Kate Sherwood - Dark Horse 02 - Out of the Darkness (25 page)

Evan pushes the gate open for Dan, and then wrinkles his mouth around in what Dan’s coming to recognize as Evan’s version of being tentative. It doesn’t really suit him.

“What’s up, Evan?”
“Uh… okay. I wanted to run an idea by you.”

Dan’s not really sure if he’s up for any more changes, but he nods. “Okay….”

“Yeah, well… I was thinking about offering Chris a job. Out here. Working for me. Well, obviously working for me… but, you know, working pretty closely with me. The company’s got a pretty big legal department, obviously, but…. I don’t know, things are just really formal with them, you know? They’re almost all from when my Dad ran the company, and they don’t really seem to have much… I don’t know. I don’t feel like I communicate with them as well as I should. But Chris—I mean, he’s a bit scary, but once I got past that… he’s really honest, and I appreciate that. And my lawyers have worked with him twice, and they said good things….” Evan trails off and looks for Dan’s reaction.

“Is he even allowed to practice out here?” Dan thinks it might be better to get the practical considerations out of the way first; it’ll give him a bit of time to think about the implications of the move.

“Uh, he’d have to pass the bar, I guess. But I’ve got plenty of licensed California lawyers. I need somebody to tell me what all my licensed lawyers are doing.” Evan’s looking expectantly at Dan.

“Well, yeah, I mean… shit, I really should have asked Jeff before I talked to Anna, shouldn’t I?”

Evan shakes his head impatiently. “I don’t know… maybe. But he doesn’t seem to have a problem with it. Do you have a problem with me hiring Chris?”

Dan tries to collect his thoughts. “Okay, uh… I’d love to have him out here, if he wants to come. You know, that’d be great. And I see what you mean about wanting him at your work, and obviously you’d know a lot better than me whether he’d be useful there. I just—okay, I’m sure he’ll ask you this too—I just want to be sure that it’s not… that you’re not just doing me a favor.” Dan frowns a little. “Does that sound unbelievably self-centered? I don’t know.” He plays with the lead rope in his hands and then resolutely snugs it around the hook on the fence. “Yeah, Chris is a good guy and a good lawyer, and I’m sure he’d be really useful for you, so, yeah, if he’s into it, I think it’d be great.”

Evan looks at him intently, as if trying to gauge his sincerity. “I would, you know. Do you a favor, if you wanted.”

 

“But you aren’t, right? I mean, Chris is a big boy, if he wants to move out here he can find his own damn job.”

 

Evan holds his hands up. “No, I’m not. He… he’d be good.”

Dan moves in a little closer and feels like he’s transitioning from “friend of Chris” mode to “
friend
of Evan” mode. “Are you sure you….” He hooks a finger in Evan’s jeans, trying to soften his words. “Amanda, in one of her speeches… she said that you don’t have that many friends… you know, like straight up, no complications, just-yourfriend friends.” Dan shrugs. “Chris seems to like you, mostly. And trust me, he’s not the sort to like you just because you’re rich. You might want… maybe you want to keep him as a friend, without the complication of having him work for you.” Dan shrugs again and unhooks his finger. “I mean, obviously that’s a little tricky with him living in Kentucky and all, and even if he did work for you, he still wouldn’t start lying or blowing smoke up your ass, I don’t think….”

Evan’s smile is fond as he reaches down and catches Dan’s hand. “You looking out for me, Dan?” He uncurls Dan’s fingers and presses the palm of Dan’s hand against his stomach, just below his belly button. Dan can feel the warmth of Evan’s skin even through his shirt, and he lets his fingers drift a little lower.

“I’m just trying to make Amanda happy,” Dan mutters. “She’s annoying when—” but Dan’s words are cut off when Evan’s lips find his.

It’s just little kisses, gentle reminders of how good they can make each other feel, and Dan wants more, but he has to acknowledge that neither the time nor the place is ideal. Evan pulls away, apparently recognizing the very same thing, and smiles again. “Thanks, man. I appreciate it. And you’re right; I could use more non-work friends.” He pulls away a little further, as if just remembering something. “And speaking of new friends… this Taylor guy. How close were you two?”

“How close?” Dan shoots Evan an amused look. “We worked together… and hung out together. Shared an apartment for a while….”

“Shared an apartment like roommates or like living together?” Evan’s body language is still casual, but his voice is getting a bit tighter.

“Evan, don’t start.” Dan takes a second to weigh his options. He has no intention of lying, but he does think about refusing to answer or deflecting the question. He decides to go for honestly, though; let Evan deal with it. “We fucked around sometimes, but it was just casual. And it was years ago.”

Evan looks incredulous. “So you’re having drinks with an exboyfriend tomorrow night, and I’m supposed to be totally fine with it?”

“Dude, you had your ex-girlfriend staying in your house all weekend. And Taylor and I were never… you know. We just fucked sometimes. It was just… friendly.”

“Friendly?” Evan’s snort is a mix of amused and disbelieving. “So if you’re gonna go have a beer with him tomorrow, that’s friendly too, right?” Evan turns away, takes a couple steps toward the fence. He seems to be trying to control himself, and Dan tries to do the same, tries to fight down the irritation rising in him.

“Do you want to meet us there?” He surprises himself a bit with the suggestion and isn’t sure if it’s a good idea. Is he being reassuring, helping Evan to adjust to the new relationship, or is he giving in to Evan’s jealous paranoia? “He said he had something he wanted to talk about, though. I don’t know how personal that might be… but probably not very, it’s not like we’re close anymore.”

Evan looks torn. “I don’t… I mean, it’s not that I don’t trust you, man….”

“Well, yeah, I think it’s exactly that you don’t trust me. But, you know, whatever. If you don’t, you don’t.” Evan seems like he’s going to argue with this, but Dan stares him down. He doesn’t want to hear Evan denying something that’s completely obvious.

Evan doesn’t seem to know how to react. He takes a moment and then says, “Well, I’d like to meet him, just for, you know… curiosity. But I get what you’re saying about him having something personal to talk about.”

“Why don’t you just come for a beer on your way home? Keep it casual. I’ll tell him you’re coming so he can get anything serious out of the way. If it seems like a big deal, I’ll give you a call and wave you off.”

Evan seems suspicious of Dan’s tractability. “And you don’t mind if I do this? You won’t… think that I’m checking up on you, or something?”

“No, I’ll absolutely think you’re checking up on me.” Chris is almost back to them now, and Dan hopes that Evan won’t feel the need to continue the conversation in front of him. He decides to be a little proactive, and calls out to Chris. “Hey, man, you didn’t check the water back there, did you? The automatic waterer was being weird yesterday.”

Chris frowns. “The trough was full—I didn’t check if it was refilling right, though.”

 

“Nah, that’s cool. If it’s full, it’ll be fine through the day, at least.”

He turns and walks with Chris toward the barn. Evan hesitates, but when Dan raises an eyebrow in question, he comes along with them. Evan almost says something a couple times but doesn’t, and when he finally does talk, it’s to remind Chris of some movie they’d been laughing about the night before.

Dan’s glad that Evan’s not dragging Chris into the whole thing, but even the prospect of it has him a little leery. Chris is
Dan
’s friend, and he’s starting to wonder about his earlier conversation with Evan about bringing Chris out to California. If Evan’s going to get bent out of shape about Dan having a beer with someone, maybe Dan doesn’t need to be quite so relaxed about sharing Chris with him. Dan knows that’s childish and isn’t too impressed with himself, but he’s not too impressed with Evan, either.

Chris asks him something about dinner, and Dan pulls himself back into the conversation. He knows Evan’s watching him a little more closely than usual, and he’s pretty sure Chris has picked up on it too. He wonders if he’s being a drama queen again, making up things to be upset about just so people will pay attention to him. He focuses on the conversation at hand, Chris and Evan wanting to go into town for dinner, and he agrees and tries to get into a good mood. Things with Evan are still sorting themselves out, and it’ll either work or it won’t; he just needs to keep himself in a place where he’ll be okay regardless of how things end up.

Chapter 15

J
EFF
is still busy at the gallery and then getting his mom on her plane back to Seattle, but the rest of the gang is ready for food. Evan heads up to the house to get Tat, and Robyn wanders downstairs and gets invited, and they all go into town for an early dinner. The sun is still warm when they arrive, so they sit on the patio at Zio’s, and it’s relaxed and friendly and good. Chris agrees that the panini is a gift from the gods, and Tat uses her sore shoulder as a way to get Evan to cut her meal up for her and then tries to convince him to feed her, too, making little baby bird squawks whenever she wants a bite. Evan retaliates by putting more and more food on each forkful until she starts laughing midbite and almost chokes. Robyn grills Chris for information about people back in Kentucky, and he tells his stories with such charisma that the whole table is drawn in, even though the Kaminskis have never met any of the characters and Dan isn’t sure he has, either. All in all, it’s a good way to get back on an even keel.

Robyn hitches a ride back to the farm with the Kaminskis, and Chris is going home with Dan, so there’s not a lot of privacy for a dramatic goodbye between Dan and Evan, and Dan thinks it’s just as well. Evan was right when he said that the physical part was easy between them, that it just worked, but Dan’s starting to think that maybe it’s a little too easy, and that they need to stop using it as a way to gloss over things that they really should talk about. Or maybe they shouldn’t talk about them, because there’s really nothing to say, and they should just enjoy each others’ bodies… but if that’s all they’re doing, then Dan still needs a bit of time away so he can keep his emotions under control, keep from getting too attached. He used to be good at sex without attachment—maybe he needs to redevelop the skill.

Dan and Chris walk back to the apartment together, neither one saying much. It’s not late when they arrive, but Chris has an early flight the next morning, and neither one is feeling too energetic. Dan pours them each a bourbon, more for the ritual than the alcohol, and he stands in the bedroom door and watches Chris as he puts the sheets on the sofa. When Chris is done, he turns and sits and looks at Dan.

“Did you and Evan have a fight? Earlier?”

“A fight? No, not really.” Dan takes a sip of his drink and leans against the doorjamb. “It was just—” He breaks off. Maybe he doesn’t need to drag Chris into this. “I never cheated on Justin. Not even after the accident. You knew that, right?”

Chris nods. “Yeah. I knew that.” He waits for Dan to continue, but Dan drains his glass instead, and Chris sits back and clinks the ice cubes in his drink. When Dan has nothing more to say, Chris changes the topic a little. “After dinner, when Evan and I went inside for a bit, he asked if I wanted to move out here. Said he thought he had a job for me, if I was interested.” Chris watches Dan closely. “He said he’d talked to you about it, and I thought maybe that’s what the fight was about. But it wasn’t? It was this… cheating thing?”

“Shit, Chris, why would Evan and I fight about offering you a job?” Dan is genuinely surprised by Chris’s thoughts. “I told him it’d be great for me to have you out here. And I said he shouldn’t offer you a job as a favor to me, because you could get your own job if you wanted to move, and he said he wasn’t. That’s… and nobody’s cheating, or thinking of cheating! It’s just Evan being… possessive, I guess.”

Chris smiles. “About Taylor.”

 

Dan nods, and is about to explain, but then he catches himself. “But what about the job? What did you tell him?”

“I told him I was definitely interested, but that I had to think about it.” Chris stretches his legs out in front of him. “I mean, Jeff’s mom working for you, me working for Evan, you and Evan’s sister in business together…. Things are getting pretty damn entwined. And you and Jeff seem fine, from what I’ve seen, but you and Evan…. I mean, obviously you like each other, but….”

Dan just nods. “Yeah. It’s not for sure about Jeff’s mom, but if you want the job, though… like, on its own, not as part of some larger… whatever… I don’t think he’d be an asshole about it, if this thing with him and me doesn’t work out.”

“Yeah, okay.” Chris’s smile is fond and gentle, a look that Dan doesn’t see much from his friend. “What do you think, Danny? You want a new neighbor?” He looks around the apartment. “I would have said roomie, but… I don’t think so.”

“Nice. What a gracious guest you are.”

“Dude, I could excuse the place in Kentucky because it was right above the barn—convenience is important. But, honestly, this is the best you could do in the entire town out here? Or God forbid you go into San Jose or something.”

“Hey, you and Evan are all tight now. If you don’t like it here, I’m sure he’s got a bed for you.”

 

“Now you’re talking—but then how could we whisper and giggle and have our nightly pillow fight? Damn, I guess I’m stuck here.” “Well, then, quit your bitching and go put your frilly pajamas on—I’ll braid your hair before bed.”

Chris smiles, and then shifts again. “This Taylor guy—I don’t mean to pry, man, but it’s always sounded like maybe some of the people you used to hang around with… maybe they weren’t exactly upstanding citizens?” Chris checks to see if Dan’s going to object to this, and then continues. “Is he okay? I mean… you’ve got a pretty good thing going out here. Is he going to get in the way of that?”

Dan thinks back to the time he’d spent with Taylor. It had only been one summer, working at the farm of a woman who seemed more interested in hiring good-looking grooms than buying well-trained horses or riding the ones she had. Taylor had resented it more than Dan had; he’d hated the way the woman treated them like decorations but also the way the other guys working there took advantage of the situation, neglecting the horses in favor of lounging around the pool at the house. Taylor and Dan had been the only ones who seemed to care about the animals, and they’d ended up working their asses off trying to pick up the slack and keep things running smoothly. Dan hadn’t minded too much, but Taylor had just gotten more and more tense, until finally Dan had realized that it wasn’t just the situation at the barn that was frustrating Taylor. Once Dan had clued in and made the first move, Taylor’s attitude had improved immensely.