Page 31 of Shades of Henry

For the kindness.

“Henry said I’m coming over for dinner sometime next week.”

Dex shook out his hand. “Yeah. I was going to say he just wanted a buffer so Kane would stop glaring at him, but….” Dex bit his lip. “Maybe he also wanted a… friend?”

Lance nodded. “A friend. Sure. We’ll call it a friend.”

“We’ll call it a…hope?” Dex’s sideways look would have been a devastating punch to the solar plexus, if Lance hadn’t been looking at Henry’s scowl for the past two months.

Somehow Henry’s scowl held more power. Who knew that was possible?

“Okay.” Lance was game. “What am I hoping for?”

Dex gave him a mild gaze that showed he wasn’t fooled. “We’ll hope my brother can sort out his ass from a hole in the ground and realize that you’re ready to be more than a friend.”

Lance wiped at his eyes some more. “Goddammit. If nobody said it, I could pretend it wasn’t happening.”

“Galahad, you wandered away from a sex scene when you had a guy’s cock in your mouth. It’s cute that you think you’re fooling anybody but yourself.”

“Not even my mother called me Galahad,” he muttered.

“What did she call you?”

Lance couldn’t even meet his eyes. “Gally.”

Dex’s snort of laughter was somehow reassuring. “I’ll call you Lance for the rest of your life if you like. But it’s not going to change the fact that your head wasn’t in the game today.” He sighed, some of the playfulness fading. “Do you really want it to be?”

Lance looked away. “I’m on the schedule in six weeks,” he said. “Can I think about it?”

“It may take Henry longer than that to find himself.”

Lance finally glanced up and saw nothing in Dex’s eyes but compassion. “Yeah, but by then, I can at least know if he even sees me.”

“Fair enough.” Dex flashed a tight grin and stood, then walked around the desk. “You still get a check for showing up. You’re doing direct deposit these days?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Mrs. Roberts will send that out tomorrow. Now go find yourself something to eat. You look like you need it.”

Lance stuck his hand out to shake, but got pulled into a hug instead. He stood immobile for a moment, surprised, and Dex said, “You guys could be good for each other, but be careful, okay?”

“Yeah.”

And with that Dex swung around to leave the office, and Lance was left to go home.

CONTRARY TODex’s directions, he didn’t stop anywhere for food. He’d always enjoyed that clean, hollowed-out feeling he had from knowing his digestive system was empty and void, and he was just a vessel. He was missing the thrum under his skin that usually came from sex and a good workout, but it was replaced with another odd buzzing, something he didn’t want to quantify.

When he walked into the apartment and saw Henry, alone in a quietcleanapartment, surfing the web on his laptop, the emptiness and buzzing stilled inside him, and he practically gasped.

Dammit.

Oh, this was worse than he thought.

Henry looked up as he walked in and gave a strained smile. “You’re done already? Usually the guys spend all day doing… uh, scenes.”

Lance grimaced. “I, uh, well, I wasn’t focusing. Happens sometimes. My scene partner got to do something new and kinky, and I got to go home.”

Henry’s smile did an odd, fluttering thing. It was like his mouth didn’t change shape, but suddenly the smile wasn’t tight anymore—it was real. “That’s… well, I hope you didn’t need the money.”