by Aiden Bates
“Hey.”
At a knock to my open door, I looked up. Then I glanced down at the phone cradled against my chest, and I stuck it in my pocket. “Oh, hey, Coop. You doing okay?”
Cooper Bradshaw, my friend and colleague, nodded. “Absolutely. I’ve just looked through your email and I think the board will go for it and renew the contract for the robotics company with the terms you’ve laid out.” He shot me a thumbs-up. “With any luck, there will be no problem and they’re happy to give it the green light.”
“Cool.” I nodded. I hadn’t really doubted that my email was reasonable. I’d tagged all the benefits, all the things the board liked to hear, and my math had been watertight. It was always nice to get Coop’s opinion and take on things, but today, business really was the least of my worries.
Coop dropped into my cool office wheelie chair, the one with the awesome lumbar support and that made me feel like some sort of starship captain at my desk.
“This is nice, dude,” he said.
“Sure.” I sat across the room on the small loveseat where I usually sat when I pretended I wasn’t really working.
“Soooo…” He looked at me and lifted an eyebrow. “What’s going on, man? You look pretty weird.”
“How so?” I tugged my mouth in a half smile.
“You’re behaving like even more of a sadass than usual.”
“A sadass?” Two-word sentences seemed to be all I was capable of.
“That’ll do until I think of a better word, yeah.” He nodded. “So, what’s going on with you?”
I covered my face in my hands then took them away and blew out a sigh. “I went to Gray’s birthday party.”
“Okaaaay.” Coop shrugged. “Not getting it.”
“Shit, Coop. I did something really dumb.” I rested my elbows on my knees and hung my head. “There was a situation with this guy Gray liked…likes… I don’t know anymore, and I wanted to protect Grady’s feelings.”
“Okaaaay,” Coop said again. “That all sounds pretty normal. But what did Roman Hayes do to make that situation abnormal?”
Fuck. I pressed my palm to my mouth. “Roman Hayes pretended he and Grady Caldwell have a thing going on,” I mumbled. “In front of all his friends and family.” Then I risked a look at Coop.
For a moment, he stared at me like he hadn’t heard. Good. I hadn’t meant him to. Then his eyes widened, and he nodded.
“Well, shit, dude.” He gripped the arms on the chair and wheeled it back a little. “That all sounds pretty complicated.”
“It wasn’t too complicated.” I nodded at my words. Protecting Grady would never be the complicated choice. Ever.
“Could get complicated now, though, right?” He wheeled the chair forward again.
“I guess.”
He looked at me, meeting my gaze. “You guess? Rome, you’re not just a sadass, you’re a dumbass. How the hell do you expect to keep from showing Grady you love him now?”
I looked away, back out the window to the clouds still chasing each other across the sky. “Same way I’ve hidden it for the past twenty years. I’m going to pretend.”
5
Grady
Friday
I did that thing in front of my closet again. The one where I wished for Adrian as I clattered my hangers around on the rod. Nothing looked good to me, and it was double date night, so I needed to look really good.
I’d managed to avoid Eli for the whole rest of the week. It wasn’t hard. He was pretty absorbed with his plans and telling other people his plans for his and Benji’s wedding, and I had endless grading to do. And when I ran out of grading, I set more work.
The truth was, I didn’t want to hear Eli’s news ad infinitum. I didn’t want to hear what he made Benji for breakfast or how Benji looked just soooo cute when he drooled a little in his sleep. I had no interest in what either of them would wear, or about seating plans or what they wanted on their cake.
I didn’t care that Eli was getting married.
Except I did. I really did.
And every time he talked about his happiness with someone else—someone who wasn’t me—it was like he was squeezing my heart in his fist.
Kind of like when he pretty much ripped my heart right out at a party and then tried to stomp on it before Rome came running up and tried to put it back.
I sighed, flipped my cell phone out of my pocket, and pressed the speed dial for Adrian.
“Dude.” I didn’t even wait for him to say hello. “Dude, I have a date night clothing emergency.”
Adrian laughed. “Oh my God. What is it with so many brothers who can’t dress themselves? And do you also need the number of my ball waxer?”
“What?” I yanked my phone away from my ear and looked at it hard, like I might see Adrian down the line if I narrowed my eyes enough. “Ew! No. No, bro, no. Just the clothes, please.”
He chuckled, and the sound immediately relaxed me. “Okay, so first thing, a couple of deep breaths. Just relax.”
I inhaled.
“No one’s going near your junk.”
I choked on the exhale, and Adrian laughed again. “Just focus on my wardrobe, please, Adrian.”
“Seeing as you asked so nicely.” He exhaled. “Right. I’ve got my eyes closed right now so I can imagine your clothes, but you’re naked. What are you going to wear?”
I hesitated.
“Quickly, quickly,” he ordered. “I’ll go blind from this unwanted sight.”
“Uh, okay.” I moved the clothes faster. “White shirt?”
“Good start.”
“I have underwear on, by the way,” I said, unsure why I was reassuring my brother I actually wasn’t naked. “Do I need a tie?” I ran one through my fingers.
“Is it a tie kind of place?”
“Uh, maybe?”
“Rome will look good, right? So, are you out to impress or really impress?”
“Really impress.” I was sure about that much, only I was no longer sure who I was trying to impress. Eli or Rome.
“Okay.” Adrian started to hum.
“What are you doing now, Adrian?” I was literally standing in front of my closet in my boxer shorts, listening to my brother meditate or something.
“Tuning in to my inner clothing guru.”
“Right.” And I agreed with him like that made sense.
“Okay. You look like me, right?”
“Well, yeah.” I didn’t understand his point. We were Caldwells. We all looked the same. Dad’s blond hair, Mom’s blue eyes. Kind of like Mom had grown lots of little clones and just incubated us a while.
“Well, when I want to look really hot, I go for black on black. Works every time.”
“Huh. Black on black, you say?” I parted the clothes faster, selecting a black shirt, and matching black pants and jacket.
“Yeah, but open neck, dude. Don’t go spoiling all that hotness with a tie.”
“Okay. Got it.” I was already pulling the pants on.
“Then my work here is done. Go get ’em, tiger. You hook that guy. Later.” He hung up before I could reply, and my phone beeped in my ear.
I threw it on my bed and shoved my arm in a shirt sleeve, Adrian’s last words echoing through my head. Hook that guy. But which one did I want? I wasn’t entirely sure I knew.
When I was dressed, I added a splash of new cologne. Nothing I’d ever worn to impress Eli before. Those bottles had landed in the trash earlier. This new one smelled dark and kind of dangerous and made me think of Rome and his slightly mobster appearance. I shivered at the thought.
He wasn’t dangerous at all, but the hint of promise was enough.
I pushed thoughts of Eli and Benji out of my head. If I allowed those two to sneak into my mind, I’d never want to leave the house. I didn’t want to face them.
I lingered in front of my mirror. Adrian was right. All black worked. My eyes seemed brighter, and I grinned at the image in front of me. I was never vain, yet here I was being vain.
At a knock on my apartment door, I took a deep breath and followed it with a controlled exhale, trying to quell my nerves. The now or never moment was fast approaching, and my gut tightened in anticipation.
I pasted a bright smile on my face and opened the door, then the world stopped for a moment as I looked at Rome. Holy shit. He looked like he’d just stepped from the pages of a male fashion magazine, or even fresh off a local catwalk. His black pants hugged his thighs, and he wore a white shirt topped off with a fitted charcoal gray vest that nipped in at his waist. He had his jacket held casually over his shoulder, and the other hand in his pocket.
“Hi,” I croaked out.
“Hey.” He grinned, the movement wide and easy.
He knew he looked good, the bastard. But Rome took pride in always looking good. He looked more than good, though. Flawless came to mind, and I stepped back to allow him in.
“Everything okay?” He glanced at me, his eyebrows drawn together, concern in his eyes.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“You sure? You’re not saying a whole lot.”
I nodded again. I could hardly open my mouth and let the drool out.
“Okay.” He nodded, then his eyes sparkled with sudden mischief, and he stepped toward me and lowered his voice. “You look great, by the way.”
I froze, surprise taking hold of me, and my cheeks heated.
Rome smirked. “A blush is very cute on you, too.”
I parted my lips and sucked in a quick breath as my heart thundered unexpectedly. Rome stood so close, and he smelled warm and earthy with a hint of danger. Like the outside on a dark night. And his low voice sent unexpected shivers through me.
“Don’t…don’t flirt,” I whispered.
Rome never flirted, at least not with me. I wasn’t sure I could handle being the target of full-on seductive Rome all evening.
“I can’t help it,” he murmured, and I closed my eyes as my face grew hotter. “Besides,” he continued. “Boyfriends flirt with each other, and if we can’t do this much…” He shrugged his shoulders. “You’ll give us away, Gray.”
I opened my eyes again at the soft way he said my name. His gaze was still on me, his eyes gentle. I sucked in a breath. It must be amazing to be loved by this man, if he could look at me this way only pretending.
“Okay.” My voice came out slightly irritated, but I didn’t know what had bothered me. “Look, I can handle it. I’ll be okay.”
“Let’s nail down some details, then.” Rome stepped farther inside my apartment and I closed the door behind him before I gestured to the sofa in my living room.
“Take a seat.”
He sat, his legs slightly spread, and I watched as the fabric stretched a little more over the thigh muscles I’d never imagined before.
“We should figure out what we’re going to say,” I said.
He lifted an eyebrow.
“Get our story straight, I mean.” But even as I spoke, that sounded kind of cheap, considering our friendship.
Rome nodded. “We don’t want to get caught in any lies, so let’s just stick to things we know have happened?”
“How can we do that?” I wasn’t sure I understood. We were talking about a pretend relationship, so how could we tell the truth?
“Okay.” He sighed a little. “A lie is best hidden between two truths, right?”
Yeah, that made sense. “Okay.”
“So we take an event that really happened, and we say that was the start of it. Then we add on a bunch of other events that actually happened, and we say that’s how it continued.”
I smiled. “That might be genius.”
He shrugged, but his smirk reappeared. “I try.”
The false modesty wasn’t lost on me. “Okay. Let me think. How about that time I knew you were working late—”
“And you brought me take-out to my office?” Rome interrupted. “Yeah, I remember it.” He rubbed his chin. “That could be a good starting point. A sweet gesture.”
We mentioned several other occasions—most of which Eli already knew about, so they wouldn’t flag as odd on his radar, and the fact we were able to embellish rather than flat-out lie alleviated some of my anxiety.
I smiled. “I think we can make this work.”
“I never had any doubt.” Rome winked, and my face warmed again. He was intolerable. “But we have one more thing to think about.”
“What’s that?” We seemed to have pretty much covered everything. Our stories were straight now, anyway.
“We need to work out what you’re—” He hesitated. “Comfortable with in front of Eli and Benji.”
I wrinkled my nose, not sure I’d ever be actually comfortable in front of Eli and Benji, whatever we told them. “I think what we’ve discussed worked. It’s always going to be awkward.”
He touched my fingers. “No, I meant like this.”
His skin against mine sent a spark tingling up my arm, spreading heat through my body, and I looked at where our fingers rested against each other.
“Oh,” I said. “Oh. Well, I know you’re not big into PDA, so whatever you’re comfortable with, I guess.”
“Think about it, Gray,” he murmured. “Being my boyfriend might be a little different than being my friend. I might be different.”
My cock twitched at a note of promise in his words, and I moved my hand and turned away to walk to the other side of the room before I turned back. “I don’t know. I guess hand holding?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I think I can do that.”
I laughed but it sounded a little forced. “I’m good with most things as long as it doesn’t involve tonsil hockey at the table, or something.” But my joke fell completely flat as Rome’s expression turned thoughtful.
“Slow down, Gray. It’s only the first date.”
I swallowed, not sure if I was glad it was our first date or desperately sad about it. If Rome continued to have this kind of effect on me, I might not survive the night.
The moon shone and the aroma of sizzling meat greeted us as the restaurant doors were opened for us by a man in a wine-colored jacket and gray pants. Rome took my hand, folding his fingers around mine, and I relaxed a little.
As usual, heads turned as Rome entered the space, and more than one mouth parted. Some people knew who he was, and some just seemed to be reacting to the way he looked or the magnetism he seemed to radiate. I stood a little straighter as pride to be at his side trickled through me. Somehow, he made me worthy. Even if our relationship was pretend, I was still the one next to him, not anyone else, and he’d been my friend for a long time - longer than just about anyone else he knew. I hugged his arm, pressing myself closer to him, and he gave me a quick smile that set wings beating in my stomach again.
As we approached the table where Eli and Benji were already waiting, Eli narrowed his eyes as his gaze settled on Rome. It looked like his trademark glare, but as we walked closer, it disappeared to be replaced by a bright, welcoming smile.
They were both out-of-place splashes of primary color in this black and white fine dining environment, and I’d never known Eli to be matchy-matchy like this, but maybe love made fools of us all.
Benji was a little overexcited. He reminded me of a puppy, his voice bright and sparky, and his conversation all over the place as he hopped from subject to subject, everything new and interesting.
“So, how did you meet?”
“Well,” Benji dropped his voice and leaned a little over the table. “It was like fate or something. Eli advertised on social media for someone to go to the Lakeshore concert with him a few months back, and a friend of a friend put us in touch. We’ve been inseparable ever since, right, E?” He turned to look at Eli as if he needed confirmation that his story was accurate.
Eli nodded, his gaze on me. “Yeah.”
My chest tightened. I remembered that post Eli had made looking for someone to go to the concert with—I’d replied, but I’d heard nothing. I didn’t realize he’d g
one with someone he hadn’t even met before.
“Oh!” Benji’s entire face lit up. “And doesn’t Eli make just the most divine, melt-in-the-mouth chocolate chip cookies?”
I nodded, unable to talk around the sudden lump in my throat. He used to make those cookies for me and bring them into work because he knew I struggled with the perfectly baked cookie. I never managed the soft, chewy center, and Eli could do it without even seeming to try.
“Sounds like something I need to try.”
I jumped at Rome’s voice, and he leaned over to me, pressing a kiss to my cheek. Then he lingered, his mouth hovering above my ear. “No matter what, you’ll always be a hundred times better than Benji.”
“Aww.” Benji squeezed his hands against his chest. “You two are so cute together. Aren’t they just adorable, E?”
I glanced down at my plate. He seemed to get a lot of his sense of acceptance directly from Eli.
“How did the two of you get together?” he continued.
“Yeah, Romeo.” Eli closed his menu and set it back on the table in front of him. “The two of you have known each other a pretty long time, so how did all this happen?”
“Oh.” I took a look at Rome, and he nodded his agreement. “Okay. Well, we have been friends for a long time, as you know”—I gestured toward Eli like I wanted to include him in this story because he’d been part of our past, too, then closed my own menu to signal my readiness to order, too—“but there was an evening a few months back where I knew Rome was working late, and he doesn’t always eat right when he does that, so I took him some take-out.”
Rome took my hand, weaving my fingers between his. “And I guess you could say one thing led to another, and here we are.” He smiled a little and shrugged, the model of discretion.
“Oh, I love that! Don’t you just love that, E?” Benji turned to Eli, but then seemed to decide he didn’t need an answer so carried on talking. “That is so sweet, you guys.”
Eli reached out and folded Benji’s menu. “Yeah, and kind of surprising, right, Romeo?” he said.
I glanced at Eli. What was with this weird name thing he had going on?
