Time Out of Mind (Suncoast Society #43)(29)

I wish I could be.

Doyle swept that strange, random thought out of his brain almost as soon as it popped in.

Where the hell did that come from?

That would teach him not to fantasize about a client while masturbating.





Mevi wasn’t yet ready to admit to Doyle why he’d had such a hard time sleeping last night. He wasn’t sure how the man would react if he learned Mevi was gay.

Or how the band would react.

At least if he didn’t reveal that, he could lean on the man more without Doyle thinking it was getting weird.

Couldn’t he?

They roamed the aisles, filling the cart and Mevi admitting he really liked the store. Usually, grocery shopping was a necessary evil, to be finished as quickly as possible. In and out.

It was obvious Doyle liked to cook from the things he added to the cart. Mevi couldn’t claim cooking as anything other than a bare necessity.

Maybe he can teach me.

Back home, he helped Doyle put everything away before getting his iPad and notebooks and heading down to the office. He’d been working on a still untitled song last night before he finally gave up and tried to sleep. He wanted to see if he could finish it today. It was a song he’d started months ago, ideas for it hitting him during the drive to Florida until he was distracted by new lyrics forcing their way to the front of his brain.

Something about the way Doyle had listened to him play “Sunset Sights” last night had jiggled something loose in Mevi’s mind and directed him to work on it again.



Footprints behind me, clear sand ahead

And for the time being my heart feels dead.

Too much to hope for, yet too much to gain

There has to be some way out of this pain.



No one, nobody, alone in my mind

Searching and working, all just to find

That nothing I’ve done can be called the truth

When my reality’s been held aloof.



But you, you’re what I need.

You’re what I feel, and I’m incomplete

Until I tell you all that resides

In the deep, dark recesses where my truth likes to hide…



Maybe this would be as close as he’d ever get to confessing to anyone. It was easy to interpret the lyrics as a man’s love song to the woman he can’t admit he loved.

That it was also an admission of his own hidden truths might be missed by many people.

He was still working on it when Doyle walked downstairs at one point while he’d stopped playing and was notating chords.

“You feel like lunch? You never ate breakfast.”

He was going to say no but then his stomach rumbled. “Yeah, I guess I should.”

“I’ll get it for you. Sandwich okay?”

“That’d be great, thanks.”

He couldn’t keep his eyes off Doyle’s ass as the man mounted the stairs again.

Shit.

Okay, so denying he was attracted to Doyle would be a bunch of bullshit. But how did he live the rest of his life pretending to be someone he wasn’t?

That, ironically, triggered another idea for an extra verse, and he grabbed his pen to add it to the notebook.





After Doyle took Mevi a sandwich and two bottles of water, he left the man alone. He dug his Kindle out and settled in on the couch, the TV on but muted, so he could listen to Mevi downstairs.

Sometimes, he heard the man muttering to himself. Sometimes he heard him picking out chords and notes on the guitar. Over the next few days, he’d leave Mevi alone and let him settle in, unless the man seemed open to talking.

When Doyle’s cell buzzed with a text, he grabbed his phone from the coffee table.

Tilly.

You there yet?

He smiled as he typed his reply. Safe and sound. No problems.

She replied almost immediately. Good. Dinner tomorrow night. 7. Vanilla. Casual. Cookout. Bring swim trunks.

And followed by a Venice address and gate code.

He suspected that wasn’t a request.

Yes, Ma’am.

Smartass. :)

After confirming they’d be there, he added a question. Okay if I tell M you’re the one who referred me to Clark?

A brief wait for her reply. Sure. Why?

Didn’t want to assume you wanted to be identified.

Like I give a shit. :)

Doyle waited until seven to start cooking dinner. Mevi had only come upstairs once that whole time to use the bathroom, and Doyle made sure to test him when he did. He was almost ready to call down to Mevi that dinner was ready when the man came up of his own accord.

“That smells good.”

“Thanks. Pork chops. Oh, and we have dinner plans tomorrow.”

“We do?”

“Friends of mine. In fact, the friend who referred Clark to me. Her name’s Tilly. They split their time between home here and work in LA.”

“Okay.”

“And advanced warning, they have a non-traditional relationship.” Leaving out the BDSM aspects, he explained their poly triad.

Mevi’s fork froze mid-ascent to his mouth. “Wait…Tilly LaCroux?”

“Yes?”

“I’ve heard of her. They’re the ones who were involved in that case a year or so ago, right? The cousin of the one guy, she was a new mom and was killed while in custody in the jail?”