Chapter 13 #3
Still playful, still looking for a back and forth. A back and forth that Connor couldn’t give.
How hard would it be for him to say something like “good thing the patrons are so handsome” or something else witty and flirty? Why couldn’t he just do that much?
Because he knew that wasn’t his to have. None of this was.
Nate seemed to have sensed the shift in his mood. Connor watched his smile fade, something more troubled in his expression. A shared realization, he was sure, that this wasn't something either of them could have. They didn’t get to want this.
But he wanted it. More than Connor had ever wanted another person, he wanted Nate. And Nate couldn’t be worse for him.
“Nate,” Connor started, taking a steadying breath. Easy, this was going to be easy.
We’re not doing this anymore. That’s all he needed to say. I liked you, I enjoyed our time together, we’re not doing this anymore.
But he couldn’t.
Nate was the one who broke the silence between them, his smile fading.
“That bad, huh?”
He was still trying to joke with Connor, still trying to defuse tension.
Connor felt like he was going to be sick.
“It’s not that,” he managed in a quiet voice, wanting to say more, wanting to explain–
But then Nate was talking and it was gone.
“I know you said you don’t, uh, date guys who aren’t out, and I get that. That’s okay, you know. I’m not trying to make anything harder for you. I’m just not ready to come out. I don’t know if I ever will.”
“That’s not what it is.” Connor found his voice again, pushing back his bowl, finding his courage somewhere it had been buried deep. “It was never about that. I just said that to… it was an excuse.”
He needed to be a man, be at least half the man his dad had raised him to be, and at least tell Nate the truth. He deserved that. He deserved so much more, but this was what Connor could give.
“Oh.” Nate seemed surprised, his brow furrowing, like Connor was a puzzle he was trying to figure out. “Then what is it?”
“Look. I asked you over because–I needed to–”
“To tell me we’re done, right?” Nate cut in again.
Connor was starting to wish he wouldn’t do that–it was hard enough trying to find the words without having to compete with him for speaking time. But Nate was speaking again before he could even get his words in order.
“It’s okay. I kind of figured as much. I’ve put you in a weird position, I’m your boss, and it’s not fair to–”
"It's because I’m not over my ex,” Connor finally managed, this time being the one to interrupt him.
And for once, Nate seemed to be entirely without words.
“Dawson?” He asked, surprised. But Connor shook his head.
“No. Devore.”
All the world had seemed to slow between them, Connor playing casual by taking a bite while Nate stared. And then he seemed to catch himself, realizing he was staring. He tried to play it off, but Connor could only imagine what was going through his head.
“Devore?” Nate repeated, like he hadn’t heard that name before. Like he was still trying to give Connor a way out. Like what he was about to confess wasn’t career-ending.
But somehow Connor held fast. He didn’t flinch, even when he should have. How was it he could even look Nate in the eye right now?
“Curtis Devore,” he repeated, letting the man’s name carry the weight it had held over him for the better part of the last three years.
Nate looked like he didn’t know how he was supposed to respond to that, not that Connor could blame him. He’d never told anyone about Devore. Not a soul. Not until now.
“The old IR director?”
“Yeah,” Connor answered shakily. He eyed that bottle of wine on the counter, considering another glass. But his fingers twitched and instead, he took a few bites of pasta before abandoning his bowl.
The way Nate was looking at him was too kind, too understanding. Too tender. More than he deserved by a mile.
“What happened?” Nate asked, his tone gentle, like he was speaking to a cornered feral cat.
“I’m sure you can piece it together,” Connor said a little too harshly, perhaps out of instinct to deny what he knew was wrong, what he knew had been wrong for years.
“Probably. But I wouldn’t have the full picture, you know.”
Connor didn’t say anything for a moment, so Nate took a few bites, still eyeing him like he might spring up and flee from his own apartment.
For a moment, Connor considered throwing Nate out, but he didn’t. He couldn’t.
“I loved him.” He spoke a little softer now, regretting how sharp he’d been.
Nate was the last person who deserved that.
“I would have… I would have done anything for him and… I realized one day that unless something changed, I was going to spend the rest of my life underneath him. And I couldn’t do that. ”
Nate pursed his lips, his expression unreadable. Connor could only imagine what he was thinking, what he thought about him now.
“When I came in,” Nate said, “I heard a lot of stuff about him. Rumors, hearsay, all about how, uh, he left.”
“Yeah,” Connor said mechanically. “Figured you did.”
“They say it was an ethics breach.”
“I’m sure they do.” He shrugged a shoulder, trying to pretend to feel nonplussed.
For a moment, neither man spoke, Connor feeling a bit like he was caught in a staring contest now, waiting for one of them to break.
He knew where this was going. Really, it was a surprise that this had never come up before.
“Did you know about–”
“What do you think I knew?” Connor didn’t mean to sound as sharp as he did when he asked, but here he was, half-eaten bowls of fettuccine alfredo between them.
Nate didn’t answer for a while. And when he spoke, his voice was gentle.
“I think… you would have been in an impossible position. And whatever decisions you had to make-” He shook his head, “It’s nothing I get to sit here and condemn.”
And of all the things that Connor expected Nate to say, he’d never imagined this.
It was an impossible gift, the kind of kindness that might seem unthinkable for Connor. And yet here it was, right before him.
He felt his mask shatter, catching sight of himself in the reflection of the TV across the room–a stranger in his own apartment, sitting across from a man whose face felt like the only familiar thing in view.
And he turned away again, turned before he was forced to confront the effect Nate’s words had on him–before Nate could see, too. But it wasn’t fast enough.
“I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t–” Nate started to say, but he didn’t get a chance to finish because Connor couldn’t bear to hear it.
He was the one who moved first, a quick kiss across the table to quiet his apology.
And when Connor drew back, silently asking with soft eyes and parted lips, Nate was the one who caught him before he could pull away, fingers loosely wrapped around his wrist. And Connor kissed Nate again and again, in all the ways he’d wanted to, in all the ways he had accepted never getting to have again.
In all his years of being an out gay man, Connor had only kissed a handful of men. Dawson had tasted like tobacco and the salt of some distant lake. Devore held the too-sweet tang of a bourbon, his lips bearing the essence of power against Connor’s.
But Nate tasted almost like coffee, warming Connor from the inside out, his grasp around his wrist less like a vice and more like a lover’s embrace.
God help him. Connor couldn’t possibly throw him out now.
They kissed in an easy back and forth, a slide of lips against lips, the barely-there request for a bit of tongue which Connor gladly obliged, his thoughts hazy against the comfortable warmth of Nate pressed so close.
“I want you,” Connor murmured, half surprising himself. Surprising Nate, too, the way he drew back, his eyebrows arched high. But Connor only kissed him again, catching him by the shoulder so he couldn’t pull back. “I want you.”
Ridiculous. He was beyond ridiculous, nothing more than a horny, lonely man who had fallen straight into the arms of another man, a man who–who had only ever welcomed Connor in with the reminder that the door wasn’t locked behind him.
He could leave whenever he wanted.
He could throw Nate out of his apartment if he wanted, and somehow–somehow Connor held no doubt that they’d both forget this ever happened.
But he didn’t want that.
“I want you, I want you,” Connor breathed again and again against Nate’s lips, like a prayer gasped between kisses.
And Nate only answered by holding him so gently, hands light against his upper arms, holding Connor upright but not keeping him in place,
“Have me, have me. I’m yours,” Nate answered with all the naked devotion of a priest at an altar, and Connor didn’t doubt him for a minute.
He didn’t hesitate when he pulled Nate into his bedroom, couldn’t let himself be embarrassed by the unmade bed and pile of laundry on his dresser that needed folding. With Nate's hand in his, those dark eyes centered right on Connor, none else mattered between the two of them.
Nate was the one who caught Connor first, two fingers under his chin as they kissed, all the while Connor traced the length of his shoulders, broad and strong beneath the expensive fabric of his shirt.
Try as he might to pretend otherwise, he knew Nate's body now, knew how his weight would feel pressing him into his own bed. The warmth of his body was comfortable against Connor’s, craved even.
Utter perfection.
Nate pulled off his shirt first, at Connor's bidding, of course. He'd been pawing at the buttons until Nate's hands covered his.
“Hold on, I got this,” he said with a little chuckle, grinning over at Connor as he just popped open the first button and pulled his shirt off, revealing that same body Connor had only seen twice before but hadn't stopped thinking about in the days since.
In another life, Nate could have made one hell of a Calvin Klein model, the black band of his underwear peeking out from beneath the waistband of his jeans, his body promising soft edges and solid lines in the rippling of his muscles beneath warm bronze skin.