Delayed, part 1

1 year ago

Graydon begins to write in his journal:

My name is Graydon. Yeah, that sounds like a good start.

"I guess…” Graydon mumbled his own response to himself.

Graydon continued to scribble, then started tapping his pen anxiously. He sighed, putting the pen down while he considered tearing the page out and wondering why he even started this. Well, it was a recommendation from his therapist. Process your feelings, and all that. Putting pen to paper would make it feel more natural, possibly, or at least different, since his day to day consisted of computer screens all the time anyway. Most people journaled digitally now, he thought, so actually writing with real ink on easily destroyable paper journals seemed worthless. Similar to how he felt these days.

But maybe… just maybe that was the point. He could destroy them whenever he wanted. His therapist, however, would probably tell him some crap about burning it after his “recovery” as a symbolic way of “moving on.”

So now he was thinking, what would she want me to write? When would she get to the point and fix his stupid brain, stop this bullshit journaling? He got into drugs for a while after his divorce, got clean but relapsed not too long ago and is in recovery again. He knew the drugs weren't going to get him anywhere, at least not anywhere good. He didn’t want “drug addict” added to his long list of labels, but at least he wasn't, well, like his ex…

“Shit” He muttered under his breath as he was reminded of him.

Every time thoughts of his ex came to him, the next thought was using. At least he could make it stop there, but he knew that as much as he hated the sound of his therapist’s voice, the musty smell of her office, therapy might be the only way to break the chain of thought.

—

4 years ago

Graydon was standing in the kitchen, and the sizzle of hot oil was heard throughout the first floor. He was wearing a white apron over a baggy Disturbed band t-shirt he took from his husband’s closet and a comfortable pair of light gray shorts. He turned the dial for the burner to “off” and started to grab two plates when he heard the front door unlocking.

Graydon smiled as his husband, Jonathan, came through their front door, luggage in hand. Graydon went to go help him with the bags but Jonathan waved away his hands.

“Thanks dear, but I’ve got it.” Jonathan said, returning Graydon’s smile. His voice was deep and warm.

“Okay, fine, ‘big strong man’.”

“You know it.” Jonathan responded with a wink. He began to bring the bags upstairs to their bedroom while Graydon went over to their large kitchen. They’d been living in their new home together for two years now, and just got married eight months ago. In the kitchen, Graydon finished placing the freshly cooked dinner onto the plates. It was one of Jonathan’s favorites, fried chicken with a side of garlic mashed potatoes and honey glazed carrots. Dinner plates in hand, he walked over to the adjacent dining room and placed them down, then went back into the kitchen. He wiped his hands off on the apron before taking it off. He then washed his hands and grabbed his glass of wine from the kitchen counter. The sound of Jonathan’s footsteps down the stairs were heard as Graydon headed over to the dining room.

Jonathan entered and his thick eyebrows raised as he looked down at the food. “Oh wow, thank you for this,” He admired. He hesitated for a moment before sitting down.

“Well, when you told me your flight got delayed, I wanted to make something special for you, as a treat after such a long day.” Graydon beamed. After taking a few bites, he shook his head.

“I still find it crazy you somehow always manage to find flights that get delayed.”

“I guess it’s a superpower of mine…” Jonathan shrugged. “Although, I wish you hadn’t gone through so much trouble making this, I had some food right after I landed and I’m pretty full still.”

“Oh… well, I wanted to surprise you, so…” A frown started to appear on Graydon’s face.

“It’s my bad, really, I should’ve told you. But, hey, I’m going to wrap this up and enjoy it fully tomorrow. For now though,” He said, taking a few bites and saying “mmmm,” before bringing it back to the kitchen. After wrapping it up and placing it in the fridge. He got a notification on his phone, took a moment to respond, then put the phone down on the kitchen counter.

He returned to the dining room and placed a kiss on Graydon’s forehead. Before Jonathan could get too far, Graydon pulled his face back down and gave him a deep kiss on the lips.

“I missed you, you know…” Graydon started.

Jonathan chuckled sweetly. “I missed you too… but I have to admit I’m really tired from the trip. I'm going to go brush my teeth and head to bed, dear.”

“Oh… okay.” Graydon smiled tightly. After Jonathan was up the stairs and in their bedroom, Graydon sighed and continued his dinner alone, putting on a podcast on his phone. The podcasts helped him feel less lonely. Jonathan traveled a lot for work, which most of the time didn’t bother Graydon. He used to travel for his work too, not as much as Jonathan does now, but he still understood the toll it can take.

A while later, the podcast was coming to an end and he could feel himself starting to fall asleep, his head dipping forward until he heard the outro music of the podcast. He also then heard a buzzing coming from the kitchen, an incoming message on vibrate, but it wasn’t his phone. It was Jonathan’s, Graydon realized.

“Hmm.. he must’ve forgotten it.” Graydon mumbled to himself, getting up and going over to where the phone was sitting on the kitchen counter. “Huh?” He then said as he saw the name Max. Though he didn’t know all of Jonathan’s friends or contacts, he knew him as a somewhat non-social kind of guy. The message notification wasn’t descriptive, simply appearing as “new message” on the screen. However, Graydon didn’t think much of it, and brought the phone upstairs with him. After plugging the phone in next to where Jonathan slept in their bed, he gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. Jonathan stirred awake, planting a quick kiss on Graydon’s lips in response before laying his head back down and returning to sleep. Graydon headed back out of the bedroom and down the stairs to the kitchen, cleaning up the rest of the dishes for the night. Once he was done, he made his way over to the bedroom’s attached bathroom to shower and get ready for bed.

—

The next day, Graydon was at work catching up on emails. One of his few friends at work, Mike, waved as he passed by the front of his cubicle, stopping at the opening of the cubicle.

“Hey man, want to grab some lunch together today?” He asked, checking his watch.

Graydon looked at the sad “lunch” he had packed for himself that day. He missed his alarms, while Jonathan slept through them all, as per usual, leaving Graydon in a rush out the door. He had only grabbed an apple and oatmeal. But he honestly wasn’t in the mood for that today. He looked up to Mike and nodded, saying “Definitely. See you at twelve?”

“See ya then.” Mike agreed as he made his way over to his own desk down the hall. Mike was a mutual friend of both Graydon and Jonathan. He used to work with Jonathan at his last company, before they both left for other opportunities. In Graydon and Mike’s time here, they gained a good friendship together, bonding over both growing up in rural lake towns.

The clock dragged on, but right at eleven fifty-five, Graydon locked his computer, stood, and grabbed his coat as he made his way to the entrance and out to meet Mike at his car.

“Does the new sub shop sound good to you?” Mike said as he hit the key fob to unlock the car for them.

“Sure, let’s do it.”

They went only five minutes down the road to where the sub shop was. During the short ride they started chatting.

“Is Jonathan back from his trip?”

“Yup.” After a slight pause, Graydon continued. “Man… I made him his favorite meal and he just went straight to bed!”

“Damn, really?” Mike reacted. “That’s kind of rude.”

“I mean, he was nice about it I guess…He’s just been… a little more distant than usual.” Graydon shrugged.

“Hmm. I mean, he was just traveling…” Mike said, in that way Graydon just knew without looking he was raising an eyebrow waiting for the chuckle, or the eye roll, whichever made sense in the moment.

“Haha,” Graydon said sarcastically. “Asshole.” He muttered aloud, but let out a small laugh regardless. “But, I don’t know, it just seems a little different.”

“I hear ya, man. Well, have you asked him about it at all?”

“...No, not really. I know usually we are fine doing things on our own, especially knowing how much he travels for work, but I mean, I’ve made a habit of having a meal ready for him when I know he’s coming back, whether I cooked or ordered or whatever…”

“Hm. Maybe you should talk about it.”

“Yeah, probably,” Graydon nodded. They quietly listened to the NPR radio until they got to the sub shop. There was somewhat of a line, as expected for lunch time. Graydon looked around and then turned back to Mike. “Hey, do you know ‘Max’? A Max that Jonathan would know?”

“Max? Hmm…” Mike pondered. Before he could come to an answer, the line moved forward, and he saw a woman drop her purse. He picked it up for her and she thanked him, talking about how clumsy she was. They had some small chat back and forth, where she talked about being a local in that town and how the area has changed over the years. Graydon didn’t really mind the attention being pulled away from him, as his mind was wandering about who Max was anyway. Mike’s conversation with the stranger, who had just introduced herself as Masey, continued all the way until she was at the counter to order.

As they waited for their order to be made, Mike turned to Graydon. “Sorry about that, remind me what we were talking about?”

“Oh… uh…” Graydon stammered. Suddenly he was too shy to bring it up, feeling embarrassed for the jealousy. He started to think maybe it was a bad idea bringing up the random person’s name. For all he knew, it was just one of his coworkers, or an assistant, or maybe a gym buddy? No, he thought to himself, he doesn’t go to the gym, that’s what he has a home gym for. A home gym you never bothered to try out because you were too depressed to work out, but hey, at least you had a fast metabolism so all the junk you ate didn’t pound onto your body, but maybe it would be nice to put on a few pounds, or better yet some muscle…

“Graydon?” Mike said, sounding concerned. Graydon realized he had gotten lost in thought again. Maybe I should go back to therapy…

“Oh, jeez, sorry. Been quite the day for me already.” Graydon apologized. “What were you saying?”

“Weren’t you asking me about someone before? Someone that Jonathan might know… oh, was it Max you said?”

“Er… yeah…” Graydon replied, realizing now there was no going back. “It seems Jonathan has been talking with this ‘Max’ person recently. Not that I was snooping, or looking for anything, just happened to see it when he left his phone downstairs last night.”

“Oh? Well, I don’t know of any Max, not one that he’d know at least. The only Max I know is an old friend from Chicago, but he’s lived there all his life, I doubt this is the Max he knows.” Mike said. A moment later their order was called. Once they grabbed it, they made their way to the outside seating area there to eat their food.

They sorted out their food from the bag, and opened up their drink bottles. Graydon took a large sip of his water before continuing the conversation. “I honestly don’t know why I felt the need to ask about it. He’s probably no one important…” Graydon looked up to see Mike intently listening. He knew Mike genuinely cared about him, and he always gave great advice. Despite Graydon’s anxiety, he knew he could trust Mike to not judge him. “There was just a feeling I got about him, to be honest. It makes me suspicious.”

“Hmm… and this is the first time you’ve seen or heard his name come up?” Mike asked before taking a bite of his BLT sandwich.

“Yeah. But I don’t really look at his phone or pay attention to his phone conversations. You know he’s not the most social.” Graydon said. He took a big bite out of his burger, suddenly starving.

Mike washed down his own sandwich with a sip of his iced tea. He then wiped his mouth. “Right, which would make me assume that it’s probably someone from work or a business partner.” Mike then tilted his head. “However, that doesn’t mean your feelings are wrong. We don’t have any information about him. If you have a feeling, you should at least talk it out.” Mike paused to take another sip of the iced tea. “I’d suggest starting with asking if there’s any work friends he'd like to invite over for dinner or a game night sometime, or something like that. Keeping it casual, and showing interest.”

Graydon was already finished with his burger, now taking another big gulp of water while he considered Mike’s suggestion.

“Yeah, I think that could work. But maybe for now I just won't bring it up for a while.”

Mike nodded in agreement. “But try to not let it dwell on your mind.” He then smiled. “I hope this helped.”

Graydon nodded back. Just talking about it did help ease his mind, for the time being. “It was. Thank you for this - the talk, and lunch.”

“My pleasure. Whatever I can do to help!” He smiled that dazzling smile of his. Graydon remembers so many of the aunts at Graydon’s wedding talking about how handsome Mike was as the best man at his wedding. With a smile like that, and the way he sells presentations at work, he wondered if he would’ve been a good car salesman.

Soon after, they both finished up their lunch and headed back to work, with another long few hours of boring work ahead of him.

—

The next day, after a morning meeting Graydon had, he made his way over to the break room to get a cup of coffee. Mike came in soon after.

“Graydon, hey! How are you feeling today?”

Graydon shrugged. “Not too bad. But it looks like it’s going to be a busy day today.”

“Ah. Same here. Hoping it passes by quickly for us.” Mike replied. He grabbed a cup for himself as the coffee machine poured out a Columbian roast in Graydon’s mug. It was a white mug with the company logo on it, from one of the many work events held throughout the year. When the coffee machine finished pouring, Graydon grabbed the mug and went towards the counter next to it to get cream and sugar.

“Oh, by the way, I realized I remember who Max is.” Mike said. Graydon almost dropped his mug, but instead spilled some coffee on the counter, quickly going to clean it up and try to hide his sudden clumsiness. “He was an intern that started right before Jonathan left.” Mike continued, his attention focused on the screen of the coffee machine, as he selected the French roast. “The college intern.”

“...Oh.” Was all Graydon managed to say. He hadn’t thought about Max at all last night. Jonathan had apologized for being a little absent the night before and ordered them some food and an apple pie from one of their favorite places, and later that night they had sex, Jonathan being rather attentive to Graydon’s desires. It served to be a good distraction.

“Hey, wasn’t Jonathan a teacher before?” Mike queried, interrupting Jonathan’s thoughts. “Maybe he taught at the school he goes to. I don’t imagine Max would’ve been in one of his classes though, he seemed pretty young.”

Graydon quickly turned his head to Mike. “Really?”

“Yeah, I think so. Not sure though, I didn’t know him for long. I left there a week before Jonathan did.” Mike recalled, now taking his coffee cup and moving next to where Graydon was. Graydon quickly threw out the now empty creamer cups, realizing he’d been mindlessly standing there for a few minutes.

“Interesting,” Graydon noted nonchalantly. “Well, anyway, gotta get back to it. I'll talk to you later.”

“Oh, okay. See ya, buddy.” Mike said as Graydon quickly made his way back towards the cubicles. When he got back to his desk, he felt his phone buzz from a notification.

Mike: Try not to think into it that much, Max is a pretty common name.

Mike: If you need anything, I’m always here, Graydon.

Graydon quickly stuffed his phone back in his pocket. While he appreciated Mike’s kindness, it was hard for him to not think about it. Even after a passionate night, he realized now he still felt like Jonathan went right back to his distant self after that. No goodbye kiss before work, only the slightest moment of small talk when they did see each other, and they barely texted during the day. His mind wandered.

Does he not love me anymore?

Does he not have time for me anymore?

What did I do wrong?

Am I trying too hard?

Asking for too much?

Why does he have time for someone else, but not me?

Is it selfish of me to want more of his attention?

What did I do to deserve this?

His thoughts were interrupted when he heard the alert noise on his computer chime, reminding him about his next meeting happening in fifteen minutes. He started anxiously trying to find his notes for the meeting, cursing under his breath.

__

Later that evening, Graydon arrived in the driveway of his home. He turned off the car, sighing heavily. He sat there for a moment before pulling out his phone to scroll through twitter aimlessly. The rest of the work day was hectic with meetings and stiff management barking their complaints back and forth, never coming to an agreement in most of the meetings. He’d get so annoyed by the arguing that he tuned out most of it, his mind wandering until someone asked his input. He did his best to be neutral, some of his coworkers backing him up when needed. At least a few of them were decent, he thought to himself.

He grabbed his laptop bag and got out of his dark blue sedan. Opening the door to the house, he kicked off his shoes and noticed Jonathan’s shoes were there too. Looks like he was home early again.

Looking to the right into the living room area, he didn’t see him in his usual spot. He walked down towards the dining room and set his laptop down on the far end of the table where he kept a few of his office items. It was the space he used when he worked from home, since he didn’t use the home office. Jonathan had taken over the office to keep his gaming computer setup and also some storage. Graydon didn’t mind because he preferred the open space when he was working at home, rotating between the dining room and the living room when he felt he needed to move around.

He made way towards the downstairs bathroom, which was near the office, and he could hear the quiet hum of the gaming computer. With the door closed, he hesitated at the door. Does he just go in? Or knock? Jonathan knew what time Graydon usually comes home, so it’s not like he’d be unexpected. And the room wasn’t off limits in any way, even though Graydon sometimes felt like he was intruding when entering it alone.

He opted to knock, but immediately felt embarrassed by doing so.

“Graydon?” He heard before hearing his footsteps on the hardwood floor approaching the door. Jonathan opened it, raising his eyebrows at Graydon.

“Just wasn’t sure if you were in the middle of something…” Graydon explained.

Jonathan shrugged as he turned to walk back over to the computer at the other end of the small office. “You know I’m just playing video games here. How was work?”

“Ugh.” Graydon huffed out. “I’d rather not talk about work to be honest.”

“Fair.” Jonathan replied.

Graydon sat down in the armchair behind him and watched as Jonathan wiggled his mouse around. It’d been a while since he saw him actually spending time in the office.

After a while, Graydon looked up at Jonathan, who saw him look over, so Jonathan raised an eyebrow. “Yes?” he said.

“So… I was wondering if there were any of your friends you’d want to maybe…” Graydon started, now shrugging, “have over for dinner sometime? Or maybe a game night?” He scratched his head, suddenly feeling awkward asking.

“Uh…I mean maybe. Did you…have someone in particular in mind?” Jonathan asked curiously.

“No.” Graydon quickly replied. “Just… wanted to offer, or whatever. I guess…” Graydon sighed. He should be able to trust his own husband. He just needed to talk out how he felt. “I guess I just feel like I don’t know a lot of your friends.”

“Oh” Jonathan responded. “I’ll have to see, I’ll let you know.” Jonathan then got up from the computer. “Hey, how about we get dinner started, yeah?”

“Okay, yeah.” Graydon nodded, starting to get up too, but then paused. “Jonathan?”

“Yeah?” Jonathan paused at the door as he looked over at Graydon.

“...Are you happy?”

“Happy..?” Jonathan’s face scrunched up in confusion.

“Do I make you happy?” Graydon asked, feeling totally vulnerable at that moment.

“Graydon,” Jonathan said with a soft, serious voice. He walked towards Graydon and put his hands alongside his face, holding him close. “You make me one of the happiest men on the planet. I love you.” He pulled him in for a kiss. Afterward, he pulled away and looked him deep in the eyes. “Are you okay, though?”

Graydon sighed, but this time out of relief. “Yeah. I guess I was just being silly.”

Jonathan shook his head and embraced him. “I don’t know what’s going through your head, but I’m here, and I’m here to stay.” He then pulled away from the hug to look him in the eyes again. “Is there anything else you want to talk about?”

“Mm, no. I think I probably just missed you a lot.” Graydon said. He just might believe his own words this time.

“Well, hopefully once I get the new promotion, I won’t have to travel as much.”

“That’ll be nice.”

They both made their way over to the kitchen to figure out what to make for dinner.

__

3 weeks later

Things were relatively normal between Graydon and Jonathan now. Graydon’s burning curiosity mostly died down. Jonathan didn’t have to travel again for a while, and they were actively making efforts to spend more time together.

That day, Graydon had a particularly stressful work day. It was the end of the quarter and it was getting tense. He was happy to see when he got home that day that Jonathan had ordered from one of their favorite places, and he even made some cookies. He was off that day and knew Graydon was going through it, so he thought it’d be a nice way to take Graydon’s mind off work.

In the middle of the night, Graydon woke up and noticed Jonathan wasn’t in bed next to him, which was unusual given how late it seemed. As Graydon began to sit up, he realized he fell asleep reading his book, as it slid off his chest and onto the bed from his movement. He then rubbed his eyes and blinked a few times before looking at his phone. It was three AM. He decided to venture out the bedroom to see if Jonathan was in the living room. He knew he sometimes got late night calls, as some of his business required talking to people around the world in different time zones. However, he wasn’t supposed to be on call that night.

Graydon looked down the stairs. From there, he could see the closed door to Jonathan’s office from the top of the steps. He saw light under the door. He slowly started to creep down the stairs, trying to listen for his voice. As he was halfway down the stairs, he heard Jonathan, quietly speaking. He stopped where he was on the stairs when Jonathan stopped speaking. After a moment, there was speaking again and he continued down the stairs. He was just a few steps away from the door, staying around the corner from the hallway, but leaning his head out to try and listen.

“...but I can’t right now. You know that. Now please, I have to go.” Graydon heard him say. He then heard the *doot doot* signaling the end of the call.

Graydon didn’t want Jonathan to think he was spying in on him, so he knew he only had a few options. He quickly decided on going back upstairs as quickly and quietly as he could. He managed to make it all the way up the steps and to the bedroom door when he heard the office door open. Graydon then darted over to the attached bathroom. After closing the door, he quietly sighed to himself. He feels relieved having made it without being noticed. However, now he was left wondering what that call was about.

He flushed the toilet and washed his hands. As he opened up the door, he saw Jonathan sitting at the edge of the bed facing him, only in his boxers. He looked up and half smiled at Graydon.

“I hope I didn’t wake you,” He remarked, now shutting off his phone and placing it on the nightstand next to the lamp.

“Oh, uh, not really. Was just surprised you weren’t there when I woke up.”

“Sorry about that.”

Graydon made his way around the other side of the bed and then sat down. “Is everything alright?”

“Yeah. Should be.” Jonathan commented before turning off the lamp.

Graydon decided not to pry. He was too tired to put more energy into it. “Okay. Well, let’s get some sleep.”

“Yes please.” Jonathan replied, cuddling up to Graydon before they both quickly drifted off to sleep.

—

A few days later, in the afternoon while Graydon was at work, he got an alert on his phone of a new message on Facebook messenger. He didn’t use the app often, only really for talking to his mom on occasion when she wanted to do a video call, but that was only a few times a year. However, this notification was from someone he didn’t know.

Wynn Falls: Hi, Graydon. I know you don’t know me, but I know your partner, Jonathan.

Graydon’s heart began to sink. His anxiety started to rise rapidly as he read the next few words.

I think we should talk.

—

As soon as the clock struck five, Graydon was sliding his backpack onto his shoulders and beelining to the door. He didn’t even say a quick goodbye to Mike on his way out, like he normally did, and was grateful that Mike was distracted anyway chatting with some of his other coworkers.

He was glad Wynn was able to meet with him tonight. With what was potentially at stake, he couldn’t face seeing Jonathan while wondering what Wynn had to tell him. Graydon was also lucky that Jonathan wouldn’t be home until late tonight because he had to go to one of the other office locations for important meetings there.

Wynn and Graydon decided to meet at a sub shop that was nearby a college. As Graydon was getting closer to the shop he realized it was the same college Jonathan used to teach at. He pulled up near the curb where there was street parking and put money into the meter, quickly making his way down the street.

As he walked in, he looked back and forth, noticing only a few people there, including a couple who walked out as he entered, the both of them eyeing Graydon. Graydon shrugged it off; at this moment he only cared about identifying Wynn. That’s when a short, tanned skinned woman sat at one of the tables along the inside wall waved her hand. She had dark purple hair, heavy black eyeliner and a nose ring. She was dressed in dark clothing, with some studded black combat boots. There was a mug in front of her on the table with a tea bag string poking out of it. It looked like green tea.

“Graydon?” She asked.

“That’s me. Wynn, right?”

She nodded. “Sorry if I caused you alarm when I first messaged you, but I figured this would be important.” As she said this, Graydon scratched his neck anxiously and nodded, not knowing what to say. Wynn gestured towards the empty seat across from her, and Graydon took it. He heard her sigh heavily. “So you said you and Jonathan have been married for how long now?”

“We’ve been together for about four years, married almost a year now…”

“Oh, interesting. So, together for four years, I see…”

“Please, tell me. What do you know?” Jonathan asked anxiously. He was imagining the worst already.

She told the whole story as far as she knew. It went back as far as five years ago at her college, the same one Jonathan taught at. She was a freshman at that time and Jonathan was teaching. She mentioned two friends of hers who said they’d ended up sleeping with a teacher at the school whose descriptions matched up with Jonathan, and heard that they weren’t the only ones. One of the timelines was around the time of Jonathan’s previous marriage. Graydon remembers Jonathan claimed that marriage was a mistake and ended quickly, but didn’t go into much more detail. Maybe that should’ve been his first red flag.

After a few years, Wynn heard another similar story, now after Jonathan had left teaching. A friend of a friend at the school told her that some knew about him having a pattern of sleeping with one or more of the guys at the college, then ghosting them and moving on to another. A rumor had started within the school that the school board found out but tried to cover it up and let him go.

Graydon was told by Jonathan that he sometimes came in to meet with professors on occasion, even though he no longer worked there, saying that he sat in on some of the board meetings to help provide some suggestions, apparently. Graydon didn’t think much of it at the time, but now it was starting to sound like a coverup. On top of that, a lot of the timelines Wynn described matched up with times that Jonathan had work trips and “delayed” flights.

Wynn noticed recently another young student at the college was talking to Jonathan when she spotted them at the very sub shop that Wynn and Graydon were at now, so she confronted this classmate and came to find out that he was flirting with Jonathan. He had met him a few months ago.

“This classmate… that you confronted… is his name Max?” Graydon now asked.

“Oh, uh, yeah, it is. How did…”

“I’ve been snooping on Jonathan’s phone, admittedly.” Graydon interrupted. “It was accidental at first, but I began to grow suspicious. I… can’t believe…” His voice was breaking, tears starting to form at the corners of his eyes. “Fucking shit.” He muttered to himself and put his head in his hands.

“I’m sorry you had to find out this way…” Wynn consoled. She waited patiently as Graydon tried to quietly get himself together.

Graydon finally pulled his head out of his hands and sighed deeply. “Well,” He cleared his throat. “Thank you for giving me this information.”

“Before you go,” She began, brushing some hair away from her face. “There's one last thing I wanted to share with you. One of the guys at the college who was with Jonathan… he wanted to get more evidence to use as possible blackmail against him. I don’t know how you feel about it, if you want to get involved with that but, just, putting it out there, I guess. He knows how to hack into certain databases and he found some messages. Some of these are only a few months old. I can send what he found to you through messenger. He said he wouldn’t do anything yet until I spoke with you.” She paused for a moment, taking a sip of her tea. “If you want him to, he can send the files to his current employer and probably get him fired.”

Graydon’s eyes darted back and forth, as he tried to process this on top of all the other information he just learned. He spent a few moments in silence.

“I… I need to think about this.” Graydon said. It was all he could manage at that moment.

“Okay, okay. Well… best of luck.” Wynn said before standing and giving a tight smile. “I know this is a lot to process. Take your time, but if you do want to go forward with my friend’s plan, let me know.” She then made her way out of the sub shop, leaving Graydon with a great deal to think about.

—

Max: Too bad you don’t teach here anymore, would’ve loved to have been your student.

Jonathan: Oh yeah? I would have been honored to be your teacher.

Jonathan: …Could have been teacher’s pet…

Jonathan: Mm, certainly would have had some late night office hours, just for you. Bet you would have loved that, wouldn’t you?

Max: ;)

—