The ETA From You to Me (13 page)

Clayton’s stubble rasped along the hinge of Grant's jaw, lips pressing against the tiny hollow of his cheek in the most blueballing form of a kiss Grant had ever heard of in his entire life.

Grant was two seconds away from associating his heart with an alien chestburster when Clayton pulled away, ruffled Grant's head fluff, and started to walk towards the dumpster.

“Th-that's
it
?!” Grant cried, his voice cracking and his dick twitching in more of a depressed sag than an excited jerk.

Clayton didn’t even look back, disappearing behind the gate with the dumpster with another call of, “Good night, Grant!”

What the fuck was that, even? Was that legal? Was that even--

Clayton had made the first move.

Grant wanted to drop to the ground and weep. Things were finally looking up.

It wasn't until a week later and absolutely no advancement in his and Clayton's not-relationship that Grant realized he needed to do something. Curled up in the loveseat of Adam's living room, Grant watched Adam save his game and return to the menu.

Grant tapped the toes of his sneakers together, brain wracking over itself for ideas. "What if I just decapitated a Barbie head and gave it zombie makeup and tied it to the grill of his truck?"

Adam’s pinched expression came back with a vengeance, turning to stare at Grant like he’d grown a third nipple on his forehead. "What?’

"…. wouldn’t hurt to try." Grant murmured as the game started up.

Pausing the game, Adam gestured to Grant in a motion that demanded elaboration. "Wait what? What do zombies have to do with any of this?"

Zombies had everything to do with it, obviously. "Clayton thinks he knows more about the onset of a possible zombie apocalypse than I do."

"What are you even talking about?" Adam cried, because he liked to yell when he was really confused, since yelling seemed to make things easier to understand, apparently.

"Do you have any rum left?" Grant asked instead.

Adam sighed, growling under his breath, standing, and heading for the kitchen to retrieve the bottle.

Twelve hours later, Grant shoved a mutilated Barbie doll covered in tacky gray and red paint at Elliot, eyes intense. “Do it when he’s in the bathroom.”

Elliot stared at the doll, pursing his lips. “This is creepy,” he pointed out quietly, looking up at Grant, “really creepy.”

Okay, Elliot obviously didn’t understand the concept of humor, because it was totally not creepy. In fact, it could possibly be hilarious if Clayton didn’t take it the wrong way and instead try to return the doll to Grant via suppository.

“Oh my God, dude. Just do it. I can always find you some tire changes, if I have to.”

Elliot snatched the doll out of Grant's hand. “Why does you always ask me to do the weird gay-boyfriends stuff?” he whined under his breath, shoving the doll into the pocket of his trousers and leaving the office. Grant was tempted to yell after Elliot that if he and Clayton were, in fact, boyfriends, then Grant wouldn’t have to coerce Elliot into doing aforementioned weird gay things.

He drew in a long, shuddering breath, wiped his clammy palms on the hips of his jeans, and headed back to his desk to sit down and pretend to look busy. A half hour of inactivity went by before the office door opened and Clayton walked in with the doll clutched in his hand.

Clayton stared--the stare of a man trying to suddenly acquire telepathy so he could pick Grant's brain apart like a T-Rex with a dead carcass.

“Did you laugh?” Grant blurted, setting his pen down before he started to frantically click it. “I laughed.”

Not even a twitch. Grant was pretty sure he could break Clayton’s kneecaps with a tire iron and still get the same dead-eyed stare that he was receiving at that very moment.

“No laugh?” Grant ventured, because he was seriously starting to wonder if Clayton would actually consider Barbie-doll suppositories. “Not funny? No?”

Turning on his heel, Clayton left the office.

Fuck.

Grant exhaled, burying his face in his hands and ignoring the computer honking at him with a call. That had been a totally awesome plan. Granted--not his best, but still awesome. Maybe Clayton was just still angry at him, even though he’d acknowledged Grant's apologies and has seemed to at least begrudgingly accept them. Didn’t that mean they were ready to move on? Wasn’t it a coupley thing to say ‘you’re an ass but I want to bone you anyway’ or something along those lines?

The office door opened and Grant peeked up to see Clayton standing there sans-Barbie and looking like he was suffering from Vader’s death-choke.

“Why do you keep trying?”

That was… unexpected.

“What?” Grant said intelligently, his head bobbing low like a confused owl.

“You keep… doing things…for me.”

“To... make you smile?” Grant offered, because it looked like Clayton was struggling to admit he felt anything other than mild annoyance or an embittered rage at life in general. Clayton jerked his head in something that could have been a nod--or just an attempt to keep from looking like a robot that had been frozen in place.

“I want to.” Grant pointed out, chest tightening just a fraction as he gestured to Clayton. “Dude, I really do. I want to make you smile. I love it when you smile, and when you laugh, and when you give me that look like you don't know if I'm an alien species or not. Seriously, man, you’re pretty awesome when you’re not doing the whole, dark and mysterious deal that makes most people think you’re in some sort of cult biker gang.”

“What.”

Clayton’s eyes were marginally wider than they had been a few seconds prior. Grant just gave Clayton his cheesiest smile that he could manage without crying hysterically out of anxiety.

“If you smiled, I should totally get a reward,” he pointed out seriously. If he’d spent the past two months stumbling over himself to get Clayton to notice him, there wasn’t much he could do now that could make him look anymore desperate than he already was.

Clayton’s face went expressionless, shoulders tensing as he asked tightly, “What kind of reward.”

“Be creative?” Grant suggested, grabbing his pen and clicking it. He licked his lips, swallowing heavily at the pensive look that crossed Clayton’s face. It was followed by a lot of expressions, and a lot of eyebrow shifting that looked almost painful.

Clayton was around the desk in the beat of a heart, startling Grant so badly that he jerked back and almost flipped his chair over. Clayton snagged the back, steadying it and then grabbing Grant's arm.

“OhGod,” Grant breathed, stumbling to his feet and really hoping this wasn’t going to end in some form of bodily harm.

What Grant wasn’t expecting, was for Clayton to drag Grant into his chest and hug him.

Grant felt his heart skip a beat, breath hitching in surprise. He didn't even think, arms winding around Clayton's back reflexively. Clayton nosed against Grant's neck, breathing in deeply through his nose and tightening his arms enough where Grant couldn’t help the soft grunt that left him. Being hugged by Clayton was like being wrapped in the warm embrace of a hairless, cuddly sasquatch made of nothing but love and happiness. Grant inched his arms tighter around Clayton’s hips, grin pulling at his lips.

This wasn’t exactly what he’d expected, but it was far better than anything he’d gotten so far. The only way this could have been better is if there was more kissing and orgasms involved.

Preferably a lot of orgasms.

“This works.” Grant muttered into Clayton’s jaw, trying not to shudder too much when Clayton’s head moved just the tiniest bit and made his stubble scrape against Grant's skin and send a tingle straight down Grant's spine.

“What did you have in mind?” Grant could feel the vibrations of Clayton’s voice straight down into his bones. It made his toes curl inside of his sneakers, head shifting just the slightest bit when Clayton started to pull away--cheeks brushing and making Grant's dick twitch at the faintest sting of bristly stubble scraping his skin.

“Me?” Grant croaked, fingers drifting from Clayton’s back to land on the offensively sexy dip of Clayton’s waist. “N-nothing. No, nothing. Me--I don’t plan ahead. My mind was totally, completely blank when I suggested that. Nope, not a thing in my head that, uh, I wanted.” Was Grant talking? He couldn’t remember if he was supposed to be saying anything else because Clayton’s fingers had somehow decided to sneak their way up to his jaw.

Oh fuck.

Was he-

Clayton dipped his head down and Grant choked on something that might have been words, but sounded more like a ‘hhhuuueeeeee’ noise that had probably originated from some extinct species of animal. He was surging upwards before he could stop himself, lungs freezing in his chest the second he pressed his mouth to Clayton’s in a sudden, impulsive kiss.

He pulled away almost immediately after, mortified at himself for stealing the romance out of the moment with his overzealousness. “Sorry,” he blurted, mouth brushing Clayton’s with each syllable, “jumped the gun there… my bad.”

Any notion that Clayton may not have wanted to kiss him was thrown out the window when Clayton huffed out a laugh, rolled his eyes, and hooked his hand behind Grant's head to drag him into another kiss.

Oh God, his heart was going to burst. He was going to fracture into tens of thousands of pieces made from confetti hearts because he couldn’t even comprehend that this was really happening. It was a dream--a hallucination. Clayton’s hand cupped his face, calluses scraping the lobe of Grant's ear as he coaxed Grant's mouth to work against his own.

Grant couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t do anything but kiss back helplessly and try not to smile like he’d been injected with enough morphine to knock out an enraged elephant. His fingers tangled in the fabric of Clayton’s uniform shirt, only able to remember to breathe through his nose when Clayton drew back just for a second before diving in for another kiss, sucking Grant’ upper lip between his own with a scrape of teeth.

It was electrifying, more exhilarating than anything else Grant could ever recall experiencing. To have this, just this one moment after so long trying and telling himself that he would succeed--but somehow feeling as if he couldn‘t. It was the most gratifying kiss of Grant's entire life.

He inhaled sharply, overwhelmed with the scent of sweat, oil, and bar soap that must have come from Clayton’s shower earlier that morning. The hand that Clayton wasn’t cradling Grant's face with fell to his neck, squeezing the junction of his shoulder and making Grant's knees quake when they toed the edge of a pressure point.

He almost jumped out of his skin when Clayton released a soft, rumbling moan into his mouth. Grant was always the one making sound, always moving and talking and generating noise--but he’d made Clayton moan. Not only had Clayton moaned, but he’d done it before Grant had.

“Holy shit,” Grant breathed into Clayton’s lips, speech muffled when Clayton chased the words with his mouth, dragging Grant's body flush against his own. May the Archangel Michael grant merciful passage of Grant's soul to the afterlife because he must have died and gone to heaven.

The phone chose that time to ring and remind Grant that no, his life was not a perfect romance film with happiness and sex and wonderful musical montages to help pass the boring moments along. He drew back, breath hitching when Clayton swept forward to steal one last kiss before letting Grant twist in his arms to answer the phone with a breathless, “John's Towing.”

“What did I tell you about getting nookie with Clayton in the office?!" Tucker roared from the other line.

“Ohmygod--OH MY GOD. Don’t fire me! Why are you even watching the cameras, oh my god dude,” Grant cried, swatting at Clayton’s hand because of course now Clayton would choose to be completely open with affection and run his palms all over Grant's sides. Grant had extremely sensitive sides that could sometimes earn people elbows to the face when they hit the ticklish areas.

“Get the fuck back to work!”

Clayton, smiling wider than Grant had ever seen him do in the time they’d known each other, reached over Grant's shoulder to pluck the phone out of his hand. “Make me third out tonight.”

“Bullshit.” Tucker spat from the other end. Clayton snorted, pressing the flat of his hand against Grant's back and slowly creeping his fingers under Grant's shirt. Oh god, now was not the time for a boner alert because his manager was watching the cameras at that exact moment.

It was apparent that their manager was on the cameras because he made a pained noise on the other line and grunted, “You‘re third out until ten. I don‘t wanna see any more of that gay crap in the office.”

“Deal.” Clayton grinned, hanging up the phone and pulling his hand out from under Grant's shirt. He looked down at Grant, who was resolutely focusing on disassembling his pen and reassembling it because only a limited few people could maintain erections while trying to put a pen back together. Grant was not one of them.

Wrestling the pen from Grant's hand, Clayton rubbed his nose into Grant's temple and drew in a deep breath through his nose. “If you‘re not busy tonight, we can go to the same place as last time?” he asked, the smile in his voice ringing loud and clear.