“No. I like kids.” Admitting it felt bittersweet now, since God knew when or if he’d ever have any. “What about you?” he asked, half joking, half to deflect attention.
Aubrey opened his mouth as though to give a prepared answer, then paused. Nate watched his shoulders creep toward his ears and then back down again as he fought some kind of instinctive reaction. Then he said, “I, uh, I never thought I did. I had all those wild oats, and it’s not like I had great parenting role models. But uh, therapy, right? A lot of the hang-ups I’ve had in the past were just excuses to keep evading my own issues. I’m overcoming my compulsive need to be the center of attention. And kids… maybe. I like them, but that’s not the same as wanting my own. Is it weird if I say I’ve never really thought about it?”
“Not weird,” Nate decided. Given Aubrey’s relationship with his family, it made sense. Sad, maybe, but he didn’t say that out loud. “It makes you think, though.”
“Hmm?”
“I spent my whole life doing what people expected, regardless of whether it was what I wanted. And you spent your whole life doing whatever you wanted no matter what people expected. But here we are.”
Aubrey tilted his head.
“Are you happy?” Nate blurted.
Aubrey’s mouth dropped open. Then he looked at his watch. “Nate. It’s not even ten a.m.”
“You can wait until after cocktail hour to answer if you want.” Maybe he’d overstepped.
But maybe not. “Are you?” Aubrey countered after a moment.
“I’m notunhappy.” He had a good life—a good job, a nice place to live, fairly few worries, a few good friends, a loving family. “But I think if I’d made different decisions—if I’d really thought about what I wanted instead of what other people wanted for me—I don’t know. Maybe I’d be happier.” Now for the uncomfortably honest part. “You seem like you’ve done the opposite. I was just wondering if you thought it was better—if it made you happier in the long run.”
“I think there’s a saying about this,” Aubrey mused without answering the question. “Something about—happiness is appreciating what you have, rather than having everything you want.”
Nate sipped his coffee and looked out the window. “Maybe you should get me the number for your therapist.”
Aubrey laughed. “Therapy’s not that simple. I read that on a fortune cookie.”
Nate’s stomach rumbled. “I wonder if there’s a good Chinese place in Tampa.”
They pulled up to the airport, and Aubrey tipped the driver while Nate got their bags. When Aubrey slipped off after Security to indulge in his weird airport pulp fiction fetish, Nate grabbed breakfast pastries and staked out a couple chairs in the lounge.
Before he could get more than a bite into his croissant, Kelly sat down in the chair across from him.
Nate wouldn’t say hepanicked. Nate would not say he shat his metaphorical pants. Nate would not say those things, but they were still true.
“So,” Kelly said. Nate’s balls tried to crawl back up into his body. “You’ve been kind of hard to pin down the past couple weeks.”
Fuuuuuck.
“Uh, sorry,” Nate said, knowing it sounded feeble. Before Aubrey, he’d spent a lot of time with Kelly on breaks in filming. He’d always had lunches with her too. But he had a feeling she was talking about more than the fact that she was eating alone. “It’s just been a really busy few weeks, you know? Trying to get ready for the holiday and everything.”
Kelly crossed her legs and raised an eyebrow. “Wow. Good thing you’re a sports announcer and not an actor.”
Nate winced but didn’t bother trying to defend himself.
“I don’t get it,” Kelly said. “Devon said your date went well. But you haven’t returned his calls. You ghosted him. That’s pretty shitty.”
“Yeah.” Well, it was. Nate had managed to reply to one text, but it was a triteit’s not you, sorrythat he still cringed even thinking about. “I know. I….”
“I mean, either you’re going to call him and do alotof groveling, or….” She sighed. “Maybe this was a dumb idea. I should’ve stayed out of it.”
She sounded like she meant it. She looked like it too, which made it that much worse—especially since Nate was the one who’d introduced her to Caley. He knew she wanted to return the favor.
“No, it’s not your fault. When we talked the first time, I really did think I wanted to start dating again, I just….”
Aubrey came into the lounge, nose already buried in the paperback. One of these days he was going to run into something, or someone.
“I’m not looking for anything serious right now,” Nate forced himself to say. There. The honest truth. Not that he’d consider Devon either way, but Devon didn’t have to know that. “I thought I was, but I’m not.”
