1.
My sister’s wedding week was, as my mother liked to call it, another Hurly-Burly. That was her blanket term for all of my dad’s family gatherings. The Hurlys were a chaotic tribe of Irish Americans who thrived on big, sprawling get-togethers that, according to my mother, went on too long and involved far too much drinking.
We convened at my grandparents’ sprawling suburban home, a place of generous guest rooms, a vast backyard and garden, and even an inground swimming pool with its own small pool house for guests. It was the ancestral Hurly estate, where my dad and his sisters had grown up, and where they still returned, bringing their spouses, children, and a collection of other strays. Even divorced exes, like my mom, often showed up, because that’s just how it was with the Hurlys. Everyone was expected; divorce was merely an inconvenience, best left unmentioned and ignored, much like my Gram Hurly’s taste for Chardonnay.
In true Hurly fashion, everyone was expected to stay for several days over a long weekend. Even for a family wedding, the sheer number of Hurlys and their hangers-on meant the estate was stretched to its absolute limits.
Some of the adults, operating under outdated assumptions, expected to reclaim the rooms that had been theirs when they were kids. But Gram meticulously matched guests and their needs with the available space based on her own priorities. Married couples got first dibs on bigger beds, little kids were relegated to air mattresses, and Gram was particularly vexed by the audacity of single people who, selfishly, required an entire bed to themselves when she had so few to go around. She tapped her pen impatiently on her notepad.
“Oh, I have it!” Gram Hurly finally declared, her face breaking into a satisfied smile as she reviewed her notes. “Everyone has a bed, and it’s all good. Dan and Trevor, you’re going to have to sleep together in the pool house.”
“The pool house?” Dad echoed, his head snapping up at the sound of his name. “What about my old room?”
“Well, we have to put Joe and Peggy there because it’s on the ground level, and Joe’s got that leg brace from his accident,” Gram explained, already moving on.
“And the pool house only has one bed,” I blurted out, a sudden, unfamiliar wave of awkwardness washing over me at the prospect of sharing a bed with my dad.
“Well, you are just going to have to rough it,” Gram said, pouring herself a generous glass of chardonnay. The act was a clear signal that the logistics were complete. “Every room is taken. All the marrieds are paired up, so I’m pairing off you single boys together. I tried every which way and this is the only way. The pool house is perfectly good. Trevor, your father used to have sleepovers there when he was young, so it’ll be just like old times.”
“Except I’m forty-five,” Dad sighed.
But Gram was done. The plan was the plan.
2.
As usual, the big Hurly meal crescendoed into fifteen simultaneous conversations and overlapping roars of laughter. Afterwards, Grandpa, beaming with pride, insisted on showing off his new hobby: slideshows of family photos he’d painstakingly crafted on his Mac, now broadcast on the family room’s flatscreen TV. In his day, he explained, you’d have to pay someone to do this, but now, anyone could.
His inaugural creation was a sprawling montage of his and Grandma’s cross-country trip, set to the buoyant tune of “Roam” by the B-52s. This was swiftly followed by a tender slideshow of my sister, the first grandchild and bride-to-be, growing up, soundtracked by Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl.” Then came a boisterous collection featuring the first generation of kids—my dad and his sisters—captured as rowdy children and rebellious teens, with Madness’s “Our House” blaring.
I knew every song by name and artist. Dad was an 80s and 90s music evangelist, and I’d grown up listening to everything from The English Beat to Talking Heads to Elvis Costello. It didn’t boost my social cred among my peers, it was infinitely preferable to the saccharine refrains of purple dinosaurs.
Like everyone else, I was only half paying attention to Grandpa’s cinematic endeavors, but then one photo snagged my gaze, pulling my attention completely. “Who’s that?” I blurted out, without thinking.
The photo showed two young guys, maybe twenty years old. One was a handsome redhead with a friendly smile. The other was a super hot guy, his long hair framing a face with a rugged biker mustache that curled down to a strong jaw. He wore a sleeveless black t-shirt that stretched taut across powerful shoulders and biceps, and tight black jeans that hinted at an impressive bulge. He looked, simply, like a stud.
“Who’s who, dear?” Gram asked, peering over her reading glasses.
“The guy,” I said, pointing at the screen. “In black. Who is that?”
Gram Hurly let out a delighted squeal, shaking so much with laughter that she had to set her wine glass down with a clink. “Trevor, honey, that’s your father!”
Everyone in the room erupted with laughter, everyone except for me and Dad.
My first thought was that he must be a cousin; he had the Hurly blunt nose and thick hair. But looking closer, the features sharpened, aligning with his present-day self—just softened, expanded. He even still had a mustache, but no longer the sexy biker kind, merely a regular, neatly trimmed middle-aged dad mustache now.
Seeing the confusion on my face, Aunt Peggy chimed in. “Everyone gains a little weight as they get older.”
“Hey, I’ve been working out!” Dad mumbled, his cheeks flushing slightly with a mix of embarrassment and defensiveness.
Come to think of it, he did look different. A little more filled out in his shirts, standing taller. I hadn’t really noticed before, but now, a flicker of something new registered. How long had that been going on?
“Your dad was wild then,” Gram declared, already refilling her glass. “That summer, he and his best friend Rudy went motorcycling in Mexico. Some days, I truly didn’t know if I’d ever see them again.”
“And he was in that god-awful band,” Grandpa chimed in, shaking his head.
“Is that a joint?” my sister blurted, her voice incredulous. “Dad, were you a POTHEAD?!”
“I may have enjoyed a substance or two,” Dad answered, a wry chuckle escaping him.
“Or five!” Aunt Peggy, his sister, added, nudging him playfully.
“What happened?” my sister pressed, oblivious to the unspoken insinuation that he was so different now.
“You happened,” my mom said, her tone dry as she reached out to pat my sister’s head. “Your arrival was not exactly a plan.”
“Your dad came back when he got the word you were coming,” Grandpa affirmed, a note of paternal pride in his voice. “He did the right thing. Got a job and settled down.”
Dad met my sister’s gaze and gave a small nod.
This was all a revelation to me. And I suddenly wanted to see more of the young, stud-Dad. “Great slideshows, Grandpa,” I said, my voice perhaps a little too eager. “Show us some more.”
My sister and cousins glared at me, a silent, unified protest.
3.
I had always thought of my dad as, simply, just a dad.
I didn’t know if he would have finished college, or continued being a stoner, or pursued something entirely different if my mother hadn’t gotten pregnant with my sister. But by the time I was born, he was already a married father working at a car dealership—the most potent personality killer I could imagine. It seemed to involve nothing but fake smiles and forced small talk with customers, and then, in private, obsessing over sales quotas. I couldn’t recall a single real hobby he had. And I’d often considered the years of boredom I’d spent in his nondescript apartment on custody weekends.
But that photo of Dad, looking like a young stud, forced me to see him with new eyes. I’d never truly paid attention before, but now I could see for the first time that he was actually really good-looking. I noticed his fluffy Irish brown and gold hair, his charming smile, and that strong, manly jawline. He had filled out a lot, acquiring a belly, but it seemed to work, I suppose, proportionate to a big chest and shoulders that gave him a solid presence.
And now that I was looking, I could see the underlying muscle, the squared-off shape of his biceps beneath his polo shirt, the curve of his forearms, the quiet strength that showed off recent work in a gym. It wasn’t the lean look of his youth, but something richer, denser.
My own dad was a handsome man, and somehow, incredibly, I’d never noticed until now.
Going through Grandpa’s boxes of old photos felt like tracing Dad’s entire life story. Even after my sister was born, he remained a hot guy. In fact, being a young “dad-bro” might have made him even more appealing. But with each passing year, he seemed to get a little thicker, a little more conventional. His haircuts became more conservative, his mustache meticulously trimmed to look more like a suburban father than a biker. Photos of him with my sister, and later with me, at the beach showed him with a strong, hairy body—golden brown hair covering actual pecs and running down a belly that had grown over the years, though it used to be flat as a board.
But recent photos, especially from the last year or two, showed a new definition around his chest and the solid slope of his back. He was still ‘Dad,’ but a Dad who had clearly been putting in work to reclaim some of that old, muscular power.”
It was as if I’d been blind my whole life.
Hungry for more clues, I asked my grandmother if she still had my dad’s high school yearbooks, and to my surprise, she did. They were still untouched on a dusty bookshelf in his old bedroom on the ground floor, likely undisturbed for decades. I poured through them, finding it bizarre to see him at my very age. Well, almost—he was seventeen when that yearbook photo was taken, a year younger than I was now, thanks to that extra year in middle school they’d recommended for my size. He was so much more boyish then, yet he still seemed so much more of a man than I did at almost the same age. Still, he carried a little bit of a wild glint in his eyes, and I could easily imagine him embarking on some crazy motorcycle trip to Mexico.
“Tracy,” I said to my sister, holding up an old photo. “Is Dad, like, fat? I can’t tell.”
“I don’t know,” she replied, barely glancing up from her phone. “He’s, like, built-fat. Who cares?”
“But look at how cute he was in high school,” I insisted, pushing the yearbook into her view.
“Cute?” she asked, finally rolling her eyes. “You’re so weird.”
And she was right. She just didn’t know how weird I really was.
4.
Later that night, in the pool house, Dad and I tried to settle in. It wasn’t much more than a converted shed, a bedroom with a small bathroom and shower, serving both as an overflow guest room and a changing room for pool users.
“Gram says you had a lot of sleepovers here,” I offered, trying to break the quiet hum of unspoken awkwardness.
He told me Grandpa had transformed the pool house from a mere shack into an extra guest room when he was about twelve. Dad and his friends had definitely made good use of it, a private boy-space away from his army of sisters.
“I didn’t bring pajamas,” he said, looking at me. “Didn’t plan on sharing a bed.”
“I don’t care,” I replied, pulling off my t-shirt and stripping down to my boxers. “I didn’t either.”
He pulled his polo shirt over his head, revealing the broad, solid expanse of his back, the powerful slope of his shoulders, then let his cargo shorts drop. He hung them on hooks by the door. I studied the white briefs pulled tight over his ass, the thick, hairy legs, muscles defined under the hair, particularly in his calves and thighs. My sister’s casual observation echoed in my head: “built-fat.”
Sliding into bed, I felt an unfamiliar sense of being more boyish than usual compared to Dad’s substantial proportions. I could feel his warmth radiating at my side, a steady presence, like he was a sun and I was just a planet in his orbit.
“Look how my feet only come down just past your knees,” I said, pushing my toes against him to emphasize the difference in our heights.
“You take after your mom that way,” he said, a soft chuckle in his voice. “You always did.”
“Do you remember when I tried to play football?” I asked, a memory that often prompted shared laughter.
“You were so little,” he answered, lying back and gazing up at the skylight. “The littlest kid in your class.”
“And there were all those big Samoan kids on the other team. They were like twice my size.”
“Oh, they weren’t that big,” he scoffed.
“Dad. They had mustaches. I thought I was going to die, for real.”
This sparked deep, rumbling belly laughs from both of us, filling the small room.
“We couldn’t make you keep doing it,” he conceded. “We let you try wrestling because we thought you’d be in your own weight class. And you were older, eighteen. But you quit that too.”
“Yeah,” I added, thinking of just that spring, “too many wrestler boners,” I said, grinning, the laughter bubbling up anew.
Dad reached out, briefly kissing me on top of the head before mumbling goodnight. Then, everything went still, except for the whirring inside my own head.
5.
After Gram kissed us goodbye, I climbed onto the back of Dad’s motorcycle and wrapped my arms tightly around him. I was glad he’d found his old sleeveless T-shirt, the one from his first trip to Mexico.
I was surprised by how solid and defined his arms felt under my hands, not just big, but strong. He drove fast which was probably good, because Mexico felt very far away, and I didn’t know exactly how we were going to get there. But he knew the way, so that was good.
Mostly, I was just so happy to be on an adventure together, just the two of us. I loved how my hands could slip under his sleeveless shirt to feel his furry belly and chest. He must have liked it too, because he turned his head slightly and gave me a wink, looking so handsome with his biker mustache and long hair.
By then, I had a real boner, and I was completely lost in the sensation of feeling under his shirt, pressing against his firm, muscular back and even cupping his chest in my hands.
I couldn’t help but grind up against his butt. At first, I thought I could do it so he wouldn’t notice, but it was like an itch I couldn’t stop scratching. The more I did it, the more it itched, and soon, I felt like I needed to pee. I told myself I could hold it all the way to Mexico, but then it got really bad, as I rubbed my dick up and down against the crack of his ass, and then I started to pee even though I was trying to hold it, and…
I snapped awake, my hips still grinding against Dad’s. A wet dream load was oozing out of me, soaking through my boxers and into the white cotton briefs pulled tight on my dad’s ass.
“Ohmygod! Ohmygod!” I gasped, a strangled sound of pure panic.
“Trev, what is it?” Dad asked, lurching abruptly to wakefulness. Panicked, I tried to subtly pat down the bed sheets over the wet spot under him. For a split second, I considered saying nothing, desperately hoping he wouldn’t notice, but he was already reaching his hand under his butt.
“Did you pee the bed?” he asked, his voice still thick with sleep. Then he lifted his hand to his face to smell. “What the fuck? Trev, did you CUM on me?”
“IT WAS A DREAM!” I yelped, my voice cracking, begging in my head for it all to just go away. “Dad, I don’t ever even do that! Not in my sleep!”
He absorbed everything I said, working to make sense of it through the fog of sleep. Then, he started to laugh. A little at first. Then a lot.
“Jesus,” he finally managed, shaking his head. “Did you have a wet dream?”
I nodded, burying my face in my hands, wishing the earth would swallow me whole.
“Oh, to be eighteen again,” he said, the laughter still rumbling in his chest. It was so infectious, it drew me like gravity to join in, a choked, embarrassed chuckle escaping me.
He pulled his underwear off to dab at any damp spots on the bed. I followed suit, pulling off my boxers, but my gaze was fixed on the sight of Dad’s exposed dick, nestled in his dark brown bush. He tossed his briefs in a corner of the room, and I tossed my boxers on top of his.
“Don’t worry,” he said, lying back in bed and pulling the sheets up, covering the treasure trove of dick and balls and pubes. “I’ll wash the sheets tomorrow.”
“Are we going to sleep naked?” I asked, absolutely unsure of family protocol for the unprecedented event of cumming on my dad.
“I’m not wasting another pair of underwear just to sleep in,” he said with a sigh. “I only brought enough for the week.”
“Dad, I’m so embarrassed,” I whispered, shame burning my cheeks.
“Well, pal, I hate to break it to you,” he said, his voice softer now, “but you’re not the first teenage boy to have a wet dream at a sleepover in the pool house. Just go to sleep.”
I lay on my back, next to him, both of us naked as could be. Despite the lingering embarrassment, I couldn’t shake the longing to wrap myself around him, to rest my head on his furry chest and doze off to the steady beat of his luscious heart.
6.
The next day, I continued my quiet inquiry into Dad’s youth. Having so many Hurlys around made it easy to casually drop a question here, another there, slowly assembling the puzzle pieces in my head.
He was good enough to be a high school football star, but not quite good enough to go pro. Bad boy enough to party with the druggie kids, but not bad enough to get into real trouble himself. Rocker enough to jam with his buds, but not enough to form a real band. Handsome enough to have his pick of girls, but not player enough to have more than just a few.
The one missing piece was the mysterious summer after his sophomore year of college. That was the famous motorcycle trip to Mexico with his best friend, Rudy, famously interrupted by the news that Mom was pregnant with my sister. All I knew was that call marked the abrupt end of Stud-Dad and the beginning of Dad-Dad.
I wondered where all that hotness and lusty appetite goes when your life changes so fundamentally? It didn’t seem like it could just die. Maybe it was more like it shrank, like a forgotten muscle. Or perhaps it was simply asleep, waiting to be awakened with some attention.
That night in the pool house, after yet another massive Hurly meal and far too much to drink, Dad stripped down and got into bed. This time, he didn’t even bother with underwear, which, I suppose, made a certain kind of sense since we’d managed well enough without it the night before.
“No wet dreams on me tonight, Trev,” he murmured, pulling the sheets up.
“Quit it, Dad,” I said, feeling my cheeks warm. “I’m embarrassed enough already.”
“I’m sorry,” he laughed softly, genuinely. “I was your age once. I get it.”
“I almost never do that anyway,” I said, defensively. “Wet dreams, I mean. The other kind I do all the time.”
“Well, just take care of yourself in the bathroom if you need to,” he told me, casually making a jerking-off motion with his hand.
I mumbled goodnight, declining the suggestion.
But of course, my dick was already hard, and sleep felt a million miles away. As I tossed and turned, my mind replayed the glimpses of Dad I’d gotten, and how his solid, warm belly and the inviting curve of his furry butt, packed with newly defined muscle beneath the softness, were right there next to me.
I knew I should have gone to the bathroom, but instead, I worked up as much spit as I could in my hand and reached down to my dick, right there in bed, with Dad sleeping barely a foot away.
You never realize how loud it is to jerk off until you desperately need to do it silently. The rhythmic smacking of my dick against my hand seemed ridiculously loud. And it went on longer than I expected because I always use lotion, and spit just wasn’t cutting it. But I couldn’t stop then.
I froze, shocked when Dad suddenly swung an arm and a leg to wrap around me. I braced myself, certain I’d been caught in the act. But he seemed to be still out cold, so I cautiously let myself settle back, my back against his furry chest and belly, his fat erection tucked snugly under my ass. Then he snuggled up tight, sliding one arm between me and the mattress, the other under my exposed arm, wrapping them securely around my chest. I could feel the hard plane of his chest against my back, the sturdy muscle of his arm around me.
Very slowly, I started jerking my dick again, trying not to wake him, wishing desperately for some lotion. But the way his face nuzzled up against my shoulder, the scratchy feel of his mustache and whiskers, was such an incredible turn-on. Then I felt his erection slide into the precise spot between my butt and thighs. It felt so big and stiff, I couldn’t help but gasp softly.
I kept working my dick, faster and more urgently. Then I felt his rough fingertips brush my nipples as he held me, and I could have sworn he kissed my shoulder. Even with just spit for lube, I shot my load, a hard splatter against the bed sheets. Dad pulled me against him even tighter, steadying my quaking body, and I knew then, with absolute certainty, that he was awake, or at least awake enough.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, shame and exhilaration warring within me. I reached back around to try and get a hold of his erection, but he caught my hand with his, gently pulling it away from his cock.
“Shhhh,” he whispered back, hugging me tight. “Just guy stuff. Go to sleep.”
I felt Dad’s face against my back, his mustache scratching lightly. As I drifted off, he planted a warm, lingering kiss goodnight on my shoulder blade.
I dreamed a vine was growing out of the place he kissed. It started tiny, a delicate sprout, but it kept growing, twisting and spreading until it was all over Gram’s backyard, transformed into a beautiful, sprawling vineyard. And there was a wedding, but I couldn’t quite see who was getting married, even though, in the dream, I somehow was the vine. And I was glad to be there, feeling a profound happiness, and I knew everyone would be so happy at the wedding.
7.
Day three was a designated swim day in my grandparents’ pool, a splashy counterpoint to the previous night’s intense quiet.
Naturally, my eyes gravitated toward Dad. His nipples were quarter-sized and a deep brick color, and his chest and belly hair, a warm brown, looked surprisingly soft even from a distance. I liked how he had a nice, rounded belly that tucked neatly back in right over his swim trunks, giving way to surprisingly firm abs beneath. His Irish cheeks went rosy pink in the sun, his eyes were the color of honey, and again, I wondered how I’d gone my whole life without truly seeing any of this until now.
“Mom,” I asked, trying to sound casual, “is it normal to not realize you like something, and then suddenly be crazy about it?”
She lay stretched out on a lounge chair, perfectly still, tanning. Her black sunglasses, large as hubcaps, covered half her face.
“I don’t know what’s normal. I guess so. When you were little, you insisted you didn’t like anything but cheese pizza, and then one day you tried something more interesting and loved it. Thank God.”
“I guess. I did that with old Star Trek too. Remember?”
“Oh, honey, I don’t keep track of your shows.” I couldn’t tell if she was even looking at me from behind her dark, reflective lenses.
I glanced back at Dad, underwater up to his chest, resting his elbows on the cool edge of the pool. He was squinting slightly in the sunlight, the light dancing around him on the water like flashing diamonds.
“Mom,” I pressed, lowering my voice, “but did you ever do that? Like something all of a sudden after barely noticing it before? Or, like, someone?”
“Hmm, sounds intriguing,” she said, her lips pursing slightly. She had a keen sense for gossip, always hungry for a quiet, side discussion after too much time with the boisterous Hurlys. “What’s the story, morning glory?”
She went quiet, a little disappointed when I didn’t immediately bite. But after a moment, she lowered her voice conspiratorially. “You could say Ezra was like that. After your dad and I divorced, I was NOT looking to fall in love again. And I had worked with Ezra for years, never thinking of him in any romantic way. Good lord, I would have laughed in your face if you’d told me at one point I’d be married to him.”
“Didn’t you think he was hot?”
“Not hot like you probably think of it. Not in an obvious way.”
“Well, what way?” I asked, leaning in closer.
“You’re going to laugh,” she warned. “One morning he brought me an Egg McMuffin. The thing is, after your dad and I split up, I had some truly bad days, and my little treat to myself, the one comfort that would get me through, was an Egg McMuffin. And on this particular day, I was feeling, oh, so blue. I guess he saw that I was a little weepy. So he went out and came back with two Egg McMuffins. He put one on my desk and simply said, ‘Maybe you’d like one.’ And my heart just opened to him.”
“So he seduced you with McDonald’s? You totally hate junk food.”
“Mock if you must, little man,” she said, but her smile was soft. “I do love an Egg McMuffin. But what mattered was that Ezra had observed this one little thing about me that no one else in the whole wide world even noticed. I felt like he could see me for who I was and cared about me anyway. You’ll see someday, but that matters. I just fell for him, a little retroactively, you could say.”
The intimate spell of our shared secret broke then, and she said, “Well, now I’m embarrassed.” As if a hidden volume dial had slowly been turned back up, I could suddenly hear and see the Hurlys chattering and laughing all around us.
Mom turned to me, lowering her sunglasses to make direct eye contact. In her most conspiratorial tone, she asked, “Trevor, do you have a crush on someone? Who is she?”
I thought of all the ways I could answer, all the truths I could never say out loud. Finally, I managed a simple, “Someone unexpected.”
I don’t know why I hadn’t come out to her before. I was pretty sure she wouldn’t care. But she knew everyone’s secrets so well; I couldn’t understand how the one she missed was mine, right there under her nose.
8.
In bed, I curled up behind Dad, who was already on his side. “Can I be the big spoon?” I asked, my voice a little tentative.
“Sure,” he mumbled sleepily, and raised an arm so I could wrap one under it, around his chest, pulling him into a hug. Then he let his arm rest over mine, holding me. My dick found a hot, surprisingly comfortable crevice right under his butt. I tried desperately not to get a boner, but it was useless; it stiffened almost immediately.
“Dad,” I began, shifting slightly, “remember when I was a kid and we’d go for long drives and listen to old music and talk?”
“Yup,” he murmured, his voice soft.
“And I would talk the whole time and tell you everything, and I guess it was because we were both looking forward, not at each other?”
“That was kind of the point,” he said, a note of understanding in his tone.
“I’m going to talk now and you need to stay facing forward. Don’t look at me or I won’t be able to finish.”
He didn’t hesitate. “Okay.”
“When I said I quit wrestling because of too many wrestler boners, I really meant I had too many,” I whispered, the words tumbling out. “Because I liked wrestling with boys. A lot. I liked being with them, and I wanted to do things with them—like sex things. And I still want to, with other guys, I mean. And I do sex things by myself. Not with anyone else yet. But things that would shock you. And I look at porn and stuff. A lot.”
He still said nothing. But instead of pulling away, he pulled my arms even tighter around him, holding me close.
Curled up against his broad, warm back, my dick snug between his ass and thighs, I didn’t even mind having an erection. And he didn’t say anything about it either. I clung to him, whispering all my secrets against his skin, a torrent of unspoken thoughts finally given voice. I continued until I fell asleep, with one last confession still unspoken, buried deep beneath my breath.
9.
The next day was the worst. It was the day after I had told him almost everything. Dad was unusually distant, constantly asking his own disorganized parents what else needed to be done for the big dinner that night. He busied himself carrying chairs, moving tables, his muscles flexing under his shirt, and I couldn’t help but notice the dampness of his armpits as he worked up a sweat.
I desperately tried to convince myself it was all about the wedding preparations, not about what I’d confessed to him.
And then, my sister’s new in-laws arrived. At dinner, Frank and Evie, the bride’s parents, valiantly attempted to grasp our sprawling family structure.
“So, you’re the car salesman,” Frank said, addressing Dad. But then he pivoted to Mom. “But your dad owns the dealership where he works. And you’re divorced. Do I have that right?”
Everyone at the table burst into laughter. “Yeah,” Dad confirmed with a wry smile, “that’s pretty much it.”
“We need an org chart,” Mom declared, shaking her head. “It’s all a little incestuous.”
Oh, Mom, I thought, nearly choking on my iced tea. Phrasing, please.
Later, Dad made a toast, and everyone cheered, raising their glasses. He looked a little self-conscious being the center of attention, even for just a few minutes. To everyone else there, I figured he was just another middle-aged dad. But I knew how it felt to press up against his back and shoulders. And I knew that under that manly belly was a big cock, and I wanted to see it, to touch it. I could feel the residual heat and solid strength of him in my memory. I could visualize it in my mind’s eye even then.
After the meal and the endless chatter, Mom caught my eye and subtly motioned me over. “Go keep an eye on your Gram,” she whispered. “The last thing we need is for her to be hung over tomorrow.”
I found Gram in her kitchen, humming to herself, topping off her glass with a bottle pulled directly from the refrigerator.
“Isn’t this FUN?!” she chirped, her eyes sparkling. She sat perched on a kitchen barstool, her feet doing a little dance in place, her joy visibly increasing with the sounds of Hurly chaos just outside. She was thrilled to have all her people back home.
“It is, Gram,” I agreed.
She leaned in close, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “Did your mother send you to monitor me?”
I shrugged, a small smile playing on my lips. “Maybe a little.”
Gram laughed out loud, a rich, full sound. “Well, then you have to help me.” She held out her wine glass to me. I took it and had a sip. It tasted more acidic than I expected, but also surprisingly sweet. I took another, longer sip.
“Trevor,” she said, her gaze steady, “you’re the next oldest grandchild. So you’ll probably get married next. I’m already excited about it.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” I said, and my heart panged with an unexpected ache for my dad.
“I know, not yet,” she conceded. “College first. But…” she paused, then gently placed her hand on mine, her voice dropping to that conspiratorial whisper again. “Since it’s legal now. For you to get married.”
“Gram?” I asked, my breath catching.
“I know I’m daft and silly,” she said, her eyes twinkling, “but I see things. When I was your age, I had a special friend. He was so sweet. Just the most precious thing. And then your father’s friend Rudy, he was a special boy too. He liked to come over for a soda even when your father wasn’t home, so we could gab. And then you. So darling. I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for my special boys. You know what I mean.”
She kissed my cheek hard, a warm, lingering press, and my eyes stung with unexpected tears.
10.
Dad settled in on his back in bed, but this time, he deliberately placed his pillow between us.
“Need a little distance?” I asked, a hint of mock offense in my tone, though it wasn’t entirely in jest.
“It’s just hot tonight, that’s all,” he mumbled.
“I like snuggling,” I said, my voice soft.
“Yeah, Trev, I’m aware you like snuggling,” he replied, a dry note in his voice.
“I’m sorry I grossed you out,” I whispered, feeling foolish.
“You didn’t gross me out,” he said, turning his head slightly towards me. “Trev, you never gross me out.” He paused, then sighed. “You’re just making this a little hard for me.”
“How?”
“Well, for one thing—Jesus—I haven’t had, you know—sex—for a long time. And I’m sharing a bed with a teenager with a non-stop boner, and it’s not like I don’t have one too, and I can’t, you know, with my kid right there, and it’s just, Jesus, Trevor, y’know?” His voice trailed off, a mix of frustration and resignation.
“How long is a long time?” I pressed, and despite the pillow, I pulled myself closer, drawn by his unexpected honesty.
“A long time. Except for a couple of, uh, things, I guess, since your mom and I divorced, basically.” He thought for a moment. “Well, and even before the divorce, not for a while.”
“Dad, that’s years! That’s literally years. You could have had a—a girlfriend or something.”
He stared up at the skylight, a deep sigh escaping him. “At first, I thought your mom and I would get back together. So I wasn’t going to be with someone else while I waited for that to happen. I just worked a lot, killed time at the gym, watched TV. I had dinner with your Gram and Grandpa every week. Had you guys on weekends.”
I slowly slid the pillow between us away, and he let me, not resisting as I nudged closer.
“And then, when I finally knew we weren’t getting back together, I really didn’t know what to do about it,” he continued. “Because I’d have to figure out how to start all over again. But I wasn’t a kid. I had kids. And responsibilities.”
“You could date, Dad. You’re still really good-looking. Like, really good-looking. And fit. You could get a girlfriend, no problem. You’re a—a DILF.”
He paused, a wrinkle forming between his brows. “A… what did you call me?”
“Never mind,” I mumbled quickly. “Go on.”
“I don’t even know how to date,” he chuckled, a genuine, if rusty, sound. “I only did a little before I married your mom. And it’s not like high school where everyone knows each other already. You have to go meet people, and how to dress and what to talk about.
“Anyway, it’s not like I had a plan for everything,” he went on. “It just happened.”
“Well, is this the life you wanted?” I asked, feeling like it was a hundred different questions wrapped up in one.
“I don’t know what I wanted,” he admitted, his voice quiet. “I was just a kid in high school, and then one thing happened, and then another, and they all just piled up.”
The night seemed to hold its breath. I had no adequate response, so I propped myself up on my elbow. Dad turned to face me. I leaned in and kissed him on the mouth, soft at first, then again, our tongues brushing against each other, tentative and electric.
“I don’t want to gross you out,” I whispered, pulling back slightly, “But I really like being here in bed with you. And if you have a boner, instead of pretending you don’t, maybe we could just jerk off together? Like, just a couple of guys doing guy stuff?”
He looked deep into my eyes, and I tried to convey with my own gaze: I really, really want to.
“Dad,” I pushed, a small smile teasing my lips, “are you going to tell me that’s never happened in the pool house before? With all the sleepovers?”
He had to laugh, a genuine burst this time. “Once, Trevor. Just this one time.”
I dropped back onto my pillow, fighting the urge to shout “YES!” to the silent night.
We both reached under the sheets to stroke our dicks. Gradually, I kicked the sheets off my legs, pulling them from him too, both of our hard-ons now exposed to the cool night air.
“You have kind of a big dick,” I observed, my voice a low murmur. I guessed it was at least seven inches, thick and, somehow, just kind of juicy-looking.
He ignored me for a minute, focused on his own hand. Then he glanced down at both our erections, held in our hands. “You look like you’re doing just fine. They’re like the same.”
I couldn’t even believe we were lying there, complimenting each other’s dicks. And I was so incredibly turned on by being next to Dad, with his broad, furry chest and the solid feel of his manly belly and sculpted thighs against me. I loved watching how his hand pumped the shaft of his dick in long, smooth strokes, swirling the head, smearing precum as he went.
I couldn’t stand being so close and not even touching it. His eyes were closed, lost in the rhythm, so I drew up even closer, reached down, and slid my hand in next to his on his cock. He didn’t look at me, but he sighed, a deep, shuddering breath, and very slowly let go, allowing me to take over, to work it for him.
I kept stroking him, trying to mimic the way he did it, listening to his breathing for cues. And he let me do it, grinding his hips up to let his erection slide in and out of my grip. As he started pumping, I worked my hand faster, pulling my hand back to spit in it and stroke him some more. That big dick definitely needed a lot of spit.
On one of my pauses to get more saliva on my palm, he took his cock back in his own hand and started pumping even faster, in shorter, urgent strokes, thrusting his hips upward too. His cheeks were flushed, his skin dewy all over, and he was really fucking his own hand hard. His bicep tensed, his forearm corded with muscle as he worked. I’d never seen him like this before, like he wasn’t even Dad at all anymore, just a big-cocked stud
“Oh, fuck,” he huffed, a primal sound. He groaned out loud, and his cock spewed a jet stream of cum. First just one short white streak, then a huge stream that landed on his belly and my arm, then smaller arcs, again and again. It was more cum than I’d ever shot myself, and I was mesmerized as he pumped it all out, exhaling hot, ragged breaths from his nostrils.
As soon as Dad started cooling down, I nudged myself into the crook between his chest and arm and started jerking myself fast. I was doing everything I could, as fast as I could, but I just couldn’t get myself to cum, not even cozied up right against my dad, not even after seeing him do it.
“Fuck,” I gasped, yanking furiously. After wet-dreaming on Dad’s ass and jerking off in his arms, the one time I was actually supposed to blow a load, and I couldn’t. “I usually use lotion or something.”
Dad gave it a minute, then reached down to his belly to scoop up some of his cum.
“Want some help?” he asked, his voice low and steady. I let go of my dick.
He wrapped his hand around mine, lubing it with his own cum so he could stroke my shaft in smooth, slick glides and run his palm over the sensitive head.
“Oh, fuck,” I gasped, quivering as he triggered spasms of pleasure that shot through my whole body.
I could see him smiling faintly, his eyes still closed, as my dick went even stiffer in his grip. “There you go,” he murmured. “It’s not a race.”
Even more than the precise motion on my dick, it was the idea that it was covered with Dad’s cum, the cum he was sharing with me, that finally got me off. I just suddenly started shooting. My whole body tensed, and I felt like I couldn’t even see, but I could feel Dad’s measured strokes pumping it out of me until the load ran out onto his fist. Then he ran a thumb up the underside of my dick, squeezing out the last of it. “Good boy, Trev. Good boy,” he said, his voice deep and comforting.
He pressed his lips to mine, a soft, deliberate kiss, and our tongues darted into each other’s mouths, heated air from our lungs exchanging between us.
After wiping off with a discarded towel from the pool house bathroom, we snuggled up together, a feeling of shared euphoria settling between us in the quiet.
“That was great, Dad,” I murmured. “First time you ever used that as lube in the pool house?”
He snorted a soft laugh against my hair. “It’s a guy thing.”
“I love you, Dad.”
“I love you, Trev,” he answered, and I could hear the comfortable sleepiness already creeping into his voice.
I stayed awake as long as I could, savoring the moment, watching the distant stars overhead through the skylight. And then I dreamt.
11.
The wedding day unfolded with the expected chaos, a true Hurly-Burly. The entire ceremony and reception took place in Gram’s sprawling yard, draped in gauzy white fabric and strung with lanterns, just the way she’d envisioned.
Dad, looking handsome and proud in his suit—his dark hair neatly combed, his jawline strong, and his honey-colored eyes crinkling at the corners as he smiled. The fabric of his jacket stretched taut across his broad shoulders as moved through the crowd with an air of contentedness. I wore a crisp white shirt and a black and gold vest Mom had bought for the occasion. I hoped Dad would notice; I really wanted to look good for him.
Even though it consumed my thoughts, there was nothing I could possibly say about the night before. I just knew I wanted to do it again, and I wanted something more than that too. But it wasn’t the right time or place, and honestly, there was no language made for that purpose.
My sister and her husband exchanged vows, their voices clear and strong. As the priest led them through the traditional questions, asking if they took each other and so on, I repeated the words in near-silent whispers, my gaze fixed only on Dad. I do, I do.
Later, when it was time for formal family photos, we gathered in various, dizzying configurations that must have tested the photographer’s patience. When it was finally time for just the immediate family, Mom reapplied her bright red lipstick, then turned to me. “Grill check!” she declared.
That was our familiar cue before being photographed: we’d bare our teeth at each other in exaggerated grins, inspecting for errant bits of food or, in Mom’s case, lipstick smears.
I told her she was perfect. And she was.
My sister and her new husband shared their first dance, swaying awkwardly at first, then more naturally. Soon, others joined them on the makeshift dance floor. Gram, with surprising vigor, dragged Grandpa out to dance. Mom and Ezra moved gracefully together. All the aunts and their husbands, even the new in-laws, joined in. The little cousins danced in wild bunches, jumping and spinning, while the old people moved slowly, deliberately in their pairs. Everyone danced, it seemed, except for me and Dad.
The wedding band, surprisingly good, played the 80s music my sister and I had grown up hearing, all thanks to Dad. “Every Little Thing She Does is Magic,” “Hold Me Now,” and “Tenderness” drifted through the air. I could see Dad standing off to the side, gazing at the dancers, a little wistful, a quiet longing in his eyes that no one seemed to notice but me.
I made my way through the mingling guests to the manager of the wedding band, and whispered in his ear. I watched and waited for him to tap the arm of the tuxedoed wedding singer and whisper to him in turn. Only then, once the message was clearly received, did I dash back.
I had just reached the spot where Dad was still sitting when the wedding singer took the mic, cleared his throat, and announced, “We have a special request for another classic. So let’s give it a try.” He nodded to the band.
“Sir,” I said, my heart thrumming against my ribs. I made an exaggerated courtly bow, extending a hand to Dad. “May I have the honor of this dance?”
The wedding singer, a touch off-key but earnest, began to croon the familiar opening notes: “Don’t tell me you don’t know what love is, When you’re old enough to know better…”
“My favorite,” Dad said, his face lighting up, a genuine, unrestrained smile that filled my heart to bursting.
“Duh,” I replied, a little breathless. Of course I knew that.
He stood up, and we clumsily joined hands as the singer continued: “Chapter One: We didn’t really get along, Chapter Two: I think I fell in love with you.”
I knew the lyrics even better than the wedding singer, but he managed, as Dad and I found our bearings on the dance floor. “You said you’d stand by me in the middle of Chapter Three, But you were up to your old tricks in Chapters Four, Five and Six.”
We moved into the thick of the dancing couples, and I could feel them instinctively make space for us, as if it was our wedding. We were surrounded by everyone I loved, and they could see me and my date, whether they knew what that truly meant or not.
“I’m giving you a longing look, Everyday, Everyday, Everyday I write the book.”
Everyone laughed as Dad spun me, and I landed back against his chest. He pulled me into a tight bear hug, and I stayed there, slowly rocking side to side as his song played on. In the soft, hazy glow of the wedding lanterns, I pressed my face to his chest, hoping, with every beat of his heart, to hear the silent answer to the vow I’d whispered earlier: I do, I do.
END