The ETA From You to Me (11 page)

There was no possible way that Clayton was actually this thick. Unless it was in reference to his penis, which, Grant would be pleasantly delighted to find out the if it was a nice level of thickness Thick and huge, and filling and - wait.

No, he was trying to have a damn conversation here, and Clayton was distracting him without even trying. “Where the fuck are you getting pudding from?"

"I don't know! It has a thicker consistency?" Clayton cried. Grant zeroed in on the word ‘thick’ again, but shook his head to try and dispel the lewd images that came to mind, instead throwing his hands in vague, frustrated gestures. He knew when he was being fucked with, and Clayton was fucking with him royally. So royally that Grant was wondering if he had a Prince Albert hidden down in his-

Not even going there.

“Are you just faking stupid to avoid the elephant in the room?” He blurted, eyes going wide when Clayton went silent for a prolonged minute in an attempt to come up with some sort of argument. Oh my god, he was! “You are!” Grant shouted, throwing an accusing finger in Clayton’s face, “Oh my god, dude!”

It was like someone had replaced Clayton with some kind of socially deficient clone who didn’t know how to have a regular conversation…

Wait, no. He was definitely talking to Clayton, if that was the case.

Clayton was starting to look like he’d rather be kicked in the balls by a moose, shifting in his seat and releasing a pained sigh and setting his palms out in a placating gesture. “Grant, look-”

“What? Don’t tell me you can't totally pick up on the fact that I want to have gaybies with you. I'm pretty sure I lack subtlety in that department."

It was like watching someone feed a lemon to a toddler as Clayton’s expression took on an extremely pinched look. Grant wiggled his arms around, adding, “Either you want gaybies with me, or you don’t. I’m getting really discouraged here when I try to get up in your shit and you do that creeper smirk but you don’t give me any signals that really define ‘yes’ or ‘no’.”

Clayton opened his mouth, but Grant was on a roll, eyes going wider in panic because his mouth was apparently on strike from communication with his brain right now. “I mean, I get it if you aren’t into me, but you can’t lead me on by--”

“Yes.”

“-acting like you think--what?”

Clayton crossed his arms, the scowliest of scowls on his face. “I’m into you. I'm so into you that I'm amazed you didn't pick up on that...I just can’t date you.”

Grant patted the spot next to him on the couch in an attempt to coax Clayton into scooting closer. Clayton didn’t move, and Grant sighed before pulling his hand back. "I don't know what you think is wrong with you, but it can't be much worse than me. I've never had a relationship last more than four months."

Clayton shifted, crossing his ankles and mumbling, "I've only had one."

"Oh..."

"He shot my parents.”

".... oh."

"...and my dog."

Well, now Grant just felt like an asshole. "... awkward."

Hand falling to his jeans, Clayton started to fidget with a loose thread in a manner that reminded Grant so much of himself that he kind of wanted to cuddle all of Clayton’s sadness away. It was probably too soon for corporal snuggling as a means to abolishing heartache, so Grant kept himself rooted to his corner of the couch. Clayton exhaled slowly through his nose, jaw flexing. "He was institutionalized on an insanity plead.”

"... okay so. trust issues totally make sense here but I swear I'm just really ADD. I don't even like guns. In fact, I hate guns. My dad has guns and they make me cry. Guns suck."

"Grant."

"Oh-my-G o d. I'm sorry," Grant moaned, sinking down so far into the couch that his ass was threatening to slide off completely. He hated talking about cancer because it made him think of his mom, and here he was spewing crap about how much fire sucked and Clayton’s family had been essentially burned to death.

Clayton made a soft, painful laughing sound that reminded Grant of a goose being strangled with a gum wrapper. Grant buried his face into his hands because he could NOT look at Clayton right now without wanting to run into oncoming traffic out of sheer mortification at himself. He almost jumped out of his skin when Clayton’s hand landed on his shoulder, giving it a firm squeeze.

“You’re a great ki-- you’re smart. Grant. You deserve better… and uh… I’m..”

“Not ready.” Grant supplied, dread filling him up to the point of suffocation.

“Yeah,” Clayton agreed weakly.

“For a relationship.”

“… yeah.”

Clayton sounded like someone had kicked his wolf cub across the street, shoulders tensing like he was prepared for Grant to go apeshit and start throwing chairs into the wall or something. Actually, he was acting like he didn’t want to turn Grant down, but he felt it necessary. Obviously Clayton had some baggage that Grant wasn’t going to be able to relieve him of by sucking his misery out through his dick.

“I’m just going to have to convince you,” not because he wanted to force Clayton into anything, but because Grant knew if they didn't give this thing a shot now, they'd lose that window of opportunity like Grant had seen happen to so many people.

“Yea-- what,” Clayton stared at Grant, mouth gaping.

“I need to go home and devise a working method to convince you,” Grant stood, nodding to himself and to Clayton. There was no way he was going to lose this kind of chance to some faceless killer who didn't deserve to even exist.

“What.”

High on a rush of adrenaline, Grant crossed over to the other side of the couch before he could stop himself. Clayton was watching him with wide eyes, leaning back as Grant bent down.

Wiping his palms onto his thighs, Grant was halfway to grabbing Clayton into a kiss when he chickened out and turned tail, making a beeline for the door. All of this happened before he’d even processed the fact that he was five seconds away from attempting to play tonsil hockey with Clayton.

“Bye, Clayton!” Grant squeaked, his voice cracking as he wrenched open the front door.

“What.”

Grant caught a glimpse of Clayton sitting on the couch with a gob smacked look before he shut the door and hightailed it to his jeep like his ass was on fire.

Chapter 6

“I don’t know, Grant,” Elliot muttered, shifting from foot to foot and wincing when Grant started to wave the stuffed animal in his face, “Clayton doesn’t like when other people mess with his truck.”

Grant sighed in irritation, wanting to really just pelt the toy wolf at Elliot’s face in a fit of aggravated assault. Oh, the woes of security cameras monitoring his every movement. “Clayton isn’t even working this weekend, he won’t know it was you.” 

The drivers all worked every other weekend, which was something that depressed Grant just the tiniest bit, but also gave him an opportunity to use his inherent Giannotti Stealth Seduction Skills (patent pending) to further ensnare Clayton with his irresistible charm.

“I mean, I know he likes this kinda stuff, Grant, but I don’t think he’ll appreciate you making fun of him like this,” Elliot muttered uneasily, shoving his hands into his pockets and giving Grant a weak shrug. 

Grant scoffed and waved the toy again, pushing himself so far to the edge of his seat that he had to grab the desk to keep from falling over. Elliot still didn’t reach out, and Grant huffed, “I’m not making fun, I’m
wooing
him.”

Elliot squinted, as if such a concept was nonexistent in his vocabulary, looking up at Grant in confusion.,“you’re what?”

“Wooing him,” Grant repeated, emphasizing the ’oo’ for good measure. When Elliot didn’t look any less baffled, Grant sighed. “The art of woo? It rhymes with shoe? Not to be confused with Shen Gong Wu?”

“….” Elliot didn’t move--almost like he was a creepy, nervously positioned statue that had been planted in the middle of the office.

Grant growled out another aggrieved sigh, “Just put the fucking toy in his truck or I’m making you do tire changes all weekend.”

Grant grinned in response to the irritated scowl that was shot his way, handing the wolf plushie over when Elliot reached out with a sigh. It was kind of like being a parent letting their children leave for the first day of school--Grant was almost sad to see it go, but then he remembered that he could have joint custody with Clayton if this plan worked out.

Elliot fiddled with the stuffed animal, petting its head and turning it around in his hands. “It’s soft… how much was it?”

“Price is not a concern,” Grant blurted airily, leaning back in his chair and snatching up his pen. Elliot’s left eyebrow rose high up into his bangs, smothering an amused grin.

Grant wanted to stab that grin right off his face. Elliot was not allowed to smirk at him like that. In fact, the only person allowed more than minimal smirkage at Grant's person was Clayton, and that was only if there was a certain level of sexual frustration involved.

“Okay, then….” Elliot slipped out the door and Grant sighed loudly into the empty office, twirling his chair around and then glancing at his dispatch sheet to make sure it was completely filled out. Sunday night meant he had to double-check all of his paperwork so that there was no confusion when Nancy, the older woman who worked weekday  mornings, opened on Monday.

The only downside to this plan was that he wouldn’t be able to see Clayton’s reaction to the stuffed plushie on Monday. He’d have to wait. Waiting sucked. It was more agonizing than if he was having irritable bowel syndrome and they were slammed with so many calls that he had to clench for three hours.

After glancing over the sheet one last time, Grant dragged a bit of scrap paper over and stared down at the list he’d compiled earlier. He clicked his pen a few times--because clicky pens were awesome--and then crossed out the first item, ‘gift him with animal things’ before skimming down the bulleted list.

  -  Gift him with delicious foodstuffs

  -  Gift him with long hauls

  -  Call him during aforementioned long hauls to chat it up

  -  Clear his record

Grant set his pen down when he reached that one, snagging a highlighter and going over ‘clear his record’ with hot pink. Grant scowled--because that plan had failed miserably when he’d brought up the subject with his father--and took a second to write down next to it,
mission failed: try again when Dad has been drinking.

Grant glanced up when the door opened and Elliot came back in.

“Mission complete?“ Grant asked, grinning in excitement. It must have taken Elliot a good few minutes to find Clayton’s keys or something, because he’d been gone a good fifteen minutes to place the wolf plushie into Clayton’s truck.

Elliot paused in the process of shoving a dollar into the vending machine, giving Grant an odd look. “…. to go to the bathroom?”

What?

“What? No--put the toy in Clayton’s truck!” Grant hissed. Elliot’s eyes went wide and he nodded, mashing the buttons to get a candy bar to vend.

“Oh. Yeah. It’s buckled in the passenger seat.”

He’d even buckled it in? Grant grinned, rubbing his hands together and grinning so widely that Elliot looked slightly uncomfortable when Grant chuckled, “perfect,” under his breath.

“Okay well… I’m going home.” Elliot edged out the door before Grant could even acknowledge his words.

After that, the entire week had Grant feeling antsy and nervous. He didn’t want to text Clayton about the toy, hoping that he’d get at least one message at some point and moping for a good ten minutes every time he would think about it and realize that Clayton hadn’t said anything.

Stepping into the office the following Saturday morning and seeing no wolf toy sitting on his desk, Grant fist pumped and jumped in place for a second. He had to force himself to calm down, taking a deep breath and then going about his normal opening routine. He didn’t want to push too much, because Clayton wasn’t exactly a weeble-wobble that bounced back when it came to being pestered about certain things.

Grant was scarily excited when a tow call finally came in that was out of city, lunging for the phone to dial Clayton‘s number. Clayton had barely answered before Grant was blurting, “are you and your little buddy ready for a big haul?”

“… what.”

Grant felt ridiculously nervous for no reason, fidgeting with his pen and wincing to himself, “… I have a tow for you?”

“Were you just talking about my--oh. You mean the toy. Christ.” Clayton made a soft noise of understanding.

“Yes the toy, what else- oh my god.”

Clayton huffed out a quiet laugh, the phone rustling and a drawer creaking on the other line before he spoke again, “Well, that wasn't awkward at all. Go ahead with what you've got.”

Grant listed off the pickup location, car type, destination ( a good hour out) and anything else Clayton needed, grinning like a drunken buffoon the entire time. It left Grant out one driver for at least two or three hours, but he was willing to deal with a bit of extra stress if it meant having a chance to make Clayton happy with the haul.

“Grant,” Clayton mumbled when Grant was finished rambling the information off, “Why’d you give me this run? Isn’t Billy first out?”