Benny checks Grady in, then puts his locker key on the motor-oil-smeared countertop and says in one breath, “Yo, I know you like those beast machines, but I have this spankin’ new Husqvarna two-stroke 125cc, if you wanna hit those fat jumps like I know you do.” Benny is baby-faced and excited and wears sleeveless shirts to show off his fully tatted arms and a sideways baseball cap with shaggy brown hair fringed beneath it. He’s worked at the dirt bike track for a couple years now: awesome kid.
Grady slips the locker key into his pocket and stops to try out the new bike still sitting pristine in the office. “Mm, all right.” Grady grips the handlebars and shifts the body left to right. “Put it out for me while I change?”
Benny grins. “Yeah, of course man! It’s tight, right?”
Grady agrees, then swings a leg over the bike to sit sidesaddle. “Benny, lemme ask you somethin’. If your boss came to you and said that you had to… I dunno. Wear long sleeves and cover up your tattoos. Like you can keep ‘em, that’s fine, but you have to hide ‘em. Would you?”
“Ah, shit, uh.” Benny lifts the brim of his hat up, then tugs it low. “I mean. I’d wanna say take it or leave it, this is me, you know? But I got bills to pay, yo. Know what I mean?” He laughs. Grady frowns and looks away.
“Yeah, I know what you mean.”
A friendly hand squeezes Grady’s shoulder. “Hey, man, whatever’s got you down, go leave it out there on the track, yeah?”
He tries to.
The sun is orange and so low it looks as if it’s resting on the treetops when Grady finally drives up their steep, winding driveway. He is more calm and clearheaded, even if he still doesn’t know what to do. Nico’s car is parked in the garage, and the door is unlocked, but the house is quiet. The ground level is taken up by a practice space and a home gym and the garage. The second floor, accessed outside by the front deck and inside by the first set of stairs, is the kitchen, living room, dining room, and whatever that room with the massive stone fireplace and insanely expensive furniture is named. “Sitting room” the realtor called it. They never sit there. Two large bedrooms and their office are up another flight of stairs.
Grady already has his shirt off, heading right to the shower, when he spots Nico in the kitchen. He’s sorting through mail at the breakfast bar with his tie pulled loose, shirt sleeves rolled up his forearms, and the top two buttons of his collar tugged open. The setting sun catches his face, highlighting the sharp lines of his cheekbones and jaw, tinting his eyes even darker in shadow, and bronzing his skin with golden light. Grady’s breath leaves his body in a sigh, and in its place is yearning for Nico, just like the first time he saw him, just like every time he sees him still.
Grady sidles up behind him and wraps his arms around his waist, and Nico’s only acknowledgment is the quirk of one eyebrow. Grady brushes a kiss onto the corner of his jaw.
“You smell like dirt and gasoline,” Nico says. He rips open an envelope, glances over the letter, then tosses it on the smaller pile.
Grady kisses down the back of his neck. “And sweat.”
“Mm.” Nico opens another letter and tilts his head, silent encouragement for Grady’s mouth to continue. Nico leans his weight into Grady, back to chest, ass to pelvis, and Grady goes for the big guns, nipping at his earlobe and earning a groan. He loves that trick.
“Wait.” Nico smacks him lightly on the temple with a letter. “For you.”
Grady doesn’t recognize the name and opens it cautiously while Nico turns around. “It’s a fan letter,” Grady says.
“That’s what I thought it was.”
“But how did they find—”
“Exactly.” Nico crosses his arms and leans back on the quartz-topped breakfast bar separating the kitchen and living room. “If it’s a request for a lock of your hair again, we’re moving. I don’t care if we’ve only lived here for a few months.”
It’s not, just a regular fan letter—a pretty innocent one at that. He shows Nico. Still, somehow their address got out, and that’s worrying enough on its own. “I’ll have Vince do something. Give the address they can write to, out on the uh—” He snaps his fingers. “The tweet thing.”
“You mean Twitter, Grandpa?” Nico’s arms are still crossed, but he’s smiling now. Teasing Grady always cheers him right up.
“Sure, whatever. I’m gonna shower.”
Nico’s arms drop, and he glances from Grady to the mail pile. Under what looks like the “keep” pile is the still unopened overnighted letter from his Uncle Clay. They have to talk about that. And they have to talk about his meeting with Duke. But Nico’s eyes drag up and down Grady’s body, lingering on his abdominals, then the mirrored pair of Swallows he had inked on his pecs in Vegas that Nico likes to trace with his fingers and lips and the tip of his tongue. Nico juts out a hip, his eyebrows rise and fall once. “Want company?”
This house is the ideal city location with a country feel. It mixes both of their styles, has space for Grady’s cars and trucks and ATVs and a closet big enough for Nico’s clothes and shoes. Plus, it already had a rehearsal space that could fit all of Grady’s instruments with room for more. That the shower seems designed for shower sex—the size of a small room with double waterfall shower heads on opposite stone walls, multiple jets below, and a boulder fashioned as a curved seat—was a happy bonus.
In the shower, Grady picks up where he left off: pressed behind Nico, making a path along Nico’s shoulders and neck and jaw and ears with his mouth. But now no clothes separate them, Nico’s skin is not just a tease at his forearms and clavicle, and Grady runs his hands slick with soap everywhere he can reach: the solid muscles of Nico’s chest; his narrow, angled hips and his long thighs; the tight, lean lines of his back and the perfect firm handfuls of his ass. Hot water runs in rivulets over them; soap bubbles twist down the drain. Grady pulls one of Nico’s earlobes into his mouth, then reaches around to finally pay attention to his cock.
“Fuck. Ah.” Nico’s hands slap onto the stone shower wall in front of him. His head drops, his hips rock, and Grady knows just how to get him off now, where to twist his grip, what pace gets Nico there right away and what winds him up slowly, where to rub and tease the head, and just what to say that gets him there every time. “That’s right, sweetheart,” Grady says, low and sex-graveled. He hooks his chin over Nico’s shoulder to watch the rapid jerk of his own hand. “So gorgeous, come for me, sweetheart, come on.” Nico reaches back and grabs a fistful of Grady’s hair, making Grady’s scalp sting sharply. He yelps and grinds his cock between the globes of Nico’s ass, and Nico comes, shooting across the natural earth-tone stone tiles.
Nico recovers still braced against the wall in front of him, then manhandles Grady onto the boulder chair, drops to his knees, and seals his lips over Grady’s stiff cock. Nico takes him apart as no one ever has, sucking him down with a single-minded focus that makes Grady dizzy. Nico makes love the way he does everything else: He’s committed, determined, tenacious, and hell-bent on excellence. More than that, he touches Grady as though Grady is something worth giving his all. Nico looks at Grady as though he’s something special.
Grady can’t get enough of him; he is everything Grady never thought he could have.
After showering, Nico dresses in his fancy linen lounge pants and a supersoft organic cotton T-shirt. Grady doesn’t dress at all—fresh air is good for the skin and other parts—just relaxes on the bed nude while Nico rambles about his day and plays with Grady’s hair, and Grady’s as content as a piglet in a puddle, can’t even care about the song or Duke or anything. For dinner they decide to grill something and enjoy their new back veranda with its view of the downtown skyline, even though the heat is lingering humidly long into the evening.
Nico opens the sliding glass door just enough to stick his head out and ask, “Do you want to at least open this letter and see what he has to say before I toss it out?”
Grady moves cuts of salmon around on the grill. “Nope.”
Nico’s head ducks back inside. It pops back out again. “Okay, what if—”
“Nico,” Grady warns, taking a pull from his soda can.
“Yes, okay, no meddling, sorry.” His head pops in, then out again. Grady laughs at him, despite his annoyance. “I’m just—” he says.
“My father wants money. He was crashing with Clay last I knew because no one else can stand him any longer and he needs more money.”
Nico nods, but still holds the envelope out, as if he can’t quite make himself believe that.
Grady shakes his head, then lifts the salmon steaks to check for doneness—not yet. He’s in a mellow mood with a cold drink and a warm summer evening and a fantastic orgasm still singing through his body, so fine. “Sweetheart, if it’s bothering you that much, you can open it.”
Nico’s eyes light up. “Really?” He’s setting himself up for disappointment, but if it’s really that important, and it did come from a good place of genuine love and concern, then, “Really.”
Grady finishes his soda, flips the salmon, and puts on asparagus spears to sear. They’re not far from the city, yet it’s so quiet and still. They have a clear view of the city on one side and trees everywhere else. They can fit quite a lot of people on this veranda, too. Maybe they could just have the wedding reception out here.
“Grady…”
Not just his head popped out of the sliding door, but Nico’s whole body is outside. Grady’s so excited to tell him about his idea for the reception that he just blurts it out without stopping to acknowledge the broken expression on Nico’s face.
“Grady, I…”
The salmon is starting to char, one asparagus spear slips between the grates, falls into the flames, turns black. Nico holds out an unfolded piece of yellow paper.
“Grady. Your dad died.”
5
Grady. It’s hard to get ahold of you. Hate to tell you this but Vaughn died last winter. Hope you are well. Sorry to bring bad news. Congratulations on the wedding.
Clay Dawson
“How are you holding up?” Gwen says around several pins clenched between her teeth. She’s crouched in front of the stool he’s standing very, very still on, slipping one pin at a time along the inseam of his pants. He usually avoids answering questions when sharp pins are that close to his jewels, but, “I’m fine,” he answers quickly and quietly.
Gwen stands. She seems even shorter than usual, and Grady fights the urge to pat her cute lil’ head. He’s glad he didn’t, because she’s sticking pins in the shirt along his side, very close to one nipple. “Fine, huh? Hold your arms out.”
When she looks up at him, her eyes are filled not with mirth and teasing like usual, but with concern. Grady sighs. “He told you.”
“Well, you know Nico and his constant oversharing of his personal life.” She quips, then sticks a pin right below his armpit. “He told me your dad died, that’s all. He didn’t go into details.”
“There aren’t any details,” Grady says. She doesn’t push or prod, just finishes the tugging and pinning and folding on his clothes. Nico wouldn’t leave it alone; he kept looking at Grady with sad eyes and a deep-set frown, poured mug after mug of hot tea for him, and asked if he needed anything and what he wanted to do. And then Nico’s mom, with her mom ESP, got in on the action and called Grady to make sure he was okay. He had to talk her out of catching the first flight out of Sacramento. He’s fine. He didn’t even know the guy. He’s surprised his father managed to live this long. “I’m fine,” he tells Gwen again.
“Okay,” she says, with a lilt of skepticism in her voice. “All done. Careful taking it off.”
Grady tiptoes behind the changing screen with arms and legs held wide as if he’s a puppet with tangled strings. He’s in the office to get fitted for a custom suit, for once not for a photoshoot or interview or red carpet. For his wedding, he’s getting a stand-in suit measured and tailored so the wedding suit will be a perfect fit on the big day. He just has to watch his soda intake until then. He’s buoyant with excitement. Nico is working a video shoot, so he’ll be away from the office all day. They’ve decided not to see each other’s suits before the big day.
“Swatch time!” Gwen says when Grady is back in his jeans and Henley. He’s tugging his boots on as Gwen hauls out a huge binder of fabric samples. It’s full of satiny blacks and blues and more blacks. He’s sure Nico would know the precise and vital differences between all of them, but to Grady they’re boring.
“Can’t Nico pick for me?” He probably wants them to coordinate, and Grady might pick a suit that clashes with Nico’s.
“He was adamant that you pick one yourself, actually.” Gwen heaves the binder over, so Grady can look from back to front. There is a wider variety of colors and patterns in the back. Grady peruses them, pleased that Nico listened to him, and that he’s trying. “He said something about steamrolling you a lot lately,” Gwen informs him. “Which I hoped was a sex position. He was also adamant that it was not.”
The mirth is back in her eyes, and Grady laughs. Sometimes it’s as if he and Gwen are the same person, as if she’s a tiny female version of him with a filthy mind and filthier mouth. “If it’s not a sex position it should be.”
“Right? Hmm, what about houndstooth?”
Grady runs his fingers over the thick, black and white checked fabric. “It’s usually still warm here in October. Might be too heavy?”
“That’s true.” She flips through more samples, scrunches her nose, and twists her lips. Her bony little shoulder presses into his side. He loves her—the sister he never had.
“Hey, Short Stuff. Wanna be my best woman?”
She drops the fabric in her hand to punch his arm. “Grady! Of course I will. Oh, man, your bachelor party is gonna be epic.”
Grady has a flash of regret; she’s mostly bark, though he knows better than to say that out loud. Telling Gwen she can’t do something is a guarantee she’ll find a way do it.
They turn back to fabric samples. “What about green and blue?” Grady wonders. “Would that work as a tux?” There’s a swatch of hunter green, it reminds Grady of the scarf Nico commissioned the first time he came to Nashville, when he was just a temporary stylist for Grady. Grady was so gone for Nico even then, it was torture being around him and not able to touch and kiss him.
“I think so,” Gwen says. “We could do something like this.” She flips to a lightweight gray fabric with subtle lines of blue. “Only a light green plaid with hunter green buttons and lapel.” She takes out her phone to jot some things down and says, “Actually, that would go perfectly with—” She snaps her mouth closed.
“What?”
“I’ve said too much. Are you hungry?”
Nico G Style Studio is in a hip neighborhood that used to be abandoned warehouses and defunct manufacturing plants. Grady grew up in a little town south of the city, only coming into Nashville proper for school field trips and concerts and summer music festivals. The industrial setting in this area feels a lot like home. It’s a working class town that will always be part of who he is, no matter how much of the world he sees.
Is his father buried back in their hometown?
“Not hungry?”
They picked a restaurant that was once a gas station for the trucks that carried cargo in and out of the warehouses. Now it’s known for decent pizza and nachos and really good bluegrass music. Grady’s been listening to the music and letting Gwen eat his nachos.
“Distracted,” he answers Gwen.
She sips from a bottle of beer that she only ordered after he said it was fine. “You know you can tell me, right? If you aren’t fine.”
He nods and watches the banjo player. Nothing quite like a truly gifted banjo player, the kind who’s been playing nearly his whole life,
who learned from his daddy, who learned from his daddy—Grady pushes his nacho basket all the way over to Gwen. He’s not hungry after all.
“Do you think I should do something? Or I should want to do something? I mean it’s too late to go to his funeral.”
Gwen lifts a chip weighed down by cheese and jalapeño peppers. “There’s not really a rule book for this sort of thing.” A slice of pepper plops back into the basket. “And you don’t have to decide immediately, either. Not like he’s going anywhere.” She winces. “Shit, sorry. That was crass.”
Grady shakes his head and one corner of his mouth lifts. “You? Crass? Never.”
She laughs and jabs another loaded nacho chip dripping cheese and peppers in his direction. “Oh, fuck you, Grady. I’m trying to help here.”
Grady’s stomach unclenches a little. They eat and talk about lighter things, Cayo mostly, and some of Gwen’s increasingly outlandish ideas for his bachelor party. The restaurant is dim, and their table is pretty private, but still he notices some people noticing him. They’re left alone until their plates are cleared and they’re arguing over who should pay.
“Grady?”
He turns to say he’ll do one quick picture outside, when he sees a familiar face. “Spencer. Wow, I thought you were still in L.A.?”
“I was but I— Oh. Hi, Gwen.” He gives a little wave.
“Hey, Spencer,” Gwen says, unsurprised to see him and much friendlier than Grady would have expected, given how things went down among Gwen, Clementine, Flora, and Spencer when he spilled rumors to a tabloid, causing trouble for everyone involved. Nico isn’t crazy about Spencer either, but Spencer was a good assistant to Grady and a good guy. Some people take longer to get their heads on straight is all. “I didn’t know you were back here. Did you know?” he asks Gwen, though she clearly did.
Blended Notes Page 3
