by Zimmerman, L
"... okay so. trust issues totally make sense here but I swear I'm just really ADD. I don't even like guns. In fact, I hate guns. My dad has guns and they make me cry. Guns suck."
"Grant."
"Oh-my-G o d. I'm sorry," Grant moaned, sinking down so far into the couch that his ass was threatening to slide off completely. He hated talking about cancer because it made him think of his mom, and here he was spewing crap about how much fire sucked and Clayton’s family had been essentially burned to death.
Clayton made a soft, painful laughing sound that reminded Grant of a goose being strangled with a gum wrapper. Grant buried his face into his hands because he could NOT look at Clayton right now without wanting to run into oncoming traffic out of sheer mortification at himself. He almost jumped out of his skin when Clayton’s hand landed on his shoulder, giving it a firm squeeze.
“You’re a great ki-- you’re smart. Grant. You deserve better… and uh… I’m..”
“Not ready.” Grant supplied, dread filling him up to the point of suffocation.
“Yeah,” Clayton agreed weakly.
“For a relationship.”
“… yeah.”
Clayton sounded like someone had kicked his wolf cub across the street, shoulders tensing like he was prepared for Grant to go apeshit and start throwing chairs into the wall or something. Actually, he was acting like he didn’t want to turn Grant down, but he felt it necessary. Obviously Clayton had some baggage that Grant wasn’t going to be able to relieve him of by sucking his misery out through his dick.
“I’m just going to have to convince you,” not because he wanted to force Clayton into anything, but because Grant knew if they didn't give this thing a shot now, they'd lose that window of opportunity like Grant had seen happen to so many people.
“Yea-- what,” Clayton stared at Grant, mouth gaping.
“I need to go home and devise a working method to convince you,” Grant stood, nodding to himself and to Clayton. There was no way he was going to lose this kind of chance to some faceless killer who didn't deserve to even exist.
“What.”
High on a rush of adrenaline, Grant crossed over to the other side of the couch before he could stop himself. Clayton was watching him with wide eyes, leaning back as Grant bent down.
Wiping his palms onto his thighs, Grant was halfway to grabbing Clayton into a kiss when he chickened out and turned tail, making a beeline for the door. All of this happened before he’d even processed the fact that he was five seconds away from attempting to play tonsil hockey with Clayton.
“Bye, Clayton!” Grant squeaked, his voice cracking as he wrenched open the front door.
“What.”
Grant caught a glimpse of Clayton sitting on the couch with a gob smacked look before he shut the door and hightailed it to his jeep like his ass was on fire.
Chapter 6
“I don’t know, Grant,” Elliot muttered, shifting from foot to foot and wincing when Grant started to wave the stuffed animal in his face, “Clayton doesn’t like when other people mess with his truck.”
Grant sighed in irritation, wanting to really just pelt the toy wolf at Elliot’s face in a fit of aggravated assault. Oh, the woes of security cameras monitoring his every movement. “Clayton isn’t even working this weekend, he won’t know it was you.”
The drivers all worked every other weekend, which was something that depressed Grant just the tiniest bit, but also gave him an opportunity to use his inherent Giannotti Stealth Seduction Skills (patent pending) to further ensnare Clayton with his irresistible charm.
“I mean, I know he likes this kinda stuff, Grant, but I don’t think he’ll appreciate you making fun of him like this,” Elliot muttered uneasily, shoving his hands into his pockets and giving Grant a weak shrug.
Grant scoffed and waved the toy again, pushing himself so far to the edge of his seat that he had to grab the desk to keep from falling over. Elliot still didn’t reach out, and Grant huffed, “I’m not making fun, I’m wooing him.”
Elliot squinted, as if such a concept was nonexistent in his vocabulary, looking up at Grant in confusion.,“you’re what?”
“Wooing him,” Grant repeated, emphasizing the ’oo’ for good measure. When Elliot didn’t look any less baffled, Grant sighed. “The art of woo? It rhymes with shoe? Not to be confused with Shen Gong Wu?”
“….” Elliot didn’t move--almost like he was a creepy, nervously positioned statue that had been planted in the middle of the office.
Grant growled out another aggrieved sigh, “Just put the fucking toy in his truck or I’m making you do tire changes all weekend.”
Grant grinned in response to the irritated scowl that was shot his way, handing the wolf plushie over when Elliot reached out with a sigh. It was kind of like being a parent letting their children leave for the first day of school--Grant was almost sad to see it go, but then he remembered that he could have joint custody with Clayton if this plan worked out.
Elliot fiddled with the stuffed animal, petting its head and turning it around in his hands. “It’s soft… how much was it?”
“Price is not a concern,” Grant blurted airily, leaning back in his chair and snatching up his pen. Elliot’s left eyebrow rose high up into his bangs, smothering an amused grin.
Grant wanted to stab that grin right off his face. Elliot was not allowed to smirk at him like that. In fact, the only person allowed more than minimal smirkage at Grant's person was Clayton, and that was only if there was a certain level of sexual frustration involved.
“Okay, then….” Elliot slipped out the door and Grant sighed loudly into the empty office, twirling his chair around and then glancing at his dispatch sheet to make sure it was completely filled out. Sunday night meant he had to double-check all of his paperwork so that there was no confusion when Nancy, the older woman who worked weekday mornings, opened on Monday.
The only downside to this plan was that he wouldn’t be able to see Clayton’s reaction to the stuffed plushie on Monday. He’d have to wait. Waiting sucked. It was more agonizing than if he was having irritable bowel syndrome and they were slammed with so many calls that he had to clench for three hours.
After glancing over the sheet one last time, Grant dragged a bit of scrap paper over and stared down at the list he’d compiled earlier. He clicked his pen a few times--because clicky pens were awesome--and then crossed out the first item, ‘gift him with animal things’ before skimming down the bulleted list.
- Gift him with delicious foodstuffs
- Gift him with long hauls
- Call him during aforementioned long hauls to chat it up
- Clear his record
Grant set his pen down when he reached that one, snagging a highlighter and going over ‘clear his record’ with hot pink. Grant scowled--because that plan had failed miserably when he’d brought up the subject with his father--and took a second to write down next to it, mission failed: try again when Dad has been drinking.
Grant glanced up when the door opened and Elliot came back in.
“Mission complete?“ Grant asked, grinning in excitement. It must have taken Elliot a good few minutes to find Clayton’s keys or something, because he’d been gone a good fifteen minutes to place the wolf plushie into Clayton’s truck.
Elliot paused in the process of shoving a dollar into the vending machine, giving Grant an odd look. “…. to go to the bathroom?”
What?
“What? No--put the toy in Clayton’s truck!” Grant hissed. Elliot’s eyes went wide and he nodded, mashing the buttons to get a candy bar to vend.
“Oh. Yeah. It’s buckled in the passenger seat.”
He’d even buckled it in? Grant grinned, rubbing his hands together and grinning so widely that Elliot looked slightly uncomfortable when Grant chuckled, “perfect,” under his breath.
“Okay well… I’m going home.” Elliot edged out the door before Grant could even acknowledge his words.
Aft
er that, the entire week had Grant feeling antsy and nervous. He didn’t want to text Clayton about the toy, hoping that he’d get at least one message at some point and moping for a good ten minutes every time he would think about it and realize that Clayton hadn’t said anything.
Stepping into the office the following Saturday morning and seeing no wolf toy sitting on his desk, Grant fist pumped and jumped in place for a second. He had to force himself to calm down, taking a deep breath and then going about his normal opening routine. He didn’t want to push too much, because Clayton wasn’t exactly a weeble-wobble that bounced back when it came to being pestered about certain things.
Grant was scarily excited when a tow call finally came in that was out of city, lunging for the phone to dial Clayton‘s number. Clayton had barely answered before Grant was blurting, “are you and your little buddy ready for a big haul?”
“… what.”
Grant felt ridiculously nervous for no reason, fidgeting with his pen and wincing to himself, “… I have a tow for you?”
“Were you just talking about my--oh. You mean the toy. Christ.” Clayton made a soft noise of understanding.
“Yes the toy, what else- oh my god.”
Clayton huffed out a quiet laugh, the phone rustling and a drawer creaking on the other line before he spoke again, “Well, that wasn't awkward at all. Go ahead with what you've got.”
Grant listed off the pickup location, car type, destination ( a good hour out) and anything else Clayton needed, grinning like a drunken buffoon the entire time. It left Grant out one driver for at least two or three hours, but he was willing to deal with a bit of extra stress if it meant having a chance to make Clayton happy with the haul.
“Grant,” Clayton mumbled when Grant was finished rambling the information off, “Why’d you give me this run? Isn’t Billy first out?”
Shit.
Why did Clayton have to be beautiful and brainy?
“Uh,” Grant responded intelligently, struggling to come up with some sort of explanation, “Billy’s busy.” Great job, Grant, you’d pass a lie detector test in a heartbeat.
“Doing what?”
“Sleeping?” Which could have meant that Billy had a run early in the morning, if Clayton didn’t as-
“When did he get in?”
Grant scrambled for the dispatch sheet, eyes landing on where the paper informed him that Billy hadn’t actually gone on any runs after midnight. “Yo no say.”
Clayton didn’t know Spanish, did he? Whether or not he did, Grant would never know, because he was given a painfully long moment of silence as Clayton seemed to mull over Grant's lack of an actual response. Grant tensed when Clayton finally cleared his throat, face breaking into a silly grin as Clayton mumbled, “thanks, Grant.”
“No problem, dude.” Grant chirped, wiggling back and forth in his seat as Clayton muttered a soft goodbye and hung up. It was the best feeling in the world, that Clayton had actually thanked Grant for making sure to give him a long haul. All drivers loved towing things out of the county, it meant they were paid for the long hours spent driving in an air conditioned truck, instead of running around the city for the same amount of money. Grant dropped the phone onto the hook, falling back against his seat and flailing his legs.
“Oh yeah! Who is awesome? This guy!” Grant whooped, flinging his arms up and down because he was way too happy to stop himself from acting like an excited walrus. The computer honked a second later, making Grant yelp and fling himself forward to read the screen. It was a battery call, luckily, so he clicked around before grabbing the phone to dial Elliot.
With how much his cheeks were aching from all the smiling he was doing, Grant had a pretty good idea of how a botox patient felt after surgery.
It was a little over a half hour before Clayton paged Grant to say he was in tow, and Grant acknowledged him before grabbing the phone to punch in Clayton’s cell number.
“What did you need?” Clayton answered.
“Did you like the toy?” Grant winced at how overzealous he sounded, stabbing himself in the bottom lip with his pen on accident and dropping it with a soft curse. Clayton didn’t answer, and Grant tensed up because shit, what if he’d actually just thrown the toy away entirely because he couldn’t bear to look at Grant's face by returning it?
“I could take it back? Or I could give you the receipt, if you want. Actually, no, I already chucked it, but--”
“It’s… realistic.” Clayton said quietly.
Grant jumped on it like Bruno Mars on a grenade. “I know, right? It took me forever to find one that wasn’t lame or itchy or made with that creepy crushed velvet stuff. I think it’s actual wolf fur--”
“Rabbit fur.”
‘--r something. What?” Did Clayton actually know what kind of animal fur was on the wolf? How did you even identify animal fur? Did he have a degree in creature pelt 101?
“It’s rabbit fur. Wolf fur is more wiry. Rabbit fur is softer and their pelts are easier to come by.” Clayton elaborated in a quiet mutter.
Grant looked around for a second before realizing he didn‘t have the receipt or anything about the stuffed animal, turning back to rest his elbows on the desk. “Oh. How did you know that?”
Clayton paused, taking a deep breath though his nose and exhaling slowly with a murmur of, “I read the tag.”
Which, actually, would have made sense. Except that Grant had spent twenty minutes sitting in the office reading every single tag on that wolf plushie to try and find what it had been made of out and finding nothing, nil, zilch, nada thing about the actual animal fur of origin. He was half a second from telling Clayton this when he realized it was probably one of those awkward situations where Clayton didn’t want to admit that, at some point, he’d cuddled with enough bunny rabbits to be able to identify the texture of their fur from memory.
Unable to fully cope with the mere mental image, Grant released a strangled, “oh…. of course,” and bit down on the side of his tongue to stifle the desire to coo at Clayton like a woman around babies.
“Was there something you needed?” Clayton grunted, possibly in an attempt to assert his masculinity. Grant grinned, pushing away from the desk to spin in a circle and yelping when the chord wrenched the phone base across the desk. He jerked forward, fumbling to push it back.
“Besides you?” He blurted, knocking over the pen holder in an epic fit of clumsiness. He was momentarily glad that Clayton couldn’t see him flailing around like an high-strung octopus.
“Grant.” Clayton growled.
“No, it’s just slow and I was calling to see what’s up.” Grant elaborated, attempting to sound as innocent as possible.
“Are you-”
“I’m not doing anything! I can’t just chat with one of my coworkers?” Grant kind of knew he'd been caught, if only because he was well aware of the fact that he was a terrible liar.
“Grant…”
“So when you get back, I was thinking about ordering a pizza or something. You game?”
“….”
“I’ll get mega meat lovers?” Grant reached for the phone book, snagging it as Clayton released an aggrieved sigh that sounded more amused than actually annoyed.
“Fine.”
It was like being punched in the stomach by a magical gorilla that brought nothing but suffocating happiness, and Grant released a soft sigh of relief before he instantly thought of something to talk about. “Okay so, my dad said they’ve got Mike in custody, I was thinking about talking to Tucker about getting a copy of the security camera to help prosecute him. I mean, I’m sure my dad will ask, but I could let him know beforehand.”
“There’s a camera in the garage, probably should look at that too.” Clayton mumbled.
Mother of God, he was right.
Grant shot up in his seat, smiling wide. “You’re brilliant,“ he breathed, “I could kiss you right now.”
Clayton made a pained noise that sounded like it was squeezed from the ba
ck of his throat before it started to form into a warning growl. Grant decided to nip that one in the bud, adding, “You can’t tell me you don’t want a piece of this.”
Foot, meet mouth.
Grant tensed up the second the words left his mouth, grimacing and throwing a hand up like he could somehow stop the repercussions of his cockiness (with a depressing lack of actual cock) when Clayton huffed softly. Grant was instantly talking again, trying to smooth over his words with a bit of exaggerated flair. “I mean, I totally am the--”
