“Elijah Dawson isn’t Frank Ocean or Sam Smith,” he quipped back. “He’s private and he’s problematic. Ask my parents. Ask my ex. Ask the guys I’ve fucked and pretended not to know. I’m a PR nightmare, Grayson. The thought of having to conform to other people’s standards sickens me to my stomach. But if you want someone to drive your father crazy because he’s a bit of a dick who has no concern for others, then yeah. Give me a contract right now and I’ll sign it for you.”
Grayson sat there. He didn’t say anything. He looked a little frozen, actually. Elijah looked away and shook his head, refusing to speak again until Grayson had processed everything and had given him a response. On the one hand, he did a good job explaining his side to Grayson and letting him know in the most honest way he could that he wasn’t the right person to have at Millennium. Then on the other hand, he destroyed every chance at anything he’d ever had with this guy. Elijah wasn’t exactly sure what he wanted from Grayson, though. Friendship didn’t seem like it would be enough, and another fuck buddy? No. This guy was above that level.
And Elijah wasn’t the boyfriend type.
He was stuck.
“Well.” Grayson looked away from Elijah and around the park. He could see the Empire State Building in the distance and focused on that for a while.
This sucked.
He really did want Elijah to be the one who changed things for him. It was perfect. He was talented and though he didn’t seem to agree, he had the star quality that a lot of the big performers had. Elijah was handsome, he was charming, and he seemed to know how to deal with people. That was important for a guy who had to do interviews and meet with fans.
But, Elijah wanted nothing to do with that, apparently.
“I guess that’s that, then.” Grayson rubbed tiredly at his eyes before rolling his neck. “It was worth a try.”
“If I could help you at all –”
“Oh, you could,” he said. “You just don’t want to. That’s completely fine, by the way. It’s your choice and no one can force you to be someone you don’t want to be. Someone you know you aren’t.”
Elijah nodded. “Still. I’m sorry.”
Grayson waved him off. “Can I have my song or what?”
Elijah wanted to talk about this some more. There probably wasn’t anything else left to say. He said his part and Grayson seemed to have accepted that. But it didn’t feel right to him.
He put his hands on the keys and began to play the song. Grayson returned his hand to his pocket after scratching his cheek and smiled to himself.
Hopefully that meant he didn’t hate him.
Right before he began to sing, Elijah noticed someone walking up to the piano with a group of about five. He tried hard not to roll his eyes. This was the last person he needed here right now.
Grayson noticed the stutter in Elijah’s piano playing and looked at him. Elijah shook his head and looked down at the keys.
“Fucking great,” he mumbled to himself.
Grayson’s left eyebrow rose high on his forehead. “I don’t remember the song going like this.”
Elijah shook his head and tried to ignore the way that Tony leant onto the Washington Square Park piano. This night had made quite the turn since they’d gotten here, and he just wanted to leave.
Finally, Elijah began to sing. Grayson smiled, moving in a bit closer. He wanted to punch this guy in the face for having such a gorgeous voice. Elijah could probably sing “Ring Around the Rosie” to him and Grayson would melt into a puddle on the floor.
Grayson realized someone glaring at him when he looked away from Elijah. A crowd had formed around them at the piano, and though most people seemed to be enjoying it, one guy with dark, spiky hair and slits in his right eyebrow appeared to be annoyed.
The thing was, he was staring directly at Grayson.
What the hell did I do? he wondered.
He turned back to Elijah, because Elijah looked much nicer than the other guy did. Elijah always looked nice; Grayson was willing to bet it. The way his ears pointed up and the way his hair poked out of the toboggan he wore – the way his lips moved when he sang.
The way he licked them in between lyrics.
Grayson licked his own.
Fuck it.
Oscar always told Grayson he needed to get lucky, right? He said he’d relax if he got some. It had been a while since he’d gotten some. And since he wasn’t having hate-sex with Bryce, he’d have hate-sex with Elijah.
He hated that Elijah didn’t want to be his artist. That was cause enough to hate-fuck someone, right?
And Elijah was really hot. Grayson hadn’t stopped looking at his lips for a while, and he could feel himself getting hard in the dress pants he wore. Stupid dress pants he put on for his stupid not-date in a fancy restaurant. He wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol talking, but he wanted Elijah to rip these pants off of him. When Grayson looked away from his lips, he found Elijah’s eyes trained on his; the man singing to him softly.
Yup. He was going to have sex tonight.
There was a voice in the back of his head reminding him that he didn’t want to be another notch in this guy’s belt. As Elijah sang to him, Grayson quickly told that voice to shut the fuck up.
Sure, Elijah was a player. But that must’ve meant he knew what the hell he was doing, right? It had been a long time for Grayson. He needed someone he trusted to – in Oscar’s words – clear the cobwebs out his ass.
Elijah sang the last words and everyone began to clap. Even the evil guy that was glaring daggers at him began to clap, but his applause was more on the slow and sarcastic side.
Grayson smiled, despite missing half of the performance because his dick got hard. And then he realized that his dick got hard while someone sang him his favorite Disney song and he felt like absolute shit. That was disgusting.
“That was beautiful,” he said instead.
Elijah didn’t seem as smug as he had earlier. That adorable smirk he tended to wear was gone from his face as he turned to him. “Thanks. I –”
“So is this why you couldn’t hang out tonight?”
Grayson looked up. The guy with the spiky black hair had walked closer. He began to put two and two together.
This dude was more than likely one of Elijah’s fuck buddies. Maybe if he were lucky, Grayson would get to see someone throw a drink in Elijah’s face.
“You’re out on a date. This is cute,” the guy continued. “I thought a romantic date in the park would go against everything in your little rulebook.”
“I’m kind of busy,” Elijah said, turning to face him. “Tony, this is Grayson. Grayson, this is Tony. He goes to school at NYU, and he was just leaving.”
Grayson smiled at him, but he did feel a bit awkward having to witness whatever it was happening right now. “Hello –”
“Wait. You’re the guy that was on Elijah’s computer screen last night.”
Elijah dropped his head. Please shut the fuck up.
“What?” Grayson looked from this Tony kid, who couldn’t have been anything more than a sophomore, back to Elijah. “What’s he talking about?”
“Nothing,” Elijah said, looking up at Tony and hoping the boy would take a hint. Tony smiled and held his hands up.
“Sorry. I’m going to be up for a while if you get bored, okay?” Tony winked and waved goodnight, walking in the direction his friends did. “Text me.”
Elijah rolled his eyes. Hence, the exact reason why he didn’t double dip. This was what he got for breaking his rules. Tony’s behavior was the consequence.
“Well,” Grayson began, smiling to himself. “You’re probably going to go to jail. What is he? Twelve?”
“I think I’m going to go,” Elijah said. He stood up reached down for his things. “Sorry about everything. About not being able to help you. Hope you find the person you need.”
Grayson rolled his eyes, standing up as well. “I found the guy I need; he just doesn’t need me. Are you going home or t
o Tony’s dorm room?”
Elijah smirked, shaking his head. “I’m going home. Maybe to my friend’s house if she still wants me over. Why do you care?”
Grayson was happy that he could actually see straight and not slanted when he stood up, but he was definitely far from sober. He licked his lips and took a deep breath. There was no turning back now.
“If you’re going home, I wanted to go with you.”
Elijah was in the middle of throwing his duffle bag over his shoulder when the words hit him. He stopped momentarily, not sure what he’d just heard.
“That’s only if you want me to,” Grayson said. His voice cracked on the last couple words and he felt really ridiculous. He wasn’t smooth at all. This getting-guys-in-bed thing wasn’t his forte. They usually came to him, and he usually said ‘leave me the hell alone’.
Elijah honestly felt like he was being Punk’d right now. He looked around for Ashton Kutcher before turning back to Grayson. “Let me get this right… You want to go back to my place?”
Grayson was starting to wonder if he was about to get rejected. Shit. The one time he actually does want to throw caution to the wind and fuck a guy and they aren’t even interested. “I… yeah? Unless you want to go back to mine, but I have a roommate and his girlfriend is probably there and I kind of want to be alone –”
“We can go to my place.” Elijah said it without hesitation.
Grayson nodded, a small, nervous smile forming on his lips.
“Okay. Then let’s go back to your place.” He almost tripped trying to walk around the piano bench, but eventually he got around it without falling flat on his face. Elijah fixed the duffel bag on his arm and waited for Grayson to catch up to him before they walked together.
It was awkwardly quiet.
Grayson had to ask himself what the hell he was doing. He shook his head. “Should I get an Uber or would you like to take the train or something?”
Elijah nodded. “We can do an Uber. That works for me.”
Grayson nodded too. They got outside the park and decided to walk down to the corner before he handed his cell phone over to Elijah to put his address in. As he did, Grayson observed him and smiled to himself.
“I didn’t imagine you to be the nervous type.”
He looked up. “What do you mean? I’m not nervous,” Elijah said.
Grayson smirked. “Okay.”
“I’m not,” Elijah told him. “I just… I guess I wasn’t expecting us to do this. But I want to.”
Their eyes found one another. Grayson smiled and looked away. “Yeah. I didn’t either. I don’t… I’m not usually the type to just… do this.”
Elijah licked his lips and finished typing on the phone. He finished entering his information and then handed it back over. “It says the ride will be here in two minutes.”
“Cool.” Grayson looked down at his phone and took a deep breath.
So. They were doing this.
It went back to being quiet. A few people walked past them as they waited, and Elijah rocked back and forth on the heels of his feet.
Grayson wondered what was going through Elijah’s mind. He was acting a lot differently than he had when they’d first met, and even the behavior he displayed tonight was far from this.
“The song was really good. Thanks.”
“Oh, yeah.” Elijah smiled. “I’m happy you liked it.”
He nodded. “Yeah. Um, are there any rules I should know about?”
Even though Elijah knew exactly what he meant, he licked his lips and gave him a questioning look. “What do you mean?”
Grayson gestured back towards the park. “Your friend in there said he knew ‘The Rules’, so I thought I’d be a good sport and play by them. What are they?”
Elijah cleared his throat. He didn’t even know if he wanted to tell them to Grayson. He didn’t want him to know just how shallow he was. The Rules were for guys that he only intended to screw and forget about, not for guys like Grayson who he was getting to know. He’d probably break a few of the rules for a guy like Grayson.
“They’re stupid. You know. There’s one that says we aren’t going to kiss on the lips. There’s another that says no pet names. No repeats. That was the mistake I made with Tony.”
Grayson nodded. “Okay. What else?”
Elijah shook his head. “I can’t think of them right now. You know. We had a lot of drinks.”
“Just tell me.”
“No staying the night,” Elijah continued after a small hesitation. “But these are things that wouldn’t exactly apply to you.”
A black town car pulled up, and the logo in the window let them know it was the Uber. Elijah gestured to the driver to pop the trunk, walking towards it when he did so. Grayson watched him load his guitar and bag in as he opened the rear passenger-side door.
“Good evening,” he said to the man.
“Hello.” The driver was smiling. “Sorry if I made you wait. My last customer thought she lost her phone in the seat cushions and wouldn’t get out.”
Elijah got into the car and moved in close to Grayson before slamming the door shut. “Losing a phone must suck. I hope she finds it,” he said.
Grayson glared at him, but they both smiled.
Their driver took off, turning the radio on at Elijah’s request. It was on an urban station and a rap song was playing. Elijah waited a while before he moved in closer and dropped his hand onto Grayson’s thigh. Grayson smirked as he looked down at it.
“You can’t wait to get there?”
Elijah smiled, sliding his hand a little higher. “I could if I wanted to. If you wanted me to. But you don’t.”
Grayson didn’t want to wait. He was hard. It wasn’t easy to get hard on a thirty-degree night, and Elijah’s warm hand on his thigh was making sure he stayed hard.
“Are there any other rules that I need to know about?”
“No,” Elijah said simply.
Grayson wondered if the driver knew what was going on as he spread his legs farther apart. He bit his bottom lip when Elijah’s hand moved smoothly over the bulge in his pants and back down.
It felt incredible. Grayson hadn’t had someone else’s hand on his cock in – he was almost too embarrassed to admit it to himself, but it had been about a year now. His ex-boyfriend had been cheating on him with his childhood best friend for three months, and Grayson had let that fuck with him more than he should’ve. He found a couple rebounds to sleep with, thinking it would help, but it made matters worse if anything. He hated himself for his behavior. In his defense, he loved Stephen. Stephen was his first love. Having to operate without someone he depended on so much was a learning experience for him.
He hoped that he wasn’t doing that right now; just throwing himself at Elijah because he knew it would make him feel good for a moment.
Elijah’s hand stroked him and Grayson looked up out the car’s sunroof as he thrust up into it. God, did it feel good.
Elijah leant back against the seat, turning his head to look at him.
“What are you thinking about?”
Grayson shook his head. “Just hoping we aren’t making a mistake, I guess.”
Elijah looked away from Grayson’s lips and down at his own hand as he moved it slowly. Grayson’s cock was straining against the zipper of his dress pants. Elijah looked back up at him and smiled.
“Do you think this is a mistake?” he asked.
“I hope it isn’t,” Grayson said. “It doesn’t feel like one.”
“I don’t think it is,” Elijah told him. He took Grayson’s hand and placed it in his lap. He was getting hard just from touching Grayson and it felt incredible when he palmed him through his jeans. “Shit.”
Grayson tried to subtly thrust up, hoping their driver didn’t know what the hell was going on in the back seat.
“The Rangers played tonight,” the man said.
He must not have known what was going on, then. Elijah started to unzip his pants and Gr
ayson looked down to watch what he was doing.
This was too much. He didn’t want to cum before he got back to Elijah’s place, and in an Uber no less.
“That was the cause for that traffic,” he continued. “But I don’t think there’ll be much more heading to –”
“It’s fine,” Elijah said, interrupting him. “I don’t mean to cut you off, but we’re in the middle of something back here.”
Grayson’s eyes went wide. He didn’t know if it was because of what Elijah had just said ALOUD to their Uber driver or because Elijah had slipped his hand into his pants and grabbed his cock.
“Oh,” was all the man said.
Elijah threw his head back and sighed, working his hips forward into Grayson’s hand as he stroked him.
It felt really, really good.
Chapter 7
Grayson winced as his back hit the door with more force than Elijah probably intended. Probably. He threw his things down and his mouth was immediately in the crook of his neck, kissing, sucking, licking.
Grayson bit his lip.
They weren’t inside Elijah’s apartment yet. They could’ve been had they actually walked up the three flights without stopping to touch one another every few steps, but Grayson wasn’t about to complain. If this was the pace they were taking, he knew he’d leave here satisfied.
Elijah was in the middle of undoing Grayson’s belt buckle as he tried to feel around the doorknob to put his key in. He was grinding against Grayson’s thigh at the same time, and the friction was driving him crazy.
Grayson could feel every inch as Elijah thrust against him. He had half a mind to tell him to stop so they could get inside, otherwise he was going to lose it. He fucking knew it.
But thankfully, the door opened.
Grayson held onto Elijah so he wouldn’t fall backwards, and smirked as the shorter man grabbed his ass, pushing him inside.
The place was small. Grayson wasn’t expecting much. Elijah had told him he was ‘broke as fuck’ earlier, and he knew not to think that a two-bedroom apartment in Hell’s Kitchen would be that glorious. He removed his coat and tossed it aside, working on his bowtie as he stepped out of his shoes.
Something Real Page 10
