Goddamn it. I overreacted and scared this woman for nothing.
He knew damned well why too. Coming face-to-face with six-feet of dark-haired man who’d made Garrick so hard he’d had to hide under a car at work today. That was why.
Fuck.
Garrick glanced up and down the street one more time, and this time everything inside him remained calm.
“Garrick?” Grace kept her focus on the neighborhood just as diligently as Garrick did. “Do you think someone is watching us?”
“I apologize,” he responded, without answering her actual question. “I had a tough day. I’m tired, and maybe that made me twitchy.” He clasped his hands behind his neck and exhaled slowly. “I think I need a drink.”
“I have a bottle of wine,” Grace said. “Will that do?”
“Perfect.”
She smiled and swept open the door. “Then follow me.”
Garrick couldn’t help looking over his shoulder one more time as Grace led the way.
He couldn’t completely relax.
He never would again.
* * * *
Two hours of dinner, board games, and part of a ball game on TV later, Garrick let himself inside his little apartment above the Fine’s garage. He didn’t bother turning on the light; he knew the one-room layout by heart, and even if he didn’t, the streetlight bleeding in through the shut curtain on his one window provided all the shadows needed to strip out of his clothes.
Unwilling to take the extra minute to unfold his bed, Garrick simply threw himself onto the couch and let his legs hang over one of the arms. The worn-out fabric caressed his flesh with softness, and he wiggled in deeper, settling in. Comfort and exhaustion overrode him, and he let his eyes drift shut on the end of an unexpected day.
A sensation of grittiness irritated his eyes as soon as he closed them, making Garrick curse a string of foul words he should never say around Shawn unless he wanted the kid repeating them to every person he met. Growling like an inconvenienced animal, Garrick got up and treaded to the bathroom with a deftness that defied his mood. He switched on the light, flooded the white bathroom with a shock of fluorescent light, and squinted as he stepped up to the sink. Blinking, Garrick met the stare of the blue-eyed man in the mirror. Then he held his left eyelid open and withdrew a contact lens, quickly did the other, blinked again, and looked into the green eyes he’d kept hidden from the world for almost five years.
Eyes he wasn’t sure he could ever show Devlin Morgan again.
Along with a name he definitely could never answer to again.
A man that as far as the world understood, no longer existed.
Gradyn Connell was no more.
Yet this Garrick Langley person, who had to become real, had sat at that dinner table with Grace and her children tonight eating pasta, taking part in the conversation, and smiling in all the right places.
All the while, his mind had drifted to another spaghetti dinner that had been the best of Gradyn Connell’s life...
*
...A meal and dessert now complete, Gradyn sipped his cranberry juice and studied the younger man sitting across the table picking at the last of his chocolate cake. Fuck, Devlin Morgan, whoever he was, really was beautiful. Masculine as hell, with an insane body, but somehow beautiful too. Thick deep-brown hair cut neat and trim but not buzzed in any way, slashing cheekbones, a strong jaw, a wide mouth that didn’t lean toward too full or too narrow ... it all spoke to the hungry male living inside Gradyn right now. Devlin’s body possessed the same beautiful symmetry as his face; not too much bulk--the way Gradyn himself was right now--but not too skinny either. His frame was lean and fucking nearly perfect; one of those bodies that lent itself to the belief that God had simply blessed him with great genes.
Devlin Morgan would certainly be at the top of any gay man’s fantasy list, yet at the same time, he didn’t look like he craved that kind of attention. He definitely hadn’t fit in at that techno club, that was for sure. Gradyn didn’t get a vibe that Devlin would fit in at any type of bar or club designed for pick-ups--gay or straight. Something about him said that a simple, basic way of life would suit him like a second layer of skin. When Devlin confirmed over dinner that he was from a small town in Maine and loved it there, Gradyn put a check in the win column for his ability to read a person.
The cool night air drifted in over the water on the bay and played with Devlin’s hair. Jesus, Gradyn could develop a hard-on just thinking about running his fingers through those dark locks. Shit, why stop there? Gradyn could see himself peeling off every piece of Devlin’s clothing, laying the man out on that cheap motel room comforter, and licking every inch of his body until Gradyn couldn’t stand it anymore and pushed his cock into Devlin Morgan’s tight virgin ass.
Fuck, Gradyn nearly moaned right at their table, and had to cross his legs.
He savored another swig of his cranberry juice and admired the view. The night sky and the calm, glassy water of the bay certainly had its beauty in full glory tonight, but Gradyn could not take his eyes off the man sitting across from him. Christ, he’d never been taken with another person in quite this way before, and he wasn’t entirely sure he could blame it on forced celibacy.
It had been two and a half years since Gradyn’s life last afforded him an opportunity to be
