Road To Romance: A First Time Gay Enemies To Lovers Romance Read online

  It was almost my birthday. Today, it was the anniversary of my dad’s death.

  Logically, I knew an anniversary didn’t matter. Logically, I knew that my dad wasn’t any more dead today than he had been yesterday or would be tomorrow. An anniversary shouldn’t have any sort of hold over me.

  But still—the anger burned beneath my skin, and I let it. If I fought against the rage, I knew the only thing I would do was guarantee the release of the grief.

  I dried the dishes and escaped back to my bedroom before Nick or Macy could try to convince me to stay with them. I wanted to burrow under the covers and feel the anger and fight the grief, and tomorrow, I wanted to go to work and make Max Stephens regret every time he’d crossed me.

  I shucked off my work clothes, carefully hanging up the slacks and jacket so they wouldn’t crease. I pulled on a pair of old, worn sweatpants and threw myself on the bed. I grabbed my phone from where it was charging on the nightstand and sighed. Two missed calls from Grandma.

  A flash of hot guilt swam through me. As hard as today was for me, I knew it was worse for Grandma and Grandpa. My mom had died when I was just a baby, some drunk who’d crashed into her. Dead on the spot.

  When Dad followed her a few short years later, it was his parents who picked up the pieces—picked me up.

  I called her and listened to the slow ringing, chewing on my bottom lip. I let it go with a pop when the phone went quiet, followed by Grandma’s quiet, unsure “Hello?”

  Talking to my grandmother, the woman who’d raised me, was an experience of contrasting urges. The urge to fall to her feet, thank her, give her anything she wanted was on the surface—that was the one I tended to indulge. She was a good, honest woman, the most formative person I’d ever met. I hoped every day that my life honored her, even when I knew there was no way I could ever repay her for taking care of me.

  But the other part of me—the quiet, hidden, selfish part—wanted to run and hide. Talking to her or Grandpa curled into my stomach all wrong, made me feel a little sick. Not because I didn’t love them, but because I did—because I knew that with a single wrong word, a single accident, everything they wanted me to be would disappear in an instant.

  I was barely moving up in the company, after they’d worked so hard to get me into a good college, and I knew how much it would mean to them to see me succeed. I hardly ever made it over to the house for Sunday dinners anymore, even when I knew Grandma was already disappointed that I didn't come to church anymore. And I wasn’t settling down with anyone and starting a family.

  I couldn’t tell them why I couldn’t do these things—I couldn’t tell them who I really was, couldn’t risk it.

  I blew out a breath and shakily said, “Hey, Grandma.”

  The quiet was gone in a half-breath. “Oh, Lucas! Luke, I was so sure I’d missed you when you didn’t answer. Your grandfather, oh—Bill! Bill, get in here. No—no, I said GET in here, Bill! It’s Lucas—LUCAS, Bill, your grandson—oh, Lucas, Luke?”

  “Uh, yes?”

  “Oh, good. Grandpa wants to say hello.”

  I nodded and then rolled my eyes at myself. “Okay, Grandma.”

  “Well, if he ever gets in here,” she grumbled. I could see the pinch between her brows and the way she’d tap her foot impatiently on the kitchen linoleum as she waited for Grandpa to come in from the living room. After his hip replacement last spring, he moved just slowly enough to ignore his wife of fifty years.

  “How are you, Grandma?”

  She sighed heavily. “I’m good, sweetie. Don’t you worry about me.”

  Fat chance, I thought. “Okay. Tell me about the ladies at Daniella’s. And your church groups?”

  Grandma didn’t hesitate this time, going on about the various ladies and what those ladies were doing, and their kids and grandkids, and did I know that Melanie Anderson, oh, I remembered her from Sunday school, didn’t I?

  Well, did I know that Melanie was single now—divorced, bless her, but single, nonetheless, and if I wanted, Grandma would pass along to Melanie’s grandma that I, too, was single.

  Grandpa finally got fed up listening and snatched the phone from her. I nearly thanked him.

  “Lord, woman, let the child breathe,” he snapped at her, the sound barely muffled as he directed it away from the receiver. “Lucas.”

  “Grandpa.”

  Grandpa was a man of very few words. My dad had been more like Grandma, from what I remembered. I was always closer to her for it. But Grandpa—there were some moments when he was the only one I could talk to.

  Or, as it was lucky, not talk to. We sat quietly, the phone as heavy as our breathing as we waited for the other one to break.

  As usual, it wasn’t either of us that did it. Grandma hissed from the other side, Bill, say something! And then Grandpa sighed and asked, “You doin’ okay?”

  “Yes,” I said quickly, nodding. I didn’t stop even after I remembered he wouldn’t be able to see me. “Yes, I’m doing great.”

  “Good,” he said gruffly.

  We waited a half of a beat and then, “How about you, Grandpa?”

  “Oh, I’m good, boy. No thinking about me.”

  I told him a bit about work, and he invited me fishing, the same as we did every time we spoke. I hung up before he could give the phone back to Grandma and she could keep me talking another hour.

  When I plugged my phone back in, I could still hear Nick and Macy shuffling in the living room, the TV playing some reality show that they always watched together. It was hardly late enough to be ready for sleep, but I still got ready for bed anyway.

  There was a billowing sadness in my chest that I ignored. It was heavy, a low-hanging weight that promised a more sinister fall, but I pushed it down until holding it was exhausting enough that I fell asleep.

  — — — —

  The next morning came much too quickly. My alarm—a blaring, angry, seven a.m. wake-up call—startled me awake, my hands flying in a sleepy, uncoordinated effort to slap it quiet. I normally woke up ten full minutes before my alarm, but even with the extra bit of sleep, and having gone to bed early last night, my head felt groggy and my limbs ached from exhaustion.

  I wanted to go back to bed, burrow under the covers and sleep until my head stopped ringing. But sleeping in wasn’t an option—people who slept in were people who were late to work, and people who were late to work weren’t the people who got promotions.

  I needed that promotion—I needed to get the hell out of bed.

  By the time I rolled out, it was seven-fifteen. Nick was already in the shower, and I knew from experience that there would be nothing but ice-cold water left—that was why I always woke up at six, to beat him to the punch. We were out of milk for the coffee, and I spilled the last cup of black coffee all over myself, ruining the light-gray pants and blue button-up I was wearing.

  I made it to work with five minutes to spare, but I was unwashed, hungry, and wearing casual jeans on a friggin’ Tuesday.

  Then, right when I thought the day couldn’t get worse, I stumbled into Max.

  Literally, crashing into the guy. On instinct, I reached out, grasping onto him to keep myself upright.

  His hands clenched, one around my upper arm, the other around my waist. He steadied me, eyebrows rising as he gave me a quick once-over.

  I froze, not even managing to glare. Instead, I just blinked at him in surprise.

  His eyebrows fell and his lips twitched. “Luke.”

  His voice, like nails on a chalkboard, woke me right up. I wrenched away, feeling my face flood with embarrassment when I realized that my own hands had been knotted up in his shirt. “Max.”

  He held up his hands in mock surrender. “Whoa, watch the venom there. You know, you fell into me.”

  I glared at him and clicked the elevator button again. Or maybe for the first time. I had to start getting up earlier—I couldn’t stand it if Max and I kept having to ride the elevator together.

  Already it
was two days in a row. I was being punished.

  “Just—get out of my way,” I muttered.

  Max rolled his eyes. He did it obnoxiously, slowly, as if he was trying to make sure I’d catch it from the corner of my eye. I gritted my teeth to keep from saying something—didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

  “Wait a second, are you wearing denim jeans at work right now?”

  The elevator pulled up, the doors opening. He jumped in front of me, slowly backing up into the elevator to give me a wide grin. “Oh my god, you are wearing jeans.”

  Even though it was infuriating, I could feel my cheeks heat up by him pointing it out. I stepped into the elevator and jabbed the floor button hard.

  Max kept talking like I hadn’t been ignoring him for five years. “This is so exciting. Best-Dressed Wilson is slumming it like the rest of us mortals today. And he was late yesterday.”

  Max started laughing, a delighted peal that made my skin itch. I tapped my foot against the rising floor, counting to ten over and over again as I tried not to say anything unnecessarily rude—not that anything was really unnecessary where Max was concerned. It was all well-deserved.

  The doors opened, and I launched forward.

  Max’s arm flew out and curled around my elbow, holding me still. I spun around to him. He was still grinning, face bright and eyes laughing at me.

  “Sure hope no one reports you for that.” He patted me on the elbow before letting go, winking. I yanked my arm away and glared at him, feeling my face heat up.

  I guess I deserve that.

  He strolled past me, whistling as he went toward his desk.

  I watched him go, a fleeting sense of envy bubbling up in my stomach. God, I could practically taste how easy life must be for Max—how simple and casual and calm it must be to be a guy like that, without a care or worry in the world. Life was a breeze for him.

  I slowly stepped off of the elevator and walked to my desk, letting the bruising jealousy ease out with every step. I might not have as easy a life as Max, but I was not going to let that stop me.

  I was going to have just as good a life as Max Stephens, even if it killed me.

  3

  Max

  The week passed with surprising quickness. I liked my job, always had, but working lower on the totem pole than I thought I was cut out for, doing work less fulfilling than I wanted, had me tired and bored most days. I understood that I had to pay my dues, but god, it was frustrating.

  But this week hadn’t been half as slow as usual.

  It was a stroke of luck that Andy from marketing came down with the stomach flu and I ended up with the Heysman account. I normally did more fact-checking: mind-numbing, not-worth-100k-tuition kind of work. But working in marketing, with the designers and the actual creative teams, was almost as invigorating as I remembered it sounding in college.

  For once, I showed up to work before eight a.m. and didn’t leave until well past six in the evening. My head hurt half the day from squinting at the computer screen, and my apartment definitely looked like someone who didn’t give a fuck about laundry lived there, but at least I was finally doing work that didn’t make me feel brain dead. That had to count for something.

  Despite that, by Friday I was one more note from design away from pulling my teeth out, bare hands and all. There was probably more coffee in my stomach than guts and, thank god, I was about ready to shoot the account to the higher ups.

  I leaned away from my desk, rolling my neck as I stretched in my chair. A low groan fell from my throat, the kinks in neck loosening only slightly.

  Sharon laughed, breaking into my self-pitying stretching. I cracked an eye open and glanced at her. “Something to say?”

  She lifted her hands immediately. “Hey, I didn’t say anything.”

  I popped my back. “Fuck off, Sharon.”

  With the open-concept office, everyone in our department heard me.

  There were twelve of us out here; the cubicles were shaped like a small square. Six of the desks were on the outside, six on the inside. There was a small walkway for those of us in the middle, or as I had dubbed it a few months back, the Quad.

  Most of us loved the nickname. I'd give out one guess who hated it the most vocally.

  I thanked the god of office planners every day that Luke was on the outside of The Quad. At least now his annoyed remarks were somewhat muffled, and my laughter was softened by the cubicle walls.

  A few chuckles filled the space, Sharon rolling her eyes at me even as she laughed. A couple of the guys, Josh and Kenny, glanced up with bored expressions. I heard Luke’s scoff even through the divide of the cubicles separating us.

  “Hey, kid.” Kenny was only three years older than me. My teeth gnashed, even as I forced a smile onto my face. "You enjoying that new account?"

  My smile widened. "Yeah, hundo-p."

  Luke groaned. I heard the soft sound of his head hitting his keyboard. A familiar sound, for sure, followed by an even more familiar, “You’re the worst."

  Kenny and I exchanged a look, punctuated by rolling my eyes and his wide grin. I considered the pros and cons of pulling Luke's leg some more, but I knew he was also asking for the Heymans account, and despite how little he thought of me, I didn't want to be a complete dick to the guy.

  The rest of the day passed quickly. I barely noticed the way my hands were cramping and my spine was curling until I looked up and it was past seven o’clock. I cursed, quickly saving all the files I was working on, and waved a quick goodbye to the few people left. Even Luke was already gone, though I had heard him grumbling while trying to find something else to do to stick around until I left. I knew it grated on him that I’d gotten the account rather than him.

  I had a few text messages from Brent, a buddy I tried to see once a month, but I could feel my heavy eyes and exhaustion clawing at me already. I sent off a quick-fire apology and promised to buy rounds next time.

  He sent me back a string of annoyed emojis, but followed it with a “NP, I get it” message that eased, at the very least, the tension of feeling like a bad friend.

  I stopped at a burger joint on my walk to the apartment, picking up an admittedly too-greasy meal, and managed to make it into my bed, sans clothes and with a huge pile of french fries, by eight o’clock. With a sigh, I happily started to munch on the food when my phone buzzed.

  A jolt of fear that it was work went through me. I was tired, dammit.

  It was Stella’s name on the screen, though. I grinned, shoving a fistful of fries into my mouth and answered it with a garbled, “Hello?”

  I heard her groan as clearly as if she was sitting across from me. I could practically see her scrunched-up nose. “Maxwell, you are disgusting.”

  “You know that’s not my name,” I reminded her.

  She made a sound that was the verbal equivalent of waving her hand in the air. “As if that matters.”

  I laughed and took a long pull from the soda on my nightstand. “So,” I said, settling against the pillows. “How’s London?”

  Stella started to prattle about her last few weeks—it had been almost three since she left, and already I was about to gnash out my teeth. Sure, I had other friends in Seattle, but none of them were Stella. And with me being so busy, even my non-Stella friends were awol from my life. Admittedly, that was my fault, but still.

  “And, anyway,” Stella continued, undeterred by my melancholy hums, knowing full well they were only full of me missing her, “that was when I knew, without a single doubt, that I would never be a true British monarch.”

  “You’d never be a fake one, either.”

  “Never say never, Half-Pint.”

  I laughed. “Okay, fair. Your birthday?”

  “Or Halloween. Lots of ways to fake monarch here.”

  I grinned, rolling my eyes at her. “When will you be back again?”

  Stella sighed. “Not for weeks.”

  “Oh, God. Weeks? It’s already been weeks!”
>
  “I know!” she cried.

  I shoved more fries in my mouth and chewed slowly. I didn’t want to be so obviously upset by this news. “So much could happen in a few weeks.”

  Stella was rolling her eyes—I didn’t see it, but I didn’t have to. “Sure. You could get married, have kids, all before I get my return flight from Heathrow.”

  “I’m just saying,” I grumbled.

  “Listen, I promise not to get married until you come back to Seattle. Scout’s honor!” There was a loud shuffling noise from her side of the line and then a quick, “Oh, damn.”

  “Something wrong?”

  “Sorry, Half-Pint. I have to get going. I’ll see you soon.”

  We hung up after a few more long, gushy goodbyes that both Stell and I were going to pretend didn’t happen. I shot Mom a quick text about our weekly dinner—Sunday night, seven o’clock, I bring the dessert—and tossed my trash into the can across from my bed. The burger wrapper missed and fell to the ground.

  I ignored it, talking to Mom a bit before turning in for the night. I was exhausted, but still knew I was going to miss the assignment when it was over. I fell asleep dreaming about promotions.

  — — — —

  I was halfway through reviewing the notes marketing had sent me, and three-fourths of the way through my Americano, when the phone rang. I reached for it blindly with one hand while the other lifted the coffee cup to my mouth.

  “Stephens,” I said, eyes scanning over the email still pulled up on my computer screen.

  My uncle’s voice cut me off short. “Max, my office.”

  I sat the coffee cup down quickly, frowning. “Hey, I’ve been on time! Early, even.”

  Harris sighed; it was that long, heavy one that curled around me for a week after. I was sure he'd learned it from my mother. “Just. Get up here. You’re giving me a migraine.”

  I threw my hands up in defeat, even though he couldn’t see me. Cradling the phone against my shoulder, I typed out a quick email to the marketing department that I would get on the revisions soon, and then hung up on Harris.

  When I made it up to his office, I froze.