The ETA From You to Me (2 page)

“Nothing else?”

“Nope.” Grant tried not to sound too cheerful, he really did.

Another long pause, and then Clayton released a soft growl of acceptance over the radio. It sent a tiny thrill of power through Grant to know that Clayton, technically, had to do what he said. It was really just the beginning of the end, because Grant spent the rest of the day sending Clayton on everything that drivers hated to do: tire changes, in-city runs, fuel deliveries, impounds--the whole shebang.

Two hours before close, Grant pulled up the GPS to find someone close to where a tire change was. He had to double-take when he realized that the icon for Clayton’s truck was idling in park halfway across town from his last run and in the middle of nowhere. Even if he did get a call, he’d have to drive a good ten minutes back into the city to get there.

“What’s he even doing?” Grant muttered under his breath, hovering his mouse over Clayton’s truck and staring blankly at the street name. He was parked out by an old nature preserve that had been shut down years ago. There was maybe a gas station and a convenience store on that same road, but nothing else for a couple miles.

Grant sighed, reaching for the radio. Honestly, it was like trying to keep track of a handful of young lion princes with a penchant for wandering into the elephant graveyard when they were specifically instructed not to do so.

“Base to 49.”

Dead silence.

“Base to 49?”

After another minute of getting no answer, Elliot paged in with the suggestion that Grant call Clayton’s phone since he didn’t seem to be in his truck. Grant didn’t bother to mention that Clayton’s truck was idling because none of the drivers were happy to hear that Grant was pretty much Big Brother’ing them from his computer.

If Clayton had actually been on a run, his idling would make sense because the drivers always left their truck running when they were doing unlocks or hooking up a car. However, since Clayton was currently resting his car outside the city limits, Grant was 98 percent certain that he was probably taking a nap in his truck or playing on his phone like most of the drivers did.

Grant grabbed the phone, dialing Clayton’s number and nearly jumping out of his seat when Clayton answered with an irritated snarl of, “Fucking
really
, Grant?”

Grant swallowed back an apology, fidgeting with his pen and wondering why he suddenly felt like the bad guy in this situation. He tried to tell himself it had nothing to do with the fact that Clayton’s voice was like if Freddy Mercury and Richard Armitage had been born in the same time era and created a love baby that spoke only in tones of molten sex. Just because they bantered and Grant knew Clayton was only a few years older than him did not mean Clayton was gay or even attractive. There was still the chance that he was secretly a sex offender or something.

Shaking his head and running his fingers through his hair, Grant sighed, “I need you to do this AAA tire change… please?”

A rustling of paper was Grant's response, followed by Clayton inhaling sharply and snapping, “You. Are on my shit list.”

“I’m sor-”

“Go ahead with your damn info.”

Well, now Grant felt kind of bad. Clayton never got angry at him. In fact, Grant usually went out of his way to make sure that
nobody
got angry with him. Anytime someone was feeling anything worse than neutral acceptance towards Grant's existence, he always felt like the worst person in the world.

“Dude, I’m
really
sorry, I’m like--gonna have a coronary or something, I’m totally drowning in paperwork and my hand is cramping and we’re gonna lose at least three ETAs, dude. If I coul-”

“Give me the fucking address, Grant.”

Grant gave him the address, biting back the urge to keep apologizing even though he was just trying to do his job.

Fifteen minutes later, Clayton’s voice crackled over the radio. “49 is on scene.”

Instantly, Billy was laughing over the radio, his voice amused. “Damn, Clay. Grant has had you runnin’ ‘round all day, ain’t he?”

Violently clicking his pen in a short burst of irritation, Grant studiously controlled the urge to tell Billy if he had to make commentary on how Grant did his job, that he should refrain from doing so on the radio. Instead, he held his breath for five seconds, exhaled, and scribbled down the last of the information needed for his paperwork.

If he were more of an asshole, he’d probably let Billy know that part of the reason Clayton got so many calls was because he actually did his job right. He didn’t mess around when he got out of the truck, always did his paperwork, kept up on his times and miles, and made Grant's job infinitely easier than half the other drivers.

“Yeah. I guess I’m just not going to eat today, it seems,” Clayton muttered bitterly. Billy,  and Mike (Elliot’s father and the other flatbed driver that weekend) instantly started teasing him over the radio. Clayton’s words sunk in and, drowning in guilt, Grant buried his face into his hands with a curse. He hadn't realized that he'd kept Clayton so busy that he never got the time to sit down and eat in the past ten hours.

Sighing, Grant set his pen down. He couldn’t apologize, not over the radio. That kind of thing usually had all of the drivers jumping on the chance to guilt trip him about every little thing until he’d be at his wit’s end trying to keep people happy. He’d learned his lesson back during his freshman year of college, when he had first started working at the tow company. If the drivers could take advantage of a situation, they most likely would. Still, he could do something to earn Clayton’s forgiveness.

Grant picked up the phone and dialed the number for the nearest pizza joint. He didn’t know if Clayton was picky or not, so he ordered a half cheese, half meat lovers. Whichever one Clayton didn’t want, Grant would happily eat.

With peace offering on the way, Grant sent Clayton on one last run and divided the rest of the current jobs between the other drivers. He knew Clayton had to come in to get fuel soon, which would be the perfect time to enact his diabolical plan to get back on his good side. A dispatcher dealing with a driver that was pissed of at them was a dispatcher who was going to have a miserable job.

The pizza was barely cooling on his desk when Clayton pulled into the garage half an hour later. Grant turned off vacuum when he saw him, pushing it to the side so it wasn't in the middle of the office, and paged Clayton on the intercom.

“Hey Clayton, can you come in here for a second?” Grant glanced at the clock as he set the phone back onto the cradle, taking a minute to transfer the lines to the overnight service and then returning to vacuuming. Clayton didn’t come into the office right away, and it wasn't until Grant was backing out of the utility closet that the door even opened. He hadn’t even noticed that Clayton was standing right behind him until he turned and walked straight into a disturbingly firm body that could have moonlighted as a concrete wall.

A hand grabbed his shoulder to steady him and Grant bit down on a yelp of surprise.

“Oops, thanks Clay--” Grant choked on his words the second he glanced up. One of the downsides to going so long without seeing a person face to face was that his imagination tended to come up with these ridiculous ideas of what they looked like. For Clayton, Grant had figured he was a short, chubby and balding guy with a Napoleon complex.

Clayton was most definitely
not
a fat bald man with a Napoleon complex. If anything, he was illegally attractive in at least four states. It wasn't often that Grant had an insatiable urge to take his own pants off and present himself like a cornucopia of potential sexual promiscuity, but this would be one of those times.

Clayton, with his perfectly chiseled jaw, pale olive eyes, sunkissed bronze skin and thick eyebrows, was still in his driver’s uniform with bits of engine grease staining it. He kind of looked like that hot Medji dude from The Mummy that had caused Grant years of grief in his childhood before he'd learned the meaning of bisexual. His hair was a rich brown with a few streaks of sun-bleached gold, bangs just a few inches short of falling into his eyes and flicking in all directions from having been batted out of his face during the course of the day. His frown was emphasized by short goatee circling his mouth and two-day stubble that peppered all the way up his jaw.

Grant liked to think he was decently fit from daily jogging and crunches, but all notions of self-confidence took a running leap out the window when he realized that Clayton was built like a brick shithouse. Grant was pretty sure the guy could headbutt him into a coma if he really wanted to. He wouldn't even have to try that hard since they were about the same height anyway.

Clayton quirked one of his eyebrows at Grant's sudden silence, amused. His hand fell from Grant's shoulder, the other eyebrow coming up when Grant struggled to remember what he was going to say.

“I bought you some pizza,” Grant‘s voice cracked at the very end, fumbling with the glass cleaner in his hand and gesturing to the desk. Food, Grant had long ago realized,was a wonderful and charismatic peace offering that often distracted men from the idea that their clothes could be suffering a mental removal-via-teeth by other men. Clayton stared for another long moment before he slowly looked over to the pizza. Grant really wasn’t sure how to feel when Clayton turned to narrow his eyes suspiciously at Grant.

Grant decided that a smile would be in order, because everyone loved smiles--babies loved smiles. If babies loved it, everyone had to love it. Babies were picky like that.

“All of it? You sure that‘s a good idea?” Clayton walked over to the box, lifting the lid while Grant meticulously folded the paper towels in his hand. He needed to make sure he had a properly distributed ratio of towel-to-hand coverage, as well as a heavy enough thickness that the glass cleaner wouldn’t seep through the paper towel and end up with a giant soppy handprint on it. He also needed a reason not to see if Clayton’s ass was as sculpted as his chest.

"Uhm…well if you
want
all of it. I would have liked to have half since, you know, I also haven't eaten all day, 'cuz I can't leave the office and I forgot to make lunch this morning and--"

"Thanks."

"--so I was thinking this could be a fresh sta--what?" Grant snapped his head up, nearly crunching the paper towels in his surprise. Clayton walked over, plucking them from his hand and tearing off one of the strips before handing them back to Grant and grabbing a slice from the meat-lovers half. Miffed, Grant stared at the paper towels in his hand, because he had totally just gotten them how he liked them.

"Thank. You." Clayton repeated slowly, the corners of his mouth twitching to hide a grin.

"Oh... you're welcome," taken aback at how ridiculously easy it had been, Grant couldn’t really do much more than absently rearrange the remainder of his paper towels and start to clean the windows.

Clayton took a seat in one of the extra office chairs, leaning back and watching Grant meticulously wipe everything down, chewing absently. Grant tried not to pay attention to the way he could feel Clayton’s eyes on him the entire time, finishing up the windows and the glass on the vending machine and returning into the bathroom to grab the duster.

Secretly, he may have added a bit of a sashay to his hips in hopes that Clayton would notice how nice and curvaceous it was for a strapping young man like Grant.

Clayton was halfway through his second slice when Grant walked over to the computer to shut it down. For some unknown reason, he apparently found Grant to be an endless source of entertainment. Grant was well aware at how awful he was at reacting properly when he noticed that people were staring, because people staring at him made Grant want to throw things at their faces. That was exactly why Grant firmly kept his gaze focused on the monitor, clicking around to try and shut down the programs and cursing under his breath when the entire computer locked up.

“Come on, baby, don’t do this to me. I’ve been good to you, I cleaned out your hard drive last night,” Grant whined, stroking the monitor gently. Clayton snorted under his breath and Grant glanced up in time to see Clayton using his thumb to swipe a bit of pizza sauce from his lip before sucking it off of his finger.

Who the fuck even did that?

Napkins existed for a reason, thank you.

Why was Grant even turned on right now? This wasn’t fair, he was not supposed to be aroused by stereotypically sexual actions that were commonly scapegoated as innocently human behaviors.

Grant struggled to keep his breathing even, swallowing a few times so he could get rid of the lump in his throat, and turned back to the computer.

“So…uh. I didn’t mean for you not to eat today, man. Totally my bad,” Grant grabbed a cleaning wipe, rubbing gently at the keyboard with it, “I mean, if I had known, I wouldn’t have sent you on so many runs or anything, just so you know.”

Clayton was silent, which obviously meant that Grant should keep talking.

“Dude, just give me a heads up when you need to do something, ‘cuz, like, if I
know
, y’know, then I will know not to send you on a run and stuff until you’re done with all that crap.”

Grant glanced up, heart skipping for a second when he saw that Clayton had stopped eating to watch him, expression unreadable. Grant didn’t really like being the subject of anyone‘s attention for more than five seconds, it made him nervous and on-edge, waiting for a fallout or judgment. Sometimes it gave him an insatiable urge to punch things in the jugular.