AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Well, it’s a good thing the rent is already covered. Money isn’t an issue,” he replied, as if it were just that simple.
“Maybe not for you,” I seethed. “But I refuse to be a freeloader.” At least at Brenda’s, I wouldn’t feel like a burden. I could help her out with shoveling her paths, grocery shopping, or driving her around.
Gray sighed. “Let me get this straight. You won’t stay here unless you can pay me rent? Even though I don’t pay my own rent and you have nowhere else to go?” His voice was soft, as if he found that revelation more sad than frustrating.
“Go to hell, Gray!” I spat, attempting to wrench my arm from his grip, but he wouldn’t budge an inch.
Instead of responding to my insult, he handed me a business card with a hand written time and date on the back. “Sweet Cheeks.” I recognized the name of the only bakery in town.
“I was going to wait until later to bring this up, but I may have asked around town to see if anyone was hiring. Apparently Jill’s barista has just gone on maternity leave and she desperately needs someone to help out in the afternoons and on weekends. I gave her your name, and she’d like you to start immediately.”
I’m pretty sure he rattled off some more details, but I was too busy seeing red. “What the fuck, Gray. I don’t need, or want, your damn charity.” Like a child, I tossed the card back in his face.
“For God’s sake, Colton, it’s not fucking charity.”
“Like hell it isn’t!”
Reluctantly, he released my arm to scrub both hands over his face. “It’s not,” he said firmly. “I wanted to give you options.”
That paused my warpath to the spare room to pack my meager belongings. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I want you to stay here. I like you, Colton, but that’s neither here nor there at the moment. I want you to stay because you want to, not because you feel like you don’t have any other choice. So I just figured, if you had a job, you’d at least feel some independence. Like you aren’t trapped here or waiting on eggshells for me to toss you out.”
I deflated. Well, shit, wasn’t that the exact thing I’d spent all day stressing about? The fact that Gray could see this living arrangement from my point of view and actually go out of his way to help me shocked the hell out of me. Why would he do that, if he weren’t trying to get in my pants? But then, if I weren’t reliant on him, wouldn’t that make him less likely to get into my pants. I seriously couldn’t figure out his motives.
“And, what? You don’t think I can get a job on my own?” I challenged.
At that, he chuckled. “Um, in case you haven’t noticed, you kind of rub people the wrong way. I had to promise Jill season tickets when baseball starts if she agreed to give you a chance,” he said teasingly, though deep down, I didn’t doubt he was telling the truth.
“Does that mean I can still tell people to fuck off if they annoy me?” I asked, already relenting.
“No Colton. The first rule of customer service is the customer is always right,” he said patronizingly.
“Even if they’re an asshole?”
“Especially when they’re an asshole.”
“So why would I want this job?” I asked.
“You’ll get free cookies,” he said with a wink.
8. “Something Better”
Colton
The past few months had been a bit of a trip. But, not entirely in a bad way. Honestly, the stint I’d spent in Grayson’s home had been a whirlwind of kindness and generosity, the type that surpassed the sum total of benevolence I had experienced in my entire eighteen-year existence.
It was a strange cocktail of emotions, leaving me in a state of unease, yet oddly elated. The confusion, well, that was the cherry on top, hitting me all at once.
The dynamics of my relationship with Gray shifted gradually after I agreed to stick around, on the condition that I would contribute. Initially, both of us ended up submerged in our own worlds—him with the culmination of the football season and his job, and me, navigating my new side gig as a sub-par barista. Unexpectedly, we morphed into something more akin to actual roommates than anything else. Although with a lot of push back on my part. In the early days, despite my earnest attempts to lend a hand, Gray resisted, insisting on taking care of me. A part of me longed for that, but I wasn’t ready to admit it to him. I harbored a fear that if I let him pamper me without putting up a fight, he’d grow tired of it and resent me for my lack of contribution.
That fear intensified when our “roommates only” agreement translated into Gray beginning to avoid me at school. Something I’d wished for for months, but now that I’d gotten my wish, I didn’t like it at all. Especially when the football season’s conclusion meant he no longer had a pretext to linger on his way past the music room. He simply avoided it altogether.
Sure, he became a regular customer at Sweet Cheeks, but it didn’t quite feel like enough. I missed the assertive Gray, the one with no sense of boundaries, who spent his free time inserting himself into my life. I just couldn’t figure out how to reel him back in.
My new bestie may have interfered when I spilled my concerns to her over a game of backgammon. Winter break became the turning point, with Brenda ‘graciously’ inviting us over for Christmas dinner, citing the distance of her own children as the reason they couldn’t visit her. With Brenda acting as a bridge between us, conversation finally started flowing. Gray and I delved into trivial, seemingly pointless topics, only to discover that we had more in common than I would have ever imagined. Our shared love for classical music, and a preference for cats over dogs. We found our sweet tooths were evenly matched, along with equally lackluster baking skills that hindered our attempts to satisfy those cravings. Surprisingly, Gray battled with anxiety—a revelation that caught me off guard given my initial impressions of him. His coping mechanisms included running and journaling, his healthy methods to quell his racing thoughts, a complete juxtaposition to my methods of smoking weed and burying my worries under a veil of assholeism.
As winter slowly gave way to spring, a friendship blossomed between us, mirroring the changing landscape around us. We naturally began to spend more time together. Eventually, Gray reluctantly conceded to letting me handle the dishwashing and laundry, a small victory won only after my complaints about the perpetual sweaty jock stench that clung to the house.
