The Boy Who Came in From the Cold (13 page)

This time Todd really did smile. “You let
me
worry about the chicken, okay?”

Gabe raised a brow, then dropped it. “Okay. I trust you.”
I trust you.
Wow. Todd smiled even more. Imagine three little words making him feel so good. Could there be three better words?

Gabe had turned again and headed toward the door, when he glanced over at the TV. He stopped. Laughed. Faced Todd. “Leia,” he said. “Your cat. And that comment about your town. Something about how if there’s a shining center to the universe, your town is the farthest one. I’m messing it up, I know, but that’s from
Star Wars
.”

Now Todd felt his head would split in half from his smile. “Duh.” Gabe shook his head and grinned in return. “I’m an idiot. I love those movies.”

 

“Me too,” Todd replied.

 

“Maybe we’ll watch one tonight,” Gabe said. “Just not the first one, okay? I hate Jar Jar.”

 

“Awww,” cried Todd. “Jar Jar really gets the short end of the stick. It’s not fair.”

Gabe was grinning and shook his head. “You’re fighting a losing battle with that one. Don’t even go there. Besides, who said life was fair?” He winked at Todd. “See you tonight.”

Gabe left Todd standing there, in his clothes, and his words hung in the air.

 

Who said life was fair?

 

Indeed. Who?

 

Chapter 7

 

W
HEN Gabe got back to work, Tracy grabbed him and pulled him into his office. “Wagner is here!”

“Really?” he asked, surprised. Peter rarely showed up without calling first. And in this weather? Peter wasn’t too fond of cold weather.

“He came to take you to lunch, but you were off with your little boyfriend,” she said with a huff.

 

“He’s not my boyfriend!”

 

“Alas” came a melodic and wonderfully familiar voice. “I was hoping you had run off for… what do they call it? A nooner?”

Gabe looked over his shoulder and sure enough, it was Peter Wagner: his boss, friend, confidante, and sponsor. Looking almost impossibly tall, the man was leaning against the threshold, holding a cane in one hand, the other resting comfortably on his hip. Despite the silver hair with just a hint of chestnut brown and the deep lines in his face, his blue eyes twinkled like a child’s, and he looked more like a buccaneer than one of the richest men in the country. Maybe it was the cravat he wore instead of a tie? Of course, pirates didn’t wear anything designed by William Fioravanti or Brioni.

“Peter,” Gabe exclaimed, delighted to see the man. He crossed the office and held out his hand. Peter took it and they shook, then pulled each other into a gentle hug.

“Gabriel,” said his old friend in his unique inflection that was not quite any known accent, not Midwest, not British, not European, but perhaps a combination of all of them. “I was in town and decided to stop by. You were gone, so I took your boss out instead—the cranky old poop. He wasn’t nearly as entertaining as you would have been.”

“Sorry, Peter. I had no idea you’d be coming. Especially in this weather.”

“Bad weather always looks worse through a window,” Peter replied in that tone that said he was quoting someone. He was always quoting someone. This time Gabe had no idea who. He’d have to look it up. Thank God for Google.

“So what’s this about a boyfriend?” Peter asked.

Gabe shot Tracy a look and she gave a fake grin—almost a grimace—in return. “No boyfriend, Peter,” Gabe replied.
“Then I will repeat myself,” he said. “Alas, alas. You need someone special in your life.”

“Well, I have work to do,” Tracy said, her voice tinged with a bit of helium. “Mr. Wagner.” She nodded.

 

“Ms. Newman.” Peter nodded back.

Tracy all but curtsied and then fled the room. Peter closed the door behind her, then sat down, crossing one lanky and incredibly long leg elegantly over the other.

“Drink, Peter?”

 

“I think I will,” Peter replied and placed overlapping hands on the silver head of his cane. “As long as it’s the Lagavulin.”

“I wouldn’t give you anything else.” He opened the armoire in the corner of the office and pulled out the crystal decanter half-full of a light tea-colored liquid. “And besides, you bought me this.”

Peter raised an arched silver brow and gave Gabe an amused smile. He had a wide mouth, full of big white teeth that at one turn could be as cheerful as could be, and at another sharklike and deadly. Luckily Gabe had never had the latter look trained in his direction. “You expect me to believe you have some of that left from your birthday?”

“I don’t drink much at work, Peter.” He poured two short glasses. “This is the stuff you got me. Older than what I usually buy as well, if I remember right.” Gabe handed Peter his Scotch.

“To surprise visits,” Peter said and held up his glass. “To any visit from you,” Gabe said, and tapped his glass against Peter’s. They both brought their drinks to their mouths, and both paused to breathe in a scent of fireplaces on a cold day. Appropriate. Then they sipped.
“This is how I
know
there is a God,” Peter said, a hint of Scottish slipping into his voice. Again, appropriate.
Gabe couldn’t help but chuckle at the comment. Who knew if Peter believed in God? He seemed to be disposed either way. One day

Peter would curse a school system that refused to teach evolution and made its students pray, and another he would lean in and softly say something like: “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”

That was Albert Einstein.

“So you
braved
the snow,” said Peter. “I knew you would. All work and no play. I figured you would get one of those dreadful sandwiches from downstairs, though, instead of going out for lunch. You sure you don’t have a boyfriend?”

Gabe pulled up a chair and sat beside his friend. There was no way he was sitting behind the desk. That would feel like sitting on a throne when meeting the Queen of England, and be maybe just as disrespectful. “Not a boyfriend,” Gabe said again.

Peter gave an almost smirk and raised both brows this time.

“I’m just helping a kid out,” Gabe explained, wishing they would change the subject. He knew Peter Wagner didn’t come into the city in eight inches of snow—with more promised—to talk about boys.

“I understand he is in your apartment right now.”
“I think Tracy has a big mouth.”

Peter laughed his melodic laugh and waved a hand through the air. “I think simply that your compatriot cares, my boy. She worries. At times I do as well.”

Gabe took a deep breath and somehow kept himself from sighing. “Neither of you need worry. I trust him.”

 

“And I trust your judgment implicitly,” Peter replied. Gabe nodded. Now perhaps they could talk about something else.

Like business and why Peter was out in such weather.
“Except when it comes to your heart,” Peter added.

Shitfire
. This time Gabe did sigh. “Peter. He’s a young man who got evicted from his apartment. On the first day of the year in a blizzard. The apartment manager threw him out in the snow. What was I supposed to do?”

Peter’s eyes sparkled and he cocked his head to one side. “Indeed. You would do what angels do, Gabriel. You helped.”

 

Gabe smiled. “I learned from the best.” He nodded at Peter. “Nonsense. You had it in your heart from birth. Why else do you think I invited