Warders, Volume One Read online

  I had known I was getting a difficult reputation, but I hadn’t been sure how to go about fixing it. I just wanted ideas that were unique and fresh. New spins on old themes seemed like cheating, and in my opinion, it was just lazy. I wanted to think outside the box, and everyone else was happy to be where they were inside. The flip side of the argument was that while I was striving for perfection, I was also the only one not bringing in any money. None of my ideas turned into actual campaigns because I needed a partner, someone to bounce thoughts off of, to take them from the development phase to the presentation phase. Someone needed to help me translate what was in my head.

  “Well, it’s doing something,” Cash told me after another minute. “I think I know why this is actually a form of torture in some cultures.”

  But he didn’t get down. He remained standing on his head as long as I did and then took me to lunch. That Friday night I met him and his wife Phoebe for drinks. Sunday they invited me to barbecue with them and a few other friends. At the following Monday morning meeting, I put a steaming cappuccino down in front of him, and he drank it like it was expected. We traded notes back and forth until Mira Towne, the senior partner, told us to knock it off. A week later, the firm got a shot at the Dunbar account because Crandall Media missed a deadline for Stella Verity’s new fragrance, Velvet Steam.

  Cash and I had stayed up all night, but there was no way to make Velvet Steam not sound stupid. At nine in the morning when everyone came back, we were still there playing hoops in our office with the Nerf ball and the trash can.

  “Are you two going to the meeting?”

  We turned with the ball, Cash draped over the top of me as he was defending his goal. Stella Verity stood in our doorway looking just as stunning as she had when she had appeared on Legacy for all those years. I remembered my mother watching the nighttime soap every Thursday.

  “Hi.” I smiled at her.

  “Hey.” Cash smiled, too, his voice low.

  “Well,” she purred, sliding into our office, pouring herself into Cash’s chair. “Aren’t you two the prettiest of the bunch?” We straightened up, and her smile deepened. “Disheveled, sleepy, and unshaven. Did you know that’s my favorite?” We both just stood there, grinning at her like idiots. She looked at me hard. “I’ve got a soft spot for hot boys with glasses and that mouth… lovely.” I could only stare. My brain had actually switched on. “And you,” she purred, looking at Cash. “Are you that gorgeous color all over?” She meant the deep bronze tan of his skin.

  He nodded lazily. “Yes, ma’am.”

  She smiled and then looked back at me. “What are you thinking, darling?”

  “How about just ‘Steam’?”

  “‘Steam’?”

  “For the name of the fragrance.”

  “Yes, love, I got that part.” She smiled demurely. “Go on.”

  “It could mean so many things. There’s the sex angle, of course, but there’s also anger or heat or—”

  “Power,” Cash offered, following where I was going. “We could have more than one ad, and it would appeal to different people in different ways. The print material would be amazing.”

  It had been the first time we were in creative sync. We talked out our ideas in one voice, finishing each other’s sentences, building one idea on another, the shared vision exactly the same. It was like I could read his mind. I understood the value of a great partner at that moment and knew I had found mine.

  Stella was staring at us as Miles poked his head in our office, with Todd Joplin right behind him.

  “What’s going on in here?” he asked pointedly as Stella swiveled around in my chair to look at him.

  “I like what these two have,” she informed them and put up her hand as they began to argue. “I’m not saying I won’t hear the other pitches. I’m just saying they’ll need to be exceptional to change my mind.”

  She was as good as her word. We had heard later that she sat still and listened to every other pitch before getting up and announcing that the two cute guys in the glass office by the water cooler would get her backing. The firm had the account as long as Cash and I were on the creative team. It had been the first account the two of us had ever worked together and landed at Miller Freedman.

  It had been seamless from that time forward, five years of another person totally getting me. Cash could always follow my fractured train of thought, no matter how far off the rails it went, and do improvised brainstorming with me at all hours of the night. He knew how my brain worked and wanted to keep track of me not only professionally, but personally as well. So it was not surprising that when I got home at eight in the morning I found him waiting on the stoop of my brownstone drinking a cup of coffee. There was a similar-sized cup for me.

  “Hey.” I yawned, flopping down beside him.

  One eyebrow rose quizzically. I knew already: he needed to know what was going on with me and Ryan Dean. He had to know how that would affect me and therefore him.

  “Screw you, Vega,” I grumbled, getting up, taking my coffee with me, and walking toward my front door.

  “I’m just asking.” He chuckled behind me. “I mean, c’mon, it’s not every day you find out your best friend is sleeping with a hot model.”

  I looked at him over my shoulder.

  “That’s what my wife says.”

  I grunted.

  “So,” Cash said as he followed me into my apartment, “what’s your deal with him? You guys gonna date now? Do gay men date or just fuck on the first date and move in together and live happily ever after?”

  “That one.” I smirked at him.

  “I figured,” he said. “Oh, nice watch.”

  I looked down at Ryan’s blue Rolex on my wrist. “Yeah.”

  “Yeah,” Cash gave me a look. “Really nice.”

  I shrugged.

  “So whose watch is it?” he asked, smiling evilly.

  “It’s Ryan’s.”

  “Is it?”

  “Jesus, when did you turn into such a girl?”

  “I’m just asking.”

  “Why?”

  “Maybe we could have dinner tonight,” he suggested casually. “Me, you, Phoeb, and Ryan.”

  “I dunno if that—”

  “Why not? You got other plans already?”

  I had no idea what I was going to be doing, but whatever it was, it would involve Ryan Dean.

  I had tried to leave silently that morning, but when I was dressed and walking by the bed, Ryan had reached out and stopped me with a hand in mine. I had let him pull me down beside him on the bed, my fingers raking through his hair, pushing it back from his face so I could see his eyes.

  “Go back to sleep,” I soothed him. “I’ll see ya later.” I wasn’t looking forward to catching a cab at seven in the morning, but it had been more than worth it.

  “I’ll drive you,” he said, not really awake, his voice full of gravel.

  It would be evil to make him do that when he could stay there and sleep. “No, at least one of us should be warm in bed.”

  “Why are you even up?”

  “I gotta meet Cash and go into the office for a little while.”

  He reached over to his nightstand, picked up his watch, and passed it to me. “Here, take this with you, okay?”

  “Why?”

  “Just take it, okay? Just wear it.”

  “Ry, I have my own watch. I just forgot to—”

  “I want it to go with you.”

  “Listen, I’m gonna see you later whether I’ve got something of yours or not.”

  “Okay,” he said, but he didn’t sound convinced.

  “Ryan, I—”

  “I just want you to wear something of mine, all right? What’s the big deal?”

  “No big deal,” I assured him, snapping the Rolex onto my wrist. “Kiss me.”

  He sat up, and I leaned in and kissed him. I meant to just give him a quick peck, but he tasted too good and went all willing and panting on me, and bef
ore I realized what I was doing, I had him flat on his back with my tongue shoved halfway down his throat. When I pulled back, I saw how clouded his eyes were, how heavy-lidded, how full of me.

  “Kiss me again.”

  I smiled slowly. “I gotta go.”

  He grabbed a fistful of the front of my T-shirt. “Stay.”

  “I hafta go. If I don’t see Cash today, Monday’s gonna be hell.”

  He made a noise in the back of his throat. I kissed him again, slower, with more of my tongue.

  “God,” he groaned when I pulled back. It was obvious he was excited.

  “So I’ll see ya later.”

  “Okay.” He nodded. “You’ll call me, tell me where to meet you?”

  “Yes.”

  “What time?”

  “Six,” I said without hesitation.

  His smile was lazy. “Okay. Call me and give me directions.”

  “But I need to get your—”

  “I programmed my number into your phone last night.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “When?”

  “While you were sleeping.”

  “When was I sleeping?” I asked because it couldn’t have been for long.

  He reached out and grabbed my T-shirt again, holding tight. “For the little time I could let you.”

  “Why weren’t you asleep?”

  “I was watching you,” he said, grinning sheepishly. “You look good next to me.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.” He swallowed hard, taking a quick breath, his eyes searching mine, checking for hesitation. “So for sure, I’ll see you later, right?”

  I heard the worry in his voice; he was unsure of me, as if I would walk out of his apartment and never call. Like “that guy” could ever be me. I leaned down close to him, my mouth hovering over his. “You’ll see me later,” I promised him.

  His eyes closed for a second, and I watched his jaw clench tight. “Julian, please just stay here and—”

  “You want me back inside you?”

  His body jerked in reaction to the question I had asked as I licked up the side of his throat.

  “Please….”

  I didn’t make him beg me.

  “Hey!”

  I looked over at Cash, blinking away the memories.

  “What’s with you this morning?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  He crossed the room to stand in front of me. “I think the gym first and then work.”

  “Fine, I think that’ll help clear my head anyway.”

  “Why isn’t it clear?”

  “I dunno. I think I need to sleep.”

  “You didn’t sleep last night?”

  No, I had sex all night with a man who couldn’t seem to get enough of me. “Lemme grab my stuff, and we’ll go.”

  He reminded me not to forget my laptop.

  AFTER WORKING out and showering, Cash and I were having lunch at an outdoor café we both liked. He was answering e-mail on his phone while I was working on layouts on my laptop when my knee was nudged under the table.

  I looked up at Cash, and his eyes flicked behind me.

  Turning in my seat, I was stunned to see my ex, Mitch Carmichael. I had not seen him in more than six months, and suddenly, there he was.

  “Julian,” he said quietly, stepping closer to the table.

  I rose, smiling at him, shoving my hands down into the pockets of my jeans. I never knew what to do with my hands when I couldn’t touch people, and I could not touch Mitch Carmichael… at least not in public. It was the reason we had broken up. Since we were more than friends, I had wanted people to know that, and because of his family, it was out of the question.

  “I was going to call you,” he said defensively, his eyes moving from me to my best friend. “But I never could quite get up the nerve. Hey, Cash, how are you?”

  “I’m great.” Cash forced a smile. “Did you know Julian’s dating Ryan Dean now?”

  I shot Cash a look.

  “What?”

  I rolled my eyes and walked around Mitch, moving inside fast, making my way to the bar. Once he joined me, I turned to face him.

  “Sorry about Cash.”

  “He hates me,” Mitch said, his eyes roaming all over me, up and down, not missing anything. “But he has a right to. The way I left… I had no choice, Julian.”

  “Sure.”

  He stepped in close to me, leaning on the bar. “Like I said, I was going to call you, but I just… and I remembered us coming here a lot and how much you liked it, so I figured sooner or later if I was here that you’d show up.” It was a long, rambling, nervous explanation. “I should have called.”

  “It’s fine,” I assured him. “Everything’s fine.”

  He lifted his hand like he was going to touch me. It hovered close to my cheek, but then he glanced around and dropped it.

  “So you’ve been back for a while, then?” I asked politely, not caring at all.

  “Yeah… no, I… Ryan Dean?”

  I found that I couldn’t suppress the smile. “Yeah.”

  He nodded. “So is it serious?”

  I scowled at him. “What do you want, Mitch?”

  The muscles in his jaw corded as he stepped closer to me. “I miss you.”

  There had been a time when his words would have meant something to me, but it felt like years had passed instead of a pile of weeks. Five months of him being gone before I started dating Channing Isner, six since I’d laid eyes on the man.

  “Julian?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What are you sorry about?”

  “That you still care.”

  His eyes locked on mine. “You’re saying you don’t?”

  “I’m saying that if you wanna hang out… we can try, but any more than that, I don’t want to do. You didn’t want us to be more than friends, and now I don’t, either,” I finished, turning to go.

  “Wait,” he said, reaching out to put a hand on my bicep. “I never said I didn’t want to be with you. What I said was that I needed time for my family to accept me being gay.”

  But time was not the issue. There was no way for him to ever live as a gay man with a partner instead of a wife. His family could not accept him that way, and they were not only the people who loved him but also the people he worked with. He was in business with his father in one of the largest commercial construction companies in northern California. He had pledged his heart to me at the same time as making sure we were never seen together in public even once. I had wondered where my self-respect had gone. I was just too healthy to be anyone’s dirty little secret. I wanted to be on the Christmas card with somebody. I deserved to be.

  “Would you come by my place?” he asked under his breath.

  “No.” I gave him a slight smile, raising my head, looking into those pale blue eyes of his. They were so big and expressive. It was the first thing I had ever noticed about him. He was staring at me, his jaw set, his body rigid.

  “C’mon, Jules, don’t make me beg.”

  “I won’t,” I said flatly. “I’m not coming over.”

  “Can I come over to your place?”

  “No.”

  “But I want to talk to you in private,” he said, his hand tightening on my arm, holding on. “I could stay the night.”

  I rolled my shoulder and stepped back at the same time so he had no choice but to let go. “I gotta go; me and Cash have got a shitload of work to do before Monday. We both got promoted, so we’re excited but buried, ya know?”

  “Oh, sure, I just thought—”

  “So as soon as I come up for air, I’ll give you a call.” I wanted him to hear me, hear the buddy vibe I was giving him, the overture of friendship.

  “Julian,” he said softly, “I just want to spend some time with you—I need to—”

  “Hey,” Cash said as he stepped in beside me. “I hate to cut the begging short, but we’ve got a shitload of w
ork to do today so we can get off in time for our double date.”

  “You know, Cash,” Mitch began, “you don’t have to be a prick all the time.”

  He shrugged. “To you I do. What kind of a friend would I be if I wasn’t?”

  “The thing with me and Julian is more compli—”

  “It isn’t complicated,” I cut him off. “I get it. You can’t be gay, and you have your reasons, and I would never judge you for that. I would never ask you to come out for me, Mitch, but you can’t ask me to be in for you. You understand?”

  “Asshole,” Cash said under his breath.

  I looked at him. “Go back to the table.”

  “No, let’s go.” He scowled, gesturing at Mitch. “This is done. You don’t need to make everything better all the fuckin’ time. Sometimes shit just ends, and it’s bad, and that’s how it is, Jules.”

  “Charming.”

  “You love me,” Cash teased, waggling his eyebrows. And I did, even though he was kind of an ass.

  “Julian,” Mitch said, “can we just talk?”

  I looked back at him. “Let’s wait awhile, maybe down the road, but not now. I’ll call you, all right?”

  “He’ll call,” Cash closed for me. “Bye, Mitch.”

  And as Cash and I walked back to our table to collect our things, I had the overwhelming feeling that I would never see Mitch Carmichael again. And it was sad but also inevitable. Mitch needed someone to be in the closet with him, and I had never even seen the inside of one.

  I CALLED Ryan around two and told him to meet me at my office that night. He didn’t pick up, but I got his voice mail and left a message. I got a text back fifteen minutes later saying that he would be there. When Cash and I were walking out at six, we found Ryan in the lobby of our office sitting on one of the couches, head back, eyes closed, looking like he belonged on a photo shoot instead of waiting to have dinner. He had on dark brown plaid pants with shiny brown boots, a dress belt, and a brown and black cashmere turtleneck. A tight black leather-racing jacket completed the outfit. I took a deep breath when I saw him, that possessive feeling hitting me hard. Like: that’s mine. He belongs to me.

  “Hey,” I said, deliberately using a low voice, rousting him.

  His head came up, and I realized he’d been asleep. It took a second for him to focus. “Oh, hey.” He smiled, and his eyes glowed as he stood up. He raked his fingers through his hair before he walked over to me. He stopped just short of touching. There were other people walking around—not just Cash and I worked weekends—and I watched his eyes take them all in.