Undercover Lover

by Jerry Cole

He woke up to a shrieking alarm. He wasn’t exactly sure where it was coming from, but it took him a while to realize where he was himself. Then he began to smile, Morgan groaning next to him.

  “Why don’t you put coffee on, sweetheart? You know how to work the French press?” Morgan said, stretching out as he spoke, his voice thick with sleep.

  “Sounds good,” Jan replied, his heart leaping in his chest as he heard the way that Morgan spoke to him. “Don’t worry, I know how to work the French press.”

  He kissed Morgan softly on the mouth. Then he got up and made his way to the kitchen. He was very tired, but he was in Morgan’s apartment after what he considered a very successful date. There was also the fact that his shift wasn’t until later. His supervisors at State Fidelity didn’t care when he sent reports as long as they were thorough and they received one at least twice a week. He was due for a phone call with Mandy Bibiana soon, which scared him. He had never actually met the CEO of the bank, mostly because there had been no reason to do so. His supervisor told him that the entire company was relying on him, as if he didn’t already feel enough pressure.

  He shuddered as he looked at the silver tins that had no labels on then. He grabbed the lids off a couple of them until he found the one that was filled with coffee, the scent filling the air in Morgan’s modern kitchen. He poured a spoonful into the empty French press, since it looked and smelled like it was strong.

  Then he looked up. It was the first time Jan had taken the time to look around the space. Morgan’s entire apartment was ultra-modern, with silver appliances, marble counter tops and one of those ovens that looked like it was part of the island. Even when Jan had been earning a lot of money, he never would have been able to afford a kitchen like this. Even if he got to keep all his salary. He put the water in a pot that seemed to be especially made to boil water in, since it looked a bit like a tea pot—it probably had a proper name but Jan didn’t know what it was.

  He was startled by Morgan’s arms being wrapped around his waist, holding him close and planting a noisy kiss on his cheek. “Thank you,” Morgan said. “I’d offer to make you breakfast, but I don’t think I have enough time. Also, I’d have to learn how to make breakfast. So, really, I’d offer to make you toast.”

  “I’m angry,” Jan replied, smiling. “I thought our dates came with breakfast.”

  “So, you want meteor showers,” Morgan said, kissing his neck. “Amazing sex.”

  “Yup, sounds right,” Jan replied, moaning at Morgan’s touch.

  “Middle-of-nowhere picnics,” Morgan continued. “Staying up way past my bedtime on a school night.”

  Jan laughed. “And I’m the nerd?”

  Morgan laughed, shaking his head. His breathing on Jan’s skin sent a shiver down his spine.

  “And you also want me to make you breakfast on top of that,” Morgan replied. “You know, I’ve come to see you as a very demanding man.”

  “I am,” Jan said. “Which is why I’m really surprised that you’re living up to my standards.”

  Morgan moved away from him, grabbing the water pot off the stove and pouring it into the French press. “Maybe that’s why you think you’re not good enough for me,” he said. “When you clearly are.”

  Jan looked away from him. He didn’t want Morgan to see his face. He had always been a good actor, but Morgan’s words hurt then.

  “Hey, you okay?”

  “Yeah,” Jan lied. “Just tired. And a little nervous.”

  Morgan nodded. “About the internship?”

  Jan’s gaze darted to the floor, trying not to think of the dossier with Morgan’s name on it. “Yeah, I guess. In a way.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Morgan said. “You know I haven’t been there for very long. But they recruited me, and I think they’ll try to keep me happy.”

  “Just don’t push too hard. I wouldn’t want you to get in trouble,” Jan said. “It’s not worth sacrificing your career for me.”

  “Relax, babe,” Morgan said. It made Jan smile, and by the heat in his cheeks, he could tell it was making him blush, too. “I’m only going to recommend you. It’s not like I’m putting my career on the line. I mean, it’s an internship, right? How bad can it be?”

  “Yeah,” Jan said, licking his lips. “Yeah, you’re right.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Morgan couldn’t help but smile when he saw Sam go into his office almost the second he arrived at work. He had come to like Sam a lot in the short time he had been there. He also couldn’t wait to talk about his date, mostly because it still seemed not to have happened to him. It had been so long since he had spent time with someone he liked as much as Jan. They had gotten along so well too, not to mention the sex had been mind-blowing.

  “I brought you breakfast,” Sam said as a way of greeting. He shot his glance toward Morgan’s desk.

  Morgan raised his eyebrows. “You brought me donuts for breakfast?”

  “Well, three are for you,” Sam replied. “Three are for me. C’mon, no person can eat half a dozen donuts by themselves. At least not for breakfast.”

  “That’s fair,” Morgan said as he went to sit down. “Nothing to do with you wanting to eat donuts for breakfast.”

  “Hey, now,” Sam replied. “I didn’t say I was completely selfless. My wife is totally against sugar nowadays and it sucks.”

  “Because of the baby?”

  “I guess,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “I think she thinks we give the kids too much sugar in general because they’re always running around. But the kids don’t get any sugar. Sugar from things like tangerines doesn’t count.”

  Morgan shook his head, laughing. “You’d be a terrible stay-at-home parent, just so you know.”

  “I’m glad I’m not,” Sam said. “I was going to be because when she’s working, she makes more money than me, but she got pregnant this last time and I think she wanted to try it out. Honestly, I think it’s her mother. She’s a meddling bitch.”

  “Don’t let her hear you say that,” Morgan said as he grabbed the donut with sprinkles. “Did you get coffee with this?”

  Sam rolled his eyes. “Get coffee from the office vending machine, like every other pleb here, Mr. Fancy Pants.”

  “Okay, okay,” Morgan said, smiling. “Don’t get your panties in a bunch. Thank you for breakfast, seriously. I didn’t have time to make any this morning and I didn’t want to stop anywhere. I got out of my house kind of late.”

  Sam raised his eyebrows and grinned. “Were you almost late because you were boning that dude?”

  Morgan exhaled heavily, trying to stop himself from laughing. “No,” he replied. “That’s not why I was almost late.”

  Sam cocked his eyes, surprise written on his face. “So you didn’t bone?”

  “No, we ‘boned’,” Morgan said, making quotation marks in the air with his sticky fingers when he said the last words. “Just not in the morning. The date was really, really good. The morning was just kind of weird.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I… okay, yeah, I’ll tell you this, but you have to promise not to judge me, okay?”

  Sam smiled. “Already judging you.”

  “It wasn’t anything crazy,” Morgan said. “At least I don’t think so. So, obviously, I had to be here this morning, but he said he didn’t have to work until the afternoon. So, I told him he could stay there, make himself whatever food he wanted, and he could let himself out whenever. I told him he could drop my keys here…”

  “Wait,” Sam said. “Isn’t this your second date?”

  “Yeah,” Morgan said. “Which is probably why it got awkward when I said that. These donuts are delicious, by the way.”

  Sam shook his head. “So, what did he say?”

  “He didn’t really say much, just that he didn’t want to do it,” Morgan replied. “He seemed really weirded out, though. Like he never had heard anyone say something so outrageous.”

  “He could have robbed you
blind,” Sam said.

  “That’s what he said,” Morgan replied. “But the thing is, he wouldn’t have. I know him.”

  “You’ve gone out with him twice,” Sam said. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’m sure he’s really nice or whatever, but you know me better than you know him, and all you know about me is that I have a sweet tooth and I hate my mother-in-law.”

  Morgan laughed. “I know you’re really good at your job. Otherwise, you wouldn’t spend most of your morning here. You only do it because you can knock out a day’s work in a couple of hours.”

  “Right,” Sam said. “I just can’t do that thing where I pretend that I’m working when I’m actually not working at all. Which everyone else seems to be so good at.”

  Morgan smiled at him. “Hey, as long as you’re not affecting my job performance, I’m cool with you.”

  “Thanks, dude,” Sam replied. “But it doesn’t surprise me that it freaked him out.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way,” Sam said, looking away from him. “But that’s really fucking country.”

  Morgan narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you don’t leave strangers in your expensive apartment in the city,” Sam said.

  “But he’s not a stranger! He’s my—”

  “Boyfriend?”

  “That word is so fucking stupid,” Morgan said, biting into his donut. When he spoke again, he did it with his mouth full, his hand in front of it. “I’m a full-grown fucking man. So is he. So, why the fuck is Jan my boyfriend?”

  Sam shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t make the rules, buddy. But that wasn’t my question, and I do know you well enough to know that you’re dodging me here.”

  Morgan sighed. “The truth is I don’t know how to answer that question. I mean, I’d like to think so, but there’s no way for me really to know.”

  Sam raised his eyebrows. “Except for talking to him?”

  “Yeah,” Morgan replied. “Except for talking to him.”

  “Well, if he’s not your boyfriend, my friend—”

  Morgan laughed. “Yeah, thanks, Sam. I’ll keep that in mind.”

  ***

  At lunch, Morgan went downstairs to the cafeteria inside the building. It was overpriced and always too full of people, but he needed to give himself some time to think. He was also swamped and he didn’t want to take too much time out of his day. Jan had told him his shift started at one. So Morgan knew if he went outside now, he probably would run into him. After his conversation with Sam, it was kind of hard to concentrate, and he didn’t know if he did want to run into Jan because he thought he might just blurt it out. Asking Jan if he was his boyfriend in the middle of the street, when he was just arriving at work, didn’t seem like a great idea. This was a conversation Morgan knew they needed to have, he just expected them to have it on a date instead of on the street. The chances that Jan would want to be ambushed on the street and asked if he was Morgan’s boyfriend, as amusing as that could have been, were probably quite slim. He was thinking about that as he got in line, messing around on his phone, when he caught a glimpse of Kimber. He waited until she got behind him in line.

  “Hey,” he said, smiling warmly at her. He had been trying to catch her when she wasn’t busy or doing something else.

  “Hi, Morgan,” she replied, smiling back at him. “How are you doing? Everything okay?”

  “Everything is going great, thanks,” Morgan replied. “I actually wanted to talk to you about something.”

  He didn’t mention he had wanted to talk to her about it for days and he just hadn’t had the opportunity to do so.

  She cocked her head and pursed her lips. “Are you having trouble with the system?”

  “No,” Morgan replied. “No, the system is fine. I’ve been learning it quickly enough, I think. Still have to work out a couple of kinks.”

  “Okay, yeah,” she replied. “Well, what’s going on?”

  “Well, I’ve noticed that paperwork is eating up a lot of my time,” Morgan said. “Which is fine for now, but when I’m due to turn in a project, I’m pretty sure it’s going to turn into a nightmare.”

  “Yeah,” Kimber said. “We’ve had some issues with administrative work in your department.”

  “Right,” Morgan said. “Well, I know the company assigns interns to departments as necessary, and I was thinking it’d be really nice to have someone to do the busywork while the rest of us focus on our jobs. I don’t know if you can make that happen, but I thought I’d run it by you.”

  “Sure,” she said. “Well, there’s no guarantees but I’ll certainly see what I can do.”

  “There’s something else,” Morgan replied, quietly.

  “Oh?”

  “Someone I know is applying for an internship at FinaSoft Corporation and I think he’d be perfect for our department,” Morgan said. “Of course, I don’t want to overstep here.”

  She shrugged. “You’re not overstepping,” she said. “I can consider it. What’s his name?”

  “Jan,” Morgan replied simply.

  “Does Jan have a last name?”

  “I… I don’t know,” Morgan replied, his cheeks burning. If Jan was his boyfriend, then how was it possible that he didn’t know his last name?

  “Okay,” she said. “Well, let me know if you find out. I’ll see what I can do on my part.”

  “Thank you,” Morgan said, smiling thinly at her and turning back to face the cafeteria. He kept playing around on his phone but he couldn’t concentrate anymore. His head was swimming, and he barely could focus his gaze on the words on his phone’s tiny screen.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Jan wiped the sweat off his brow as he walked out of the kitchen. Being a waiter never had been part of his life plan and, though he didn’t mind it too much, he didn’t like having to walk in and out of the kitchen. He felt a lot worse for the people who had to work in the kitchen, though. At least Jan got to leave and go back into the cool air-conditioned interior of the restaurant. He was glad his supervisors had wanted him to work as a waiter instead of something else, though despite the NDA issue, he still didn’t think it made a lot of sense not to just put him in there. Still, he was just an employee, it wasn’t as though he could ask those kinds of questions. He wasn’t even sure where he could direct those questions.

  One thing he knew for sure, though. He would be glad once this entire charade was over. He wanted to go back to New York City and live close to his mother again. The idea that something else might happen to her when he wasn’t around kept him up at night. He knew he should listen to Riley, that it was important that he have his own life, but the guilt ate him up inside. How could he have his own life when his mother’s quality of life was decreased? He had been thinking about what Morgan had said for a while, and every time he closed his eyes, he could hear Morgan’s words in his head, reverberating inside his skull.

  He did want a family. Worse than that, he wanted a family with Morgan. He had tried pushing it out of his head—the whole idea was crazy. The fact was, they only ever had been out on two dates and they really didn’t know each other that well. The problem was that every time Jan closed his eyes, every time he let his mind wander, all he could think about was Morgan’s arms wrapped around his waist, his lips on the crook of Jan’s neck. If his daydreams had gone only that far, then maybe Jan would have been okay with them, but they always went further. There would be children’s voices coming from the living room, then Morgan would kiss him on the cheek and tell him to have a nice day. Abruptly, every time, Jan would open his eyes and try to remind himself he was in the present. And in the present, Morgan was just someone he had gone out with for two dates. Not just that, but he was someone with whom he had gone on two dates with that he simply didn’t have a future with. No matter how much he wanted one.

  He went back into the kitchen to grab the food he was supposed to be getting and had forgotten. He would be a terrible ful
l-time waiter, he thought.

  At least the day seemed to go by quickly. When he was getting out, he got a phone call from his brother. He found it weird, because Riley only called him once a week at the most. He had spoken to him recently. He hated that he associated speaking with his little brother with bad news, but even after all these years, hearing his brother’s phone voice put Jan on edge. It couldn’t be helped, Riley had nothing to do with it. Jan knew the only thing that would make it better was counseling, but he couldn’t face it. The only way he managed to get through the day was pretending everything was fine.

  And everything was fine. It was, as long as he kept working, as long as his mom and his little brother were okay.

  He swallowed down the knot in his throat, hugging himself. Then he answered the phone. “Hello?”

  “Hey, big brother,” Riley said. “I was really worried you weren’t going to pick up for a second there.”

  Jan frowned. “You were? Why? Wait, where are you? It sounds loud.”

  “Well, remember that furlough I was talking about?”

  “Yup,” Jan said. “Are you home?”

  “Nope,” Riley said. “So, turns out that furlough is a little longer than I originally told you. So, I thought I’d come to Danbury and surprise you.”

  Jan’s mouth dropped open. There were so many complications, so many issues with Riley just dropping in like he had. Jan had explained how taking this promotion would be a good thing for him, but he hadn’t exactly outlined what it entailed. Part of that was because he wasn’t sure what it entailed exactly, but part of it was he didn’t want his little brother to know. He didn’t think the position came with any more prestige than his previous one. “You did what?”

  “Shit,” Riley said. “I knew you were going to get mad. I wanted to tell you, I just didn’t want you to freak out.”

  Jan shook his head. “Why did you think I’d freak out? I like seeing you. I just… I don’t know. It’s weird, I would have made plans to make sure you…”

  “No, that’s what I mean. I don’t think that you like hanging out with me,” Riley said. For a second, he sounded much younger than he was. “Don’t get me wrong. I don’t blame you. The last few times we’ve hung out it’s been fucking depressing. First dad, then mom…”