He poked Ryan’s chest with a finger.
“This is supposed to go easy. We have dinner, spend the night, fly back out first thing in the morning. We don’t need to bond.”
Ryan gained back some ground, rolling his eyes and covering Cooper’s hand with his own before pushing it away. The movement was controlled, almost gentle.
Ryan’s voice was easy-going when he said, “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Before they reached the deck, Ryan rushed out, “I was kicked out when my father found out.”
“Found out what?”
“That I liked anything that could walk.” He shrugged his Burberry-covered shoulders. “Or maybe it was the orgy he caught me having. Hm. Guess I’ll never know.”
His wiggling eyebrows then were devious, and Cooper laughed, accepting it for the apology it was. Maybe he was serious. Maybe not.
Right then, it didn’t really matter.
Cooper brought up their luggage, taking two steps at a time so he wouldn’t be left to the wolves for too long. So far, they’d managed a few hours without any major missteps, or too many questions.
But when Cooper came back down, he saw Joseph in the kitchen, a sour look directed at both Malcolm and Ryan seemingly at once. His father always had that talent. Everyone was always wrong.
“Dad,” Cooper said, trying not to seem too eager. Better he be the focus than Ryan just then. He wasn’t sure why he felt obligated to take the brunt of Joseph’s dislike, for Ryan of all people. But Ryan was standing with his telltale look of worry plastered on his face and Cooper knew that never boded well for anything, or anyone.
“Cooper,” Joseph muttered. “You hear the news about your brother?”
Cooper looked between them. He knew that tone.
“Where’s Mom?” Cooper asked instead.
“She went back to the corner store for more pumpkin puree,” Ryan answered for them, voice falsely cheery in the tension filling the room. “For a second pie.”
“Anne left him. Took the kids,” Joseph announced in his ever-deadpan tone. “Your brother thinks he’s free to sleep where he pleases—”
“Dad—” Malcolm tried, sounding weak.
“And,” Joseph continued, turning to Cooper like they hadn’t just spent a year avoiding each other’s presence. “He’s moved to the Ozarks. Got a cabin and everything. Quit his job. He’s living the rural dream, isn’t that what you said, boy?”
Ryan took a step towards Cooper.
And another.
“Really, Malcolm?” Cooper asked him.
Malcolm seemed pained then, physically even moreso. His face twisted and he nodded oddly.
“Last month.”
“A whole month!” Joseph cried.
“Hey, Dad,” Cooper said, trying for happy. “Have you met Ryan yet?”
Joseph waved a hand, dismissing them. “Yes, nice kid, good job. The problem here is your brother didn’t think it was important to tell his family what’s been going on for the last month.”
“Like the last year, then?” Cooper said, unable to keep the words in.
Ryan took another step until he was standing next to him, looking decidedly neutral.
Joseph sent him a narrowed look and Cooper braced himself for what was next. A shouting match, he knew.
But the clack of keys turning in the front door lock broke the tension and in walked Cat.
“Boys! Look who I ran into!”
Behind her was May, waving her hellos.
Her eyes landed on Ryan, then slid to Cooper.
Cooper had never seen her eyebrows shoot so high.
“What is she doing here?” Ryan asked when Cat had successfully—and mostly obliviously—rallied Joseph into her pie-making schemes for the rest of the afternoon.
May cleared her throat. “I’m right here.”
“What are you doing here? Don’t tell me you’re cousins, you two dated for four months.”
“You remember that?” Cooper asked, surprised. He hadn’t thought Ryan noticed that stuff.
Ryan blinked. “I always remember these things.”
Cooper’s stomach did a little flip when Ryan shifted his gaze to the wall before shooting back to May.
Stop it, he told himself.
“No, god no,” May told him. “We always spend holidays together. It helps to have friends as a buffer for shitty family gatherings. I should be asking what are you doing here?”
Ryan shrugged. He elbowed Cooper.
They hadn’t discussed this.
Should May know the truth? Or—
“We’re dating,” Ryan said, sparing Cooper the decision.
May laughed, bright and loud, a guffaw to shake the walls. She laughed so hard she began to snort and Cooper shoved her. Ryan frowned the longer she went on.
“What? Is it that unbelievable?” he asked, as if he was insulted.
“Then kiss. Right now. Suck those lips, boys.”
“You’re tipsy.” Cooper finally caught on, realizing.
“Maybe I am halfway to drunk. But not anywhere near drunk enough for what I’m hearing. You can’t be serious.”
Determined, Ryan grabbed Cooper’s hand and brought it to his mouth, kissing the back of it.
Even Cooper couldn’t help but laugh a little at it.
“Bullshit,” May jibed, shaking her head.
Cooper turned to see the way Ryan’s little frown fell into a glare. He didn’t let go of Cooper’s hand, though.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.
Kissing Ryan.
His boss.
The one who signed his paychecks.
His boss, who still held his hand.
Ryan was holding his hand.
He was arguing with May, but Cooper could only concentrate on the tiny shifts in pressure as Ryan kept holding him through it. Little pinpricks that rolled up his arm, through his shoulder, a tingle settling at his jaw. He felt too warm then, his face flushing.
He pulled until Ryan was distracted enough, turning fully to face Cooper mid-rebuke.
Cooper kissed him. It was easy. Ryan’s lips were soft beneath his, and maybe warm. It had been too quick to tell.
“We’re dating,” Cooper said, not looking away from Ryan’s eyes.
May was wide-eyed when he turned back to her. She was shaking her head, disbelieving.
“No, no, no, no, no.”
“Yep.”
“Is this why you won’t shut up about him?” she asked Cooper in a too-loud whisper she surely thought was sneaky. Ryan was very amused by the question. “You literally never shut up about him. Oh my god, I can’t believe I never saw it.”
“How long has Cooper been complaining about me?” Ryan asked her, and yes, he was definitely far too amused by the turn of events. Cooper needed to shut it down.
“Forever!”
“Okay!” Cooper said, pulling free from Ryan to grab May’s shoulders. “Let’s find you more eggnog, huh?”
“Ooh, yes please.”
Cooper didn’t see the way Ryan looked down at his hands, passing thumb over palm, smiling soft and private.
3
Ryan was taking to the festivities well enough. Where Cooper worried Ryan would somehow falter when it came to interacting with his parents and brother, he instead seemed to be perfectly navigating their strange family dynamic. He smiled in all the right places. He accepted every cup of alcohol that was handed to him (by Cat, who was just happy to have a new drinking buddy to gossip with). He put up with the awkward silence and steely glares Joseph sent Malcolm’s way. He hovered by Cooper dutifully when there was a lapse in conversation. There was just one thing.
He hadn’t let himself be cornered by Joseph.
“You should mingle,” Cooper told him, jerking his chin towards his father. He smirked and Ryan jabbed at his arm.
“No way.”
“Why not?”
“Have you seen your father? And after how you talked him up?”
“Exactly
why you should mingle. It’ll piss him off.” Cooper noticed Malcolm looking their way as he helped their mother with the cooking. Cooper bumped his shoulder with Ryan’s, covering his pinching fingers with his own. Ryan leaned closer, saying something under his breath Cooper didn’t quite catch.
Ryan made a face. “I think not. And it’s not exactly easy to mingle when there’s only four people to mingle with. I’ve said my hellos. I’ve given them the obligatory anecdote of my wild youth.” He rolled his eyes. “That’s enough.”
Cooper edged closer, if only to get a rise out of his boss. “I thought you liked conflict.”
“Only if it’s fun for me,” Ryan replied sourly, not bothering to move away. “I didn’t realize you were such an advocate for the mischief I get up to.”
“I’m paid to be an advocate to your mischief.”
“And as I recall, your pay is quite good.”
Cooper whistled at that. “Forgive me, love,” he whispered hotly. Ryan hmm’d at him, though Cooper couldn’t place the tone. “But you pay me shit.”
Ryan shrugged. “Do I?”
“I’ll just say I’m looking forward to being paid what I’m worth.” Then, “Finally.”
Ryan turned his eyes to the floor, lips pursed in an odd way.
“I don’t have control of who gets paid what,” Ryan said after a long moment. He sniffed and pulled at his collar.
Cooper scoffed into his own drink. Rum with an orange slice that was floating around one very large ball of ice. Cat’s new fad, apparently. He watched as she fretted over the potatoes, cranberry sauce, stuffing, and vegetables. Joseph was assigned to the ham. May had staked her claim on the couch, sagging in the middle with her phone out, her own glass of eggnog empty where she balanced it on a thigh. Football played on the television at a volume just high enough Cooper was annoyed to know what was happening.
Joseph was currently basting the ham in a glaze, almost too careful with his brush strokes.
“Oh, darn,” he swore, missing some invisible patch of meat. He reglazed it.
“Though…he’s not nearly as bad as you made him out to be,” Ryan said.
Cooper hummed. “He’s just distracted by Malcolm. If past years are anything to go by, he usually gets going around dinner.”
“Ah,” Ryan hummed, an echo. “Then there’s still time.”
Cooper smiled and squeezed Ryan’s fingers. “Now you’re getting it.”
Ryan met Cooper’s eyes with something he couldn’t name. Cooper felt warm from the look and chalked it up to the alcohol.
Seeming to snap out of it, Ryan smoothed down his shirt. “Still, this is leagues better than what my holidays looked like growing up. Paul was…” Ryan shivered, all dramatics.
Cooper could only nod. He wasn’t sure why Ryan felt like giving him anecdotes about his life, all more personal than the ramped up stories he gave to Cat and the others. Them, he was obviously just keeping happy, charmed.
But with Cooper they were different. Intimate insights to his life. He’d been doing it since they landed. As if the stories were just pouring from him, refusing to be kept back. Maybe it was just what Ryan out of his element looked like. Take him away from an office and he was forced to socialize properly. Cooper hadn’t even realized he’d be capable of interacting with another person if that interaction didn’t involve yelling, belittling, or manipulating.
Maybe it was that.
Maybe it was because it was Cooper.
Cooper frowned into his drink and took another sip.
“Fuck Paul,” Cooper muttered.
Ryan swung his eyes to his, startled but clearly pleased.
“Suddenly I don’t doubt the idea of your own office so much. Look at that, Cooper. Soon enough you’ll be paid a salary and everything.”
He hated how those words made his heart race, just the tiniest bit. He’d put so much hard work and restless years in to get a good job placement, and now here he was—resorting to a lie to finally get it.
“I try my best. If I’d known this was how to make it, I should have asked you to fake-date me when you first took me on.”
“Can’t imagine why you never did,” Ryan teased. “And don’t forget, this was my idea.”
“Oh, I won’t.” He sighed. “The only thing better than getting what I’ve wanted since school is knowing I’ll have enough blackmail on you to last me a lifetime.”
Ryan grinned, but it was slow in appearing. “So, you have learned something working for me.”
Cooper smiled, catching himself enjoying Ryan’s company, and not for the first time that day. And if he was being honest—and maybe a little egged on by the few drinks in his system—it wasn’t the first since he became Ryan’s assistant.
It was dangerous. He had to keep telling himself that.
Dangerous and stupid.
This was fake.
A game.
Joseph grunted, pleased as he stepped back to appraise his handiwork.
“Come help me with the cherries, son,” he tossed back to Cooper, his gaze holding no malice.
Cooper pointed at himself, couldn’t help it he was so taken aback. Joseph waved him forward and still, he didn’t move. His legs didn’t seem to want to work.
Ryan cleared his throat and it was his hand was on Cooper’s lower back, urging him forward.
Cooper went to his father as beckoned, but only because he could feel the heat from Ryan’s hand burning through his shirt. He couldn’t have that. It was hot enough as it was.
He blinked back at Ryan, still in his Burberry suit. He had no idea how Ryan was managing in the heat, but managing he was. Cooper figured it was down to some misplaced sense of stubborn willpower to not look anything less than how he always did. Prim, proper, and professional.
Ryan scratched at his jaw as Cat zeroed in on him, pulling him in to help with chopping. His hair bounced and he had to tuck it behind his ear before relenting finally.
Prim, proper, professional, and handsome.
Cooper sighed at himself, then faced Joseph, fully resigned to whatever his father had planned.
Joseph had him create a lattice of toothpicks stabbed through pineapple slices and cherries, only interrupting to make minute adjustments. He didn’t budge, he didn’t shove, he didn’t even scream.
“What is this?”
His father’s brows raised slow. “What is what, son?”
Cooper wondered at the tone. Free of anything hateful. Wasn’t even close to angry.
“Nothing.”
Joseph kept calling on him to do small things. Reglaze the ham, son. What did you think of that bogus foul, son? How old is Ryan and how much does he get paid, son? Would you mind running for some extra eggs, son? Gas too, while you’re at it.
Ryan ran blocker when he came back from filling the tank up. May and he had obviously been talking, a couple of dark-haired whisperers huddled safely away from the rest of Cooper’s family.
Ryan raised an eyebrow at him as he dragged him inside their bubble.
“Finish your drink, son. Eat your food, son. Ever read a book, son? Go out and play fetch with your brother, son.” He snorted. “Does he ever stop with the son stuff?”
May shook her head sagely. “Just wait until he starts with the boys.”
Cooper aimed his laughter at the floor.
“That’s right, I forgot about that.”
“What?” Ryan asked them.
May eyed him. “Joseph thought I was a boy until two years ago. Kept tagging boy to the end of everything. I thought it was a joke until. Well.”
Ryan gave her a look of disbelief. “How could he not know? How’d he find out?”
Cooper answered for her. “Walked in on her in the bathroom.”
“The guy couldn’t look me in the eye for weeks,” she said, sipping her eggnog. “The poor bastard.”
Cooper squeezed her shoulder. “If you get my mom drunk enough, she’ll tell the whole story.”
Ryan’s eyes glea
med and Cooper wondered not if, but when, and how much Ryan would get Cat drunk.
At some point after the ham was put in the oven, Joseph lead him outside. Cooper suddenly found himself sweating back in the heat, his collar damp, a cold beer in his hand, with Joseph looking at him like he was in for a meaningful talk. A true heart to heart.
Cooper tossed half his beer back in one gulp.
“It’s good to have you home.”
Cooper squinted out into the sunlight. The sky was starting to turn warm at the edges, soft oranges bleeding over the blue to overtake the clouds and everything below. The shade of the deck creeped slow over Joseph’s garden beneath them.
“We can get this out of the way now, if that’s better for you,” Cooper said.
Joseph placed his hands in his pockets, watching Cooper drink.
“Did Malcolm come to you when his family imploded?”
Cooper thumbed the rim of his beer and took another swallow. “No. I didn’t know.”
Joseph shook his head, looking wistful. “I told that boy he shouldn’t have gotten that girl pregnant when he did. Barely out of high school.”
“They were young and in love. Be grateful he had sports sponsors to take care of everything how he did.”
“All the money in the world and that boy couldn’t keep it in his pants.” Joseph clicked his tongue. “I taught that boy better.”
Cooper laughed. “That sounds familiar.”
“Hm?”
Cooper placed a hand against the wooden fence lining the porch. Thick, old beams of redwood that Joseph ordered specially made. He dug a fingernail into the grain of the wood until it pinched.
“You know I only came back to see Mom.”
Joseph’s chin dipped. “I know,” he said, soft.
“Even then,” he said. He swallowed thickly. “Even then, I wondered if this would be worth it. Having to put up with you. The last I saw you, you gave me a bloody nose. Screaming how you taught me better.”
“I did.”
“No apology. Figures.”
“No,” he said. “I did do those things. I shouldn’t have.”
Another swig. There was hardly any beer left. “So you’re a good father now. An understanding father. The kind of father who doesn’t punch their kid when he finds out he likes men too? Well, hate to break it to you, Dad, but I still do.”
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