriend Denise would be there. She was there right now making lunch for us to eat before my dad took me to the awful high school I didn't want to go back to so I could pick out the awful classes for an awful senior year far from the Persian man I loved.

Just thinking about it filled me with anxiety. 

I sipped my juice to stop from screaming. It was one of those carbonated waters with fruit juice and berries floating around in it. I tried to play the new game he'd put on the fancy phone he had bought me, but instead I just sat there and let the anxiety take me over until I was digging my fingernails into the blue rubber phone case.

I was going to be alone. He'd tell me every sweet and beautiful thing he could think of to make me be ok with this. He'd mean it too. Ari is a man who leads with his heart. 

He'd try to make it work, but the distance would break us.

Some adorable blonde boy would run into him at the gym and need help with a bully like I had. He'd help the boy because he's a good man and that's what good men do. They'd hang out and the new boy would charm him. Soon enough he'd forget he ever had a Lukas.

I'd be stuck out in the desert at my dad's house going to church and anti gay camps and be crying every night over him. He'd want this phone back too. It was expensive and why waste money on a loser in Desert Springs?