by Anne Tenino
This wasn’t settling down, though. It was change—the antithesis of settling down—and even though Seth hated big change as much as the next guy, he needed the small ones, like new jobs and new mens, to keep him happy.
He began humming “Shiny Happy People” as he looked over the prep station. He’d take his own garnishes from what Melanie had prepared. It wasn’t as if he’d never tended bar before—this part was familiar enough. He began lining up the orders that Steve, the bartender going off shift, had left for him.
He’d never admit it aloud, but Seth knew his personality was perfect for a bartender. Benign flirtiness was key, and that was as natural to him as criticism was to his mother. She’d once claimed (in a more nostalgic and less judgmental mood) that when born, he’d winked at the nurse who’d slapped his bottom.
In her more characteristic moments, Seth’s mother mostly sighed over his lack of ambition. “Your brother’s a lawyer, you know.”
Yeah, he knew, and he also knew his sister-in-law better than his brother at this point in their lives, because his brother was never home when Seth was in Seattle. Considering he’d bunked in their spare room frequently during his seven years of college, that was a lot of time being a lawyer and very little time having a life.
The very first customer he served was someone he knew, Shannon Schumer. She’d graduated from Bluewater Bay High a couple years ahead of him. Seth couldn’t remember the name of the woman she was with, but he recognized her as a minor character from Wolf’s Landing. When he brought them their martinis, he pretended to recognize her, though.
“Hey, how’s the set?”
“Great, thanks! I just got written into the next season.” Her eyes crinkled joyfully at him over the rim of her martini glass as she took her first sip.
Written into next season. Well, that explained what Shannon was doing—probably an article for the Bluewater Bay Beacon.
“Hey, Seth.” The smile Shannon gave him was genuine right up until she sipped at her drink and all her facial muscles tensed up. Martinis so weren’t her style. The starlet must have ordered.
“Hey, hon.” He winked at her before moving on to the next customer, glimpsing her tight-lipped smirk as he turned away.
He was really getting into the swing of things when Nate Albano walked in. Seth’s stomach plummeted like a broken elevator, and his attention wavered from pouring a shot. “Oops,” he said jovially to Frank Miller. “Guess you’ll get a shot, plus.”
Frank grinned, thanked him kindly, and laid down a ten. “I don’t need any change.”
Seth tried to refocus on work, but he couldn’t avoid the stray thought about Nate. Especially since the guy now stood smack in the middle of the bar, near the central set of beer taps. No matter who served him, Seth would have to go there eventually.
Nate had insinuated himself right between what looked like a few sorority girls and a group of local guys who were trying to catch their attention, now doing so with dirty looks at Nate. The sorority girls were giving him the eye from under their lashes. Nate may be old enough to have fathered some of them, but he was still hot as hell.
And oblivious to all of it.
Clearly, the guy really didn’t understand sexual attraction. Or he didn’t care? Either way, it eased the tightness of Seth’s stomach.
All things considered, happy hour was the best possible time for Nate to have arrived, because in spite of deciding not to take their failed assignation personally, the apprehension that built up in Seth’s shoulders was uncomfortably familiar. Exactly like it’d used to when he was in high school and one of the jocks had cornered him in the bathroom alone.
As Seth was approaching the barely legal sorority types next to Nate, he slipped up and accidentally met the guy’s eyes. Nate gave him a “hello” kind of smile. When Seth glanced down at where the guy’s fingers were drumming on the bar, Nate stopped and jerked his arm out of sight.
Giving him a brief smile in return, Seth turned and asked the girls if he could please see some IDs. Hopefully their own identifications. “Sorry, ladies, company policy says I have to if you look under thirty.” Or at least, company policy could say that, although he wasn’t actually aware of it being written down anywhere. He winked at them, as if he believed they were of age and was only following the rules.
The girls pouted, but coughed up valid driver’s licenses. Seth’s instincts had been telling him they’d want something fancy and fruity, and they’d expect him to help them decide what it should be, and he was right. Considering how long it took (he finally convinced them to try zombies, assuming that if Lucas had hated them, these girls would love them), he didn’t blame Nate for starting up the drumming again.
When Seth finally turned to him, he stopped, though, folding his hands together as if he’d only noticed his own recurring fidgeting.
“What can I get you?” The impression he had that Nate was actually nervous about this made it easy to be pleasant.
“Hey.” Nate cleared his throat and hesitated a second. Long enough that Seth was almost certain the guy hadn’t even come for a drink. Definitely came looking for me.
Why the hell would he come here? Did he want to know the Larson family history that much? Whipping his bar rag out from the waistband of his apron, Seth busied himself swabbing down the counter in front of the guy, waiting for him to order.
“How about a Twelve Mile Limit?”
Frozen in the act of placing a beer coaster in front of Nate, Seth’s eyes flew up to his face to find some color in the guy’s cheeks. “Um . . . is that a prohibition-era drink?” Total stab in the dark, but it sounded like one.
“Yeah, it is.” Nate lifted his hand and ran fingers across that beautiful, clefted chin. “You know it? I usually have to—”
“I think I can handle it.” Seth put far more confidence into his smile than he felt. Google-fu don’t fail me now. “Comin’ right up.” On the assumption that the drink would require him to slice or mutilate some kind of fruit, he headed towards his prep area, pulling his phone out of his pocket and typing Twelve Mile Limit mixed drink into the internet search bar as he went.
He couldn’t hand this off to another bartender, that threatened his masculinity in ways it was uncomfortable to think about. Besides, nothing would convince Nate that he barely even remembered last night better than a flawless presentation.
Thank God, he found it almost immediately on a list of 11 Unusual Drinks That Will Up Your Cocktail Game. They had that right—his cocktail game was about to go through the roof.
Oh, grenadine, excellent. They stocked the real stuff, with actual pomegranate juice, and not that colored corn syrup crap, since Seth had insisted Dave buy it as soon as he got the bartender position. In the future, he planned on making his own from fresh fruit, once he’d established himself as a master mixologist. Or mad scientist. Not to mention made this drink.
Garnishing the finished Twelve Mile Limit, he tried to keep any triumph (or insecurity) from showing in his expression as he returned to set the martini glass in front of Nate, now seated in a barstool that one of the blond girls had vacated. “Here you go, then.”
In spite of it being the busiest time of day, Seth stayed long enough to see what Nate thought of his mixology.
A lot, apparently. He closed his eyes for a moment after his first sip, as if savoring. “Perfect.” Then he smiled a smile so dazzling Seth thought he’d been knocked in the head.
So very, very wrong that someone this hot doesn’t “do” sex. It was a disservice to all humankind. “Would you like to run a tab?” he asked, ignoring the pointed stares from the people at his end of the bar who’d been patiently waiting. Only until he answers.
“Yes. Um.” Nate stroked the stem of his martini glass for a second. “I was hoping you could give me a minute, to talk.”
Suddenly, Seth very much wished Nate hadn’t come in during happy hour. Instead of being the best time, it was now the worst. As injured as Seth’s feelings had been
before, he really wanted to hear what Nate had to say, even if it was about the Larson family tree.
“Hey, Seth, man, can I get another beer?” Rob Clarke asked from where he stood next to Nate.
Nodding at the question, he took a pint glass and stepped to the side to fill it. Grimacing apologetically at his semipatient customers, he held up the one minute finger. As he poured the beer, he leaned closer to Nate and lowered his voice. “I could talk, but can you wait a bit? Happy hour will be over in about twenty minutes, then maybe I’ll get a chance?”
“That’s fine.” Nate nodded, checking his watch. “I have some time to kill.”
Through some miracle, just after happy hour ended, Melanie said she could handle things for a bit. “You need to take a break,” she insisted, glancing at Nate.
So he came around the front of the bar to see what was up with the man who’d apparently come to visit him. As he approached, Bill Purdy got up, heading for the men’s room.
That almost seemed like fate. “Hey, I’m using your seat a minute, cool?”
Bill grunted and nodded, and Seth pulled it closer to Nate. It was as much privacy as they’d get. As he settled his butt in the seat, a prickling sense of awareness invaded his chest. Not nerves, he didn’t think. More a sense of the unexpected. A heightened interest and curiosity.
Nate turned on his stool, hiking his feet up on the rungs and resting his hands on his knees. Unintentionally, Seth mirrored him, until they sat facing each other, their legs bordering a small physical space between them that seemed private in spite of the noise and press of people in the bar.
“So.” Out of habit, Seth lit up one of his flirty—yet platonic—smiles. It was the one he gave Grandma’s friends when they came over to play bridge and he acted as their waiter. They ate it up, maybe Nate would be swayed by it as well.
Except, would Nate know platonic-flirty from flirty-with-intent? The dude clearly couldn’t pick up on other signals, and Seth really didn’t want to make him uncomfortable or give him the wrong idea. Again.
“So.” Nate nodded once, then failed to say anything else.
A stab of sympathy urged Seth to make the elephant in the room into a joke. “You’ve decided you do do sex?” he asked overly brightly, plastering on a simple-minded grin.
Nate burst out laughing, and Seth joined in at least partly from relief. That could have gone just as wrongly as last night.
“No, no. It’s only that . . .” Nate shook his head slightly. “You remember Morgan, of course?”
Oooh, he’d thought there might be more there than the guy was admitting to himself. “Yep.”
“Well, I told her about, you know—” he lifted his hand and gestured to the space between them “—our miscommunication and, uh . . .” He scratched his ear, as if that would help him find the right words.
Seth certainly couldn’t help; he didn’t understand at all what the guy was trying to say.
“She pointed out that I probably owed you an explanation,” he finished all at once, dropping his hand and his overly upright posture, but meeting Seth’s eyes steadily.
“You do? I mean, I don’t think you do. You weren’t interested, it happens—”
“I misled you. Not intentionally, but she warned me last night that you thought we were going to talk about more than your family, and I didn’t listen. I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong idea.”
“Nothing to apologize for.” Nate hadn’t done it purposefully. Still, grinning wryly, Seth conceded the point. “But, yeah. I didn’t actually think there’d be that much talking at all.”
“Yeah, I get that now.” Nate twisted up one side of his mouth before continuing. “I just want you to know—it’s not you. It’s me. And I know that’s about the biggest cliché on the books, but . . .” He took a huge breath, shoulders rising and falling. “Have you heard of ace? Asexual?”
“Yeah. Ohhh.” Blinking, Seth suddenly understood so much more of last night. And yet less. Nate had to be talking about himself, right? “Well, sort of. Basically. Maybe not as well as . . . I think my knowledge is mostly limited to it being the ‘A’ in LGBTQA. But it means you don’t—or, you know, an asexual person doesn’t, um, do sex.” Seth squirmed in his seat, worried he’d somehow gotten something wrong. People tended toward sensitivity about their identities, which he totally understood, but that made it easy to offend or insult.
“Actually, it’s sexual attraction that we don’t do—or do differently.” Nate didn’t sound offended—he sounded relieved. “We may or may not do sex, depending.”
“So does that mean you—”
“I’d rather not talk about it here.” Nate jerked his head at the sorority contingent. “If you don’t mind.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Seth caught Melanie waving at him. “Looks as if my break’s about over anyway.” He slid off the stool, but then realized he was leaving things at a precarious moment. “But I’d definitely like to talk more. Someplace quieter.” I’m cool with your sexuality. Or lack of it. That seemed somehow presumptuous to say, so Seth met Nate’s eyes briefly, making sure the guy understood he wasn’t blowing him off now that he knew sex wasn’t ever on the table. Seth didn’t want him to feel dismissed, not now that he’d extended the olive branch. Feels more like the whole olive tree.
“I’d like that.” Nate smiled, a little woodenly, but not as if he were going to bolt at the first opportunity. More like he wasn’t super comfortable. “How about— I mean, would you like to come over to my place? For dinner. And talking. If that works for you, that is. Whenever you’re free.”
For a brief moment, Seth laid his fingertips on Nate’s knee to steady himself after the shock of being asked on a date by this man. Until he realized how his touch could be construed, and he pulled his hand away. Speaking of misconstruing, Nate isn’t interested, not like that. “How about Saturday? I’m working the early shift, my evening’s open.” It’s not a date. It was a friend thing. Possibly even an extended apology. He’d really never expected this. They’d had a miscommunication—hey, it happened—but the effort Nate was making was above and beyond.
Could he be that into Seth’s family history?
Out of nowhere, the image of the knife he’d found last night popped into his head. He hadn’t thought about it since he’d set it down on his table. Was it even still there? He couldn’t remember seeing it, but he’d never moved it, either. Has to be there.
“Saturday’s perfect! I’ll make—” Nate squinted at him after a few more seconds of Seth staring at him, probably gape-mouthed. “Is something wrong? We don’t have to do dinner if you don’t want to.”
Shaking his head to get his brain in gear, he attempted to explain. “Sorry. No, dinner would be great. You reminded me about something. Turns out I really do want to talk about family history.” Nate looked at birth and death records for fun, for God’s sake. He could totally give Seth an assist on this.
“Do you?” Interest suffused Nate’s expression, just like when they’d first met last night.
“I found something that belonged to Fennimore.” Yes, he’d still tell his family, but wouldn’t it be best for him and Grandma to have something solidly identified before someone could mythologize it?
“You can tell me all about it this weekend.” Nate eased into a smile. “About seven?”
“Can’t wait.” Movement in his peripheral vision caught his attention. It was Melanie, behind the bar, flailing her arm in his direction like she was going under for a third time and desperately needed a lifeguard. “Okay, I really gotta go, man.” This time, when Seth touched Nate, it was intentional. A friendly, “later” kind of nudging of his biceps. Taking a few steps backward, he confirmed once more, just to make sure the message was clear. “See you Saturday.”
For the rest of his shift, anytime his mind wasn’t occupied with work, Seth’s thoughts invariably wandered to Nate. Very weird. He’d never had this happen before—when Nate said he just wanted to be friends, he meant
he just wanted to be friends. No benefits, implied or otherwise.
Lots of guys aren’t looking for that. Most of the straight ones he met, for instance—although some straight guys, well, they had some thinking to do on the question of their sexual orientation. Seth didn’t generally make it his job to help them in that endeavor. Not unless they were really hot.
Hot like Nate-hot. Sexy, dark, curly hair and chiseled features hot.
Yeah, well, he’d be making a different kind of exception for him.
Nate peered at the eggplant parmigiana bubbling away in the oven. God, he should have thought this through a little more. Maybe Seth hated eggplant. Lots of people did—Nate had himself until his father had taught him this recipe. Or he could despise ceviche. Maybe Nate should have, you know, asked the fricking questions.
What if Seth was one of those meat-and-potatoes-only guys? Bluewater Bay hadn’t been especially eclectic until the Wolf’s Landing arrival had expanded the town’s culinary expectations. From what Morgan had told him, there hadn’t even been a decent Chinese restaurant, something that half the TV crew had nearly quit over—sometimes Szechuan chicken was the only thing that got them through emergency all-nighters.
On the other hand, the town was right on the water. Surely Seth would have a taste for seafood, right? But maybe not marinated raw seafood, dimwit.
The last time he’d been this nervous before having dinner with someone was before his first date with Jorge. Of course, besides his father and Morgan, the number of people he’d had dinner with since Jorge walked out—for anything other than business—could be calculated without benefit of any fingers whatsoever.
A muffled woof broke him out of his oven-slash-navel-gazing. Tarkus sat at the edge of the kitchen tile—Nate had finally gotten his dog trained to stay out from underfoot during food preparation. Tarkus’s ears—oversized and tipped with black tufts—flattened and then perked forward. His favorite toy, a stuffed mallard with both a squeaker and a quacker that had been a present from Morgan, lay at his feet. As soon as he knew he had Nate’s attention, he nudged it with his nose, then cocked his head, one eye bright and pleading, the other milky and sightless.