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“You want me to leave?” Luke asked.
Gray shook his head as he found his mother’s phone number. He settled back down into the chair while it rang and then watched Luke holding the cabinet door up to check it against the base on the wall. It had been Luke’s suggestion to strip and re-stain the cabinets to give them a more modern feel rather than buying brand new cabinets. As usual, Luke’s instinct had been spot on because the cabinets still looked rustic but the new stain made them look fresh and clean.
“Looks good,” Gray murmured and his heart flip-flopped when Luke cast him a smile over his shoulder. But the real distraction came when Luke leaned over to check something against the wall and a strip of skin was revealed where his shirt rode up just above his tight ass. The gun was tucked in his jeans but Gray barely noticed it because he was too busy ogling the man’s flexing muscles. He also didn’t notice his mother’s annoyed voice until she said “hello” for the third time.
“Hey Mom, it’s me,” Gray said.
“Gray,” his mother replied, the all too familiar thread of annoyance in her tone. “Sweetheart, now’s not a good time. I’m about to meet with the van Horns to talk about a re-design of their house in the Hamptons.” Her impatience made something deep inside Gray curl up and die.
“I…I was just calling to check in,” Gray murmured.
“I do hope you’ve straightened out all that nonsense with that…that actor,” she said with distaste. “I’ve had three clients ask me about you and your…proclivities.”
Gray closed his eyes. “Sorry to have bothered you, Mom. Good luck with the van Horns,” he said quietly and then hung up the phone.
“You okay?” he heard Luke ask and he opened his eyes to see Luke watching him intently.
“I’m nearly forty years old but I hear that tone in her voice and it puts me right back there, you know?”
“Back where?”
“Back to when I kept trying to figure out who they wanted me to be and kept coming up short.”
A heavy hand came to rest on his and sparks of electricity shot up Gray’s entire arm. He pulled his hand free of Luke’s because he was just too vulnerable to try to rein in his need for the other man. “Roman said she was worried about me.”
“You think he lied? Why would he do that?” Luke asked. “Do you think he wanted to hurt you?”
Gray thought back to the way his brother had looked at him just before he’d left. Like he’d wanted to say more. “No,” Gray finally said. “I don’t think so. I think he used her as an excuse.”
“To check on you himself,” Luke observed.
Gray smiled. “I think so. I didn’t think he’d ever forgive me for how I treated him when he was a kid but maybe this is my chance to fix things.”
“What happened between you two?”
“It’s a long story,” Gray warned.
Luke was quiet for a moment before saying, “I’m not going anywhere.”
That statement and the way Luke’s eyes seemed to burn right through him had Gray’s body drawing up tight with desire. But instead of leaning across the table to drag Luke’s mouth to his, Gray leaned back in his chair and started talking.
ChapterSeven
Luke couldn’t manage to sit still so he got up and started studying all the doctor’s degrees and awards that hung in his office. Ivy league school, residency at a prestigious hospital – that had to be good, right? So what the hell was the guy doing in some community hospital in Montana?
“This guy, he’s good, right?” he asked Gray who was sitting in one of the chairs across from the doctor’s nearly pristine desk.
“He’s good,” Gray responded. His voice sounded dull. Not that Luke could blame the man considering whatever news he was about to get would change his life going forward.
They’d already been sitting in the doctor’s office for nearly fifteen minutes and Luke was on the verge of hunting down the man himself and telling him to get his ass in here and tell them that everything was going to be okay – that the suffering Gray had gone through had paid off.
Gray’s last chemotherapy treatment had been a week ago and he hadn’t been able to bounce back as quickly from it as he had the week before. Although he’d stopped vomiting within twenty-four hours, the long term effect of the treatments had started to take their toll on him and he spent most of his time in bed or resting on the couch. The weight loss had continued and Luke was estimating that the man was a good thirty pounds underweight. But it was the mental strain that had concerned Luke the most because as the date when Gray would learn his fate had drawn closer and closer, Gray had become more quiet and withdrawn. And it wasn’t like Luke could really pull Gray out of it because Luke was feeling the exact same way.
The helplessness had become almost crippling for Luke and it was a stark reminder of his childhood when he’d had no control over his future or any reason to hope for more than whatever each day would bring. All those things had changed when he’d turned eighteen and been given the freedom to make his own decisions. He’d been scared shitless then too but at least he’d had the benefit of being able to make his own choices. Now all he could do was watch the man who’d become frighteningly important to him endure the incessant torture of not knowing what his future held or if he even had one.
Luke’s emotional attachment to Gray had only strengthened his physical need for the other man even though Gray barely resembled the man he’d met on the side of the road a month earlier. He’d gotten past the strangeness of being attracted to a man rather quickly, although the unknown did frighten him somewhat. The part he was struggling with the most was what would happen if he did pursue any kind of relationship with Gray. And that was assuming the experienced and self-proclaimed playboy would even be interested in starting something up with a guy who’d never so much as touched another man in a sexual way and could count on one hand how many women he’d been with.
While Luke had managed to put the threats in his life out of his mind for the past couple of weeks, he wasn’t foolish enough to think he was out of danger. Even if by some miracle he could convince the cops of his innocence, it didn’t mean that the man hunting him would suddenly stop. And it didn’t mean that he wouldn’t use any means necessary to get to Luke. Which meant that every day Luke stayed with Gray was another day he risked putting Gray in the crosshairs of a man who’d already proven he wouldn’t let anything stand in the way of his rise to power.
