Jared

by R. J. Scott

  “Are you sure about that? Isn’t it that you didn’t say anything because of Luka?”

  “I don’t—”

  “Dear Mr. or Mrs. Bryant and Waites.” Nate sighed. “From the look on your face, I’m guessing you’ve heard the rest. It’s where he was when you found him, wasn’t it?”

  Jared admitted, “Yes. He came to the offices.”

  “We must have seemed pathetic to you.”

  “Why? He just wanted you to be happy and he thought this was a way you could be.”

  “Is that why you stuck around?”

  “No,” Jared said, and Nate believed him.

  “I don’t imagine his pocket money comes anywhere close to what it would cost to really hire you.”

  “He sure tried.” Jared stepped back and pulled some money from his pants’ pocket. “Each time I saw him, he pushed these at me. I was keeping hold of them until I could give them back to him. Because I swear, although in the beginning I wanted to help a kid desperate to make his dad happy, being near you, hanging out with you, and Luka, in the end I kind of forgot about all that. I wanted to know you because you’re you and the more I did the more of you I wanted to see.”

  “I think you saw plenty last week.” Nate lowered his head, embarrassed.

  “So, what happens now?”

  “I wonder,” Nate said. His feelings for Jared were real, and from what he could tell, Jared’s were too. Those hadn’t changed in the last few hours, and he didn’t see why they should. His real issue was with Luka. He’d made his own son worry about him. He’d have to have a serious conversation with him tomorrow. Maybe even have Jared there. They could both talk to him, explain he didn’t need to worry, and Jared didn’t need to have loose change thrust at him every time Luka saw him.

  “I’ll tell you on one condition.” Nate decided.

  “Anything.” There was an unexpected thrill to seeing Jared act so desperately.

  “Kiss me.” He moved closer. He smoothed Jared’s collar.

  “Is that it?” Jared swallowed hard.

  “What? Were you expecting me to punish you? I’m not really into that.”

  Jared smiled. “Am I forgiven?”

  Nate tilted his head, kissed Jared’s cheek. “Nothing to forgive. But no more weird secrets with my son.”

  “So just normal ones?”

  Nate sighed and pinched Jared’s nipple through his shirt.

  “Ow, ow. I give up.”

  “Well, what are you waiting for? Kiss me.”

  And Jared did. The kiss was firm, full of desire and relief.

  What both felt for the other, was real. Nate was sure of that.

  I want us both to fall completely.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The chat with Luka went well. Considering.

  Nate organized a movie night with popcorn, and before they started eating he told Jared and Luka to sit on the sofa and took his place on the stool facing them.

  It felt to Jared a bit like an interrogation, and it was clear that Luka had decided something was up.

  “What did we do?” he asked, then leaned into Jared. “Dad only ever sits there when I’m in trouble.”

  “You’re not in trouble,” Nate started with a patient tone.

  “Feels like it,” Luka muttered.

  “Agreed,” Jared said out of the corner of his mouth, and Nate’s lips twitched with the hint of a smile.

  “Well, I wanted to talk to you both about Bryant & Waites.”

  “Uh oh,” Luka said.

  “Uh oh,” Jared repeated.

  “Luka, I know you think I’ve been lonely, and you’re right, I have been. Only buying me a date is probably not the way to go about it.”

  “How did you even find out?” Luka was wide-eyed.

  “He’s got powers,” Jared fake-whispered to Luka.

  “I know!” Luka whispered back.

  Nate’s smile twitched again. “Never mind how I found out. Now, Jared, I want you to give Luka his money back.”

  Jared rooted in his pocket and pulled out the handful of coins, offering them to Luka palm up. Luka refused to even look at the money, and in a dramatic move he sat on his hands.

  “But I don’t want the money, I want Jared to stay, because when you see him you’re smiling more, and you even whistled this morning. Please let him stay, Dad, please don’t let him go. I promise to do all my homework.”

  “Luka…” Nate sounded anguished.

  Jared leapt in to defuse the emotional time bomb. “I’m not going anywhere, buddy,” he said, and placed the coins on the table. “I’m staying for free.” He then hugged Luka and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “Your dad wants me to stay.”

  “I do.”

  That called for a group hug, and the hugs lasted a very long time.

  Movie night ended with Luka falling asleep sprawled over the two of them, and it was Jared who ended up carrying him to bed. Luka woke once, startled, staring up at Jared, and then relaxing. “He’s staying,” he murmured to his pillow, and then curled on his side.

  Jared’s chest tightened. “Love this kid,” he whispered in the dark, and searched for Nate’s hand, tugging him in to steal the tiniest of kisses. Love his dad, too.

  “I wish you could stay tonight,” Nate said after they shut Luka’s door.

  “The car is picking me up at five for the booking.”

  “What is it this time? Man, woman?”

  Jared was still hung up on the personal revelation that he was falling in love with Nate. “Huh?”

  “Did a man or a woman book you?”

  “Businesswoman, I’ve worked for her before, she’s fascinating.”

  “Have fun.”

  “I will, the food is always excellent, and they are a… oh.” He finally got a good look at Nate’s expression, which was closed and just this side of worried. “I’d rather be staying the night here, then waking up to you, then eating pancakes and watching TV with Luka.”

  “Yeah?”

  Jared did all he could to kiss the worries away. “It’s just a job. I’ll come straight back on Sunday and tell you all about it.”

  “Maybe you could… nah, it’s okay.”

  “Maybe I could what?”

  “I don’t know… you could call me when you’re away? Because I’ll be missing your face, and I think I already miss your voice. Only if you want.”

  Oh yeah, I’m well on the way to being in love.

  “And then everything went to shit.” Jared paused for a moment and shook his head. He was listing the latest series of disasters on his Bryant & Waites booking and he loved that Nate was so invested.

  Nate chuckled and the sound sent shivers down Jared’s spine. He’d missed Nate’s voice as well, and was so lost in the sexy timbre of it, and the way he laughed, and the sense memory of how he hugged, and the sex…

  Yeah, the sex was hot. Off the charts hot. Addictive even.

  “You have to tell me everything,” Nate said, and Jared heard him moving, the sound of the refrigerator opening and shutting, then an exhalation as he sat on the sofa. Jared could imagine Nate doing all these things, and knew every single expression, and the steps he would take.

  Not that he’d been staring at Nate every moment he got. Liar.

  Today’s Bryant & Waites booking had started off so well. Jared had chosen the perfect suit, a crisp white shirt, a ruby-red tie, and after the appropriate amount of primping and messing about in the bathroom he looked good if he said so himself. Even Nate agreed after Jared had sent him a whole raft of photos.

  “I was holding my own, discussing the psychology of sales with these execs, and my date gave a rousing speech about how ninety-nine percent wasn’t a hundred, or something like that. I’m not exactly sure what she said because I was thinking about you the whole time.”

  “You were?” Why did Nate sound so surprised? They were dating officially, and even though their time alone had been tight what with Jared’s studying, the bar, and
dates where Luka was with them, they’d already had some amazing moments.

  “Are you telling me you don’t think about me?” Jared deadpanned, which made Nate laugh again.

  “Wasn’t it me who asked you to call?”

  “True that. Anyway, if you’re really interested in how it all went to shit, then Jeanette finished her keynote, and I was mingling.”

  “Uh oh.”

  “Why uh oh?”

  “Mingling sounds ominous.”

  “To be fair mingling is pretty innocent and it didn’t start in any kind of ominous way, but then I met Carl with his cat Marmalade.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. One of the execs actually took their cat to the event?”

  “No, it was more like, Marmalade had just had results back from tests for blah blah blah, something, blah, and was fine. Carl got upset is all, and I stood with him while he worked the emotions through his system, y’know.”

  “So far so good.”

  “Oh, did Luka get my text about the dinosaur thing? The one at the museum?”

  “Yes he did. Stop changing the subject.”

  “Only there’s this guided tour and we—”

  “Jared…”

  “Well, both of us leaning on the same temporary table probably wasn’t a good idea, but it wasn’t as if we knew the table would break. But it did, and that meant that me, Jeanette, and Carl were close to the chocolate fountain when it lost its equilibrium, which ended up with all three of us wrestling in the slippery chocolate.” He paused to allow Nate to finish laughing. “I think it should be a thing.”

  “What? You and strangers wrestling in chocolate?”

  “No, you and me wrestling in chocolate.”

  “Oh.”

  “Exactly, and now I’ve thought of that, I’m all hard while being completely on my own in this gorgeous room.”

  “Hang on, because I’m taking this into the bedroom,” Nate murmured.

  “Well, I took Jeanette to our suite, and tucked her in, and she had a good cry about wanting a real boyfriend, and I gave her some advice. She wasn’t going back down, so I locked myself in my room and there was chocolate everywhere.”

  “Where, everywhere?”

  Jared settled back on the pillows, ignoring his damp post-shower hair and imagined Nate doing the same in the bedroom that Jared had grown to love. It was all pale blues and dark wood, and so Nate, and the memory of what they’d done in that bed just made him harder.

  “It soaked through gaps in my shirt, all over my chest, my nipples.” How was it that such an innocent word, said in a darkened room, with a lover at the other end of the phone, could sound so erotic? Jared heard Nate moan low in his throat, and lust flooded him until he had his hand curved around his cock and in an embarrassingly short amount of time, to the sounds of Nate getting himself off, Jared’s orgasm hit him like a freight train, leaving him panting and breathless.

  “I’m ordering us chocolate body paint,” Nate muttered. “Just as soon as I can move.”

  “Nate?”

  “Hmmm?” Nate sounded as if he was settling in for the night, and Jared imagined him pulling the covers over himself, rolling onto his side just the same as Jared was.

  I love you. I wish I was there with you so I could kiss you goodnight, because you’re all I can think of, and I know you’re not looking for another dad for Luka, but I love him as well, and I’m just consumed by it all.

  “Goodnight,” Jared said, letting instead everything bubble up inside him. What he wanted to say needed to be said face to face, with added kissing. It wasn’t something he should be offering up after phone sex.

  Getting to tell Nate that he loved him was taking Jared far too long. At first it was exams that stole his time, then when they did meet up they had Luka with them. He loved being with Nate and Luka, and today’s visit to The American Museum of Natural History was one of the best days he’d ever had. Only, there hadn’t been a single chance to tell Nate what he felt, at least not in the way he wanted to do it, which was going to be something romantic. Over dinner maybe. Or in bed.

  For sure it shouldn’t be something they talked about under the ass end of a woolly mammoth.

  “I bet the poos they did were huuuuge,” Luka commented as he stared up at the enormous skeleton.

  “Big enough to bury you,” Jared teased, and then ruffled Luka’s hair in an approximation of a quantity of mammoth poo landing on his head. Luka ducked away and darted over to the T-Rex, Nate and Jared following at a slower pace.

  “Thank you for suggesting this,” Nate said as they reached the information board for the dinosaur. He’d grown more relaxed as the day went on, as if just being out with Luka had lifted a weight from his shoulders. “I needed today.”

  Jared brushed his hand against Nate’s but there was no expectation of holding hands—after all not everyone was as fond of PDAs as Jared was. Only, Nate curled his hand into Jared’s and laced their fingers, and they read the board.

  “Sometimes I wonder if it’s all worth it,” Nate blurted.

  Jared realized Nate wasn’t looking at the board at all, but up at the skeleton. Jared was good at making connections but the evidence at hand, Nate staring up at a T-Rex and making a sweeping statement, wasn’t making sense. “What?” Us? Are you thinking because now we held hands, that we’re not worth it?

  “The bar, working so hard for so little, when I could be…” He pressed fingers to his temple.

  “What else would you like to do?”

  “It isn’t that.” He turned a little to face Jared. “Nothing else. I love the bar, I just don’t want the rest of it, and that’s not right is it? Nothing worth having is easy, but when I think…” he lowered his voice, but Luka was a long way from them in the fossil display. “… losing Rhea, and not being there for Luka, and I’m so happy with you, and I think of all the things that I want to do, and then there’s this big weight.”

  Jared tugged him over to the bench, and sat them down, right where they could keep an eye on Luka.

  “Maybe you need to make a change,” he offered after a short pause.

  Nate side-eyed him. “I won’t sell the bar.”

  “I didn’t mean you should, but you have Pops in covering shifts, so what if you give Gregg more responsibility, maybe even let him buy into the place?”

  “No, it’s our place. Anyway, Rhea’s dad would…”

  “What? You think he’d be disappointed, angry, sad? You should talk to him. But first of all, Nate?”

  “Yeah?” He was distracted by Luka calling them, but he did turn back to Jared with a soft smile.

  This was the moment, in the quiet corner of the museum, right in the middle of the best day. “I love you.”

  Surprise stole Nate’s smile, and then his eyes widened. “I love you, too.”

  “Dad! They have a snail and it’s bigger than a car!”

  They didn’t get the chance to talk any more about life decisions, or love, but they held hands the entire museum visit, and Nate couldn’t stop smiling.

  Jared called that a win.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Well, this feels kinda awkward.” Gregg sat in the chair beside Nate’s and scratched the back of his neck. He wore a crooked smile. “I’m half-expecting a scolding.” He eyed Nate. “So, what is it? Calling me in before opening, must be serious.”

  “You’ve worked here, at Rhea’s, for what? Six years.”

  “Nearly seven,” Gregg said with a nod.

  “And you’re thirty?”

  “Nearly thirty-one.” Gregg grinned.

  Nate sat forward. “I wanted to talk to you about this place and maybe making a few changes to running it.” Jared had sown a seed last week, and he finally felt ready to act on the idea.

  Gregg sucked on his teeth. “What kind of changes?”

  “Okay.” Nate clasped his hands together. “Obviously, this will all depend on what plans you might have for the future, but I was wondering if you’d like
to run this place, for real.”

  “In what way?”

  “Basically, you’d be the manager, run things out front. So, more hours, more money. We could discuss a new assistant manager.”

  “You can afford to do that?”

  “I’ve crunched the numbers. It’d work.”

  “And that would mean what for you?”

  “I’d be more behind the scenes, the business side. At least for now, until Luka is older. Despite having this place, I’ve always done everything I could to be there for him. I can’t say it’s been easy, and I’ve had people help me a lot, you included, but I guess what I’m getting at is I need to be better where Luka is concerned. In the future… I don’t know, but I feel like…” He paused. “I used this place to bury my head. It was an excuse to ignore a lot of things…” He waved his hand in front of his chest. “Things in here and I don’t want to hide, close myself off anymore. I want to take the chance that’s presented itself to me.”

  “Jared?”

  Nate lowered his head.

  There was a brief silence, then Gregg said, “Okay.”

  “Really?”

  Gregg nodded. “I mean, you asked me so nicely.” He smiled. “Honestly, I hadn’t thought much about the future. I’m comfortable here.” He exhaled through his nose. “Maybe if Rhea was still around, she’d have bullied me out of here and forced me towards bigger things before now, but I like it here. The staff, the customers, the atmosphere.” He shrugged. “And as you said, the future, who knows, but for now, I’m up for it.”

  Nate’s thoughts went to Rhea. “She really would have, wouldn’t she?” He couldn’t help but smile. “Anyway, we’ll work out the details over the next week and get it down in writing soon. Is that okay? Anything you want to know?”

  “One thing.”

  “Sure.”

  “Is it okay if I make a suggestion about a new assistant manager?”

  Nate leaned his head to one side and listened.

  “I’d like to put Abi’s name forward. She’s been pretty dependable recently and it seems she’s been thinking of looking for something with more hours and money, so I think she’d be interested. That okay?”