AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Eli grinned, then his face fell a bit. “How’s your ASL?”
“Uh…?”
“He’s also deaf from the whole,” Eli made a gesture with his hand that Hudson couldn’t decipher.
Hudson shook his head. “Like, bare bones. I think most of the alphabet?”
“I’ll call an interpreter service.”
“One that isn’t going to send some pearl-clutcher,” Hudson warned. “I don’t need some religious freak bailing on the meeting because of what we do.” He hadn’t worked with a deaf client before, but he’d heard stories during his inclusivity research, and he wasn’t in the mood to deal with any more hassle.
“Leave it to me,” Eli said, then his grin returned. “With any luck, we’ll get this off the ground by next week, and in two months, you’ll be able to sweep Peyton off his feet. Metaphorically, unless you two are into that sort of thing.”
Hudson dropped his forehead to the desk with a loud thud. “Fuck off. This isn’t about…”
“We both know what it is and isn’t about,” Eli said. His voice had gentled but that didn’t take the edge off. “I’m not going to harass you about it, but you know I’m happy for you, right?”
Hudson lifted his face and shook his head. “Even if I did like Peyton, I would never date him. Ever. He’s my neighbor.”
Eli scoffed. “Easy access…”
“And when we break up because I don’t know how to stop being an asshole?” Hudson challenged.
Eli sighed and sat back. “You know you’re not actually an asshole, right?”
Hudson couldn’t help his laugh. “You’ve known me way too long to lie to my face like that.”
Eli didn’t relent. His eyes got darker and more intense—the way he always did when he started coming for Hudson’s low self-esteem. “You’ve had a lot of terrible people in your life who have convinced you that you’re something you’re not. You’re strong…”
“Stop,” he begged in a whisper.
Eli laid his palms to the top of Hudson’s desk. “You’re brave, and you have a lot of powerful feelings. You don’t like bullshit, and you’re not afraid to call it out. But somewhere along the line…”
“Eli,” he growled in warning.
Eli squared his shoulders. “…someone convinced you that those traits—those decent and good traits—made you a bad man. And they kept saying it until you believed it about yourself.”
“I think my track record speaks for itself.”
Eli laughed, but he didn’t sound amused. “I think the fact that you’re hiring someone to make a new sex toy because your neighbor—who has done nothing but irritate the shit out of you—needs help, would disagree with your so-called track record. And people like Peyton?” Eli shrugged. “I don’t know him very well, but I feel like it’s safe to say that he’s one of the people in this world who will see you for who you are.”
“Yeah, a—”
“Man who deserves to be loved,” Eli cut in before Hudson could finish his sentence.
Hudson’s jaw snapped shut, all the wind taken out of his sails. Eli did this every so often, and sometimes, Hudson started to believe him. Sometimes, he looked in the mirror and saw a man who was worthy of all those things.
Then real life—the real world—would remind him that Eli was wrong.
“I’m not saying I won’t eventually—maybe—” he added, just to be clear, “mightbecome friends with Peyton. But if we date, it would be a goddamn disaster. I just moved in, and I like it there. I want to stay.”
Eli stared at him another long while, then stood up and walked over, dropping a kiss to the center of Hudson’s forehead. Eli was one of the few brave enough to touch him, but even when he did, it was never enough. It never lasted for as long as Hudson needed to feel it.
But he’d take what he could get.
“I love you.”
“Fuck off,” Hudson said, and Eli just grinned because he knew that was his best friend’s way of saying I love you too.
