This time he laughed. “Actually, I didn’t get that chance. I told my father that I was going to be getting a business degree, instead of studying medicine like he did or law like my mother did, and that was the end of it. I didn’t realize that I was only interested in men until I was in college, and by then they’d cut me out of their lives completely.”
I snorted. “Because you wanted to do something besides what they wanted?”
“They more or less took it as me turning my back on the family name and everything they’d given me. They didn’t take it well. I was surprised he’d left me this house at all.”
We arrived at my apartment complex, and I gave him further directions to get him to my specific building. “Do you want to wait out here, or would you like to come in?”
“Are you uncomfortable with me seeing your place?”
“I’m not. And I’m not ashamed of it either. My furniture is crap, but it’s functional, and you’ve seen how I dress. I know they aren’t your standards, but I like my way.”
He smiled at me and rubbed his thumb over the back of his knuckles. “I think that’s one of the things I like most about you.”
“What is?”
“That you make no apologies for who you are or what you like.”
I blushed as I smiled back at him. And, after he’d parked in front of my building, he leaned over to kiss me. I didn’t even mind getting kissed by him in front of the place I lived. He was older than me by a lot, and probably many people would think he was my sugar daddy, but I knew better. And if anyone had a problem with it, then that had nothing to do with me or him or us. As a couple. I swallowed as I pulled back. I’d just thought of us as a couple. Holy shit. Okay, I could handle that.
“Are you sure you don’t mind me coming in? You look upset by something.”
I was quick to shake my head. “I’m freaking out over something, but it’s not about you seeing my crappy apartment.”
“Will you tell me what it is?”
I rolled my head to the side so that I could look at him. “Are we dating? Because that’s what it feels like to me here. Only, I’ve never dated, so I can’t be sure. But it doesn’t feel like we’re just hanging out and having sex. Want to fill me in?”
Grayson leaned forward and kissed my neck, and at the same time, he slid his hand between my legs and lightly gripped my inner thigh. He was teasing me, even as I opened my legs up wider for him so that if he wanted to touch me, he could. I’d never even made out with anyone in front of my apartment, but if he asked me to go down on him right there in the parking lot, I would without giving it a second thought.
“We are dating,” he said, his warm breath skating across my neck. “And I will still have you naked whenever you let me.”
I smiled and leaned my head back in the seat as he shifted and began roughly massaging my cock through my jeans. I was exhausted, but I wasn’t so tired that I’d fall asleep on him if he wanted me. Which I really hoped he did, because as much as I liked that he’d just given me pleasure the night before, I’d really liked that morning when he’d pounded into me.
“Get inside. The faster I can have you naked, the happier I’ll be.”
“Sounds good.” I got out of his car in a hurry and realized there was nothing I could do to hide my erection. I was thick and hard, and since I had on my riding pants, that was obvious. Grayson didn’t miss it either, judging by his grin as he followed me along the sidewalk to my front door. Which had an eviction notice on it. I read it, briefly. I was to pay my back rent, plus a late fee, or I could move out.
I shrugged and tossed it in the trash as soon as I was in my place. “Guess trading sex for rent doesn’t apply when I haven’t been here in almost a week.”
Grayson just shook his head, and I could tell he was angry, but I couldn’t really bring myself to be. I’d expected this, in a way, because Brent had been pretty clear about what he’d wanted, and I hadn’t been around in a few days for him to screw with.
“I hope I never meet him,” Grayson said as he started looking at all my pictures of the horses on my walls.
I snorted and headed into my bedroom to pack up the rest of my clothes and the few things I didn’t want Brent and his family put out at the dumpster. “Me too,” I called back to Grayson as I went through my shirts. Most of them were polo shirts with the rescue logo on them. And all of my pants were jeans that I could comfortably ride in. The fact that my life was pretty much all about the rescue made me smile.
“Are these all horses at the rescue?”
I finished packing one bag and started with the next. “Yeah. But they’re also all horses I either helped rescue or get adopted into new homes.”
I came out of my bedroom to see him still staring at the pictures. I was nearly done packing.
“Will you tell me about each of them someday?”
“Sure. If you want to hear their stories. Most of them are pretty standard and boring, though. Teenager got a horse, teenager went to college, family didn’t want to take care of the horse anymore, they brought the horse to the sanctuary, and we adopted it out.”
Grayson smiled over at me, and I went into the kitchen to start bagging up the groceries I still had. I wouldn’t be taking them to his house, but my neighbor was struggling, and she had a few kids. I didn’t have much to give her, but I figured if she wanted it, she could use it. I wanted to leave a note with the groceries to let her know that if she wanted anything out of my apartment she could take it. I wouldn’t be back there ever again.
And knowing that didn’t make me sad at all. I wouldn’t miss this apartment. It had just been a place for me to live, and once Brent had entered the picture, it had been pretty hellish for me.
“Can you take the pictures off the walls?” They were pretty much the only things I really wanted out of my apartment. I mean, my clothes were important to me too, and I liked them all, but they could be replaced. Some of the horses whose pictures I had hanging on my wall weren’t living anymore. Evaline had their official photos still in their folders at the rescue, but these were the pictures of them that I’d taken.
While Grayson took care of my pictures, I went next door with a note and a bunch of groceries for my neighbor. Then I was ready to load up my stuff into the back of his car. In total it took us about half an hour from the time we arrived to when we were back on the road with the rest of my things.
“I’m glad you’ve decided to stay with me for the next month.”
I sank into his leather seat. He turned on the heat, and I sighed blissfully. I could get used to riding around in his car. “Me too. I like living with you.”
He reached over to touch my thigh, and I smiled. I must have drifted off, though, because the next thing I knew, I was being helped out of his car and stumbling groggily up to my bedroom in his house.
Chapter Fourteen
Grayson
ELI BARELY had time for coffee the next morning before he had to head down to Parker. I wanted to stay there with him, but I had things to do too.
“I’ll try to get off in time to have dinner with you,” he promised me before he got out of my car. We kissed briefly, and then he was gone.
I made reservations, but he couldn’t make them. He texted me at six saying, Just got a new rescue and need to get her processed. I’ll be late. I’m sorry.
I was disappointed, but I respected what he was doing more than I did with many other people’s professions. He was out there helping. And my profession largely worked around restructuring companies, which often led to people losing their jobs.
As I sat there alone that night, eating delivery Thai food and thinking about his job versus mine, I began to question my profession entirely. Sure, I helped companies, but to make them more profits and lose those employees who worked against that goal. Thinking about the kind of pleasure, the fulfillment Eli probably got from his life made me wonder what I would have done had I not gotten into Yale. I doubted that I’d be doing anything wor
thwhile, and I wouldn’t have even a fraction of the possessions that I did now, but how much of that actually mattered?
I was still thinking about it at quarter after eight when Eli came through the front door.
He looked beat, but he was smiling. “Hey.”
I got off the couch and went to give him a hug. I was gentle with him, in case he’d been thrown by yet another horse, but he squeezed me back, showing me that he wasn’t as fragile as I wanted to treat him.
“I missed you,” I said into his sweaty hair.
“Missed you too.”
He smelled like hay and leather and the unmistakable smell of horses. I didn’t want to let him go, but I was sure he was hungry. “There’s Thai food in the fridge.”
He chuckled and moved out of my arms. I was reluctant to release him, and so I followed him into the kitchen, where he started dishing up some pad Thai. “We’ve got to get some food here soon.”
Maybe. “I don’t really like cooking just for myself. The cookies were an exception that won’t be happening all that often, so don’t start expecting them.” At my mention of the cookies, he grabbed one out of the plastic bag they’d been stuffed into on the island.
He leaned over the island as we waited for his food to heat up in the microwave. “As soon as Evaline gets back to the sanctuary, I’ll make us some dinner. Real dinner too, not popcorn or cereal.” Eli didn’t look as if he was joking even a little bit.
“You’re serious. Aren’t you? You’ve had cereal for dinner before? You said that before, but I thought you were joking at the time.”
Eli grabbed his plate out of the microwave. “Of course. It’s an easy, cheap meal. Though by your look of horror, I’m assuming you haven’t.”
“No, I haven’t.” He grinned at me, and I smiled right back. “If you had gone to college, what would you have done?”
He dug into his dinner. “Something with animals probably. I like them a lot more than most people. They never lie or slack off to go text their friends when I’m trying to unload hay with them. Like I was today.” Eli rolled his shoulders. “I need to do an open house soon to get some more volunteers.”
I’d wanted to make money and get my independence when I’d left for college. Eli just wanted to help animals. I came around the island to kiss him on his shoulder. He smiled and kept eating, but I did catch his blush.
“Would you have had your own horse rescue if you could have?”
Eli shook his head, which surprised me. “I like working at Green Acres, and I love what I do, but I know how hard Evaline worked to get it to where it is. Plenty of rescues, even dog and cat rescues, die off in their first year. Whenever she’s ready to retire, I’ll take it over, but I don’t want to start my own. Why are you asking?”
“Just making conversation.” While that was true, it was more than that for me. “I was thinking about my job compared to yours.”
“You get to travel and don’t get kicked by horses,” he pointed out as he slurped up his noodles.
That was true. “Yes, but you’re outside all the time. And what you’re doing matters.”
I loved that Eli didn’t even try to lie and placate me by telling me that my job mattered too. “You want to come work at the rescue for a bit?”
I was pretty sure he was joking, but I wasn’t as I slowly nodded. “Maybe. I was thinking about it today. How I envy you in that you do something you love and what you do makes a difference to someone.”
“To the horses for sure.”
“Yes, but also the people who get to adopt horses from you. I’d like to help somehow.”
He smiled over at me. “That would be great. I’d really like that. Then I could be your boss and write you up for being lazy, if you ever were.”
I kissed him on his hair again. “We’ll see. Do you have to be back early tomorrow?”
I was sure that he would have to be, but then Eli shook his head. “Evaline is coming back tomorrow morning. She’s still sad about Thrall dying, but she told me that after being at the sanctuary daily for the last twenty years, it’s hard for her to take even a day off. So I’m off tomorrow. She said I deserved a break.”
“There’s a classic horror movie marathon on tonight….”
His expression went from exhausted and barely functioning to fully attentive in mere seconds. “Really…?”
I’d had a feeling he’d be excited about that. I was just glad we could enjoy it together, though I would have recorded it so we could watch it together another time. “Yes.”
He rushed through his dinner, and minutes later we were curled up on the couch together with the blanket wrapped around us and him cuddled into my side. He didn’t stay upright for long, though, because halfway through the first movie, which was about a mummy who had come alive in New York City in the fifties, he was already lying down with his head on my thigh. I rubbed his back idly as I thought about what I wanted to do with my life. I was happy with my career. Wasn’t I? I had thought that I was. What would I do instead? I could volunteer for a few hours at the rescue, but that wasn’t exactly a career. I wanted more, and I wanted what I did to matter.
I was nearly fifty and having a midlife crisis all because I was jealous of my twenty-five-year-old boyfriend and his life in which he made a difference and what he did mattered. I wasn’t willing to give up my car or my things to live a simpler life like he did, but I did want to go to work and not think about the people I would advise be fired after I left. I wasn’t directly responsible for those people losing their jobs, but I was a big part of it, and I didn’t know if I could be as detached as I had always been before. I wanted more out of my life and for myself, but I wasn’t sure how to get it now so late in my life.
I needed something else to focus on, and Eli made a nice distraction. His hair was messy, and he hadn’t changed out of his work clothes. He’d taken off his boots, but his boot socks were still on. He looked happy and exhausted. I thought he was absolutely stunning.
“You’re staring,” he said, but he was smiling.
I chuckled and ran my fingers through his hair. “I can’t help it. What does the rescue lack most?”
“Money,” he said automatically. “All charities need money constantly.”
I had assumed that much. “What else?”
He frowned as he thought of an answer. “Um… hay, more volunteers, medicated grain for the older horses, more adopters, more fosters, a trainer who does everything and does a great job and doesn’t charge anything for their services, a vet who works for free, a farrier too….”
“I get it,” I told him. And I did. But I felt even more lost than before.
“Why are you asking?”
I shrugged and decided to be completely honest with him. “I wish I was doing something that made a difference. Like you do.”
Eli rolled over onto his stomach and then sat up so that he could kneel next to me. “I got lucky with Green Acres. I was pretty lost before Evaline kind of found me. You could try volunteering for a few hours at the rescue. That way you’re helping and you’re still working.”
I ran my hand up his arm. His muscles were tight, as if he was tense about something. I hoped that it wasn’t the idea of me volunteering where he worked. I didn’t want to push him into something he wasn’t okay with.
“I don’t need to be working as hard as I am, especially now that I don’t have a mortgage. And I would like to do something helpful. I’m not sure what, but I’ll spend some time and think about it. Would you mind me being at Green Acres?”
His answer was an immediate shake of his head, which made me happy. “But I can’t give you any special attention or anything like that, and if you screw up, I’ll still call you out on it. But I really would like the help. I had to throw out a bunch of people yesterday, and so we were really short yesterday and today.”
“But Evaline doesn’t need you back tomorrow? And why did you have to get rid of them?”
Eli pressed his forehead against m
y shoulder as if he was too tired to keep himself upright even to kneel next to me. I put my arm around his back, and with some maneuvering, we got him sitting on my lap and leaning against my chest. I liked him there where I could feel the warmth of him going from my neck, where he rested his head, to my thighs. He seemed comfortable too as he settled in nearly immediately. Or maybe he was just too tired to try to find a more comfortable position.
“She doesn’t, and she let some of them back when they begged. I kicked them out because they didn’t care about the horses. But they’re on their second strikes, so the next time they screw up, they’re gone for good and no amount of being nice to a sweet elderly lady is going to fix that.”
He sounded rueful but also incredibly tired. “Would you like me to record the rest of these movies for us to watch later, and then we can go to bed?”
Eli tilted his head back to look up at me. “I’m not exactly sex material right now, but if you want me on my back, I’d be able to stay awake for that.”
I kissed him gently and wished he hadn’t taken that from what I’d said. I would always want him, but I didn’t need him right that moment. “I wasn’t asking you to come to bed for sex. I was saying let’s get you to bed because you look like you’re about to fall over and, while I might be able to carry you a short distance, I don’t want to test that theory on the stairs and risk both of us breaking our necks when we inevitably fall in the process.”
He laughed and gave me a nod. Minutes later the recording was set and he was walking upstairs as I trailed along behind him. He went into his room, and I wasn’t disappointed. Having him in bed with me for one night didn’t mean I would automatically assume he’d always be there. Even now that we were dating, I had no intention of insisting he give up his own space. We were living together, he was safely away from everyone else who had ever wanted to use him, and that was enough for me.
But ten minutes after I’d settled into my bed, he came through my open bedroom door. He’d showered and changed. “Is it okay if I sleep in here even though we won’t be having sex?”
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