by Cari Z
“Oh no, I don’t want to start another fight,” she said, and then stood up. “I’m going to go put these in water.”
“You are impossible!” I yelled after her.
“Takes one to know one!” she yelled back before disappearing around the corner.
I thought Lorna enjoyed being cryptic. I headed back to my desk and dove into the caseload up for discussion at tomorrow’s meeting, getting Beau’s contributions ready to go and making sure he had notes on what the other senior partners would be bringing up. Because all the rest of them were family, it wasn’t unusual for them to discuss cases outside of work, and sometimes Beau got left behind when someone forgot to bring him up to speed. Personally, I thought it was time the firm expanded, because they were working their staff pretty hard as it was, and it would probably do them some good to get some fresh blood into the upper echelons. Unfortunately, no one had asked for my opinion, so I just did my best to make sure that Beau wasn’t going to be blindsided tomorrow.
The smell of fresh food finally roused me, and I looked up just as Beau set a takeaway container on my desk. “Oh my God.” I leaned forward and inhaled deeply. “You got me gumbo?”
“There’s cornbread in there, too,” Beau said, the corners of his eyes crinkling just a bit. I suppose it was kind of funny to see me salivating over a Styrofoam box, but this was seriously good gumbo. If I ever actually went to New Orleans, I would probably eat myself to death.
“You are a god among men,” I declared, popping open the box. Oh, wow… I shut my eyes for a second, just savoring.
“I’ll be… in my office.” Beau walked away, and when I broke out of my food haze, it was to see Jackson standing there, hands in his pockets, looking at me inscrutably. There was a hint of a smile on his face, but it wasn’t the flirty kind I was used to.
“You’re a lucky man,” he told me quietly. I nodded because, yeah, just look at my lunch. He set a hand on my desk and bent forward. “Don’t fuck this up,” he murmured, then pulled back and grinned. “Take it easy, Eric. I’ll talk to you later, Beau,” he called out.
“Thanks, Jack.” He left, and I stared after him blankly. Fuck what up? I wanted to ask Lorna what she thought, but she’d taken a late lunch to go and meet up with her family, so there went that hope. Fuck up… eating lunch? Doing my job? Working with Beau?
The last one made me shiver a bit. I wasn’t going to fuck up what I had with Beau, that was like my number one priority. He counted on me to be an excellent personal assistant, and that was what I was going to be, prurient dreams be damned. I pulled the spare spoon I kept in my drawer out and dug into my gumbo decisively.
“Eric?”
“Mmpgh?” I swallowed too quickly, the food scraping my throat on the way down, which set me coughing. I rolled my chair back from the desk and covered my mouth, but the hacking wouldn’t cease. Goddamn, that was spicy.
A firm hand patted my back, smoothing a circle between my shoulder blades. I coughed for another minute or so, gradually catching my breath, before I groaned. “Sorry,” I whispered, my throat still a little raw.
“It’s fine. Hang on.” Beau left and came back a moment later with a glass of water, fresh from the dispenser in his office. I sipped gratefully and wiped my watering eyes on a napkin.
“Shit,” I sighed, then backtracked. “Shoot. Is what I meant.” I met Beau’s eyes sheepishly. “Food went down the wrong tube. What were you going to say?”
“When you’re done with your lunch— and don’t rush, I don’t want you to keel over,” he added, “I’ve got notes from my meeting with Jackson that I need transcribed.”
I smiled wryly. “Forget your iPad again?”
“Don’t even mention that thing in my presence,” Beau said, joking but not quite. He gestured toward the glass in my hand. “Do you want a little more?”
“Sure, but I can get it—”
“Eat,” he told me, taking the glass. He refilled it and brought it back out, and I sat and ate and reflected on the weirdness that was my day so far. I ate fast but carefully, not wanting to disrupt things with another bout of coughing, then bagged up the dregs and threw them away. I forwarded my prep work for tomorrow to Beau’s inbox, and then walked into his office.
“Where are the notes?” I asked.
“Here.” He handed me a sheaf of loose papers and his iPad. “Would you mind putting them directly into the devil machine for me?”
“I can do it faster on my own computer,” I said.
“But you could do it on my iPad in here.”
I must have looked confused, because he continued, “I don’t have any more client meetings this afternoon, and you’ve got the majority of your work done for the day. It’ll be easier to heckle you about the Rockies if you’re in here with me.”
“Oh, ha-ha,” I said, relaxing automatically and sitting in the chair across from his. “I’m sorry, who has the better record at this point, the Rockies or the Mariners?” I cupped my chin and looked up at the ceiling for a moment. “Oh, right, it’s the Rockies! It must have slipped my mind, with all this work my boss keeps piling on me.”
“You’re cruising for more work than you can handle if you’re not careful,” Beau warned, but his eyes were shining and his voice was light as he turned back to his computer.
“I think I can handle just about anything you can dish out,” I said confidently.
“I will remember you said that.”
Oh my God, I couldn’t handle that tone of voice right now. I was too on edge; off my game just enough to feel every tremor like it was an earthquake. I crossed my legs and took refuge behind the iPad, discretion being the better part of my valor. I needed to get myself together, I really did. The sooner I got Beau and Aaron together, the sooner I could get over living the unrequited life.
We both got lost in work for a while, and eventually I was confident enough to converse like a normal person again, talking about his caseload, the meeting tomorrow, a little about Jackson…
“The way he tans is disgusting,” I muttered as I proofed one of Beau’s briefs. Technically, he could use someone else to do that, but I had mad skills and he knew it. “Where did he fly in from, anyway?”
“Brazil. He inherited a stake in a construction company down there from his grandfather, and business is booming right now. He wants to get the legal stuff out of the way before diving in, though.”
“Right. World Cup, Olympics, urban redevelopment. Busy place.”
“Are you a soccer fan?”
“They call it ‘football,’” I said haughtily. “And yes, as a matter of fact, I do like it. One of my boyfriends in college was from Edinburgh. I had to put up with being dragged to obscure bars at obscene hours to watch matches for four months. I lost interest in him, but not in the game.”
“Right.” Beau fell silent for a moment, then changed the subject to American football, which was nice because we could really fight about that. We started off by arguing about the draft and somehow got to the point where I played him Eminem’s song “The Monster” because it mentioned Russell Wilson.
“That’s how you know you’ve arrived,” I said once the song was done. “When you get written into verse, immortalized by a modern-day bard.”
“I sincerely hope you’re not comparing Eminem to Shakespeare,” Beau replied skeptically.
“You scoff, but there’s a lot of truth to that comparison. Who do you think more high school students can quote, Marshall Mathers or William Shakespeare?”
“If I let high schoolers define the basis of my self-worth, I’d be in my grave by now,” Beau shot back.
I shook my head. “It must be a generational thing.”
“It might be,” Beau said with a sigh, looking uncomfortably solemn all of a sudden. “Eric, are you sure… about dinner tomorrow night, I mean?”
“Absolutely,” I said instantly. I wasn’t going to let him wriggle out of my help now. “No take backs. You’re going to dinner and you’re going to have a good time,
I swear.”
“But will you?”
Would I what? Have a good time helping him? “I already am,” I replied with complete sincerity.
Beau didn’t say anything, just stared at me for a long moment. I stared back, held willing captive by his bright blue eyes. It was a strange, fraught moment, and I felt like I might crawl out of my skin if I couldn’t—
Ding. That was my phone, and it wasn’t a message alert, it was a schedule notification. I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was already six-thirty. “Damn,” I said. “I’ve got to go.”
“No, that’s fine.” Beau wiped a hand over his face. It wasn’t the tired gesture of yesterday, more like he was pushing the reset button. “I should, too. It’s late.”
“Yeah.” I stood up and rolled my shoulders, feeling a satisfying crack between my shoulder blades. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”
Beau smiled softly. “Tomorrow. Goodnight, Eric.”
“Night.” I turned, grabbed my jacket and booked it out of there. I’d have to go with cheap and dirty food if I wanted to get to Aaron’s on time. Unfortunately, his palette was similar to Beau’s, hoity with a side of toity. So, pizza. Throw some spinach and prosciutto on it, and voila, insta-fancy.
I was still ten minutes late, but Aaron wasn’t bothered. “Get in here,” he said after opening his door to my knock. “I’m starving.”
“I’m amazed you haven’t starved without me,” I said, coming inside and toeing off my shoes. The apartment didn’t really bear much resemblance to the place I’d lived anymore, since all my stuff was gone and Aaron had gotten newer— read better— furniture, but it still sort of felt like home. The smell was familiar, at least.
“I can, in fact, feed myself,” Aaron said. “And I plan to, right now.” He took the pizza out of my hand and headed for the kitchen.
Before we’d eaten on barstools at the counter, but now Aaron had an actual dining room table, right where we used to have the Wii set up. We sat down and ate and talked about our day like real adults, and the rightness of this cemented in my mind. Aaron was a good match for Beau. He was mature, he was smart, he was moving up. One dramatic date and then they could go out like normal people.
“So,” I said, wiping my fingers off and dropping my napkin on the table. “Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” Aaron agreed. He looked… not excited, but not downcast. Pensive, I suppose. “I’m not actually sure why you need me for this.”
I frowned. “Aren’t you supposed to have a great memory? You’re helping me save Beau from a downward spiral of familial hatred and interpersonal angst by being his date for a dinner with his parents. After which, I sincerely hope you go on a date for real, because he could use a boyfriend.”
“You’ve been crushing on him for over a year,” Aaron pointed out. “This is definitely something you could do. And if—” He held up a hand to forestall my inevitable arguments. “If your worry is that being his date for the evening is unprofessional, then you simply have to tell him that you’re there as a personal favor, and then let things go back to normal.”
“I can’t,” I said with a sigh. “I thought about it, but I can’t.” I wasn’t even being facetious, I really had considered this option for all of, oh, a second. “The thing is, I don’t think I’d be able to go back to normal that easy. I’m… I really like him.”
Aaron stared at me through his dark-rimmed glasses, searching for something. “Yet you’re throwing him at me.”
“I’m not throwing anyone anywhere,” I snapped. “Look, if you don’t want to do this after all, fine, I’ll get someone else. Just tell me so.”
“I didn’t say that,” Aaron said evenly. “I like Beau. I’d be happy to go to dinner with him, even if his parents are there.”
My spine wilted a little, and I fell back against the seat. “Great. Thanks.”
“Now I guess you want to look at my closet.”
“Yes!” That was enough of a motivator to get me onto my feet. “It’s been months since you let me look through your things, I’m afraid your argyle might have killed off the last of your button downs. The polos are probably breeding out of control.”
“Polo shirts are perfectly appropriate for my work,” Aaron said indignantly, but there was a bit of a smile lurking there too. This was an old conversation between us, but never tired. “The company gives them out— they have the logo and everything. I can’t just throw them away.”
“Astonishingly, you can,” I confided, taking his arm and leading him back to his room. “But at the very least you can relegate them to their own closet where they don’t give the rest of the clothes bad ideas. Now.” I threw open the closet doors and grinned. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Two hours later I had Aaron acceptably clothed, we’d finished off the rest of the beers in his fridge, and I’d decided the best thing for me was to sleep the buzz off at his place. I could wake up early, hurry back to my place to shower and change, and still make it into work before eight-thirty.
That assumed that the alarm in my phone was set right, which it wasn’t. Instead of waking up at six-thirty, I was prodded awake by Aaron at ten after eight.
“Eric.”
“Mmph.” I batted at his hand. “What?”
“Shouldn’t you be up already?”
“What?” I groped for my phone on the floor, stared at it long enough to make out the numbers, then levitated off the couch with a yell. “Shit! I’m late, shit, shit.” I stared down at my rumpled clothes. “I can’t wear these into the office.”
“Borrow some of mine,” Aaron advised. “I have to get going, lock up on your way out, okay?”
“We aren’t remotely the same size!” I exclaimed. I had four inches on Aaron, and that was just in one-dimension.
“Polos are stretchy, you know,” he said with an evil grin. “Bye, Eric.”
“Don’t forget about tonight!” I called after him. The door shut on my admonishment, and I ran a hand through my hair and leapt into action.
I made it to work by eight-fifty-four, not showered but clean-shaven and dressed in a dark green polo shirt that I’d bought Aaron as a joke for his last birthday, which just barely looked decent on me. My pants were my own, that couldn’t be helped, and so I sat down as fast as I could and hoped the wrinkles weren’t too noticeable. As for my hair, well… I’d done the best I could with what I had, but Aaron’s gel wasn’t being too kind to me. I looked more like a mad scientist than someone with artfully tousled bedhead.
“Where have you been?” Lorna hissed at me from across the hall.
“Don’t ask,” I said darkly. “Where’s Beau?” His door was open but he wasn’t inside.
“Off to a meeting.”
I frowned. “It’s not even nine yet, why are they already meeting?” The senior partner meeting tended towards a later start time thanks to Papa Bowman’s disinclination to miss his morning water aerobics class.
“Mr. Radcliffe crashed his car last night.”
My headache, the dregs of the hangover from last night that the coffee wasn’t helping me kick, surged in my brain. “Oh no.” Glen Radcliffe was the acting CEO of one of our major corporate clients, taking the position after his wife suffered a stroke earlier in the year. Papa Bowman had fought hard to get him the position, since he didn’t have the technical expertise his wife did, but a shakeup would have spelled bad news for the green energy company still finding its financial footing. He was being watched, though, and any erratic behavior on his part just gave his detractors more ammunition.
“He was drunk. Felix has gone to post his bail, but it’s all hands on deck trying to salvage the situation,” Lorna said. “He already has that DUI on his record, and now…”
“Now it’s really bad,” I agreed. “Did anyone get hurt?”
“No, thank God. But someone could have been. Beau’s been sent to corporate headquarters to meet with the VPs, he left fifteen minutes ago.”
“Damn.” What a rott
en start to the day.
“He was surprised you weren’t in,” Lorna continued. “I think he’d been looking forward to seeing you.”
“Please don’t make me feel any worse right now,” I begged her. Surprisingly, she backed off.
Well. All I could do now was make sure the day didn’t live up to its epic suckage potential. I rescheduled all of Beau’s meetings, figuring he’d be gone for most of the day, and spent the rest of the morning answering phone calls, emails and generally doing damage control. The polo sleeves bit into my biceps, and the cotton felt itchy. Stupid bargain basement detergent, I’d always had to do my laundry separate from Aaron’s.
Lunch was sandwiches, ordered in by a compassionate Lorna. I got intermittent texts from Beau asking me to send along various files pertaining to Radcliffe, and I answered them as quickly as possible. That was the saving grace of my morning, the fact that I was still able to be useful. I didn’t even get to see Beau, and as the clock rolled on and the emergency didn’t go away, I started to get antsy. What if he couldn’t make the dinner tonight? Aaron would be put out, but there was no telling how his folks would take it.
At five ’o clock, I texted him.
Still on for dinner at 8?
A minute later, the reply came back:
I’ll be there. You?
No worries, I assured him. At least I wouldn’t have to call his mother and let her know he was cancelling.
“I’m off,” Lorna informed me. “I think the worst of it’s over now, and I’ve got to get home and prep things for tomorrow. You’re still coming, right?”
“Carrie’s birthday party, of course,” I said. I’d already had a present shipped to Beau’s house for him to bring after he hadn’t gotten back to me on the options I sent him. “Wouldn’t miss it.”
“Good.” She came over and ruffled her hand through my stiff hair. “Do yourself a favor, Eric. Go home and wash this out. It looks a little odd.”
“Sure thing,” I said, but after she left I just settled further back into my chair with a sigh. To be honest, I didn’t really want to go home, itchy shirt notwithstanding. Home meant being alone, meant acknowledging the fact that I was sitting by myself while Beau was on a date with Aaron and his parents. A date that I had masterminded and set up. A date that I desperately wished I was going on, despite the awkward circumstances. I didn’t want to go home, but I didn’t feel like going to a club either. No, I’d stay and work for a while. There was plenty for me to do.