Laird's Choice by Remmy Duchene (management books to read .txt) 📕

"Erm… I'll let you guys talk." Race began easing from the desk.

"You don't have to leave, Race," Laird explained, holding Race in place.

Race smiled and kissed Laird on the nose. "It's all right. I need to call Winston so he doesn't have a fit, and then I should probably take a shower. You guys want me to order something for dinner?"

"Nope," Savaro chimed in. "Jamal is going to cook.

Trust me, it's a treat."

"Oh… okay. I'll just go take a shower then," Race said, climbing off the desk. He walked past Savaro at the door and turned up the stairs.

* * * *

"Did we say something wrong?" Savaro asked.

"No. I think it has something to do with what happened with his jail sentence and all that." Laird took a breath and walked around his desk to hug Savaro. "I completely forgot we were having dinner tonight. I would have asked him over another night."

"No—this gives us a chance to meet this man."

Savaro fell into the sofa across the room and leveled his eyes on his brother. "Did you two talk? You seemed pretty cozy when I walked in."

"Yeah, we talked. It wasn't his fault, you know. But he blames himself because he'd covered for his brother that night. He didn't say it but I think he thought if he'd told his mother Shane was lying then his brother wouldn't be dead.

The strange thing is I understand him. If something had happened to any of you guys I would have lost it."

"Well, he doesn't need to be so jittery around us,"

Savaro explained. "There are questions but it is not our place to ask them. If you've asked all the questions and you're satisfied with the answers and you want this man, Laird, who are we to get in the way of that?"

"Well, this is good. You guys coming here tonight is good. This way he can sit down and we can all talk and he can see you guys won't judge."

Savaro opened his mouth to speak but snapped it

shut when footsteps came down the stairs. Both brothers looked to see if Race was coming down the steps. Instead Rajan and Jamal came through the door. Laird gave them each a hug.

"All right, Jamal, make me something tasty!" Laird joked.

Jamal eyed him with a smirk. "Sure thing,

sweetheart."

"Hey now," Savaro called. "If anyone is going to be bossing this sexy morsel around, it's gonna be me." He stressed his words by swatting Jamal on the bum.

Rajan moaned. "You three need a room?"

Jamal laughed. "You guys can hash that out. I'm going to make some dinner. Any beer?"

"Yeah Race bought some earlier," Laird replied.

They fell into silence once Jamal was out of the

room. They could hear the shower going upstairs and Jamal moving around in the kitchen.

"So I'm just going to say it," Rajan finally broke the silence. "Race is unsure of us. It's almost as if he doesn't know what to do."

Laird nodded. "Give him time."

Rajan nodded. "I should talk to him. Or maybe have Xavier talk to him. There was a time when X thought he wouldn't fit in with us."

"Really?" Savaro asked. "Well, I knew he felt he didn't fit in but didn't think he was thinking of leaving."

"Remember that time we almost broke up? The time I went away and he thought I ran because we had sex?"

Rajan asked. "He felt as though he'd put his foot in his mouth."

"It's never going to be easy, Laird," Rajan explained. "Especially with the past he was forced to go through. Just give him time."

"When did you get so smart?" Savaro asked Rajan with a smirk.

Laird chuckled.

"Bite me," Rajan replied.

Chapter Ten

The shower was precisely what he needed. Though

a part of him knew he was only using it to hide from what was happening downstairs. He was nervous about spending a great deal of time with Laird's family; afraid they'd take one look at him and see the fake inside him. Sure, he had money before he went to prison. But after his conviction his parents changed their wills—left it all to charities and had a fund set up in Shane's name for men in abusive relationships. He lost more than his life because of that conviction.

During the trial, his parents slowly drifted away from him. They started out standing up for him, being extremely vocal about how they didn't think he killed his brother. Suddenly they stopped going to the trial—stopped caring. The next thing he knew it was three years into his confinement, his mother was dead and his father sent him a letter telling him he was no longer their son. A year later, his father was gone too. After that, Race knew he had nothing left and settled into prison life.

Shaking the water from his hair, Race turned off the tap and reached for Laird's towel. While drying himself off, he used the time to build up enough courage to settle into this life just as well as prison life. Prison was a disease to him, seeping through every vein in his body. He wanted Laird and knew the best path to his own happiness was to make him happy.

Race finished dressing and sat on the edge of

Laird's bed. It'd been a few hours since he'd arrived at the house but he already knew where everything was. Rolling up his sleeves, he took a breath and pushed his fingers through his wet hair, raking it back. A knock on the bedroom door pulled him from his worry. He looked up to see Xavier standing there.

"Hey," Xavier greeted him.

"Hey."

"I know I'm probably the last person you want to talk to right now."

"Now why would you say a thing like that?" Race asked, scratching his cheek, which hadn't been shaved in a day.

Xavier said nothing. He walked into the room and

sat beside Race. Race could hear the cop's intake of breath and the exhalation that came after holding the air in for a bit. Still Xavier said nothing and Race knew