Empty Nests (28 page)

James tried not to cringe.

“He’s sweet.”

“Sweet?” That didn’t sound like much of a reason.

“I’ve been around the block a few more times than my parents know about. I’ve been out with
appropriate
men my family set me up with, and less-than-appropriate men my friends set me up with, and really inappropriate men I’ve met through other means. And at the end of the day, they were all some flavor of bastard. Dave… he’s a little flaky and has some bad habits, but I don’t think he has the capacity to be cruel. He can be dumb on occasion, but never unkind.”

“Trash talk online doesn’t count, I’m guessing?”

“No, it doesn’t.”

James thought on it and realized, for as much as Dave was a second-rate employee, he’d never once heard of him doing something malicious. If he screwed up, he took the blame. He didn’t even pull pranks.

“I guess kind is worth something.”

“It’s worth a lot.” Kara leaned in and put her lips to James’s ear. “He’s also really good in bed.”

James closed his eyes. If there was one thing he didn’t need to know about Dave, that was pretty much it. Kara giggled and moved back to the dance floor. Gabe stepped off it. He was flushed and a bit rumpled, and had undone a couple buttons on his shirt.

“I’m going to get some air. Come with me?”

James accepted Gabe’s hand as he led them quickly out of the tent. The sun was going down, and the wind had shifted and was coming off the ocean. There was a hint of sea salt in the breeze. James took a deep breath and let it wash over him. Even though he hadn’t been dancing, he felt overheated.

“Where’d you learn to dance like that?”

“TechPrim has some major contracts in India these days. A few years ago, I was out there every couple of months.”

“Don’t you have teams that, I mean….” James kicked himself. Gabe did not have to justify his work habits to him. “Sorry, that didn’t come out quite right.”

“I know what you mean. CFOs should not be jetting around basically doing sales and acquisitions and personally delivering contracts. I guess I got in the habit back in the day. When we were starting out, the guys handled the computer stuff, and I handled all the other stuff. Sales, marketing, banking. I even picked the name and designed our first logo. I’m even responsible for the typo that made us TechPrim instead of TechPrime. And once we had staff, I never really figured out how to let go of all of it. The guys nag me about it a lot. Of course, other CFOs are being crucified in the press for arranging executive bonuses and tax shelters while their companies go under.”

“Good thing you didn’t let go, then.”

“Tell that to my doctor.”

Gabe had led them toward a semisecluded area near the trees. They could still hear the music coming from the tents. It had switched to something slower.

“I’m calling in that dance now.”

“Now?”

“Yep.” Gabe pulled him close, then put one hand on the small of James’s back while holding the other. “We don’t have to do anything fancy. Just sway to the music.”

James tried to find a bit of rhythm, but mostly he followed Gabe’s lead. They swayed back and forth. The music changed to something more poppy, but Gabe kept the slow rhythm. He laid his head on Gabe’s shoulder and closed his eyes. Gabe held him tighter. The more time he spent with Gabe, the more addicted he became to these quiet moments of peace. It scared him, something so pleasant and so out of his control.

“Thank you for coming today.”

“Thank you for inviting me.”

They danced in their own way through another song before Gabe stopped. James looked up in time to be kissed, soft and slow. Gabe tasted of cake frosting and mango juice and smelled of clean sweat.

Gabe pulled away. “Want to get out of here?”

“I think I could make my good-byes.”

“Good. How about if I get us a hotel in the city? We can drive back in the morning.”

James felt heat flood him despite the cool air. “I’ll just go say good-bye, and get our jackets.”

Gabe pulled out his phone. “I’ll wait right here.”

J
AMES
TOOK
out his phone to send a text, even as he handed the keys to the Lemon Drop over to the valet at the St. Francis Hotel. Gabe had somehow gotten them a room on a half hour’s notice.

Staying in the city tonight. Be good.

He stepped through the front doors of the grand hotel. His phone chirped at him.

No problem. Don’t be good.

He was glad Dylan seemed to be warming up to Gabe. He had little doubt that Dylan would find a way to nag and pry into James’s love life even from his dorm room.

Gabe was waiting for him by the main desk on the far side of the lobby, resplendent with marble floors and vaulted ceilings. He gave James a quick kiss. “I got us the MacArthur Suite for the rest of the weekend if we like.”

“Don’t most people just get a motel?”

“I’m not most people.” James couldn’t exactly argue with that statement. “Come on.”

Gabe led him to the elevator. They got in with a tourist family that included a young teenager and a toddler. They looked haggard.

“What the fuck are we doing here, Mom?” the teenager moaned. “Why couldn’t we have gone somewhere cool like LA? You always pick the lamest vacations.”

James bit his tongue, hard, partly from Bay Area pride. He’d been born and raised in the Bay Area and was not about to hear it compared negatively to LA of all places. And partly because the mother looked like she was about to apologize. Dylan had gone through a rebellious, smart-aleck phase that started at age ten, but he would have never spoken like that, and if he had, James would not have tolerated it for one second. While James knew Dylan could swear with the best of them, he would never have sworn at his own father like that.

“I’m gonna pee my pants,” the toddler stated with absolute certainty. Luckily the door opened, and the family got out before James could hear the reply to that particular statement.

The door closed behind then. James relaxed.

“Glad Dylan is past that?”

“Dylan never was that. Or if he was, he was smart enough not to do it around me.”

The elevator crawled up several more floors before letting them out into a large hallway. “I heard the halls were made large enough to accommodate two women in hoop skirts side by side.”

“Those must have been very large hoops.”

Gabe slid a key card into a pair of double doors that opened into a foyer. It was a hotel room with its own foyer. He dragged them through, closed the doors, then kissed James deeply.

“Let me take you to bed. It’s been way too long since I’ve seen you naked.”

“I can get behind that.”

Gabe grinned and led them down a hallway. From what James could see, peeking through doors, the suite was at least double the size of his apartment. “You got all this for us?”

“I told them I wanted a suite. Most of them were booked up.” Gabe pulled him to the end of the hall and into a large bedroom.

Gabe took off his shoes and dropped his jacket over a chair before turning to James. James swallowed. On occasion Gabe would get a slightly predatory look in his eyes. It heated James up faster than almost any other look.

Gabe stalked toward him. James toed off his own shoes and started unbuttoning his shirt. Gabe stilled his hands and took over, carefully undoing each button while dragging the tips of his fingers across James’s body. James leaned into the touch, allowing Gabe to undress him and guide him into bed.

W
HEN
J
AMES
opened his eyes, he was instantly aware the space next to him was empty. The bedside clock told him it was just after one. He strained his ears to listen for any sound. All he could make out was a very distant siren coming through the window. He got up and pulled on a bathrobe the hotel had provided, then went looking for Gabe. The hallway was dark, but he followed a faint glow coming from under a door down the hall. Pushing it open, he found a dining room that could seat at least ten connected to a large living room illuminated by a single lamp.

Gabe was seated on one of the couches, his phone tucked between his ear and shoulder. He was talking quietly. James must have made noise because Gabe looked over his shoulder and smiled at him. He said something to whoever was on the other end and hung up.

“Did I wake you?” Gabe asked.

“No. You didn’t have to stop,” James replied.

“It wasn’t that important.”

Important enough to get up at one in the morning, but not important enough he can just hang up
, James thought.

Gabe, also wrapped in a bathrobe, patted the couch next to him.

He sat, and Gabe put an arm around his shoulder.

“You should be asleep,” James said.

“My sleep patterns are nightmarish these days.”

James stared out the window, down onto Union Square, its stone paths softly lit by the nighttime city. “Have you ever been ice-skating down there?” he asked with a sudden need to fill the silence. “They turn it into a rink at Christmas.”

“No.”

“We took Dylan when he was little, when we were still living with my parents. I was terrible. Fell on my backside five times in four minutes. But not Dylan. He was zipping around the rink, skating backward. Even when some older kids pushed him over, he got right back up. No fear at all.”

“You miss those days.”

“I miss the edited version. The one that doesn’t involve lawyers or food stamps or chronic ear infections. When he was too young to understand how hard it could get, and he didn’t want anything but Squiggle Bear and apple juice.”

Gabe gave him a gentle squeeze. Looking down at the statue of Victory atop her hundred-foot plinth, she seemed small from above, but James felt small curled against Gabe’s side. Small in the grand room of the famous gilded hotel he would never have thought to step foot in on his own.

“And what do you want?” Gabe asked.

“Hm?” James had been lost in reverie.

“What do you want? If you could have anything at all right now, what would you want?”

“Nothing,” James answered immediately. He wished Gabe wouldn’t ask him things like that.

“Everyone wants something.”

“No.” James’s voice was hardly more than a whisper. “Wants are too dangerous. Wants make you live beyond your means. They shift your priorities away from your responsibilities. Needs are fine. I know what I need, but wants cost too much.”

Gabe brushed his fingers through James’s hair. “There must be something acceptable to want?”

What he wanted to say was he wanted to stay in this suite even if it made him feel small. Gabe made him feel warm and safe and quieted his mind, and he wanted to keep that feeling. He wanted to say “thank you” for giving him bits of time from a busy schedule, and he understood Gabe wouldn’t be able to do that forever. He wanted so many things, but wants were dangerous and terrifying in their own way. A want given into at the wrong moment could ruin everything.

He shrugged. “I want Dylan to get a good education. I want Dave to stop leaving orange residue on his workstation. I want Melinda to realize Eduardo is the one who loves her and Ronaldo is just using her to get to her father’s money.”

“
Siete Palomas
?”

“
Tres Corazones de Fuego.
”

“Of course.” Gabe pressed a kiss to the top of his head and squeezed him tight. “Let’s get back to bed, before I have an excuse to pick up my phone again.”

A
SOFT
gray light was coming through the morning fog when James woke. Gabe was curled next to him, breathing softly. For the first time, James had been the first to awaken. He studied Gabe’s face, relaxed in deep sleep. There was a small scar right by his ear he’d never noticed before. The light caught a few strands of silver at Gabe’s temples and in his day-old beard. James had found his first gray hair at twenty-eight, but it was truly gray, not the luminescent silver Gabe was sporting. It was still odd waking up next to someone. It was odd sharing a bed. There were things he didn’t know about himself that worried him. Like did he snore or kick in his sleep? Gabe seemed to sleep peacefully, and he liked to cuddle.

He let his gaze slip downward to Gabe’s neck. He wanted to lick it, to bury his face in it and simply inhale Gabe’s scent.

James brushed a curl away from Gabe’s face. He did have impressive “bedhead,” with curls that went in every direction. He must use several gallons of hair products daily to keep up his perfectly assembled appearance. Gabe shifted in his sleep, his eyebrows pulling together. And even in sleep, he brought his fingers to his teeth.

James slid his hand into Gabe’s. It would not do for the CFO of a multinational corporation to go into meetings with chewed fingers.

Gabe opened his eyes and looked at their intertwined hands.

“You chew your fingers in your sleep.”

“I wake up before drawing blood.” Gabe’s voice was rough, but he had a sleepy half smile.

“I painted Dylan’s nails with chili oil before he went to bed each night. He stopped sucking his thumb in a week.”

“I like chilies.”

“Maybe vanilla extract. It tastes terrible by itself.”

“I’ll dream of cookies all night.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

Gabe smiled. “No.” He stretched his arms over his head, working every inch of his long frame.

“How many messages do you have to answer?” James asked as Gabe peeked at his phone.

“No clue.” He held up his phone to show a blank screen. “Battery died sometime in the night.”

“Do you think the hotel has a charger you can use?”

“Almost certainly.” He pressed their bodies together. “But I have better ideas. Work will always be there, but what isn’t always there is my boyfriend, a hotel suite, and a dead phone. And I don’t want to waste this chance on work.”

James closed his eyes. Work
would
always be there. Responsibility and priorities would always be waiting. What wasn’t always waiting was a boyfriend in a hotel suite. Or a warm body to wake up next to. Or that sense of peace when he tucked his head against Gabe’s shoulder. And one day those things could vanish altogether. But maybe Gabe was right. If for one morning Gabe could let his responsibilities slide, maybe James, for just a few hours, could be brave enough to give in to some wants as well.