Faking It

by Christine d'Abo

  He needed something new in his life. Someone new.

  When he finally walked through the sliding glass doors and the cab was nowhere to be seen, Max felt the remnants of his energy slip from his body. His legs buckled, and he sat down on the curb, ignoring the approach of the bellhop.

  “Sir, are you okay?”

  Max didn’t bother to look up at him. “Could you get me a cab?”

  “No problem.”

  He had nothing to complain about, not really. Things were going great—his business, his friendships, even the occasional dates he’d go on. So why, sitting on the curb in front of the Fairmont Royal York on a Friday night the last week of September, did Max want to do nothing more than to run away from everything and start new?

  No more drunks. No more micromanaging. No more being everyone’s parent.

  For once in his life, Max wanted someone to take care of him instead of take advantage of him.

  Just once.

  The bellhop signaled a cab over and opened the back door. “Here you go, sir.”

  Mustering the last of his energy reserves, Max pushed himself to his feet and climbed gingerly into the back while slipping his last ten into the bellhop’s hand. “Thank you.”

  The driver looked at Max through the rearview mirror. “Where to?”

  He should go back to work, to the club. Everyone would wonder what had happened to him. Teddy wasn’t one to keep the fun details about a drunk to himself, and they’d want to be sure that he was okay. Max knew all this, and yet he still gave the driver the address of his apartment.

  “Take me home.”

  Saturday Morning . . . before everything changed

  It was the pounding that eventually yanked Grady from the fitful sleep he’d slipped into at some point in the last few hours. It started behind his eyes, a little tap dance that began somewhere around his optic nerve and eventually moved deeper into his brain. Waking up with a headache after a night of drinking was, unfortunately, not a new occurrence for him. What was weird was that he could actually hear the pounding.

  No. That wasn’t his head.

  That was the door.

  There was no way Grady could ignore it, not with the constant beat that had fallen in sync with his brain. He wanted to, really, really badly. Given that he’d come to Toronto without letting anyone know, he’d managed to enjoy two blissfully anonymous weeks without his father finding him. There was no way a hotel employee would be beating on his door in that manner, which meant his freedom had come to an end.

  “Grady, open this door. Now.”

  Of course, his father hadn’t come himself. That would have been too much to ask, to be reprimanded in person. The voice of his father’s assistant, though, that shrill little note that Justin knew drove him insane, forced him to open his eyes.

  “Just a minute.” His voice cracked, and he had to swallow hard around the overwhelming cottonmouth. “Just a minute.” Louder this time, and enough for Justin to hear. The knocking finally stopped.

  Grady had lost track of exactly what had happened last night somewhere around midnight. There’d been a pool table along the back of a club, one filled with some of the hottest men he’d seen in a while. The heavy beat of the electro music had set the pace for his drinking—steady and often. Break, run the table, win another drink. Rinse and repeat. He would have been fine if he hadn’t let the brunet pull him out onto the dance floor.

  He didn’t dance. Mostly due to lack of coordination, but partially because it made him black out if he’d been drinking. One moment he’d been grinding up against the hottie, and the next he remembered retching.

  Another knock on the door. “I’m getting tired of being ignored.”

  “Jesus fuck. One second.” The familiar rush of anger swelled inside him, only to be just as quickly squashed by the pounding of his head.

  Trying to piece together what had happened would have to wait until later. Grady pushed himself up and gingerly swung his legs over the side of the bed. When the contents of his stomach stayed put, he grabbed the glass of water on the nightstand and downed it greedily. At least he’d been with it enough last night to hydrate.

  Had he?

  Pushing himself up, he grabbed his temples and shuffled over to the hotel door to let Justin in. “I need an aspirin before you start bitching.”

  “You have five minutes.” Justin pushed past him, leaving a trail of freshly applied aftershave in his wake. “Make that fifteen. I’ll wait for you to shower.”

  Prissy little shit. “So generous.”

  The idea of a shower was actually quite tempting, a far better alternative than the reaming he was going to receive. Grabbing some clean clothing from the dresser, he disappeared into the bathroom.

  His fifteen-minute grace period quickly became twenty as he took his time to scrub away the remnants of whatever had happened last night. The water helped ease his hangover to the point he felt more human. By the time he’d finished getting dressed and reemerged, a tray with coffee and an assortment of pastries were set on the coffee table. Justin had apparently ordered room service.

  Grady grabbed a croissant and shoved half of it into his mouth while he poured himself a black coffee.

  “Your father isn’t happy with you.” Justin was sitting on a couch, his ankle across his knee.

  “When is he ever happy with me?” Grady fell into the chair opposite his nemesis. “I’m surprised you found me.”

  “Find you?” Justin cocked an eyebrow. “We knew where you were the whole time.”

  The croissant got stuck in his throat as he tried to swallow. “What?”

  Justin rolled his eyes. “Did you honestly think your father wasn’t keeping tabs on you? That you could simply slip away from Vancouver unnoticed when the company is in the throes of one of our largest acquisitions? The last thing he needs is for you to become an embarrassment and put things in jeopardy. Again.”

  There was his headache! Back with a vengeance. “I just needed space.”

  Justin reached into a file folder that Grady hadn’t noticed. From between its protective shell, he pulled a glossy five-by-seven photo and tossed it on top of the pastries. “Space for your newest toy?”

  Grady picked up the picture. “When was this taken?”

  “I’m not sure if that question scares me or not.” Justin pulled out a second, then a third photo.

  A fit, tall man, with arms like small trees, was holding Grady close. There was a look of exasperation on his face, but a sparkle in his eyes that came through perfectly in the photograph. For the life of him, Grady couldn’t remember the man or where they would have met. “Answer me, Justin.”

  “Last night. Your boyfriend was on his way up to your room.” The second picture showed Grady kissing his mystery man’s cheek. “Is this someone else I need to take care of?”

  “Don’t be a prick.” Grady ran his thumb across the man’s chest. “He’s not like that.”

  “Oh, a one-night stand then. That makes things easier. Next time, be more cautious about where you’re displaying your affections. This picture could have easily been taken by the paparazzi and this would be all over the gossip pages.”

  Grady looked back over to the now-empty glass of water beside his bed. Had his mystery man put that there for him? Given how far gone he’d been, he doubted he would have been thinking well enough to get the water himself.

  Had they had sex? God, he really had been fucked up if he had to question if he had or not. Grady’d felt many things when he’d woken, but the ache of having spent an evening engaged in drunk sex wasn’t one of them. Well, that’s something.

  “Not a one-night stand either.” It would have been easy for someone to have walked him into his room, taken his cash, screwed him, and left without Grady knowing what had happened. He didn’t know who his mystery man was, but he needed to find out. If for no other reason than to thank him for not taking advantage.

  “Either way. If this is going to be a problem,
I need to know. Better to pay him off now than wait for this to come out of the woodwork later.”

  “No problem.” Not one for Justin to handle, at any rate. “Leave him alone.”

  Justin cocked his eyebrow again. God, Grady hated when he did that.

  “I’ll deal with him. Neither you nor Father have anything to worry about.”

  “I hope not.” Justin sighed before getting to his feet and collecting the pictures. “I’ll keep these, just in case. Your father wanted me to pass on a message.”

  Grady closed his eyes. “Of course he did.” It was usually best when Justin acted as intermediary.

  “You have ten more days to get whatever this is out of your system, and then he expects you back in Vancouver. There’ll be an announcement after your brother’s wedding, and he wants you to be available for the press before and after.”

  “What announcement?”

  “It wasn’t within my job capacity to know. Regardless, he needs you home.”

  That wasn’t the only reason Father wanted Grady back where he could lay hands on him. The moment Lincoln got married, all eyes would turn to Grady, the next victim of matrimony’s grasp. Being gay didn’t make him any less available to Father’s need to extend his business ties through a strategic marriage. If anything, it made Father and his company more appealing to clients for their liberal views.

  Not that Grady had any intention of getting married, let alone allowing his father to pick out a partner for him. Screw that.

  Justin looked at him long and hard before shaking his head. “Fighting him will only make things more painful. You know that.”

  “I’m not fighting him. I’m fighting for myself.”

  “Semantics.” Justin strode for the door. “Ten days. Then back home.”

  The click of the latch closing echoed through the suite. Typical Justin, walking away from him as though he was still a child in need of instruction. Grady closed his eyes. “Ten, nine, eight, seven . . .”

  This shit shouldn’t bother him considering how long Justin had been in his life. And yet . . .

  What he needed to do was to figure out who his mystery man was and warn him about his father’s impending interference. His brain ploughed through the hazy memories of the previous evening. The man in the picture didn’t look familiar, but clearly he’d been concerned enough about Grady to get him back to his hotel room and make sure he was set for the night.

  Forcing himself up, he went in search for his previous evening’s clothing. The wad of cash was still in his pocket, as was the condom he’d put there for good measure. Could never be too careful or too prepared for a spontaneous fuck. There was one additional item that hadn’t been there when he’d left for the evening—a napkin embossed with a neon-purple logo.

  Frantic.

  The bar he’d clearly gotten smashed at. His mystery man must have been in attendance, or possibly worked there. Either way, it was his best chance to find the man to simultaneously thank and warn him about what might be in store for him.

  Grady would buy him a drink as a thank-you for not taking advantage of him when he’d been in no position to defend himself. Not that he’d have minded bedding the hot stranger, but at the very least he’d want to remember the experience.

  That was what he’d do. Find out what time the bar opened and check with the bouncers to see if anyone remembered his knight in shining armor.

  Grady was fairly certain he’d never been at any bar this early before. Well, not since he was underage and had maneuvered his way into various clubs. Being a rich white boy who was well-known in society circles made it easy to bribe his way into places he had no business being. And, when that failed, he snuck in. That had the added bonus of pissing his father off if he got caught. Pretty much a win-win for a teen hell-bent on rebellion.

  Waiting in the sparse line to gain entry into Frantic was certainly a contrast to those years. Because of his family connections, Grady rarely waited in line for anything in Vancouver. If Justin hadn’t arranged entrance for him, a few well-placed smiles and winks with the mention of his name and he was escorted to the VIP lounge. Being in Toronto, he was able to be simply another face in the crowd. No special treatment. That had been the appeal of coming here alone—anonymity. Disappearing into the background, even for a short while, to pretend to live a somewhat normal life.

  Ah, the joy of illusions.

  There was a complete beast of a man checking IDs and letting people into the doors. Something about him looked familiar, but nothing Grady could put his finger on. He’d started off at another bar last night. The guy he’d been flirting with had mentioned Frantic. His memory was a bit blurred around their arrival, but he did remember playing pool and then the dancing. Nothing like gaps in the old memory to inspire confidence. Still, enough of the surroundings looked familiar that he knew this was the right place.

  “Next.” The bouncer did a double take when he saw him. “Back for more, eh?”

  “So you recognize me?”

  “From last night.”

  “How bad was I?”

  “Pretty far gone.” The bouncer motioned him to the side so he could let the next person up. “We found you puking in the alley, and the boss wanted to make sure you made it back home safe and sound. Good to see you didn’t die.”

  The boss? “The manager put me in a cab?”

  “The owner. He went with you and never came back. I assumed you puked in the taxi and the cabbie made him clean that shit up. It would explain his pissy mood when he came in today.”

  If Justin had been present, this revelation would have earned Grady an eye roll. “Is the owner in tonight? I feel I owe him an apology.”

  “Boss-man is always here. I swear he lives in his office. Go on in. Ask for Max at the bar, and someone will grab him for you. He’s usually hiding until midnight or so.”

  With the bouncer’s blessing, Grady gave him a smile, slipped him a fifty, and did as he was instructed.

  Patrons hovered around the sides of the dance floor, hugged the bar and pool tables. Ah, that was where he’d gone from drunk to fucked over. Flashes of playing for drinks came back more clearly, as well as the face of the man who’d pulled him onto the dance floor.

  The bar was starting to fill up with the early arrivals looking to get the party started. It took him a solid ten minutes before he was able to catch the attention of the woman behind the bar. “Hi. The bouncer said I could ask you to locate Max for me.”

  The woman gave him a quick up-and-down, before nodding. “He’s in his office. You can go back if you want. Down the hall there, first door on the right.”

  Before he could say anything, two young guys stepped up to the bar in front of him. The blond looked to be barely old enough to be legal. His partner was not much older. “Oh my God, are you Grady Barnes?” The blond guy’s wide-eyed expression was as cute as it was amusing.

  The familiar tone of joy that others made when they recognized him made his skin crawl. Still, he plastered on a huge smile and lowered his voice to that sexy timbre he knew they’d expect him to have. “You got it, handsome. And aren’t the two of you the cutest.”

  “Shit, I knew it was you. We saw you here last night and that’s why we came back.” The blond pulled out a black marker. “Can you sign my shirt?”

  A small crowd was starting to form, curious onlookers who would no doubt start to recognize him as well. If he didn’t get out of here soon, he’d be stuck. “Sure thing, but then I have to meet a friend.” Signing his name with a flourish, he quickly handed the marker back. “Now you two stay sexy and have fun.”

  “Thanks, man!” As Grady walked away, their words followed him. “Holy shit, it was him. He’s so hot.”

  The hallway was just past the side of the bar where the woman had indicated. The noises of the bar were quickly muted, to be replaced by the sound of a lone, deep male voice. Grady slowed his approach, not wanting to interrupt if Max was in the middle of something.

  “
Zack, dude, Nolan has it under control. No, no. Will you shut up? If he says that you need a month to fix the sauna, then you need a month. No. Jesus, you’re an asshole. Put him on the phone. Nolan. Nolan, dude, I’ll hit him for you. Yeah. Yes. I . . . I guess I can try to be there. Tomorrow when? Yeah, okay. No, I don’t. Tell him to fuck off for me.” Max chuckled, sending a shiver through Grady. “Okay. See you tomorrow.”

  It was strange, Grady almost didn’t want to look around the corner and see the in-person man that went with that voice. There was something almost too perfect about it—the warmth that wrapped around the words, the teasing embedded in his tone, not to mention the sexy rumble. Even though he’d seen the pictures of Max from the night before—and yes, the voice suited him—Grady was scared that seeing him in person would break some of the magic that he’d enveloped around the man.

  “I know someone’s out there. I can hear you breathing like a stalker. Just come in and get it over with so I can get my shit done.”

  The blush that heated Grady’s face felt foreign. He hadn’t been caught eavesdropping since he was a kid standing outside of his father’s office, trying to figure out what mood the old man was in.

  He wasn’t that child any longer. He’d had that burned out of him before he’d learned how to drive. Despite how much of an ass he’d made of himself the night before, he owed it to Max to be an adult now.

  Or as close to one as he ever got.

  Straightening, he ran his hand through his hair, put his best smile firmly in place, and stepped into the office.