Page 8 of Deceiving Grier

Though while they went through great pains to ignore the fact that I was gay, they also seemed to think any time I interacted with another man, I must be sleeping with him. Given how far from the truth that particular line of thinking was, it would have been funny if it wasn’t so damn sad.

“I’m going to go,” my father said, his voice suddenly thinner than when he’d first called. “I’m getting tired.”

“Okay, Dad. I’ll look at the reports Fiona sent and get back to you. Listen to your doctors, okay? And Mom too.”

He ended the call without saying goodbye. I sighed and dropped the phone onto the bed next to me. Well, that could have gone better.

“Shit,” I whispered, staring up at the ceiling. I needed to get up, maybe make some coffee. I had alongnight ahead of me.

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It was past three a.m. when I finally shut down my laptop and crawled into bed. I reviewed everything Fiona had sent me, made notes and comments and emailed it back to my dad, copying my sister.

I don’t know why he needed my input on any of it. My father had Fiona, who had not only been working at the factory since she was eighteen but had taken over managing it for our father after he’d stepped down to deal with his illness. Though he never really stepped down. He constantly involved himself in the day-to-day.

Not only was Fiona five years older than me, but she actually wanted to run Miller Gloves. She loved the business. All my father’s talk of legacy actually meant something to her. She wasn’t just taking on the role out of guilt and obligation.

So, why wouldn’t my father turn control of the business to his firstborn and the child who actually wanted to manage the business? As ridiculous as it sounded in this day and age because Miller Gloves had always been passed down to sons—my great grandfather to my grandfather, my grandfather to my father, and soon, my father to me. Even if the idea of returning to Wisconsin turned me cold inside.

I didn’t want to run the business. I didn’t want to leave The Square and go back to my family’s home. But I couldn’t tell him no. How in the hell could I take away theonething to bring him comfort in his last days before he died? I couldn’t. I just wasn’t made that way.

So, when I finished school, I would go back home and take over the job my father had been preparing me for all my life.

I needed to stop thinking about my father, Wisconsin and Miller Gloves, or I would never fall asleep.

Tomorrow—today, really—I had a nine a.m. class and soccer practice in the afternoon. If I didn’t fall asleep right now, I was going to wind up exhausted and dragging my ass all day.

I closed my eyes and tried to quiet all the noise in my brain. Instead of emptying my mind the way I’d hoped, Tyler Innes popped into my head. Not exactly the Zen I’d been hoping for, but a vast improvement from my inevitable future.

God, I would have given almost anything for the chance to be with him before I had to go back to Wisconsin and never see him again. What would it be like to be next to the man, naked, our limbs tangled together while our mouths moved over each other’s, tongues teasing, tasting, our hands touching, exploring smooth skin and hard flesh?

I felt my cock thicken between my legs and gave up on any pretense of sleep. Instead, I kicked off my blankets, eased my underwear down over my hips, wrapped my hand around my dick, and started stroking myself.

All the while, I imagined Tyler over me, pressing me down against the mattress. His mouth trailed hot, wet kisses over my chest, my stomach. His hand closed tight around my cock.

I swallowed down the moan rising in the back of my throat. My hand on my dick increased in speed while I imagined Tyler’s mouth, wet heat closing around my cock, his head bobbing up and down between my legs.

I saw myself looking down my body, my hand tangling in messy, dark hair.Wait, that couldn’t be right.Tyler’s hair was neat and light. Then the man looked up, pinning with brilliant blue eyes.

Sawyer.

I came fast and hard, spurting over my hand and up my stomach and chest.

Chapter Four

Sawyer

Icouldn’trememberatime in my life when I had felt especially lucky. My father died when I was five, and my mother marriedCarl—or the asshole, as I had less than fondly come to call him—a few years later. I’d spent the bulk of my childhood and teenage years living in a shit-hole house in a shit-hole neighborhood, whileCarl, the asshole, yelled at me for everything I did until I could finally get out of there. Everything I ever got in this life, I’d had to fight for and work my ass off.

However, standing in Oliver Mackenzie’s study, setting up my computer on what had been his desk and would essentially be mine for the next eight months, and with everything I needed to write the story that would launch my career at my fingertips, I felt as though something in the universe had shifted. That maybe Karma was going to make up for the past twenty-four years. Of course, I didn’t believe in any of that shit, so probably not.

Still, I had definitely traded up from a tiny bedroom in a dingy apartment and thrift store furniture to all this, and all the while paying a fraction of the rent I had been paying before… which made absolutely no sense.

Why in hell would Greyson Mackenzie move these guys into this house and have them pay significantly less rent than he could have been charging? Hell, why move them in at all? Jett said Mackenzie had been planning to sell the house. Why not move forward on the plan just to let a couple of students live here? If he’d changed his mind to keep the house for an income property, then he’d be better off charging rent that would let him make some income.

None of this made sense, and I would have bet money that whatever the man’s reasons were for doing all this, it tied to the fire that had burned down Grier and Jett’s last place. Their house burned down under mysterious circumstances, and the property owner installed them here, in his deceased father’s house, and charged them half of what he could charge for rent. It just didn’t add up.

What did Grier and Jett know?

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