by A. J. Thomas
“You’re Steven? The brother that didn’t turn out to be an asshole, right?”
“You mentioned me?” Steven asked Nate, smiling brightly. He nudged the coffee closer. “I’m the only one of the three of us who’s managed the ‘not being an asshole’ thing.”
Sean snorted and glanced at Nate, who looked offended but then tilted his head in begrudging agreement.
“How’s your friend?” Steven asked.
He took the cup gratefully. “A concussion, stitches on her forehead and arm, and a lot of bruises, but that’s it. She was lucky. The doctor’s finally letting her sleep. I called her parents while we were still at the police station, around midnight, I think, so they should be here soon.”
“Where are they?” Nate asked, packing up the laptop he’d been working on.
“Up in Fort Worth. Hawk’s going to come meet them, but first he’s got to deal with the shop. Clear the schedule, bum a car off a friend, that kind of thing.”
Nate looked concerned. “You don’t have another car?”
“Tonya’s got a broken-down Beetle, but the parts to fix it were in my Jeep. Business is dead because of the holiday, so I can’t afford to just go replace them. And as much as Hawk likes his bike, fitting a wheelchair on the back of it is impractical.” He wasn’t sure if he wanted to laugh or cry about still needing the damn chair. Wearing the prosthetic all day had felt like a victory, even if he’d had to use his wheelchair for most of the day. But after an entire night with the damn thing on, he really, really wished he could take it off. He wasn’t as sore as he had been Monday, but he was still ready for a break.
“I lost my leg in an oil-rig accident,” he explained when he noticed Steven’s curious look. “I’ve only been using a prosthetic for….” He grabbed Nate’s wrist and gently turned his arm so he could see his watch. Nate moved his wrist to oblige, extending it past the armrest of Sean’s chair and over Sean’s lap. “About two days now.”
“If you wouldn’t mind running an errand with me this morning, I can give you a ride back to the shop,” Nate said, slipping his wrist out of Sean’s grasp and trailing his fingertips over Sean’s thigh as though there wasn’t a damn thing off about the gesture before he returned to packing up his things. “Or wherever.”
“Errand?”
“I’ve got court at ten, but after that the only thing I was planning on was checking in with the police about the hit-and-run driver from last night, and dealing with a little ethics issue. I wouldn’t mind being at your beck and call for the rest of the day.”
Sean’s throat felt parched as he absorbed Nate’s words, taking in his tone of voice and the devious smirk on his face.
Steven cleared his throat and politely tossed a set of keys into Nate’s lap. “Cheryl’s outside in Mom’s sedan, so I’m going to take off. Hope your friend is okay!” he called, beating a hasty retreat.
“I thought we weren’t doing this?” Sean asked, both annoyed and turned on in spite of himself.
“Yeah, we’ve got to talk about that.”
“We talked. You made yourself clear,” Sean reminded him.
“No, I didn’t. That’s why I came to the shop last night. I wanted to talk to you, to try and explain better.”
“You shouldn’t have shown up like that….” The arousal faded quickly as anger surged through him again. “How did you think me telling you not to come over and then hanging up on you was open to anything but a literal interpretation?”
Nate turned toward him, leaning far too close. “I listened to you apologize Monday afternoon, even though you didn’t have to. Things got crazy last night, but would you please give me a few minutes to apologize too?”
Sean stared at Nate, conflicted. He looked so tired, so miserable, and so beautiful all at the same time. Even after spending the entire night in the same clothes, he still looked perfect. Tousled and stressed, but perfect.
“I forgot to ask about your appointment. How’d it go?”
“Good. Honestly, really good. I felt like every muscle in my body was surgically replaced with Jell-O, but painkillers and a chance to sleep in helped. I managed a total of two hours on my feet yesterday. But you’re stalling, and I’m not sure there’s a point. Do we even need to do this? I get it.”
“I’m not sure you do,” Nate countered. “I’ve messed things up enough trying to be tactful, and what I said Monday, that… it wasn’t what I wanted to say.”
“So what do you want?” Sean asked, staring at the wall across from them rather than looking at Nate directly.
“You.”
“You want me to what?”
“Nothing. I want you,” Nate said, enunciating each word slowly. “I want to be absolutely clear about that.”
Sean’s gut tightened, but he didn’t look up from the wall.
“But there’s a problem,” Nate continued.
Sean nodded, knowing it had been too good to be true.
“A couple of problems, actually. Exploring something like this for the first time after your accident has to be strange, maybe even terrifying. I can’t read your mind, and sometimes I can be a patronizing asshole who assumes things when I shouldn’t. I assumed that you wouldn’t be up for any kind of relationship, and I tried to protect you from that possibility. Last night I realized, with some help, that the only one who can make any kind of decision about your personal life is you, and I tried to take that decision out of your hands. I’m sorry for that. Of course, I still don’t know if you’re comfortable with pursuing something with me. Like I said, I can’t read your mind, all I can do is ask.”
“And staying here so I could use you as a pillow?”
“I’m selfish. I like being with you. I like having you beside me. And I figured I’d better enjoy it while I had the chance, since you might not want anything to do with me.”
“I asked you out for a drink, remember?” Sean pointed out.
“I think we need to be more specific, and totally honest with each other. Were you actually talking about going out for a drink? Because when I say ‘do you want to go get a drink?’ I usually mean I want to take you to a hotel with a king-sized bed so we can fuck each other senseless.”
Sean snapped his head up, staring at Nate to see if he was serious. Nate looked smug.
“I’ll understand if we weren’t on the same page there,” Nate said quickly.
“No, we were. But you can’t just… you don’t just…. You know this is a Methodist hospital, right?”
“You’re the only one listening.”
“Still….”
“Like I said, tactful doesn’t seem to be the best approach.” Nate shrugged. “I think we should give definite and explicit a try.”
Sean stared at him, remembering the devious look on his face after Bruce ambushed them outside of Harrison and Poole’s office. He tried to keep his laughter quiet, but Nate looked so serious that it was impossible. As the sound echoed down the hall, Nate grinned. “And what if I freak out when we get to the ‘explicit’ part? Because you’re right, I’m nervous about the whole thing.”
“Then we relax and order takeout,” Nate said without hesitation. “If you get nervous, we stop. If you panic, we deal with it. And if I’m worried, I’ll ask. I don’t feel this way much. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever felt this way.”
“So what was the other issue?” he asked nervously.
“Ethics. I’m representing you and you’re relying on me for what might be one of the most important legal battles you’ll ever face. If we get together and you decide you don’t want me to represent you, would you feel okay about firing me?”
Sean frowned, honestly not sure how to answer.
“Similarly, if you decide you don’t want to put up with me, would you feel comfortable ending things if you still need me to represent you?”
“Professional boundaries?” Sean asked, beginning to suspect he’d misjudged Nate’s excuse.
Nate nodded.
“Well, fuck
. I didn’t… I didn’t think about that. You know I’d kick your ass out if I didn’t like you, right?”
“I know that you can shift your entire personality to fit a given situation and that you’ll let yourself be hurt for the sake of financial security.”
Sean opened his mouth to argue but stopped. He couldn’t deny it.
“So we could wait until we’ve reached a settlement, or we can hire a neutral third party who can take over your representation if things don’t work.”
“Is that why you were pushing me to accept the settlement offer?”
Nate let out a huge sigh. “Another example of why we need to address this. Yes, I let myself hope that I might still have a chance with you if you accepted the settlement. And knowing that, will you ever be able to trust me if you get a good offer and I recommend you take it?”
“Were you already thinking about this when you mentioned hiring somebody else?”
“I’ve been thinking about this since the first time we went out to lunch. I wanted to wait so there was no chance of it causing problems, but it’s obviously already causing issues—so we could be at odds with each other while we deal with the consequences, or….”
“Or we could be in bed while we deal with the consequences,” Sean concluded.
Nate swallowed hard and nodded.
“Then we should damn well hire a neutral third party,” Sean declared. “Or I should hire someone. It’s my case, and my personal life, so I think I should choose who I’m going to trust to keep things legit.”
“That’s a good idea. I’ll get you a copy of all the case files, research, and evidence so you can deliver it all in person. You’ll likely find someone faster than me. Between Tillman telling every firm in the city that I’m an arrogant sonofabitch who likes to steal other people’s clients and take credit for their work, and my dad convincing everyone else that me leaving Delany, Mercer, and Goodman was some kind of temper tantrum, I haven’t found anyone who’d be interested in working with me. I expect you’ll have more luck.”
“All right, then, that’s what we’ll do. For what it’s worth, I thought you were hot before you were my lawyer, and the pain medication makes it really damn hard not to be myself.”
“Good,” Nate said. “I like you the way you are.”
“Do we have to wait until I’ve found somebody? ’Cause tomorrow’s Thanksgiving, and no one’s going to be working. If I were to hire someone first thing Monday… a few days wouldn’t matter, right?”
He took a deep breath and turned toward Sean, setting his hand gently on the inner side of Sean’s right knee. “So long as I give you the case files, I don’t think a few days would matter. Can I try this again? Can I take you home, feed you pizza, and spend the afternoon making out with you on the couch?”
Just as it had Friday night, Sean’s body responded to Nate’s touch in an instant, a shiver running up and down his back as Nate’s fingers rubbed gently at the fabric. He took a deep breath, trying to focus on something other than Nate’s hand. “I think we were safe with the whole ‘get a drink’ thing. We communicated just fine. But, your tattoo?”
“I guess I’ve got to tell you the truth about that. I love the tattoo, I love the design, but what I really wanted was to feel your hands on me. My self-control does a vanishing act every time I see you, not that I’ve got all that much self-control to begin with, and the thought of sitting through another tattoo session without being able to touch you was painful.” He shifted his hand up over Sean’s knee. “It’s intimate in a way I never expected it to be.”
Sean swallowed the lump in his throat, casting about for something to say.
“I can’t imagine anyone else finishing it,” Nate said.
“I don’t want anyone else to finish it,” Sean admitted. “I want it to be mine. It’s stupid. It’s like the jealous, dysfunctional psycho version of a high school jock wanting his girlfriend to wear his letterman jacket.”
“Then I definitely want you to finish it. But first I’ve got to go deal with an adoption, and we’ve got to go to the police department, and we’ve got to get something to eat.”
“First it has to heal,” Sean insisted. “That doesn’t magically change just because you get turned on by the process.”
“And we’ve got to talk about who tried to kill you.”
“Not this again,” Sean almost begged. “I know what you think you saw, but you’ve got to be wrong. You admitted you were drunk.”
If Nate was right about the logo on the SUV, Sean didn’t know how to deal with it. Tonya was in the hospital with a concussion, but if someone in the company had set out to hurt him, then her injuries were his damn fault.
“I have photographs,” Nate insisted.
“You’ve got a photo of an SUV with a logo on it. Believe me, it’s easy to see whatever you want in a bunch of shapes and colors.”
“The police agreed.”
“The police clammed up about it. You can’t be right.”
“I’ve seen the CPG logo dozens of times in the last few months. It was a CPG car. I know you don’t want to think they’d target you, but if you ignore the possibility, you could end up dead.”
“I can’t believe it,” he insisted.
“Like you can’t believe Bruce Lancaster was manipulating you?” As soon as the words were out, Nate snapped his mouth shut and squeezed his eyes closed.
Sean cringed and shoved Nate’s hand away from him. “There’s a big difference between talking someone into sex and trying to kill them. Besides, you said yourself that it didn’t make sense. I was going to take the money. The case would be done. And using a company car is beyond stupid—they had to know that it would be traced back to them.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Nate said, keeping his tone quiet. “Maybe it wasn’t CPG itself but someone you worked with, someone from the crew. They all cursed you in their depositions, and they were glaring at you on Monday. It’s not unthinkable for individual employees to have access to company cars. They’ve got to keep them somewhere, and there’s probably a procedure for checking one out, so it shouldn’t be hard to find out if one is damaged and track down who used it last.”
“And the police will look into it. But if they don’t find anything, will you accept that maybe you’re seeing what you want rather than what was really there?”
“What I want? You think I wanted Lancaster to try and kill you?”
Sean raised his eyebrows. “See? You jumped right to Bruce. You want to prove Bruce is an asshole so much, you’re grasping at straws trying to prove he had something to do with that accident. But if anybody was going to hurt me, it wouldn’t be him. The guys on the crew never did like me,” Sean reluctantly agreed.
Nate just stared at him.
“He wouldn’t,” Sean said again. He shook his head, desperate to banish his memories of Bruce’s cold expression in the courthouse. “When we talked out in the parking lot, he wasn’t a dick. He told me Harrison was going to offer a big settlement, that we might finally be able to put all the legal drama behind us. He was excited and relieved when I told him I’d probably take the money.”
Nate’s eyebrows shot up. “Relieved?”
“Yes, relieved. Do you really think he wanted to testify in public, when everybody knows about what happened between us? Harrison was going to accuse me of getting distracted because of Bruce, and I couldn’t honestly say that the accusation would be wrong.”
“How so?”
Sean squirmed, wishing he could put more of a buffer between them, but the option of moving away subtly didn’t exist with the wheelchair. “I wasn’t thinking about saving the ship because I was worried about the pump assembly or the crew, I… I wanted to save our bunk. It was sappy and stupid, but the only part of what we had that was real, the only physical evidence that Bruce ever even looked in my direction, was all on that ship. I didn’t want to watch it all sink. I know Harrison’s job is to save Confederated money, but destroying
Bruce’s marriage is a shitty way to do it.”
Nate’s expression turned severe and almost angry.
“Whatever you’re going to say, save it,” Sean snapped. “I know it’s pathetic, all right?”
Nate angled himself in his chair so his entire body was facing Sean. “There is nothing pathetic about wanting to protect someone you care about, or wanting to hold on to memories that are precious to you. I don’t think he deserves a fraction of the loyalty you’ve shown him, though, especially if he made you feel like it was something to be ashamed of.”
“Sentimental and stupid kind of go hand in hand. At least that’s what Harrison is going to argue.”
“Then I won’t let him. You already said you don’t want it to come up at trial, so we’ll reframe the issue. If Harrison starts leading you in that direction when you’re on the stand, you can easily shape the conversation by admitting you wanted to impress Lancaster by following orders, by minimizing the damage the way he ordered you to. We can frame the whole thing as hero worship easily enough. I doubt Harrison will even try, though.”
“He’s coaching Bruce and Cory so they can bring it up when they testify.”
“Did they tell you that specifically? He’s probably coaching them on how to respond if I bring it up, because he knows if the truth comes out, I will rip them apart.” Nate smirked.
Sean snorted. “And you expect me to believe you don’t intend to do that anyway?”
Nate cocked his head to the side, smiling. “First things first, though. I’ve got to get to that hearing, and we’ve got to check in with the police. After that….”
Nate leaned across the armrest and kissed him. Sean didn’t mean to close his eyes, but the wet slide of Nate’s tongue against his bottom lip triggered some autopilot switch inside his brain, and he shut his eyes in an instant, blocking every sensation except Nate’s taste and the warmth of his breath.
Nate pulled away, running his fingers over Sean’s jaw and skimming the sensitive skin beneath his ear. “Whatever you want.”