He wiggles a brow. “You should then.”
“Mmm. Maybe I will,” I say, and when the light changes and I hit the gas, I reach across the console for his hand. Grant clasps his fingers with mine, sending the mercury in me rising.
But the emotions too.
Holding hands with him feels so damn good.
We’re quiet for several blocks as we cruise to the rink in the desert night.
Grant stretches his right hand to the screen on the dashboard, hits the music tab, and scrolls through my playlist. With a sexy smirk he throws my way, he selects a familiar tune.
Once the opening notes of “November Rain” fill the car, I chuckle.
As I drive, Grant steals glances at me, and I steal them right back at him, and when we hit a long light, I grab the back of his head, and drag him in for a hot, quick kiss that makes my skin sizzle. This man has my number.
“Mmm. I want to take you out and kiss you everywhere,” I murmur.
“On my body or around town?”
“Good point. Let’s make it both.”
“I thought you were pretty private about PDA?” Grant asks, curiously.
“I am,” I say. “But I’d have a hell of a time resisting you wherever we were.”
His lips curve in the start of a grin. “You’d have your hands all over me?”
The light changes and I hit the gas. “I probably would. Do you have any idea how hard it’s going to be for me not to touch you at the game?”
“How hard?”
I grab his hand and bring it to my crotch. “This hard.”
He murmurs his appreciation. “That’s my favorite kind of hard,” Grant says, rubbing his hand along the ridge of my erection.
I growl, wanting to give in, wanting to press my hand on top of his, let him stroke me. But I can’t. Moving his hand back to his thigh, I tip my forehead toward the road. “Need to focus or I’ll crash, and I don’t want to die without fucking you first.”
“That would be a tragedy,” he agrees, then leans back against the headrest and closes his eyes.
He’s smiling though.
He looks happy. Absolutely content. Like there’s no place else he’d rather be.
“I’d want all that too, Deck,” he says softly, a quiet admission in the dark. One that tugs on my chest. “I’d want to go out with you. If we were other people. You know? If we had other jobs. If you played baseball and I played hockey or something like that.”
“I do know what you mean,” I say, heaviness in my tone, suiting the turn we’ve taken.
“I’d want to be seen with you. I wouldn’t want anyone else to beat us to it.” His eyes fly open, and that blue gaze is so damn serious now.
My brows knit, but I turn my gaze back to the road, my fingers curled around the steering wheel.
I flash back to the night I met him. The things he said in the elevator. About telling his own story. “This is why you told the locker room that first day. And then later you said someone beat you to it. What happened?”
Grant’s jaw tightens and he nods as he blows out a long stream of air, laced with frustration. “You ever had someone else out you?”
“No.” My heart screams for him. For the awfulness. “That happened to you, babe?”
“Yes.” His voice is strung tight. “In front of my whole fucking high school.”
I nearly crash the car. “Wow.”
“End of my senior year. Right when I figured it out. Right when I knew. I told Reese. I told my grandparents. They were awesome, just like you’d expect.” He swallows roughly. “Then I told my mom and her husband.”
I keep my eyes on the road, but sneak glances at the man by my side. “And what happened?”
“A week later there was an assembly at school with parents and students. It was about diversity. Awareness. Important stuff about inclusion. And right in the middle of it, Frank stood up and said, ‘As the stepfather of a young gay man, I applaud these efforts.’”
Grant closes his eyes, as if the memory pains him too much.
It hurts me too, for him.
I scan the street, spotting an empty parking lot at a closed coffee drive thru. Flipping on the turn signal, I pull into the lot, park the car, and cut the engine. “Grant,” I say, my heart flooding with sympathy.
“Yeah, I know.” He heaves a terrible sigh, then scrubs his hand down his face. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
I take his hand in mine again, bring his knuckles to my lips, kiss them. He shudders when I touch him, and I record that reaction in my mind, save it for a rainy day.
Then I let go and tell him something I don’t like to share either. Something that still cuts deep. “When I was seventeen, I told my dad I was gay. He said there was nothing wrong with who I like, but that I should stay in the closet. He said it would be safer. He said it would be better for me.”