His personality permanently set on “take-action,” he immediately grabbed a strangely convenient pad of drawing paper, part of the loot from Ken
, that’s ironic
! Cory mentally snorted and then had to hunt around for a pen that worked. Finally settling on one of the new washable ink markers from the same set—green, of course—he sat at the dining table to start writing.
The List
by Corbin Collins
.
Adding an accent scroll in purple underneath, he sat back to organize his thoughts, deciding on red for “absolute must,” orange for “strong preference,” and blue for “frosting-on-the-cake.” He titled three columns and began adding qualities, frowning as he ran over into the “preference” column with a “must-have.” Swearing under his breath, he tore the sheet off, wadding it up and tossing it to the side, starting over, this time with the columns going the width of the paper instead of the length.
He was well into a promising fifth draft when his instincts prickled, and he glanced over at the bottom of the stairs to see Bailey sitting on a riser watching him.
“Hi, honey.” He immediately pushed back from the table and walked over to scoop her up into a hug. Feeling her forehead, he gave her a smile. “How are you feeling? You’ve been sleeping for a while.”
“I feel okay, I guess.” She shrugged. Ah, the resilience of kids. Not twelve hours ago was she heaving her guts out. “What are you drawing?”
“I’m not drawing, I’m making a list.”
“Oh! For Santa? Can I make one too?” she asked eagerly.
What a great idea. It would keep her distracted from her missing mom and illness
and
help him find out what she wanted for Christmas this year. “Sure, Bails, but first, are you hungry at all? I made soup.”
“Can I have crackers?”
“Yes. One at a time,” he added hastily, remembering the time she dumped almost a whole sleeve into the bowl, making a mushy mess she then complained about having to eat.
He cleared the table by shoving the art supplies to the side, and then sat with Bailey to have the chicken soup—and crackers—and a bit of sports drink this time.
Fruit Punch, yum
.
Bailey giggled. “You have a red moustache.”
“So do you.”
They teased and talked back and forth as they wrapped up their lunch, Bailey picking at the soup more than eating, but despite her lack of appetite, she looked better every minute. Apparently it was just one of those 24-hour things.
“Can we make our lists now?”
“Sure.” Bailey immediately scrambled into the living room. “Hey, let’s do it in here, kiddo,” he called, puzzled until she came back hauling a stack of mail-order catalogs from the junk-mail graveyard, aka the periodical basket.
Ah. Reference material
.
He cleaned up the lunch dishes while she pored over the colorful catalogs, using the black marker to circle her favorites. She was well into a zone, so Cory checked his cell phone, which he’d silenced during their mealtime.
Four messages.
He scanned through the missed calls before connecting to voice mail. Two from work, one from Ken, and one from an unknown number. Becky maybe?
Impatiently listening to the work messages, making mental notes to answer his employees’ questions later on, he got to Ken’s:
“Hey there. It’s Ken. I just wanted to check to see how you and Bailey were doing. I hope she’s feeling better. Um, if you need anything, you know you can just call me, right? I’m happy to help, if that means food shopping or whatever. I know you don’t want me around her—”
Ouch.
Cory winced.
“
—
but… Well, anyway, let me know if I can help and… how you’re doing. Okay, bye.”
Feeling like a total asshole, he deleted that one and waited impatiently for the unknown caller’s message, hoping he’d hear his sister’s voice.
“Hi Cory, it’s Jackson Haines. We met last week at the restaurant.”
Disappointed it wasn’t Becky, his eyebrows rose at the memory of Jackson. Handsome, maybe a few years older than himself, he had been with a group who had rented a private dining room for a business banquet.
“I got your number from one of your coworkers. I hope I’m not overstepping here, but I really enjoyed our talk in the bar after my meeting and was wondering if you’d like to go to dinner with me next weekend. Give me a call, and I’ll make some reservations. I look forward to hearing from you, Cory. Take care.”
Huh. Wow, okay. An ornery little voice in his head asked him what the hell he was doing, what about Ken? Ken, who’d been so amazing the night before….
You mean the guy you’ve been fucking for over five months, who’s never once asked you out on a date?
The nagging voice went silent.
He dialed the phone.
Chapter Three
K
EN
looked at the clock and then rose with a sigh to prepare to leave the office for the day. A quick glance at his computer before he began to log off confirmed it; five days, and still nothing from Cory. No calls, no e-mails, no texts.
It wasn’t as if they’d had anything regular going in the way of communication. Cory had made it very clear early on—confirming what Ken already knew about Cory—he wasn’t interested in anything remotely serious. In fact, every guy who’d tried to nail him down got shut out.
Thinking he had been playing it just right by allowing the arm’s-length treatment without protest, now Ken was completely baffled and increasingly frustrated. He rubbed viciously at his five o’clock shadow. His own damn fault for letting his imagination get carried away. Somehow he’d let himself believe the night Bailey had been sick had brought them closer together. He gave a mirthless laugh. In actuality, it had apparently sent Cory running for the hills.
The prospect of heading home to his empty apartment was bleak at best, so instead, he went out to dinner at a restaurant with a bar, blankly staring at some football game he wasn’t interested in until he’d finished his dinner. A couple beers later, and the happy hour crowd was clearing out, leaving him feeling conspicuous. This was exactly the kind of night where in the past he would have texted Cory to see if he could come over, at the time only knowing the bare basics of life in that household. Now he wondered, was Bailey in bed? Was she feeling better? She likely had school tomorrow, but he didn’t know if she went half-days or full. Had Becky come home finally? Was she being a mama to Bailey? Cory had been skimpy on the details but Ken had gotten the impression Becky was an inconsistent mom—loving when she had time, absent when she had other things to do.
Lately, he’d been thinking of Cory more and more, wracking his brain for ways to penetrate Cory’s reserve. The only time Cory let him get close was in bed, which was why he’d refused to accept Cory’s edict on no sleepovers. He took heart from Cory’s eventual—and somewhat admiring—acquiescence to his persistence. Their reunion the night his seduction had finally worked had been the hottest, most erotic sexual act of his life, and the memory of it now settled in his chest, shortening his breath.
Shifting in subconscious adjustment as his cock responded to the images in his head, Ken sat up straight as the possible implications of his assessment hit. Had he been going about this all wrong? Maybe letting Cory run the show wasn’t what Cory actually wanted.
He didn’t even realize he’d made a decision until his hands turned the wheel left out of the parking lot—toward Cory’s—instead of making the right turn to go home. It was after eight o’clock, the earliest he’d been allowed to come over in the time since the girls had moved in, so Bailey would probably be in bed by the time he got there. And he could test his theory about being assertive.
Either he’d come out a winner, or the end would be clear.
At the first red light, he sent a quick text:
On my way over. OK w u?
Fifteen minutes later, he shifted from foot to foot, waiting outside Cory’s front door. Bypassing the bell as usual, he’d knocked softly, twice, without success.
Is that clear enough for you, idiot? No return text and no answer
.
Just as he was debating the wisdom of trying the knob versus keeping his pride and retreating, the door was pulled open, and he had to put his hands up quickly to keep a thin young woman with a vague resemblance to Cory from running right into him on her way out. So this was Becky, obviously dressed for a date.
“Oh!” She stopped for a second, and then veered around him toward the steps. A trace scent of alcohol trailed behind her as she brushed past. For the first time, he noticed the car idling at the curb behind his. “Good. You’re finally here. I saw your text. I’ve gotta go. Bailey will
not
go to bed and Cory… Well, good luck with all that.” This last was offered over her shoulder as she opened the passenger side door and climbed in.
Staring in puzzlement after her, he was distracted from the actual sight of her driving off by the unfamiliar feel of a small, warm hand slipping into his. The sight of Bailey’s tearful face wiped away all his hesitancy as he herded her inside out of the cold night air.
“Hi, sweets. How are you feeling?” He squatted down to eye level as she wiped her nose on the sleeve of her shirt, blinking at him solemnly. He let his gaze wander past her, shocked at the unkempt appearance of the normally neat house.
“Okay. Can you help me make dinner?”
His eyebrows rose before he could control his reaction. With a surreptitious glance at his watch confirming it was close to nine, he bit back the questions and commentary and simply led her into the kitchen. There he found a ripped open loaf of bread sitting on the counter, two slices of bread amidst the crumbs, with a steak knife and unopened jar of peanut butter alongside.
“I can’t open the jar. It’s new. And it’s not crunchy.” Her lower lip quivered.
“Well, we can’t eat that then. Let’s look for something else.” While he quickly assessed the possibilities with a thought to speed of prep, he cored and sliced up an apple. “Here. Why don’t you start on this? Do you like tomato soup and grilled cheese?”
“I like it how Uncle Cory makes it.”
Ken smiled, even as the reminder of Cory caused a twinge in his chest. “What do you like about Uncle Cory’s version?”
Bailey’s eyes sparkled for the first time since he’d met her. “He lets me float Goldfish in the soup and cuts the sandwich into a heart. Can you do that too? Pleeeeese?” She cocked her head to the side and batted her eyes as she begged.
He caught himself shaking his head at her antics and turned it into a nod. “You go find the Goldfish while I get the soup warming and find some cheese.”
Mission accomplished, Bailey perched happily on a stool, munching her apple slices and watching as Ken assembled two sandwiches. “Does Cory cut them into hearts before or after he cooks them?”
“After.” The adult-sounding
duh
in her young voice made him grin.
He finished the sandwiches, and Bailey eagerly assisted him by finding the heart-shaped cookie cutter, paper party plates and napkins. Finally settled with her dinner, he let her eat quietly while he munched on the sandwich trimmings, dipping them in his own small cup of soup, not really hungry but wanting to keep her company.
“Uncle Cory eats my edges too.”
He finally broached the question that had been foremost in his mind since his arrival. “Honey, where
is
your Uncle Cory?”
“In his room. He threw up too,” she added with a dainty grimace, and Ken sank back in his chair as a bizarre sense of relief hit him. He wasn’t being brushed off after all—no wonder he hadn’t heard from Cory. And right on the heels of the relief was no small measure of empathy for the sweet girl absorbed in pushing her fish around in her soup.
“C’mon and finish up, you have to get to bed.” He paused doubtfully, thinking ahead to morning. “Do you know what time you go to school?”
“It’s on there,” Bailey helpfully pointed at a corkboard and he scanned its layered contents until he found a bus schedule with Cory’s address circled—morning pickup time of 7:43 a.m.
Crap, that’s early. Hardly seems fair to a kid.
A drop off time of 2:50 p.m. answered his question about full days versus half-days.
With the clock marching toward morning, he got bedtime in high gear at that point. Ken hustled her through nighttime bathroom basics and got her into jammies after clearing a path through the toys on the floor of her room just in case she had to get up. He caught himself mentally planning a game of “clean up” tomorrow after school, and rolled his eyes at himself.
You won’t even be here, and Cory would flip if he knew you were getting “involved” with her against his wishes.
Two books later, he was closing her bedroom door—all the way, as instructed—before heading straight to Cory’s room. Entering, he immediately noted the tell-tale, sour smell of illness in the dim room he’d gotten to know well in the past several months of late night visits. The master suite’s bathroom and walk-in closet had a small, unused sitting area with an overhead dimmer light he’d used many times to dress by before leaving. He was able to find his way to the switch and turn it on by rote to give himself some indirect light to see Cory by.
Standing over Cory’s restless form, he gave in to the urge to brush the hair back from his forehead only to pull his hand back in alarm. Christ, he was burning up. Quickly fetching a wet washcloth from the bathroom, he returned to kneel by the bed and sponge off the areas he could reach, hoping to give the feverish man some relief.
It seemed to help a bit, and he settled down into a heavy stillness, but Ken had a feeling they were in for a long night. He set the alarm to seven o’clock and shucked his clothes, crawling into “his” side of the bed, a feeling of rightness coming over him as he half-seriously sent a wish up that someday their relationship
out
of bed became even a quarter as good as the one they shared while
in
it.
The dimmed light he’d left on allowed him to tenderly watch Cory’s profile as he lay there next to him. Still fairly early for Ken, he nevertheless found himself drifting off, content to be resting in Cory’s presence.