Page 55 of Necessary Time

“I feel like you’re having a rough go of it today,” he teased as the elevator started its climb toward our floor.

“It’s just a lot.” I sounded like a whiner, and I hated that, but I felt like whining. “Things with Colin are good, but a lot. Henny is just too much sometimes. I’m starting to think that I need to clear the air with David somehow. Did you want more? Oh, and I need to get a job.”

“I can’t do much about those, but do you want help with the last one?”

“I don’t even know what I would want to do.” The doors slid open and we stepped into the hallway. “Maybe I can be a doorman.”

“You know that’s really random, right?”

“Just a weird idea that popped into my head.”

“It’s not weird.” Grayson unlocked the apartment and stepped inside, kicking off his shoes and herding them into the corner. “You’d be good at that.”

“Do you think? I don’t even really know what it takes.”

“Being nice to people. Making conversation. Do you want me to ask around for you?”

“I guess.”

“Only if you want to,” he said, tossing his keys onto the kitchen counter. “I’m not your brother; I’m your friend. I don’t want to overstep.”

“That actually reminds me. Are things okay with you and Miles?”

It wasn’t so much that I’d noticed a tension between them. I didn’t know what their friendship had been like before my brother got involved, but I’d heard the two of them had been best friends, but I knew they definitely didn’t act the way David and I had when we were best friends.

“Things with Miles are…fine. Complicated.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked.

“Not while your boyfriend is waiting for you.” Grayson gave me a tight smile.

“I can tell him I’ll be an hour. I have time and, like, I think of you as being a friend. This seems like a friend thing.” I pulled out my phone, ready to key out a message to Colin, but Grayson held up a hand to stop me.

“It’s really nothing, Wes. Miles and I used to date, and then we didn’t date. We were friends and we ended up going in different directions kind of. Parallel, but not overlapping.”

“Is this about things with him and my brother?”

“Not at all. It’s very much just about me and Miles. Or worse, me and myself.”

“Let me text Colin,” I offered again.

“I’d rather you didn’t.” Grayson cleared his throat and stared at me earnestly. “And besides, I need you to go so I can have some friends over.”

“You can have friends over when I’m here.”

“Shibari friends,” he said.

“Oh, are you worried about me hearing all that loud sex laughter? Since I’m so young and impressionable?” I rolled my eyes at the way he wavered between wanting to share and changing his mind about it. I hoped it would come with time, but I got the feeling Grayson had to learn to trust me first. Unfortunately, asking him to deceive my brother as one of the first acts of our friendship didn’t really bode well for building my trustworthiness, I didn’t think.

“Go pack your bag and get out.” He gave me a dismissive wave and turned, letting himself into the first room down his hallway, not the second.

Grayson didn’t know it, but he’d triggered my interest in a lot of things during our discussion earlier, and I hoped google would be more forthcoming about some of the terms than it had been about poppers. But I’d deal with that later.

I packed a quick bag, grabbed a bottle of water, and headed to Colin’s.

CHAPTERSIXTEEN

Colin