“Your father,” an authoritative voice I know all too well answers back. “Open the damn door.”
CHAPTER16
Grady
Shit shit shit shit shit.What the actual fuck is he doing here? Banging on my door at the ass crack of dawn? Yeah, as a five-time F1 champ they pretty much roll out the red carpet for him on race weekends. But he usually has the decency to tell me when he’s going to make an appearance. And he’s never come knocking this early. Most times—when he does show up—he just tracks me down in the garage to lay his poisonous version of fatherly advice on me.
I jerk my boxers up my legs and shoot a panicked look at Ben, who’s regained his composure and is already half dressed.
“Okay, the way I see it we’ve got two options,” he says calmly, even though his face is as white as the hotel sheets. “One, we can try to play this off like I’m here to discuss strategy before our team meeting. Or two, I can hide in the closet and hope he doesn’t find me.”
I scan the room. The bed looks like it was the scene of an epic struggle. Or an epic shagfest. The lube and condoms are still on the nightstand—I make a mental note to stash them in the drawer before opening the door. And the whole place reeks of sex.
There’s no way my father’s gonna believe Ben and I were talking race strategy.
“Closet.” I hand him his shirt and push him toward the glass bifold doors, snagging my own shirt from the pile on the floor as I do.
He goes willingly, which makes me feel even guiltier than I already do. I hate having to hide him. Making him think he’s something to be ashamed of. But I don’t have much of a choice. Even if I wanted to come out to my father—and that’s a big, fat, fucking if—this isn’t how I’d want to do it.
“I’m sorry,” I mouth to him as I close the doors.
He sticks a hand between them, stopping them from sliding shut.
“You don’t have anything to apologize for. How and when you tell people about your sexuality is up to you. Nothing—and no one—else matters. Although this—” he waves a hand around his cramped quarters, an impish smile teasing the corners of his lips—“may be taking the phrase in the closet a little too literally.”
I may be low-key freaking out, but I can still appreciate his attempt to lighten the mood. “Thanks. I owe you one.”
“You don’t. But I’m still taking you up on that.”
The pounding starts up again, followed by my father’s irate, “I know you’re in there. I can hear you. You have ten seconds to open this door before I break it down.”
Typical Archie Lewis. Do not pass go, go directly to threatening violence. I shake my head, slide the closet doors closed, and shrug on my shirt. For a day that started off so well, it sure has turned to shit fast.
I cross to the source of the banging and look through the peephole. My father is pacing back and forth like a caged lion, his hands shoved in his pockets and his face pulled into the scowl that’s practically permanent where I’m concerned—unless we have an audience, of course. Then he’s a doting father. The charming, charismatic Archie Lewis the whole world adores.
Well, not quite the whole world.
“Hey, Dad,” I say as I swing the door open. “I didn’t know you were planning on being in Austin this weekend.”
He pushes past me without returning my greeting. He’s got a couple of inches—and with age more than a few pounds—on me. “Shouldn’t you be at the gym getting in a workout?”
And so it begins. The so-called constructive criticism. Heavy on the criticism, light on the constructive.
“I was just on my way down there.” I grab a pair of athletic shorts from my open suitcase and pull them on, as if that’s going to make my half-truth more believable. “How’s Mom?”
My father sits on the corner of the bed, wrinkling his nose at the mess of tangled sheets. I spot one of Ben’s loafers next to the couch and surreptitiously kick it underneath before sitting down to put on my socks and sneakers.
“She’s fine. I assume. She’s been at an Ashram in India for the past month, finding herself.” He puts the last two words in air quotes.
Now it’s my turn to scowl. Typical Mom. Always searching for something or another. Forgetting she has a husband. Or a son. Yeah, I really struck out in the parent lottery.
But like most of the bad shit that happens to me, I try not to dwell on it. I had my grandfather. And the best nannies money could buy. A lot of other kids had it a lot worse.
“Looks like someone had an interesting night,” my father says, picking up the condoms from the nightstand.
Fuck. In my hurry to hide Ben, I forgot to stow them before opening the door. Or the lube. If he sees that, he doesn’t say anything about it. But straight guys use lube too, right?
“I, uh—”
