Chapter 1
“Shit! The condom came off.”
Cassidy had the vaguest sensation that this was something he should care about, but with his eyes rolled back in his head and Jax’s gorgeous dick up his ass, fuck if he could put his finger on why. All he knew for sure was that Jax had stopped thrusting, and his butt wasn’t liking that one bit. He’d gone his whole life without Jax inside him, and had spent the last three weeks very mindfully trying to remedy that condition. If the kid thought he was gonna halfway fuck Cassidy for the first time, and then pull out because his dick was too big to keep rubbered, he’d obviously lost his damn mind along with the shitty piece of latex. Cassidy took hold of Jax by his bony hips and guided him back in so there would be no misunderstanding.
“Who cares?” he said. “What, am I gonna get pregnant? Just come in me.”
* * * *
Cassidy Uematsu was the first openly gay Republican of Japanese ancestry to be elected to the Colorado House of Representatives before age thirty-five. All these things were true about him, but until he’d read that description of himself in the free weekly newspaper that covered Denver clubs, trends, and politics, he wouldn’t have thought there was such a specific legislative niche waiting to be filled. He was also of Norwegian ancestry—he didn’t speak Norwegian, but his mom had lived in Oslo until she was a teenager, and growing up he’d understood well enough to know when he was in big trouble—but that hadn’t yet warranted a mention. Presumably, the young gay Norwegians had long since stormed the State house.
Whatever. Cassidy wasn’t afraid to play the diversity game. He knew he ‘looked Japanese’—if one could get past the blond hair and big Norwegian butt—and if he could use that to pull the TV cameras towards legislation he gave a shit about, he didn’t see the harm. When he was growing up, people had always gushed, “You could totally be a model!” He figured at least this way he was using his looks to shill for something more important than shampoo.
His mountain district was less than two hours from downtown Denver, and he tried to be conscientious, if not about being seen around town, then at least about seeming accessible. His storefront office was right on Grand Avenue, next to the mini golf course, and his cousin-slash-campaign manager Kirk answered the phone and drank beer in the office during the five out of every six weeks that Cassidy “couldn’t get away” from Denver. But really, an excuse to get the hell out of town and plunk down on a cute condo in Capitol Hill had been the main draw of running for Rep. He worked hard to further the interests of his conservative district, even if it was mainly so the people in it would re-elect him and keep giving him a convenient reason not to move back. His brother Wade’s construction company had a reputation for honesty and value, and his mom was the best big-animal vet for three counties. The Uematsu ‘brand’ in Grand County meant a person was gonna get what they paid for, and Cassidy settled into his second term with little anxiety about his third. Grand County would never elect a Democrat to an office higher than crossing guard, and if he kept property taxes low, hotel taxes high, and his sex life to himself, he was set for life, and he knew it.
Republican was more an expedient political label than any kind of hard-won identity he clung to. He had a conservative voting record because he was from a conservative county and he believed in the notion of representative government, but he did his best to steer clear of culture warrior politics. While not a creative type himself, Cassidy fully embraced the artsy, bohemian vibe of his adopted neighborhood. So named because his job was plopped down right in the middle of it, Capitol Hill was crammed with bookstores, bars, and boys, boys, boys. There was no shortage of drug addicts, drunks, and doorway-dwellers either, but it was a safe enough neighborhood during the day and he could walk to work. He loved it.
He especially loved the café that sprawled across half the block almost dead-center between his condo and the Capitol. He had yet to discover a need that The Road Not Taken couldn’t somehow satisfy, especially now that he’d finally—fuckin’ finally—hooked up with Jax.
The Road, as everyone called it, had started life in a tiny storefront as the only vegan bakery in town. When the tailor next door went out of business, The Road knocked out a wall and added a coffee counter. When the bar next door to that folded two years later, they applied for a liquor license and knocked out another wall. When the hair salon on the corner pulled up stakes, The Road Not Taken sure enough took the last piece of real estate on the block, tripled the size of their kitchen, added a dining room and a patio, and the largest shrine in the west to all things hipster was complete.