by Nicky James
He dropped his gaze to his lap and twisted his fingers together. “I’ve spent years ensuring you never found out because I knew it would ruin our friendship. I would never step out of line, Beck. You have to know that. In there,” he indicated to the bedroom, “that was a stupid mistake. My head has been kind of a mess lately. I couldn’t sleep. You were thrashing as usual and wound up wrapped around me.”
“And you took it as an invitation?”
He stared at the ceiling as though it might have the answers. Sighing, he continued. “No. But you were sleeping and started moving against me. I should have stopped you. Pushed you away. But it felt too good, and my mind had finally stopped fucking with me for five seconds and…”
“I’m not gay,” I pronounced slowly and with emphasis. “This isn’t happening, Gray. Do you hear me? I was asleep. It wasn’t you I was thinking about.”
“Believe me, I know. I accepted that a long time ago.”
Fuck him for looking so goddamn defeated and torn up.
When his fingers dug into his thigh above his amputation, his face soured. Then he shifted and grimaced, and I knew he was in pain. I felt bad. He’d been through hell. What happened in the bedroom, I’d initiated unknowingly. It wasn’t his fault. Even though he should have stopped it.
“Can we just forget this happened?” I asked.
His gaze darted to mine, and he nodded almost frantically. “Please. Beck, I swear to you. I will never cross that line. We’re friends. That’s it, and I know that. I’m sorry this got weird and that I never told you. I didn’t want to lose my best friend.”
“We’re adults. Water under the bridge, okay?”
Again, his face radiated pain before he nodded.
“Do you need to take something?” I asked, indicating to his leg.
“Nah, won’t help. Go to bed. I’m not tired, and I don’t want to keep you up.”
There was something more he wasn’t saying, but fearing it concerned his feelings for me—a subject I wasn’t prepared to dig up—I let it go.
Before retreating down the hall, I caught his attention shift to the clock and the stiffness that zipped through his body as it chimed the late hour. If we hadn’t just finished a tension-filled conversation, I might have asked what his obsession was with the clock, but I didn’t. Saving it for another day, I turned back down the hall.
Before I got far, I peered back. “Gray?” When I had his attention, I asked, “For how long?”
A mournful smile filled his face, and the depth of his sadness wasn’t hidden. “Since that summer we went to camp when we were fifteen. That night we snuck out of our tents and went down to the river. We sat and watched the stars and talked until dawn.”
I smiled at the memory. Gray’s parents had paid to send me to camp with him that year since mine had never been able to afford it.
“That was a good night.”
“Yeah. I’ll never forget it.”
For the first time, I saw the love Gray held for me shine from his eyes. And it wasn’t the love of a best friend. It went far deeper.
Had he really been hiding it for fifteen years? It was unsettling and warming at the same time. Our gazes held a beat before I continued my retreat down the hall and went to bed.
* * *
Sometimes, moments in your life imprint themselves on your mind and never get erased. That night in bed with Grayson was one of them. No matter how badly I wanted to purge my system and forget, it was like a branding iron had permanently seared the entire experience into my cerebral cortex.
I didn’t sleep a wink.
The following day, I submerged myself in work, heading downstairs far too early and creeping past Gray who’d fallen asleep on the painfully short settee with his limbs contorted. Maria was off, so I had far too much time on my own to think.
After routinely opening the shop, I checked the calendar and noted I had an eighth-grade tour coming in that afternoon. With that in mind, I set about tidying displays, dusting, and finding a few items in storage that I knew would trigger some interest.
School tours were among my favorites. I got to take young minds through an adventure into the past and teach them all about odd traditions and show them unbelievable collections I’d gathered over the years. No matter what Gray said about my shrunken heads, those things were always the highlight. Kids loved them.
In the Red Room—or the room of the ultimately bizarre—I cleared a spot to set out my new diaphonized collection. They needed a backlight to truly make them stand out, so I searched the storage room to see what I could find.
Boxes upon boxes were scattered about, and I got lost in a mountain of prized possessions I hadn’t seen in a long time. Gray was right. I’d become a bit of a hoarder over the years. My collections had grown beyond the capacity of my shop and my apartment combined. But there wasn’t a single thing I was prepared to part with.
As I sat among stacks of boxes, thumbing through old books with an ear to the chimes on the front door, my mind drifted. Staring at the back stairs leading up to my apartment, I wondered what Gray was up to. I wondered if I climbed the stairs and surprised him again if he’d be doing the same thing as he’d been doing the day before.
Then a thought occurred to me. Was I the main feature in those wank sessions?
That was all it took for the flood of memories to drown me again. Boxes and books forgotten, I stared into space as the branded images returned. Some in a sensory form, others more physical. Gray’s flushed skin pressed to me. His ragged breathing and racing heart pounding against the palm I’d held on his firm, bare chest. The cutting nails digging into my thigh. His scent and the taste of his skin on my lips from when I’d had my mouth against his shoulder.
But it was the cleft of his ass where my dick had been nestled that I could still feel. I’d been a thrust away from bursting.
“Fuck, I need to get laid.”
Banishing the unsettling thoughts, I closed the box I’d been rummaging through and found a light. The rest of my morning, I reorganized the Red Room, refreshed displays, and added some oddities I found in storage. Then, I cleaned. Purged. Exhausted myself while keeping my mind busy so I didn’t re-see or re-feel last night’s experience.
By one o’clock, I’d missed lunch. My tour arrived, and I spent the following two hours playing guide and engaging the kids in thrilling and somewhat disturbing stories of old.
When I finally closed the shop and made it upstairs, it was after six. Caution made me listen outside the door before entering. There was clattering beyond. Pots and pans. Running water. The savory smell of fried garlic.
I let myself in and found Gray standing at the counter, chopping tomatoes. On two feet. My face split into a wide, unstoppable grin. The incident from the night before forgotten.
“Holy shit! Look at you.”
He peered over his shoulder and smiled before ducking his head to resume chopping. “Hey. Dinner is almost ready.”
He dumped the tomatoes into a bowl where he’d been preparing a salad and walked to the oven to peek inside. There was little variation in his gait than when he’d had two legs, and I was amazed. Shamefully, I stared, mouth gaping.
Gray had to have noticed, but he didn’t seem to want to draw attention to himself.
“I fried a couple steaks and baked some potatoes. Hope that’s all right.”
“Where the hell did you get the groceries? Did you go out?”
He shrugged and nodded, not meeting my eyes. There was still a lot of tension between us. Tension that hadn’t existed before Gray’s confession and my inadvertent sleep-induced slip-up.
“You had potatoes,” he finally explained as he pulled a couple of plates from the cupboard. “I started them in the oven and walked to that small market on the corner.”
“That place is expensive as hell.”
“Well, I’m kinda limited here. I’m only supposed to be using this thing for thirty minutes a day right now, and my time is up. Can you…” H
e waved a hand at the covered pan on the burner. “I gotta take this off.”
He was out the door and down the hall before I could say any more.
I plated our food and carried it into the living room. George’s cage was already uncovered, and he squawked seeing me.
Squawk! “Watch out for Ringo. Watch out for Ringo.”
“Where is the little shit?” I asked my bird as though he would answer me.
“If he knows what’s good for him, he’s hiding,” Gray said, entering the room on crutches.
“Oh yeah? What’d he do?”
Gray awkwardly yanked up the leg of his joggers on the left side, exposing his calf and deep red, inflamed scratches. “Tried to climb me like a tree while I was cleaning the fish tank. Fucker almost got his claws into Paul. I slammed the lid just in time before I landed on my ass.”
Squawk! “Ringo did it. Ringo did it. Hide the body. Hide the body.”
“Yeah, Ringo did it,” Gray agreed, glancing at George. “Seriously, Beck, that cat is not normal.”
I couldn’t disagree. Ringo had been an asshole as a kitten and he’d only gotten worse. Some people believe their houses were haunted by ghosts. Mine was terrorized by the reincarnation of some tiny, pissed off, demonic, black-footed feline. The most deadly cat in the world. Whatever evil presence occupied my Ringo, it had a thirst for blood and was horrifically ill-tempered.
I believed if I tried to exorcise him or send him to the pound, he’d murder me in my sleep. And I wasn’t being dramatic. I saw the way he looked at me.
“Did you clean those scratches out?” I asked, indicating to his leg while he covered them again and hobbled to the settee to sit.
“Yeah. They’re fine.”
Only when he sat did I notice how exhausted he looked. Dark circles hung under his eyes, his scruff was thick, and his skin pale.
“You feeling okay?” I asked as I joined him and handed him his plate.
“Yeah. I think being boxed in is starting to get to me.” He moved the salad around his plate, not eating. “Do you mind if we hit the gym after dinner? I know its not your thing. I know you were probably just trying to be nice when you offered, but if I don’t get out of here, I might lose my mind.”
It wasn’t my thing, but I had offered. Despite being tired and uninterested, I agreed. Something was going on with Gray. Something troubling he wasn’t voicing. Every now and again, I caught flashes of panic or insecurity as it passed through his eyes. Other times, like today, he looked sad. Defeated. Ready to give up. Depressed.
“Sure. But promise you won’t hurt me. My body is fragile and happily squishy. If I can’t get out of bed tomorrow, Maria will make fun of me. I hate being teased.”
He laughed. It was fleeting, but it sent warmth to my heart. I hated seeing Gray so wrecked.
“You aren’t squishy.”
“I’m not all firm and muscly like you, either.”
I squeezed his bicep for show—a move I’d have thought nothing about twenty-four hours ago. His irises darkened, and we both froze. Gazes locked. Jerking my hand away too late, I flushed and returned to eating.
Fuck. Everything had changed since last night. Would Gray and I ever be what we once were or had my actions and his confession put us in a place where everything would be perpetually weird?
Chapter Ten
Grayson
“I can’t wear it all the time yet, so returning to work isn’t possible. Honestly, I don’t even know if I’ll be able to do the job anymore.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose while my mother huffed on the other end of the phone line. “Well, that’s just discrimination if they don’t take you back. They can’t fire you because you’re disabled. They should be finding you something you can do. Accommodate your needs.”
Cringing at her terminology and her sheer determination to fight tooth and nail for her son, I opened my pinched eyes and fixated on the clock. We’d been on the phone for ten minutes. Ten grueling minutes.
“Mom, I do landscaping. There isn’t a desk job option. I’m not qualified to be a secretary, nor would Stacey be very happy if I took her job. I’m qualified to do outdoor home and garden work. Grunt work. Going back will depend on my progress and the doctor. It’s too early to determine yet.”
“Well…” she huffed, still not letting it go. “You can supervise men, can’t you? That doesn’t require the same moving and lifting.”
“That’s not how it works, Mom. Everyone on site has a job to do, and if you can’t do it, you may as well not be there. Right now, my mobility is compromised. Even with a permanent prosthesis, I don’t know what kind of challenges I’ll face. Maybe it won’t be a problem. I don’t know.”
It was a reality I hadn’t wanted to face. Leave it to my mother to plunge the knife into the wound. I’d had my temporary prosthesis for three weeks. I was comfortable walking the apartment or down the block, but there were plenty of times when my disability was glaring. Like stairs. Aurora thought it was more in my head than anything, but it was still an unnerving task that made me sweat.
“Baby, you have the labor board on your side. If they give you trouble, your dad and I will be on the first flight. We will get the best lawyer in town and—”
“Mom, I don’t need you fighting my battles. I’m thirty years old, and you are getting way ahead of yourself. The company hasn’t done anything except wish me well. Doug has called twice since I was discharged from the hospital to see how I was doing. He’s not going to be an asshole and fire me.”
“Gray, honey, I just worry about you.”
“I know, Mom. Don’t. I’m doing well.”
Lies.
Physically, I was improving. Mentally… not so much.
I’d called my mother because I’d been on the verge of suffocating on the eerie darkness growing inside my mind, and I’d needed a quick distraction. Whenever I sat still, whenever the house was too quiet, chaos reigned. The idea that I was potentially losing my mind made me ill.
Things between Beck and I had been rocky and uncomfortable over the past few weeks, or I would have gone down to the shop to see if he needed a hand with anything. We were amicable, but there was an undeniable elephant in the room neither of us wanted to address. So, I’d called my mother. If that wasn’t a sign of desperation, I didn’t know what was.
“How’s physio?” she asked, thankfully relenting on the topic of work. “Is Beck helping you out enough? Is he taking good care of you? Do you need me to come?”
“No! Like I said, everything is going well. I see my OT three days a week. She’s monitoring my progress and making sure the prosthesis is working for me and adjusted correctly. Beck takes me to all my appointments.”
He hadn’t. Another lie.
Since the bedroom incident and subsequent strain in our friendship, I’d been insistent on taking a cab to all my appointments. I didn’t want to take him away from his job—or at least that was my excuse. The most we hung out was in the evenings when we ate dinner, and the two nights a week I dragged him to the gym. I was shocked Beck hadn’t bailed on working out yet. He complained the entire two hours we were there and bitched about sore muscles every day in between.
I could still see the incomprehensible look of disgust on his face when I’d admitted to actively participating in his dry-hump, sleep-fuck session. Yeah, he was pissed, but I only mildly regretted it. A small, selfish part had replayed the whole thing over and over again while inserting a rather filthy ending that landed me covered in Beck’s cum.
When I tuned back in, my mother was rambling on about taking medication, eating a balanced diet, and something about Dad’s ulcer—I didn’t catch most of it.
“Mom,” I interrupted. “I should probably let you go. Beck will be back for lunch soon, and I need to make something.”
Lying to my mother was becoming a new habit, but she could be so overbearing.
“Okay, sweetie. Call me if you need anything. Your dad and I send our love.”
When the line went dead, I tossed my phone on the coffee table and lay on the settee with a groan. It was too short, so I propped my left leg over the hard armrest as I used the other as a headrest. The clock sat directly in my line of sight.
Eleven twenty-five.
Not three seconds from hanging up the phone and my world shrank to just me and that damn clock again.
Tick, tick, tick…
The rapid pulse of my heart matched the metronomic ticking perfectly, radiating through to my teeth. My blinks followed the same pattern.
Beck wasn’t coming home for lunch, and I wasn’t hungry. My blood raced, and my stomach knotted tighter the longer I stared at the clock. The longer I was under its spell.
If I closed my eyes, panic would set in. That much I knew. My toleration for darkness was less and less these days. It gave me the impression of being trapped and ignited a sudden urge to flee. To run like I was being chased by something ugly and deadly. Except the monster lived inside my mind and he was inescapable.
Scrubbing at my face, purposefully blocking my view of the time, I tried to shake the tremors that crawled like ants under my skin.
The longer I remained in one spot, the more heightened my awareness became of the ticking, its speed, and just how many minutes were slipping by. With my eyes covered, the sounds raced faster. The ticks came one on top of the other until they blended into one long scream and ravaged my mind.
I tore my hands away from my face and bolted upright, glaring at the ancient device as it mocked and taunted me. My vision narrowed and sharpened. Staring. Staring was the only way to slow the racing. If I challenged it, maybe it would stop harassing me.
I’d grown up with the perception that time was constant and concrete, but all those teachings flew out the window lately. Time was erratic, menacing, threatening.
Twelve fifteen…twelve fifteen… It was twelve fifteen…
I’d lost nearly an hour. Somehow. Somewhere.
My pulse spiked, and I shuffled off the couch and fit my crutches under my arms. My movements scrambled together in a mad rush, zipping by so fast my vision blurred every time I turned my head. Like I was moving out of sync with reality.
