Page 7 of Knot Just A Fan

“Well, well, if it isn’t our expert camera goddess. How are you, Ms. Phillips?”

His voice was its usual warm amber tones, but his glasses were in his hands and his face was a bit red, especially around his nose, as if he’d been rubbing his eyes.

I was warm, and surely red at his comment. He was complimentary of my work, and encouraging, always. But that was a new moniker and I’d gladly take it. But my eyes crinkled in concern.

“Have you caught that flu?” I took one-half step back, even though I was a good ten feet away. “No offense, Gray.” I grinned.

I always sounded bolder and more casual than I could ever understand with him, because no one made me feel more like a puddle of melted butter.

He squinted then wrinkled his nose. “God, I hope not. Why do you ask?”

I cocked my head and gestured at his glasses, without wanting to say,Mate, have you looked at your face lately?

“Oh—oh, no. I’m fine. In fact, I’m staying away from the other two as much as I can to avoid it. I was sequestered in the lounge until they both started trying to watch telly in there despite having their own in their bedrooms.”

“Ah, does that mean Enzo’s got it too now?” I was already going through Arcadia Echo withdrawal, even though after the last eighteen months, it was Grayson I talked to, Grayson who was my mentor until he’d quit his Guild job. Echo was on the way up, and some of the Guild seemedirked, shall we say, that I’d jumped on the train at just the right time.

Actually, it was just one person. Nic Kelly. And I couldn’t understand why. She’d taken over as my mentor, though really it was just admin work. The bands I worked with all seemed pleased with my production so Nic just handled paperwork anyhow.

Grayson had trained me well. In the art of angles and lighting and shadows to freeze a perfect moment in time, but also make it seem kinetic, in the act of storytelling. As if everything in the performance led up to that singular moment the shot was taken. And it was all expertise and creativity and artistic direction he’d learned just from observing. He had a director’s eye without ever touching a camera for anything other than occasional candids.

Grayson hadn’t just trained me in shooting gigs. He’d also trained me well in how to hide my feelings. At least, I hoped. The suppressants I’d taken faithfully since adolescence muted my scent and blocked my heats. Proper suppressants that had been supplied by school and then the Guild’s benefits program—not the black market, back-street toxic imitations that had landed Mum with a scandalous pack of Alphas who convinced her she was their mate, then left her pregnant and alone, moreruined than she’d been before as just a lower-class Omega born of struggling Betas.

Mum had never said implicitly,Stay on suppressants forever. Don’t fall in love.She wanted love for me, so much.She’dloved, but hadn’t received it in return from the one who’d stolen her heart.

She didn’t want that for me.Ididn’t want that for me. So while the drugs blocked my heats and numbed my natural Omega traits, I had learned to mirror Gray’s thin but definite line between personal and professional. If he gave me even the slightest hint he wanted to cross, I’d have thrown the doors open wide. He came up to that line, but never once set a toe on it.

“Yeah,” Grayson replied. “They’re a germ-ridden shit-show and I don’t want any part of it. Every time I’ve been sick, I lose my voice. And we’ve got some really big shows coming up in the spring.”

I nodded. Then I remembered Cami. She’d been introduced to Grayson and he’d been cordial, but mostly she left me to it. Taking notes. I shot her a glance over my shoulder and she gave me a,Well, get the fuck on with it!hand gesture.

I was not about to say to my ex-mentor, the leader of my favorite band on earth, and the man I considered a friend,Hey, I am in love with your face, your body, and the magnetic pull you have to every cell in mine. Can we please bang now?

“So, then, um,” I cleared my throat. “I’ll see you next week if the shows are on, I guess.” I started to step away and he looked up and patted the bench beside him.

“What’re you doing the rest of the day? You know, I don’t think we’ve ever spent any time outside of a gig or shoot together.”

Except all the times we ran into each other on nights out after his gigs. Usually Cami and I would meet up and go for a drink and a dance somewhere nearby, and at least a dozen times in thepast year and a half, Grayson and the Enzo and Ronan would show up to the same place, sometimes with their manager, Ash.

It was nearly the same thing every time: Grayson and I saw each other across the room. Eye contact, a bit of staring when the other didn’t think we were watching, approaching the bar at the same time to get another drink, or even, embarrassingly, both heading to the toilets at the same time.

He was always an impeccable gentleman. Distant while still sending the most scorching gazes my way. He’d ask me about other gigs I was doing, any good films I’d seen recently, or good books. I knew he was an avid reader, and that his tastes were more military and hardcore sci-fi while mine were primarily fantasy. But we both loved a good solid character arc that brought the protagonist full-circle—and a good heartbreak. A bittersweet ending was our mutual favorite.

Not the most favorable sign, to be honest.

Grayson looked at me expectantly. Cami nodded encouragingly from the path then made the international symbol for coffee, pointing back the way we’d come. She would meet me at the kiosk. The path was perfectly safe and it was only 3 p.m. So I nodded and sat.

I’d sat across a desk or table from Grayson, usually with a laptop on the space between us. But never together, beside one another. Both looking at the same thing.

“It’s really peaceful here today,” he said, voice subdued. A canalboat floated peacefully nearby, and a pair of swans made their graceful way along the water.

“It is,” I said. “Except for the twenty cyclists per minute going past on the path behind us.” It had gotten busier with rush hour starting.

But Grayson kept looking toward that water, as if seeing something beneath the surface. I frowned. Not his usual conversational self.

“Why have we never sat like this before, Phillips?”

He called me by my last name only occasionally. And Cami got annoyed by it, said it felt like he was my lieutenant in the army rather than the guy I wanted to spread my legs for. It was a strange relationship. He’d started out like an instructor, and now he was more a business associate. One of several. But the one I kept coming back to, at least in my bed every night as I lay alone, wondering how his skin tasted.

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