What You Own Read online

  What You Own

  A.M. Arthur

  Briggs-King Books

  Contents

  Blurb

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Also by A.M. Arthur

  About the Author

  Blurb

  Ryan

  Moving north from Texas as a teen leaves me the odd-man-out, and Adam Langley is my first new friend. Then my best friend. And soon my entire world. But a gay bashing rips us apart before we can be more, and I try to move on. Joke’s on me when we’re thrust together four years later to do a fundraiser for my local community center. Adam might look right through me, but I still want him down to my bones.

  Adam

  I had a plan, damn it. Survive my summer internship with my homophobic father’s company, graduate college, get my trust fund, and then find Ryan again. Beg his forgiveness for what happened in high school. But that plan shatters when my internship leaves me working with Ryan on a fundraiser. Old feelings can't be denied, and as we come back together over a shared love of musical theater, I realize neither one of us knows the whole truth about the night that tore our friendship apart.

  WHAT YOU OWN is a standalone, 60k word MM romance novel. It was previously published and has been lightly updated, but no significant changes were made. Warning for mentions of past violence.

  Second Edition Copyright © 2020 by A.M. Arthur

  First Edition Copyright © 2013 by A.M. Arthur

  All rights reserved. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without the express written permission of the author.

  All characters and events in this book are purely fictional and have no relation to anyone bearing the same name or names.

  Cover art by Sloan J Designs

  Briggs-King Books

  Created with Vellum

  Chapter One

  Ryan

  “I’m gonna be sick.”

  “You are not going to be sick, Ryan,” Ellie Wright said, with a fire in her voice that only a best friend could produce and that usually made me listen. “You are forbidden from being sick. You probably won’t even see him while we’re here.”

  “His daddy owns the place. Adam’s getting a business degree. Where the hell else would he be doing a summer internship?” It all made perfect sense in my head, even though Ellie was right—I had no idea if Adam Langley was actually working at Langley-Quartermaine Financial this summer. And it mattered a helluva lot more to me than it had any right.

  The lobby at LQF was busy enough, with folks coming and going all the time. The nice lady in the blue suit at the sign-in desk had been sweet and polite when me and Ellie arrived fifteen minutes ago, early for our appointment with the Quartermaine half of the hyphenated financial group. She took our names, told us to wait, and then cast us occasional nods to let us know we hadn’t been forgotten, even as other folks waiting were escorted to the elevator bank at the opposite side of the pristine red, white, and black decorated lobby.

  I kept eyeballing the unisex bathroom about ten feet from the black leather couch we were keeping warm. My stomach was twisted up into honda knots, and I couldn’t relax—like I expected the horse I was riding to turn and bolt at any second. Only I wasn’t on a horse, and the chance of running into Adam or his weasel of a father (the Langley side of the hyphen) was more anxiety inducing than an unexpected gallop through the brush.

  And with a lot more potential for lasting damage.

  Maybe a little background, yeah? Ellie and I, best friends since our senior year of high school, had spent the three years since working crap jobs, taking classes at the community college, and volunteering at the Emmett Paige Community Center. Helping the kids at the center certainly saved my life and my sanity these last few years, and we were on our third appointment of the day with some of the city’s most prominent businesses looking for help to keep the center alive. We weren’t the only volunteers chatting up businesses today, and the list had been randomly divided.

  The fact that LQF was on our list proved to me, once again, that the Lord’s got a dirty sense of humor.

  He already proved it in high school, when He put Adam in my life, only to yank him back out again. Needless to say, the Lord and I ain’t on speaking terms.

  “You’re doing that thing, stop it,” Ellie whispered.

  I jammed my right wrist into my lap, not caring if it wrinkled my fancy slacks. My personal nervous tic came out in the form of rotating my right wrist in wide circles, which crackled the joints. I liked the sound—reminded me the damned thing had healed good after being broken—and I didn’t always realize I was doing it.

  Mr. Quartermaine was ten minutes late for our appointment, which dinged my irritation bell good. I may have grown up in Texas and spoke a little slow sometimes, but being on time was something I prided myself on. My daddy always said showing up at the agreed upon time was a sign of respect. Starting this meeting feeling dissed up front was not good.

  Sweat dappled my forehead and neck, as much from annoyance as anxiety, and I felt the red starting to heat my cheeks. Damn it all if I’d go into this meeting a sweaty mess, even if I was jumpier than a rattlesnake in a water barrel.

  “I need a minute, Ellie, I’m sorry,” I said. I jacked my thumb in the direction of the bathroom door.

  Ellie rolled her black-lined brown eyes. “Be fast.”

  “Right.”

  I hightailed it into the single-person bathroom and flipped the lock. Even the damned bathroom was fancy, with chrome fixtures, red tiled floors, and a little basket of those pretty paper towels you can’t buy at Family Dollar. I dunked one under the cold water and dabbed at my face and throat, cooling down the hot skin.

  Looking at me, you’d think I was on my way to a prison sentencing. I held my own gaze in the fancy mirror and breathed deep. Long, slow inhales through the nose and deep exhales through the mouth, just like my therapist taught me. “You can do this, Sanders. One meetin’ in a building of at least five hundred people. Your chances of seeing him are next to nothin’. You’re fine.”

  I hadn’t seen Adam in three and a half years, not since the December wrap party for our high school’s performance of Rent. We’d both been seniors. That night changed our lives. Mine most definitely for the worst. Adam’s life… well, he went back to school afterward. He walked with our class at graduation. He went off to a nice school for his business degree. His father owned half the town I still lived in, including a share of the restaurant my father managed. Adam had moved on from that night.

  My anxiety—and the fact that, no matter what, I couldn’t stop loving him—kept me fucking stuck in that dark parking lot.

  With a new towel, I patted my skin dry. The red was going away, and I didn’t look quite so bull-snorting crazy as when I walked in. I straightened my green button-down and made sure I hadn’t splashed water on my slacks. Hair wasn’t sticking up, either, and I tilted my head to check for the cowlick that had haunted me since boyhood, but I’d done it in a few years ago with a short, Marine-style high and tight. Old habits die hard, and all that, right?

  Deciding I was respectable enough, I left the safety of the small bathroom for the bright bustle
of the lobby. Ellie was standing next to the sofa talking to someone in a gray suit. She spotted me over the suit’s shoulder, and her eyes widened a fraction. My stomach hit the floor with a nauseating splat.

  The suit glanced over his shoulder, giving me a three-quarters profile, but it was enough because he saw me too. Blue eyes I’d known for years went bright, then dulled to a cold disinterest. His jaw set. I knew Adam Langley well enough to know that face—the “I’m pissed off but trying hard to not show it” face.

  Balls.

  He angled around so he didn’t have to crane his neck, and I forced my heavy feet to close the distance between us, each step falling like an anvil against my heart. He looked the same. Bright blue eyes, hair cut short around the neck but longer on top, a little bit of scruff on his chin that never went away, even if he’d just shaved. He was still a good six inches shorter than me, slim beneath the suit. The only unfamiliar things about his body was the scar on his chin—a wrinkle of flesh no bigger than a firefly hid beneath the scruff just left of center.

  I remembered the punch that left that scar. Ice water skittered down my spine. My heart gave a stupid pitter-pat at the sight of him because no matter the horrible way things had ended up, I’d never stopped loving Adam.

  Judging by the cold glare coming my way, he didn’t feel the same.

  “Ryan,” he said. My name off his lips stirred warmth deep in my guts—warmth I hadn’t felt in too damned long.

  “Adam,” I said, shocked my voice was steadier than my insides. “It’s been a while.”

  “Has it?”

  Ouch. My heart flinched, but my expression managed to stay open, neutral. “You look good.” Now that was a damned fool thing to say.

  One slim, brown eyebrow quirked. “Thank you.” He angled toward Ellie, effectively dismissing me, the horse’s ass. “The schedule said two representatives from the Emmett Paige Community Center.”

  “We both volunteer regularly,” Ellie said, maintaining her affable smile. She could do that—stay calm and reasonable in any situation. Even when her current best friend was getting dissed by his ex-best friend.

  “I see. Well, his earlier meeting is running over, so I’m covering the meeting for Joe Quartermaine this morning. Why don’t we go into a conference room?”

  Adam didn’t wait, just turned and started walking. We followed him past the elevators to a long hallway with identical wood doors. Many stood open, some closed. He stepped into one, flipped on the lights, then plunked down on one side of a six-person table. I went in last and shut the door, then sat next to Ellie, opposite Adam. He rustled a legal pad and pen from a small pile in the middle of the table.

  “So what can we do for you here at Langley-Quartermaine?” Adam said after a few seconds of awkward silence.

  Ellie answered, since he was looking at her and ignoring me. She slid a packet of prepared papers across the table to him. “The Emmett Paige Community Center is a privately funded rec center for children between the ages of five and seventeen. We provide before and after school activities for children at risk, as well as offering a variety of classes at little to no cost to the participants. We try to involve the community through performances of theater and dance”—Adam’s eyebrows twitched—”and our productions are generally well-attended. We’ve seen a lot of lives turned around through the center.”

  “I’ve heard of it,” Adam said, his eyebrows now lowered as he looked at Ellie. “It sounds as though you provide a wonderful service to our town.”

  “I like to think so. The kids are safe from bullying. We don’t allow any sort of racial or sexual discrimination there.”

  “That can’t be easy.” His face was flat, but his eyes were burning with blue fire. He was mad, and I couldn’t quite figure on why. Maybe he thought this speech was some kind of personal ambush, but we thought we’d be talking to Joe Quartermaine today, not him.

  “It’s not easy, but it’s worth it.”

  “I see.” Adam started tapping his pen against the legal pad—nervous tic. He’d done it in school too. “Where does LQF fit in?”

  “Last year, one of the major trusts than funded the center went bankrupt, and we’ve been struggling to keep the center open with very limited money and—”

  “So you’re soliciting donations?”

  My irritation swallowed my anxiety. “If you’d let her finish her sentence, she’d tell you why we’re here,” I snapped.

  Adam stared at me for a long moment, and I waited for him to climb onto his high damn horse and kick us the hell out. Instead, he blinked hard, then shifted his cold blue stare onto Ellie. “My apologies,” he said. “Please, continue.”

  Ellie cut her eyes at me, then did. “We would never say no to a donation, of course, but we’re more interested in raising funds through a benefit and using that to potentially attract new benefactors for the center. If they could see our passion, see what the kids do there, I think we stand a better chance than going door to door.”

  “So if you don’t want a donation…?”

  “We’re looking for local business owners who are interested in underwriting the cost of the benefit, as well as donating prizes for a silent auction during intermission. Your corporate name will be in the playbill, as well as on posters advertising the benefit.”

  “Playbill.” Adam glanced at me, then back to Ellie. “What kind of benefit are you planning?”

  I held my breath for this one.

  “A Broadway revue,” Ellie said. “Different songs from different shows that will appeal to all different age groups. Many of our adult volunteers are doing numbers, along with the kids.”

  “Are you singing?”

  “I hope to.”

  Ellie was a fantastic singer. She’d performed with me in Rent, and for three nights she lit up the high school theater as Maureen Johnson. She taught singing and dancing classes at the center, but never had the confidence to make a career of the stage.

  She nudged me in the side, and I startled, unaware I’d been spoken to. Adam was giving me his full attention, and I had no idea what I’d missed.

  “What?” I said.

  “I asked if you were singing,” Adam said. His voice was funny, a little hitched.

  Lord, did that hitch mean he maybe cared a little bit? “Ellie and I were discussing doing something together.”

  “You should. You always had a great voice.” For a moment, the boy I knew and loved from high school peeked through, reminding me of better times. He almost smiled.

  “So did you, Adam,” I said.

  The wrong damn thing, too, because he shut down, and that ice wall went back up. Me? I got lost in the memory of the sound of his voice, singing “What You Own” over and over again with me, until we got it right. The only time Adam ever tried out for a play, and he landed Mark, the fucking lead. I took Roger, and I thought it was the best thing to ever happen to us. And it was, right up until it wasn’t.

  Adam shifted his angry gaze to the table—no, not the table. I clenched my fingers into a fist, embarrassed at flexing my wrist in front of him.

  Ellie, bless her, saved us both. “Do you suppose LQF will be interested in backing our benefit and helping to save the center?” she asked.

  “It’s a good cause,” Adam said. “LQF likes to keep its fingers in the community, and I think this benefit has a lot of appeal. I’ll take it to my boss.”

  Boss being Joe Quartermaine, or his father, Raymond Langley?

  “My contact information is in the paperwork,” Ellie said. “Or you can call the center directly and speak with the director, Lou Paige.”

  “Thank you. I’ll try to get you an answer as soon as possible. What sort of time frame do you have?”

  “We’re hoping to have the benefit on July twenty-seventh.”

  “That soon?”

  “I know it’s already June, but we aren’t looking to stage elaborate numbers, and we want to do this before college classes start again and some of us get too busy.
”

  “Understandable. Well then, allow me to walk you both out?”

  We did. Adam led the way, and I couldn’t stop staring at the back of his head, wishing I could see inside it. Was he angry? Sad? Apathetic? I wanted to crack his skull open and get the contents, to see for myself if our entire friendship had meant anything to him at all. To see if those few, precious minutes when it was more than a friendship were as treasured by him as they were by me.

  He left us in the lobby with a curt good-bye, and I followed Ellie into the afternoon sunshine. In the safety of the parking garage, I finally let my hands start shaking. Ellie wrapped her arms around me from behind. I twisted around to hug her properly while my body betrayed me, doing what I didn’t want it doing. She held me until I got my shit together.

  “Don’t ever forget, baby, that he turned his back on you,” she whispered, fierce like she got when I was upset. “He’s the asshole here, not you. Never you.”

  “Thanks.” I didn’t agree, but I liked my nuts intact too much to say so out loud. “Love you.”

  “Love you, back.” She kissed my cheek, then pulled away. “Now let’s find our next appointment and get this finished, so we can go get dinner. On me.”

  “Cool.”

  “And absolutely no talk about Adam Langley.”

  “Deal.”

  Didn’t stop me from thinking about him all afternoon, though, or about how much I still missed him. Because I was that special kind of fool.

  Chapter Two

  Adam

  I thought my day couldn’t possibly get worse, and thoughts like those only tempt the wrath of God. Day four of my summer internship at my father’s company began with me oversleeping, thanks to forgetting to plug my cell phone into its charger last night. I arrived exactly on time, but I’d had no opportunity to shower, shave, eat, or even get coffee. Father’s stern look at my semi-rumpled state as I rushed into the office made my stomach erupt with acid.