Page 76 of Necessary Time

Grayson smirked, but didn’t look up from his phone.

“Right,” I said quickly, pulling my hand out of Rob’s massive grip. I hadn’t meant to shake his hand that long, how embarrassing. “I mean, I honestly don’t know a lot about what it entails, but I think I could be good at it.”

“What do you do for work right now?” Rob asked.

Grayson raised up his phone. “I have to take this, sorry.”

“Come back when you’re done,” Rob said.

Grayson nodded and walked out toward the valet stand, leaving Rob and me in the lobby.

“I’m not working right now. I just moved here from the East Coast a couple of months ago and I’ve been getting settled.”

“You and Grayson live together?”

“Yeah. I mean, he lets me live with him, but I guess it’s the same.” I had no idea why I said that. It wasn’t important and it made me look like a freeloading kid. I cursed to myself, but kept a smile plastered on my face.

“Grayson’s worked for me for years,” Rob said, and a puzzle piece clicked into place for me. Of course this was Grayson’s boss. That would explain why he’d dressed so much fancier than normal. “I trust his judgement in almost all things, and he says you’re exactly the kind of man I need.”

“For a…to be a…”

Rob stepped aside and gestured at the desk behind him.

“I just bought this building,” Rob explained. “It’s a unique addition to my real estate portfolio. It has a lot of character and I can make a decent margin on the rent, but Grayson assures me the one thing the building is most sorely lacking is a doorman.”

“Doorman,” I repeated, wiping my palms down the sides of my thighs, desperate to dry them off.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be a doorman. It sounded fun and I didn’t need to worry about finishing a degree I didn’t want in order to be qualified for it. The thing that had caught me the most off-guard was that Grayson had gone out of his way to plant the idea in his boss’ mind, and that idea had grown into what I was pretty certain was a job offer.

“I don’t know if I agree with him, but I’m happy to give you a run at it and see if it’s something that works for both of us,” Rob said.

A salty breeze blew in as Grayson stepped back into the lobby, his shoes clacking against the reflective white floor as he came toward us.

“Sorry,” he said quietly, sliding his phone into his pocket.

“It’s fine, Grayson,” Rob said. “Wesley and I were just agreeing about the terms of a test run for him.”

We were? Had we?

Rob was so business-oriented, so down to the brass tacks, that it was hard to keep up with him.

“Don’t get so far ahead of yourselves,” Grayson warned, jerking his thumb in my direction. “Little Wesley here is still a handful of days away from being twenty-one and you don’t want residents getting angry their doorman can’t accept their deliveries.”

“My birthday is this weekend,” I interjected, trying to stand straighter as if that would somehow make me appear older.

“That’s fine with me, kid.” Rob gave me another one of those warm smiles that stretched across the whole of his face.

I didn’t want to sleep with Rob, but I definitely had a type, I realized.

“He can start Monday,” Grayson said, brow arched in my direction.

I hoped I wasn’t blushing, because even though I could admit Rob was attractive, I wasn’t interested in him. I didn’t even want to flirt with him. But it was hard to ignore the way it felt like a whole new world was making itself apparent to me. And even harder to not wonder about how much I’d missed out on by ignoring my attraction to men for as many years as I had.

“Monday is good,” Rob agreed. “I’ll send a contract to Grayson and he can forward it to you. Basic terms of the probationary period, expectations, dress code, salary, all of that. Sound good?”

I swallowed, any and all words caught in my throat.

Rob shook my hand again.