Chapter Three
Bryan
What am I doing? This is crazy on more than one level.
I sat outside Cay’s apartment two days after the race and still sore in places I’d forgotten I had. As I started to panic about dropping by unannounced, I realized my car was in full view of his bedroom window.
His bedroom. A strangled sound escaped into the interior of my lovely Mercedes. Lovely and battered and the coolest thing about me. Well, maybe the second coolest now.
Thankfully the parking lot was deserted, aside from his SUV, but I couldn’t kid myself. I wasn’t there to see if he wanted to go grab a beer. I was making a booty call. Only it didn’t feel like that, not really. And I didn’t want to look too closely at why that might be.
My hands gripped the wheel tighter instead of reaching for the handle to open the door. I groaned and let my forehead fall onto my hands. Because tall, handsome, and ripped musicians love short, out-of-shape nerds.
Still, I was there, and he might have already seen me, so it would be worse to leave. I took a deep breath, steeling myself for the inevitable rejection, and then got out of the car and strode toward Cay’s front door with a confidence I didn’t feel. When I stood on a welcome mat that said “You’re very pretty,” the sound of a guitar made me hesitate. Did he have company? Was I interrupting something?
My hand was raised to knock when the music stopped and the door opened. And there he was. In the time between our night together and that moment, I’d been sure he couldn’t be as amazing as I’d remembered. And I was right, in a way. The reality greatly surpassed my flimsy memories of him. The fabric of his tank looked so soft, and he could have been naked from the waist down because once our eyes met, I couldn’t have torn mine away if the building had started to crumble around us.
“Bryan.”
“Um, hey. Is this a good time? I probably should have called first, I mean—”
“It’s a great time. Come in.”
I swallowed hard and stepped inside, and his arm brushed against mine when he closed the door. Another spark. Not as big as the first, but definitely a spark.
“I was just thinking about you.”
“Wha—you were? Were you playing the guitar?”
He raised his arm and still had the instrument in his hand. He was playing guitar and thinking of me?
“Can I get you a beer?”
“I, um…I’m sorry—” I clamped my mouth shut before I could embarrass us both. I was already embarrassed enough on my own.
“Is something wrong?” Cay put the guitar down and came back to where I stood, still right inside the door.
“Um, no. I don’t think so.” I ran my hand through my hair, considering too late that it would be sticking up afterward. “I mean, I hope this is okay, dropping in like this.”
He smiled, and I couldn’t be sure if it was sexy or mocking—it was sexy, but I couldn’t be sure what was behind it.
“Of course it’s okay.” He reached out and palmed my shoulder. The heat from his hand made me shiver. “I don’t have any plans for the evening and, like I said, I was thinking about you.”
“Oh. Good. I didn’t think about it before I came or I would’ve called. Or texted. Probably texted. It’s been a while since I dropped in on anyone, but it…seemed like the thing to do.”
“Are you okay, Bry?”
I leaned my back against the door and tried to keep from sliding to the floor. Fuck, I want him.
“How about you have a seat on the couch, and I’ll bring us a couple of beers. We can talk a little…” He let the thought trail off and then kissed the side of my forehead. Lightly, barely a brush of soft lips, but it was enough.
I turned my face up, and our eyes locked. My legs still felt shaky, but I pushed off from the door and they held. Even when I pressed against his warm, hard body. Even when I gripped his waist and pulled him close.
He sighed and dipped his head, and even though I knew he’d kiss me, when his mouth covered mine, it shocked the wind out of me. The sensation was like jumping into a cold lake on a warm day—no probably the opposite.
A long time later—long enough so I felt lightheaded, and not only due to a lack of blood to the brain—Cay spoke, his lips still against my mouth.
“I still have the same sheets on my bed, and it’s not made…”
“Yes. Let’s.”
Again, he stripped us and laid me out on his soft bed, his pastel sheets rumpled as though he hadn’t straightened them at all since we’d been in them. We got each other off with our hands and our mouths, he caressed my body with tenderness that wasn’t without heat, passion, and he didn’t try to do anything else. The whole encounter felt strangely like making love and not at all like casual sex. A part of me felt as though I should be afraid, or at least keeping my feelings at arm’s length, but it was a very small part. I’m not getting any younger.
Afterward, we lay in a loose embrace. Obviously I wasn’t the only one wanting to brave the heat to stay connected.
It couldn’t get hot enough that I wouldn’t want to touch Cay, wouldn’t want to have his body draped across me.
Slowly, I felt him move beyond the limp afterglow. His big hands held me, moved carefully across my body. I wondered what he was thinking, but not enough to break the spell by asking. Before too long, he broke it instead.
“So, why were you so nervous when you got here?”
“I… it’s been a long time since I’ve dropped in on anyone. I wasn’t sure if…but by the time I had second thoughts, I was already here.”
“I’m glad you came.” He chuckled softly. A tremor coursed through my body as he nuzzled the side of my head. “For the record, you may not be the ‘dropping in’ type, but I am. I mean, it’s cool.”
Nervous laughter isn’t sexy, but it came anyway.
“I used to be. I mean, before I started the business, I had more time. But you only have to say ‘not this time’ so many times before there’s no next time.”
I cringed inwardly, but that wasn’t a complete lie. I’d had more time for a social life before starting BaxCo, but that’s not why I lost all my friends. It was why I hadn’t reconnected, or made new ones, but I didn’t want to explain the whole sordid story to Cay. He’d probably have enough sense to run, and that’s the last thing I wanted to happen.
“Well, there’s a next time.” He chuckled again, his chest vibrated against mine. “If you want it.”
“You don’t—um…I don’t want to seem like I make a lot of booty calls either. Because I don’t. I mean, this isn’t—Shit.”
“You’re nervous again. Did I do something? I laugh in bed a lot. When I’m happy.”
“It’s—I’m surprised. I’m…like this, and you’re…”
“I’m what?”
Did he sound worried?
“You’re so…toned. Hot.”
He squeezed his arms around me. “I have something to show you. Stay here a second?”
Cay left the bed and walked into the living room—nude, though the drapes were still open. He wasn’t on the ground floor, but I would never be able to do that. Maybe not even if I looked like him. He came back and bounced onto the bed beside me, a picture frame in one hand and two unopened bottles of beer in the other. He sat with his back against the wall and swept an appreciative glance down my pale naked body. I couldn’t help bracing myself for the punch line. He didn’t speak, though; he showed me the picture.
Five people stood facing the camera, smiling with their arms around one another. I was pretty sure they were the band his daughter’s mother was in, at least some of them. A tall man stood at the edge, partially outside of the picture and mostly hidden behind two others; his smile was shy, and he had more extra pounds than I did. He looked a lot like Cay.
“Your brother is a musician too?” I pushed myself up to sit beside him, knowing that probably wouldn’t make me look any thinner. Cay offered me one of the beers, and I took it but didn’t open it.
“That’s not my brother. That’s me.”
I opened my mouth to say “no, it can’t be,” but that would be ridiculous. Insulting. If anyone would know who was in a picture, it would be the people in the picture.
Cay put the frame on the table next to his bed, beside a picture of his daughter I hadn’t noticed while we were fooling around, thank goodness. When he turned back to me, he opened his mouth, but for some reason, I was afraid to hear what he would say.
I turned away and busied myself opening my beer. “Wow. What a transformation. What inspired it?”
“Mac. I couldn’t keep up with her when she was a toddler. Something had to change and I didn’t think it would be her.”
“That’s very adult.”
Cay opened his beer, and we clinked the bottoms of our bottles together and drank.
“Heh. Yeah.” He laughed again, but this one sounded a little nervous. “I’m older than you.”
It was my turn to laugh. “Bet you’re not.”
“Are we gonna play ‘I’ll show you mine and you show me yours’?”
I almost choked on a swallow of beer.
Cay gently elbowed my side. “Driver’s licenses.”
He winked, which, in that moment, was probably the only thing that could have kept me from whimpering with disappointment.
“Although there probably is an inch or two of you I haven’t seen yet.” He grinned and sipped, raking his gaze over my body again as he did.
“Forty-five.”
“You’re a baby. Forty-six.”
“You win. For another two months.”
“Do I get to name my prize?” He didn’t quite leer, but it was close. Close enough to send a shiver through me that wasn’t prompted by desire.
“Um…”
“Don’t worry, it’s only dinner. Let’s go get some dinner. I’m starved.”
“Sounds good.” I almost answered the way everyone in my family always had—I’m famished—but that seemed too…something. “Maybe we shouldn’t have opened these.”
“Go ahead and finish yours while we get dressed. I’ll skip it and drive.”
We chatted about music while he drove into the city, to a place more like the one I would have expected—with a rainbow flag outside and music thumping on the ground floor. The boards of the stairs carried a slight vibration through my body as we ascended. Cay chose a table in the corner near a window facing west. It made me a little nervous to think his seating preference was to give us a view of the sunset, but I didn’t know why until it shot from my mouth in the middle of a blues vs. rock debate.
“I don’t want you to think…I mean, because I dropped in and we went right into your bedroom. I didn’t mean to treat you like a…”
“Like a sure thing? A hookup? You didn’t. I used to know a guy who would show up once in a while—after dark and half-tanked—to screw. He always acted like he was doing me a big favor.” He chuckled, but I saw surprise mixed with pain in his eyes. “He was, but that’s beside the point.”
Cay reached out and took my hand, running his thumb across my knuckles and then the back of my hand, methodically caressing it inch by inch.
My face had heated before I’d finished stammering and hadn’t cooled, which didn’t help me find anything coherent to say. It hurt that he’d been treated that way, especially since it had probably been while he was heavier.
“This doesn’t feel like a hookup, Bry. The other night didn’t either, if I’m being honest.”
“You are, aren’t you? Being honest.” I didn’t think anyone did that, not intentionally and certainly not with someone they barely knew.
“I am. Are you not used to that either?”
“Huh?”
“It seems like maybe you’re not used to hooking up either.”
“Oh. I guess. I mean, I guess not. The last real relationship I had, he cheated. Before that, I… Well, I wasn’t chaste or anything… But that all happened a while ago. About four years.” I added hastily, so he wouldn’t worry I was using him too: “I had my rebound fling a long time ago.”
Cay pulled my hand closer and then leaned across the table and kissed me. “Come with me. Just for a second.”
We stood and he led me toward the men’s room. No need to go into a stall there—we didn’t even make it into the washroom itself before he pulled me into his arms and kissed me properly. I wrapped my arms around his waist and slid my hands up his back, under his soft T-shirt.
After a few moments, he pulled me against him, and I rested my cheek against his shoulder. I felt his impressive pectoral muscles and a few other muscle groups I couldn’t name through the fabric of our shirts, and I almost wanted to forget dinner and find a dark corner to fool around in. Soft chuckles vibrated against my chest but might as well have been against my cock for the effect they had on me.
Soon after, he loosened his embrace, gently massaging my shoulders before holding them in his hands and stepping back. “Cute, and you can go twice in one night. I won the fucking lottery.” Cay grinned, gave me a peck on the lips, and then steered me back into the dining room with an arm around my shoulders.
We ate a passable dinner of…some kind of pasta…and went back to the Westside. Cay tried to hide a yawn as he walked to the front of his truck toward where I leaned against the driver’s door of the Mercedes.
“What are you doing tomorrow?” I asked, trying not to sound too desperate. Not a simple task, considering that as soon as I left him, I’d be alone in my apartment until the next time I saw him.
“I work at seven, but it doesn’t matter if I’m tired.” He smiled and leaned beside me, his hip warming mine through our jeans. “The coffee’s free and plentiful, so if you want to come up…”
“Uh, yeah. Just tell me when you need me to leave.”
“More honesty?” He pressed his thigh against mine, and I wished I could drop to my knees right there—even though my knees probably wouldn’t have appreciated that any more than Cay’s neighbors.
“Yeah.”
After a second of smiling into each other’s eyes, we pushed off the car and headed for the building.
“Can I pack you in my lunchbox and take you to work?” He sprinted up the stairs, and I walked behind him
“I don’t think you’d get much work done that way,” I said when I reached the open doorway to his apartment. I gave a passing thought to the fact that we still hadn’t mentioned what we did for a living. Wasn’t that de rigeur for men, regardless of orientation? But no, he hadn’t asked when I said I had my own business, and I had no intention of asking what he did either. Let him think my life was a little less boring than sitting in a quiet, dark apartment writing code and attending Skype meetings.
Cay pulled me inside and closed the door. We stood there in the dark as he squeezed me in his arms, laughing. If I’d had the breath, I would have laughed too. Damn he’s strong. Part of me wondered if I shouldn’t be afraid of that strength. If he wanted, he could do some damage with those sexy muscles. I couldn’t have said why—if life has taught me anything it’s that people usually aren’t what they seem—but that sounded a tad ridiculous.
I dragged in my front door a little after six the next morning, remembering at the same time that I’d turned off my phone the night before. A call came through as soon as I turned it on—I’d forgotten a conference call set for eight Eastern.
“Hey, Rosie.”
“Hey? That’s what you have to say to me? Hey?”
“Sorry. I forgot.”
“No problem.” Her sigh and tone said otherwise, but I knew she’d be patient as long as she could. Rosie might be my cousin, but our relationship was more like big sister-little brother. “Are we still on schedule? Tell me we’re on schedule.”
“Um…sure. I’ll get right to work.”
“Let’s take this to Skype.”
“I’d rather not. I’m not…um…decent.”
“Well, go get some pants on and then we’ll go to Skype.” She waited a long moment and then sighed. “Is everything okay? No, of course it’s not. If everything was okay, you would have been on the call. Instead, you’re trying to get off the phone. Talk to me, B.”
I wandered into my bedroom and considered what to tell her. If I told her I’d been in someone else’s bed last night, she’d run a background check and mess with Cay’s credit.
“Shit.”
“What?”
Damn. I leaned against the wall in my short hallway and berated myself for saying that out loud, but I still didn’t know Cay’s last name. I wasn’t hot to ask him and prompt the same question coming back at me, but that didn’t make me feel any better.
I’m deceiving the man I’m seeing, on more than one level. The man I’m falling for.
The man I’ve known all of four days?
Yes, and yes.
“Bryan.”
Oh. Right.
“Rosie. I’m sorry. I’m not feeling well. Give me an hour to shower and caffeinate, and I’ll call you back.”
“You’re not sick, are you? Although, that would be far better than what I was thinking.” Her pause didn’t fool me. I knew what she would say next, maybe even before she did. “Has he been bothering you again?”
“No.” I pinched the bridge of my nose, closing my eyes tightly against the memory of the man she was referring to. The man I hadn’t seen in a little over four years and hoped never to lay eyes on again. “No to both questions. One hour.”
I closed the connection and toed off my shoes, kicking them one at a time into my bedroom. Scrubbing a hand over my face, I headed into the kitchen, where I filled a tall beer stein with Mt. Dew and then gulped from the two-liter before stashing it back in the fridge.
An hour later, on the dot, I Skyped Rosie.
“Okay, what happened on the call?”
“Jeez, B, you don’t look so good. Are you sure you’re not sick?”
“Thanks. I’m fine. Late night, that’s all.”
She leaned closer to her monitor, fear skated across her features that were almost duplicates of my own. Her hair had barely started to go gray, her version of the Baxters’s strawberry-blond made her look a decade younger despite having three years on me.
“Is something wrong?”
“No. Don’t worry. Lane will be ready.”
“I was talking about you. Why were you up late last night with your phone off? If Rob has been—”
“No. Seriously.” Hearing his name made me feel a little green, though, and it must have showed because she got more worried.
“Don’t protect him. If he’s coming around, you need to call the police—”
“He’s not. It doesn’t have anything to do with him, okay? It’s me. I…went to the half marathon and—”
“No way. You went through with that? That’s so cool, B. Did you finish it?”
“Sort of.”
“What aren’t you telling me? I can tell, you—oh, man. Did you meet someone?”
“Why would you think that?” I busied myself straightening my desk, but it was hopeless, so I turned my attention to the Dew.
“Because I’ve known you your whole life, and I can read you like—”
I groaned. “Okay. Just…it’s new. So don’t grill me, okay?”
“Give me his name, I’ll run a check—”
“No. No background checks.”
“I’m assuming you already did one.” She waited, but only for a few seconds. “Tell me you checked him out, B.”
“Okay. I checked him out.”
I didn’t really, not the way Rosie would have. Rosie would have read his tax returns going back to the first year he filed and learned the names of all his exes. I did Google the band after my shower, though, and found quite a bit on their former keyboard player and main songwriter, Cay Nissen. Mostly I’d looked at the pictures, but YouTube is a wonderful thing when you’re dating a musician.
“Is he in any debt? Criminal convictions? Mostly, though, is he nice? If he’s some kind of jerk who wants to date Baxter Bryan, the tech whiz hermit, I’ll come over and put the fear into him.”
“He’s nice.”
“I’m glad. It breaks my heart to think of you all alone. Especially if you need help.”
I stared her down, and she got the message. For the next hour, she filled me in on our Eastern investors, the advertising agency working on a campaign for Lane—BaxCo’s second generation drone butler—and a new exhibit at the Guggenheim she’d enjoyed. It felt disloyal, but I was glad she would be on the other side of the country for the rest of the week. The timing seemed to have been arranged so I’d have privacy to get to know Cay before she sprang into his life, clipboard and background report in hand, and I planned to take full advantage of it.
That afternoon, Cay texted me: Free for dinner?
I read it in his sweet, rich voice and accidentally deleted the line of code I’d written.
I wanted to answer yes but couldn’t. I texted no with a sad face emoji. Not sure if I was ready to cuss loudly into his ear, and if I were forced to say no aloud, it probably would have come with cussing. Thinking about the way he touched me, the way he made me feel special and…desirable, even outside the bedroom, left me mildly surprised I hadn’t done it already.
And then I wondered if I was old enough to have done it and then forgotten.
I was glad he hadn’t called, but that was short lived because ten minutes later, he did. Since I’d already pushed my luck by putting him off, I had to answer.
“I’ll call you.”
Too late I realized how that must have sounded. Before I could go on, Cay spoke.
“Do you mean ‘I’ll call you soon,’ or ‘Don’t call me anymore’?” He sounded a little deflated, maybe, but not deterred. I hope.
“The first one.”
“Okay. When would be a good time?”
“I have a project I need to finish. Sorry, I’d rather have dinner with you. Honestly.”
“Does your project have a deadline?”
“Um…sort of. Yeah. I’m shooting for the end of the week.”
“So, dinner on Friday?” He paused, but I didn’t let him continue.
“Sorry, Friday’s out. I have to pick my cousin up at the airport.”
“Oh. So, maybe Thursday? No, Saturday? Maybe we should whip out—”
My heart lurched before he had a chance to finish. Phone sex? It would seem parts of me were very much into the idea.
“—our calendars and make a plan.”
“Um…how about tomorrow?”
In that moment, I couldn’t help but wonder how much work I’d get done that evening, whether I saw Cay or not. But I needed to hold up my end of BaxCo. I had the one end—one job to do, create the product. And Rosie had quit her job to throw in with me, so I couldn’t let her down.
“Bry, I don’t know how I’ll last, but I’ll see you then.”
A quick shower in which I beat off while replaying our last encounter in my mind led to an all-nighter in which I actually made considerable progress on Lane. I dropped into bed shortly after dawn, smiling as I fell into a mercifully dreamless sleep for the next twelve hours.
I missed calls from Rosie and from Cay, and by the time I woke, it was well past dinnertime. Cay was surprisingly sweet about being stood up, but I heard disappointment in his voice as well. I compounded things by rejecting his invitation out for a beer—or in for a beer, from what I heard in his voice—but I didn’t want to make his life more difficult by keeping him up late on a work night. Again.
Thursday evening, I made it up to him—not to do so seemed an insupportable risk, the sound of disappointment in his voice once had been nearly unbearable. Over dinner, he seemed subdued, but we still ended up back at his place. He did a little half-hearted fishing for an invitation to mine, but I wasn’t ready to let anyone into my apartment. Even though my ex—Rob—hadn’t been a problem, the memory of being afraid in my own home remained fresh enough that I avoided situations that could lead to that, at all costs.
As I left Cay’s apartment before dawn—the scent of him lingering on my skin—the phrase “at all costs” clanged in my mind like a gong. Was that still true? Or had losing Cay become an unacceptable cost when compared with the sanctity of my home, of my uncomplicated life?
While I drove to the airport to pick up Rosie on Friday, I had a little too much time to think. Normally, while I’m not doing anything exciting, I’m doing something that requires me to use my brain, if not my body. Driving was the opposite—most of my mind was free to dwell on Cay, but not in the way I would have liked. No, I wasn’t thinking about his amazing hands or the way I felt when he kissed me, not even the hypnotic way his muscles rippled when he moved.
For almost an hour and a half, I teased myself with thoughts of where my relationship with Cay was going. Where did I want it to go? Where did he? Who, exactly, would be the one making the decision?
Cay seemed to have a fine life with his daughter and his friends in the band—but I still didn’t know where he went when we parted in the mornings or what he thought when he got quiet, or why he had a dragon tattooed on his arm.
As for myself, I didn’t seem to know much more, despite knowing myself for almost forty-six years. By the time I saw Rosie disembarking, I’d figured out one thing, though.
Living with people in my life—with a man in my life—was dangerous. Scary. But living without one was starting to get a tad boring.
I’m getting tired of being on my own.
I helped Rosie retrieve her luggage and listened to her talk about her trip. She waited until we were in the car, halfway to her modest house in the West Hills, to start grilling me about Cay.
“So. This man you’re seeing.”
“Rosie…”
“Don’t try to pretend you’re surprised I’m bringing him up.”
“Not surprised so much as…reluctant to discuss it.”
“Get over it.” I glanced at her and she smiled an apology. “That wasn’t supposed to sound so harsh. But I do want to hear about him.”
“He’s…” He’s everything I always wanted in a man. No. He’s…so hot I can hardly stand it. No. “He’s nice.”
“Jeez, B. You make it sound too exciting.” She waited, impatiently, for all of two seconds. “Have you brought him home yet?”
“No. How was the Guggenheim?”
“We already talked about that.” Her long-suffering sigh was all too familiar. She’d been hand-holding me for four years and had probably had enough. “If you want to, you should. That’s all I’m saying. Once you’re sure he’s okay. If he flips out on you later, we can always move you to that cute house you were looking at. That one with the little barn? It’s still available.”
“Rosie.” I half-heartedly tried for a warning tone, but it sounded closer to whiney.
“What? I’m just saying you can have any fun you want and there’s always an out if you need it.”
Her encouragement made me smile. She really did want me to have fun, and not only because it would probably be good for my production for BaxCo. The depression of the last half decade had not been good for me, personally or career-wise. Getting out of bed had become difficult enough toward the end of my relationship with Rob, and I’d left my job and abandoned my friends—if Rosie hadn’t stuck with me, I’d probably still be with him, at the mercy of his moods and his temper.
I shook my head to clear those unhealthy thoughts and refocused on the road and our conversation. “You just want that house.”
“Not just.” She laughed. “I want you to get your man too. If you won’t tell him where you live, he could think you’re hiding something. In the not mysteriously sexy kind of way. Like a dungeon, or an unfinished basement filled with shallow graves. Or a wife.”
She shuddered theatrically, and we chuckled.
But I couldn’t deny she was right. If I wanted anything real with Cay I had to move past my fear and let him know me—the real me—so he could decide where he wanted to be. With the hermit—ex hermit—or off to greener pastures.