CHAPTER 26
GRAYDON
Sitting on my couch, I stare down at my phone, a rage warring inside me.
A part of me wants to find out where Hank the Wank lives, tear his door off the hinges, and teach him a goddamn lesson about moving in on someone when they have no right to.
A part of me wants to go to Maple’s apartment and sit outside it until she lets me in to talk to her. Because her words…her words sliced right through my brittle heart.
“I cared about the way you made me feel at that moment. You treated me like I was just someone you could toss to the side, reprimand like I didn’t matter. And maybe that’s how you really feel, but excuse me for thinking that maybe there was a little more between us. Clearly, I was wrong, though.”
She isn’t wrong. She…she means a lot to me. I might not say much, but I listen. I listen when she speaks.
But the other part of me, the part that actually wants to kick my coffee table over, stares at this inane text thread.
A text thread I don’t want to be a part of.
But a text thread that I think I need.
Grumbling to myself, I type out a text.
Graydon: I need help. I think I fucked up big time.
I lean back on the couch, hating myself, because I swore up and down that I wasn’t going to fall for this bullshit camaraderie thing that OC was pushing upon us, but after the way Maple looked at me earlier, I don’t know if I have a choice in the matter.
My phone buzzes with a response.
OC: Are you saying that you need the Gladdy Daddies to assemble?
And this is exactly why I didn’t want to text.
This reason, right here.
Bennett: Off night for me, I’m free.
OC: Free as well…I think we just need someone to say Gladdy Daddies Assemble.
Graydon: I’m not saying that.
Bennett: Kind of wishing you would.
OC: You know I can only help if you say it.
Graydon: That’s fucked.
I stare out the window, the rain pelting the pane, adding to the mood in my place. A dark, foreboding mood that’s screaming that if I stay here and wallow in my own faults, things are only going to get worse.
And I don’t want it to get worse.
I don’t like the way she looked at me.
I don’t like the way she tore away from me.
And I don’t like Slutty Little Glasses thinking he fucking won.
Tamping down my pride, I text the boys back.
Graydon: Gladdy Daddies Assemble.
Bennett: Holy shit, he said it. He must really need help.
OC: We’re on our WAY! Send us your address, I’ll bring beer. Bennett, you bring the snacks.
Bennett: What sort of snacks?
OC: Doesn’t matter, just bring them.
Bennett: I have dried seaweed wraps.
OC: For fuck’s sake, stop at the store, you asshat.
OC opens three beers and then hands them out as Bennett takes a half-eaten bag of Pirate’s Booty out of his bag, along with the seaweed wraps he spoke of, and two regular Hershey’s chocolate bars.
“What the fuck is that?” OC asks, pointing to the snacks.
Bennett shrugs. “Didn’t feel like going to the store and I leave for a long away trip tomorrow, so figured that you could take some of the leftover things in my cabinet.”
“No one wants that trash.” OC leans down and snags a Hershey’s bar. “But if anything, I’m a team player, so I’ll take care of this for you.”
I toe the seaweed wraps toward Bennett. “You can get those out of my fucking sight.”
“They’re really good.”
He goes to open it, but I say, “Don’t even think about it. Put those back in your bag. I don’t want that smell in here.”
He rolls his eyes but puts the seaweed wraps back in his bag, then sits back in his chair, spreads his legs, and takes a sip of his beer.
“So,” OC asks, popping a rectangle of chocolate in his mouth. “What’s going on?”
I spend the next five minutes recounting what happened, from the event, to the kiss, to Monday morning, skipping over what happened Sunday and just saying that I had a rough day.
When I told them what happened in the training facility hallway, both of them winced in horror.
I already knew I was in the wrong, but to see their reaction to my fuckup, yeah, that didn’t help ease my guilt or my worry.
“Wow.” OC scrubs his hand over his head and drops the chocolate wrapper on the coffee table. “Uh, that’s quite the pickle you got yourself in.”
“Yeah, not great,” Bennett says.
“Yeah, I’m well aware. That’s why I’m asking you fucks for help.”
“You know, being that we’re friends now, I think you should reserve the term ‘fucks’ for people you don’t like, like Hank the Wank, which by the way, great fucking name, man,” OC says.
“So do I,” Bennett adds, looking more loose than when I first met him. He’s either dropping the shy-guy facade or something has changed in his life, like…like a girl has entered the chat. Not that I care, though… “Although, I miss using ‘Slutty Little Glasses.’ It was catchy.”
“I think we can alternate between the two,” OC says.
“No need to completely bury the nickname. The art of a great insult is having many options to choose from when in the moment. If we really wanted to master the takedown of the obvious villain of this storyline, we would come up with one more name for him, something…to really dig at his character.”
“Like, maybe calling him by the wrong name?” Bennett asks. “Like instead of Hank, we call him Henry?”
OC shakes his head. “No, it needs to be better than that. Using the wrong name is a slight at him, but he’s after our friend’s girl, so we need something bigger, better.” OC turns to me. “What are the size of his nipples? Any chance we can come up with an insult involving his milkers?”
Jesus.
Fucking.
Christ.
“Can we please bring it back to the problem?” I growl.
“Why did you have to call them ‘milkers’?” Bennett asks, disgust all over his face. “Fuck, that makes me feel dead inside.”
OC dismisses Bennett with a wave of his hand. “Bennett, please, we’re trying to solve a problem here.” OC then turns to me, folds his hands together, and says in a very serious tone, “The problem is, you fucked up big time.”
“Wow, I invited you to my place to point out the obvious, glad I had you come over.” I shake my head and down half my beer. Going to need the alcohol to get through this.
“Listen, we have to state the obvious so we know exactly what we’re dealing with here. From the sound of it, Maple does not want to be anywhere near you, and by the desperation in your voice, we’re at the grand gesture phase.”
For fuck’s sake, I should never have invited them over.
“Oh yeah, I’d agree with that,” Bennett says. “I don’t think a talk with Maple is going to solve this.”
Christ, now the sane one is jumping in on it too.
OC shakes his head. “No, we need a grand gesture. Something that is going to blow her hair right off her head.”
And because he’s right, I’m really that desperate—and want them out of my house as quickly as possible—I ask, “What do you mean?”
“Well, let me ask you this,” OC counters.
“What do you want your end result to be? When all is said and done and she’s talking to you again, is this a pissing match with Slutty Little Glasses?
” OC winks at Bennett, who nods. “Or do you actually want to be with her? Make something of this more than just a PR relationship?”
I work my jaw to the side as I scratch the scruff on my cheek, the question rolling around in my mind.
There’s only one reason why I care so much and it’s because over the past few weeks, Maple has made an impact on me.
Don’t know how or when it happened, but all I know is that when she’s around, I feel… lighter.
Happier.
Wanted.
And I want to hold on to the feeling she gives me whenever she’s around.
I meant it when I said I wanted to pursue her, and that hasn’t changed.
I take down the rest of my beer, then I set the bottle on the coffee table. “I want to make her mine.”
“Oh shit.” OC gasps and then holds his arm out and points at it. “Chills. He just gave me chills.”
“Can you not make a spectacle?” I ask.
“I mean, hard not to when you make a strong statement like that,” Bennett says. “That’s some good shit you’d find in a romance novel.”
Both OC and I turn to him, questions in our arched brows.
“I’ll take this one,” OC says to me. “Umm, romance novel?”
“Yeah.” Bennett casually shrugs.
“Yeah, what? Do you read them?”
“What if I do?” Bennett asks. “You have a problem with that?”
“Just…didn’t think that was something you’d read,” OC says, looking Bennett over. “You don’t seem like the kind of guy who would read, let alone read a romance book.”
“Of course I fucking read.”
“Clearly. Just didn’t think it would be romance novels.”
“What do I look like I read?” he asks.
Both OC and I take a second to study him and then I say, “Something like…hidden ballpark mysteries.”
OC snaps and points at me. “Yes, that’s exactly what he’d read.”
Bennett shrugs. “I’ve been dabbling in romance because my sister’s friend sent me some recommendations.”
OC’s eyes widen and I can see the whirl of questions he wants to ask, but I stop him before he can get going. “Don’t,” I say sharply. “We’re focusing on my situation. Deal with him later on your own time. Don’t waste mine.”
“Jesus,” OC says. “You know, Gladdy Daddies isn’t just about you.”
“Gladdy Daddies is about to be nonexistent.”
Sighing, OC says, “Fine, but we’re coming back to the sister’s friend thing. I think that’s the second time you’ve mentioned her, and I’m not about to just let it go.”
Bennett just shrugs casually.
“Okay.” OC takes a deep breath. “Graydon wants to make Maple his, and he’s clearly put an obstacle in the way of that by humiliating her this morning.
Dug us quite a hole, my man, but I think we can work with it.
My boys on the Agitators have offered up some great advice before, and there’s no doubt in my mind that they’d agree a grand gesture is the way to go.
So, big guy, what kind of secret talents can we use to our advantage? ”
“Secret talents not in the bedroom,” Bennett adds.