The exhibit was awesome, as Alex had known it would be. The pictures were all about families: joy, loss, beginnings and endings—and some of them choked Alex up so much that he had to move on to the next photograph while Gideon was studying the previous one. Last thing he wanted was to break down and blubber in front of a guy he was trying to impress.
A few reminded him of his dad. Alex skipped those pretty damn quick, both because they got to him the worst, and because he didn’t want to discuss them with Gideon. Their family had learned their lesson with fucking Will Tuckett: don’t reveal the dementia bomb if you want to keep a relationship alive.
He paused in front of a poster-sized photo of a little boy holding his baby sister. Gideon strolled over, but stopped an arm’s-length away, as close as he’d gotten all day. Alex nodded at the picture. “This reminds me of when we picked Lin up from the adoption agency. She was so tiny, like a little doll.”
“How old were you?”
“Four, almost five. I’d only been living with Mom and Dad for about nine months.” He slanted a glance at Gideon. “I wasn’t an easy kid: attachment issues, acting out—you name it. I’m surprised they let me anywhere near her. But when we got to the agency, right after they’d handed her over to Mom, Dad sat me down in this big chair and they gave Lin to me. Her hand closed around my finger, and that was it, man. Instant love. I never wanted to put her down.”
Gideon sighed and inched closer. “That’s . . . lovely.”
“Yeah. She kinda tamed me.”
“Lindsay told me a little bit about the adoption once. How her birth mother was suspected of drug and alcohol abuse during the pregnancy.” His eyebrows bunched together. “I can’t believe your aunt still treats Lin like she’s impaired. Anyone who’s spent five freaking minutes with Lin can tell she’s sweet and bright and—and capable.”
Alex snorted. “What can I say? Aunt Ivy’s not a real flexible thinker. She still treats me like a gangster.”
“That’s preposterous.” Gideon stepped into Alex’s space and glared up through his bangs. “Anyone can see you’re not . . . violent, I suppose.”
Not exactly a ringing endorsement, especially with Gideon’s earlier assumptions about the afternoon. He might talk the liberal talk, but the racist, classist walk was clearly tough to shake. On the other hand, if Gideon was outraged on Alex’s behalf, that had to be good. I can always hope. “Yeah, well, I do have a temper.”
Gideon sniffed. “Don’t we all.”
They moved on to the next picture, of a big family gathering, maybe a reunion. The outer edges, where the children ran and played, were blurry and out of focus. The adults in the center of the frame were obviously having a great time with their beers and burgers, but their attention was directed into their circle. None of them were watching the kids.
Gideon shook his head. “Now that is a pretty powerful image.”
“Your parents anything like that?”
“I suppose. I haven’t spoken to them in years, so who knows what they’re like now.”
“You haven’t? Why not?”
“You know the old joke about your family moving away while you’re at summer camp? It was more or less like that. I was there, in the house. They weren’t. My mother hightailed it into the sunset with her ambulance chaser when I was seventeen, and never looked back. I have no idea where she is now.”
“You could find her. I bet your friend Charlie could do it in less time than—”
Gideon held up one hand, palm out. “I have no idea where she is on purpose. What do you say to a woman who abandoned you? Who never bothered to leave a freaking note? Hell, I’d have settled for hate mail. But we were too much drama for her. She had to hook up with a guy who sues people for a living to dial it down a notch.”
Alex remembered his last sight of his birth mother. She’d walked away from him without a backward glance, abandoning him at the shelter with nothing but the clothes on his back and his ragged stuffed lion. If he ever saw her again, it’d be too soon. “Did your dad leave too?”
“Technically, no. On any given day, I could trip over his Scotch-soaked, semiconscious carcass on a random horizontal surface somewhere in the house. I doubt he noticed when I moved out for college.”
“Is he better now?”
“How should I know? I never went back to check.”
“Why not? Aren’t you at least a bit worried? Or curious? He’s your dad, after all.”
“Alex, I’m perfectly capable of manufacturing my own crises. I don’t need to borrow any from someone who cared so little about me that he never registered that I spent my last Th—holiday under his roof at the ER.”
Shock jolted through Alex at the thought of Gideon injured. “What—”
“Besides, blood relationship means nothing. It’s a biological accident that could be accomplished adequately in a petri dish, and given the ambient warmth in my alleged family, probably was. Are you telling me you feel more of a connection to your sperm and egg donors than you do to the Hennings?”
“Hell no.” Alex had no clue who his bio-father was, which suited him fine.
“Well, then. As far as I’m concerned, my family consists of my darling girls.” He marched off to the next picture.
They spent a couple of hours at the gallery, strolling through the exhibit, coming back to a few pictures more than once, not always together.
When Alex returned from a trip to the john, he found Gideon standing in front of one of the images that he himself had constantly avoided. In a nearly life-sized photograph, a frail elderly woman was staring vacantly out a window. Behind her stood a middle-aged man with a young boy leaning against his side. Alex had seen the expressions on those faces too often in his own house to want to see them anywhere else.
He turned his back to the picture. “You ready to head home?”
“Yeah.” Gideon drew out the word. “What do you think of this one?”
Alex shot a brief glance over his shoulder. “It’s good. They’re all good.”
“Right. Of course.” Gideon flipped his bangs and saluted. “Lead on, Macduff.”
But as Alex held the door open, Gideon gazed back at that damned picture, his forehead creased in a troubled frown.
If it bothers him that much, it’s a good thing he doesn’t know about Dad.
But was it? Today he’d seen a different Gideon—who could engage in conversation that wasn’t one-upmanship, who got outraged on others’ behalf, who’d clearly been touched by the images in the gallery. The Gideon behind the mask. Sure, the public Gideon was snarky and fun and hot, but the private Gideon was who Alex wanted to see again.
When he’d made his deal with Gideon, payback might have been part of the reason. An itch caused by what his mom called the odd kick in his gallop that had prompted his worst impulses as a kid. But now? Payback was the last thing on his mind, and he had the uneasy feeling that three dates wouldn’t be enough.
Bad idea, Henning. You’ve got all the relationships you can handle. No room at the inn for another one.
As he glanced sidelong at Gideon in the passenger seat of Lin’s Prius, though, he couldn’t deny he was tempted.
But how to pull it off? He only had two more dates and the length of the Haynes project to work with. Gideon was so used to wearing that damn public mask, to controlling everything around him, that he’d be back to business as usual the day Haynes signed off on the job. If the project hadn’t thrown Gideon off-balance in the first place, Alex would have had no chance at all.
So what if I give him another nudge or two, see if I can knock him completely over? Not exactly nice—more like his asshole-ish teenage shenanigans—but it could be a hell of a lot of fun. He grinned. Hell, his mom had practically ordered him to date, so why not go for it?
“What?” Gideon’s tone was suspicious.
“Nothing.” Yet. Oh, yeah. The guy was as curious as a basket of cats, and one sure way to keep him guessing was to keep. Him. Guessing.
Alex pulled up to the curb outside the Pettygrove house. “Here you go.”
Gideon blinked at him from behind his shiny green glasses. “What do you mean? Aren’t you—” He swallowed and dropped his gaze, fumbling with his seat belt. “You know. Coming up?”
“Nope.”
Gideon goggled at him. “You’re joking. I thought that was the whole point?”
“What was the whole point?”
“You know. Sex.”
Alex leaned across him, trying not to get distracted by the puff of Gideon’s breath against his cheek, and opened the passenger door. “Maybe the only reason you date is for sex, but I’m not the kind of guy who puts out the first time around the block.”
“But—”
Alex sat back and lounged against his own door, pretending an ease he didn’t really feel. “You saying you want me to come up?”
“No, of course not. I mean . . . um . . .”
That’s what I thought. “Well, there you go, then. We both win. See you at work tonight.”
Gideon harrumphed and climbed out, slamming the door behind him. Alex put the car in gear and drove off, chuckling to himself.
And that is how you reel ’em in.
The next day, Gideon stomped around his apartment, still miffed about yesterday’s . . . whatever it was. The date with Alex had been . . . weird. Unexpected. Unsettling.
Go on. Say it. It had been the best date he’d ever had. It had almost been like hanging out with Charlie, except, you know, for the big, freaking elephant in the room—and, God, he wasn’t referring to Alex. No, the elephant was the sexual tension zinging around in the air whenever Gideon got within three feet of the big jerk.
No. He’s not a jerk. Admit it.
He was a nice guy. Probably too nice for Gideon, at least too nice for how Gideon had treated him up to this point. Why was that a bothersome issue now? Gideon never cared what his hookups thought of him afterward. In fact, he preferred it if they thought he was a good time but not worth the effort. After all, who wanted unfortunate attachments? Travis Beatty was an object lesson on how fricking awkward they could be.
Lindsay had been on the money when she’d said he was a tad mean to his dates, but much better to be mean up front and avoid pain down the road. This time, though, that felt wrong. As if he were being a douche bag to Charlie or Lin or, God forbid, Toshiko.
Actually, he had been a douche bag to Toshiko when they’d first met. She’d kept appearing in their apartment at odd times, like the avatar of a surveillance camera. In one of his bitchier moments, he’d referred to her as a brain on a stick—not exactly his finest hour. But then she’d looked at him with her magical x-ray vision and called him on his bullshit, as she’d continued to do ever since. She was far too dangerous to be a dick to.
Alex might be in that same camp, but for an entirely different reason.
When he’d let Gideon off in front of the house without even trying to steal a kiss—one that Gideon had fully intended to evade, as per his usual modus operandi—Gideon had been . . . disappointed.
Well, it has been a while since your last hookup. That must be it. He was horny. Probably anyone would do. Like Travis? He shuddered. No. He wouldn’t go that far, but there was Jared, whatever Alex had said about Gideon having no chance with his dream man.
He paused in the middle of another patrol around the apartment. Jared. Since the moment Alex had led him into that gallery, Gideon hadn’t spared Jared a single thought. He shied away from what that might mean. After all, Jared was technically out of reach, and Alex had been right there.
Somehow, though, he couldn’t dismiss Alex as a placeholder. Not after watching him in the gallery, talking about holding Lin the first time, his gaze softening and his full (admittedly luscious) lips curving in a smile. He was obviously a man who knew how to care about people, and he wasn’t afraid to show it.
Easy for him, though. He’s got a family who loves him, who’ll be there for him no matter what. Who’ll never abandon him.
Well, now he did. There was that whole adoption thing, but then he’d found his place with the Hennings and boom. Love jackpot.
Gideon imagined Alex’s huge square hands cradling baby Lin—of course, they’d have been smaller back then, but probably still huge in proportion to a newborn. What would those hands feel like on his own skin? Would Alex be a gentle lover? Considerate? Or would he be rough and passionate? One thing was certain, though—he’d never be uncaring, not like Mark.
But last night at the jobsite, he’d acted as if Gideon was just another crewmate. He’d showed Gideon the plans for the server room worktables and outlet placement, asked his opinion about random stuff. But hadn’t mentioned the date they’d already had, or scheduled the next one.
Damn it. Gideon needed to clear the decks. Get this deal over with so he wasn’t thinking about it all the time. It wasn’t as though he was dreading their next outing, exactly. In fact, by the end of their first one, he hadn’t even been worried about being alone with a man who could bend him over and break him with no effort whatsoever, because Alex simply wasn’t that guy.
He started another circuit of the apartment. God, he should have gone to spin class this morning, if only to work off some restless energy. Although, maybe it wasn’t only Alex that had him so unsettled. Some of those pictures yesterday had hit Gideon right in the feels. That last one—brrrr. Talk about a nightmare come to life.
Gideon had read “Flowers for Algernon” when he was a freshman in high school, and the story had scared the holy fucking shit out of him. The idea of knowing your intellect would be stripped from you, leaving you helpless, at the mercy of others who were in on the joke.
It didn’t help that poor Charlie the janitor hadn’t remembered what he’d been, what he’d been capable of, once he’d descended into imbecility again. He’d known before that descent, though, and the horror of what was to come . . .
Gideon had had nightmares for years. Still did occasionally. So much of his persona was . . . well, artificial. A crunchy outer shell he’d created to keep himself safe when he’d been a lonely, skinny, geeky teenage loser. His brain was the only thing he could always count on, and it had become the touchstone of his personality, his business, his life. If it should go, as had happened to Charlie in the story, or to the woman in the photograph—
Something clunked upstairs.
Alex.
He froze, listening. Sure enough, a minute later the clanking footsteps started overhead, accompanied by an odd buzzing, as if the clockwork cockroaches had sprouted wings.
Gideon bolted for the door, but stopped and ran back to his bedroom to change into his favorite jeans and a shirt that made his eyes pop. Don’t even want to ask myself why I’m doing this. He checked his hair in the bathroom mirror, then bolted for the door and up the stairs.
The attic apartment door wasn’t latched. Did Alex want him to show up? The idea gave him an unexpected thrill. But what if it wasn’t Alex? For all Gideon knew, the Hennings had a whole crew available for renovation work. You can’t find out if you don’t look. He pushed the door open.
Although the person on the drywall stilts was wearing a full-face respirator and had his back to the door, Gideon identified him as Alex immediately. He took a relieved breath. But how ludicrous was it that he could pick that ass out of a naughty policemen’s lineup any day of the week?
The buzzing he’d heard was from the sander Alex was using on the ceiling. Gideon stalked over, just in time for Alex to turn and rain a sander full of drywall-mud dust onto his head and shirt like construction mega-dandruff.
“Jesus, do you ever bother to knock?” Alex’s voice was muffled by the respirator.
“You wouldn’t have heard me.” Gideon brushed at the crap on his shirt, which did nothing but spread it around, so instead of white dots, his #4B0082 shirt now had crooked pinstripes. Wonderful. So much for dressing to impress.
Alex unhooked his res
pirator and clonked over to toss it on the scaffolding deck. He grabbed a fresh sheet of sandpaper. “You shouldn’t be up here. This dust is bad for your lungs.”
“Not to mention my wardrobe.” Gideon glanced around the room. No other respirator or sander was in evidence, not that he’d know what to do with one. He gazed at Alex’s face, up near the ceiling. “How can I help?”
“Wouldn’t want to cut into your busy Haynes-stalking schedule,” Alex muttered.
Not going to dignify that with a response. “You’re helping me, so I’ll help you. It’s only fair.”
“Don’t put yourself out.”
Where had the approachable Alex from yesterday afternoon gone? Gideon propped his hands on his hips, glaring up at him. “Good grief, Alex, how can you be related to Lindsay Henning? Stop being a douche bag for five minutes and accept the freaking help.”
“I can manage fine on my own.”
“Really? Then why— Oh my fricking God. Enough.” Gideon stomped over to the wall and dragged a five-gallon bucket of primer next to Alex and climbed on top of it. It didn’t put him quite on Alex’s level, but at least he was closer.
Alex quirked an eyebrow. “Feel better?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. You’ll notice I’m standing on a bucket of primer.”
“Yeah. I picked that right up.”
“I deduce, therefore, that you’re planning to paint.”
“That’s customary before you rent out a place.”
“Fine. I’ll do that.”
“Do what? Rent the place?”
“Don’t be willfully obtuse, Alex. I may not know one end of a wrecking bar from another, but I know presentation and I can wield a paint roller like a rock star. Who do you think repainted our place? Elves?”
Alex snorted and picked up his respirator. “You never know. But it won’t be ready to paint until I finish sanding. Not sure when that’ll be.”
“Fine. When you’re ready, I’ll—”
Alex’s phone shrilled in his pocket. “Sorry. Gotta take this.” He clanked away into the corner, leaving Gideon perched on his stupid bucket.
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