Chapter 14
Daylight arrived while Julian was looking at his laptop screen, watching numbers scroll by. He stretched and stared for a moment at a pearl gray sky. It was still early, but it was a relief not to see all that blackness outside his windows.
That was one reason Julian never wanted to come back here. The view out of his apartment window was never black. City lights had reassured him, always there, always lighting up the street and the skyline no matter the time, like night never came.
The dark silence of the countryside was always threatening to swallow up this place. But last night wasn't as bad as it could have been because Rob was there.
How long had he longed for a man to hold him just the way Rob had done? Forever?
All his life Julian did his best to keep what he felt to himself and hold himself back from people, but with Rob it all came spilling out. Of course Rob had shared with him as well. He gave him a feeling of closeness Julian had never experienced before.
As morning arrived properly, Julian was working in his room with the door open in case Danny needed him. But he was also listening for Rob. He wasn't the first one up though. Lenny wanted to go outside, so he and Danny showed up at Julian's bedroom door. Julian was ready to take them, but then Rob came out of his room freshly showered and shaved and stunning as always.
"I'll take them. You look busy," Rob said and pointed to the laptop under his arm.
"Thank you," Julian told him and tried not to remember what it felt like to be in his arms.
He wanted to go with them, but he had a videoconference to prepare for. He spent all the hours before lunchtime on that. After the conference was over, he got a follow-up call from Pete Thayer.
Barely pretending to talk business for a few minutes, Pete soon turned things more personal. "So you took that temp along with you to your little country hideaway. I guess you're more into brawn than brains," Thayer said, and Julian wasn't about to reply. He could just keep talking to himself. "You think it's a good idea to reward thuggish behavior? One of these days that might come back to bite you."
What Thayer said started out like he was giving him well-meaning advice, but ended almost like a threat. Julian had never been happier to have put some miles between him and that man. Thayer was the only one who had been thuggish. Rob had simply come to his defense. Being protective came naturally to a good man like him.
"So you took a boy toy with you so you wouldn't get lonely," Thayer said. "He must be doing a real good job if you're keeping him around and giving him room and board."
Julian ignored that and stuck to business. "I'll contact Denison about my analysis."
To Thayer, even that was an opportunity to insinuate something. "I'm sure you have all sorts of ways to persuade Denison to your way of thinking."
"I'll persuade him with numbers. I have another call I'll need to take," Julian said to him curtly.
"Of course you do." Thayer didn't believe him and Julian didn't care. He didn't owe that man even one more second of his time.
"I'll talk to you later, Pete," Julian told him and hung up. He hadn't ended that conversation soon enough because Rob came into the office and heard him.
"Pete? Don't tell me you had to take a call from Pete Thayer," Rob asked, his brow furrowed.
"I did."
"Did he have business with you or did he call you just to be an asshole?" Rob asked, still frowning deeply.
"To be a asshole," Julian had to admit.
"He better not make a habit of it," Rob said threateningly, his protective instinct on display. "You know I wouldn't have put him through."
Julian didn't blame him. "I don't doubt it," he said with a grin, his mood already improving.
"Did you sleep last night?" Rob eyed him like he already knew the answer. Did that mean Julian looked really bad while Rob looked gorgeous and radiant?
"No, I didn't sleep," Julian confessed, no point pretending otherwise. But there was a silver lining. "I did get a lot of work done."
Rob wasn't impressed with that. "That means you've been working nonstop, and on top of that, you had to deal with Thayer. That does it. You're taking a break. Do you think you can make time to go to Ashbury to shop for Halloween decorations and get some lunch?"
Julian thought about it and realized he didn't want to miss out, so he said, "OK. Let's do it."
As they went to get Danny, they stopped to talk to Rico and Mitch in the hallway. They were working on refinishing the woodwork on the stairway.
"What are you guys bringing to the potluck?" Mitch asked. There had been a lot of texting back and forth about that.
