Page 84 of Left on Read

Hopefully.

14

RIVER

“Are you sure you don’t mind just sitting there while I do this?” Hayden asked.

I looked up from my sketchbook. “I’m not just sitting here. I’m drawing.”

He pursed his lips.

After over a month of hanging out together, I knew that was his tell that he was stopping himself from saying more.

“I feel bad.” He put his pen down and pulled off his glasses. “I’ve been at this for hours. You have to be bored.”

“I’m not.” I wiggled my sketchbook at him. “Honestly. I’d be doing this at home with Zane and Noah now. Doing it here with you is way more fun.”

“Really?” He rubbed his eyes tiredly.

“Really. Are you okay? You’ve done that a lot today.” I put my sketchbook on his coffee table and looked at him closely.

It was Sunday night, and I’d spent most of the day and evening sitting with Hayden while he graded papers and did some other work stuff he’d fallen behind on over the past week.

Things between us had been going great, but life was starting to get in the way of our time together. In the three weeks since Hayden and I had started the benefits part of our friendship, we’d had less and less time to hang out in person.

Things at school were ramping up for him, which meant he had to spend more of his time prepping for his classes, and he had a seemingly endless supply of papers and projects to grade. He also had a bunch of extra duties he had to do on top of teaching, and that made anything more than a call before bed impossible during the week.

Things were busier for me too. The construction company I worked for had us at a new site outside of town that added almost an hour to my commute each way. That sucked donkey balls because it meant I was up before dawn each morning and had to get to bed by nine.

That left our limited time on the weekends, but with my shifts at the club, Sunday was the only day we both had off.

I liked our chill nights where we did our own thing and just existed in the same space. It was comforting to know he was in the room with me, and I liked being able to look up and see him hard at work. And it wasn’t like we sat in silence, ignoring each other. We still talked; there were just long stretches of silence between conversations.

“I’m okay. This happens when I spend too much time in front of a screen.” He put his glasses on the table and leaned back in his chair.

“Need a break?”

He nodded. “I hit my braining limit.”

Chuckling, I patted the couch cushion next to me.

Hayden smiled shyly and got up from behind the table. I watched as he crossed the room, my gaze roving over his fitted t-shirt and tight sweats.

I much preferred this look to the baggy one he’d sported when we first met.

He sank down on the couch next to me and snuggled up to my side. I wrapped my arm around his shoulders.

This was another part of our chill nights that I loved. Once the work was done, Hayden would cuddle up to me and let me hold him while he decompressed. That usually led to some sexy times, but not always.

We hadn’t moved past blow jobs or using our hands yet, but that was mostly because we didn’t have a lot of time together. Plus, Hayden had been so stressed out with work lately I didn’t want to add to it by escalating things if he wasn’t there yet.

“This is nice.” He draped one leg over my thigh.

“It is.” I held him tighter.

“Are you sure you weren’t bored?”

“I’m never bored with you.” I pointed to my sketchbook. “Give me a pencil and blank paper, and I’m good.”

---