Time Out of Mind (Suncoast Society #43)(32)

Mevi didn’t know why he chickened out. He’d fully planned to admit to Doyle that he was gay, finally able to get it off his shoulders.

Except…he couldn’t.

He couldn’t force the words out.

As he spent the morning working, he tried to forget about the man upstairs, the man that drew him in for reasons Mevi couldn’t explain. Yeah, Doyle was handsome and bi, and Mevi felt himself to be a chickenshit. He knew Doyle couldn’t get involved with him.

But to make the acknowledgment to the man and then be rebuffed outright would hurt, sting.

Doyle brought him lunch and a tester and left him alone. As Mevi reviewed his notes while he ate, he knew he needed to nut up and say something.

If he couldn’t, no other progress could happen.

He got it.

Didn’t make it any easier to admit.

He headed upstairs again early enough to grab a shower and get ready. As he quietly followed Doyle out to the car, sunglasses on, he realized it was…odd to have an expectation of privacy.

He’d lived so long in the public eye, always aware that someone, somewhere, might have a camera or cell phone trained on him, that he’d forgotten what it was like to be…free.

With Doyle, he’d had a level of freedom—ironically—that he hadn’t experienced in years.

They headed out of the complex and twenty minutes later were pulling into a storage facility. Doyle had to punch in a code at the gate to be let in. Then he parked in front of a temperature-controlled building in the back.

“I’m going to be a while. Feel free to join me.”

Mevi did. When Doyle pulled out a ring of keys, Mevi noticed a small pewter tag with some sort of symbol engraved on it. Before he could ask about it, Doyle let out a laugh.

“I haven’t been here in a while. I apologize in advance for how messy it is.”

“Why don’t you ship everything to LA?”

“I don’t have room for it. I have a tiny one-bedroom apartment. I don’t need anything else. And eventually, I want to move back to Florida.”

Something about that tweaked Mevi’s heart in a bad way and he didn’t know why. “You are?”

“In a few years. When I get tired of being on the road. Storage units out there are expensive. My attorney here has a key and the code and if I really need something, he can always come get it and ship it for me.”

They took an elevator up to the third floor and Doyle led the way down darkened corridors that lit up automatically as they passed. Stopping in front of one unit, Doyle unlocked the lock and pulled the door up.

It was a larger unit, about the size of a one-car garage. It wasn’t jammed tight with stuff, but if Mevi’s immediate calculations were correct, there was probably a small house’s worth of furniture inside.

Doyle left Mevi standing there as he picked his way through a narrow, winding path toward a pile of boxes in the back. Mevi stepped just inside, glancing around. On a dining room table sat a large, black duffle bag apparently packed full of stuff. The zipper lay open, and when Mevi peeked, he spotted a whip on top.

“Dude. You play Indiana Jones or something?” He removed it and shook it out, surprised to find it was heavier than cheap movie prop ones, and shorter, too, not even four feet.

“What—shit. Where was that?”

Mevi took a test swing with it. “This is cool.”

It amused him to discover Doyle owned something like that. Before Doyle could stop him, he started digging into the bag and pulled out a riding crop. “Did you have a horse?”

“That’s not—”

“Dude!” He held up a red acrylic paddle. “What the hell?”

Doyle’s face was an adorable shade of beet red as he grabbed everything from him and shoved it back into the bag, zipping it shut. “That’s personal.”

“What is all that?”

Doyle picked up the bag and carried it toward the back of the unit. “Personal.”

Mevi had a sudden revelation. Sure, he knew kinky people in the music biz. He saw and heard stuff that never hit public gossip sites.

“Hey. If I tell you something, will you tell me something?”

Doyle stopped and turned. “What do you mean?”

Mevi heard his voice trembling. “If I tell you something about myself, something nobody else but you knows, will you tell me something about you? Especially if I promise not to tell? You’ll have something against me you can use.”

Doyle set the bag on top of a pile of boxes and returned to him. “It doesn’t work like that,” he quietly said. “I’m not looking for ammunition against you. My job is to help you as much as you’ll let me. All I insist on is that you’re honest with me.”

“Please?” Mevi didn’t realize he was whispering.





Doyle cursed his stupidity. He’d forgotten his toybag was right there. Last time he’d visited the unit, he’d engaged in a little wistful reminiscing and had forgotten to zip it up again. But…

Something in Mevi’s manner and tone told him that maybe he would have to quid pro quo this if it meant fully earning Mevi’s trust.

Nobody he’d ever dealt with professionally—other than Tilly and that group—knew he was kinky. He kept that on the down-low.

It wasn’t anyone’s business.