Page 36 of Binding Their Hearts

“They weren’t, Jay. They aren’t. Fuck. I’m sorry. I didn’t know you remembered that night at all.” More cursing followed, low enough that she’d probably covered the phone with her hand. “Have you, uh…” The thin voice, nothing like Nat’s regular confidence, wavered in his ear. “Have you ever thought about therapy? Like, formally, with someone trained to unwind all this stuff?”

His laughter erupted before she’d finished. Loud, uncontrollable—he pressed his forearm across his mouth and the laughs still flowed out around it.

“Sorry, maybe that’s not—”

“No, no,” he choked out. “I’m—I’m laughing—shit—” Huge breaths, in and hold, and finally he could speak. “I’d just walked out of my therapist’s office when you called. I go every week now.”

Telling her didn’t feel as weird as he’d thought it might. Especially when she blew the kazoo and shouted congratulations at him again, and they laughed together. He uncurled his legs and swiveled his ankles. “Gonna be late for dinner if I don’t get moving. I’m glad you called, Nat.”

“I love you, Jay. You’re a fucking inspiration, that’s what you are.”

“Love you, Nat.”

He pocketed the phone, clicked his helmet into place, and stowed the bike lock. He had two people waiting at home for him—people he’d chosen for all the right reasons. Hell, he might even deserve them.

Chapter seventeen

Henry

Forewarned by his summer meeting with their building owner, Henry avoided the uncomfortably deep bucket chairs as he waited for the young man to arrive. Lacking a window to offer a view, the office held little of interest. The scattered detritus of meals eaten at the desk might’ve been the same protein bar wrappers and takeout containers he’d seen in August.

“Henry, hey, great to see you.” Brett breezed through the open door and hitched his hip on the least-cluttered corner of the desk. “This isn’t about the bathroom thing again, is it? Because you know I gotta say no to that.”

“Only tangentially.” How dearly he missed dealing with Corinne. Her son had learned none of her social graces.

Brett offered a blank stare above a radiantly false smile. “Tangent, right, right.” He waved at the chair. “Sit, tell me what has you in my office. Is it the neighbor? I don’t want to get in the middle of that shit.”

Henry rested a hand on the back of the chair. This errand wasn’t meant to take long—a mere formality. But if a situation with a neighbor existed, he certainly hadn’t heard of it. “In the middle?”

“Bad enough the super gave him my number. All the time now, he’s blowing up my texts with how he’s got noisy perverts across the hall.” Brett waggled his phone between thumb and forefinger, a move he must have copied from a low-budget police drama. He leaned forward. “Are you a noisy pervert, Henry?”

The younger man’s intimidating stare couldn’t compel a kindergartner to confess.

Henry wore the mask he used when interviewing new play partners—had used, now, as his soon-to-be spouses provided all the variety he desired, and an abundance of emotional intimacy besides. With a slow blink, he allowed his mouth to curl in the slimmest smile. “Alas, I’m an exceedingly quiet pervert. He must be mistaken.”

Brett’s eyes widened; for a moment, he almost resembled his sweet mother. Then he burst into laughter, repeatedly smacking his heel against the cheap wood veneer of the desk. “You had me going there. That’s some deadpan.” His laughs petered out. “So if it’s not the bathroom thing or the neighbor, what are we doing here?”

Henry pulled the tri-folded letter from his interior jacket pocket and handed it over. “I am serving formal notice of my intention to list the condo for sale. The contract I had with your mother gives you a thirty-day right of first offer before I entertain other buyers. You may, of course, waive the consideration period if you wish.”

Brett unfolded the paper and studied it.

A waiver would simplify the process, but waiting thirty days to advertise the apartment would hardly be an impediment. They’d had no luck yet finding a home even close to suitable, nothing he’d care to put an offer on. Brett could maintain his petty, oppositional child personality and wait every one of the thirty days to issue his reply without causing one iota of harm.

Hopping off the desk, Brett tossed the letter on the pile behind him. He pulled up something on his phone and scrolled, flicking his thumb with casual disregard.

“Pardon my haste, but I do have another appointment.” With the grocery store and their dinner menu, but Brett had no need for that knowledge. He opted not to extend his hand, as the young man had little regard for the business courtesies. “A letter declining to exercise the option within thirty days will suffice. Have a delightful remainder of your day.”

“I’ll give you asking, but you have to be out in sixty days.” Brett raised his gaze from the screen. “I need to get my guys in there if I want the new studios ready in time for the spring semester.”

Perhaps he’d misjudged the younger man. This transaction might be less of a hassle than anticipated—no prospective buyers tromping through his haven, poking their noses into furnishings best left unpoked. The asking price he’d named in the letter was fair market value. The added time constraint, though, that merited concessions. If nearly four weeks of searching had turned up nothing, another eight in the middle of the real estate market’s slow season would not be enough.

“Two hundred thousand over asking, or one hundred eighty days.” The power was his to leverage; if Brett didn’t like the terms, a parade of buyers in the spring would unleash a bidding war. The apartment came with enviable perks—proximity to shopping, parks, and public transit not least among them.

“You’re never gonna get that from a buyer, even in this market. I could…”

He gave Brett a solid two minutes for his tantrum, an entirely self-focused fountain of reasons why a quick sale at market price would be favorable for Brett’s plan to chop the floor into micro-units in a city where the colleges lacked enough dormitories to house their students. The plan could be quite lucrative; the younger man had the business acumen to recognize that, at least. He did, however, lack the awareness to recognize that none of his reasons had anything whatsoever to do with Henry. One could not make a deal on equal footing when one ignored the other party’s motivations for entertaining the idea.

“Brett.” He waited for the diatribe to cease, declining to repeat himself.

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