Nate’s mother raised her hand to her mouth. “Oh my God! Oh my God, I’m so sorry—” and she fled the apartment, closing the door behind her.
Aubrey stared at the door. He stared at the tiny hand towel on the floor between his feet. Then back to the door again, which he’d have to leave through in order to escape this waking nightmare. At least, unless he wanted to fling himself out Nate’s fifteenth-story window. He’d never had to meet any of his conquests’ parents before, and now, when he actually wanted to make a good impression, one of them walked in on himnaked in her son’s apartment.
“Fuck my actual life,” he sighed, wrapping the towel around his waist, and went to wake up Nate.
Chapter Thirteen
“NATE. NATE,wake up.”
“Mnnn,” Nate grumbled, pulling his pillow closer. There was a reason he didn’t often sleep in, and that was that the longer he did, the less he wanted to get out of bed. That went double after morning sex.
“Nate,” Aubrey hissed again, urgently enough that this time, Nate opened his eyes. Aubrey’s eyes were wild and his cheeks were pale. “Get your ass out of bedright now. Your parents are here.”
Nate’s brain went from warm and fuzzy to cold, almost painful clarity. “They’re not supposed to be here until Wednesday!”
“They got an earlier flight,” Aubrey bit out, scrambling around for the clothes he must’ve brought the night before. “They wanted it to be a surprise. Well,I’m surprised!”
It occurred to Nate as Aubrey frantically tugged on his underwear that he wasverynaked. “How surprised?” he asked, reaching for clean clothes of his own.
“Fully frontal surprised, Nathan!”
Nate winced. Okay, so that was bad. “Fuck.”
“You might say that!”
At least she seemed to have walked in after Aubrey showered, rather than before. Though considering Aubrey’s mood right now, Nate kept that thought to himself. “All right,” he said, thinking out loud as he hopped into a pair of sweatpants. “This is okay. We can fix this.”
“Fixwhat?” Aubrey said, throwing a venomous look over his shoulder as he struggled into a cashmere sweater that probably cost half a month’s rent. “I’m pretty sure we can’t go into your mom’s brain andremove the image of my dick!”
“Okay, yes, that’s awkwardness we’re just going to have to live with—”
“We?” Aubrey asked. “We?”
“—but it’s not like they have to know we’re, I don’t know, casually fucking or whatever.”
This gave Aubrey pause. “You want to just pretend I was staying here because of the broken heat upstairs?” His voice came down half a register.
“Oh no, they definitely won’t buy that. They’ve been hinting that they think there’s something going on for weeks. I’ve just pretended not to notice. But we could tell them we’re dating.”
“What!”
But the plan was coming together now, and the pitch of Aubrey’s indignant squawk couldn’t derail Nate’s train of thought. “It’s perfect. The timing is right. They’ve been bugging me to move on. I’ve been stalling them, but that could just as easily be because I wanted to keep the whole dating a coworker thing quiet.”
“Nate—”
Nate loved his parents, and he knew they loved him. But they had certain expectations of their son, and casual hookups with a coworker didn’t fit them. He might be ready to adjust his expectations of himself, but he didn’t know if he was ready for his parents to see him differently.
“Please,” he said. “Hear me out.”
To his surprise, Aubrey sat on the bed and folded his hands in his lap. He looked uncomfortable, and his shoulders were hunched, but he was listening.
“Just for the week,” he pleaded. “If I tell them the truth, they’re going to think I’m having a midlife crisis a few years ahead of schedule.”
“Aren’t you?” He let that hang in the air for a moment and then continued, “Anyway, we work together, remember? You were there when Jess demanded not to change anything.”
“So we tell my parents it has to be a secret!” That was just obvious. “They had a gay son who played hockey. I wasn’t always out. They understand.”
Aubrey spitted him with a flat stare. “You want to have a secret fake relationship. You do know this isn’t a Hallmark Channel Original Movie, right? Besides, I’m supposed to be on a plane to Hawaii in three hours. How do we explain your beloved boyfriend jetting off to a tropical island paradise without you?”
