Page 7 of Seeking Two Lovers

GREYSON

Turn you inside out.

Blaine’s words echoed in my head long after he abruptly left me as he oftentimes did when the racket in his head grew too noisy.

If only he knew he’d done that to me years ago when I’d first met him in New Hampshire a few months after my mom had passed. I’d spent most of my time with him in the field separating my family’s vacation house in the mountains from the compound he’d grown up on, desperate for an escape from my grief.

He’d been a quiet kid, like he too had seen heartache, so telling him about how Mom died had helped me deal. Blaine had told me he was sorry for my loss with a genuine look on his face, not the feigned condolences from my family’s rich, fake friends.

He’d been a breath of fresh air from the stifling society where I’d been raised, honest with his feelings and thoughts in a way the upper class and powerful weren’t. There were no polite but forced smiles and best behavior shit in order to better his station because of my family’s money.

I’d needed something that summer to focus on rather than the emptiness in my heart, a reason to breathe without my mom.

Blaine had given me that. He was real and had become the friend I couldn’t do without.

I’d never been allowed beyond the fencing to explore his home, but Blaine had somehow snuck out enough to keep me and my curiosity sated about the strange goings-on beyond.

His mess of dark hair and hazel eyes that made him seem like an old soul had drawn in my little bi ass once I learned about all things sex and hormones. Eventually recognizing his insecurities, his fears of never being good enough, had roused my protective nature to life and fused him to my heart.

After turning me inside out.

“Fuck.” I stood and made my way to the wall of glass looking out over the dark night and gentle waves sweeping over the beach beneath the half-moon’s light. No outdoor sounds reached through the windows, but I’d have been too fixated on listening to Blaine shower to settle in for the night anyway.

Hyperaware of his every move since first meeting him, I didn’t miss much when it came to him. I’d known the appearance of the woman I’d brought home with me had bothered him, but he hadn’t voiced a word.

“Shit.” Lips pressing tight, I chided myself for being a selfish prick and not paying better attention to his body language.

It had been two months since our last hookup together, and my balls had been too damn ready to burst while having Blaine nearby.

My pipe dream.

My obsession.

My beautiful impeder.

All I had ever wanted, Blaine kept me from seeking more with anyone else. I’d become his rock, his safe place, and nothing would make me sneak over the friendship line and leave him floundering like I’d been after losing Mom.

His need for me far outweighed my desire for him.

Unrequited love fucking hurt, and yet I found a sense of fulfillment in being at his side. But I would never be able to stop the deep craving inside my heart for more.

His shower shut off, and I strained my ears for sounds of him moving around in his bedroom overhead.

Drawers opening and shutting.

Silence.

Did he stare into the pitch black like he’d done all those hours of being shut up alone as a kid? Did he fight the demons or bask in his liberation to choose an existence in darkness behind closed eyelids? Chances were, he had on a night-light as usual.

Turning toward my own bedroom on the first floor, I shut down my brain against my failure that might send him on a tailspin of upheaval and mental torture.

He’d dealt with enough of that before I’d offered him an escape from that hellhole.

Physically, he’d changed from the sickly-looking seventeen-year-old kid who’d snuck out of the compound and accompanied me when I left for the West Coast and college. Blaine had grown a few inches taller than my five-ten, and working a physical landscaping job had also covered his once-slight form with muscle, the California sun bronzing his skin.

But his eyes hadn’t changed.

Gorgeous, more gold than green, his hazel orbs continued to reveal the damage inflicted all those years ago. At least to me, the one person who knew what he’d survived.

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