Devlin looked to his date a dozen feet away and held up one finger. The blond smiled and nodded, and Devlin turned back to them. “Can you do me a favor?” Devlin directed his question to Shawn. “Will you cover your ears and hum Spiderman’s music for just a minute? I have to say something private to Garrick.”
“’Kay.” Shawn let go of Garrick’s shoulder and clamped his hands to his ears. “Spiderman, Spiderman...”
Garrick beseeched, damn it, he fucking begged Devlin with his eyes. “Devlin, listen to me.”
“Please don’t.” The sharp sting in Devlin’s tone shut Garrick up. Devlin then glanced at Shawn, and his entire face softened. He moved to Garrick’s side, and he leaned in, speaking softly in Garrick’s ear. “He looks right in your arms. Like he’s supposed to be there.” Devlin shifted, and the tips of his fingers lingered against Garrick’s hip. “When we talked that whole night on the phone, I remember you telling me how badly you wished you had a father. I could feel your pain even though we were three thousand miles apart. I understand your choice.” Lips brushed with shivery softness against the skin behind Garrick’s ear. “Goodbye,” Devlin whispered. Before Garrick could find his brain and utter a word, Devlin pulled Shawn’s hands from his ears, said goodnight to him too, and joined his date.
“But...” Garrick spun. The pizzas burning his hand tilted, and another patron grabbed them, righting them before they fell.
Garrick thanked the man, but he was still half focused on Devlin and the cute-as-hell blond being shown to a table. He just knew by looking at him that Devlin’s date would be one hell of an enthusiastic bottom. Garrick ached to put everything down, chase after Devlin, explain everything, and promise to bend over for him forever, if that’s what he now wanted.
Instead, Shawn poked him in the shoulder and pointed out that the nice man who had saved their pizzas from disaster now stood holding the door open for them. Garrick noticed Shawn chewing on his lip again in that way he did when he got nervous, and Garrick knew he wasn’t doing anything but going home and eating pizza--as he’d promised.
Chapter Nine
Garrick tore into the garage apartment three hours later still ready to rip something apart. He’d kept a lid on everything through dinner and a kiddie movie, and even managed to focus on Shawn and Chloe’s friendly bickering for a little while, but the second their eyes started drooping from their busy day, Garrick excused himself, and everything flooded back to him in a torrent.
Devlin. And his date.
He couldn’t believe Devlin would still go on that date after the day they’d shared together. And to give up on them as a couple, just like that? To turn Garrick over to the Fine family as if Devlin and Garrick hadn’t shared the most incredible intimacy two people possibly can?
And Garrick wasn’t talking about all the fucking they’d done in San Francisco either.
Not that the sex itself that weekend hadn’t shifted from a hook-up designed to relieve an itch into an act Garrick could honestly swear he’d never done with anyone else. He’d lost himself not only in the stunning male body, but in the man himself, and Garrick had never let that happen with any person before Devlin. Shit, he hadn’t intended it to happen with Devlin either, but from the moment Devlin’s sweet, nervous energy had taken over that cheap motel room, Garrick had found himself drowning in a place from which he did not want to be saved.
Now he’s out with another man. Maybe falling into bed with him too.
“No way.” Garrick growled and paced his apartment, a living space not much larger than that motel room he would never forget. He clenched his hands into fists again and again, trying to contain the desire to maim one hot young blond with a sweet behind.
Better not be tapping that pretty ass tonight, beautiful, or any other while I’m still breathing.
Garrick groaned, slipping back to the last time he and Devlin Morgan had made love...
*
...Gradyn ignored the band tightening his chest as he folded his flannel shirt and set it on top of his other dirty clothes in a plastic bag.
Almost time to say goodbye to him. Don’t be a wuss about it when it happens either.
He listened to the water running in the bathroom and didn’t have to turn around to know steam would be pouring out of the half-closed door. Gradyn couldn’t believe how much in just forty-eight hours together he’d gotten used to having another person underfoot. Someone his gut said was one of the good ones, a person worthy of trust.
Someone easy to love.
Gradyn fell into a chair and buried his face in his hands. “Don’t even think about that, Denny.” He spoke the denial aloud a second time, determined to force it down his throat and into his brain, into the cold light of reality. He had to talk himself out of envisioning a future with this man, especially since he didn’t even know what his own life would bring tomorrow.
My normal life again, maybe. Definitely no more living with looking over my shoulder. At least for a while. No more daily lifting weights either. Gradyn looked up and caught his tattooed, menacing reflection in the mirror. In time, hopefully no more image looking back at me that I’ve had for so long now I can’t remember if it’s the real me or not half the time anymore.
I won’t have Devlin anymore, that’s for sure.
Gradyn’s insides coiled tight on that thought, and his mind gutted him with fast-moving pictures of Devlin in Gradyn’s bed at home in San Diego or sitting at his side at his friend Jimmy’s annual barbecue that Gradyn always attended alone. Gradyn moaned and turned in his chair, as if facing away from the mirror could stop the barrage of images tormenting and tempting him with scenarios he could not let be.
Devlin
