Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
And since neither of them had an answer to that looming question, neither of them brought it up again. Myles was okay with that.
He knew he should probably look at it closer, but he preferred the easy way the summer was going, with Shelly happy going to the Y during the week, and Jet hanging out with Wyatt at the Cabin.
The boys helped Ozzy finish up some of the detail work on the bedrooms and top floor, learning valuable skills and deepening a friendship that Myles thought had been instant from the start.
They went to the Y on Mondays with Shelly, where they shot hoops and swam and helped the arts-and-crafts teacher keep the room full of five- and six-year-olds from becoming a disaster zone.
Myles spent his days at the bookshop, slowly but steadily continuing to inventory Steven’s stock of books and occasionally helping him with the boxes from his labyrinthine basement.
“You know I only ever intended to inventory the books I brought up, right?” Steven said one day as he flopped onto the couch next to Myles. “The ones already up here were going to stay an anonymous mountain of dead trees.”
Myles sat surrounded by piles of cookbooks he’d hauled out from a back corner of what he assumed had once been a broom closet. He had commandeered Steven’s TV tray table for the tablet and his coffee cup, and was currently organizing the books by a complicated scheme of theme, aesthetics and age.
“Those trees gave up their lives for this shit,” Myles muttered as he shifted another pile. “The least you can do is try.”
“Hey, I try.” Steven took the books from him, plopped them on the coffee table, and wheeled the rickety cart away so he could straddle Myles’s lap.
The position seemed to be his favorite. Maybe because of the ease with which he could look down on Myles and also keep him under his control.
Myles didn’t have any strong objections to being sat on, either. He cupped Steven’s ass and stared up at him. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. But cookbooks are always a draw. They should be out front.”
“And here I thought you’d want to move the classics from the back wall to the rack beside the cash register.”
“I’m well aware that my literary leanings aren’t for everyone. Or most people. There are things we could do in that section, though.”
“We, huh?” Steven grinned at him.
“Sorry. Not we, obviously. I mean, it’s your shop. I just—”
Steven stopped his babbling with a kiss before he could bury himself any further in word jumble.
Thankfully, his phone rang before he allowed Steven to bury him in other things they should not have been doing in the shop while anyone could walk in off the street.
Steven groaned against his neck as it rang again. “Ignore that.”
“I would if we were upstairs.”
“Fine, fine.” He crawled off, kissing as he went, and Myles only managed to answer on the fifth ring.
“Hello?” He sounded breathless even to his own ears.
“This a bad time?” The male voice on the other end took a moment to register.
“Mr. Giroux. Hey.” Myles gently moved Steven’s leg from where it still slung over his lap so he could stand up. He held a finger up to Steven’s questioning look, then wandered around the stacks to the back of the room and out of earshot. “Thanks for calling me back.”
“Not a problem. I had a look at that letter again, and got in contact with Bentley Priory.”
“And?” Myles’s insides twisted into a snake pit, and he suddenly wished he hadn’t dismissed Steven with a curt gesture. It would have been nice to have him there as a buffer between him and his nerves.
“And he says he would like to speak with Jet about an inheritance issue, but he wouldn’t divulge what that issue was.”
“No.” The hard jerk of reaction came out in Myles’s voice. “I’m not letting Jet put himself at risk for a rich asshole who never even sent him a fucking birthday card or offered his mother a penny to help raise him. Just no.”
There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line; then Giroux sighed.
“Look, I have kids, so I understand completely. I do have to point out, however, that Jet is old enough to have the right to make some decisions on his own. You need to trust him to be smart about it, but you do need to trust him.”
“It’s not Jet that I don’t trust. What if Priory has suddenly decided he wants his kid?”
“One step at a time, Myles.”
“Giroux—”
“Look, before we jump to conclusions, or burn bridges, or do anything else that will make this a bigger mess, let me try again to find out exactly what he wants. It may not be at all what you’re thinking.
For all we know, he could be reaching out to see if Jet needs any help after his mother’s passing.
I think we have to at least hear him out. ”
“Then he can damn well tell me what he wants before I tell Jet about it. Period. You tell him that. If he isn’t willing to talk to me first, it’ll be a lot harder for him to talk to Jet.”
“Understood. I’ll get back to him and let you know what I find out.”
“Thanks.” He hung up and stashed the phone back in his pocket, all sense of ease having fled.
After a few minutes had passed, he heard Steven moving books around in the front and squared his shoulders to go back out.
Steven glanced up at his reappearance with a smile. “Hey there. Everything all right?”
Myles shrugged. “It’s fine. More waiting.” He waved a hand. “It’s nothing. Don’t do that. I’ll clean up my own mess.” He’d reached for a pile of the cookbooks, but Steven grabbed his hand and pulled him over.
“I know you won’t leave my store looking like a hurricane went through. Tell me about the other mess.”
“It’s nothing.” He didn’t need to tell Steven his problems. He couldn’t help or do anything more about it than Myles could, so what was the point? And letting the nearness of the man ease his worries wasn’t any better than reaching for a bottle.
Was it?
But Steven didn’t let go of his hand. “You have to go talk about it in another room, and while I didn’t listen in on what you said, you did say it with some venom. Talk to me.”
“You can’t do anything about it. Hell. I can’t do anything about it right now.”
“So what? Why carry it alone?”
Myles extracted himself. “Because it isn’t any of your business.” He grabbed up a pile of books and wheeled to take them back to the closet he’d originally liberated them from.
He’d only taken two steps when the music from the speakers overhead blared, then crackled out with the fizzle of speakers, and the light flashed off, leaving them in dimness and silence.
Steven scuttled around the table and blocked his passage.
“A month ago, I probably would have let you get away with that,” he said, so mildly it made Myles bristle.
He knew what steel lay under Steven’s mild exterior.
“But we’re beyond that now. You don’t have to tell me what’s going on.
Obviously, if you want your privacy, you get it.
But I won’t let you talk to me like that, and I don’t need my house to point it out. ”
The lights flickered again, then went back to dim.
Steven glanced up. “Though I do appreciate that you have my back.”
Of course, the lights came up full. The music stayed off, and at the back of the room, a door closed with conviction. Probably the closet Myles had been half intending to put the armload of books in.
Instead, he set the books down. “You’re absolutely right. I’m sorry.”
“And so are you. Right, I mean. It’s not my business, and you don’t have to tell me.”
Myles drew in a deep breath. He expected it to snag somewhere on the tangled emotions in his chest, but when Steven took both his hands, it didn’t. It filled his lungs, and when he let it go, some of the emotions went with it. “You could make it so much easier.”
“Then why don’t you let me?”
“We’ve talked about this. I have to do these things by myself.”
“What things? Wait and worry?”
“Untangle the shit in my head. You make it easy to just let it all go.”
“And what’s wrong with letting it go?”
“I need to—I can’t—” He huffed. “I don’t know. It’s part of me. I let it go, and what’s left?”
“Still you,” Steven assured him. “I promise.” He leaned against Myles, letting Myles take his weight, like he knew being able to support someone, even if just physically, just for a moment, let him feel like he was doing something.
Myles wrapped both arms around his shoulders. “There’s been this tangle inside me for so long.”
“You don’t know who you are without it.”
“Something like that.”
“Trust me, I know what that’s like. I was wearing this house around my neck like an anchor. Letting it drag me under. It took you falling apart being a bigger deal than it falling apart to make me see what was going on.”
Myles snorted. “Gee. So glad I could help.”
“You do, actually.” Steven planted both palms against his chest and pushed back so they could look at each other. “And sorry I characterized it like that, but—”
Myles kissed his forehead. “Don’t be. That was a brutal day.”
“I hope you know you can have those and it won’t change how I feel about you.”
“I know.”
“Do you? Really? Do you know I can hold shit together some days so you don’t have to? I get the feeling you’re much more used to being the rescuer than the rescuee.”
“I’d say that was bullshit, but there are too many people around here who might call my bluff.”
“I suspect so, yes.” Steven sighed and leaned back in, for which Myles was grateful.
Holding him let all the unease flow around them and away without stopping to burden Steven down. It just let Myles feel like he was doing something other than fretting or abdicating.
“You know,” Steven said, voice suspiciously conversational, “all those people you mentioned. They’re here for you, too.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“As I understand it, you actually took the big step and asked them to help. Now you’re here, have been all summer, and yet you kind of still don’t let them do much for you without making it a big deal.”
“Eventually, I am going to have to go back to looking after those kids by myself.”
Steven grunted and pushed away again, this time right out of Myles’s arms and a few steps away. He busied himself straightening the precarious piles of cookbooks as he spoke. “If you say so, I guess.”
“Calgary is a long way away, Steven. Not much anyone can do across half the country.”
“All true.” He straightened and faced Myles. “I’m going to let you get back to your inventory. I have a few calls to make. You good?”
Myles stifled a frown but nodded. “Yeah. I am. Thanks.”
“Good.” Abruptly, Steven spun and headed for the front counter, where he fished out what looked like a small address book. “I’ll just be back in Dad’s office if you need anything. “
“Sure.” Myles took his seat on the couch and pulled his TV tray back where he could reach the tablet. When he glanced back up, Steven was gone.
It took a long time for the music to come back on, and when it did, it offered only a steady stream of the most twangy of country music. The noise slowly got on every last one of Myles’s nerves.
Stubbornly, he did not address the house or its choice of music. Another opinion was the last thing he needed.