Gideon (Boyfriend for Hire Book 3) by RJ Scott & Meredith Russell

Author:RJ Scott & Meredith Russell [Scott, RJ & Russell, Meredith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781785642340
Publisher: Love Lane Books Ltd
Published: 2020-11-05T18:30:00+00:00

Nine

Rowan

With a groan, Rowan sat up in bed. Somehow, he’d had a worse night’s sleep than the last. He wasn’t sure why, but he’d found himself even more aware of Gideon than before, despite being in separate beds.

A bang in the bathroom drew his attention. “You okay?” he called and scraped back his hair. There was no answer. “Gideon?”

“I’m fine. Just dropped the…thing,” Gideon called back, his answer muffled slightly by the sound of the shower.

“Need a hand?” Rowan asked. He drew up his legs and rested his chin on his knees. “Just kidding,” he added for himself.

“I’m fine,” Gideon said for a second time.

Was he really?

He hadn’t said anything, but it was easy to see Gideon’s knee was a little swollen and the faint glow of a bruise was forming, and though he had faced the morning as normal, it seemed his stoicism was slipping. Soft grunts had escaped from his tight lips when he got to his feet and moved about.

Maybe I should cancel the plans for today? It wasn’t as if he’d arranged something particularly special for Gideon’s birthday and there’d be the usual Christmas Eve drinks and snacks later that evening, but still, people had put in the effort. It would be sad to see them go to waste. I’ll ask them what they think.

He rested his forehead on his crossed arms, closed his eyes, and listened to the sound of running water. It was strange. His mind filled with Gideon. Rowan had always considered him to be attractive. Gideon, on the surface, was everything he wanted in a lover—mature, strong, kind. Rowan had always avoided coming across as needy, put up the façade that he was fine by himself—and he was. He wasn’t a useless person, his job as PA proved it.

Proved it to whom exactly?

To himself? To those he thought might abandon him when he was no longer useful to them?

What am I thinking about?

His childhood anxieties reared in his chest. Ached.

Haven’t felt like this in a while.

He gently stroked his chest with the back of his hand. When he was a child, about five years old, his real mom left him alone. Sometimes he wished she’d been a terrible mother, but in the end, she’d just been ordinary. A regular, flawed human being. His father had died when he was a baby and Rowan, from the bits he remembered, didn’t feel his childhood had been anything but normal, or at least until that one day when his mother came to his bedside, told him to be a good boy, and that she would be back soon. Soon, however, turned into days then into almost two weeks. When she did show up, neighbors had already called social services. He didn’t remember much else from back then, but the look of relief on her face was forever burned into his memories. He’d reached out to her, but she never took his hand. She let him go.

Rowan breathed in deeply and lifted his head when the water shut off.

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