11. Chapter Ten
Chapter Ten
T here was a game on. Bodies crashed into each other on the screen behind the bar.
No one was paying much attention, but every now and again, a play would be good or bad enough to drag a reaction from the other clientele.
Joe watched it for a moment, distracted by the novelty of something that wasn’t animated on the screen.
“We can sit at the bar,” Quentin offered.
Joe shifted his attention back to his…date?
Date.
That sounded accurate, but it felt…dangerous. So far, despite the meals and banter and how well Joe knew what Quentin’s mouth tasted like, he’d not softened his answer.
He wasn’t ready for anything real.
A ‘date’ though? That had an official stamp about it. It opened the door to, god knows, a second date? A third?
Sleepovers.
…he needed to spend more time with adults.
That aside, Joe wasn’t sure any of that was going to work for him, but he didn’t want to leave either.
“I’m not sure I appreciate the way you put me on the spot,” Joe remarked as he pulled his chair out from the table. “But—”
“Doesn’t that mean you might appreciate it?” Quentin interrupted curiously as he leaned on the back of his chair. His shirt pulled tight over lean shoulders and collar gaped open, wide enough to show where his tan faded out and the light scruff of hair on his chest. “That maybe you’re even glad I—”
“Don’t push it,” Joe said as he sat down. “But since you did put me on the spot, and we’re on a…here, I’m going for the full experience.”
Quentin chuckled as he straightened up. “You should have said. We could have gone somewhere nicer.”
The idea made Joe wince as he picked up the menu. He was already mentally subtracting inessentials from the budget for next week, trading another round of watered-down shampoo for—
“Two beers,” Quentin’s confident order interrupted Joe’s penny-pinching math. “Whatever’s good.”
Joe glanced up to find the server, all buoyant red ponytail and bright smile, already at their table. Her pen scratched over the paper as she took the order down.
“No, that’s not necessary,” Joe interjected quickly. “Water’s fine.”
“It is,” Quentin agreed. “But you don’t have to drink it just because it’s my round. You can have a beer. Or there’s strawberry lemonade?”
That —Joe checked the menu—cost more than the beer. He could insist on the water, but with the human version of Strawberry Shortcake hovering cheerfully next to them, he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. She’d make assumptions. Some of them would probably be right.
“One beer,” he said.
The order was taken, a promise to be back shortly given, and then it was just the two of them again. Joe fixed Quentin with a firm look.
“You can’t do that,” he said. “Not all the time.”
He expected Quentin to try to lie about it. They would both know he was, but that was what plausible deniability was all about. Instead, he just got a shrug as Quentin picked up his menu.
“Trust me, I could do it more,” Quentin said. “I’m already practicing restraint.”
Joe took a deep breath as he went against the grain. He was about to be honest.
“I’m fine ,” he said. OK, that wasn’t off to a great start on the honesty front.
Maybe it would come easier as he went along.
“But money is a bit…tight at the moment. If we’re going to try this, I can’t keep up with you on spending.
I know it’s just a beer, but I already owe you for a shirt, and the range, and…
I don’t want to always feel like I have my hand in your pocket. ”
There was a beat, and then Quentin glanced up from the menu, his dark eyes wicked with humor. “I mean…” he said, the word drawn out over his tongue.
“You know what I meant,” Joe said. “I don’t want to feel like I’m being bought.”
Quentin put his menu down. He looked…he actually looked annoyed. At Joe. That was new. Joe didn’t think he liked it. He had to resist the urge to hide behind his menu.
“I didn’t mean that like it sounded,” he said.
“Good. And it’s a beer and maybe a steak,” Quentin said. “At the going rate, I don’t think that would get me any further than you’ve already gone for free.”
That reminder made Joe flush and splutter something awkward as he disappeared behind his menu.
****
He had a beer.
He’d drawn the line at steak, but he did get the fish and ‘chips’ since apparently this was an Irish bar on the weekend. They weren’t bad. He picked idly at the fries as he watched Quentin try to fend off a persistent DoorDasher.
“I’m in a bar,” Quentin said sharply, punctuating his words with a wave of his hand at their surroundings. “Why would I order food? There’s food here.”
The dasher looked at Quentin’s plate, and then she shrugged. “It’s dessert.”
“They sell cake.”
“Maybe it’s shit.”
“It’s not.”
“Well, you’re Harry?”
“No.”
She rolled her eyes and put her hand on her hip. “I don’t know what to tell you, dude,” she said. “This is where I was told to leave it. Look, whoever Harry is? He already tipped, so just…take the food.”
Quentin rubbed his eye; the lid wrinkled under the pressure of his finger.
“Leave it at the bar,” he said. “Because I didn’t order it, I don’t know Harry, and I don’t want to deal with him when he comes looking for his food.
The dasher looked at him. She popped her gum and looked at Joe. “You want some cookies?” she asked.
He swallowed a laugh and shook his head. The dasher sighed, rolled her eyes, and left muttering to herself.
“I swear, I’m trying to stop calling people stupid,” Quentin muttered. “They do not make it easy.”
“She’s just doing her job,” Joe pointed out.
“Not her,” Quentin said. “Harry, whoever he is. If you are going to order street dessert, you give good directions. Idiot.”
“That’s the same as stupid,” Joe pointed out.
Quentin gave him an aggrieved look. “You’re just going to take everything from me, aren’t you?”
Joe was startled into a laugh that made neighboring tables glance their way. He waved an apology at them and shook his head.
“You don’t have to listen to me,” he said.
“It’s not like you’re wrong,” Quentin admitted. Then he quirked his mouth up briefly and added, “Or the first to say it. I’ve never been known for my patience.”
Joe started to agree, but…he supposed he didn’t know about that. Quentin could be brusque and had a devastatingly pointed eyebrow tilt, but he’d never been impatient. Not with Joe or the kids, or the cat. He reached for his beer and took a drink.
“Do you want to talk about it, by the way?” Quentin asked.
Joe broke the crispy end of the slab of battered fish and took a bite. Salt, vinegar, and grease coated his tongue in a hot sting of taste.
“About what?”
“Money?” Quentin said as he speared a bit of asparagus. “Or the lack thereof?”
“You know what?” Joe said. “No.”
“Sure?” Quentin asked.
Joe sighed and batted a pea idly around his plate, coating it in salt. “It’s been a while since I’ve done this,” he said. “But I’m not sure ‘here’s why my family and I would be a massive burden on you’ gets you a second date. Even with someone with a savior complex.”
There was a pause as Quentin took a bite of his steak. Then he leaned forward, elbow on the table and chin resting on his fist.
“I think we both know I’d take you on a second date if you told me you were getting married tomorrow.”
Joe put his knife and fork down. “Why?”
He’d been wanting to ask that for a while. Without any false modesty, he was an OK-looking man (who still needed a haircut) with a lot of responsibilities. If Joe looked at himself from the outside, he didn’t think he’d have fallen this hard.
Quentin should have looked confused at being put on the spot. Apparently, he’d thought about it, though. Joe supposed that made sense. When you were all-in on a relationship with a trainwreck, it was natural to spend time wondering how you’d gotten there.
“You’re special,” he said
“That’s not an answer,” Joe said. “Also, I’m…I’m not .”
Quentin snorted. “The minute I saw you, I wanted to make sure you were OK,” he said.
“And I’ve gotten to know you since—that you’re funny and kind and love the people in your life so hard—and that makes me like you more.
But that first day, all I knew was that you mattered to me…
and not that many people do. So you’re special. I don’t make the rules.”
That was…a lot.
It felt like Joe was all heat and sugar inside, his chest tight, and he had to remind himself to breathe. Under that, though, a panicked little goblin squatted in the back of his brain, hands over its head, and screamed, “How can I live up to that?!”
How could he let someone love … want him that much, when he’d loved someone else?
When Alan still owned bits of him…as angry as he still was at the man for dying.
It wasn’t fair. He hadn’t known if he could feel like that about someone again.
He still didn’t, he wanted to…but he had all those responsibilities, and that meant he had to be logical.
Sensible.
“Oh,” Joe said as he picked up a lonely fry to give his hands something to do. Quentin deserved someone who wasn’t sensible.
“I also really want to fuck you,” Quentin added conversationally. “But I’m not sure if that’s why I like you or just a bonus.”
Joe choked on his fry. He thumped his chest with the heel of his hand while Quentin shoved a glass of water in front of him. By the time he cleared his throat and wiped his eyes on his napkin, the goblin-of-good-sense had been shoved into a sack, beaten, and tossed out of sight.
“I don’t really feel like dessert,” Joe said as he pushed his almost empty plate away from him. “What about you?”
Quentin smiled slowly as he grabbed his beer to finish it off.
“I kind of do,” he said, his voice thick and dirty enough that Joe didn’t mistake his meaning for a second. “But not here.”
Joe really didn’t want to know if it was a bad idea or not. He didn’t want to think it through or second-guess himself. Just this once, he just…
…wanted.