Get What You Need

Dedication

Dedicated to the overworked graduate student of my heart, Scott.

With additional special thanks to Brighton Walsh and Heather McGovern, as well as all of the ladies of Bad Girlz Write and the Capital Region RWA.

Chapter One

“You’re seriously staying in tonight?”

Greg looked up from his computer screen, peering over the rims of his glasses. Ronnie was going through Greg’s closet. Again. With a sigh, Greg shook his head and turned back to the data he’d been trying to make sense of all night. “Yeah. Too much to do.”

One of the peaks on the graph just didn’t make any sense. Biting the inside of his cheek, he reached for the notebook propped up on his desk. He opened it and scowled. Damn it, he was sure he’d brought home those printouts.

“Hey, Ronnie? You didn’t happen to grab my stuff off the printer, did you?” He took another glance up, only to frown even harder at the shirt Ronnie was holding against his chest. “That one? Really?” It was Greg’s favorite.

Ronnie turned, grinning broadly. “I think it’d look good on me. Brings out my skin tone, right?”

He’d made up his mind, then. Greg sighed. “I actually need that one back this time.”

One of these days, he was going to take his own turn rummaging through Ronnie’s closet, only it wouldn’t be to borrow Ronnie’s stuff. He just wanted his own crap back.

Taking that for the assent it was, Ronnie said, “Thanks. You’re the best.”

Ronnie tugged at the hem of the shirt he was wearing, and there was a flash of bare, dark skin. The rise of a hipbone cresting over the waistband of his jeans. Greg looked away before he could take in any more. He worried the corner of his notebook between his fingers and shifted his feet against the base of his chair. The back of his neck felt warm.

Christ, maybe he should go out. If he was looking at his officemate-slash-housemate-slash-best-friend like that, it had
really
been too long since he’d gotten laid. Way, way too long. He huffed out a deep breath and punched the side of his thigh. No. He didn’t have time for that, and one-night stands never worked out for him, anyway. Not that relationships did, either, if his last disaster of a breakup was anything to go by.

No, he was better off here. Alone.

“Whaddaya think?”

The rust color did look good on Ronnie’s complexion. Probably better than it ever had against Greg’s paler one, and it fit him better, too. Greg was a little too broad in the shoulders for it, really. He smiled less than enthusiastically and gave a vague thumbs-up. “Looks like it was made for you.”

“Right?” Ronnie preened in front of the mirror for a minute.

Greg rolled his eyes. “You know, I could take you clothes shopping sometime.” It wasn’t something he offered to do very often. As the resident queer in their department, he didn’t like reinforcing that kind of stereotype. His sense of style wasn’t even all that good, relatively speaking. His mom always told him his engineer genes must have overpowered his gay ones. Really, the only thing he had to recommend him in that area was that he did his laundry about twice as often as Ronnie did.

“Nah, I’m broke. And anyway, this is more fun.” Turning back toward Greg, Ronnie smoothed a hand over his chest. “You sure you don’t want to come with us?”

“Maybe next time.” Grimacing, Greg gestured at all the work spread out across his desk.

“Suit yourself.” Ronnie smacked the top of the doorframe on his way through, then stopped short, twisting to poke his head back in. “Oh! Almost forgot. Your printouts are in my bag.” He jerked a thumb down the hall. “Left it on my desk.”

Oh, thank God. Greg really didn’t have time to run to campus tonight, and he needed to finish crunching these numbers this weekend if he was going to get his proposal for the symposium done on time. “I’d say I owe you, but I did just give you the shirt off my back.”

Ronnie laughed. “Dude, your closet is not your back. You totally still owe me one.” He made the shape of a gun with his hand and pointed it at Greg before cocking it and firing. “You’re slipping.”

There was a little twinge in the base of Greg’s gut. He
was
letting things slip. Too many things. Still, he waved it off. “Whatever. Go. Have fun. Wash my shirt before you give it back.”

“Don’t I always? Don’t answer that.” Ronnie grinned. “See you tomorrow.”

“Sure, sure.” Greg shook his head as the sound of Ronnie thundering down the stairs echoed through the house. He stared after him wistfully for a second, then mentally slapped himself. Next weekend, if the guys from the engineering department went out again, he’d go. He’d definitely be caught up by then. Just to prove it to himself, he pulled up his calendar program, but one glance at all those angry blocks of color had him wincing and X’ing out before he could linger too long.

Maybe
next weekend he’d be free. He just had to work his ass off every minute between now and then. He blew out a deep breath. The house would be quiet tonight, at least. Nodding to himself, he refocused on the numbers and graphs in front of him.

Almost an hour crept by before he reached absently for his notebook again. He blinked. Oh, right. Those graphs he needed were still in Ronnie’s room. His spine made a couple of ominous, creaking cracks as he leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms up over his head. Setting his glasses aside, he dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. They were gritty and dry. Probably time for a break anyway.

He climbed out of his chair and shoved his feet into his shoes, taking a quick glance around as he did. Crap, his room was a mess. Not as bad as the other guys he shared this house with, but still. Not how he liked it. Grimacing at the piles of books and papers everywhere, he at least picked up the couple of plates and mugs he’d accumulated over the past few days.

Arms full of dirty dishes, he picked his way across the room and went out into the hall. Someone had left the light on. Typical. He took the stairs two at a time down to the shared living area. Out of instinct, he peeked his head around the corner. Nobody on the couch. He got to the kitchen to find it deserted, too. He heaved out a sigh. This had been what he’d wanted—a quiet, productive night in with no distractions, but one of the perks of living with a bunch of other grad students was always being able to find somebody to talk to when you needed to unwind for a minute. His shoulders sagged. Oh, well.

He put his dishes down in the sink, hesitating there for a second. Things were piling up on the counter, but no. Not his job this weekend. He grabbed a Coke from the fridge and switched off the light before turning to head back up to his room to slog through a few more hours of data tables and graphs.

Only… No. He shouldn’t. On the threshold between the kitchen and the hallway, he paused, rocking on his heels. He should just go straight upstairs, he shouldn’t stop and…it wasn’t like his housemate, Marsh, was even going to be there or anything. So it wouldn’t do any harm to check real quick. No. Yes. No.

Oh, who was he kidding? His breathing picked up as he diverted from his intended path, down the little hallway and around the corner.

Only to find the last little bedroom tucked under the stairs just as empty as the rest of the house.

Talk about pathetic. His stomach curled just a little with disappointment. It was stupid, really. He leaned against the doorway and rubbed his hand over his face, then cupped the back of his neck. Hell, it was probably a good thing Marsh wasn’t there. Greg didn’t exactly have an excuse to be stopping by. They didn’t have anything in common, and every time Greg had tried to make small talk this past month, he’d crashed and burned. God forbid he actually managed to carry on a real conversation with a hot guy, and worse, one who didn’t speak engineer.

Grumbling to himself, Greg stretched his neck from side to side. It had been a fluke that Marsh had even ended up living there. He was an undergrad, though at least he was a senior. A history major. And a jock. He’d been a last-minute addition to their lease when their other housemate had had to withdraw at the last minute to deal with a family crisis. Facing down the prospect of each having to chip in an extra share of the rent, Greg and the guys had posted an ad on Craigslist, given a little prayer, and the next day, Marshall Sulkowski had shown up with two duffel bags and a rumpled check.

And Greg had been finding reasons to loiter around the entrance to his room ever since.

He popped the top of his soda and took a long gulp of it. Rubbed the back of his wrist over his mouth.

Marsh’s room hadn’t really changed much since he’d moved in. The walls were still mostly bare, the closet open and half empty. The only things that marked it as lived-in at all were the unmade bed, the short stack of books beside it, and the baseball jersey and glove on the dresser.

“You looking for Marsh?”

Greg just about went out of his skin. He caught his Coke before he could drop it and managed not to actually jump as he twisted around to see his other housemate, Jason, standing in the hall.

“Oh. Um. Hey. No.” Could Greg sound any less smooth? He pushed off the wall, fidgeting with the can in his hand as he did. He held it up. “Just needed a caffeine break. Thought I’d see if anyone else was home.”

“Think it’s just you and me.”

Greg took a better look at Jason. He was dressed casually, if not as scrubby as Greg was in his T-shirt and sweats. “Thought you were heading out with Ronnie and the other guys?”

Jason shrugged. “I stopped by but didn’t stay.” He motioned toward the stairs. “Early night for me. Group meeting at eight tomorrow.”

Poor bastard. “That sucks.”

“Tell me about it.” Jason was in one of the largest research groups at the university. It was prestigious, and it would be great for his career when he graduated, but in the meantime it meant putting up with an inattentive advisor and meetings at god-awful hours on Saturdays. He turned and gave a little wave over his shoulder. “Good night.”

“Night.”

Jason headed up the stairs, leaving Greg alone. He took one last glance at Marsh’s room. Nothing like getting caught hovering like that to make a guy feel like a creep. He knocked the side of his fist against the wall, then made his way toward the stairs himself, turning off lights as he went.

One quick stop at Ronnie’s room for his printouts, and then he holed himself up in his own again, the door ajar and loud rock pounding through his headphones. He resettled his glasses on his nose and cracked his knuckles. He looked at all the books strewn out across his desk. This was his life. And that was fine.

And with that he dug back in.

Apparently, he dug in deeply enough that he wasn’t sure if hours or minutes had passed when something rose above the sounds of drums and guitars and the sight of numbers on his screen. At first, he thought he was just hearing part of the bassline, but then he turned the volume down and looked up, and—

“Shit.” He put one hand to his heart while with the other he scrambled to pull his headphones off his ears. “You. Um.”

Because that was Marsh standing at Greg’s door. Marsh, with his sandy hair all mussed to look like sex, his blue eyes and his
arms
. Christ, the veins standing out on his forearms, the thick muscle under golden skin, the bulges of his biceps beneath the rolled-up sleeves of that tight black button-down.

That was
Marsh
standing at his door.

And Greg was cool. He was totally cool as he set his headphones aside and pawed at his glasses to get them off his face, because, no. Marsh did not need to see those. “Um,” Greg said again. “What?”

Marsh flashed an easy grin, just a glimpse of perfect, white teeth between plush lips. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Of course. Yes.” Did Greg not look okay? He ruffled a hand through his hair, then rubbed at his eyes. He gestured futilely at his monitor. “Just. Working.”

He winced at himself. Working at—he glanced at the clock—midnight on a Friday night. Sure, he was cool.

“Yeah?”

There was something to the way Marsh spoke. Something tired. Greg didn’t quite know what to do with that. So he just tilted his head to the side. “Yeah.” And cool or not, Greg should be able to be a little bit smoother than this, but it was midnight on a Friday and he’d been working all night, and Marsh didn’t ever seek Greg out. Greg scrunched up his brow. “Are you… Can I… Did you need something?”