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  “Say again?” Dylan was stunned into confusion.

  “If you want to fool around with my boyfriend while I’m out of town, you have my permission,” Heath spoke more plainly. “He told me you already said no, but minds and opportunities change. I don’t want to hear about it or anything. I expect the usual rules to be followed. You know what those are, since you were with Jordan.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “He missed you too, the last couple weeks.”

  “I know.”

  “Don’t disappoint me,” Heath added. He turned back to the elevator, stabbing his finger at the button. The doors clunked open and he stepped inside, disappearing back up to the penthouse.

  “Who was that?” Travis looked up from Dylan’s computer screen as he entered the living room again. “You were talking for a while.”

  “Heath, wondering why I wasn’t at his party,” Dylan answered. He sank onto the couch on Travis’s other side.

  “Gibson?” Garret leaned forward looking at him. “I was just a wall away from Heath Gibson.”

  Dylan laughed. “He said he’d tell Jack to text me when Tyler left. We can go up and say hello to the rest of them later.”

  “Can we?” Garret’s eyes sparkled. He was cute. Shorter and thinner than Travis. They complimented each other visually, and seemed comfortable.

  “Hold your horses,” Travis chided. “We came over here to help Dylan set up a website, not be groupies for some band.”

  “You came over for the website,” Garret corrected. “I came over to vet the guy who has been texting you daily to make sure you weren’t cheating on me.”

  “Never,” Travis assured him. “Besides, did I not tell you the story about throwing up on him? We’re not sleeping together.”

  Garret hummed, reaching up to tug on Travis’s ear. “I know. I still like to check. Pretending that I have to worry about that kind of thing adds spark.”

  “You’re ridiculous,” Travis leaned over, pressing a kiss to his cheek. Then he slid the laptop back over to Dylan. “I put together some pros and cons on each of the platforms I’m suggesting.”

  “Have you considered how you want to draw it? Structure wise,” Garret asked.

  “I want to do a wordless comic that you can read along with the music. About twenty-five or thirty pages? I don’t have anything planned out yet. I’ve never done a multi-page comic before. They’re usually just quick one-offs. Does that sound gimmicky?”

  “No, I think that sounds romantic,” Garret sighed, leaning back into the couch cushions. He straightened a moment later, swatting Travis in the chest. “Why can’t you be a romantic?”

  “Asking you to marry me in binary wasn’t romantic?”

  “No. I’m not a nerd. It took me an hour to get all the ones and zeros typed into Google, you schmuck.”

  Dylan laughed. “That sounds horrible. I’m glad you threw up on me. I’m not sure I could live with the knowledge of having been with such a geek. Even if only for one night.”

  “Did you decide on a title?” Travis swiftly changed the subject.

  “Are you going to sue if I use For Your Eyes Only?”

  “No,” Travis grinned, “it’s a great title.”

  Chapter Nine

  “Dylan? Are you in there?” Jack knocked on the office door. It had been two weeks since Heath had left. It was a crisp but sunny Saturday at the end of September. The leaves were beginning to change color. Where there were trees to do such a thing.

  “What?” Dylan opened the door. He reached up, removing the blue-blocker glasses from his face. The worst part about digital art was staring at the damn screen for hours. “It’s not even noon.”

  “I know you’re busy with your secret project, or whatever, but I’m going over to Kyle’s studio to help him with some shipping. We’re going out to dinner with Markus and Jordan afterward. Do you want to join us?”

  Dylan’s head went immediately to the project. He was making great progress. He’d outlined the entire thing, leaving just the end up in the air for a final response. He had three pages finished, four more sketched out, and two that just needed coloring. He was using a water-color type of technique that looked nice on the soft-realistic style he was using. He thought it was still incredibly obvious who each of the characters he drew were in relation to the real people in his life. He tried to be vague about their other friends; focusing on him and Tyler.

  Travis had set up the website with a front end “Coming Soon”. Dylan was posting each page in order as he finished them. He was simultaneously listing the prints as purchasable in the shop. When he was done, he was planning on contacting Pick, and some of the bloggers who had made noise about the album. What they did with the information would be up to them, but it was a start.

  He had considered dropping a page a day, but that would have taken too long. Instead, he was going to release it all at the same time, with a link to the TuneTable album. The first page he uploaded had a disclaimer that the songs belonged to Tyler Norse, but the experiences held within belonged to them both. There wasn’t any hiding.

  “If you’re busy, it’s fine,” Jack’s voice brought him back to the present. “I know what you’re working on is important to you.”

  “It is,” Dylan agreed, “but I’ve got to eat, right? What time?”

  “Five? Sakura Sushi. Its where Thai Palace used to be.”

  “That sounds great. I’ll see you at five.”

  “I’ll text you if we’re going to be later than that.”

  “I’ll set an alarm on my phone so I don’t get distracted,” Dylan promised.

  “Remember to get up and walk around a bit? Drink some water.” Jack pressed. “You’ve been in there since you got home from school last night.”

  “I know,” Dylan nodded. “I’m going to take a break in a few minutes and take a nap.”

  “You need anything before I go?”

  “Nope.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yeah. Go help Kyle with his thing.” Dylan waved him off.

  He closed the door again, and went back to the computer. He’d bought a small extending table to lay his notes out on to refer to while he worked. He’d found the lyrics online to refer to as well.

  He picked up his phone to set an alarm for that evening. While he was at it, he set one to remember to eat lunch as well. He stretched, saving the piece he’d been working on, and pushed back from the chair again. He crossed the hallway to his bedroom.

  He had crawled into bed for a nap when his phone rang. Brit’s picture lit up the screen.

  “Hey,” he answered. “What’s up?”

  “I just wanted to check in on you.” He detected notes of annoyance. “You’ve been taking forever to respond to my texts. I hardly got to see you at all for your birthday.”

  “My birthday was,” he paused, choosing his words carefully, “an emotionally charged evening.” He winced. “I’ve been a shitty friend, haven’t I?”

  “I’ll say. Adam says hello. If I’d known you were going to ditch me, I would have told him to come with me to New York. I thought it was too soon for a weekend trip.” She made a huffy noise. “Dylan, can I ask you a question?”

  “You can ask me anything, Brit. You know that. Is this about Adam?”

  “No, this is about you. I’ve been talking to Jack lately, and some of our other friends.”

  “Is this an intervention? You’re supposed to do those in a group.”

  “Dylan, please be serious.”

  Dylan frowned. He set the phone down, adjusting in bed to sit up against his pillows. He took a deep breath before picking up the phone again. “Okay. I’m serious.”

  “I’m worried about you. You’ve been very erratic lately. You seemed to be doing really great, getting to know Jordan. Becoming friends with him was good for you. Then the EP dropped. You seemed good when you came to visit me. Jack says you’ve been withdrawn again since you came back. You want to fill me in on what happened on your birthday
? You tried to pretend like everything was fine when we did lunch that Saturday.”

  “Brit, I don’t know what you want to hear.”

  “It’s not about what I want to hear, Dylan. I need to know that you’re okay. So, start with your birthday. You were at the Rose?”

  “Yeah, I was at the Rose,” he explained. He walked her through the entire evening; buying the non-alcoholic beer, the drugs, Benjamin. Listening to the encore and the feelings it had brought up. Benjamin slipping him the GHB to knock him out.

  “Why did he even have that?” Brit gasped.

  “I think a lot of the security guys have it,” Dylan admitted. “They have prescriptions. It is a legitimate sleep aid, you know.”

  “Right. So, he drugged you and then what?” She prompted.

  Dylan hesitated. “I did something I shouldn’t have.”

  “What?”

  “I took advantage of him.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  Dylan explained the issue with the phone, the barter, and Benjamin getting reassigned.

  “Dylan, you seem to be swinging really wildly,” Britannia’s tone was even. “If I do the research, would you consider talking to someone? I’d feel better knowing you were talking to a professional.”

  “I don’t want to talk to anyone, Brit.”

  “Dylan, I’m worried that you’re depressed. Or, with your fluctuating emotions, what if you’re bipolar? Jack says you’re getting fixated on this new comic project. I think that’s a sign.”

  “Is that the word he used? Fixated?” Dylan repeated.

  “Are you saying you’re not?”

  “I have a routine,” he explained. “A lot of my free time has been taken up by this project, but I’m still taking care of my responsibilities.”

  “That isn’t a no.”

  “Why is it bad that I want to work on this thing?” Dylan argued.

  “It’s not! If you’re doing it for you, because you want to, and not because you feel a compulsion to do it.”

  “I’m not crazy!”

  “I didn’t say you were crazy! I said I’d like you to talk to someone about what’s going on in your life. You slept with a guy who drugged you and was supposed to be protecting you, for a phone number! You have to know how ridiculous that sounds.”

  “Brit, I’m fine. What I did to Benjamin was bullshit. I feel awful about it. This project I’m working on isn’t about him. Or Jordan. It’s about Tyler and figuring out how I feel about him.”

  “And?”

  “And,” he sighed, squeezing his eyes closed, “I love him and I miss him.”

  “Then why don’t you just tell him that?”

  “The more I work on this project, the more obvious it is to me that even with those feelings, it’s not a good idea. To try again.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s hard to explain.” Dylan’s eyes flew open. “Brit, you’re right. I’m so hyper-focused on this play-by-play response when I could summarize that night on a single page and end it now.”

  “Don’t do something drastic—”

  “It’s not drastic,” he chided. “I have to go Brit. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Dylan, I’m goin—” Dylan hung up before he heard the rest of her sentence. He pulled himself back out of bed, suddenly re-energized, to go back to his computer.

  Chapter Ten

  “You look upset,” Jordan spoke as he and Dylan sat down at the former Thai Palace –now Sakura Sushi. “How was your day?”

  “I decided to scrap the entire project I’ve been working on the last two weeks to summarize it into a single page. I almost texted to cancel, but Jack is sick of me not doing things, so I came anyway.”

  “What was the project? If I can ask.”

  “A response to Tyler.” Dylan looked down at the glass of water in front of him. “

  “Oh,” Jordan sounded surprised. “That’s great. Isn’t it?”

  “It isn’t what you think,” Dylan shook his head. “At first, it probably was, but today I decided it wasn’t.”

  Jordan frowned. “I don’t know what to think.”

  “Where are the others?” Dylan asked, deftly changing the subject. “You don’t like sushi.”

  “They’re coming. They were waiting for a package pick-up.”

  Dylan nodded. “You didn’t wait with them?”

  “I didn’t want you to get here and be alone.”

  “That was sweet of you. You could have just texted to let me know you’d be late.”

  “Do you not want to be alone with me?” Jordan’s brows furrowed. “I know we haven’t hung out recently, but we’re still friends, aren’t we?”

  “Yes, we are. I’ve never been invited to one of your polycule dates though,” Dylan replied. “You only told me about them.”

  “I wanted to spend time with you,” Jordan responded. “I didn’t want to share you.”

  Dylan leaned forward. “I know I said that we shouldn’t see each other anymore, as more than friends. But I changed my mind.”

  “Did you now?” Jordan let a lazy, unbelieving, smile cross his face.

  “If you’re not interested, I get it.”

  “Is this a sex thing?” Jordan raised an eyebrow.

  “No. It’s a I-want-someone-close-to-me thing,” Dylan explained. “Like, that night I came back with the car? You offered to spoon. I need that.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because the only other person I’d even consider is on my parent’s payroll. I’m ninety percent certain he’s been banished to monitor room duties.”

  “You had sex with someone on the security team?” It was the first time Jordan was hearing about it.

  “His name is Benjamin. He lives in an incredibly shitty apartment in the Village with a giant cat. He took a bottle of non-alcoholic beer away from me, trashed two hundred dollars’ worth of ecstasy.” He didn’t think he had to bring up the rest of the night’s drama.

  “How romantic.”

  “You think I’m crazy.”

  “I’m sure that whatever happened was a valid response to the evening,” Jordan picked up on the unspoken.

  “He didn’t take me back to his apartment to sleep with me. He drugged me so I’d fall asleep. I’m fairly certain it was done with good intentions.”

  Jordan chuckled nervously. “Dude takes you home, drugs you, and you still fucked him?”

  “You look disappointed in me.”

  “I’m worried about you,” Jordan confessed.

  “I’m perfectly fine.”

  Jordan paused, pulling out his phone. Dylan watched him tap the screen a few times with his thumbs before he stood back up from the table. “Let’s go.”

  “Go? What about dinner?”

  “I don’t like sushi. You could care less about eating with the guys. Let’s go grab some food truck tacos, go back to your place, and talk.”

  “I don’t want you to miss your date night.”

  “It’s not a date. It’s dinner. I didn’t have plans with them afterwards. I’m all yours.” He held out a hand. “I already told them we were leaving.”

  Dylan hesitated for a second before taking his hand and letting him pull him back out of the chair. “I feel weird leaving a restaurant we just got to.”

  “We didn’t order anything. It’s fine.” Jordan led him out of the restaurant. He slid his fingers between Dylan’s as they walked down the street together.

  “Why are you doing this?” Dylan lagged behind him.

  “I want to be there for you. Even if you don’t want me to be.”

  “What gives you the idea that I wouldn’t want you to be?”

  “You’ve been avoiding me.” Jordan tugged him closer. “Should we take a rideshare, or the train?”

  “I can handle the train,” Dylan told him. “I take it every day to and from school now, you know.”

  “My little rich boy is learning to live on his own. I’m so proud.” Jordan pulled him
to the side of the street. His hands cupped Dylan’s cheeks, lifting his chin. “I missed you.” He pressed their lips together. It was brief at first, but then deeper. Dylan felt an odd spark in his chest. The spark that had been missing when they’d slept together?

  “You asshole.” A hand slapped Jordan’s shoulder. “You’re ditching us to make out with Montgomery?”

  “Ah, fuck, Markus!” Jordan flinched. Dylan shrank backwards as the other two men caught up to them. “I didn’t know you guys were so close.”

  “What’s going on? Is that what you were doing?” Kyle asked.

  “No! We...fuck. I don’t know.”

  “We weren’t,” Dylan assured him. “We were waiting at the restaurant. I said something I shouldn’t have.” He looked up at Jordan. “I have to stop at the print shop before I go home. You should stay and have dinner with them.”

  “Dylan, he’s joking,” Jordan said. “It was just a kiss. We’re allowed—”

  “Right. You’re allowed,” Dylan acknowledged. “I gotta go.” He pushed past him, striding quickly down the street.

  “Shit. He can book it.” Markus slid an arm over Jack’s shoulders. “What’s up with him?”

  “I don’t know. I need to make sure he gets home though.” Jack pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Bring me home a TNT Roll and a Spicy Tuna?”

  “Let me.” Jordan stepped in front of Jack. “Please? You all like the sushi place, and I don’t.” He turned to Kyle. “We were going to grab tacos and talk. That’s it.”

  “I believe you. Go on.” Kyle waved him off. “Text us when you get to the apartment.”

  “I love you.” Jordan kissed him firmly before turning to follow in Dylan’s wake.

  He caught up to him at the train platform. He sighed, tugging on Dylan’s sleeve.

  “You’re very fast.” He took several deep breaths. “What about the print shop?”

  “It’s the one around the corner from the apartment. It wasn’t a lie.” Dylan didn’t inform him it was only a half-truth. He had e-mailed over the file for printing. It would be ready by the time they passed by, but picking it up wasn’t pressing.