Silver & Black (13 page)

“Fuck!” He screams loudly.

“I’m sorry that Callie broke up with you, I am, but it’s not a way back to me. I have someone else I’m interested in.”
Crap, Silver should be here any minute. I have to get Jeff and his drunken ass out of my apartment.
“You have to go.”

“Go where? Home?” He laughs. “I have no home. No place I want to be….except with you,” he slurs.

“You have a home, Jeff. You’re drunk and you will feel better when you can think straight.”

“Ha, straight…. Yeah, guess I should have been thinking that way all along.” He laughs.

“Jeff, look, you’re going through a lot, I know. And I’m sorry if I caused any of this, but this is something you have to work out in your heart. I can’t help. I’d only complicate everything.” I’m trying anything to get him out. “Maybe you can find another man and see if you’re attracted to him. Then you’ll know.”

“Are you fucking serious?” He charges me and traps me against the wall. “I don’t want another man, Grey. I want you.” He crashes on my lips. I turn my head against his force. Suddenly there is realization in his eyes. “What am I doing? I’m sorry. Grey, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s ok. You should leave though, please Jeff. Just go and forget this, forget me. I don’t want you. I want Silver.” His face went still; his mouth in a straight line of anger.

“He got to you. You’re a fool.” Jeff laughs evilly.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You don’t know him…. Watch yourself. I don’t trust him.”

“And I don’t trust you. Now get the FUCK out of my apartment.” He’s made me mad.
I trust Silver.
He snarls at me and then opens the door. Silver stands there holding a box full of Chinese take-out. He was just about to knock on the door.

Jeff chuckles. “Your man is here. Have a good fucking night. You’ll get what you deserve.”
What the hell does that mean?
He scoots around Silver, who does not look amused.

“Is he threatening you?” Silver is pissed. “You better not be threatening him,” he yells to Jeff as the elevator doors open and he gets in laughing.
Stupid, drunk idiot.

“Just come in. I’ll explain.” I watch Jeff as the elevator doors close. I turn and walk back in the apartment, locking the door behind me.

~Chapter Fourteen~

“Was he threatening you? What the fuck was he doing here, anyway?” Silver is angry and I’m not sure at whom.

“I hope you’re not mad at me. I didn’t invite him over.” My nerves are on edge along with every other part of me.

“No, baby, I’m not mad at you. I just don’t like seeing him with you and then he said that.” He takes my hand. “You look very upset. What can I do to help? Come sit with me. Let me hold you.” I nod.
That’s actually what I need.

We don’t talk for several minutes. I think he knew I needed to regain my composure. The side of my face is against his chest. I take a deep breath for clarity and to take in his scent. He has the most rousing scent. It’s almost like instant peace. I glance up at him and he looks at me with those blue eyes. I think he’s scared to kiss me, so I lean up and press my lips against his. “Thank you for coming over.”

“I’d do anything for you and after that, I’m glad I did.” He grins. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on because my mind is roaming to places I don’t like. Did he try to hurt you?” 

“He didn’t try to hurt me. He tried to get me to come back. He was drunk and pushed himself on me.”

“What?” Silver barks. “If he tried to hurt you, I swear I don’t know what I’d do. Drunk or not doesn’t excuse that.”

“I took care of it. I’m not helpless.”

“I never said you were…. I’m sorry. You’re one of the strongest men I know.” He brushes the hair off my forehead. “I know you can take care of yourself. I just want to help.”

“I’m just on edge. There are not too many things that make me cower like a child, but this is one of them.” I adjust on the couch to face him. “I think someone is following me. I mean, I know.”

“Someone’s following you? Did you call the police? Is it Jeff?” He’s livid.

“It’s not Jeff. It happened for the first time the other day when Connor picked me up and then today at the laundromat.”

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier? Did Connor see him? Did he know?”
Oh, crap I told him not to tell Silver.

“No. The man chased me through the alley on the way to the pizza place and then today he was staring at me through the window of the laundromat.”

“This is nothing to mess with Greyson. Did you call the police?”

“No, not yet. I was waiting to see if it was just random incidents.”

“Random incidents?” He raises his eyebrows with an annoyed look on his face. “Two different times is not a coincidence. You can’t wait to see what’s going to happen, Greyson. I don’t want something happening to you.” He rubs my face. “I have a friend that works down at your local precinct. I’ll call her,” he says pulling out his phone.

“There’s more,” I timidly add. He looks at me.

“More?” He confirms and I nod once. I hand him my phone with the emails that were sent to Jeff. He scrolls through them. He inhales sharply.
He probably got to the picture of Jeff and me fucking on his desk.
“Why do you have these?”

“What do you mean? Why would I have them?” I am appalled he would think I would keep stuff like this on my phone. “Someone sent them to Callie, Jeff’s fiancée. That’s why he came here. She broke up with him. Look at the email, it’s my name. I never sent them.”

“This is crazy, Greyson. Do you have any idea who would be doing this?” he asks and my head sinks into my hands. “Let me call my friend and see what she recommends we do.” I nod ok.

He picks up his phone and asks to talk to Detective Cynthia Bennett. She answers and he puts the phone on to speaker for me to hear their conversation. “Hey, Cynthia, it’s Brian.”

“Brian, how the hell are you? It’s been forever. How are you feeling?” Her voice is very sweet and young as she bounces greetings and questions to Silver.

“I’ve been good; just staying busy with work and some other things.” He winks at me.
Cute, Silver.
“I’m actually calling on business of sorts. I have a friend who lives in your area and he’s having a problem. We think someone is following him.”

“You think?” she questions.

“No, we know. He saw someone on a couple of different occasions and then he got an email, well his friend did, from someone posing as him. We think it’s connected. Cynthia, I have you on speaker so my friend can hear and talk to you as well. His name is Greyson Black.”

“Hi, Greyson,” she chimes.

“Hi, Cynthia, I know this is kind of all over the place, but I’m really worried.”

“Oh, Greyson. It’s fine. It’s also my job so I don’t mind. We will keep you safe and I’m sure, if I know Brian and I do, he will too.” I smile at Silver. Everyone likes him; it shows he has a good heart and character. “Tell me what happened. I’ll open a case file and then if you don’t mind, tomorrow Brian can bring you down to the precinct to meet me and we can go over it more. You won’t be alone tonight, will you?” she asks and Silver jumps right in.

“I’ll stay with him.” He grins at me.
I was hoping he would.

“Good, now let’s get this started.” We can hear her clicking on the computer then she starts asking basic questions: full name, birthdate, address, and more. “Ok, now describe these incidents, uh, everything: location, dates, as much detail as you can remember, Greyson.”

I rattle off all the details that I can remember. Silver listens, I’m sure taking mental note of everything I am telling Cynthia. She follows up with some additional questions and I answer the best I can. “The email was it sent just to Jeff’s girlfriend or others?” she asks.

“I don’t know. He said just her, but I’m not completely sure.”

“Ok, well tomorrow when you come down I would like a copy of them,” she insists. “Are you ok with waiting until tomorrow? I just figured you were safe at home and you aren’t going anywhere tonight, right?”

“No, we’re staying in.” Silver’s voice echoes sternly.

She laughs. “Oh, Brian, always the hero―Don’t you boss that boy around too much.”
Boy?

“You know me too well, Cynthia. I’m going to keep him safe. He means a lot to me.” He rubs his hand on my knee and she murmurs approvingly into the phone.

“Ok, Greyson, just a few more questions and then the rest we can go over tomorrow when we meet. Did you get a good look at him?”

“Not a good one. He was covered with a gray hoodie, just a plain gray hoodie you could pick up anywhere. There were no markings on it. And he had a pair of sunglasses on at the time I saw his face.”

“How about his height and color of his skin?” she asks while the sound of rapid clicking is heard.

“He was Caucasian for sure. I don’t know about his height.” I think.

“Well, I’m six foot one,” Silver offers. “Was he about my height: taller, shorter?”

“No he wasn’t as tall as you. Maybe about my size, five foot eleven. Maybe even an inch shorter, I think that’s a good guess.”

“Good ok… Well that gives us something. Just one more question. Do you know someone that would want to stalk you; has this happened before? We find that a lot of cases like this are recurrent stalkers.”

I look at Silver. I guess he’s going to know everything now.
“Yes, a man by the name of Derrek Braid.” She asks me to explain more and I close my eyes. I hate reliving this. “When I was young, my mom passed away. I had to go live with my father, who was heavy into drugs. He had a friend that was a few years younger than him, Derrek. They were always at the house when I would come home from school or whatever. They were always high. My dad liked Derrek because he had easy access to drugs, I don’t know how but―” She stops me.

“We’re they lovers?”

“Oh, no… my dad was a big-time bigot, but Derrek was gay.”

“Ok, sorry, just go on honey,” she says compassionately. I look at Silver; his face was full of worry and concern. 

“Derrek stayed at the house a lot. A lot! I turned sixteen and had a party in my backyard. They were there of course, high. After everyone left I went to my room and Derrek came up. He sat on the bed next to me. He seemed like a nice guy, nothing like my dad, so he was easy to talk to.  He was very compassionate. For several more months he would sneak up to my room and we would talk for hours, just talk. He confided in me that he was gay and I felt empathetic, because I knew I was gay; although I never voiced it for obvious reasons.” I stop and exhale, bracing myself for what I was going to tell them next.
Do it Grey.
I urge myself and go on.

“One summer night, Derrek came up to my room to talk and we were laughing about something stupid my father did and he told me how cute I looked when I laughed, that I needed to do it more. I asked him to kiss me and he did. He was older than me, obviously, but I thought I loved him.” My words were coming out like a muffled. I look over to Silver and take a deep breath. “I realize now how stupid it was.”

“You two were intimate?” Cynthia asks.

“Yeah, we were.”

“How much older was he?” Cynthia asked.

“Why do you need to know that?”

“It gives us a clue as to age if it’s him.”

I think back, “It was close to my seventeenth birthday when we had sex for the first time. He was ten years older than me, twenty-seven at the time, so that would make him about thirty-two or thirty-three now.”

“What happened after you two started to get intimate?” Cynthia asks and Silver cringes. He really can’t stand the thought of someone else with me, even from my past.

“We snuck around having sex whenever we could. We tried to hide it from my dad. I guess we weren’t too good at it because my dad caught me with him and went ballistic. He beat the shit out of me, and didn’t do a damn thing to Derrek. Derrek sat there and let him do it. Watched him kick me and punch me until I was bleeding on my bedroom floor. My dad kicked me out of the house that day. I was just barely seventeen.” Silver is pressing his eyes together, but I continue. “I moved out, went to stay with a couple of friends until I graduated high school and then I moved into the dorms at the college over here. That’s when Derrek started following me. He said he wanted to be with me. He did some pretty awful things.”

“Awful things―He,” Cynthia starts to question, but I interrupt her.

“Yes, can we not talk about this, please?” I plead. I hate reliving this. Silver grips my hand and mouths
I’m so sorry
.

“I know it’s hard to talk about, but I will have to know more, Greyson. But for now we can stop with just that. Was he caught?”

“Yeah, they locked him up in a drug rehab/mental hospital thing after he tried to kill himself when he was in jail.”

“Do you know how long his sentence was?”

“No, I don’t know. They charged him with rape and assault.” Silver gasps at my words and looks up to the ceiling.
Guess I just confirmed what he was thinking.

“Ok, I’ll look it up. Do you think it’s him?”

“I don’t know what to think. I hope not.” I pull Silver’s hand in mine.

“Ok boys, I’m going to process this. Meet me in the morning down here and we can chat more. Greyson, just make sure you’re not alone. I’ll see you both tomorrow.” We say our good-byes and she hangs up.

I get up and go into the kitchen to grab a couple of beers and forks for our dinner. Silver is processing everything he just heard. “You’re not mad at me are you?” I ask, handing him a beer and a fork.

“Why would I be mad at you? None of this was your fault. You were a victim in more ways than one. Are you ok?”

“I don’t tell people this stuff. I’ve only told Levi. I don’t like people to baby me. I took care of it the best I could.”

“You did well. I wish I―” He shakes his head.

“You didn’t even know me then, Silver. How could you have helped? Let’s just eat. I want to get my mind off of it for a little bit and I’m hungry. Did you order the entire menu?” I laugh and look at the rows of Chinese containers.

“I didn’t know if you were allergic to nuts or seafood or even what you liked, so I ordered a variety. I figured you and Levi would have leftovers for a while.” He chuckles. “I love the shrimp and crab dishes.”

“I’m not allergic to anything and I’m far from picky. I pretty much eat anything.”

“Good, dig in then.”

We talk over dinner and get to know each other better. He explains how he knows Cynthia and that her young son, Chase, has the same eye disease as him. He tells me more about his recovery and stuff he’s endured. I divulge more details about my dad and Derrek. We talk about my mom and his parents. It is an informative conversation and I am happy to learn more about this man. “I wish I could take away those memories for you. I wish I could take away everything that happened to you.” He rubs the side of my face.

“It’s made me stronger. I am who I am because of my trials, good and bad. I can’t let them define me. I did for too long.”

“You are so strong, so courageous. I’m in awe of the man you are.” His words of praise send a sense of pride through me that I never felt before. No one has ever told me something like this before. It’s nice to feel equal; he makes me feel like his equal. “Have you talked to someone about this professionally?”