“Nate makes me—he’s just always paying attention, you know? Even when he’s not. He buys me my favorite crappy pulp paperbacks in airports before flights. He knows my coffee order. I mean, he’s hot and kind and funny, but so are lots of people. He never makes me feel ignored. He’s perfect for me.”
When he finished, Theresa had a hand over her mouth, but it didn’t do much to hide her smile. Maybe he was safe to play poker with her after all. “What?” he asked.
She took a moment to compose herself and then placed her hand flat on the desk. “First let me say that I don’t want to minimize what you feel for Nate. It’s wonderful that you’ve found someone you’re so compatible with.”
Aubrey sensed abutcoming.
“However, your reasoning is flawed. Broadly speaking, people were never ignoring you. Their behavior hasn’t changed. Your perception has.” She tapped the notebook in the corner of her desk—the same one Aubrey had written his assignments in. “Youput the work in.Youmade having a relationship possible, not someone else. And if it came to it, I am confident that you could do it again.”
AUBREY COULDN’Tput it off any longer; the offer was about to expire. At one in the afternoon on Monday, he was in his agent’s Chicago office, signing the paperwork.
An hour after that, he confirmed his rental.
Now all that was left was packing up his life. He had four days to make the drive to Vegas. That basically gave him twenty-four hours to say goodbye. By the time Nate went to work tomorrow, Aubrey would be on the road.
How could he make the last day count? There were so many things he wanted to do with Nate—make him buy something fabulous and just out of his comfort zone on the Miracle Mile, take in an exhibit at the Art Institute, spend a day at Shedd. Neither of them was from Chicago. They could play tourist.
And then there was skating in the park. It was a cliché, but apparently romantic relationships were actually full of those. Besides, they both liked skating.
What else did they both like? Aside fromThe Cutting Edge. Did Nate like other romcoms? Was he too much of a jock to enjoy musical theater?
It felt like Aubrey still had so much to learn. That feeling led to a sense of inevitability. How were they ever going to get to know each other when he was in Vegas? Maybe this was as close as he’d ever get.
Maybe—
Aubrey blinked as he stepped into his apartment. The table was set for two—wineglasses and San Pellegrino, a bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape in a bucket. The kitchen emitted some familiar wonderful smells—garlic and ginger and soy, and something with a strong sense of heat that cleared Aubrey’s sinuses.
That heat was practically glacial in comparison to the sight in front of him, though. Because Nate was decked out in a full tuxedo, hair freshly cut and styled, jacket buttoned. He looked like he’d come right out of a Tom Ford catalog.
“Wow,” Aubrey said. He didn’t mean to say it out loud, but his brain was having trouble doing more than just committing Nate to memory. He felt like his phone when it got stuck in an infinite reboot cycle. “I mean…. Hi.”
Nate’s eyes sparkled like in an actual fairy tale. Aubrey had the giddy thought that he’d be writing about this in his diary later, because he’d apparently reverted to a teenager. “Hi. I hope you don’t mind I took a few liberties.”
“For future reference, if you ever need to get away with something, just put on the tux.” Nate could politely rob a bank in that tuxedo and no one would lift a finger to stop him.
Maybe that was why Bond wore them.
Nate smiled, and Aubrey’s brain rebooted again. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
The reboot finally completed, Aubrey cleared his throat. “What’s all this?”
Nate rubbed the back of his neck, and the Bond persona evaporated. Thank goodness. Bond was hot, but Aubrey didn’t love him.
“Uh, well, I figureda, I owe you for raining on your breakfast yesterday, andb, you’re leaving tomorrow, so I thought I’d recreate our first date. Our first real date, anyway. I wasn’t sure I could arrange for a blizzard, and even if I could, you’d have to drive through the mess it left tomorrow.”
That was why everything smelled familiar. “Did you get the whole tasting menu?”
“Yeah, but I only got the two bottles of wine.”
“My liver and I thank you for your restraint.”
They sat next to each other at the table, and somehow Aubrey ended up with Nate’s foot hooked around his ankle.
He didn’t fuck Nate over the back of the couch this time, but although it was slow and sweet, the desperation felt the same. He needed to make every second count.
Afterward Nate fell asleep with his head on Aubrey’s chest, breathing deep and evenly. Aubrey’s last thought before he followed was that he didn’t know how he could ever give this up.
IT WASstupid to feel like the building was empty because one person had moved out of it. There were twenty-one stories; Nate was hardly alone. But lying in his bed after Tuesday’s show, trying not to grit his teeth over Paul’s continued glorification of “old-school hockey,” he missed Aubrey. It was like Nate could sense that the apartment upstairs wasn’t occupied.
