Chapter Nine

Rob had biked often while he lived in Chicago, but less so during the CirroBot transition to Pittsburgh. Felt good to be back in the saddle on a long ride. Couldn’t beat the company, either. More and more, he found himself relaxing around Brian, his presence a joy and a balm.

Though, knowing Brian had played in the house Rob owned was a bit unsettling. Hell, he was practically neighbors with Brian’s parents.

At least he had renovated the place to within an inch of its life. Except for the layout and the lovely woodwork, nothing of its former “glory” remained. That would make taking Brian upstairs later much easier on his mind. Having sex with him in his former babysitter’s house was odd, indeed.

He’d put his stamp on the place, though. Intended to put down roots. Even claimed belongings from storage. He had a home again.

Rob watched Brian’s back as they biked along the Monongahela River and his heart did a little tumble in his chest that had nothing to do with exertion. Maybe someone to share it with, in time.

That exchange at the fountain, the look in Brian’s eye—fear and wonder—they echoed in Rob’s head. They’d been serious from the get-go, but there was a difference between dating because the person was fun, the sex was great and hoping something might come of it—and realizing something might come of it. Wanting that.

A voice in the back of his head reminded Rob he’d been serious about someone before. He didn’t often think about that fucker anymore. They’d started out in similar circumstances—a chance meeting, an instant connection. Great sex, some common interests, but in the end, Greg had been after one thing—and Brian didn’t want that from Rob.

What Brian wanted from Rob was Rob. Perfect. Almost too perfect.

Brian sat up on his bike and glanced back, teeth flashing as he spoke. “Gonna take the bridge.”

Rob pulled up in tandem, since there wasn’t anyone else on this part of the trail. “The Hot Metal Bridge?” This part of the trail he knew fairly well. He’d used the Hot Metal to go to the South Side Works and into the South Side proper often enough.

A nod. “Figured we could head to the Waterfront and keep going or turn around, depending on how we feel.”

He’d gone to the Waterfront once or twice to see a movie. Big shopping complex. “Sounds reasonable. Especially since we don’t have to fight that hellish traffic on the roads.”

Brian smiled. “Thank God for bike trails.”

They returned to single file when they came up to some runners and headed over the incredibly sturdy bridge. The trail opened up again, and he scooted up next to Brian. “What’s the story behind that bridge anyway?”

“Oh, it carried hot metal.”

That made no sense. “What?”

Brian slowed to a stop. When Rob settled next to him, Brian waved toward the South Side Works on one side of the river and an office park on the other. “This was all part of the J&L Steel Mill. They literally had cars on tracks that hauled hot steel from one side of the river to the other.”

Rob stared at the bridge. “You’re shitting me.”

“Nope. When we get back, I can show you photos on the Internet.”

He put a hand on his hip and tried to picture that. It explained why the bridge was so massively over-constructed on one side. “There’s a lot of history here, for such a young place.”

He grinned. “You probably have dinnerware older than this country.”

Rob huffed a laugh. “No.” The humor fled. “Growing up, all our industrial history was laced with pain when the mines closed.” Much like his past in England. He fiddled with his brake lines, pushing them back and forth. “There’s still quite a lot of pride here for that past.” He gazed at the office buildings. “And so much for the present and future.”

Brian studied him. “Losing the mills was awful for the city, but a bunch of good heads got together and laid the seed for what Pittsburgh is today.” He shifted his bike around. “I almost left. I’m glad I stayed.”

“I wouldn’t have met you.”

Brian furrowed his brows. “Probably not.” He clasped Rob on the shoulder, leaned over, and kissed him—just a quick touch of lips. “But I’m here. You’re here.” The next kiss was longer and deeper.

Brian could kiss. Passionately, sweetly, as demanding as fuck. All three at once. Every time those lips met his, Rob’s world tilted.

Brian broke away. “Shall we keep going?”

“The ride? Or . . . ?”

Brian’s eyes danced and he took Rob’s soul with another touch of his lips. “The ride,” he said. “At least for now.”

That would be a bit more interesting, given how hard he’d become. “Then let’s go.”

At least he wasn’t the only one sporting a bulge. Brian pushed off and began pedaling. Rob followed. He didn’t need to, the trail being what it was, but he enjoyed not having to lead for a change. Too much of that in his daily life.

Besides, couldn’t beat the view of Brian’s back and arse.

They rode down a long stretch of trail and past a waterpark before they reached the Waterfront complex.

And complex it was. Buildings and cars and bits of old industrial equipment. He recognized pieces from their tour of the Carrie Furnace site. “How much of this area were mills?”

Brian sat back on his bike, coasting along. “Pretty much all of it. If it was flat, it was a mill or rail lines or both. Kind of amazing to look at old photos. So much has changed, but some things haven’t at all.”

That described Rob’s life to a T. But Brian was changing that life, with every minute and hour, and smile.

Rob’s cheeks hurt from grinning. He put his head down and followed Brian.

***

Brian led Rob down the trail until they reached a break that led into the shopping area. There, they slowed, dismounted and walked their bikes into the little village-like part. The tidy and faux environment of The Waterfront was at odds with the rest of Homestead. Brian had never quite gotten used to it.

“Oh look,” Rob deadpanned. “A Starbucks.”

Brian raised an eyebrow. “Don’t even think it.”

Rob grinned back. “Oh, come on. Don’t you ever go in and order for the hell of it?”

“Do you have any idea what would happen if I were caught by one of my customers?” He’d never ever hear the end of it. Bad enough someone once saw him drinking coffee at Eat n’ Park, even if it was with a slice of pie.

“Hmm.” Rob eyed the shop. “A chewing-out?”

“Yup.” He led them around to the back of the shop. In a tiny garden, benches circled a concrete water fountain. “I mean, hats off to them for making fancy coffees common. Wouldn’t have my shop if they hadn’t turned the whole country into junkies, but . . .”

“Not going to sleep with the competition, as it were?”

Brian laughed and took Rob’s hand. “Exactly. I’d much rather sleep with you.” Those cheeks. That smile. His head whirled.

Rob laced his fingers with Brian’s. “You’re lovely, you know.”

“My former girlfriends would disagree.” Well, maybe not. But they’d all called him a thoughtless asshole at some point, which wasn’t entirely incorrect.

They parked their bikes next to one of the benches. “You’ve mentioned them before,” Rob said. “To be honest, I’m not sure why you haven’t been snatched up by some woman. Or man.”

“You mean married?”

Rob nodded.

Brian sighed, a knot forming in his gut. He sat. “Mostly, the shop. Sometimes we realized we weren’t compatible and broke it off early, but the ends of my long-term relationships come back to the shop.” He pulled out his water bottle from its holder and sipped. “Married to Grounds N’at.” That’s what Anita had said.

Rob lowered himself next to Brian. “Ever get close?”

A flash of pain and he flinched. “Yeah. Anita. She was—” He let out a breath. “Smart. Talented. Sexy.” The pain lingered, along with the loss. They’d had something.

Rob squeezed his thigh and it was a comfort. “What happened?”

He chewed on that question, turning events over in his mind. The good times, the fights. The way he dismissed her when he was too busy. He’d never put all the thoughts about their breakup together before. “I let her go.” He couldn’t quite keep the sadness out of his voice.

Another squeeze from Rob. His expression was open and sympathetic.

He continued. “Justin had moved upstairs to Sam’s and the shop had this huge hole in the schedule and I—” He sat back, choking on the rest of the words. He’d been upset then. Worried. Sleepless and working all hours. No time for Anita at all. The shop was more important—which said something about him. “We started fighting about the time I spent at Grounds N’at. My hours. Everything.”

Grounds N’at still hadn’t recovered from Justin leaving—the chaos in the shop spoke to that, as did his hours. People quitting. Shit. “Anita has her own career—she’s a patent lawyer. It’s nine-to-five. Orderly.” Like Rob’s.

The horror of that sank into his flesh like teeth. He didn’t want to lose Rob. What if he did? Shit shit shit.

Rob wore his concern intently, leaning forward, his lips parted, brows knitted together. “You loved her.”

“Yeah.” He had, but not enough. “She’s engaged now.”

Rob’s shoulder’s dropped and sadness pushed the curve of his mouth down. “Must have hurt to find out.”

“Yes and no. I’m happy for her. She’s a damn fine person and deserves joy.” In the end, he’d made his choice. “The shop eats a lot of my time—as you’ve seen. That’s not the kind of partner she wanted for the long run. I can’t blame her for that.”

Part of him had wanted to be that man for Anita—but he couldn’t let Grounds N’at go and that’s what it would have taken. The shop was his life. He’d put everything he had into it.

Rob took his hand. “You deserve joy, too, you know.”

Such a simple statement, spoken in that soft, sweet voice. It hit Brian like a gunshot through his gut and he blinked a few times against the sting. When was the last time he’d been happy?

Right now. In the moments he’d shared with Rob, joy infused him.

When he looked over, Rob’s smile was tinged with sadness. “You work so hard, do so much. You need to remember yourself sometimes, even when you’re the one running the show.”

The words were like water quenching his parched soul. “Will you help?” He wanted the delight Rob brought. Craved it. He could merely sit next to Rob, and he’d have everything he needed.

“Any way I can.” Rob tightened his grip on Brian’s hand.

“Things are rough now.” He spoke around the lump in his throat.

Rob’s chuckle was low. “Then I’ll make sure to drag you away whenever I can.”

Perfect. “I can be stubborn and pigheaded.”

“No.” Rob mimicked surprise. “You? Never!”

Laughter bubbled up and he let it out. He smoothed a thumb over Rob’s knuckles. “What about you? You said you were a workaholic, too.”

“I am.” Rob stretched out his legs. “And my job is demanding, but I’ve had to let go of my iron grip here and there.” He chuckled. “Right now, I’m trying to take my own advice.” He nodded at their bikes. “You can help me, as well.”

That might keep them both sane. “Now that you’ve heard my tale of woe—why the hell are you single?”

Rob snorted. “Similar reasons. Often worked long hours. Then I was moving from one town to another.” His expression turned inward and distant. “After the debacle of my last relationship, I decided to take some time off from dating. Or fucking. Or whatever the hell we were doing.” Bitter, bitter words.

“I sense a story there.” Tension reigned in Rob, from the cords of muscles in his arms to the way his knee bounced. Brian stroked his hand.

“Not really.” Rob shifted on the bench. “He was young and hot and great in bed, but not interested in me outside of it, which made sense considering my age.”

“You’re not old.” There was a bit of silver in the red at Rob’s temples, but he’d seen Rob naked. Prime of his life.

A sly smile and a dark chuckle. “To him I was and he was correct to think so.” He shook his head. “I was a right idiot with that one.”

There was more, given the way Rob pushed his sports watch around his wrist and stared at the bubbling fountain.

Brian knew better than to push. He’d learned that lesson from his siblings, from Anita, and from himself. More would come in time.

“There’s something I should tell you.” Rob met his gaze and there was trepidation in his eyes. “I’m not an engineer at CirroBot.”

Wait, what? Brian blew out a breath. “You don’t work there?” Why lie about that?

“No—I do. But I’m not an engineer. Not anymore.”

He couldn’t quite wrap his head around what Rob was trying to say. “Not . . . anymore?”

“I used to be. Our first products? I designed them. Built the prototypes, all that, but—” He licked his lips and exhaled. “Bri, I founded CirroBot. It’s mine. I’m the CEO.”

“You founded CirroBot?” Suddenly, all those hints pointing to Rob being well-off slotted into place. “Oh! I guess that makes sense.”

That beautiful little furrow formed above his nose. “What makes sense?”

“You bought, gutted, and renovated a house. You own a Mercedes, a Rolex, and an expensive camera.” He shrugged. “That takes money.”

“It does. Especially that renovation. The stories I could tell there . . .” Rob leaned back against the bench. “But money is the other reason my last—whatever the hell it was—didn’t work.”

A younger man dating an older, wealthy guy. “He wanted your money.”

Rob’s smile was thin. “He demanded my money, or he’d let everyone know I was banging a nineteen-year-old.”

Nineteen? Holy shit. “Wow, you weren’t kidding about young.” Half the kids he interviewed weren’t much older.

Rob’s cheeks reddened and he pulled away from Brian. “Yeah, I know what it looks like. I’d claim a midlife crisis, but that wasn’t it at all. He looked a hell of a lot older and I thought—” He shook his head. “Well, doesn’t matter what I thought.”

Brian reclaimed Rob’s hand. “It does, though. What you thought matters.”

A bitter laugh. “I liked him. He was an amateur standup comedian and getting a degree in literary studies. Saw his act and he was fabulous, so I hung around to talk to him afterward and we hit it off really well.” He paused. “One thing led to another pretty damn fast and we were seeing each other regularly. After a couple dates, I thought there was something other than a good fuck there.”

“He didn’t feel the same way?”

“Well, he was interested in more than sex, but it wasn’t me. I was—as he put it—a cock to ride for a meal ticket. Nothing more.”

Beneath Rob’s dismissive huff and the thousand-yard stare, there was a layer of pain that took Brian’s breath away. “That’s . . . horrible!” To be used like that.

Rob’s expression cracked and a bit of that hurt leaked out in the downward pull of his mouth. “He made good on his threat. Told everyone he could find in my social circle that I’d been fucking him.” Rob swallowed. “People knew I was gay, which closed doors with some folks—business is a strange field when you rise to the top—but I didn’t much care.” He pulled his hand from Brian’s grasp and ran both of them through his hair. “However, a gay man at my age sleeping with someone barely legal isn’t looked nearly as kindly upon as a straight man doing the same thing.”

“So a businessman banging a woman still in college—”

“Gets a slap on the back and an ‘atta boy!’ But I got children pulled away from me at parties. As if a nineteen-year-old with a goatee and tattoos looks anything like a child.” A bite to those words. “I’m not a fucking monster.”

“I’m guessing no one said anything outright.”

“Oh hell, no. Just murmuring, whispers, and disapproving looks.” Rob thumped back against the bench. “It took a woman to point out the hypocrisy of the whole thing when one of the other men in our little business circle had an affair with a woman nearly the same age as his nineteen-year-old daughter. You should have seen the handshakes and winks he got, right up until his wife found out. She ripped everyone a new hole at a Christmas party. Well, except for me.”

Rob pulled out his water bottle and took a long drink. “She pointed out that I had the decency not to be married when I started fucking a college coed.” He spat the words out and took another draw of water.

So, not a good ending at all. “Is that why you moved the company to Pittsburgh?” A fresh start and less aggravation.

“God, no. The pool of talent is why we moved here. The stuff they’re doing in the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon. The hospitals. The other schools in the area. Plus, a reasonable cost of living. Made economic sense.”

“And you’re not the only gay CEO in town.”

A laugh. “True. There’s a few of us queer folk running around, not just your friend Sam.”

Brian took Rob’s hand again and entwined his fingers. “So that’s why you were adamant you wanted more than just a one-night stand.”

Rob’s featured softened. “Yeah. I don’t particularly want to be just a cock again.”

“You’re not.” Brian looked down at his feet for a moment when heat touched his cheeks. “What we’ve done has been fantastic, but you’re so much more than that.” He waved at the bikes to punctuate his point. “Your photographs are stunning. And . . . everything else you do.”

“You—” Rob reached over and stroked his cheek with the back of his hand. “Haven’t even discovered everything else yet.”

No, he hadn’t. “But I will.”

Rob answered with a grin and a quick kiss.

“I’m also not in it for the money.” He’d stand on his own two feet.

That earned him a longer, deeper kiss that sent his pulse as high as biking uphill did.

“Oh, I figured that out pretty fast,” Rob said. “You’re serious about Grounds N’at and hard work. You treat people fairly. None of the signs of someone looking for a sugar daddy.”

Brian couldn’t conceive of that. He needed to be working. Even when his focus had been art, he’d had a million projects going at once, plus teaching drawing as a volunteer for a youth program. “I didn’t even like my folks paying for things when I was in college.”

“They still insisted?”

He laughed and nodded. “Still do. I keep telling them to spend my inheritance. We all do.”

Rob rubbed his wrist, the happiness leaking away. “Sounds so different from what I grew up with.”

“What did you grow up with?”

“I—” Rob’s whole body stiffened and he exhaled. “I’m not sure I’m ready to talk about that yet.”

An honest answer. It pained Brian that Rob wasn’t, but at the same time he was grateful for the truth. “It’s all right. I won’t ask again.”

Rob caught his hand and gave it a squeeze. “No, do ask again. I want to share it with someone. Just not right now.”

Well, sitting by a fountain behind a Starbucks in bike shorts and tight colorful tops probably wasn’t the best time for deep conversations. From Rob’s pained look, the answer wasn’t good. “Should we hit the trail again?”

Rob nodded and glanced at his watch. “We could go a little longer, then head back. I made a reservation at the Church Brew Works for seven.”

Sounded ideal. “Then let’s go.”