Nolan immediately pressed against Grayson. This was good. They were about the same height—well, Nolan was slightly taller—but when they kissed like this, when Nolan reached for Grayson, it felt like they were on equal footing. Nolan was no longer the expert and Grayson the apprentice. Nolan wasn’t the one with fifteen years more life experience. They were just two people who desired each other, who needed each other.
“Take me to bed,” Grayson whispered.
“Yes. Come on.”
Chapter Sixteen
THREE DAYSlater, Grayson could tell that something had changed between them. Nolan had clearly wanted to talk about his impending fatherhood. Apparently being so secretive about it meant he hadn’t had anyone to talk to. But Grayson’s stubborn refusal to let Nolan push him away had opened the floodgates. Grayson didn’t have regrets—not really—but he had to admit, he could happily go a whole day without discussing how to put a baby to sleep in a crib or what brand of diapers was best.
Now Nolan had thirty paint chips laid down in a geometric array on the big table in the studio and was staring at them as if they might magically move around and reveal the right color story to him.
The Cruzes had proved to be the sort of indecisive couple who would look at a bunch of samples and become crippled with indecision, overwhelmed by the choices. Whenever they were presented with more than one option, they froze. It was like when Grayson scrolled through Netflix if he was home alone at night and couldn’t decide what to watch. Grayson had essentially asked them to tell him what they didnotlike and then declared he and Nolan would do the choosing. The only things they didn’t like were tile floors, anything that looked too industrial, like polished concrete, and Jason had a weird thing about wallpaper.
“I think we should do a feature wall in the living room, but I can’t settle on which color I like for it.”
Nolan frowned at the paint samples. He’d also clearly become overwhelmed by the many choices. Grayson half wondered if—like Grayson choosing to watch a show he’d seen for the fourth time because he couldn’t decide on which new thing to watch—Nolan would just revert back to beige. During his heyday as a designer, Nolan had been known for bold colors, but in the past couple of years, his designs had gotten very neutral. He seemed interested in colors again now, but sometimes he rejected Grayson’s color ideas in favor of neutrals. Beige was Nolan’s safe space, his comfort zone. But these clients didn’t want beige. They wanted the old Nolan Hamlin.
“What’s the theme again?” Grayson asked.
“Urban Islands, I’m calling it. Caribbean meets Manhattan. So the kitchen color scheme is very urban, but I thought we could go a little more tropical everywhere else.”
“What about this pink? It would look really good with the dark brown flooring you picked.”
Nolan pressed his lips together. “Yeah, I think you’re right. Pops of yellow and blue in the furnishings would make it look very tropical. This pink helps too. But I want it to look chic, not like a cheap hotel in Miami.” He picked up a blue paint chip. “You think the lighter shade or the middle shade?”
“Middle. It’s brighter. Makes me think of the color of the ocean in mid-century travel posters.”
Nolan chuckled. “That’s very specific. You’re right, though. I’ve been to Puerto Rico because Ricky had family there. So I can verify that the ocean is close to this color in the Caribbean.”
“See that? Decision made. Was that so hard?”
Nolan was cleaning up the paint chips when Helena came in. “Hey, guys, I want to pitch you an idea.”
Nolan shot Grayson a look that told him he dreaded whatever Helena was about to say.
She stood at the head of the big table and smiled. “So, we have a six-episode order for the first season. So far we’ve got the Robertses, the Cruzes, the Dunlops, and the gay couple in the Catskills. They’re on board, by the way. I talked to them this morning. So we’ll set up a time to go look at their house soon. But we need one more couple.”
“I’m no math whiz,” said Grayson, “but that still only adds up to five.”
“That’s why I wanted to pitch something to you. A friend of mine is on the board of Rainbow House. It’s a homeless shelter for LGBTQ teens in Manhattan. They have a common room that has been pretty much the same since the nineties. The shelter has been raising money to renovate it, but obviously feeding and clothing these kids is their main priority. So I talked my higher-ups at the Restoration Channel into donating some money, and I thought it would be fun for us to makeover the place. Have it be kind of a special episode.”
“Sure,” said Nolan. “How big is the space?”
“It’s massive. I don’t know the exact measurements, but the shelter is built into an old building that used to be a school, and the common room was once a cafeteria. I think it’s a job we could do in a week or so, maybe? And rather than hiring labor, we could get the kids to help out with basic stuff like painting. If you want to do any construction, I can talk to Travis. He’s actually a carpenter, so he could build cabinets or tables or whatever you want. But we’re not, like, messing with plumbing or electrical, I don’t think. We’ll just be giving the room a facelift.”
“So, wait,” said Grayson. He felt like there was an angle to this project he wasn’t seeing. “Would the kids be on TV? Is the point to highlight the plight of homeless LGBTQ kids?”
“Yes. I mean, I’d like to get this shelter more money in donations because they do such good work and a lot of LGBTQ kids come to New York for all kinds of reasons. We’ve done charity projects like this on other shows. We just redid a couple of elementary school cafeterias onHouse Flippers, and we renovated a women’s shelter on another show last year. Viewers love this kind of thing, and it generates a lot of income for them. And I thought—and I hope you don’t mind this—we’ve got two gay interior designers right here who could help be models to the kids about how things can get better, right?”
“Sure,” said Nolan, although now he sounded doubtful.
Grayson thought this was objectively a good idea, but he felt unsettled. His own experience moving to New York had been a bit of a challenge. He worried that talking to homeless kids would bring up a lot of old stuff that he’d rather leave buried.
“It’ll be great,” said Helena. “I see you guys hesitating, but I think it will be fun. Taking a big room and redesigning it to be more functional while also bring attention to a good cause?Ithink it’s a no-brainer. Please say you’ll do it.”
Nolan looked at Grayson. Grayson understood that he was supposed to say yes here, so he did. “Okay.”
Nolan nodded. “Good. Let’s do it.”
