Bad Company (14 page)

“I thought you’d decided I was faking it for attention.”

“Initially I did, yes. But other information has come to light.”

Holy shit. Did his dad have the apartment bugged? How else could he know what had happened last night?

“At least you have the decency to feel ashamed of it.”

“I’m not ashamed.” Not of that. Not one minute of it.

“Then why are you blushing?” His dad’s disgusted tone made the uncontrollable burn on Kellan’s cheeks sound like Kellan was fucking some guy right in front of him.

“Why are you such a bigot?”

“Name-calling. The final refuge of the loser in an argument. I hardly think it makes me a bigot to want my son safe, free of an unhealthy lifestyle.”

Kellan tried to explain that he knew enough to not take risks, but his father cut him off.

“Don’t tell me about your practices; I don’t want to hear it. I’m not only talking about disease. Do you know how many men have lost careers and families by giving in to this? This kind of lifestyle is never going to be accepted. Perhaps I drove you to this, but I’m willing to have you back home, provided you abandon this thing with Leonard’s boy.”

“His name is Nate.” When Kellan swallowed, it felt like there was a gigantic sandbag in his throat. “And you’re wrong.” Damn, that came out too soft.

“What?”

“I said you’re wrong.” Kellan’s voice was stronger now. “You and a bunch of old guys aren’t going to get to decide what people are allowed to do. People don’t think like that anymore.”

“That’s wishful thinking by homosexuals and some deluded liberals. I’ve spoken to senators and governors. I’ve had to hear their concerns about my inability to manage my own household, let alone my business. I’m not going to get into a debate with you. This is unacceptable.”

“Wow. For a minute I almost thought this had something to do with me.”

“It has everything to do with you.” His father opened an envelope, spilling out full-page pictures of Kellan and Nate. Not last night, when they’d actually been doing something, but Kellan resting his hand on Nate’s shoulder as Kellan swung off the scooter, a trip to the market, Kellan waving a zucchini suggestively at Nate, the next shot showing Nate punching Kellan’s shoulder and grabbing the vegetable away, an afternoon too hot to wait in the apartment, Kellan sitting on the steps outside, Nate’s guitar over his knees. Kellan knew exactly what had made him look up and smile like that, the gasping cough of the scooter coming around the corner on Boyer Street. Hell, Kellan was smiling in every shot.

Kellan pulled one of the pictures closer. They were in the laundromat, Nate folding jeans while Kellan was telling some story, hands making some kind of measurement in the air. Nate was watching him, a half smile curling his lips. But it wasn’t what was in that smile that made Kellan want to hide this picture from his dad, from anyone who wanted to judge Nate for that look on his face. There was something softening Nate’s eyes, something different from all the times Kellan had seen him this past month.

Kellan’s chest got tight and hot and cold all at the same time, and he grabbed the picture off the table. He couldn’t stop the smile from breaking on his face, so wide his jaw—even his ears—ached, the crush in his chest making him dizzy. Careful not to crease Nate’s face, he folded the picture and stuck it in his pocket.

“Well?” Geoffrey asked.

“Pictures don’t lie, Dad. I’m gay. I’m in love with another man.”
Holy shit. And he’s in love with me.

His father picked up a brass paperweight and slammed it down on Kellan’s phone.

Kellan jerked away, but there was no shrapnel. “Now who’s losing the argument?”

“If you leave now, Kellan, it’s not just the money. You’ll really be on your own. No protection.”

“That almost sounds like a threat.”

“Of course it’s not a threat. Do you think I want something to happen to you? After Keegan?”

“Well, either way, I guess you get your wish. It’ll be like I was never born.”

“You’re a hell of a negotiator.”

But there was a tremble in his father’s voice Kellan wished he couldn’t hear. “I’m not negotiating anything.”

“I’ll put another zero on the check. Five million, Kellan. That’ll go a hell of a long way. I’ll set you up with a financial manager, and you won’t ever have to ask me for money again.”

It wasn’t the money but the desperation in his father’s voice that held him there when all he wanted to do was get back to Nate.

“Dad, look at this.” Kellan held up the picture of him playing the guitar. “Look at me. Couldn’t you just be happy because I’m happy?”

Geoffrey slapped the picture away in a flash of rage, and Kellan wondered if his father would hit him. “Fooling around with some boy is not going to make you happy.”

“Wrong again, Dad. It already has.”

Kellan knew where the BBEx offices in Dundalk were in relation to Nate’s apartment, but he had no idea what buses to take to get there. He had a twenty in his pocket, but in a rainy rush hour, he couldn’t spot a cab anywhere.

He’d started slogging his way west when a car pulled up on the curb, slow enough to spare him the gutter douche. When he recognized the black Town Car, hope loosened some of the knots in his stomach. Maybe his dad had finally listened. Maybe his dad actually cared if Kellan was happy, instead of under control.

But when Shep rolled down the tinted window, Kellan could see the rest of the car was empty. “Need a ride?”

“Did he send you?”

“No. He’s working late. I’ve got maybe forty-five minutes, so if you’re getting in…”

Kellan jumped into the passenger seat. “Thanks, Shep.”

His father’s driver nodded and pulled away, whipping through traffic toward Butcher’s Hill.

When Shep pulled up on the corner near Nate’s apartment, Kellan tried to hand him the twenty from his pocket.

“No, thanks. I think you need that more than I do. Tina said to tell you good luck.”

Kellan climbed out and then leaned back in. “Thank her for me.” His father’s secretary had always been nice to him, despite the way Kellan used her like his own travel agent when he was too lazy to book his flights and hotels. “And thank you.”

“He’s not a monster, Kellan. He does worry about you.”

Kellan shrugged. He wasn’t even that pissed at his father anymore. All he wanted was to go see Nate, to find out if what he saw in that picture was true.

Shep tipped his hat and pulled away.

Chapter Sixteen

Nate had a definite plan about wallowing in sheets that still smelled like Kellan, so when Eli pressed the buzzer for Nate’s apartment, he thought twice—and then three times—about letting him in, but Eli kept pressing the buzzer.

At last Nate tapped the intercom.

“I’m not letting you freak out over this alone.”

“I’m fine. Go home.” Nate switched off the intercom, and Eli pressed the buzzer again.

With a wind-tunnel-force sigh, Nate let him in.

He knew why Eli was here. After a few people in the
Charming Rag
office had politely inquired about the bug up Nate’s ass, Eli had been dispatched to get the truth out of him. Eli had set up an ambush when Nate left his office to pee.

And Nate had never been good at lying.

The brush-off Nate had given him at the office didn’t stop Eli from appearing in his doorway now. “Of course he’s coming back,” Eli said, dropping his soaking umbrella in the hall.

“No. He’s not.”

“He loves you, the poor deluded soul.”

“Eli, it was only a scam.”

“What was?”

“The whole star-crossed lovers thing. Kellan’s dad did toss him out, but for fucking everything in a skirt, not for being gay. Kellan just wanted to embarrass his dad, so he pretended to come out. I’m sorry. I should have told you.”

“Bullshit. I know you too well. You’d never have gone along with that.”

“I did.” And he told him about their parents, and the formula, and the promise of exposing the Brooks Company’s so-called cleanup bid.

“But I saw you. You guys—I mean, he did come across a little weird at first, but I thought that was because he’d been so closeted, but Kellan’s not straight. Fuck, Nate, he had his tongue in my mouth.”

Nate shook his head. He didn’t really need the reminder right then. It was going to be hard enough to see Kellan with his hands all over his next bimbo on the gossip sites.

Eli grabbed Nate’s arm. “I’ve seen him look at you. And that sure as fuck told me I wouldn’t be getting another chance with you.”

“Yeah, well, he’s one hell of an actor. He should have stayed on TV.”

“Oh, honey.” Eli pulled Nate into a hug.

Eli couldn’t help spilling his emotions all over any more than Nate could help wanting to give the guy a shove out the door so he could brood about this on his own. He tried to extricate himself from the comforting hug that was only making him more uncomfortable, when he heard the sound of big feet on the wooden stairs.

Nate’s chest was already tight when Eli squeezed harder, astonishing Nate by lifting his feet off the floor a half an inch. So what if Kellan was back. It didn’t mean he was staying.

Nate hadn’t bothered to lock the upstairs door after letting Eli in, so the door swung open under Kellan’s hand.

“I told you he’d come back.” Eli ran and gave Kellan the same big-squeeze treatment, though Kellan’s feet stayed on the floor.

“Was there a question about that?” Kellan looked at Nate. “Was I supposed to find someplace else to stay?”

“You can cut that stuff out, Kellan. I told Eli it was all a fake.”

Kellan kept looking at Nate, like there was something Nate was supposed to do. Nate dropped his gaze and went to the fridge. Eli had brought over an X-treme Cream and a Tangococo. For Kellan.

“Fake, huh?” Kellan said. “I didn’t know a guy could fake orgasms.”

Nate coughed. Half the mouthful of cream soda went into his lungs, half went up his nose, and almost all of it ended up on his arm as he spluttered and wiped his face.

“Okay, baby?” Kellan patted Nate’s back, hand then grasping his shoulder in a tight pinch.

Nate turned and rubbed his face into Kellan’s shirt.

“You getting cream on me another way is exactly how I remember it.”

Eli laughed. “I remember you liked the tangerine-coconut, so I got you one.”

“Oh yeah, just one of the many things I couldn’t get back home.”

Nate dug his chin into Kellan’s shoulder to get him down the last few inches Nate needed to whisper in his ear. “What the fuck is going on?”

Kellan’s hand slid down Nate’s back and cupped his ass, while using his other hand to reach into the fridge for the soda.

Nate jerked free.

Kellan uncapped the soda and leaned against the sink. “So I guess you guys want to know what happened?”

“Duh.” Eli rolled his eyes.

Kellan milked every last bit of attention, pausing to drink from the bottle so that Nate had to watch the bob of his throat, the motion of his jaw, everything he couldn’t have. Why hadn’t he taken advantage of the opportunity last night and tasted that skin, felt it with his tongue?

“My dad was impressed.”

“Really?” Eli was a perfect fawning audience.

“Well, not with me, with Nate. Sorry, man. He thinks you turned me gay.”

“Didn’t I?”

“I thought that wasn’t possible, Mr. Advice Column guy.”

“For fuck’s sake, Nate…” there went Eli’s eyes again, “…you know sexual orientation is set by the age of six by the latest and probably in utero.”

“And is also influenced by environmental factors,” Nate added.

“Oh, like I had an absent father and that made me girlie.” Eli held up a limp-wristed hand. “That is so retro, it’s like the fucking fifties.”

“Do you guys want to hear the story or not?” Kellan thunked the bottle onto the counter.

“Sorry, Kellan,” Eli said.

Kellan looked at Nate.

“I’m not stopping you.” What the hell did Kellan want from him?

“So my dad says he’s getting grief from all those homophobic politician buddies of his and puts this check on the desk and says it’s mine if I come home and fly straight.”

“Did you rip it up?” Eli was almost bouncing on his feet like he was watching a parade. “Wait, how much was it for?”

Kellan shrugged. “Half a mil.”

Eli staggered and slapped a hand against the counter. “I feel faint.”

Nate heard some buzzing in his own ears. Five hundred thousand dollars might not be a lot to the Brooks family, but it went to hell and back in Nate’s world.

And Kellan hadn’t said whether or not he took it.

“I didn’t rip it up.” Kellan grinned. “I told him no. That I was happy right where I was.”

“Did it occur to you that you could have cashed the check and then told your father no?” Nate suggested.

“There’s always strings with the old man’s money.”

“Breaking news: Nate Gray is a fucking asshole. The man gave up a-a-a—I can’t even say it, I’ll pass out—a half a million dollars for you.” Eli stabbed Nate with a pointed finger.

“Well, I wouldn’t exactly call that breaking news,” Kellan said with a smile.

“Thanks.” Nate glared. “So where does that leave you?”

Kellan folded his arms across his chest. “I was kind of hoping here.”

“Nate, if you don’t blow him right now, I will.”

“Eli—” Nate ground his teeth together and grabbed the grinning Kellan to haul him into the bathroom.

“Oh yeah. Do it right,” Eli called after them. “I want to hear him this time.”

Nate shut the door then leaned his head against it.

“So I guess that means you’re not going to blow me?” Kellan’s voice was too close, but there was no room to get away from him.

“Be serious for a second. What happened?”

“I wasn’t lying. He offered me money, said he didn’t like the idea of me being gay—”

“So he believed you now?”

“He had pictures.”

Nate hadn’t stuttered a word since he had speech therapy in first grade. “Last n-n-n-night?”

“No. Just us hanging around.” Kellan dropped the lid on the toilet seat and sat on it, then pulled Nate into an awkward sprawl on his lap. “Now that didn’t go like I thought it would.”