Page 29 of Grind
Ezra squeezed his hand, and while Frank couldn’t see his face in the dark, he felt what it expressed in the desperate fear oozing from Ezra.
“I’m sorry to bring this on you. But you were the only one I could trust.”
“You made the right choice. My place is very remote.” But as exhilarating as Ezra’s declaration was, they needed some real talk. “For obvious reasons, I never asked you about your family, but to help you, I need to know more about you, Ezra. The real you. Is that your name?”
Ezra exhaled, looking up at Frank as they stood in the middle of the junkyard deep in the night. The flashlight sharpened his features, but they remained sweet and innocent, as if nothing could have stained him. “It’s my second name. But I use it, since the first is Burton. It’s a bit toooldfor me.” He said nothing about his surname, which made Frank exhale in frustration. Clearly, despite trusting him enough to come here, Ezra still wasn’t sure if he could reveal his true identity. Maybe Frank shouldn’t be surprised when he too had secrets to keep, but if he was the one having to deal with this whole situation, then he should gain full access.
He let go of Ezra’s hand to open the tiny gate in the low fence around his house. He wasn’t sure why he'd kept it, since it didn’t protect from anything, but maybe he was more sentimental than he’d like to admit. His ex had been the one to put it together.
“Where are you from? What’s your family situation? I need to know this shit, and our… arrangement has ended so I think it’s fair to ask under these circumstances.” He hated being so harsh, but he was getting the feeling that Ezra wasn’t fully aware his life was changing tonight, and not in a good way.
The faint glow of the stars illuminated Ezra, who crossed his hands on his chest, shielding himself from the cold. His soft hair was messy, as if he’d just been rolling his head against a silk pillow. Even now, he was so damn sexy Frank would need to keep himself in check at all times.
But he was a big boy. He could do it.
“My family is local. We just don’t keep in touch. I changed my surname, so I don’t think anything could be traced to them.” The sad smile he offered Frank was heartbreaking, because it meant one thing—he’d been rejected by them, either due to his profession or sexuality. Or was it their rejection that had pushed him to become an escort in the first place? Life cost money, and beauty was a pricey commodity.
Frank had indulged in that beauty for a whole year.
Frank let Ezra through the gate, but then led him into the house, trying not to consider what Ezra would think of its state. “I’m in the middle of renovating,” he mumbled, locking the door behind them, but one glance at Ezra’s face reflecting in the mirror Dex had hung on the opposite wall told him that his place was a disappointment. He looked around, wide-eyed like a deer in the headlights, but by the time Frank turned to face him, his features were again neutral, the distaste carefully hidden.
“Um, that’s okay. I arrived without letting you know, so—” Ezra swallowed and again reached for Frank’s hand.
Frank swallowed with growing discomfort in his throat. “Ezra, what do you think is going to happen now?” he asked and went to the kitchen area to grab two glasses.
Ezra cleared his throat. His presence was lighting up the room even when Frank faced away from him, but it also burned, and Frank didn’t know what to do about it. None of this should be happening. They used to have this clear relationship in the elegant rooms of Ezra’s apartment, and what he could offer here was just… not enough. Even his TV had some dead pixels, because he never had time to go look for a new one.
“I—I was thinking that maybe I could stay here for a bit, if you’d let me. And then, once the dust settles, go to LA?”
Frank pushed away some of the radio parts and poured them a glass of bourbon each. “It might be a very long time until the ‘dust settles’ enough for you to be able to go there.” He picked up a pile of dirty laundry from a chair to make room for Ezra, and dumped it onto the sofa. “At least for a few days, you can stay here, and we’ll see how things go. Do you have any relatives in Canada or Mexico? Europe?”
Ezra sank into the seat, as if the weight of the suggestion behind Frank’s questions was too much to bear. He squeezed his fingers together and exhaled. “Not that I know. I’ve been on my own for a while,” he said in a soft voice.
He was so painfully out of place by the table with permanent cup marks, and with the dirt covering the wall behind him where it was most often touched.
“You’ve been seeing Paul longer than you’ve been seeing me, so he must know a lot about you. He will look for you. He has contacts within the police. He travels, so his reach is wide. You have to—Ezra?” Frank’s heart sank when he saw tears in the pretty amber eyes. “Don’t be scared, okay? It’s gonna be… something. Even if not what you hoped for. This might be a door to a future you never even imagined. We’ll work it out.” He approached Ezra and kneeled on the floor in front of him.
Even Ezra’s scent was overwhelming, it reminded Frank of all the intense times they’d spent together, of burying his face in the dark hair after sex when their hearts still pounded like mad. But that had been Ezra’s business and place of expertise. Right now, he was a young man out of his depth.
Ezra took a shuddery breath and met Frank’s gaze. “I am scared.”
Frank stroked his… shin with his knuckles, because touching the thigh would have felt far too intimate. Which was such a strange balancing act when he’d beeninsideEzra last night. But back then, the rules had been clear, just like their roles.
“I understand. We both learned something terrible about Paul tonight, but we’ll survive it, and in a year’s time, this will all be just a bad memory.” Frank had now become part of that nightmare, no longer a nice fuck to reminisce about years on but a cog in the ugly world that crashed down on Ezra out of nowhere.
“In ayear?” Ezra asked with barely withheld terror. “But I… all of my things are still at home. Lots of valuables too. Do you think he can track card transactions… somehow, like in some spy movie?”
Frank nodded. “It’s possible. Better safe than sorry. In a while, I might be able to get my friend Shane and go to your apartment to retrieve your stuff. But there’s nothing more valuable than your life. If you have savings in your accounts, just let them sit there for now.”
Ezra pressed both heels of his hands to his eyes, breathing hard. But as tension left his body, he let his wrists rest on Frank’s shoulders and leaned toward him. “Frank, I… I don’t know what I’d do without you. You’re so kind.”
Oh God… He’d be kind to Ezra all night long if it wasn’t so wrong.
Frank shrugged. “I’m just… I’ve had a helping hand in life. At a time when I thought things were going downhill, my grandfather reached out and I ended up inheriting this place from him even though at that point I was nothing but a menace to society. I feel I have a duty to repay that kindness. I’d probably be dead by now if he hadn’t helped me.” He briefly wondered what Grandpa would think of his illegal side business, but he wasn’t there to see it anyway.
Frank’s heart stopped when Ezra cupped his face and rubbed his cheeks with his thumbs, like he’d always do when they were in bed together. It was a gesture of tenderness that had no place in their current situation, no matter how badly Frank longed to lean into it and forget that Ezra was now trapped here, at the mercy of his good will.
He cleared his throat and got up. “Listen. Sweetie. I—No, I’m going about it the wrong way.” One more deep breath. “I’m no ethics professor, but even I know it wouldn’t be okay to continue what we… had in the current situation. I don’t expect that of you, okay?” Even if hecravedit. “You’re stuck here, so it just wouldn’t be right.”
