Plaid versus Paisley

by KC Burn

When Dallas slammed the front door of his apartment, it had sounded so very final.

  The tears started silently, great rivers of fire coursing down his bloodless cheeks, but soon progressed until he was sobbing like someone had died.

  How could he have thought that about Dallas? In fact, he didn’t think that. Not anymore. There was no way he could have fallen in love with Dallas if he truly believed Dallas was to blame for any of what had happened, and he loved Dallas. Out of everything else, that one thing was not in doubt.

  In the midst of all that, he couldn’t even remember telling Dallas he loved him, nor could he remember Dallas returning the sentiment. And he’d blown his chance of hearing Dallas say it again.

  He grabbed for some toilet paper and wiped at his nose and eyes, but he couldn’t stop the deluge. Finally, after his eyes had swollen almost shut and the skin across his nose stretched tight, he slid to the floor. The cool felt good against his tear-ravaged skin, and he lay there, no longer sobbing. A few tears continued to drip, splattering on the tiles below his face.

  “Will, are you okay?”

  Will tried to open his eyes, but there was only a blur of dark hair. “Dallas?” Hope soared, chasing away the shroud on his heart.

  “No, man, it’s Jaime. Did you fall?”

  The blackness settled back around him. Of course it wouldn’t be Dallas. Jaime patted him down, starting with his head, maybe looking for broken bones. But EMTs couldn’t do anything about broken hearts.

  “No. Why are you here?” Couldn’t he let Will wallow in peace until he disintegrated right into the tiles?

  “You scared the shit out of Raven, my man. When Dallas dashed out of the car show after a phone call, he freaked. He called and begged me to come over here, afraid you’d had some sort of relapse or something.”

  Will didn’t bother answering.

  “C’mon, let’s get you to bed so I can check you out.” Jaime hoisted him to his feet. Will wasn’t any help, as he kept trying to slither back to the floor, but between Jaime and a woman Will didn’t know, they got him back into bed.

  After taking his blood pressure and various other medically arcane things, Jaime and the woman conferred in low tones while Will curled up around Dallas’s pillow, nosing about for the strongest bit of coconut-lime. Then the woman left, and Jaime started pulling things out of a giant kit.

  “Raven caught me right at the end of my shift, but I don’t think you need the hospital. I sent my partner to return the rig, so you’d better not prove me wrong.”

  “I fucked up, Jaime.” His voice was small and clogged, and talking hurt like swallowing metal shards.

  Jaime pulled him out of his fetal position and onto his back. “Let’s get some fluids in you, and then you can tell me all about it.”

  The scent of alcohol stung his nose as Jaime knelt by his bedside. He swabbed Will’s arm and slid a needle into his vein. Within a few seconds, Will had his very own IV bag set up, hanging from the bedpost. Jaime packed up his kit and dragged Will’s reading chair beside the bed.

  Jaime squeezed his shoulder gently. “What happened? Raven was frantic, saying Dallas had ran out of the car show like he was being chased by hellhounds.”

  “I resigned.”

  “Uh. Resigned from what? Idyll Fling? I don’t understand.”

  Will cleared his throat. “I’m an idiot. And now everyone hates me.”

  “Where’s Dallas, anyway?”

  A hiccupping sob caught him by surprise. “Gone.”

  “Oookay. Let me get you some water, and then you can tell me what happened.”

  Will had no intention of doing so, but when Jaime returned, everything spilled out, along with more tears. At this rate, he was going to end up like a giant raisin.

  Afterward, Jaime sat there in silence for a few minutes. “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know. Nothing? What can I do to make up for that?”

  Jaime sighed. “First thing you need to do is not worry about losing Raven’s friendship. He’s your best friend, and he’s not going to trade you in for a new model. Get that out of your head. If he didn’t care about you, he wouldn’t have called me.”

  “He hasn’t called me.” Will was talking about Raven, but the same thing went for Dallas.

  Jaime rolled his eyes. “No, but he sent me a billion texts until I had a minute to tell him you were fine and I was staying. He wanted to come over, but I told him it wouldn’t be a good idea, because you’re probably going to be asleep in a few minutes.”

  “Why, what did you give me?”

  “You are a suspicious thing, aren’t you?”

  No. He wasn’t. He didn’t want to be. He also noticed Jaime hadn’t said he didn’t need to worry about losing Dallas. They both knew his relationship was dead, without hope of resuscitation.

  “But I didn’t give you anything. Didn’t have to. You’re clearly worn out, fighting off the flu and a very emotional outburst. I’m amazed you’re still awake right now.”

  Like the words were a magical spell, Will’s puffy eyelids grew heavy.

  “You get some sleep. Things will look better in the morning.”

  Will didn’t believe him, but he was too tired to argue.

  Chapter THIRTEEN

  WILL STRETCHED sleepily, seeking Dallas, but when he encountered nothing, the events of the past day came crashing down. His eyes burned again, but he fought off the tears, His eyes were still swollen and gummy from his last bout, and he couldn’t face any more.

  The time on the clock told him he was well late for work, but then, he didn’t have a job anymore, did he? Which also meant there was absolutely nothing he could do to take his mind off things. He got up long enough to use the bathroom, then flopped back onto the bed. This morning, he felt slightly less like he’d been beaten with a baseball bat, but his eyes looked like a poster for domestic violence.

  Almost reluctantly, he picked up his phone. Raven had texted, as had Jaime and Caleb, but Dallas had been conspicuously silent, ignoring the few middle-of-the-night texts Will had sent when he’d woken up to go the bathroom.

  Setting his jaw, he tried calling, but it went straight to voice mail. Just in case, he sent another text, imploring Dallas to talk to him.

  Masochistically, he turned on the TV while he waited and started up one of the recorded episodes of The Bachelor, torturing himself as he remembered how much Dallas enjoyed watching it, telling everyone on it what they should do, as if they could hear him. Dallas was such a romantic at heart, and it was one of the many things Will loved about him.

  He had no idea when Jaime left, although he had a vague memory of Jaime shaking him awake to tell him good-bye. Will was alone, and that was how it was going to stay.

  His stomach rumbled, but he wasn’t interested in moving again.

  Halfway through the episode, phone looming silent beside him, he gave up the fight against the tears, and he watched the rest of the show through blurry prisms.

  Right when they were going to announce who was getting eliminated, someone knocked at his door.

  Fuckers. He needed to find a gated place, or at least one that had a proper security door that required people to buzz before they showed up.

  Will turned up the volume, but the knocking continued. Since he wanted to head off any more potential visits from the paramedics, he pushed himself out of bed and shuffled to the door.

  “I’m coming.” His shout was more like a croak, and a complete waste of effort. He swung the door open. “Yes?”

  “Can I come in?”

  In shock, Will stepped back to let Stefan inside. A Stefan bearing a paper tray with two coffee cups and a large bag.

  “I wasn’t sure what you’d feel like eating, so I brought a few things.”

  Will led him into the kitchen and sat down at the table, unable to even ask what he was doing. Stefan poked around his kitchen finding plates and napkins.

  He spread the bounty he’d brought, an assortment of pastri
es and breakfast sandwiches, and placed a coffee cup in front of Will before he too sat down, taking a long sip from his own coffee.

  Will fiddled with the lid of the cup, not quite ready to drink, as he stared intently at Stefan. Now that he knew, he could see the familial resemblance, although Stefan’s sandy hair and freckles had initially masked it.

  Stefan sighed. “Dallas told me some of what happened, although that was after I got your… surprising e-mail.”

  “Most bosses wouldn’t follow up a resignation letter with a home visit.” Will had no idea why Stefan was here.

  “I’m not most bosses. And my business isn’t exactly typical either. I know Dallas… both of us… should have been upfront about our relationship. That wasn’t fair to you, but I understood why Dallas wanted it. You know that Savron Dynamics was the only company that didn’t seem to have a hidden agenda in hiring Walter Greene’s son? It’s why he went there.”

  Will didn’t like knowing that. If Dallas had gone elsewhere, he might not have been pushed to the point of collapse, but also Will would never have met him. Would never have had that one almost idyllic month together.

  But he also didn’t know how Stefan expected him to respond.

  “He also explained a bit about why you felt you needed secrecy. But if I thought you were taking advantage of him, I’d have stepped in a long time ago.”

  Blood rushed into his ears. “You knew about us?”

  “Oh yes,” Stefan said wryly. “You both aren’t nearly as discreet as you thought. Nor am I as stupid as you both seem to think.”

  The heat in his cheeks intensified. They’d had a lot of sex at the studio. “Um… are there security cameras I don’t know about?”

  Stefan started giggling, hard enough he had to put down his coffee, and it was a few moments before he could reply. “Uh. No. I don’t need to get into the amateur hidden camera business. But when his hours at home drastically changed, it wasn’t hard to figure out he was seeing someone. When one of the models mentioned a used condom in the bathroom by the small break room, well, that’s when I started keeping my eyes open, and it didn’t take long to confirm my suspicions.”

  “But I’m his manager.” Or he had been, until yesterday.

  “And I’m his brother. I think we have to admit it’s an unusual situation all around. But like I said, I don’t think you were taking advantage of him. You should know by now that Dallas isn’t the type to roll over and let people dictate to him.”

  Will wrinkled his nose. He’d seen plenty of evidence of his defiance, but Dallas had also stuck with a job that had worked him to the bone, and he’d stayed in a closeted relationship with a serious imbalance of power. Then again, that might have been Dallas’s overdeveloped stubbornness working overtime, rather than him just rolling over and taking abuse.

  “Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. But Savron Dynamics was his first job and Hugh was his first boyfriend. I think we sometimes get blinded by the blush of our firsts, you know? And he certainly didn’t have any family or friends with any depth to provide him with guidance.”

  Possibly true. Will’s first boyfriend had also been a bit of a shit, and his parents had disliked him intensely. Having regular sex for the first time had outweighed many sins for a long time. But there was a look in Stefan’s eyes that said that story wouldn’t even register on the brothers’ grim-o-meter. Money couldn’t fix everything, and Will knew that, even if he’d lost sight of it for a while.

  “You don’t have to… I don’t know… explain him. I know I was an asshole, and he wasn’t working from some nefarious agenda. I know there’s no way he could have orchestrated laying off the whole department. Not just because he’s a good person, but because it wasn’t a logical move, nor was it within his authority.”

  Will had read about a major security breach at Savron Dynamics just days before Dallas had showed up. He’d taken vicious glee in it, but it was even more satisfying knowing it had been the result of upper management fucking themselves over, by first paring the department down to a shadow of its former self, then callously firing the man who’d been keeping everything afloat.

  After grabbing a breakfast sandwich, Will nibbled tentatively at it. He was hungry again, but he didn’t want to risk any more catastrophic emotional—and gastric—upset.

  They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes, although Will sensed Stefan had more to say.

  “There’s something else I haven’t told you. I know Dallas wouldn’t want you to know.”

  Will’s shoulders went back. He already knew Dallas hadn’t felt as though he could trust Will with the truth, about so many things. One more was just unnecessary cruelty, wasn’t it?

  “Do I need to know? Dallas has made it more than clear he doesn’t want anything else to do with me.” Will’s voice cracked, and he sniffed, trying desperately not to break down—again.

  “Yeah, I think you do. Get everything out in the open. You see, it wasn’t an accident that I contacted you. About the job, I mean. Dallas called me, asked me to interview you, because he knew I was looking for someone, and he liked you, even back then. He felt awful about what happened, but he had absolutely no control over it. He’d been every bit as blindsided by the layoffs as you were, buddy. And he took absolutely no joy in a promotion that should have, under any other circumstances, been a reason to celebrate.”

  Will’s stomach roiled unpleasantly. Not only had Dallas been the complete opposite of the man Will had built up in his mind as an evil nemesis, the one to blame for everything going wrong, but he’d been single-handedly responsible for a great opportunity that Will had grabbed with both hands… and let his fears keep him from doing to the best of his ability. In that, he’d failed both himself and Stefan.

  He dropped his half-eaten sandwich on the plate and shoved it away. This time he was the only one to blame for his predicament.

  Stefan got out his phone and fiddled with it. “Look, I don’t know if this thing between you and Dallas can be fixed. I’m trying to stay on the sidelines as much as I can. If it can’t be fixed, I’d like it if you were able to come to some sort of professional truce, because I think I’d be a fool to give either of you up as employees. I’d also like to think that the flu fucked up your brain for a bit.”

  He flipped his phone around to show Will the e-mail with his resignation. “So, Will, let’s say this e-mail got lost in cyberspace somewhere.” With a touch of his finger, the e-mail disappeared. “Give yourself a week’s sick leave, see where things stand. If you still feel you need to resign, we’ll discuss it then. In the meantime, if you want to talk about anything, just call me. Like I said, I’ll do my best to remain neutral.”

  Stefan stood up, brushed a few crumbs from his shirt, and slipped away.

  His boss had said a lot of things. The one thing he hadn’t said, though, was that he thought there was a chance Will and Dallas would be able to patch things up. But the mere fact Stefan had showed up had been subtly encouraging, and Will chose to hope that things weren’t irreparably damaged. If he had a week off to recover, he was going to spend some of that planning a way to get Dallas back. There was a germ of an idea sprouting in his head, but it was going to take the goodwill and assistance of a lot of people to pull off.

  DALLAS STARED at the restaurant through the car window. He didn’t know how he was possibly going to eat anything, not with his stomach tied up in knots.

  “Am I doing the right thing?”

  Stefan patted him on the shoulder. “You’ll know soon enough. For what it’s worth, I think Will had a lapse in judgment, like you had when you stayed at a job that was slowly killing you.”

  Dallas pressed his lips together. He couldn’t deny he hadn’t always made the right choices, and stress had given him tunnel vision to the point it hadn’t even occurred to him to look for another job. He just wasn’t sure the comparison was apt. Nevertheless, he still had to talk to Will. Will had texted almost constantly since Dallas had left, except
for two days of nothing.

  The panic he’d felt, wondering who he should call, if he should go over and check on Will, had been enough for him to realize he still cared. Stubbornly, he’d not texted Will but had checked in with Raven, just to make sure. After all, Will had been quite ill when their relationship imploded. When Will texted again, begging again for a chance to at least talk, Dallas had known he needed to accept, even if it meant giving both of them the closure they needed to move on.

  His sinuses burned at the thought of letting go. He’d never really thought beyond having Will for the rest of his life, and he wasn’t sure how he’d go about it. The sun had shone incessantly for the last week, and yet it had been so bleak and lonely.

  “Just remember, if you need me, call. I’ll come and get you.”

  Will wanted to take him somewhere after dinner and promised to drive him home later. Instead of grabbing a taxi or rideshare, Dallas had asked his brother to drive him. He didn’t want to admit that there was a tiny part of him that hoped the evening would end at Will’s place, because that would be stupid, wouldn’t it?

  “Thanks, Stef.”

  He slowly exited the car. They’d had a great time at this restaurant just over a month ago, when Will had introduced him to his friends as his boyfriend. And there had been so many tasty, healthy choices, almost all of which Dallas could have ordered without hesitation.

  If this didn’t go well, he might not ever be able to come back. He straightened his paisley tie. He’d left off the suit jacket and wore a dress shirt with his tight club pants. He’d hoped the combination of dressy and casual would suit whatever plans Will had.

  INSIDE THE restaurant, Dallas’s gaze immediately landed on Will, that wild mass of blond hair as enticing as ever. Will waved him over, his smile subdued.

  Dallas’s own smile felt stilted and strange on his face, like he couldn’t decide between a smile or a grimace. If only he had a better idea of how this would all play out.

  Dallas sat in the empty chair at their table for two, trying not to look at the small gift-wrapped box sitting on the table. It was too large to be jewelry, but he wasn’t sure if he was excited to see it or disturbed. Hugh had always thought things like chocolate or expensive booze would smooth over any tiffs they had.