Chapter 21
“Yo, Morr. You coming with us?" Jenkins appeared at my elbow. "We're hitting up Broderick's."
"Can't."
Jenkins flinched like I'd just kicked his dog. "Huh?"
"I said can't."
"You've said that three times this week."
"I've been busy three times this week."
"Busy with what?" Jenkins asked.
"Things," I said.
"What things?"
"Jenkins."
"I'm just asking—"
"Wes," Chappell called, appearing from the locker room with his bag over one shoulder. "You coming out?"
"Can't," I said.
Chappy eyed me like he was doing arithmetic, which, god love him, I wasn't sure Chappy could do.
"You know," he said, "Emma's got a friend. A figure skater. He’s been—"
"Chappy," I said.
"I'm just saying. You're what, twenty-three?"
"Last time I checked."
"One day you'll want to settle down," he said. Chappy had been married to Emma for, like, forever, I think. "Married life," Chappy continued, "is genuinely great. Like, I know everyone says that but I mean it. You come home and someone's there. Emma made this thing last week with—"
"Chappy."
"I'm just saying. You're out every night, Morr. That gets old." He paused. "You don't want to end up alone like Dr.—"
"Chappy," I said.
He stopped.
"Don't," I said.
He blinked.
"Anyway," Jenkins said quickly. "We're just grabbing drinks. You could come for one."
"I said—"
"What's the skater's name?"
I jumped.
Actually jumped.
Like full-body flinch, shoulders up, heart kicking hard against my ribs, because there had absolutely not been a six-foot-something tattooed nightmare standing there two seconds ago, and now there was.
Foster stood just behind Chappy's shoulder like he'd materialized out of the lockers.
The dude was tall, with ink crawling up both forearms like he lost a fight with a Sharpie.
Expression unreadable in that deeply unsettling way where you couldn't tell if he was bored or planning something extremely illegal.
Maybe both.
He was also standing way too close.
I resisted the urge to take half a step sideways, because I was not about to give the man the satisfaction of knowing he'd successfully activated my fight-or-flight response.
"His name? No clue, man. I'm just saying," Chappy said, "It's nice to have someone."
It’s nice to have someone.
"Yeah." I nodded. "I know."
Chappy looked at me for a second longer than necessary. Then he let it go, which was the thing about Chappy, he was not a complicated man. "Anyway. Emma's friend? He’s nice. Just think about it."
"I'm good," I said.
"You sure?"
"Very sure. Have a good night."
Chappy shrugged. "Your loss. Jenkins, you coming?"
"Obviously," Jenkins said, and then, to me, quiet and slightly pointed: "You're being weird lately."
"I'm always weird," I said.
"Different weird," Jenkins said, and followed Chappy down the corridor.
I stood there.
Different weird.
Yeah, I thought. That was probably accurate.
Especially since it had been eight days since the sidewalk outside Sal’s.
Eight days since Nathan had kissed me on a Boston street where anyone could see and said next week, I'll pick the place and walked to his car like it was already done, like next week was just a fact about the future.
Eight days and we had seen each other exactly twice, both times in the facility. I had been losing my mind in a way that I was choosing to describe as frustrating and that was actually something significantly more than frustrating.
Here was the thing.
I had done this before. The going home with someone thing, the one night thing, the easy uncomplicated thing where you both knew what it was and it was good and then it was done and nobody lost any sleep over it. I had done that version many times and I had been good at it and it had worked fine.
This was not that version.
Nathan was a person I wanted to know everything about, and the knowing everything about him had made the other thing—the physical thing, the three a.m. thing, the thing that arrived in the shower and mid-practice and apparently right now in a facility corridor—significantly more urgent rather than less.
Which was new.
Nathan had been away. Four days visiting his family in—uh, somewhere.
He'd said I'll be back Thursday, and I had said okay and had not asked where.
Except I had thought about it constantly, had wondered what Nathan Cross looked like in a family context, whether he wore the same neutral practical colors or whether his mother had opinions about that, whether his father asked about work, whether Nathan sat at a family dinner table and performed the correct version of himself for people who didn't know there were other versions.
I had not asked.
But I had thought about it.
I had also thought about other things. The things that involved Nathan Cross's hands, and the six feet and one inch of him, and the jaw, and the blue eyes.
He'd come back Thursday. We'd had a late game Friday and a film session Saturday morning and every time I thought tonight something happened that was not tonight.
Eight days.
And tonight I was going to finally see him.
The thing I had been doing before Nathan, the flings, the easy one-night transactions, the going home with someone because why not, had not involved eight days of this.
I had not understood, before this, that wanting someone you were actually getting to know was a different category entirely from wanting someone you'd met at a bar at midnight.
It was worse.
It was so much worse.
When I got to his apartment, Nathan opened the door, and I almost forgot how doorways worked.
He wasn't wearing his usual clothes. Not the facility version, not the going-out version, not the apartment version.
Some fourth thing. The sleeves were rolled, which—fine, sleeves rolled was a known quantity, I had cataloged sleeves rolled extensively.
But the shirt was different. Charcoal. Soft-looking.
The collar open one button further than usual, which on Nathan Cross was the equivalent of him answering the door in a robe.
I stood in the doorway.
"Hi," I said.
"Hello," he said.
"You—"
"Come in, Wesley."
I came in.
The lamp was on a different setting. Lower. I had been in this apartment enough times now to know exactly where the lamp lived on the dial and this was not where the lamp lived on the dial. This was three clicks below where the lamp lived on the dial.
There was music. Low. Something classical that I didn't know the name of and definitely couldn't have identified in a lineup. Music that he had selected, on purpose, ahead of time, and pressed play on before opening the door.
Nathan Cross had set a mood.
I stood in the entryway processing this development.
He was already in the kitchen. Back slightly to me. Doing something at the counter.
"You cooked," I said.
He made a noise that kind of sounded like an answer.
I crossed to the counter where Nathan was doing something with something, back to me, sleeves rolled. I came up behind him and put my arms around him and leaned in.
He went still for a second. Then he didn't, which was Nathan Cross accepting being held from behind in his kitchen.
I pressed my face briefly against the back of his neck and breathed in—clean soap, the same clean soap that had been on my shirt months ago—and felt the solid warmth of him, the actual size of him, which in this configuration with my arms around him and my chin at his shoulder was very apparent.
"Nathan," I said.
"Mm."
"Did you make this?"
"I prepared it," he said.
I unwrapped my arms and stepped back and looked at the counter properly. Really looked.
There were small little bowl things. There was something with a sauce. There was a garnish. A fucking garnish. Nathan Cross had cooked a romantic dinner with a garnish.
"Nathan." I looked at him. He was looking at the counter with great focus. "This is too good for you to have made."
A pause.
"I may have had some assistance," he said.
"What kind of assistance?"
"Logistical."
"Nathan."
"A delivery service," he said. With dignity.
I started laughing. I tried not to. I was actively trying not to and I was losing the battle.
"So you ordered it."
"I plated it."
I looked at the bowls. These were his regular bowls. These were the bowls he gave me cereal in once.
"Nathan Cross," I said. "You ordered food from somewhere and put it in bowls you already owned."
"The bowl choice," he said, very precisely, "was considered. I thought about the bowls."
"You thought about the bowls."
"Yes."
"Specifically."
"The dish required a certain depth," he said. "Not every bowl has the right depth."
I was going to die. I was going to die in Nathan Cross's kitchen because he had ordered food for tonight and thought carefully about the bowl depth.
Then he had put on classical music and dimmed the lamp three clicks and answered the door in a charcoal shirt with his sleeves rolled and the collar open one button further than usual. I was going to die here.
"The bowls are great."
"Thank you," he said.
"Excellent depth."
"I thought so."
"Very considered."
"Wesley."
"I'm agreeing with you," I said. "The bowl choice was the right call. I fully support the bowl choice." I leaned against the counter next to him. Close enough that our arms were touching.
"I am just going to need you to know," I said, "that I know. About the food."
"I'm aware you know about the food," he said.
"I just want it on the record."
"It's on the record," he said.
"In the considered bowls."
"Wesley."
"I'm agreeing with you," I said. "The bowl choice was inspired. I fully support the bowl choice." I nudged him with my shoulder. "I am simply noting that you ordered it."
"The presentation is—"
"Nathan."
"Yes."
"Turn around."
A pause. "I'm plating—"
"Nathan. Turn around."
He turned around.
Which was—okay. That was a lot. Sleeves rolled, collar open, looking at me with the expression of a man who had turned around because I asked and was now not entirely sure what he'd agreed to.
I was leaning against his counter in his kitchen with the low lamp and the music that had stopped at some point and eight days sitting in my chest like something that needed somewhere to go.
"Nathan," I said.
"Yes," he said.
"I've been thinking about you for eight days."
He went still.
"Not about the food," I said. "About you.”
"Wesley."
"I just want it documented."
"Documented?"
"In the official record," I said. "Alongside the bowls."
The kitchen was very quiet.
His eyes had moved to my mouth. I knew because I was watching them move and he wasn't trying to hide it, which was new.
"I planned tonight," he said.
"I know," I said.
"I have been thinking about you also."
"I know."
"For approximately the same number of days."
"Nathan."
"Yes."
I closed the distance and kissed him.
I put my hand at his jaw the way he always put his hand at mine and kissed him and felt him go still for exactly one second—the processing second, the Nathan second—and then he wasn't still at all.
His hands found my waist. Pulled me in, which with Nathan meant actually in, the full size of him suddenly very present, warm and solid, and I made a sound against his mouth that I was not going to examine.
He walked me back against the counter.
Not aggressively. Nathan didn't do aggressive, Nathan did deliberate, and this was very deliberate, his hands certain and his mouth certain and the counter at my back and Nathan Cross between me and the rest of the kitchen, which was—a lot. That was a lot of information to be receiving at once.
"The food," I said, against his mouth. Not really a protest.
"It'll keep," he said. And kissed me again before I could say anything else about it. I grabbed his shirt and thought: eight days. Eight days and three a.m. and mid-practice and the bowls.
Worth it, I thought.
So fucking worth it.