“So are you? Dying?”
Aubrey spitted him with a withering glare. “Eat your salad.”
“See, I would, but I’m invested now. And anyway, isn’t the phrase ‘toss—’”
“You’re hilarious.” Aubrey picked up his burger and took an impossibly large bite, as much for an excuse to pause the conversation as because it was delicious.
“It’s just not like you,” Greg said, lifting a shoulder as he looked back down at his plate. “Forgive me for my concern if all of a sudden sex doesn’t interest you.” He stopped then, and Aubrey thought maybe he was going to stick in another mouthful of lettuce and let the subject drop, but when he looked over, Greg wasn’t even holding his fork. “Or maybe….”
Oh boy.“Maybe what?” Aubrey asked in resignation.
“Maybe you’re getting it somewhere else, and you don’t need to go clubbing.”
“I wish,” Aubrey said reflexively, and then thought,Oh damn.
Greg’s face lit up like a Christmas tree, and he pushed his salad away, perhaps with a little too much glee. “I knew it! You are screwing Nate Overton!”
“What!” Aubrey squawked. “He barely even likes me!”
“Come on, Aubrey. I watch the show the same as any other hockey fan. You’re really gonna tell me there’s nothing there?”
Fuck.Aubrey thought he’d had a better lid on his stupid crush than this. “He’smarried,” he pointed out. “I know I’m not exactly Captain Discretion, but I’m not an adulterer.” Ugh, that sounded so… biblical. “Adulter-ee? Accomplice to adultery?” Maybe he could distract Greg with semantics.
“Okay, so you’re not fucking him,” Greg said easily. Too easily, it turned out, because the next thing out of his mouth was “Doesn’t mean you don’t want to.”
Aubrey mulishly swiped a few fries through his pile of ketchup and mowed them down. He wasn’t owning up to that, not to Greg, anyway. “That’s not….” He wiped his greasy fingers on a napkin. “It just doesn’t….”
Greg waited him out.Asshole.
Fine. “I want more than just a hookup, okay?” Aubrey bit out, and then found himself shocked into silence.
He’d intended it to be a lie. He didn’t want to talk about Nate, and he’d have said anything to get Greg to back off. Only it turned out he’d stumbled onto an inconvenient truth, and now he was having trouble catching his breath.
Because he did want more than a hookup. Not necessarily with Nate, though Nate was hot and fun to talk to when he could be coerced to remember Aubrey existed outside of work. But in general—he wanted someone to share his life, someone who’d pay attention to him even when he wasn’t his best, someone he could show off for and spoil.
Aubrey pushed his plate away too.
Greg looked from Aubrey’s face, which felt like it must have gone a bit gray, to his plate, and grimaced in sympathy. “Sorry, man. I should’ve waited till you finished your burger.”
“Just for that, you can pick up the tab,” Aubrey said, injecting as much levity as he could.
Greg didn’t push further.
THAT WEEKtook them to Houston. To his surprise, Nate was actually looking forward to it. Now that he was able to associate the city with just work and hockey instead of home and Marty, he felt much better about it. Given a late schedule change, the network gaveThe Inside Edgean extra half hour before the game.
“Okay, let’s take a few to figure out what we’re going to do with this.” Jess had them crammed into a tiny conference room in the arena. Next to her were Bob from marketing and her boss, Larry, who never looked completely pleased even when Jess was giving him good numbers. He’d always been nice enough to Nate, but there was something squirrelly about him that Nate didn’t like.
Bob immediately produced something from his jacket pocket with a flourish. He held up a small tube. “As it happens, Crotchguard is co-sponsoring a ball-hockey tournament in Houston next week, and as they are one of our largest advertisers, I think a short segment would be in order.”
Nate noticed Aubrey’s jaw drop slightly before he regained his usual composure. Nate wondered if Aubrey was wondering the same thing Nate was: did Bob carry samples of all their sponsors’ products on his person or did he just need—no, better not go there.
Aubrey shot him a sideways glance and raised an eyebrow as if reading Nate’s mind.
“Great idea,” Jess said. “We’ll send Dev or Kelly, but that’ll take no more than five. What else we got?”
“How about a segment on grading the last expansion draft?” Nate suggested.
Aubrey nodded. “Sure. We could call it ‘And Yet More Mistakes by Edmonton.’”
