The Boyfriend Experience (5 page)

It was far too easy to fall for someone like Nate, Darren realized, and he wished, not for the first time, that the circumstances had been different. He was beginning to wish that this thing between them hadn’t been founded on money. It was probably selfish of him, but Darren wanted Nate to stay with him. They’d only been together for two weeks and he was already having thoughts of what it’d be like to have a future with this man. It was crazy, but he wanted Nate to be right there next to him for the rest of their lives.

He sighed as he packed up to leave. His thoughts went back to his plans for tonight. He could only hope that Kate would like Nate. His sister meant well, but she could be a little over-protective sometimes. With his track record of former lovers, she was right to worry about him. He just didn’t want his sister’s worries to ruin the best thing that had happened in his life in a very long time.

Darren got home a few minutes after five-thirty. He was glad to find Nate already there, curled up on the couch reading as he waited for him. “Hey,” Darren dropped a kiss on Nate’s head as he walked past the living room. “What are you reading this time?”

Darren could never quite believe Nate’s love for reading. It could be Harry Potter or Homer’s Odyssey and Nate would devour it.

“
The Shock Doctrine
by Naomi Klein,” Nate answered as he tipped his head back and looked up at Darren with a soft smile. “Hey.”

Darren couldn’t help lowering his head to taste Nate’s sweet mouth. “Mmm… I missed you.”

Nate closed the book and turned to kneel on the couch. “Me too,” Nate said as he leaned over the back of the couch to kiss Darren properly before pulling away. He gave Darren one last sound kiss on the lips before patting his cheek. “Okay. Go change.”

“Ooh, bossy.” Darren grinned. “I like it.”

Rolling his eyes, Nate asked, “What time’s the reservation?”

“Six thirty,” Darren answered as he headed into the bedroom to change.

“You better hurry up then,” Nate called from the living room.

“Yes, my dear,” Darren quipped.

They caught a cab to take them to SoHo. Since the restaurant was only a two block walk from the gallery, they decided to walk after finishing their meal.

The temperature outside had been hovering around freezing, and with the snow beginning to fall, the roads had turned into a slushy mess.

“Brrr…” Nate complained as he rubbed his gloved hands together. “God, I hate winter.”

“It’s not that bad, is it?” Darren arched an eyebrow. “I thought you were born in Jersey?”

“Being born in Jersey doesn’t mean I like the cold.” Nate gave Darren the side-eye. “Cold is cold.”

Darren chuckled, wrapping his arm around Nate, and pulled him closer. “Come on, we’re almost there.”

* * *

The Blue Dot was a private gallery for contemporary art and relatively well known in the artistic circles, although Nate had only ever
heard
of it. He looked appreciatively at the minimalist design of the space.

“Darren!” a cheerful voice sounded from behind them as they checked their coats.

“Tony!” Nate watched as Darren happily greeted his old friend with a bear hug. “God, it’s been too long.”

“That’s because you’re a damn workaholic,” a woman said as she stopped next to Nate. “Darren, put Tony down. Vince over there is about to go volcanic on your ass.”

“No, I’m not! Kate, stop spreading rumors.” The four of them were joined by two other men. The one who spoke was a tall, muscular man who reminded Nate of
The Rock
. “‘Sup, D? Good to see you again.”

“Same here.” Darren laughed. “It’s been too long.”

“So? Aren’t you going to introduce us?” The woman, Kate, folded her arms in front of her and arched one of her perfectly shaped eyebrows at Darren. “I’ve been waiting for this all day!”

“Kate, you promised to be nice, remember?” Darren returned the eyebrow before pulling Nate close by his shoulders. “Guys, this is Nathaniel.”

“Hi,” Nate greeted shyly with a smile. “Just call me Nate.”

“This guy right here,” Darren pointed to Tony, “Is the star of tonight, Tony Petrelli. The big guy behind him is his partner Vince.”

“Nice to meet you, Nate,” the two men said almost at the same time.

“The loud mouth over here is my baby sister, Caitlin, who also happens to be my VP of human resources.”

“Who you calling a loud mouth?” Kate scowled at her brother before reaching out to shake Nate’s hand. “Nice to finally meet you, Nate. You can call me Kate. Everyone does.”

“And last but not least, Kyle Sommers, my business partner and the co-founder of our little enterprise, the brain behind everything we do. Oh, and my sister’s poor husband.”

“Hey! I resent that!” Kate jabbed at Darren with her elbow. “Come on, Nate. I’ll show you around.”

“Kate…” Darren sighed as Kate pulled Nate away by his arm.

“I know!” Kate said as she led Nate through the crowd and away from the others.

Nate browsed through the various pieces slowly. He had a lovely brief chat with Kate before Kate was pulled away by an urgent phone call.

“Hey.” Darren appeared next to Nate as Nate stopped in front of a large, framed piece.

“Hey,” Nate smiled as Darren wrapped his arm across Nate’s lower back.

“What do you think?”

“Tony really is talented.” Nate fixed his gaze back on the piece. “I love how he clearly captured the emotions with such simple compositions.”

“He really is.” Darren nodded in agreement. “You should see the photos he took when he did a stint in Afghanistan as a war correspondent.”

“You must be really proud of him.”

“I am.” Darren smiled softly as they stood and admired the work.

“How did you guys meet?” Nate asked curiously. “I mean, Kate is your sister so that’s obvious. What about the rest of them?”

“Well, that’s a long story.” Darren chuckled as they continued to move through the gallery. “Kyle, Tony and I were in school together at MIT, but we sort of went down different path after we graduated. I went to Harvard for my MBA, Kyle stayed to do his PhD, and Tony decided that he wanted to see the world from a different perspective.”

“That’s kind of cool,” Nate said with longing. “It’s nice to have friends who you’ve known for a lifetime.”

“I’m just glad that I still have good friends like them at this point in life.” Darren let out a smile, looking towards Tony and Vince before turning his attention back to Nate. “I hope you’re having a good time.”

“I am,” Nate said with a shy smile. “Thank you for bringing me here.”

“You’re welcome.”

* * *

“That doesn’t look right.” Nate’s voice pulled Darren away from his thoughts.

“What doesn’t look right?” Darren looked back and forth between the papers in his hands and Nate. They had been curled up on the couch since they got back from the gallery. Darren was catching up on work, with Nate snuggled next to him, continuing to read
The Shock Doctrine
.

“That.” Nate pointed to a paragraph in the document Darren had in his hands.

“What’s wrong with it?” Darren asked after reading it through a couple of times. “Looks fine to me.”

“It’s fine only if you assume all your costs are the same across different facilities,” Nate said as he shifted for a more comfortable position. “But you can’t guarantee that. You can get an average based on past performance, but that doesn’t take into account any fluctuations due to market conditions.”

“Huh, I hadn’t thought about that. Thanks,” Darren said, a little dumbfounded. The document was only a draft, but the part Nate had pointed out was a simple, and yet erroneous assumption that would’ve cost them a lot of unnecessary overhead.

Nate chuckled. “That was pretty much the extent of my capabilities. You can only learn so much in two years of undergrad.”

“You were a business major?”

“I took some courses. Never finished my degree, though. Had to drop out after two years,” Nate said, looking down at his hands. “Family reasons.”

Darren wanted to ask, but he stopped himself. It wasn’t his place to pry. Though, it pulled at him, the way Nate talked with longing about school and Darren’s friendship with Tony and Kyle.

“You ever thought about going back?” Darren put down the file he was reading and wrapped his arm around Nate.

“All the time,” Nate said, snuggling closer. “I will, eventually. Just not right now.”

“Is that why you love reading so much?”

“You noticed, huh.” Nate chuckled. “That’s part of it.”

“What’s the other part?”

“It helps my business by being able to carry on an intelligent conversation with people.”

“Oh.” He hadn’t thought about that.

“Yeah.” Nate shrugged and buried his nose back into the book he was reading.

It was much later when Darren felt a weight on his shoulder. He looked to his shoulder to find the younger man leaning against him, fast asleep. The book Nate had been reading had fallen onto the seat next to them. Darren tossed the work files onto the coffee table. It was late. He could finish the rest tomorrow.

The lines around Darren’s eyes softened as he looked closely at Nate’s face. He loved watching Nate sleep. Nate always looked so content and peaceful when he slept, like he didn’t have a care in the world.

Nate shifted in his sleep, nuzzling against Darren’s shoulder.

“Nate? Baby?” Darren touched the side of Nate’s face, his thumb brushing Nate’s cheeks. “Come on. Wake up.”

“Hmm?” Nate answered with a soft moan.

“Come on, let’s get you into bed.” Darren helped a half-asleep Nate up, then walked him into the bedroom. Nate was back in slumber the minute his head touched the pillow. Darren shook his head with a smile.

Stripping them both down to their shorts, he slid into bed and wrapped his arm around Nate, pulling Nate towards him. Nate turned, pressing his face to Darren’s chest then wrapped an arm around Darren, so tight like he was never letting go.

Darren sighed contently at the warm heat of Nate’s body.

“If I asked,” Darren whispered softly against Nate’s forehead as he brushed a fallen strand of hair from Nate’s sleeping face. “Would you stay?”

* * *

Nate leaned his head on the glass window of the bus as it drove along the quiet residential road.

He'd woken up this morning in Darren’s bed, but he didn’t remember going to bed. Darren was already gone by the time he got up. The man had left a note by his phone on the bedside table.

“Hey sleepyhead,” the note had said in Darren’s chicken scratch, “I have to head into the office for a few hours, but hopefully I’ll be home by noon. I’ll see you then. Kisses.”

Nate remembered shaking his head when he saw the note. Who left people notes anymore? Most people just texted these days. He chuckled at the hopelessly romantic side of the man. It was adorable and surprising, to say the least.

By the time he was done his morning routine, it was already ten. With two hours to kill and not much to do, Nate decided to visit his Aunt Rosie. He hadn’t been to see her since before Darren happened to him.

The bus dropped him off in front of the hospice facility.

“Nate! Hey!” the plump black woman at the nurse’s station greeted Nate as he came into the ward. “How ya doin’, love? Haven’t seen you here for a couple weeks.”

“Hey Sharon. Yeah, I’ve been pretty busy lately with work.” Nate smiled softly as he gave the woman a kiss on the cheek and a big hug. “How’s the family?”

“Doing well. You know how it is.” Sharon gave Nate a pat on the shoulder as she carried on. “The little ones couldn’t wait til Christmas.”

“You taking any time off this year?” Nate asked. Sharon was from New Orleans, and even though she had her own family here, she missed the family she had down south.

“I can’t. We’re short-staffed for the holidays, so I volunteered to work extra hours.” Sharon shrugged. “My oldest will be in college next year. I could use the extra money to get him something nice. Maybe a new computer for school.”

“Oh my goodness, has it been that long?” Nate exclaimed. Sharon had worked at the home for many years, and Nate had known her since his aunt moved there.

Sharon laughed. “Oh yes, my boy.”

“My… time flies, doesn’t it? Anyways, I won’t keep you. I’ll head down there and find Aunt Rosie.” Nate smiled. Sharon had helped him a lot in the past several years after his aunt’s condition worsened to the point where he could no longer care for her on his own while holding a job, and needed to be in a care facility.

“Hold up, Nate.” Nate paused and turned when Sharon called for him. “Something you need to know, hon.”

“What is it?”

“I just got the latest evaluations back. Rosie’s condition has gotten worse since she was tested last. I know we’ve been talking about this every year, but I just want you to be prepared for the eventuality.” Sharon held Nate’s hand, patting it softly. “The doctors are giving her maybe another year or two.”

Nate sighed. “It’s okay. I know. It’s unavoidable.” He shook his head. He knew that day would come, eventually. Rosie was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s when he was in his freshman year. It’d been hard to watch her slowly fade away with every visit; Nate had long since accepted that she’d be gone. He just hoped that the end would be peaceful for her.

“I’m so sorry, love. I wish there was more that we could do.” Sharon looked at Nate sympathetically.

“It’s okay. You’ve done more than I could hope for already.” Nate gave her a small smile. “Thank you, Sharon, for everything. I’ll try to come here more often.”

“Anytime, love.”

“I’ll drop by before I leave.”

“Sure thing, honey.”

Nate strolled down the hall. The hospice was set up more like an apartment building rather than a hospital, which Nate really liked. He knocked on the door of his aunt’s room.

“Hey, Aunt Rosie.” Nate sat down in the chair facing the woman lying in bed, despite not getting a reaction. He reached out to hold the old woman’s hand. “How’ve you been?”

Rosie looked over at him, but there was no acknowledgement in her eyes. Her lips moved, but all that came out were some faint unintelligible mutterings.