“I want to take ownership of the den. Here’s what I’m thinking for the built-ins. The line on top is the wall with the window. I want to put built-ins on the wall across from it—shelves on top and cabinets on the bottom. Leave a space for a TV in the middle. Then we do built-ins on the opposite side too, same thing with shelves and cabinets, but no TV hole on this side. I’m thinking we put a big sofa in the middle, but we can talk about furniture later. And then the crazy idea is to replace the window with a door to the side yard, maybe a slider to let in more light. What do you think that will cost?”
Travis shrugged. “A few hundred dollars. I’ve got a door guy who owes me a favor, so I think I can get a good deal on a slider.”
“Cool. Let’s do that. What do you think, Nolan?”
Nolan liked the idea of adding a door, because the den had only one small window that didn’t let in much light. He wasn’t a fan of doing that many built-ins, though. Still, he knew he couldn’t plow over Grayson, both because it would make their dynamic look problematic on the show and because he was starting to really like Grayson and didn’t want to tear him down. “Sure, let’s do it.”
Grayson was quiet in the car on the way back to the studio. Nolan burned to ask what was going through his head, but refrained. Instead, he took a moment to reflect on his own thoughts and actions.
Grayson was sexy in a cute way, and open and vulnerable, something he probably wasn’t putting out deliberately. He wanted to do this job well, he’d said he wanted to impress Nolan, and he had clearly put some thought into his ideas.
The thought entered Nolan’s mind: what if?
Grayson was the first man to really attract his attention in more than a year. Something in Nolan was awake now in a way it hadn’t been in a very long time. Because he wanted Grayson. He wanted that slim body, he wanted to run his hands through Grayson’s curly hair, he wanted to know what those plump, pretty lips tasted like. A thrill zipped through Nolan whenever Grayson entered the room. So, there was that. But there was more too: Grayson was hungry for success, he had a good eye for color, he had some design talent even if Nolan didn’t always agree, and he put up an arrogant front but was really unsure of himself under it.
So what if Nolan gave in to his attraction? What if Grayson returned it? What if they had an affair? What if they had a relationship? What if they just kept each other warm at night for the duration of filming the show? Sure, getting involved with someone he worked with seemed like a stupid idea, and there were a hundred reasons for Nolan to tuck this away and never think on it again, but the fact thatthisman was the one to wake him uphadto mean something.
He glanced over at Grayson, who was looking at his phone.
“What did you think of Travis?”
Grayson looked up and turned his head toward Nolan. Nolan’s gaze was focused on the road, so he didn’t turn to look, but he felt Grayson’s gaze on him.
“He’s very practical,” Grayson said. “I figured that would be the case. I’ve been watching his show.”
“Is it good?”
“Yeah. His boyfriend is Brandon Chase.”
“I don’t know who that is.”
“Oh. Well, Brandon used to host a show on Restoration with his ex-wife. They flipped houses upstate, mostly. Now Brandon is with Travis, and they flip houses in Victorian Flatbush, in Brooklyn. So they work on these old, crumbling mansions, basically, and bring them back to life.”
“Interesting.”
“You should watch the pilot, at least. It’s really good. Usually when they flip houses, Brandon tries to keep the design very neutral, like Travis said, but they ended up keeping the house they renovated in the pilot, and the kitchen design is one of the best I’ve ever seen. Also, rumor has it they started dating while filming the first season, and the sexual tension crackles between them in a delightful way the whole episode.”
“All right, I’ll check it out.”
After a beat, Grayson said, “I hope I didn’t overstep by showing my sketch of the den to Travis.”
“It’s fine. The idea for the slider is very good. It will allow a lot more light into the room. That house is really dark because of the size of the windows and how overgrown the landscaping is. I want to get the Robertses’ permission to change the landscaping too, but only if there’s money left in the budget.”
“Okay.”
“Listen, Grayson, I—” Nolan snapped his mouth closed, unsure of what he wanted to say.I like youseemed silly. How did one do this? Had it really been so long since Nolan had hit on a man?
“I was just trying to follow your advice and assert myself when I have an idea I feel strongly about,” Grayson said, parroting something Nolan had told him on the drive to the house that morning.
“That was good. I’m not saying you shouldn’t have done it.”
“Because I don’t really know that much about kitchens, to be honest. I know what components they need, but I’ve never even turned on the oven in my own apartment. I can boil pasta and microwave leftovers, and that’s about it. So I know you need an oven and a fridge, but otherwise I don’t really know what someone who actually cooks would need. So I figured I’d let you worry about the kitchen and I’d work on some of the easier rooms, at least in this house.”
“You’ll figure it out. The main thing with kitchen design is prep space and storage. You want to maximize both without creating any traps or blocks. Everything else is aesthetics.”
“Traps or blocks?”
“I worked on this loft for an actress in LA who had hired a bad designer to do her kitchen. You couldn’t open the oven or dishwasher all the way because there wasn’t enough clearance around the island. And if you had the refrigerator open, the pantry was inaccessible. The whole thing was a nonfunctional mess and an electrical nightmare, because if any two appliances were running at the same time, it tripped the circuit. I had to basically rip the kitchen apart to fix it.”
