There was sooooo much he wanted to say about the analogy, but Grey thought it might be wiser to let it slide. “And the sports car?”
“All about speed and flashiness. Racing from one fun thing to the next. Nothing wrong with it. Just not my style.”
“Not a bad assessment. Especially considering Lucien owns a Porsche.”
“Man, I just stepped all in that one.” There was something in his voice. Grey could imagine him smiling and shaking his head.
“Yeah, but it was funny.”
“I can tell. You’re smiling again. And I’ve got you all bandaged up. You did a good job of it last night.” The praise was a bitter thing to swallow since Grey had done this all to himself in the first place. “How are you feeling?”
Grey closed his eyes and dragged in a deep breath. He actually considered Cort’s question rather than tossing out an answer. “Better. Calmer.” But it ran deeper than that. He always felt calmer, more at peace when Cort was around. It was like the man had the ability to encase him in a protective bubble or maybe filter out some of the overwhelming noise so that the world was a little more manageable.
“Will you tell me what happened?”
“I’d rather not talk about it.”
“I know, but I’d feel better if you did. Just a little. Right now, all I’ve got to go off is that your apartment is trashed, you’re hurt, and you refuse to see your friends. There are a lot of things that could have happened, but my main concern is if you had an argument with someone and—”
Grey jumped to his feet and stumbled backward a step. “You think one of my friends did this? Th-that someone attacked me?”
“Whoa. Whoa,” Cort said gently, sounding as if he were trying to talk down a spooked horse. There was a shuffle of feet on the floor, and Cort’s hand came to rest on his shoulder, squeezing lightly. “Honestly, I don’t think they’d do that, but I have to make sure. Like I said, your welfare is my first concern. They might be the best friends in the world, but I don’t give a damn about them right now. Just you.”
It was like those words sank deep into his soul. Grey argued that Cort was doing his job, that it wasn’t personal, but there was no denying how badly some wounded part of him needed to hear them.
“Talk to me, Grey. Help me understand.”
Grey stood listening to his pounding heart. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell Cort about the random guy who came to their house asking for help and then opened fire. But it wasn’t about the guy at all. He might have snapped at Lucien, but the fact was, he did the right thing. If their roles were reversed, Grey would have pinned him down, protecting him.
No, this was about failing the Circle. About not being able to do his one fucking job.
“Shit happened last night. Some guy attacked us at home.” Cort gasped, and Grey hurried on. “We got him, and the cops took him away.”
“But you couldn’t do anything about it,” Cort guessed.
“It’s more than that. My friends, we’re…we’re all sort of this team. We each have a specific job to do. No one else can do that person’s job. And right now, I can’t do my job because of this,” he grumbled, waving a hand at his eyes. “If I don’t do my job, people could get hurt. My family could be hurt.”
“And after your home was attacked last night, all those feelings came bubbling up in the form of you trashing your apartment.”
“Yeah,” Grey sighed.
“Come here. Come sit on the couch with me.” Grey let Cort lead him through the rubble in the living room to the couch. The cushions shifted on his right as Cort sat next to him. He was close enough that he could feel the brush of Cort’s arm against his. “Can I put Therapist Cort on hold for a second? Talk to you as Friend Cort?”
A half smile formed on Grey’s lips as he answered, “Sure.”
Cort immediately wrapped an arm around Grey’s shoulders and pulled him even closer so that Grey was leaning heavily on Cort, his head resting on his shoulder. “Oh, good. I always wanted to be some guy’s gay BFF,” Cort started, his voice full of playful sarcasm. Grey snorted a laugh and tried to sit up, but Cort wouldn’t let him. “First off, I’m disappointed. If it were me, I would have trashed the shit out of this place, blind or not. Grey, you’ve got every right to be angry, hurt, scared, and frustrated right now. It takes less than a minute with your family to see that you mean the world to them and they mean the world to you. Not being able to protect your family has got to hurt.”