“I just don’t get it,” Khalil said, his voice thick with alcohol and frustration.
“I’ve busted my ass for eighteen years.
I gave up everything.
I stopped going out with friends, stopped taking vacations, stopped doing anything that wasn’t about putting food on the table and keeping a roof over our heads.
And for what?
For my son to sneak around behind my back and bring the goddamn principal into my home like it’s nothing.”
Eli took a slow sip of his beer, his eyes fixed on Khalil with a patience that bordered on amusement.
He looked tired too, but there was something sharper in his gaze, like a man who had been through worse and come out the other side with a sense of humor.
“I mean, don’t get me wrong,” Khalil continued, waving his glass for emphasis, “I know the world’s changed.
I know things are different now.
The Vanishing, the way bodies changed, the way everyone’s got these…
needs.
I’ve had to accept that this is just how the world is now.
My son has a condition.
The doctors explained it.
I get that.
I’ve made my peace with that.
But still, why the goddamn principal?
Why couldn’t he pick someone normal?
Someone from the neighborhood?
Someone who isn’t going to chew him up and spit him out the moment he gets bored?”
Eli set his beer down on the counter with a soft clink, turned on his stool, and looked at Khalil with the most unimpressed expression Khalil had ever seen.
It wasn’t angry.
It wasn’t even judgmental.
It was the look of a man who had been listening to the same complaint for twenty minutes and had finally reached his limit.
“That it?” Eli asked, his voice flat.
Khalil blinked, his drunken mind struggling to process the question.
“What the hell do you mean, ‘that it’?
This is a big thing!
This is my son we’re talking about!
He’s dating his principal!
The man who signs his report card!
The man who could ruin his entire future with a single signature!
What if the principal threatens him?
What if he coerces him into doing things he doesn’t want to do?
What if he ruins Kota’s reputation?
What if he gets him expelled?
What if he uses his power to control him?
What if—”
Eli held up a hand, cutting him off mid-sentence.
His shoulders were shaking, and for a moment Khalil thought he was having some kind of seizure.
Then he realized Eli was trying, and failing, to hold back laughter.
“Your son waited eighteen years before he talked to anyone romantically,” Eli said, his voice trembling with suppressed mirth.
“Eighteen years.
Most kids in this neighborhood are getting their first blowjob behind the bleachers before they can vote.
Your boy held out until he was legally an adult.
And now you’re worried about him getting coerced?”
Khalil’s face flushed.
“He shouldn’t be dating anyone before marriage anyway.
That’s not the point.
The point is he lied to me.
He kept secrets.
He brought the principal into my house and expected me to just accept it like it’s normal.”
Eli let out a short, incredulous laugh.
“DUDE. New chapters come out on g.com first.
My son Riley had an orgy at my house last week.
An actual orgy.
I walked in on six femboys in my living room and two of them were using my good throw pillows as cum rags.
He does thirst traps on TikTok that get like a million views.
HELL, my sons are in an incestuous relationship that I can’t do shit about.
They’re brothers, Khalil.
Brothers.
And they fuck each other on the regular.
And you’re telling me your son fell in love with a nice boy who’s going to take care of him in the future and actually care about him as a person?” Eli leaned back, spreading his arms wide.
“Where’s the problem?”
Khalil’s mouth opened and closed like a fish gasping for water.
“Well, when you put it that way—”
Eli didn’t let him finish.
“And that’s just my family.
Let me tell you about the other kids in this area, because clearly you’ve been living under a rock.
Lippetti’s boy?
He’s off in Dubai being the sugar baby to some rich investor.
Gets flown around the world on private jets, wears more jewelry than my grandmother when she existed, and hasn’t spoken to his father in two years.
Rugger’s triplets?
All three of them are incestuous drug addicts who work as waiters at that Slurps Spaghetti restaurant downtown.
You know the one, the place where if you tip well enough they’ll give you a blowjob under the table.
They’ve been arrested four times this year alone.
And my brother’s boy, Matt?
He’s a stripper.
A good one, apparently, but a stripper nonetheless.
He’s got a pole in his living room and a client list longer than my arm.”
Eli paused to take a long drink of his beer, letting the silence hang between them.
Khalil sat frozen on his stool, his glass forgotten in his hand, his face a mask of dawning horror.
Eli wasn’t done.
“I’m sorry if I sound rude, but you have a cushy as fuck life compared to me and 99% of the parents in this area.
Your son isn’t on drugs.
He isn’t selling his body for rent money.
He isn’t running from the cops.
He’s dating his principal, which, okay, is weird, but at least the principal is employed, educated, and clearly has money.
That’s a hell of a lot better than most people get.
Hell, the principal could probably pay off your mortgage and set Kota up for life if he wanted to.”
Khalil’s jaw tightened.
He could feel the old defensiveness rising again, hot and sharp in his chest.
“That doesn’t change the fact that he lied to me.
He’s been sneaking around behind my back for weeks.
He told me he was working construction.
He made up excuses.
He looked me in the eye and lied about where he was going and who he was with.
That’s not okay.
That’s not how I raised him.”
Eli slammed his beer down on the counter, the sound echoing through the empty bar.
“No shit he lied!
How old was he when you told him about the birds and the bees?
Huh?
When did you sit him down and explain how any of this works?
When did you tell him it was okay to have feelings, to want someone, to fall in love?”
Khalil’s face went pale.
He opened his mouth to respond, then closed it.
The silence stretched between them like a wound.
“I…
uhh…” Khalil stammered, his voice suddenly small.
“I never…
sat him down.
Not properly.
I just…
told him to stay away from them.
The femboys.
The ones with the big asses and the tiny dicks.
I told him they were soft and weak and that he should focus on work and staying strong.
That’s all I said.
That’s all I ever said.”
Eli stared at him for a long, agonizing moment.
Then he let out a bitter laugh that held no humor whatsoever.
“And you wonder why your son isn’t honest with you?
You spent eighteen years telling him that everything he’s attracted to is wrong and disgusting, and then you act surprised when he hides his boyfriend from you?
That’s not just stupid, Khalil.
That’s cruel.”
Khalil flinched as if he’d been struck.
His hands tightened around his glass, the glass creaking under the pressure.
“I was trying to protect him!
I didn’t want him to end up like the rest of these kids, wasting his life on sex and drugs and God knows what else.
I wanted him to have a future.
A real future.
Not just be another statistic.”
Eli’s expression softened slightly, but the edge remained in his voice.
“Protect him from what?
From being happy?
From finding someone who cares about him?
From having a chance at something better than a dead-end construction job and a lonely apartment?
If that’s your idea of protection, then you’ve been failing him for years.”
“How do you know your son is being honest with you?” Khalil shot back, desperate for some kind of defense.
“How do you know Riley isn’t lying to your face right now about where he is and what he’s doing?
You said it yourself, he had an orgy at your house.
You think he tells you everything?”
Eli smirked, a slow, knowing smile that made Khalil’s stomach drop.
“He isn’t.
Neither of them tell me about how many guys they sleep with.
They don’t tell me about the drugs they’ve tried or the parties they’ve gone to or the times they’ve nearly gotten arrested.
But when my sons have a problem, when they’re scared or hurt or in trouble, they come to me.
They know I won’t judge them.
They know I won’t yell at them or call them failures.
They know I’ll listen.
Can you say the same about your son?”
Khalil opened his mouth to respond, but no words came out.
He sat there, frozen on his stool, the weight of Eli’s words pressing down on his chest like a physical force.
The alcohol seemed to drain from his system all at once, leaving behind a cold, sober clarity that he didn’t want to face.
Eli watched him for a moment, then picked up his beer and took another drink.
He didn’t say anything else.
He didn’t need to.
The silence spoke for him, louder than any lecture.
Khalil stared at the bar in front of him, at the rings of condensation left by his glass, at the faint scratches in the old wood.
His mind was spinning, replaying every conversation he’d ever had with Kota, every lecture, every warning, every moment he’d pushed his son away without even realizing it.
The realization hit him like a freight train, sudden and devastating and impossible to ignore.
Holy shit…