Remington rolled his eyes, unable to find a durable enough rebuttal.
“Fine,” he conceded.
Jace grinned like Remington had given him the world, then said goodbye and disappeared into the back of the shop. Remington took another swallow of his coffee, then set out on the short walk back to the museum.
This mysterious benefactor was the answer to everything Remington had been hoping for. He didn’t even need to follow up on the dozens of applications he’d sent in during the week now. Even if the museum was awarded all of them, it wouldn’t total a quarter of a million dollars. Job security for the next handful of years had him feeling more relieved than he’d thought it would, but as he swiped his badge to gain entry to the archives around back of the museum, he was met with a new feeling.
Remington loved books. He always had. And he loved his work, but he’d never truly realized how important it was to him until it was nearly snatched away. It wasn’t just the worry of where his next paycheck would come from, or if he lived in California or Illinois or wherever, but the books… the manuscripts. They would be safe.
Words and pages and ideas that had already existed for decades before him would continue to exist. Generations beyond him would be able to not just read the works Remington worked to preserve, they would be able to see them, to understand the impact, the revolution.
He found his eyes damp with unexpected moisture, and he sniffled, blinking quickly and sliding back behind his desk. He set his coffee down on a coaster, the condensation already sliding down the sides of the cup.
In good spirits, he swiped open his phone, stare immediately landing on the message he’d been ignoring for the past two days.
It was from George, of course, asking to meet.
Remington had taken lots of directions and objectives into account when he’d started an account on the ridiculous dating app, and he knew meeting in person would of course be the end result of any kind of conversation, but seeing the request… it hit different.
Remington had been dictating the very minutiae of Allan’s life for the past week, scheduling his meals and picking his clothes. He’d determined how much and how frequently Allan could touch himself, all the while jacking himself off until his dick hurt before he fell asleep at night with his soft cock in his hands.
There were things in life Remington had rarely dared to hope for. The funding for the museum being one, Jace never trying to put the moves on him another. His friendship with the younger man was far too precious to be trivialized or reduced to a “friends with benefits” scenario. Not that there was anything wrong with casual sex, he assumed since he’d never had it himself, but Jace was worth more to him than something that could be dismissed so flippantly. Jace’s friendship was the benefit, not his body, though he imagined Callahan would disagree.
Meeting a man who would look at Remington with any hint of serious intent—that was another thing on the list. Remington, the twenty-seven year-old virgin with high ideals of being a Dom one day. Remington, with his books and his ideas, and his expectations. He sighed. Even if he met Allan in person, even if Allan didn’t laugh him out of town when Remington confessed his situation… there were so many things Remington didn’t know and didn’t understand.
Not yet, he typed back to Allan, a read receipt immediately appearing under the message.I have my own secrets, George. Not yet.
The day blew by in a flurry of parchment and cotton, and Remington found himself at home in a pair of sweats before sundown. Jace showed up half an hour later with a pizza, an apology, and a hickey on his throat. Remington waved him off, fighting back his jealousy over Jace’s experience, at his access to Callahan, to any man.
“What did you want to watch?” Jace asked, sometime later after coming out of the shower with wet hair, a damp t-shirt clinging to his chest.
“I don’t know,” he muttered, frowning at the TV.
Jace kicked the side of his leg and flung his body onto the couch, landing half on top of him. It was a game they played, owed to the familiarity of their touches and their skin, and Remington arranged Jace beside him, tucked carefully in the crook of Remington’s side.
“Before we eat, can we talk?”
“Sure. What’s up? Can you tell me more about the grant?”
Remington leaned back, his eyes falling closed as he lost himself in the steady glide of his fingers down the outside of Jace’s arm.
“Not much to say,” he answered, then recited what Grant had told him. “That’s all I know.”
“Can you find out who donated the money? Like you did with Sebastian and the books?”
“The book donation was a fluke,” he said. “A slip had been left attached to the box. There is no box with two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in it.”
Jace laughed, his shoulder digging into Remington’s ribs.
“Wouldn’t that be cool, though?”
“It would be… monumental.”
“There has to be a better word to describe that much money.” Jace laughed.
“Ask your boyfriend.”
“I know you have one in that head of yours.”
