Page 47 of Daily Grind
“No—I do. But I’m not an engineer. Not anymore.”
He couldn’t quite wrap his head around what Rob was trying to say. “Not… anymore?”
“I used to be. Our first products? I designed them. Built the prototypes, all that, but—” He licked his lips and exhaled. “Bri, I founded CirroBot. It’s mine. I’m the CEO.”
“You founded CirroBot?” Suddenly, all those hints pointing to Rob being well-off slotted into place. “Oh! I guess that makes sense.”
That beautiful little furrow formed above his nose. “Whatmakes sense?”
“You bought, gutted, and renovated a house. You own a Mercedes, a Rolex, and an expensive camera.” He shrugged. “That takes money.”
“It does.Especiallythat renovation. The stories I could tell there…” Rob leaned back against the bench. “But money is the other reason my last—whatever the hell it was—didn’t work.”
A younger man dating an older, wealthy guy. “He wanted your money.”
Rob’s smile was thin. “He demanded my money, or he’d let everyone know I was banging a nineteen-year-old.”
Nineteen? Holy shit. “Wow, you weren’t kidding aboutyoung.” Half the kids he interviewed weren’t much older.
Rob’s cheeks reddened and he pulled away from Brian. “Yeah, I know what it looks like. I’d claim a midlife crisis, but that wasn’t it at all. He looked a hell of a lot older and I thought—” He shook his head. “Well, doesn’t matter what I thought.”
Brian reclaimed Rob’s hand. “It does, though. What you thought matters.”
A bitter laugh. “Ilikedhim. He was an amateur standup comedian and getting a degree in literary studies. Saw his act and he was fabulous, so I hung around to talk to him afterward and we hit it off really well.” He paused. “One thing led to another pretty damn fast and we were seeing each other regularly. After a couple dates, I thought there was something other than a good fuck there.”
“He didn’t feel the same way?”
“Well, he was interested in more than sex, but it wasn’tme. I was—as he put it—a cock to ride for a meal ticket. Nothing more.”
Beneath Rob’s dismissive huff and the thousand-yard stare, there was a layer of pain that took Brian’s breath away. “That’s… horrible!” To be used like that.
Rob’s expression cracked and a bit of that hurt leaked out in the downward pull of his mouth. “He made good on his threat. Told everyone he could find in my social circle that I’d been fucking him.” Rob swallowed. “People knew I was gay, which closed doors with some folks—business is astrangefield when you rise to the top—but I didn’t much care.” He pulled his hand from Brian’s grasp and ran both of them through his hair. “However, a gay man at my age sleeping with someone barely legal isn’t looked nearly as kindly upon as a straight man doing the same thing.”
“So a businessman banging a woman still in college—”
“Gets a slap on the back and an ‘atta boy!’ But I gotchildrenpulled away from me at parties. As if a nineteen-year-old with a goatee and tattoos looks anything like a child.” A bite to those words. “I’m not a fucking monster.”
“I’m guessing no one said anything outright.”
“Oh hell, no. Just murmuring, whispers, and disapproving looks.” Rob thumped back against the bench. “It took a woman to point out the hypocrisy of the whole thing when one of the other men in our little business circle had an affair with a woman nearly the same age as his nineteen-year-old daughter. You should have seen the handshakes and winks he got, right up until his wife found out. She ripped everyone a new hole at a Christmas party. Well, except for me.”
Rob pulled out his water bottle and took a long drink. “She pointed out that I had the decency not to be married when I started fucking a college coed.” He spat the words out and took another draw of water.
So, not a good ending at all. “Is that why you moved the company to Pittsburgh?” A fresh start and less aggravation.
“God, no. The pool of talent is why we moved here. The stuff they’re doing in the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon. The hospitals. The other schools in the area. Plus, a reasonable cost of living. Made economic sense.”
“And you’re not the only gay CEO in town.”
A laugh. “True. There’s a few of us queer folk running around, not just your friend Sam.”
Brian took Rob’s hand again and entwined his fingers. “Sothat’swhy you were adamant you wanted more than just a one-night stand.”
Rob’s featured softened. “Yeah. I don’t particularly want to be just a cock again.”
“You’re not.” Brian looked down at his feet for a moment when heat touched his cheeks. “What we’ve done has been fantastic, but you’re so much more than that.” He waved at the bikes to punctuate his point. “Your photographs are stunning. And… everything else you do.”
“You—” Rob reached over and stroked his cheek with the back of his hand. “Haven’t even discovered everything else yet.”
