“Don’t remind me,” he said, a little desperate.
“Yeah, ‘cause we’re so old.” Scott just looked amused. “I’m impressed, man. Honestly.”
It wasn’t fawning admiration either. Scott’s whole relaxed posture seemed to say he could take it or leave it: he was just impressed by someone who’d done a good job of work. An intoxicating feeling, even if it felt like Eamon was having to lie to get it. He’d had some successes, that was true, but could he really be proud of them when they didn’t seem to be lasting? There was no point in taking pride in past construction when the building in question was currently falling down around your ears.
“Thanks,” he said awkwardly. “Though, it’s, uh, more complicated than that, you know?”
Scott nodded, leaning forward and looking interested. “Yeah?”
There was something about his face that made Eamon want to pour all his troubles into those listening ears. Or maybe it was just the knowledge that he’d probably never see Scott again once he went back to the city.
Either way, he was opening his mouth to say something that would probably be embarrassing, when a voice from the bar called out, “Heyyyy! Scotty!” and Scott lifted a hand in greeting.
6
Scott
In the blink of an eye, before Scott could protest, Lennox and Tony were upon them, pulling up chairs from a nearby table and flagging down Andrew, the waiter at the Wick, with the imperturbability of people who never even noticed they were interrupting something.
“Couldn’t resist that shepherd’s pie, huh?” Lennox said cheerfully, holding out his hand for a high five.
“Guess not,” Scott admitted. Did his disappointment show on his face? Did he want it to? His conversation with Eamon had been going so well – Eamon had been laughing – and now it was going to be interrupted by his loudmouth friends.
“Tony,” Tony was saying, holding out his hand for Eamon to shake as he slid into a chair like he belonged there.
“C’mon, you remember Eamon,” Scott protested, as Eamon shook Tony’s hand, his face back to its expression of neutral judgement. “He was in Mrs. Batista’s English class.”
“I think I was in the other section,” Tony said, indifferent. “Nice to meet you again, or whatever.”
“He has the world’s shittiest memory,” Lennox agreed. “I’m Lennox, by the way.”
“It’s been a long time since I was back in town,” Eamon said politely.
“That explains it.” Lennox nodded and turned to Andrew, ordering two more Specials. When he looked away, Eamon looked vaguely uncomfortable. As much as Tony and Lennox were his friends, at the moment Scott could cheerfully have strangled them both.
“So what are you guys doing here tonight?” Scott drawled.
“Gotta get that good shepherd’s pie!” Lennox answered comfortably. “Have you had it before, Eamon? Ramona’s is the absolute best, I’d swear on a stack of Bibles.”
“Can’t say I have.” Eamon’s tone was clipped. Was it as frustrating for him as it was for Scott that their conversation had been interrupted?
Tony punched him in the shoulder. “Well, you’re going to love it.” Eamon’s face looked set into its pattern of studied neutrality. Definitely frustrated. But was it for the same reason as Scott was? He’d seemed receptive to Scott’s mild flirting, but then, it was amazing what straight boys could misinterpret if they weren’t looking for. He didn’t know that Eamon was straight, but then again, he didn’t know that he wasn’t. And now it was too late to ask. It was one thing to bring it up casually one-on-one, but a totally different thing to ask in a group of strangers. It had taken serious prying to elicit the information that Eamon had a very cool job: something actually private seemed like a lost cause.
Scott was still stewing when Andrew brought out their dinners. Ramona’s shepherd’s pie was delicious, as always, but it did nothing to improve his mood. Lennox and Tony barely paused in their discussion of the NBA playoffs long enough to acknowledge the food on the table, much less the fact that neither Scott nor Eamon seemed to be interested. Granted, Scott might have cared a little more if he hadn’t been rudely interrupted, but Eamon didn’t seem to have a single opinion to contribute.
“So what brought you back into town?” Lennox said after a while, as the basketball conversation started to trail off, looking expectantly at Eamon.
“I’m on a sabbatical right now,” Eamon said vaguely.
“Sick.” Tony nodded around a forkful of mashed potatoes. “You work at the university or something?”
“He runs CarreSys,” Scott put in, when it seemed like Eamon was wavering on the verge of saying nothing.
Lennox’s eyes widened. “You’re kidding?” He snapped his fingers. “I knew the name sounded familiar. I think your mom knows my mom. She spent years getting on my case that some guy from our high school had his own company while I was kind of drifting from job to job.”
“I’m...sorry?” Eamon paused, a forkful of food halfway to his mouth.
“Nah, don’t worry about it.” Lennox waved him off. “She’s over it now. I was just wondering where I’d heard the name before.”
“I literally told you he went to high school here,” Scott said drily.
“A lot of kids went to high school here,” Lennox said with a laugh. “But seriously, that’s cool, man. How long are you off work?”
“We’re still firming up the details,” Eamon said, looking down at his plate.
“And you’re spending it here?” Tony chimed in.
“Is that so hard to believe?” Scott said. He couldn’t believe he had to defend Sellis Creek from its own inhabitants. He could forgive the Eamons of this world. They didn’t know any better. But Tony lived here.
Tony only laughed. “This dump? Yeah, man.”
“I’m still finalizing plans,” Eamon said. “It’s good to be close enough to Columbus for board meetings.”
“But you want to be someplace cooler for the most part.” Lennox nodded understandably. “Ignore Scotty, man. He went away for a year and came back even more in love with the place. The rest of us get it.”
Eamon’s answer to that was just as vague as his other ones had been, but he didn’t exactly say no. Neither did he disagree when Lennox and Tony started chatting about the places they’d like to visit if they had enough time off work. He just hummed vague noises and nodded along, eating his shepherd’s pie while the two loudmouths got more and more heated.
It all made Scott pause. He’d thought sabbaticals were supposed to be long, weren’t they? Admittedly, Eamon had only wanted to rent the bike for a week or two, but that had seemed to Scott like an eternity compared to his usual two to four-hour rentals. That hadn’t seemed to have anything to do with the sabbatical Eamon had just told him about tonight.
Now, the way Eamon was talking, it seemed like he was only off work for a little while.
Which made Scott kind of uncomfortable. He wasn’t any good at being a summer fling, he knew that much. He’d overlooked that part of himself when he was busy being so excited about getting to see Eamon’s handsome face again that he couldn’t think straight.
Of course, none of that mattered if this wasn’t a date, or at least a test-drive. Not that he was going to be given a chance to figure that one out, not with Tony and Lennox hanging around. He couldn’t tell them to fuck off either: that would only have made them more determined to stay and pester him. Affectionately, of course, but right now Scott could do with a little less affection and a little more leaving him the fuck alone.
What if Eamon thought he’d asked them to show up? That would spoil all of his chances right there.
He straightened up, trying to pay attention to the conversation at the table and the cute-as-hell thing Tony’s niece had done last week. Why did it matter if Eamon thought this was a date or not? Eamon was only in town for a few weeks: barely long enough to get to know each other, certainly not long enough to fall in love.
“And your sister didn’t kill her for messing with the cable box?” Lennox was saying.
Tony laughed. “Nah, it was too fucking adorable for that. Though I think my bro-in-law might have had a few words he’d like to say after he spent two hours on the phone with the tech that evening trying to get it reset. Though that might have been tech support’s fault. You know what they’re like.” He glanced at Eamon. “No offense.”
Eamon looked puzzled. “None taken.” He let out a breath that was half a laugh. “You know programming and tech support are two different jobs, right?”
“Nope!” Tony said cheerfully, taking a slug of his beer. Eamon’s face took on an air of resignation. Scott wondered if he was going to correct Tony, and if he should warn Eamon that it would do absolutely no good.
“Speaking of tech support,” Lennox stepped in to say, turning to Scott. “How’s the website going?”
“Fucking terrible,” Scott blurted out before he could catch himself. He put his fork down, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I’ve installed like six different updates that are supposed to fix this bug, and zip! It’s still doing the same stupid thing it always was.”
“What’s the trouble with your website?” Eamon asked. Just great. Now he was not only going to think that Scott was avoiding being alone with him: he was going to think Scott was an idiot.
“It won’t sync with my appointment calendar,” Scott admitted. “Which doesn’t sound like a huge deal, I know, but I literally picked this piece of shit software because it said it was compatible with my appointment stuff, and now it’s making me look like a nutcase to my customers.”
“That sucks,” Tony said sympathetically. He patted Scott’s hand. “Too bad you were always a nutcase though. No hope there.” Cackling, he dodged Scott’s swat and went back to eating.
“It’s okay, man, we always knew you were crazy from when you starting biking around in the winter,” Lennox was saying, completely covering up whatever Eamon had just opened his mouth to try and say, and why the hell was Scott friends with these guys anyway?
“I don’t bike in the middle of winter,” he found himself saying. “But it’s nice in fall, if you wear a decent scarf.” Why was he letting himself get dragged back into this argument he’d had a million times before when all he wanted to do was have a nice chat with a hot guy who seemed increasingly willing to laugh at his jokes?
Tony raised an eyebrow. “He defines fall,” he said loudly to Eamon, “As any time before we get six feet of snow.”
“It’s fall until the snow flies,” Scott said defensively. “That’s just math.”
Tony and Lennox were still laughing at him when Eamon said thoughtfully. “You know, I’d forgotten how much snow we get out here.”
“I thought you were based in Columbus,” Scott said curiously.
“It’s not the same.” Eamon shrugged. “It all gets cleared away or it melts because there’s so many people walking over it. It’s just not the same kind of winter.” He looked thoughtful
“God,” Lennox said, rubbing his chin, and Scott had to hide his impulse to jump. He’d almost forgotten his friends were here. “That’s the first thing that’s ever made me want to move to Columbus.”
“Don’t let us stop you,” Scott said drily. “You could be out of here by tomorrow, if you tried a little harder.”
“Ah, you’d miss me too much,” Lennox crowed, and then Tony had to make fun of him for that, and then they were back to their back and forth and Scott had missed yet another opportunity to talk to Eamon.
Somehow, despite all of this, the evening stretched out more or less pleasantly. Tony and Lennox stayed firmly put, but Scott found himself minding less and less as he made his way through his first pint and then another and a third. Eamon seemed to be relaxing too, leaning back in his chair and watching Tony and Lennox push one another into higher and higher flights of nonsense. He spoke up too, every once in a while, when Tony remembered to interrogate him about what sounded like an increasingly jet-set sort of lifestyle. Scott had never been to Florida – had barely been out of the state – and it sounded like Eamon was down there all the time, let alone everywhere else he’d been for work.
Had Scott really been the kind of idiot to think that he could measure up for a guy used to the best? He took another gulp of beer, and began to cough.
“You okay–?” Eamon began to say, but Lennox was already thumping him on the back, hard enough to hurt
“I’m fine!” Scott coughed again. “Fine!” More coughing. “Get off me, you idiot!”
“Don’t blame me when you choke to death,” Lennox said without rancor, and sat back down in his chair.
Scott looked around at the three faces watching him with concern, and decided that this was his chance. “Probably a sign I’m done for the night, right, guys?” He waved off Lennox and Tony’s objections, looking straight at Eamon. “It was good to see you again. To catch up.”
“You too.” Eamon’s smile was still as heart-stopping as ever. “It’s probably time for me to head out as well.”
“He has to work in the morning,” Tony said, pointing at Scott. He eyed Eamon suspiciously. “What’s your excuse? We thought you were on holiday.”
“Not that much of a holiday,” Eamon said, unapologetic. “I have a conference call in the morning.”
“You guys have to work too,” Scott pointed out, his mind racing over this new revelation. So Eamon was still working, huh? That must mean his sabbatical really must be pretty short.
Lennox waved him off. “Late shift tomorrow, so there.”
“Your funeral,” Scott said, hardly thinking about it, too busy wondering about Eamon’s plans. He’d spent the whole evening with the guy, hanging on every word he said about himself, and yet he still felt that the other man was a mystery, a package he’d love to take his time unwrapping.
God, that was a bad line. Good thing he hadn’t said it aloud. But it was definitely true. Especially when, on their way outside, Eamon slipped into a leather jacket that looked butter-soft and fitted like a dream.
“Thanks for coming out with me tonight,” Eamon said as they parted on the street in front of the bar.
“Anytime,” Scott said. In his pocket, his hand fidgeted with his keys. “Or, you know, feel free to stop by the shop or whatever.”
Eamon didn’t seem aware of Scott’s nervousness. “Thanks,” he said again, flashing another hint of that brilliant smile. “See you around then.” He strolled off into the night.
Scott let out a breath he hadn’t meant to hold. So not a date then. Not that he could have expected it to be one after his friends had crashed everything, but it was good to have confirmation.
He didn’t want a fling anyway. He’d thought he did, when he was still mooning over Eamon’s eyes without ever knowing his name, but he was back to being himself again. He was an old-fashioned kind of guy like that. Long-term or nothing for him.
7
Eamon
A conference call, Eamon thought bitterly as he dragged himself out of his warm bed and down to the kitchen the next morning. That was one name for it. An overly optimistic name, frankly, given that all the conferring was to take place between him and Kevin: no one else involved at all.
He’d hoped, blindly, that after a few days, people would start to get in touch with him again. He wasn’t supposed to check his work email – his inbox was being dealt with by a combination of Kevin and his PA – and most of the voicemails he received were already routed through the PA so it was easy to keep him out of the loop. But his department heads should have his personal number – he’d been around at any hour of the day or night after all, and he’d had plenty of conversations about development direction from the bed in his penthouse.
So why weren’t they calling?
He could only assume that it was just as Kevin said: everyone was taking the board’s word for it than he was out of control and needed to be kept out of the loop.
Some of th
ese people had been hired by him personally. They’d been around since the earliest days of the company! And they were still not talking to him? He’d never felt a betrayal like this before.
Angrily, he made himself coffee, not caring when the French press splashed hot water over his wrist, turning the skin pink and wetting the sleeve of his shirt. He stirred milk into the brew and waited, staring at his phone.
Prompt as always, it rang at precisely seven-thirty. Eamon grabbed for it, almost dropping the device in his eagerness. It was Kevin, as expected, and he wanted to know everything.
“Tell me everything,” he barked down the line.
“Good morning to you too.” Kevin’s voice was smooth, with none of the early morning gravel that Eamon was sure was audible in his own speech.
“Good morning,” he said, chastised. “I appreciate you giving me a call this early.”
“Not a problem.” Kevin sounded unconcerned. “You know I like to get in early. Get work done before everyone else shows up.”
“You’ve always been a trouper,” Eamon said, feeling a surge of gratitude. “So, what’s the latest?”
“I’m afraid the production team is still falling behind,” Kevin said sorrowfully. “They’ve asked for another extension. And then User Interface can’t finish up their testing until they have a solid back end to test with.”
“Still? What about the testing environment?”
Kevin made a softly disapproving noise and began to explain about the problems UI was running into in the testing environment. Followed up by the problems on the client end. It seemed as though whatever Eamon asked about, it was either running behind schedule, stalled by someone else’s delays, or not producing the kinds of results they needed.
Eamon gritted his teeth. “They never used to have these kinds of issues,” he said, almost to himself.
“I wouldn’t like to speculate,” Kevin said, calm as ever, “But the board has offered some concerns about the production schedule...”
Love in Tandem Page 4