SEVENTEEN
The night without John passed slowly, the hours dragging on interminably. If Brett did manage to get any sleep, he wasn’t aware of it, and any stolen moments probably ended up doing him more harm than good. When he dragged himself out of bed, he felt like his body weighed a literal ton, and his eyes were gritty and red when he looked at himself in the mirror.
It was two days until Christmas. But what did that matter to him? Brett walked through the living room without letting himself look at all of the decorations that John had put up. Why had the other man even bothered? When he was just going to leave anyway?
A baby. Maybe a wife, in time. Brett couldn’t compete. So what choice did he have other than to let John go? To accept it, to try to mourn, and maybe even, at some point, to move on?
At least he had the memories that they had made. The brief, shining moment, when Brett had thought that he might really have found something. That was something and more than he had ever thought that he would have. He should be grateful for that. And he was, he told himself firmly. He was.
Sidney was sitting behind the desk as he walked into work, and she gave him a cheerful little wave, which he returned with a curt nod. She was pretty much the last person that he wanted to see right now, but for now, at least, he was working with her, and they were going to cross paths sometimes.
“Hey, you look like shit,” she told him cheerfully. And, really, why shouldn’t she be cheerful? She was the one who had a date with John, while Brett had nothing. Sighing, Brett rubbed his temples, where a low-grade headache was starting to set up camp. Like it might just be around for a while.
“Thank you,” he told her wryly. “I’m going to go get ready.”
“Oh, your first client canceled,” she told him, and he stared at her. She could have at least texted him to let him know that he didn’t have to come in. On the other hand, there was no point, because what would he have been doing? Sitting around at home, not sleeping, miserable?
“Hey, so that guy who came in yesterday.” Sidney tilted her head to the side, and a coy look came into her eyes. She liked him. Of course, she liked him. John was gorgeous. Anyone could see that. “What’s your deal with him?”
“What do you mean?” Brett asked, busying himself by taking off his winter gear and stowing it away in the closet off of the reception area. He paid more attention to this task than it perhaps strictly required, but it was better than looking at her.
“Oh, I just mean, the way you looked at him, the way he looked at you, I was sort of wondering if you had a thing going with him,” she spoke far too casually, and if Brett turned around, which he very carefully didn’t do, he knew he would see her eyes gleaming.
“No,” Brett spoke very firmly, very quietly, very decisively. “He’s been my best friend for years. That’s …” He closed his eyes, grateful that she couldn’t see him do it. “That’s all there is.”
No matter how much he would have liked for it to be otherwise.
“Oh, really? Because the way he talked, I sort of thought …” she started, and Brett thought that he might actually scream at the tops of his lungs if she didn’t stop talking.
When the phone on her desk jangled insistently at her, it was a huge relief, and Brett bowed his head and took a few deep breaths, trying to get himself together. He couldn’t go around shutting down like this whenever anyone talked about John. Or when he saw something that reminded him of John, because the truth was, it seemed like everything did.
“Brett?” Sidney’s voice brought him back to himself, and Brett opened his eyes and forced his face to neutrality as he turned back around. “There’s a potential new client, he says he’s five minutes away, and he wonders if you would be able to see him. It’s short notice, I know, but since your client canceled …”
Brett nodded, and his eagerness to accept had nothing to do with the money, or with how thrilled his boss always was when someone new came in. It was all about getting out of this increasingly awkward situation.
“I’ll see him.” He turned to leave, to go get ready, and as he went, he heard Sidney speaking rapidly into the phone, then dropping it in the receiver.
“Hey!” she called out to him, and he paused briefly. “I wanted to talk to you about John. Is everything …”
Whatever she was going to say, he didn’t want to know. So he started to walk again, his exhaustion making everything oddly clear, the hallway, the door, which he opened, and inside, the massage table and the pillows and all of the oils and lotions that he used.
He had just broken up with the guy, for crying out loud. He wasn’t going to help someone else get with him. So he didn’t feel any need to hear anything that Sidney said.
* * *
The client was incredibly handsome.
It was all noted in a very clinical way, but even in his grief, Brett couldn’t help but see that. Flashing, dramatic dark eyes, black curls, olive skin, tall, broad-shouldered, confident. Brett knew all of those things within about ten seconds of the man walking into the room.
Not that it particularly mattered to him. Very few people appealed to him, and right now, with his heart shattered into pieces about John, he doubted that anyone could really make him feel anything. No one but John, and John already had one foot out of the door. At least one foot.
“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice.” The man shot him a smile, teeth so white that they seemed to glimmer, and even as he was thanking Brett, Brett got the impression that this was a man who was used to getting what he wanted. That he might be being polite, but that he had fully expected to be accommodated, even at the last minute and so close to Christmas.
“Of course,” Brett replied, looking curiously at the man. People this confident were an enigma to him. “I’m Brett. What brings you in today?”
It was a relief to fall into these old, familiar rhythms. He could just listen, focusing intently, as the man, who introduced himself as Alessandro, explained that he had been having headaches, tension in his shoulders and neck. Pretty standard problems, ones that Brett felt confident he could help with.
Actually, everything felt pretty normal until Alessandro started to strip his shirt off before Brett had even left the room.
