Page 92 of The Play

Deacon considered it for a moment.

“Beck telling me to get my head out of my ass,” Deacon said, and Nate laughed.

“He’d really do that to you?” Nate wondered.

“He said it nicely. But yes.” And he’d deserved it.

When Grant finally returned to his penthouse, it was nearly midnight.

He’d shed his tie in the car, and shrugged out of his jacket, dropping it on a chair in the living room as he collapsed onto the couch.

It had been an insanely long day. Probably not helped by the three or four hours of sleep he’d gotten last night.

Grant still wouldn’t trade the night he’d shared with Deacon for anything, though.

Even if he didn’t have this headache, exhaustion mingled with tension, that had persistently pounded behind his eyes for the last four or so hours.

His phone buzzed, and Grant groaned before digging it out of his pocket. He would’ve left it where it was, because he’d been working nonstop for nearly twenty hours at this point, and even if someone had an emergency, they could fucking wait. But he’d hoped, even though it was late, that it was Deacon.

It was.

Grant pressed answer, and even though he knew it was physically impossible, it felt like his headache receded just a little at Deacon’s simple, “Hey.”

“Hey,” Grant echoed.

“Sorry, I know it’s late,” Deacon said. “But I was lying here in bed and couldn’t stop thinking about you. And you did text me earlier, saying you were hoping you’d be home by midnight. Are you?”

“Yeah,” Grant said. “Just got here.”

“Good.” Deacon was quiet for a moment. “How bad was it, today?”

“Not bad,” Grant lied.

Deacon chuckled. “Don’t lie to me.”

“It wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle,” Grant protested.

“Just ’cause you could handle it doesn’t mean you can’t give some of that to me. At least tell me about it.”

“I set up Cheryl for a pretty shitty fall,” Grant said.

“Does she deserve it?” Deacon’s voice was rough and low, with tiredness. And yet he was on the phone with him. Grant felt warmer, more secure, less exhausted, just listening to him.

Maybe there was some benefit to sharing some of the burden.

“Yeah. Yeah, she does.”

“Then you did what you had to do,” Deacon said simply, like it was just that easy.

Probably for Deacon, it was.

But even though Grant knew he’d needed to take steps to combat Cheryl’s influence and power, he hadn’t wanted to. He hadn’t enjoyed it the way Darcy did. He probably never would.

“Wish we could give some of that to Rex,” Deacon continued, his voice growing harder.

It wasn’t like Grant wasn’t worried about Rex, but he was . . .well, inconsequential, when it came down to it.

“He’s like an annoying symptom, and Cheryl is the sickness,” Grant said. “But I get it. He betrayed you guys. You want retribution.”

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