Chapter Twenty-three

The lobby of CirroBot was huge. Bigger than the entirety of Grounds N’at, even when Brian included the back room. Its vast space, sparse layout, and chrome-and-glass accents made Brian feel entirely out of place. Everything screamed high-tech, not earthy coffee shop.

This was the place Rob had built. So different from the one Brian had crafted. He pressed his lips together. Maybe this hadn’t been the best plan. Still, here he was.

A receptionist sat behind a large desk plunked down in the middle of the space. A little farther back, near the elevators, sat a security guard.

Pretty obvious you needed to work here to get to the elevators, which made sense, but also meant Brian couldn’t just wander up—even if he had any inkling of where Rob’s office was.

Receptionist it was, then. He squared his shoulders and headed to the desk.

She had short black hair, dark eyes, and a friendly but professional expression. A tiny red rose tattoo on the side of her neck matched the color of her lipstick. “May I help you?”

“I hope so. I’d like to see Robert Ancroft, please.”

The friendliness vanished. “Do you have an appointment?” From the sounds of it, she already knew the answer.

Of course it wouldn’t be that easy. He took a breath. “No, I don’t. I—It’s a personal matter.”

“I’m sorry, sir. You’ll have to make an appointment with Mr. Ancroft’s personal assistant. Or contact Mr. Ancroft himself.” She paused. “If this is a personal matter.”

He would have, had Rob answered the voice mails or texts he’d sent. He leaned in a little. “Could you just . . . call him?”

She pushed away from the desk a fraction. “I’m sorry sir, but no. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“But I—” Maybe it was the tone of his voice or whatever expression he had on his face, but the security guard slid off his chair by the elevators and headed toward them.

“Sir.”

He held up both hands and backed away. “Sorry. I’ll get an appointment.” After hell froze over, maybe. He turned away before the frustration made it to his face or loosened the tears in his eyes and stumbled toward the door.

God, he was such an utter failure. His vision blurred, he rammed into some one, and lost his balance. Fuck.

“Whoa, easy there.” Hands steadied him and a familiar voice brushed over him. “Brian?”

He blinked and looked up. Dark brown hair. Blue eyes. Fond of espresso shots. “Todd?” Fazil’s husband. He had a messenger bag slung over his shoulder.

“Hey.” Todd relaxed his grip on Brian, but didn’t let go. He flicked a glance over Brian’s shoulder, then focused on him. “What are you doing here?”

“I was trying to see Rob. Robert. Ancroft. He’s—” His voice cracked. Boyfriend. Lover. Ex. Oh God. Brian gritted his teeth and tried to stop the shakes.

Todd’s voice was gentle. “I know who he is.” He pulled Brian over to the left. “Why don’t we go over here and we can sit and talk.”

They ended up at a small cluster of chairs, artfully arranged around a table with glossy magazines spouting all kinds of headlines that made no sense in Brian’s blurred and jumbled vision. He was not crying. He blinked a few times and his sight focused.

Todd let him go at one of the chairs, and pulled another over closer, breaking the symmetry of the arrangement. Brian cringed at the scrape of metal on marble, and sank down to its hard black leather surface.

He met Todd’s worried gaze. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” Todd slipped his bag off and lowered it next to his chair. “They’re not going to let you up to see him, you know.”

Fazil must have told Todd about him and Rob. Or maybe Rob had. Wasn’t a surprise. Pittsburgh. Biggest small town in existence.

“Now I know that.” Brian tried laughing, but it came out as a choking sound as pathetic as he felt. “I’m an ass.”

“Nah, you’re not. I’ve been there, man. I know how it goes.” He cocked his head. “I take it you’ve called.”

“Yeah. And texted. No response.” He studied his hands.

A grunt. “How bad was it? The fight?”

Brian slumped deeper into the chair. “Take a guess.” He gestured at the reception desk. “Truth is, I am an ass. And a hole as well.”

That garnered a laugh from Todd.

“I have no idea what to do now. I guess I’ll wait until the weekend and try to get up the nerve to go to his house.”

Todd shrugged and pulled out his cell. “So, when I started working here, they gave me this phone. Pain in the ass sometimes, ’cause I can’t help but look at the e-mails. Fazil has to take the damn thing from me at night.” He tapped on the screen.

Brian bit his tongue. He had no idea where Todd was going with this, but Todd’s sly smile kept Brian from interrupting.

“On the plus side, I have the entire CirroBot phone directory at my fingertips.” He grinned. “Give me a minute.” With that, he rose and stepped away, the phone at his ear.

Oh God. He was calling Rob. Brian’s fingertips itched. If this worked, he owed Todd—and Fazil—big-time.

Please, please let this work.

***

The ringing from his laptop startled Rob out of reading a design document for one of their next generation of medical robots. He glanced down at the corner of his screen and studied the incoming call indicator. Todd? He reached for his headset.

That was unusual. Most of the engineers knocked on his door or sent a chat message.

Still, he accepted the call. “Hi, Todd.”

There was a pause. “Oh, I guess it tells you who’s calling.” Todd sounded a bit taken aback.

He chuckled. “It does, yes. What can I help you with?” This must be about one of the upcoming software releases.

An inhale. “Well, I’m down in the lobby . . . and Brian Keppler is here.”

Like a punch to the chest. All the air was gone from his lungs and his limbs numbed. “I—” Brian here? Why? How? He struggled to speak. “Can . . . you please tell him to leave?” He’d only started getting over that horrid Saturday. Couldn’t be a punching bag for Brian’s frustration or watch him work himself into a heart attack.

“I could.” Todd’s words were soft. “And I will, if that’s what you want.”

What he wanted was the Brian he first met that bright spring day.

“But I think you should come down and talk to him. He’s—” There was a crackle on the line for a moment, maybe Todd shifting his phone. “Well, let’s just say I’ve been where he is.”

“Sitting in the lobby of your ex’s workplace?” Somehow his voice sounded normal.

“Well, Eli’s office. But, yeah.”

Oh. Rob pressed against the back of his chair. He’d forgotten Todd had moved here to reunite with Fazil. That meeting must have gone well, given that they were married now.

That said something, but he pushed away that glint of hope. They were different people from Fazil and Todd.

He shouldn’t ask . . . he knew he shouldn’t ask. “How is he?”

Todd’s hollow laugh cut through Rob and Todd didn’t have to say anything. “Okay. I’ll come down.” Maybe if they cleared the air, they both could get on with their lives. A better break, one not born of anger and resentment.

“I’ll let him know,” Todd said.

They hung up. Rob took off the headset, placed it on his desk, and stared at his screen.

How was he going to do this? Well, like everything else—he’d figure it out as he went. He headed for the elevator.

The ride down to the lobby seemed both inordinately long and far too short. He blinked when the doors slid open—the lobby was bright—more so on sunny days like today.

Todd and Brian were easy to spot over at one of the seating areas. Both Richard, the guard, and Meena, the receptionist, started and wore worried expressions. He gave them a wave—one that meant it’s fine—and headed over to the occupied chairs.

Todd rose and nodded to him. “I’ll head upstairs.” He gave Brian a quick smile. “Good to see you, Brian.”

“Thanks.” Brian’s voice was cracked and rough and skittered along every one of Rob’s nerves.

Brian looked up and met his gaze. Oh, Bri. What have you done to yourself? Red-rimmed eyes and a face drawn and thin. Rob sank into the chair Todd had vacated. “You wanted to see me?” Despite the ache in his heart, he kept himself in check. Part of him wanted a reunion—the other part remembered Saturday all too well.

“Yeah.” Brian swallowed and wrung his hands. “I wanted to apologize. For being such a jerk to you. I was— Well, it doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have treated you like that.”

The ache under his ribs grew. Nearly two weeks and he was only coming to say this now? “Finally found the time? Had the day off?” Unexpected heat colored his voice. Still second fiddle to the fucking shop.

Brian flinched. “You never answered my calls or texts. I had a twelve-hour shift today.” He met Rob’s gaze, his face a mess of emotions. Hope, pain, anger, longing. “I closed Grounds N’at.”

What? For the second time that day, words punched a hole through Rob’s chest. Brian closed Grounds N’at? To come to see him? He found enough air to whisper. “For today? Or . . .”

A slight tremble ran through Brian and colored his voice. His eyes were far too wet. “Don’t know yet. Haven’t decided.”

Shit. Rob rubbed his mouth and chin. Closing the shop spoke volumes, probably more than Brian could put into words. “Do you want to talk?” They needed to hash this all out.

“Yeah.” Brian’s Adam’s apple bounced when he swallowed. “Lots of things I shouldn’t have said . . . and lots of things I should’ve.” Tears in those eyes, though none fell.

Rob felt his own burning at the back of his throat. He wanted to be more than an afterthought, but hadn’t wanted Brian to kill Grounds N’at in the process. Just find balance. He studied his hands. “I’m not entirely innocent, either.” The lobby was the wrong place for this. Too exposed, too public. “We should get out of here.”

Brian rubbed his temple and grunted. “I could use some coffee.”

A glance at his watch told Rob it was about ten thirty. On a normal day, Brian would have been on his third cup by now.

This day was shaping up to be anything but. Brian wore a frailty and sadness that dug deep into Rob and broke apart most of the resentment he’d felt. Brian had come here for him.

“Give me a minute.” He dug out his phone and called Mallory. “Hey, Mal, something personal has come up. I need to cancel all my meetings for the rest of the day.” He paused. Brian stared at his hands again, but the trembling had stopped. “Maybe tomorrow, too. Let’s put those down as tentative.”

Tapping on the other end, and she replied, “You have a phone call with the board this afternoon.”

“It can wait.” He still owned more than half the company.

She snorted. “They won’t be happy.”

“They never are. And you’re a saint, Mal.”

A chuckle. “I hope everything works out for you.”

He studied Brian. “Me too. Thanks.” He ended the call and tucked his phone back into his suit jacket. “Did you drive or . . .”

“Rode my bike down. It’s locked up out front.” Brian sounded better. “You didn’t have to cancel your whole day for me.”

Rob reached out, tentatively, and touched Brian’s knee. “Yes, I did.”

Almost as slowly, Brian covered Rob’s hand with his own. “Rob, I—” His voice cracked to pieces.

Time to get out of here. “My bike’s in the bike room.” He nodded toward the door. “Let’s go.”

They both rose—Brian less steady than he should have been, but given everything, that was to be expected.

He was here. He’d closed the shop. Boggled Rob’s mind, that. Maybe—maybe they could patch things up. “If you need coffee, there’s several places we could go. Or—” He bit off the suggestion. They reached the bike room, and he pressed the badge in his wallet against the pad to unlock the door.

“Or?” Brian sounded more like himself, even if he looked shaken up and frayed at the edges.

Rob pulled his bike from its rack and steered it toward the door Brian held open. “Well, I don’t live that far away.”

Brian nodded but didn’t say anything until they reached his bike at the rack outside. “I’d really like to talk about everything. You and me. The shop. What went wrong . . . I don’t think I can do that in public.” He unlocked his bike. “So if you don’t mind your house . . .”

Rob unclipped his helmet from around the seat and strapped it on. “I don’t mind. I’ve just never done this before, so I don’t know the rules . . .”

“That makes two of us,” Brian said. He shrugged, though it was close to a wince. “Guess we make it up as we go?”

Kind of like everything else. He gripped Brian’s shoulder for a second. “Better than giving up.”

That teased part of the smile Rob loved so much from Brian. “Much.” That grin fell away. “You really ride in a suit? Your dry cleaning bills must be hellish.”

Heat to his cheeks. “It’s not that bad.” Though, thinking about it, it was. “Come on.”

They set off down Penn Avenue, toward Bloomfield, Brian in the lead, as if he knew the way. But then, he did. This place, the city Rob had chosen as home, was Brian’s to the core.

What he really wanted was for Pittsburgh to be theirs. They still had quite a few things to hash out before that could be a possibility. There were events Rob never wanted replayed—and he needed assurances they never would be.

Then, only then, could he think about a future with Brian.