As the World Turns Fic #7: The One Where They Talk about Grimaldi Shipping
Title: The One Where They Talk about Grimaldi Shipping
Author: Myrna1_2_3
Fandom: As the World Turns
Characters/Pairings: Luke/Reid
Rating: R
Summary: Luke and Reid talk about Grimaldi Shipping.
Disclaimer: Not-not-mine
Author’s Notes: What kind of car does Luke drive, anyway? For the purposes of this fic, he drives a Honda. Does Grimaldi Shipping even exist anymore? I trust Wikipedia way more than I should.
Reid Oliver pulled into the driveway of the new house he shared with his boyfriend, cut the engine and just sat there for a beat. The porch light was on, but the rest of the house was dark, and he didn’t really expect Luke to be up. They’d finally lit on a new anti-rejection med for him, and that meant a blessed end to sleepless nights spent with Luke’s head in the toilet. They were enjoying a little smooth sailing for once-Luke’s health was back on track, things at the hospital were running according to plan, and they were settling in to their new home with surprising ease.
The house was over 150 years old and had been painstakingly refurbished with an appreciative eye toward its character, but enough of a modern flair that Reid didn’t feel like he’d moved into the Walton’s old house.
By the time Luke dragged Reid to look at this place, Reid would have gladly agreed live in a cardboard box. “Christ, if I have to hear one more time about how fabulous a tray ceiling is or how brilliantly a floor plan’s open concept is realized,” he shook his head, unable to come up with a dire enough threat. “Seriously, unless there’s a huge fucking hole in the ceiling, who cares what it looks like?”
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Luke said. “This is the one, I just know it.”
Luke walked him in through the back, and Reid would have signed the offer after his first glimpse of the infinity pool, but he dutifully walked through the rest of the place. It was a good size without being sprawling; three bedrooms, two full baths. There was an office downstairs, right off the kitchen where Reid could work without being completely cut off from the rest of the house; there was a sense of history in the hard-wood floors and sturdy, built-in cabinetry and bookshelves, and the kitchen had a light, industrial feel that nicely complemented the modern updates that had been made to the home.
They made an offer that afternoon and six weeks later, amid the worried chorus of the peanut gallery (too small, said Lucinda; too old, said Holden; too modern, said Lily), they moved in. Both of them agreed it was one of the best decisions they’d ever made.
Reid quietly let himself in the darkened house. He was still in the habit of seeking out clues to Luke’s well being and was glad to see his empty dinner plate in the sink and his running shoes by the garage door. Reid checked for a note to see if there was some place they had to be in the morning and happily found none. The timer on the coffee pot was set to eight, which meant they could sleep in for once.
“Sweet,” he muttered, toeing off his shoes and heading upstairs.
He’d showered at the hospital before heading home, so he simply shucked off his clothes and slipped under the covers. He pressed his chest to Luke’s bare back, kissed his shoulder, and was sound asleep in minutes.
When Reid awoke the next morning, Luke was already up. He cracked open one eye to look at the clock which read 8:10. “Coffee!” Reid yelled pitifully, grinning as he imagined the irritated look on Luke’s face.
He half-expected a “Fuck you!” to come sailing up from the kitchen, but when it didn’t, he tried again. “Coffee!”
Luke called up from the foot of the stairs, “Is this that game where you shout out things you smell, or are you asking for something?”
“Coffee!” Reid called again, adding a rather demanding, “Please!” at the end.
Luke was already climbing the stairs, and he entered the bedroom holding two coffee mugs and looking only slightly amused. “Your coffee, my lord,” he said.
Reid grinned. “Is that so hard?” he asked. Luke just leaned against the bathroom door and looked at him with one eyebrow raised. Reid gave him a measuring look. “If I order you to ride my cock am I going to get some outraged speech about feudal subservience and man’s inhumanity to man?”
Luke frowned thoughtfully. “Is this order coming before or after you blow me.”
“After,” Reid said. “I’m not a monster.”
The coffee was cold when they finished, and Luke laughed at Reid’s suggestion that they install a microwave in the bathroom for just such mornings. Reid leaned up on his elbow, brushing over Luke’s prominent cheekbone with his thumb, smiling to himself at the soft, barely visible fuzz on Luke’s chin. Something faltered in Luke’s face for a beat, and Reid said, “What?”
Luke sighed. “Frank failed the drug test,” he said. “I had to fire him.”
Reid winced at the words. God damn it, they’d talked about it at breakfast the day before, and Reid had made a mental note to call Luke that afternoon to find out what had happened, but as usual the day got away from him--two surgeries, three emergencies and a handful of consults, and suddenly it was 14 hours later.
“Aw, crap, I meant to call,” Reid started to say.
Luke smiled at him. “Yeah, let’s talk about the lousy timing of your stroke patients,” he said.
“I’m kind of a shitty boyfriend, aren’t I?” Reid said. When Luke said nothing, Reid kicked at him. “This is where you interrupt and disagree with me.”
Luke’s eyes were wide with exaggerated innocence. “Oh no,” he dutifully interrupted. “There’s no kind of.”
Reid smirked at him. “I’m trying to apologize here,” he said.
“No you’re not,” Luke said with a laugh of disbelief. “You never apologize for anything. You just talk around whatever it is you want to apologize for without ever actually apologizing. “
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Reid said,
Luke easily produced an example. “Saying I told you Mrs. Krantz couldn’t see us skinny dipping in the pool even though she could is not the same thing as saying I’m sorry I told you Mrs. Krantz couldn’t see us skinny dipping in the pool even though I totally knew she could.”
“How’s this for an apology: I’m sorry you’re such a prude.”
Luke just shrugged at him. “You’re the one who’ll freak out when your interns are giggling over the YouTube video that will be playing in an endless loop in their lounge.”
Reid smirked back. “Right because if the interns get a first-hand look at my extraordinary sexual prowess they might respect me less. You don’t understand your own generation at all, do you?”
Luke rolled his eyes. “I’m an old soul,” he said dryly. When Reid didn’t answer, Luke spared him a glance and paused at the speculative look on Reid’s face. Luke’s eyes shifted from curiosity to understanding, and he quickly looked away.
A slow, sexy smile curved Reid’s lips. “You’re going to cave,” he said.
Luke ducked his head, but it was too late to hide the furious blush. “You’re not recording us,” he said, and Reid chuckled because every time Luke said those words, he sounded less convinced than the time before.
Reid cupped Luke’s ass and pressed their groins together. “You have no idea what you’re depriving yourself of,” Reid said. He gave Luke a wet, messy kiss. “I want you to see the look on your face right before I come inside you,” he whispered. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” He slipped Luke’s soft earlobe into his mouth and gently sucked, then said softly, “Next to the look on your face right after.”
They fell asleep for a bit after round two, waking up when a calendar reminder chimed from Luke’s phone. “I’m helping my dad at the farm,” Luke said drowsily, his head resting on Reid’s chest. “You want to come?”
Reid looked thoughtful for a moment. “I do enjoy manual labor,” he said. “And it’s not like me to pass up the opportunity to shovel horse shit in my copious amounts of free time…”
Luke smacked his arm. “I wouldn’t even ask but every time I don’t, you pout like an eight year old who isn’t invited to the birthday party.”
“Pout?” Reid repeated with high-pitched incredulity. “I don’t even know the meaning of the word.”
Luke smiled sweetly at him. “That’s why I got you a word-of-the-day calendar for your birthday.” Reid pinched his ass and laughed when he squealed. “Come shower with me,” Luke said.
Reid shook his head. “I’m going running in a bit,” he said.
“Are you going to make breakfast then?” Luke asked.
“I wasn’t planning on it,” Reid said settling back into his pillow with a long, lazy sigh.
“You make the best breakfast,” Luke said guilelessly, wrapping himself around Reid and kissing his cheek. “French Toast maybe?” Luke said. “Mmm, with cream cheese? It’s so good. So good. No one makes it as good as you do.” Luke was peppering his face with kisses, then he did that thing with his big round eyes and the tilting of his head and before the water in the shower was running, Reid was beating eggs and setting the bread to soak.
“Are you whipped if you wanted French Toast anyway?” Reid wondered to himself.
Luke trotted downstairs, wearing his oldest pair of jeans and a soft, faded t-shirt that made Reid’s mouth water. Luke wrapped his arms around Reid with an appreciative growl when he found him flipping French Toast at the stove.
“Tell me about yesterday,” Reid said while Luke poured the orange juice and refilled his coffee cup.
Frank O’Roarke had been with Grimaldi for over two years; having started in the warehouse and only recently been promoted to Logistics. He’d been on probation once before following a month of absences and sub-par performance. His work had been promising for the first few months after the promotion, then he’d resumed his chronic tardiness. Two checks had gone missing from a register, which was enough to request a drug test. It was the third time he’d tested positive for cocaine.
“He just sat there,” Luke said, shaking his head. “It’s not like he could have said anything to keep his job, but he just sat there, looking lost and miserable and then he just, kind of, slunk out of the office and left.” Luke sighed, moving around the food on his plate. “I offered to pay for rehab, but he didn’t even acknowledge what was happening.” He swallowed the last of his coffee with a shrug. “I just feel like such a hypocrite,” he said. “I mean, when I think of all the second chances I’ve been given.” Luke rolled his eyes. “The third, fourth, fifth, sixth…”
Reid nodded, not agreeing with Luke exactly, but understanding. “It’s different when you have to consider the safety of the other employees at Grimaldi, the duty you owe customers and all of the legal issues. You had to…”
“I know,” Luke said. “It still feels awful.”
Reid couldn’t help thinking that if Luke gleaned even a remote amount of pleasure from working at Grimaldi Shipping, the harder aspects of the job would be easier to handle. As it was, the company was nothing but an unwanted responsibility to Luke.
When they first met, Reid had unleashed some barbs at the company or more accurately at the young Mr. Snyder’s ownership of it. Luke had shrugged off the comments, saying once, “You’re just jealous. What boy doesn’t grow up hoping against hope to someday own a shipping company? It’s right up there at the top of the list after Fireman and Baseball Player.”
He was always self-deprecating about it, and the only gibe Reid had ever landed that drew blood had been a throwaway remark one day when Luke was fretting over whether or not Grimaldi was going to renew some contract with a manufacturing firm in town.
“Would you relax?” Reid had said. “It’s not like someone’s going to stop breathing if you don’t get the contract. Does it really matter that much?”
“It matters to the people who work here, and the families they support,” Luke had said sharply. "“I know there’s nothing glamorous about it; there’s nothing life or death about it, but the shipping industry had shed thousands of jobs in the last few years,” Luke’s face flushed with anger. “But we haven’t had to lay off one person at Grimaldi,” he said fiercely, “Not one!” Luke had averted his eyes, embarrassed by his outburst. “I know it’s not because I’m doing something brilliant or anything, but I’m proud of that.”
Reid had held up his hands in surrender, understanding he’d gone too far. “You should be,” he’d said quietly, and Grimaldi Shipping became one of those topics upon which Reid learned to tread lightly. Over time, Reid had come to realize that Luke had stuck it out at Grimaldi not out of some ego-driven desire to boss people around or some teenage lark at the play-acting of running a company. He stayed out of guilt- guilt that innocent employees could be affected by any decision he might make; guilt at the terrible things his father had done; guilt at the rage and hatred Luke still harbored for him; guilt at his resentment of Lily for her hand in the mess.
So much of what Luke had been given was a burden to him, made even heavier by how desirable it all seemed to everyone looking in from a distance. Luke’s self-awareness of all this was a big part of what fueled the change in Reid’s opinion of the young man. Luke wasn’t ashamed of the wealth he’d come into, but he had no false pride in it either. Reid was teasing Luke once when they were shopping for Reid’s new car. Reid wasn’t even considering a vehicle if it wasn’t on the list of top five Italian sports cars, and he was shaking his head in mock confusion at the unremarkable Honda Luke drove. “There’s no shame in rewarding yourself with a toy or two,” Reid had said, gunning the engine of the car they were test driving while they were stopped at a light.
“Yeah,” Luke had said easily. He’d shrugged and pretended to be inordinately interested in the list of add-ons for the car. “But the difference is you earned it.”
Poor little rich boy, indeed.
Reid topped off his coffee, leaning against the counter for a beat before rejoining Luke at the table. “Can we talk about selling?” he asked. Luke shook his head, but Reid stilled him with a hand on his arm. “You’re allowed to have a job you like,” Reid reminded him. “You’re allowed to have a job you choose to have.”
“I know,” Luke said. He smiled and gave Reid that embarrassed half-shrug of his. “Sometimes, I wish the Mayo Clinic or Johns Hopkins would just call already and then I wouldn’t have to make a decision. I mean, it’s not my fault my boyfriend’s been named the Chief of Neurosurgery at the country’s finest hospital, is it?” Luke’s easy smile belied how painful Reid knew it was going to be when (not if) his future job prospects wrenched Luke from the bosom of his family.
But even if that happened on Reid’s most accelerated timeline (please God), they were still looking at ten to 15 years before the call came. Reid certainly didn’t want the albatross that was Grimaldi Shipping to weigh Luke down for that long.
“Evergreen’s going to come back in a couple of months,” Reid said. “You know they will, and CMA was doing more than just sniffing around. Maybe it’s time to seriously consider their offers.” For the first time since Reid had been bringing up the idea of selling Grimaldi there was something yielding in Luke’s demeanor; something that told Reid for once he wasn’t going to simply dismiss the notion out of hand.
Luke sighed and stared at the juice in his glass. “I don’t want to let anyone down,” he admitted quietly.
“I don’t know why you think of selling as some kind of failure,” Reid said. “It’s not.”
“It feels like I’m giving up,” Luke said.
“Giving up on what?” Reid asked.
Luke frowned as he tried to articulate his thoughts. “On the people who trust in the company they work for to stick up for them; on whatever fucked up, misplaced expectations Damian had for me… I don’t know. It feels ungrateful to just… toss it away and pocket a few bucks I never deserved in the first place.”
“It’s not fair that you get saddled with all of that,” Reid said. “You can structure a sale to be as favorable as possible to the Grimaldi employees. Damian can choke on his fucking expectations for you, and the proceeds of the sale can funnel into one of your shiny, do-good projects.” Reid didn’t really care about any of that. “I just want you to be free to do something you want, not something you feel obligated to do.”
Luke chewed on his bottom lip. “Greg Mason at Evergreen was willing to consider a stipulation of no personnel changes for a year,” he said.
Reid nodded, remembering. “A year is pretty great,” he said. “You can’t guarantee anyone’s job for a year-things happen, businesses change, the environment changes. You owe your employees honesty and transparency, but not the rest of your life.”
“I’ll think about it,” Luke said. He smiled at Reid and reached over to squeeze his hand. “You’re kind of an awesome boyfriend,” he said.
Reid smiled back. “There’s no kind of,” he said.
Luke laughed. “I know you hate when I say stuff like this, but… don’t mention to anyone that I’m thinking of selling, okay? My dad gets weird whenever anything Grimaldi comes up and my mom gets weird when my dad gets weird and then Grandma and Grandmother weigh in and…”
“Yeah yeah, weirdness all around,” Reid said. “I’ll just shovel down the pot roast and keep my thoughts to myself.”
“I wonder what that would be like?” Luke said dreamily. He stood up and kissed the top of Reid’s head. “Thanks for breakfast,” he said.
“Enjoy the cow dung,” Reid said. He pointed to a stack of medical journals, then tapped his temple. “I’m going to be exercising this all day,” he said.
“Out by the pool,” Luke added.
“Does it really matter where I sit while I selflessly expand my ability to save the sick and infirmed?”
“Try to keep your pants on,” Luke said. “I’d hate for Mrs. Krantz to call the cops on your public indecency.”
“She’s not going to call the cops,” Reid said. “The last thing Mrs. K wants is for our indecency to stop being public.”
“Well, remember, I’ve always got the bail money stashed so let me know if you need me.”
Reid followed Luke to the garage door, gently encircling his wrist before Luke opened the door. “Drink a lot of water,” Reid said. Luke made a face, but Reid brought his hand up to Luke’s cheek, no humor on his face, and Luke’s eyes softened. “Drink a lot of water,” Reid said again.
“I’m good,” Luke said.
“I know,” Reid said. “Just… be aware, okay? You start to feel light headed or nauseous or your head starts to hurt…”
“I’ll be fine,” Luke said. “No heavy lifting today, I promise. We just going to clear out the…”
Reid wasn’t really listening. He reached for his phone, saying, “Does your father even know what to look for if you start…”
Luke looked suddenly horrified. “If you call my dad, I swear to God…”
Reid offered his most unctuous smile. “You know how much I enjoy a good heart-to-heart with Papa Snyder.”
“Yeah, and then he’ll spend the morning muttering under his breath with his eyebrow twitching.”
“I hope he doesn’t have a neurological condition,” Reid said. “Grandma’s dinner at six?”
Luke nodded. “Text me if you’re paged.”
“All right,” Reid said. “And hey, for once if Ethan or Nat want to come back with us, say no. I want to give Mrs. Krantz an eyeful under the moonlight.”
Luke stared at him, flabbergasted. “You’re the one who always says yes!” he said. “They always go to you first because there’s never a we’ll see or let me check with Luke or not this time…”
“Always seems a bit of an exaggeration,” Reid said.
“And then you get called in to the hospital and I’m left with a shopping list that looks like a carnival manifest and a bunch of kids moping around because Mayor McFun isn’t there to help them parachute off the roof into the pool!”
“You are so high strung,” Reid said, clucking his tongue. “Good thing I’m a doctor with access to samples of drugs for lowering blood pressure."
Luke snorted at him. “You oughta be sampling the drugs than reinforce your backbone,”
Reid made a disgusted face. “Well they look at me with those Snyder eyes, and if they think for even a minute the answer might be no, they start…”
“You’re a pushover,” Luke said.
“Just with the rugrats,” Reid said. “Once they turn twelve, I’m immune to their cunning machinations.”
“Right,” Luke said. “I remember how you stood up to Faith when that orderly dumped her, and she wanted him assigned to the morgue for a three-week rotation.”
Reid gave a lofty sniff and began sorting his journals by publishing date. “And again, we’re back to my having no idea what you’re talking about,” he said.
Luke was laughing as he left which made Reid grin. He cleaned up the breakfast dishes, then went upstairs and changed into running clothes. He was lacing up his shoes when it dawned on him that he was still grinning like a loon. He strapped on his iPod, ruefully shaking his head at himself and answered his own question from earlier that morning. Even without the French Toast, he thought, You are totally whipped.
#
Author: Myrna1_2_3
Fandom: As the World Turns
Characters/Pairings: Luke/Reid
Rating: R
Summary: Luke and Reid talk about Grimaldi Shipping.
Disclaimer: Not-not-mine
Author’s Notes: What kind of car does Luke drive, anyway? For the purposes of this fic, he drives a Honda. Does Grimaldi Shipping even exist anymore? I trust Wikipedia way more than I should.
Reid Oliver pulled into the driveway of the new house he shared with his boyfriend, cut the engine and just sat there for a beat. The porch light was on, but the rest of the house was dark, and he didn’t really expect Luke to be up. They’d finally lit on a new anti-rejection med for him, and that meant a blessed end to sleepless nights spent with Luke’s head in the toilet. They were enjoying a little smooth sailing for once-Luke’s health was back on track, things at the hospital were running according to plan, and they were settling in to their new home with surprising ease.
The house was over 150 years old and had been painstakingly refurbished with an appreciative eye toward its character, but enough of a modern flair that Reid didn’t feel like he’d moved into the Walton’s old house.
By the time Luke dragged Reid to look at this place, Reid would have gladly agreed live in a cardboard box. “Christ, if I have to hear one more time about how fabulous a tray ceiling is or how brilliantly a floor plan’s open concept is realized,” he shook his head, unable to come up with a dire enough threat. “Seriously, unless there’s a huge fucking hole in the ceiling, who cares what it looks like?”
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Luke said. “This is the one, I just know it.”
Luke walked him in through the back, and Reid would have signed the offer after his first glimpse of the infinity pool, but he dutifully walked through the rest of the place. It was a good size without being sprawling; three bedrooms, two full baths. There was an office downstairs, right off the kitchen where Reid could work without being completely cut off from the rest of the house; there was a sense of history in the hard-wood floors and sturdy, built-in cabinetry and bookshelves, and the kitchen had a light, industrial feel that nicely complemented the modern updates that had been made to the home.
They made an offer that afternoon and six weeks later, amid the worried chorus of the peanut gallery (too small, said Lucinda; too old, said Holden; too modern, said Lily), they moved in. Both of them agreed it was one of the best decisions they’d ever made.
Reid quietly let himself in the darkened house. He was still in the habit of seeking out clues to Luke’s well being and was glad to see his empty dinner plate in the sink and his running shoes by the garage door. Reid checked for a note to see if there was some place they had to be in the morning and happily found none. The timer on the coffee pot was set to eight, which meant they could sleep in for once.
“Sweet,” he muttered, toeing off his shoes and heading upstairs.
He’d showered at the hospital before heading home, so he simply shucked off his clothes and slipped under the covers. He pressed his chest to Luke’s bare back, kissed his shoulder, and was sound asleep in minutes.
When Reid awoke the next morning, Luke was already up. He cracked open one eye to look at the clock which read 8:10. “Coffee!” Reid yelled pitifully, grinning as he imagined the irritated look on Luke’s face.
He half-expected a “Fuck you!” to come sailing up from the kitchen, but when it didn’t, he tried again. “Coffee!”
Luke called up from the foot of the stairs, “Is this that game where you shout out things you smell, or are you asking for something?”
“Coffee!” Reid called again, adding a rather demanding, “Please!” at the end.
Luke was already climbing the stairs, and he entered the bedroom holding two coffee mugs and looking only slightly amused. “Your coffee, my lord,” he said.
Reid grinned. “Is that so hard?” he asked. Luke just leaned against the bathroom door and looked at him with one eyebrow raised. Reid gave him a measuring look. “If I order you to ride my cock am I going to get some outraged speech about feudal subservience and man’s inhumanity to man?”
Luke frowned thoughtfully. “Is this order coming before or after you blow me.”
“After,” Reid said. “I’m not a monster.”
The coffee was cold when they finished, and Luke laughed at Reid’s suggestion that they install a microwave in the bathroom for just such mornings. Reid leaned up on his elbow, brushing over Luke’s prominent cheekbone with his thumb, smiling to himself at the soft, barely visible fuzz on Luke’s chin. Something faltered in Luke’s face for a beat, and Reid said, “What?”
Luke sighed. “Frank failed the drug test,” he said. “I had to fire him.”
Reid winced at the words. God damn it, they’d talked about it at breakfast the day before, and Reid had made a mental note to call Luke that afternoon to find out what had happened, but as usual the day got away from him--two surgeries, three emergencies and a handful of consults, and suddenly it was 14 hours later.
“Aw, crap, I meant to call,” Reid started to say.
Luke smiled at him. “Yeah, let’s talk about the lousy timing of your stroke patients,” he said.
“I’m kind of a shitty boyfriend, aren’t I?” Reid said. When Luke said nothing, Reid kicked at him. “This is where you interrupt and disagree with me.”
Luke’s eyes were wide with exaggerated innocence. “Oh no,” he dutifully interrupted. “There’s no kind of.”
Reid smirked at him. “I’m trying to apologize here,” he said.
“No you’re not,” Luke said with a laugh of disbelief. “You never apologize for anything. You just talk around whatever it is you want to apologize for without ever actually apologizing. “
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Reid said,
Luke easily produced an example. “Saying I told you Mrs. Krantz couldn’t see us skinny dipping in the pool even though she could is not the same thing as saying I’m sorry I told you Mrs. Krantz couldn’t see us skinny dipping in the pool even though I totally knew she could.”
“How’s this for an apology: I’m sorry you’re such a prude.”
Luke just shrugged at him. “You’re the one who’ll freak out when your interns are giggling over the YouTube video that will be playing in an endless loop in their lounge.”
Reid smirked back. “Right because if the interns get a first-hand look at my extraordinary sexual prowess they might respect me less. You don’t understand your own generation at all, do you?”
Luke rolled his eyes. “I’m an old soul,” he said dryly. When Reid didn’t answer, Luke spared him a glance and paused at the speculative look on Reid’s face. Luke’s eyes shifted from curiosity to understanding, and he quickly looked away.
A slow, sexy smile curved Reid’s lips. “You’re going to cave,” he said.
Luke ducked his head, but it was too late to hide the furious blush. “You’re not recording us,” he said, and Reid chuckled because every time Luke said those words, he sounded less convinced than the time before.
Reid cupped Luke’s ass and pressed their groins together. “You have no idea what you’re depriving yourself of,” Reid said. He gave Luke a wet, messy kiss. “I want you to see the look on your face right before I come inside you,” he whispered. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” He slipped Luke’s soft earlobe into his mouth and gently sucked, then said softly, “Next to the look on your face right after.”
They fell asleep for a bit after round two, waking up when a calendar reminder chimed from Luke’s phone. “I’m helping my dad at the farm,” Luke said drowsily, his head resting on Reid’s chest. “You want to come?”
Reid looked thoughtful for a moment. “I do enjoy manual labor,” he said. “And it’s not like me to pass up the opportunity to shovel horse shit in my copious amounts of free time…”
Luke smacked his arm. “I wouldn’t even ask but every time I don’t, you pout like an eight year old who isn’t invited to the birthday party.”
“Pout?” Reid repeated with high-pitched incredulity. “I don’t even know the meaning of the word.”
Luke smiled sweetly at him. “That’s why I got you a word-of-the-day calendar for your birthday.” Reid pinched his ass and laughed when he squealed. “Come shower with me,” Luke said.
Reid shook his head. “I’m going running in a bit,” he said.
“Are you going to make breakfast then?” Luke asked.
“I wasn’t planning on it,” Reid said settling back into his pillow with a long, lazy sigh.
“You make the best breakfast,” Luke said guilelessly, wrapping himself around Reid and kissing his cheek. “French Toast maybe?” Luke said. “Mmm, with cream cheese? It’s so good. So good. No one makes it as good as you do.” Luke was peppering his face with kisses, then he did that thing with his big round eyes and the tilting of his head and before the water in the shower was running, Reid was beating eggs and setting the bread to soak.
“Are you whipped if you wanted French Toast anyway?” Reid wondered to himself.
Luke trotted downstairs, wearing his oldest pair of jeans and a soft, faded t-shirt that made Reid’s mouth water. Luke wrapped his arms around Reid with an appreciative growl when he found him flipping French Toast at the stove.
“Tell me about yesterday,” Reid said while Luke poured the orange juice and refilled his coffee cup.
Frank O’Roarke had been with Grimaldi for over two years; having started in the warehouse and only recently been promoted to Logistics. He’d been on probation once before following a month of absences and sub-par performance. His work had been promising for the first few months after the promotion, then he’d resumed his chronic tardiness. Two checks had gone missing from a register, which was enough to request a drug test. It was the third time he’d tested positive for cocaine.
“He just sat there,” Luke said, shaking his head. “It’s not like he could have said anything to keep his job, but he just sat there, looking lost and miserable and then he just, kind of, slunk out of the office and left.” Luke sighed, moving around the food on his plate. “I offered to pay for rehab, but he didn’t even acknowledge what was happening.” He swallowed the last of his coffee with a shrug. “I just feel like such a hypocrite,” he said. “I mean, when I think of all the second chances I’ve been given.” Luke rolled his eyes. “The third, fourth, fifth, sixth…”
Reid nodded, not agreeing with Luke exactly, but understanding. “It’s different when you have to consider the safety of the other employees at Grimaldi, the duty you owe customers and all of the legal issues. You had to…”
“I know,” Luke said. “It still feels awful.”
Reid couldn’t help thinking that if Luke gleaned even a remote amount of pleasure from working at Grimaldi Shipping, the harder aspects of the job would be easier to handle. As it was, the company was nothing but an unwanted responsibility to Luke.
When they first met, Reid had unleashed some barbs at the company or more accurately at the young Mr. Snyder’s ownership of it. Luke had shrugged off the comments, saying once, “You’re just jealous. What boy doesn’t grow up hoping against hope to someday own a shipping company? It’s right up there at the top of the list after Fireman and Baseball Player.”
He was always self-deprecating about it, and the only gibe Reid had ever landed that drew blood had been a throwaway remark one day when Luke was fretting over whether or not Grimaldi was going to renew some contract with a manufacturing firm in town.
“Would you relax?” Reid had said. “It’s not like someone’s going to stop breathing if you don’t get the contract. Does it really matter that much?”
“It matters to the people who work here, and the families they support,” Luke had said sharply. "“I know there’s nothing glamorous about it; there’s nothing life or death about it, but the shipping industry had shed thousands of jobs in the last few years,” Luke’s face flushed with anger. “But we haven’t had to lay off one person at Grimaldi,” he said fiercely, “Not one!” Luke had averted his eyes, embarrassed by his outburst. “I know it’s not because I’m doing something brilliant or anything, but I’m proud of that.”
Reid had held up his hands in surrender, understanding he’d gone too far. “You should be,” he’d said quietly, and Grimaldi Shipping became one of those topics upon which Reid learned to tread lightly. Over time, Reid had come to realize that Luke had stuck it out at Grimaldi not out of some ego-driven desire to boss people around or some teenage lark at the play-acting of running a company. He stayed out of guilt- guilt that innocent employees could be affected by any decision he might make; guilt at the terrible things his father had done; guilt at the rage and hatred Luke still harbored for him; guilt at his resentment of Lily for her hand in the mess.
So much of what Luke had been given was a burden to him, made even heavier by how desirable it all seemed to everyone looking in from a distance. Luke’s self-awareness of all this was a big part of what fueled the change in Reid’s opinion of the young man. Luke wasn’t ashamed of the wealth he’d come into, but he had no false pride in it either. Reid was teasing Luke once when they were shopping for Reid’s new car. Reid wasn’t even considering a vehicle if it wasn’t on the list of top five Italian sports cars, and he was shaking his head in mock confusion at the unremarkable Honda Luke drove. “There’s no shame in rewarding yourself with a toy or two,” Reid had said, gunning the engine of the car they were test driving while they were stopped at a light.
“Yeah,” Luke had said easily. He’d shrugged and pretended to be inordinately interested in the list of add-ons for the car. “But the difference is you earned it.”
Poor little rich boy, indeed.
Reid topped off his coffee, leaning against the counter for a beat before rejoining Luke at the table. “Can we talk about selling?” he asked. Luke shook his head, but Reid stilled him with a hand on his arm. “You’re allowed to have a job you like,” Reid reminded him. “You’re allowed to have a job you choose to have.”
“I know,” Luke said. He smiled and gave Reid that embarrassed half-shrug of his. “Sometimes, I wish the Mayo Clinic or Johns Hopkins would just call already and then I wouldn’t have to make a decision. I mean, it’s not my fault my boyfriend’s been named the Chief of Neurosurgery at the country’s finest hospital, is it?” Luke’s easy smile belied how painful Reid knew it was going to be when (not if) his future job prospects wrenched Luke from the bosom of his family.
But even if that happened on Reid’s most accelerated timeline (please God), they were still looking at ten to 15 years before the call came. Reid certainly didn’t want the albatross that was Grimaldi Shipping to weigh Luke down for that long.
“Evergreen’s going to come back in a couple of months,” Reid said. “You know they will, and CMA was doing more than just sniffing around. Maybe it’s time to seriously consider their offers.” For the first time since Reid had been bringing up the idea of selling Grimaldi there was something yielding in Luke’s demeanor; something that told Reid for once he wasn’t going to simply dismiss the notion out of hand.
Luke sighed and stared at the juice in his glass. “I don’t want to let anyone down,” he admitted quietly.
“I don’t know why you think of selling as some kind of failure,” Reid said. “It’s not.”
“It feels like I’m giving up,” Luke said.
“Giving up on what?” Reid asked.
Luke frowned as he tried to articulate his thoughts. “On the people who trust in the company they work for to stick up for them; on whatever fucked up, misplaced expectations Damian had for me… I don’t know. It feels ungrateful to just… toss it away and pocket a few bucks I never deserved in the first place.”
“It’s not fair that you get saddled with all of that,” Reid said. “You can structure a sale to be as favorable as possible to the Grimaldi employees. Damian can choke on his fucking expectations for you, and the proceeds of the sale can funnel into one of your shiny, do-good projects.” Reid didn’t really care about any of that. “I just want you to be free to do something you want, not something you feel obligated to do.”
Luke chewed on his bottom lip. “Greg Mason at Evergreen was willing to consider a stipulation of no personnel changes for a year,” he said.
Reid nodded, remembering. “A year is pretty great,” he said. “You can’t guarantee anyone’s job for a year-things happen, businesses change, the environment changes. You owe your employees honesty and transparency, but not the rest of your life.”
“I’ll think about it,” Luke said. He smiled at Reid and reached over to squeeze his hand. “You’re kind of an awesome boyfriend,” he said.
Reid smiled back. “There’s no kind of,” he said.
Luke laughed. “I know you hate when I say stuff like this, but… don’t mention to anyone that I’m thinking of selling, okay? My dad gets weird whenever anything Grimaldi comes up and my mom gets weird when my dad gets weird and then Grandma and Grandmother weigh in and…”
“Yeah yeah, weirdness all around,” Reid said. “I’ll just shovel down the pot roast and keep my thoughts to myself.”
“I wonder what that would be like?” Luke said dreamily. He stood up and kissed the top of Reid’s head. “Thanks for breakfast,” he said.
“Enjoy the cow dung,” Reid said. He pointed to a stack of medical journals, then tapped his temple. “I’m going to be exercising this all day,” he said.
“Out by the pool,” Luke added.
“Does it really matter where I sit while I selflessly expand my ability to save the sick and infirmed?”
“Try to keep your pants on,” Luke said. “I’d hate for Mrs. Krantz to call the cops on your public indecency.”
“She’s not going to call the cops,” Reid said. “The last thing Mrs. K wants is for our indecency to stop being public.”
“Well, remember, I’ve always got the bail money stashed so let me know if you need me.”
Reid followed Luke to the garage door, gently encircling his wrist before Luke opened the door. “Drink a lot of water,” Reid said. Luke made a face, but Reid brought his hand up to Luke’s cheek, no humor on his face, and Luke’s eyes softened. “Drink a lot of water,” Reid said again.
“I’m good,” Luke said.
“I know,” Reid said. “Just… be aware, okay? You start to feel light headed or nauseous or your head starts to hurt…”
“I’ll be fine,” Luke said. “No heavy lifting today, I promise. We just going to clear out the…”
Reid wasn’t really listening. He reached for his phone, saying, “Does your father even know what to look for if you start…”
Luke looked suddenly horrified. “If you call my dad, I swear to God…”
Reid offered his most unctuous smile. “You know how much I enjoy a good heart-to-heart with Papa Snyder.”
“Yeah, and then he’ll spend the morning muttering under his breath with his eyebrow twitching.”
“I hope he doesn’t have a neurological condition,” Reid said. “Grandma’s dinner at six?”
Luke nodded. “Text me if you’re paged.”
“All right,” Reid said. “And hey, for once if Ethan or Nat want to come back with us, say no. I want to give Mrs. Krantz an eyeful under the moonlight.”
Luke stared at him, flabbergasted. “You’re the one who always says yes!” he said. “They always go to you first because there’s never a we’ll see or let me check with Luke or not this time…”
“Always seems a bit of an exaggeration,” Reid said.
“And then you get called in to the hospital and I’m left with a shopping list that looks like a carnival manifest and a bunch of kids moping around because Mayor McFun isn’t there to help them parachute off the roof into the pool!”
“You are so high strung,” Reid said, clucking his tongue. “Good thing I’m a doctor with access to samples of drugs for lowering blood pressure."
Luke snorted at him. “You oughta be sampling the drugs than reinforce your backbone,”
Reid made a disgusted face. “Well they look at me with those Snyder eyes, and if they think for even a minute the answer might be no, they start…”
“You’re a pushover,” Luke said.
“Just with the rugrats,” Reid said. “Once they turn twelve, I’m immune to their cunning machinations.”
“Right,” Luke said. “I remember how you stood up to Faith when that orderly dumped her, and she wanted him assigned to the morgue for a three-week rotation.”
Reid gave a lofty sniff and began sorting his journals by publishing date. “And again, we’re back to my having no idea what you’re talking about,” he said.
Luke was laughing as he left which made Reid grin. He cleaned up the breakfast dishes, then went upstairs and changed into running clothes. He was lacing up his shoes when it dawned on him that he was still grinning like a loon. He strapped on his iPod, ruefully shaking his head at himself and answered his own question from earlier that morning. Even without the French Toast, he thought, You are totally whipped.
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