Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 69004 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69004 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
“I don’t want to talk about that but since it’s my job, I would say I don’t have a choice. How’s the book coming?” he asked, and Oliver told him. He’d written like crazy recently so he filled Matt in on all the antics his characters were up to.
They talked and laughed about everything and anything as the water began to get cold. This had always been what Oliver wanted with Matt. The everyday intimacy of a relationship but then, that wasn’t what they had here. It was what Matt just said—camouflage.
“I’m exhausted,” Matt finally told him. “I think I need to hit the sack. Thank you…for today. You might not know it, but you being there made today a whole lot easier.”
Those words were meant to soothe but all they did was grind up Oliver’s heart. If he meant so goddamned much to Matt, why were they playing this game? Why couldn’t they make it something real?
“That’s what I’m here for,” Oliver told him, trying to tamp down the bitterness in his voice.
Matt didn’t seem to notice. He got out of the bath, grabbed a towel from the rack, wrapped it around himself and then grabbed another for Oliver.
“Are you staying in there all night?” Matt asked, and Oliver felt like he had another mask in place. As though he was going to pretend today hadn’t bothered him.
Oliver let the water out, stood and took the towel. He dried himself off before grabbing a pair of underwear from his drawer. He watched Matt, curious what he would do.
Once dry he put the towel into the hamper and then walked over to Oliver’s bed and climbed inside.
A slow burn started in Ollie’s gut—part want and part bitterness that he didn’t understand. He tried to push those feelings aside, ignore them. To live in the moment. That was what he’d told himself he was doing all along with Matt, but the anger was there, building in a way he probably should have known would happen. Why couldn’t Matt see what they could be together, what maybe they already were?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Matt couldn’t sleep.
There had been a gentle difference, a switch in Oliver tonight that played heavily on his mind.
He doubted he would have been able to rest even if it hadn’t been for that because he’d felt the shift inside of himself as well. The evolution of what they were, and that scared him to death.
He didn’t have to be in this bed right now.
And even if he was, it didn’t have to mean something big…something real but then when it came to himself and Oliver, had he really ever expected something different? Had just a light, hookup ever been a possibility between them?
He’d known that even when he was a teenager, which was the exact reason he’d never let himself touch Oliver, and now it was too late.
Matt slowly eased out of the bed. He looked down, and Oliver didn’t move. His breathing was even and steady as he slept.
They’d gone to bed with the bathroom door cracked and the light on. The faint glow allowed him to see Oliver’s soft features. People said that about Matt, but there was a hardness in him Ollie could never have. He hadn’t lived a particularly hard life. He knew that. There hadn’t been any major traumas that happened to him, yet he didn’t know how to see the world the way Oliver did. Didn’t know how to love it…didn’t know how to love himself.
Matt turned and slipped out of the room, closing the door quietly behind him. He made a quick stop to the spare bedroom where he pulled on a pair of sweats that hung low on his slender hips before padding his way down Oliver’s stairs.
He needed to play.
Music and Oliver had always been the only two things that centered him.
Matt made his way to the piano, the one he’d played all those years ago in Oliver’s house. He turned on the floor lamp that stood beside it before he pulled out the bench and sat down.
It was automatic, the calm that started to come over him as his fingers danced across the keys he loved so much. They became an extension of him, of his hand as he gave in to the emotion inside him he released when he played.
He played for the young boy he used to be who wanted nothing more than this, and who’d tried to force himself to believe he could have it.
He played for Oliver who had always had more faith in him than he had in himself.
He played for his parents who did their best to give him music, even when they couldn’t afford it, even when they looked at him and saw no traces of themselves.
He played until his heart bled through his fingers. Until his eyes clouded with unshed tears.