Cuddle bear, p.10
Cuddle Bear, page 10
A man like Wick wouldn’t have any trouble meeting someone else who would want to be with him. Rich, handsome, and a flirt? Yeah, he would be fine. My heart was heavy as I walked along the hall and down the main staircase. Plus, we didn’t fit as a couple. People wouldn’t look at us and go, “Those two belong together, aren’t they cute?” They would wonder what the hell Wick was thinking. I wasn’t being down on myself, either. It was simply a fact.
I made it all the way outside into the dark and drizzling rain before I groaned. My car wasn’t here. I stared at Wick’s Maserati in the parking lot and felt stupid, then went back to the patio along the front of the building and dropped my bags on the wet cement. Defeat weighed heavily on me. I didn’t even care about the wet seat as I collapsed onto a white metal chair, and immediately my butt and back were damp. Warm, humid air clung to me and sweat broke out over my entire body within seconds. I slapped at a puddle on the table. This was my life—I couldn’t even escape an awkward situation without making things worse.
One of the glass doors opened, and Hyeon’s cousin came out with two mugs balanced precariously in one hand. He was cute, with bright brown eyes, dimples, and a wide smile. I forced myself to mumble “thank you” as he set one mug down in front of me. He used the bar towel he had over his shoulder to wipe down the chair next to mine, then plopped onto it. With a tired grin, he sipped his drink.
“Can’t sleep?” he asked.
I shrugged. “You?”
“Nope. Today is going to suck. I’m never able to sleep when strange things are happening. Hurricanes, storms. . . . I worry too much.” He didn’t seem upset, simply appeared to embrace that kernel of truth about himself.
I groaned. “Yeah.”
He glanced at my bags, then peeked at his watch. “You wouldn’t happen to be up to no good, would you? You seem like a guy who’s doing things he shouldn’t. Maybe escaping something. . . or someone? Do you need help?”
Nervous laughter bubbled out of my mouth and I couldn’t stem it. Fuck, was I that easy to read? “Don’t suppose I could talk you into giving me a lift to my office?”
The kid hummed and nodded. “Okay, I was right about you.” He stuck out his tongue for a second, and I could only give him a miserable smile. “I have to go out and try to find a grocery store that’s open anyway. Sure.”
Guilt twisted in my gut as I drank my coffee. I should’ve said something to Wick, but what? Last night was really good, but it would only lead to problems later. I would just go in to work and get as much done as possible. I wouldn’t ignore the situation if Wick brought it up, but maybe if I didn’t say anything it would work itself out. It was better to focus on work and write off last night as the result of stress and the storm. Wick would find someone like Indy Yves, who would make sense as his partner, and that would be the end of this.
The kid finished his coffee and grinned at me.
“Are you one of the Yoons? If I remember correctly, Hyeon said you’re his cousin.”
He nodded and ran a hand through his black hair. “I’m Cooper.”
“Thanks. I’ll come back when I have cash and—”
He smacked my shoulder. “No worries. You’re a friend of the family. Let’s go.”
I didn’t feel very good as I picked up my bags and followed Cooper out into the parking lot to his Fiat, but then again, I was being a coward.
9
WICK
Gritting my teeth, I pushed the glass door at the office, but it was locked. I sighed and fumbled with my keys. I’d woken up alone, which was unexpected and extremely unpleasant, and my phone was dead. I didn’t see Maurice’s car in the lot anywhere, so he likely wasn’t here.
Today was going about as terribly as it could—with the exception that I’d been able to shower this morning with the lights on. That had been nice.
Maurice hadn’t been anywhere at the hotel, either.
“Fuck, what is wrong with this lock?” Finally the key turned and I was able to shove open the door. I had trouble getting my key out again but won the war and tucked the ring back into my pocket. I stomped around the reception desk and through the break room, and I was happy as the lights turned on in the hallways—they were on a sensor. Once in my office, I immediately set about charging all my devices, just in case the power went off again, then flopped in my chair.
What did I do wrong with Maurice? I massaged my temples and glared at my phone as the lightning bolt flashed on the dark screen while it began to charge. I didn’t want to be here at the office today, but I needed to make sure no one was having an emergency like yesterday, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to test my luck on the roads to my home. I closed my eyes and my gut churned while I dissected every single word I’d said to Maurice yesterday. Maybe nothing was wrong with me and he’d simply had an emergency? But then, why hadn’t he woken me up? Wouldn’t he tell me he needed to leave if there was something wrong? Maybe even ask me to go with him?
There was a noise in the outer office, and I sat up tall in my chair as a knock rang through the room.
“Yes?”
Maurice cracked open the door and sent me a smile, but his face was red and he seemed like he was holding his breath. He was wearing the same clothes he’d had on last night as he snuck in the door with a large box in his hands from Muscarello’s. The smell of cheese, sauce, and oregano danced along the air and had my mouth watering. Maurice walked over to my desk as if it was any other day and removed a sturdy tin tray with foil wrapped over the top from the box and set it on my desk, then dropped down a bottle of Sprite and a roll of silverware.
“Here you go, Mr. Guidry.” His tone was subdued and he didn’t make eye contact.
Relief tangled with anger in my chest. Mr. Guidry—my own name was like a slap in the face after hearing him chant Wick last night while I was blowing him, as if I were some sort of sex god. Maurice didn’t offer to eat with me, even though he often did on the weekends, and instead, went back out to his office and shut the door. Were we going to ignore last night?
I sighed and stared at the food, confused and irritated. . . and hurt. What had I missed? Obviously I’d done something wrong, right?
At a little after three there was a knock, and I stared up guiltily from the movie I’d been watching rather than doing any work. I’d thought about asking Maurice to join me, but after the way he’d acted earlier, I wasn’t sure what to do. He opened the door and lingered on the threshold.
“Uh, yes?”
He adjusted his glasses and cleared his throat. “They’re saying the roads are better. I’m gonna chance going home. No one has called today.”
“Okay.”
With that dismal excuse for a farewell, the door closed, and my heart ached. Shit, maybe he’d been waiting for me to say something about last night? Did I mess up right now? I rested my elbows on the desk and dropped my forehead onto my fists. Maybe Maurice just needed someone last night and I was there? He was nice and sweet, but he was also a man, and that wasn’t out of the realm of possibilities. It had felt like something more was going on between us when we were kissing, but maybe I was wrong.
Instead of trying to go home, I finished my movie and went back to the hotel. I asked Mrs. Riggins to send someone with a suitcase for me so I could be comfortable, but I wasn’t ready to leave the place where something so good had happened, as silly as that seemed. My gut churned that evening when I climbed into the bed because at some point during the day the sheets had been replaced and all traces of Maurice’s cologne were missing when I buried my face in the extra pillow.
I had trouble falling asleep and was almost a zombie the next morning when my alarm went off. It was a Monday times ten thousand because half the office called out, claiming they needed to take care of things because either the power was out at their homes or the roads they needed to travel were still impassable. I couldn’t be mad about an emergency, but that meant anything immediate had to be handled by the rest of us. Maurice made it to his desk on time, but I only knew that because I heard the shuffling around of another warm body in the office outside of mine.
I decided to drag myself out there to see him, and my heart hammered in my ears as I pushed open the door and went to stand beside his glossy black desk. I stared at the starry painting across the room instead of looking at him.
“Um, good morning,” I said, then darted a glance toward his face.
He smiled and my heart leaped. “Good morning to you, too, sir.”
He stared at me, and I looked right back. Tension coiled around my chest as the silence dragged out, and then I walked back into my office because it was clear he wasn’t going to open his mouth and tell me what I’d done to chase him away. I would ask, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answer yet.
When I got to my desk, I opened my laptop—I would find things to do that wouldn’t take me back out past Maurice until closing time. I was pecking away at my keyboard when there was a knock at the door sometime later. Normally Maurice rapped once, then popped right in. Not this time. I hated the change.
“Come in,” I said, without looking up.
The door opened, but I stared at the Excel sheet in front of me.
“It’s after two and you haven’t eaten lunch.”
I shrugged and scrolled aimlessly through the file I’d been half focused on. “It’s fine. I’m busy.”
The door closed again, and I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting, but in the past Maurice would’ve badgered me to tell him what I wanted or simply made a choice himself. I didn’t get another visit from him, even though I could hear him going about his work.
He didn’t say goodbye before he left.
There was no point in returning to the hotel that night because it was clearly not the repository of fantastic memories I’d hoped. No, now it was a mausoleum. After I showered and changed into casual clothes, I paced around the upstairs of my home and ended up in the library, where Maurice had run from me the night he’d dropped off my phone. It made me stumble when I thought about that evening, and I stopped to stare out a window at the flowers lining a walking trail near the edge of the lawn. He had a history of running from me; although, I hadn’t thought too much about it at the time. Why had he done it then? Why did he leave the hotel?
I groaned and scrubbed my hands over my face. I had to talk to him and work wasn’t the place to do it. I stared all around and paced along the perimeter of the room, touching the warm leather spines of books until I came to the only reasonable conclusion: I had to go to his house and speak with him. This wasn’t a phone conversation; it required being able to see his face.
Maurice’s address was in my phone under his contact information, but I’d never been there. No time like the present. I held my breath a lot on the treacherous drive and stopped when my vision got spotty. It was difficult to see through the steady rain. His home was a good ways out in the country, and the road wasn’t as clear of debris as the one to mine. I had to drive around branches and other roadblocks, and I made the decision to ford a small stream that was going across both lanes, even though that was something they always warned you not to do on the news: never cross flowing water.
I had to get where I was going and the stream wasn’t that wide, so I took the risk.
When I reached Maurice’s driveway the headlights swept across a cheerful yellow shotgun house with bright teal shutters and trim. His blue Infinity was parked near the front in a gravel driveway. There were no lights on at all, and I figured that meant the power was still down out here away from the city. I went to the door, and it took me a couple of minutes to work up the courage to knock. My knuckles hurt, I rapped the wood so hard.
Inside there was a thud. “Gosh darn it!”
The amusement that flickered to life in my chest died again as I thought about everything I wanted to say to Maurice when I was looking into his eyes. The door opened and he stood there with a large red flashlight in his hand, blinking in confusion. The beam had me squinting and cast his face in shadow.
“Hello.”
His mouth fell open and he gaped. A moth flittered closer to him, and before I could say anything he inhaled, then proceeded to cough up a lung. I slapped his shoulder, then his back, until he was breathing normally again, and he grimaced as he glanced up at me.
“Uh, hi. Come inside. What are you doing? It’s still raining! Why did you come out here? I’m not sure it was safe. I probably shouldn’t have made the trip myself. Are you okay?”
“I’m okay.” I felt both guilty and awful as I slipped inside, and he closed the door behind me. I had a horrible flashback to being a teenager and getting made fun of by kids at school for existing, then going home and getting berated by my father. I knew Maurice was probably concerned for my safety, but the rant rankled.
“The roads are terrible,” he said, as if I hadn’t heard him.
“Why did you leave our hotel room without a word?”
He took a few steps back and cradled the flashlight in both hands, then pointed the beam toward the floor so I couldn’t see much of his face. “You aren’t going to want people at work to know you’re with me. It seemed like the smartest thing to do.”
“Says who? You could’ve at least discussed it with me.”
He handed me the flashlight before walking across the room, then sat down on a love seat that matched the shutters outside. “Please, make yourself at home.”
“I’m fine,” I snapped.
He crossed his arms and closed his eyes. “Matthew, my ex, wouldn’t go out with me. He. . . . He liked fucking me, but I embarrassed him. He never said as much, but anytime I suggested going out he would find a reason to say no. Every once in a while he would go to a bar with me, but only if there was a group of us. He never touched me while we were outside the house. At first I thought he was nervous about strangers knowing we were gay, which can sometimes cause problems, and it took me a while to work out he didn’t want people realizing the guy he was out with was me. We lived together and that had to be enough.”
Anger boiled in my gut. “And you think I would feel this way, too? Did I do anything to give you that idea?”
He sighed, and his shoulders curled forward until he was nearly in a ball. “It doesn’t matter how you feel. A lot of folks expect to see a different kind of man with you, and at work there are people who will be angry to see you with any guy at all. It could cause issues with clients, and in probably ten other ways I haven’t thought about, all because I want to sleep with you.”
I nodded and my mind spun. My fingers hurt from gripping the flashlight too hard. “That isn’t why you left.”
He scowled and glanced up. “It is.”
“Bullshit. What’s the real reason?”
Silence dragged out between us.
“Well?” I demanded.
“That is the main reason, but. . . .” He smacked his hands down at his sides. “You look good. You look different from me.”
“I love the way you look!” I ran the beam of light over him, and he threw up a hand to shield his eyes. “Why are you putting other people’s opinions on me?”
His face crumpled and his sturdy shoulders heaved.
The beam of the flashlight shook and it took me a moment to realize it was my hand moving around like that. “I never said anything to make you think I would want to wake up alone. I wanted you to be there.” I stomped away and set the flashlight down on the floor before I went outside and slammed the door, even though it was a petty move. I was almost to my Maserati when I heard cursing behind me, and Maurice raced around with the flashlight in his hands to block me from getting in my car. The rain began to come down harder and I shivered as the dampness hit my skin.
I was too mad to say anything.
It took him a minute to stop staring at my chin and meet my eyes. “You’re right. You’ve never said a single mean thing to me.”
Fury and something else coiled in knots in my stomach—something painful. “If you don’t like me, it’s fine. I get it. I’m not for everyone. But don’t make this about something I never did.”
Maurice shuffled forward and hugged my middle. Yes, I was upset, but nothing in me wanted to hold back from him. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and rested my cheek on the side of his head. He squeezed me tighter and some of the awfulness that had been in me for two days drained away.
“Anyone would be lucky to have you,” he whispered.
“I feel the same way.”
We were quiet for a bit, the drizzle getting us wet, but we stood there clinging to each other anyway.
After a few long minutes, he sighed. “If we do this, I still don’t think we should tell anyone at work.”
“I doubt it will be a problem.”
“It’s a bad idea.” His tone left no room for arguments.
My stomach fell to my toes, but I at least understood where he was coming from. This wouldn’t be me taking him out and showing him off; this would be a low-key affair. Part of me ached at the idea of agreeing because this picked at my own old wounds, but I liked him a lot. “Okay, I accept that. Does this mean I can stay the night?”
He nuzzled his face against my neck and sent a warm tremble racing down my spine. “Sure. Come on in.”
“Don’t mind if I do.”
He glanced up at me, and I swooped down to seal my mouth over his. My insides melted when he opened his lips and flirted his tongue with mine. This was what I’d needed the other morning when I woke up and couldn’t find him, and maybe it wasn’t exactly what I wanted, but nothing was ever perfect. I would take what Maurice was willing to give.
10
MAURICE
