And that right there was why even though I was tired of working and studying, even though it felt like I would never get my degree, I wouldn’t drop out. Granny hadn’t been able to go to nursing school. Mom had bailed on the dream. I wouldn’t. I used to think I wanted it too—becoming a nurse—but now I wasn’t so sure. I knew I wanted something, so I figured following her dream was as good as any. “Thank you.”
She dipped her sandwich into her soup and took a bite. I watched her wrinkled hand tremble slightly and hated the fact that she was getting older. I wanted her to live forever.
Once she swallowed, she asked, “Do you have a boyfriend yet? Any nice young men out there?”
“I’m sure there are lots of nice young men out there. Unfortunately, none of them are my boyfriend.” I winked, and she laughed.
“What about those sweet friends of yours? Ian and Finley.”
“Finley has a boyfriend, remember? And Ian…” Ian was complicated. He was great. I really loved him. I didn’t have the same kind of relationship with him that I did with Finley, but I thought of him as just as good a friend. I didn’t think Ian could let anyone in the way he had Finley, though, or hell, if he’d even let Finley all the way in. He made me…curious, to say the least. Of what, I was still figuring out. He was a puzzle I wanted to put together. “Ian is beautiful and funny and my friend,” I replied because it was the best answer I had. All those things were true. I would also hook up with Ian in a second, but I wasn’t sharing that with Granny.
“Your grandfather was my best friend before we fell in love. I thought we were just friends. Then one day he kissed me and…well, a lady never tells.”
I gasped and clutched my chest, pretending to be scandalized. “How dare a lady such as yourself speak that way.”
She chuckled. “He was the best, my Frank. He loved me and your mama somethin’ fierce. Did his best to take care of us. He died too young.”
He’d been in his twenties when he passed away, my mom a toddler. My grandma hadn’t worked before he died, so it had been rough for her. She never remarried.
“I still miss him. Is that silly?”
“No, it’s not. I’ll be lucky if I have a love like you guys did one day.” She was always sharing stories about him.
“You will. I know it.”
I wasn’t so sure about that. I loved sex and had a lot of it, but never had a relationship that went past a couple of months. Never loved anyone…oh, and now I wanted a Dom to fuck me and maybe buy me stuff. I hoped that didn’t make me an asshole.
“Time will tell,” I replied.
“Just don’t ever let it change you the way your mama did. That’s not real love. Love doesn’t ask you to walk away from who you are or other people who care about you.”
“Never.” I gritted my teeth. Thinking about Mom always pissed me off. She could leave me, whatever, but she shouldn’t have done that to Granny.
“Well,” she said, “I’m fond of Ian. He sounds lovely when you talk about him.”
I smiled. The truth was, I thought about him a lot. Sometimes I wondered if he was in love with Finley. I knew how close they were. They had a bond I never had with anyone else, and they’d been there for each other through crazy-hard times.
But then there was that one time. Ian always said he had no interest in BDSM—he wasn’t shy about it—but that time there’d been a…hell, I wasn’t sure what to call it. A sexual thing between the three of us with Aidan and David. Aidan had told Ian to leave the room if he wasn’t interested, and he hadn’t left. But he’d been a little weird about it afterward. He and I had shared a guest room at Aidan’s that night, and Ian had been quiet, said he didn’t want to talk about it when I tried. That was one of the reasons I’d wondered if he loved Finley and was maybe jealous.
Or, you know, not. Maybe I was jealous of him and Finley. I wanted the friendship they had. I wanted…something. I wanted to be loved. Which was crazy and ridiculous and something I’d file away and ignore.
“What are you thinking about over there?” Granny asked.
Love…sex…friendship… “Nothing, really. Just glad it’s summer. It’ll be nice not to have school as a responsibility for a bit.”
“Liar, liar, pants on fire,” Granny sang, and I laughed. God, I loved her.
“There’s this guy. His name is David, and he’s a really nice guy.”
“Do you like this really nice guy named David?”
“Dork,” I teased. “I don’t know.” There was a whole hell of a lot I didn’t know. I’d stick with sex. That was the easiest.
CHAPTER THREE
David
“Jesus, that was an ugly break,” Dr. Kurt Paulson said.
“Yeah, but I made it all pretty again. I’m good at what I do.”
He rolled his eyes, but we both knew he couldn’t deny it. “Do you want to grab a drink after work?” he asked.
Kurt was an associate of mine—a nice guy, sexy, good doctor, queer. Not often, but every once in a while, we grabbed dinner or a drink together. I enjoyed going out for a nice meal. I usually dragged Aidan with me once a week, but I was more of a people person than he was. It was impossible to get him out more than that on a regular basis. It had been hard even before Finley, but it was worse now. He was at work, or he wanted to be with his boy—not that I could blame him.
I enjoyed Kurt’s company, but sometimes I wondered if he hoped we could be more. He’d never come out and said it, but I wasn’t dumb. I noticed the looks he gave me. What he didn’t know was that even if I were interested, it would never work out between us. Kurt wasn’t in the lifestyle, and that was something I needed.
I’d tried without it before, with my ex, Tony, who was still a friend. I’d tried to lock away my needs, and that hadn’t worked out so well. It had broken my damn heart, and I had no interest in having a repeat of that situation. I only dated subs, or switches who didn’t need to dominate very often.
“I can’t,” I told Kurt. “I’m meeting up with my sister.” Which was true, but I’d already decided to slow down on the dinners with him so I didn’t give him the wrong idea.
“Okay, maybe another time.”
“Sure thing.”
We said our goodbyes, and I finished up at the hospital before changing and heading out to my car.
Instead of going to my house in Santa Monica, I drove straight to Zoey’s. She and my mom shared a house—the first place I’d ever bought. I had a few properties I’d grabbed at a low price when the market crashed, and now they were making me quite a bit of money monthly.
I was proud as hell to be able to do things like that now; I’d worked my ass off for it. I knew what it was like to have nothing, and I’d done everything in my power to make sure my mom and sister and I would never have to live like that again.
Their house was in an older neighborhood. Mom and Zoey teased me for turning posh on them, but I couldn’t help it if I liked nice things. And I felt as comfortable driving down their street, where some houses had bars on the windows and kids played in the road, as I did at my place close to the ocean.