Trust (London Love #5)

“Not here.” Grabbing his sleeve, I steered him over to the baggage store, tapped my card to open the door and pushed him inside. A large group of guests passed through the lobby, heading out into the London sunshine. It’s a nice day, yes. And have a lovely time!

“Reuben, go to lunch.” Dad was back.

“Just a sec.” I squeezed into the small baggage store with him, called, “Need to make a phone call!” and closed the door behind me.

He had his hood down, his usually perfect blonde hair all messed up. He looked at me. I looked back. Then he grabbed me. Hugged me so tightly, I thought I might break some bones, suffer internal damage or something. But it felt good, having his face in my neck, his soft breaths against my skin. My arms were doing that thing I had no control over, where I hugged him back, my hand moving up and down his back.

“I know you don’t want to see me, and I know I have a problem with…like…your boundaries. I cross them. All the bloody time. I promise to work on that, but I can’t just…you know. Exist and not know where I stand. Even if I can just…talk to you. Text you. Hug you sometimes?”

“Yeah,” I said. A word that encompassed answers to every single one of those questions.

I had a small chat with myself. A very short one. One about standing my ground and not being gay and not enjoying a single second of having him pressed against me like this, of being with someone who made you feel better about everything.

Fuck the goddamn feelings.

“I need to go to lunch.”

Bullshit. I wasn’t even hungry.

“I have a viewing of an apartment in an hour. Gated parking. A small terrace. Looks great.”

“You don’t have a car.”

He let me go, put a little bit of space between us.

“No, I know. But you do. You could come, you know. Park there for work. It would be safe.”

I laughed. God. He was as bad as me.

“Are you trying to bribe me with parking?”

“Is it working?” He smiled. “Dude, you could come see me. We could hang out.”

“Gray,” I said, protesting even as my fingers brushed his cheek, my thumb stroking slowly over his top lip. What the hell was I doing?

“Reubs. I know you’re pissed off with me. But I don’t mean to be like this. I just. You know. I like you. I really like you. I like how…easy you and me are. That’s all. We have fun. We laugh. And you’re—”

“I’m at work.” I let go of him.

“So am I,” he said softly. “Turns out that yesterday, they brought some session singers in and prerecorded a bunch of songs without us. Stuff other people have written. The official word was that they no longer trust us to deliver the vision the company has for the Blitz brand. We’re all fuming. I mean, we are Blitz. And if management wants something that we’re not, well, fuck, Reubs. The whole thing is so bloody screwed up. I had to walk out to cool my head, and all I could think of was coming here so I could just hug you. See? I feel better now. That’s actually…”

He hugged me again. Held me. Breathed out so loudly that it made me smile.

“This is what you are to me. Someone I can come hug and I feel better.”

“Gray, we’ve known each other for what, a couple of weeks?”

“Nope. Months. When were the BAFTAs?”

“Dude, they’re every year, but the ones you mean, a year and a bit ago.”

“See?”

“Gray.” I seemed to say that a lot.

“Need to go to my viewing.” He let go of me, hiked the rucksack up on his shoulder, hood over his head. “Walk me out?”

I opened the door for him, pretending I didn’t notice my dad’s attempt to keep a straight face as G gave him a high-five. Then he got in his car, smiled at me as I closed the door. Waved politely as the car drove off.