The Inside Edge, page 15
What had Nate forgotten? Had he ordered a replacement for the charcuterie they’d eaten?
“Happy Thanksgiving.”
Was that a hundred-dollar bill?
“No problem.” The girl beamed. “Enjoy your pie!”
Aubrey caught a whiff of warm cinnamon and nutmeg. As he turned back toward the apartment, he briefly met Nate’s eyes.
Nate flushed and turned away, and Aubrey’s face went hot. “Well.” Nate cleared his throat. “Dinner’s on. Let’s eat.”
While Aubrey was upstairs, Nate had moved everything into serving dishes and set the table, including a nice set of lit candlesticks. He’d set out the second bottle of wine Aubrey had brought earlier. If not for his parents’ presence, it would’ve felt like a romantic gesture.
As they sat around the table, Aubrey looked for a cue as to whether they’d be saying grace. Nate had mentioned his parents were not particularly religious, but once they were all settled around the table, Nate’s mom reached out to either side—to Aubrey on one side and Nate on the other—and grasped their hands.
“I know it’s a cliché, but I’d like us to take a moment”—oh no—“and say what we’re thankful for.”
Nate blanched. “Mom,” he protested. “You can’t just spring that on Aubrey when he just met you a couple of days ago.”
“Oh, honestly, Nate. He doesn’t have to say anything about you.” Diane shook her head at him and turned to Aubrey. “You don’t, dear. It’s plain for anyone to see how thankful you are for each other. It would be cheating.”
Aubrey wanted to crawl under the table. “Right,” he croaked.
Fucking help me, he tried to tell Nate with his eyes.
Sorry, every man for himself, he imagined Nate replying.
“Diane,” Elliot broke in, “don’t you think you’re going to scare him off? They’ve only been dating a little while.”
“I walked in on him naked before we were introduced,” Diane said. Nate beat Aubrey to the wine bottle. “If he hasn’t run screaming by now, I think he’ll be fine. Anyway, I’ll go first.”
Thank God for twist-offs, Aubrey thought as Nate filled his glass. He continued filling while his mom spoke.
“This year I am thankful for my health and my family’s health. For my sweet, adorable first grandchild.”
Nate and Aubrey locked eyes. Nate filled his glass three-quarters full and then moved on to the next one.
“I’m thankful for homemade meals.” Nate finished her pour, and she raised her glass. “And store-bought wine.”
Aubrey laughed, grabbing his own, and Diane said, “Your turn, Elliot.”
Elliot gamely took his wineglass from Nate. “Well, I am thankful for my wonderful wife and her sense of humor, and for my son and his exciting second career as a TV personality, and that my daughter and Jurgen have settled in the States where I can keep an eye on them.” Nate had told Aubrey that Emily and her husband used to be with Doctors Without Borders.
Which brought them to Nate.
He cleared his throat. “Okay. I am grateful for… new opportunities.” He didn’t glance at Aubrey, looking instead at a spot in front of Aubrey’s plate. Fair enough. Aubrey wasn’t exactly comfortable being put on the spot like this either. But this had been Nate’s idea.
When it became apparent Nate wasn’t going to continue, everyone turned to Aubrey.
Thank God he was used to performing under pressure. Besides, Aubrey knew the most convincing lies were the ones with a shred of truth. “Second chances,” he said. With his mother, with Jess and the show. If he was lucky, with Nate… though by now that might be a third chance. “And second impressions,” he added after a beat.
Nate groaned, but Diane threw her head back laughing, and Elliot raised his glass.
“Cheers,” Diane said.
They all touched glasses.
Apparently Nate and Aubrey’s chemistry was as good in the kitchen as it was in the bedroom and the studio. Conversation over dinner was mild and pleasant and didn’t at all make Aubrey want to stage a freak accident with the carving knife just to escape. But the wholesomeness of it carried its own kind of hurt. His own family dinners had never felt like this. When he was very young, they’d been nice enough, but were they close? The specifics of his younger years were lost on him, and by the time he was twelve, the rift between him and his parents felt insurmountable.
But maybe it wasn’t.
Maybe things with Nate weren’t either.
Chapter Sixteen
“WE STILL on for tonight?”
Nate left his stick leaning against the arena wall outside the dressing room and focused on Caley. “Yeah. Why wouldn’t we be?”
“I know you have your parents waiting. I want to make sure they don’t feel like I’m taking you away from them.”
No danger of that. Nate got along well with his parents, but after four days together, they needed some time apart. “Trust me. They’ve been here since Monday. We’re all very happy doing our own thing today.”
Caley smiled. She was obviously still riding the high of her beautiful third-period goal, a wraparound which the goalie, a former pro who now coached at the college level, didn’t see until three seconds after the puck hit the back of the net. “Great. Usual place, or did you want to try the new place the next block over?”
“The usual. Unless the health department’s finally closed it down,” he joked.
Twenty minutes later they met up again in the quiet back booth of a bar that would get progressively rowdier as Friday night wore on.
“So, how was your Thanksgiving?” Caley asked, accepting her drink from the server with a smile of thanks.
Nate strangled a laugh thinking about it. First he’d bitten off more than he could chew with the cooking, and then he’d had his uncomfortable realization about Aubrey, and then the gratefulness speeches…. “Nearly averted disaster?” he suggested. “Next year remind me I don’t need to cook a whole turkey and stuffing and three side dishes plus salad, hors d’oeuvres, and dessert for four people.”
Caley wiped a bit of something pink and frothy from the corner of her mouth. “Honestly, you managed all that? I’m impressed you’re not still sleeping it off.”
“Ah, well, I had help,” he admitted, realizing his mistake only when Caley said, “Wait a minute, four people? I thought it was just you and your parents.”
“Uh,” he said.
Caley narrowed her eyes and leaned across the table with her arms crossed. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with your recent disclosure to Kelly that you’re not interested in dating seriously right now?”
Damn it. He could feel the heat rising in his cheeks again. He hadn’t blushed this much since he was a teenager.
“So there’s a mystery man! I have to admit, you’ve been skating a little looser for a few weeks. Morgan said you must’ve met someone, but I thought maybe just having the divorce over with….”
He might as well tell her—except for one thing. “Promise me you won’t tell Kelly.”
Caley recoiled, blinking like he’d slapped her. “What? I tell her everything. Why wouldn’t I tell her this?”
Nate closed his eyes. “Because it’s Aubrey.”
There. It was off his chest. And maybe, unlike with his parents, he could tell Caley the whole truth. At least then he wouldn’t have to suffer in silence.
“All right,” Caley said. “Start at the beginning.”
Over the next ten minutes, Nate filled her in on everything—from the first frantic night in Winnipeg to the lazy Monday morning that had led to the whole façade. “So now I’ve realized that I have feelings for him, but I already asked him to pretend to be my boyfriend to my parents, and changing the rules now would make me an asshole. We couldn’t date openly anyway, because the show is on the bubble and Jess specifically said don’t change anything. And if the show falls apart because we couldn’t keep it in our pants, I don’t know what I’ll do.”
Caley shifted in her seat, biting her lip, but whatever was on her mind, she kept it to herself. “Have you considered talking to Aubrey?”
Nate made a face. “That would be the mature, rational thing to do.”
“So, no?” She raised her eyebrows. “I hate to tell you, but if you think talking to him about quote-unquote ‘changing the rules now’ makes you an asshole, not talking to him at all would be considerably worse.”
“You’re probably right. I mean, you’re obviously right, I’m just bitter because you didn’t tell me what I wanted to hear.”
“Yeah, I’m not known for doing that.” She nudged him under the table. “It’ll work out or it won’t. It’s not going to break you. Two years ago you didn’t know if you’d ever get over Marty. You can handle this.”
Nate exhaled. That was a fair enough comment. He tilted his beer glass at her to accept it.
“And as for the show….” Ah, here it was. “I wanted to talk to you about that. Or, actually Kelly wanted me to talk to you about that. Or, she didn’t want me to talk to you about that—”
Nate nudged her back. “Caley. Take a breath.”
“Right. Okay.” She sat up straighter and looked him in the eye. “Kelly got an offer from another network. One of their MLB commentators was scheduled to retire after the coming season, but he took a spill on the golf course and broke both his kneecaps.”
Kelly had two Olympic softball medals, so that sounded like a dream assignment for her. “Wow. That’s awesome.”
“That’s what I said.” The server dropped off their usual order of poutine, and Caley dove in and gestured with a forkful of cheesy fries. “I think she’s a little worried about what you’ll say.”
“She shouldn’t be. First of all, it’s business, not personal. Second of all, of course I’m happy for her.” He thought that might be the end of it, but Caley’s body language said there was more she wasn’t telling him. “Caley, what’s going on? You’re being weird.”
“I’m not being weird,” she protested. “Just, I had something on my mind I wanted to talk to you about, and I was kind of banking on Thanksgiving small talk as a lead-in. Only that didn’t happen, and now I’m trying to figure out how to circle back without a huge non sequitur.”
Nate quirked up a corner of his mouth. “How was your Thanksgiving, Caley?”
“Kelly and I are having a baby.” The words came out in a tumble, full of so much love and enthusiasm Nate didn’t have to ask how she felt about it. “I’m due in May.”
“Oh my God! Congratulations.” That explained why she’d ordered the fluffy pink thing instead of a beer. They both stood up so they could hug.
Caley flung her arms around his neck and squeezed. “Thank you so much for introducing us,” she whispered fiercely. “I’m—you know I love Carter like he’s my own, but we wanted a bigger family, and I just… I guess it was the right time.”
He kissed her cheek. “I’m so happy for you both. For all three of you,” he corrected.
She pulled away and took his hands in hers. “I’m glad to hear that, because we have a tiny request.”
“Of course.” They sat back down, and Nate grabbed a forkful of fries. “Shoot.”
“We want you to be the godfather.”
“AUBREY, COME on in.”
He stuck his phone in his back pocket and followed his therapist into her office, fighting the urge to fidget. “Thanks for squeezing me in. I know it was last-minute, and with the holiday….”
Theresa raised an eyebrow that said a lot about how well she knew him. “And with the holiday, lots of people need emergency therapist appointments. That’s why I keep the Friday after Thanksgiving free.” Which you know because I’ve mentioned it before every major holiday went unsaid.
Aubrey nodded distractedly and folded himself into the U-shaped armchair across from her desk. He normally sat on the couch because he liked to sprawl dramatically. Today he wanted something at his back.
He wanted a place to start talking too, but the situation seemed so big.
“I thought you were supposed to be in Hawaii this week?” Theresa said casually as she filled her water bottle from the cooler.
Well, there was his opening. “I was. A friend—” Fuck. He was paying for her time, and the whole point was to talk to someone. If he wasn’t honest, the whole thing was for nothing. “Nate asked if I could stay and pretend to be his boyfriend after his parents basically caught us having sex.”
Theresa didn’t react to that right away, which wasn’t unusual. It wasn’t her job to react to things. Instead she finished filling her bottle and walked back to her desk, where she sat with her feet up. “I see.” Here it comes. “And how does that make you feel?”
Aubrey sighed and pointed to the jar at the corner of her desk. Theresa rolled her eyes, pulled her wallet from her desk drawer, and withdrew a dollar to throw into it. It was a first-offense-per-session penalty, and every month she donated the proceeds to children’s mental health initiatives. “It’s complicated.”
“The part where you’re sleeping with your colleague, the part where you’re lying to his parents, or the part where you pretend to be his boyfriend?”
“Yes.”
She offered a small smile at that, probably more for Aubrey than because it actually amused her. “Why don’t you start at the beginning? At our earlier sessions, you didn’t mention you and Nate have been sleeping together. When did that start?”
That wasn’t judgment, it was a carefully targeted probe. But it did the job just the same. “The end of October. It wasn’t a habitual thing.” He shoved his hands under his legs so he wouldn’t reach for one of the fidget objects on Theresa’s desk. “There was a snowstorm, and our flight out of Winnipeg got canceled, so we went out to a restaurant we’d both been wanting to try.”
“That sounds nice.”
That sounds like a date, he heard. Well, it hadn’t been. “The food was really good, and the cocktails were too. We didn’t get drunk,” he hastened to add. “But somehow we got to talking about sex.”
“Work colleagues do talk about sex sometimes,” Theresa said. “Depending on their personal boundaries and the rules of the workplace. It’s not automatically verboten.”
“Technically I think it is, for us.” But that was neither here nor there. “Anyway. I guess specifically we somehow started talking about his sex life with his ex. Which I guess was, um, unfulfilling.”
“He must trust you a lot to tell you something like that.”
Aubrey opened his mouth to refute that, but then paused. Even Nate had seemed a little surprised he’d confided that. And if he’d told anyone else, well, surely someone would have picked up that gauntlet. “Yeah, I guess he does.” He shook his head and returned to the story. “Anyway, you know me. Nate is hot. I noticed. He said that, and I basically heard, ‘I dare you to do better.’”
That was one of those things he was supposed to be working on in therapy. But even though his failure in this case had led to him needing more therapy, he couldn’t regret it. He knew how good he’d made Nate feel, at least physically. Maybe better than anyone else had ever made him feel.
Too bad that wasn’t enough.
“I’m not going to ask you if you did do better,” Theresa said, because it didn’t take a trained therapist to spot Aubrey trying to find an opening for a brag.
“We agreed it was going to be a one-time thing. It’s… you know, that’s my MO, and I sort of told Nate he should get back at his ex by having a lot of hot unattached sex. He seemed pretty keen on the idea.” Aubrey bit the inside of his cheek to distract himself from a sudden flash of Nate on his side, writhing under Aubrey’s touch. “I didn’t realize until afterward that that wasn’t what I wanted.”
Theresa took her feet off the desk and folded her hands on it instead. “Are you saying you’ve developed romantic feelings for him?”
Aubrey flashed back to dinner last night, sitting with Nate at the dinner table as his parents cleared the dishes—because that was the rule since Nate and Aubrey did the cooking. Looking at him in the candlelight. He’d bought Aubrey an apple pie because he felt bad for not knowing Aubrey’s favorite beforehand. He didn’t have to do that. He didn’t have to find ways to show he was considering Aubrey’s wants and needs, but he did. He did it as naturally as breathing.
“Yes.” His heart was beating too fast, and his chest felt tight.
Theresa got up and filled one of the plastic cups next to the cooler with water. She set it on the edge of her desk where he’d be able to reach it and then sat down again. “Do you need a break?”
He shook his head and reached for the glass. A few careful sips of water helped.
“All right. So you have romantic feelings for Nate, and you agreed that your arrangement was a one-time occurrence. But it sounds like it happened again?”
“It was an accident. I mean, not ‘oops, he tripped and fell on my dick’ sort of an accident. We just both went out to hook up at the same bar, and it was easier to go home together than with someone else.”
Not to mention Aubrey hadn’t wanted to go home with anyone else once he realized he could go home with Nate. But he was pretty sure Theresa got the point.
“Well, you probably don’t need me to tell you that continued casual sex with someone you have romantic feelings for isn’t the best choice you could make for your emotional health.” Oh gee, you think? “So one thing led to another, and eventually you got caught when Nate asked you to pretend to be his boyfriend? Did he give you a reason?”
“The divorce, basically.” It sucked how fast Aubrey had gone from Yes, he just got divorced, I can fantasize without guilt! to Shit, he just got divorced, so he’s not ready for a serious relationship. “He’s pretty Midwestern in his sensibilities, and his parents are the same. Sweet, but… casual sex just isn’t in his makeup, as far as they’re concerned. He said they’d think he was having a midlife crisis if they knew the truth.”
“That must have hurt.”
Yes. God, yes. He tried to push it down at the time, but how often had someone thrown around those words about him? Hell, he had been a few guys’ midlife crisis, hadn’t he? Young, a little swishy, a lot flashy, confident, athletic, and undeniably masculine. He’d punched the cards of more than one bicurious thirty-to-fortysomething. But he was more than that. He wanted to be more than that.
