Page 47 of The Long Game

“Whu?” Grady mumbled into the side of Jack’s head.

“Can you do brunch with Callum and Rupert today? They want to talk about Colton.”

Grady’s grip got tighter. “Okay. Work at noon.”

Jack grinned at Grady’s inability to string together more than a few words and spoke into the phone. “Grady is still mostly comatose, but he’s available. What time do you want us there?”

The question was met with absolute silence.

“Uh, Callum?”

“Jack…”

“Yes?”

“…is there anything you want to tell me?”

Jack rolled his eyes. “No.”

Callum harrumphed. “Because you just woke up and Grady is right there next to you, so—”

“No,” Jack said again, though he was also laughing.

He wasn’t going to explain why he’d woken up with Grady. It wasprivate. It would take way too many words to get Callum to understand and Jack didn’t want to say them. At least, not now. Maybe when he was more awake and after some coffee, if Callum insisted on talking about it, Jack could take a stab at explaining that his and Grady’s friendship wasn’t like a lot of others but didn’t have to mean more than that.

Maybe.

“Okay, okay,” Callum said placatingly. “How about we see you at ten o’clock?”

“Perfect.” He thanked Callum, hung up, and tossed his phone back on the bedside table, but before he could climb out of the bed, Grady pulled him in tight again.

Jack smiled and settled against Grady. The man was a furnace under the light sheet and summer-weight blanket, but Jack didn’t care. He tucked his head back under Grady’s chin.

“Okay, just a few more minutes,” he murmured.

Grady hoveredon the edge of sleep for a while after Callum’s call. He was vaguely aware they’d made plans, but he didn’t know when or where. He trusted Jack to get them there on time, so he didn’t let it bother him.

Hell, nothing was going to bother him when he could wallow in bed like this.

Unfortunately, the arm under Jack’s head had opinions about a grown man lying on top of it. Grady flexed his fingers, trying to resolve the pins and needles, but all that did was make Jack squirm.

“We still have time,” Jack mumbled.

“Sorry. I just need to move my arm.”

Jack made an adorable snuffling noise against Grady’s chest and rolled so Grady was on his back and Jack half on top of him, using him as a mattress and pillow.

Grady curled his arms around Jack, sensation returning to his hand as he ran it up and down Jack’s back. He was about to fall into another snooze when Jack shifted a long, warm thigh over Grady’s hips and Grady wasn’t so sleepy anymore.

Neither, unfortunately, was his dick.

He closed his eyes and tried to stem the flow of blood to his cock by recalling the time he emptied Travis’s hockey bag after a road trip and almost lost consciousness.

Jack murmured sleepily and snuggled in closer. By all rights, a knobby knee grinding into Grady’s hipbone shouldn’t have worked for him, but here he was. He realized Jack’s squirming was in part because Grady was holding him too tightly.

He should let go and slide out of the bed. If Jack was still sleepy enough, Grady could probably make it to the bathroom and work out a silent, guilty orgasm before Jack got up.

He rubbed his hand down Jack’s back, soothing him back to sleep. Jack shifted again, and this time Grady noted something. Something important.

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