Nothing but Smoke (Fire and Rain) (9 page)

“Yeah.” Nicky let out a rueful chuckle. “Well, not really. Not by any normal standards.”

Michael chewed on the inside of his cheek, his jaw working. Clearly, there was a story there, but Michael wasn’t sure how much to probe. “So, do you need to hang out with her? Or take her to the doctor? I mean, we can do dinner some other time.”

“No.” Nicky sighed. “Her home health aide had an open slot and can come in tonight for a few hours, and I…” His voice wavered, almost cracking. “I really need to get out of here. Do something normal.” Another laugh, but this one more amused than sad. “Well, not something normal. Maybe a little…less normal, actually.”

Home health aide… That meant Nicky’s mother was the kind of sick that went beyond a course of antibiotics, or even surgery and a week or two of recovery.

Michael wanted to ask a million questions—if Nicky’s dad was in the picture, or any siblings. But he got from the tone of Nicky’s voice that Nicky wanted to forget about all that for a while. “Less normal, huh?” Michael leaned against the counter. “What kind of
less normal
are we talking? A leather bar?”

Nicky’s snort was pure mirth. “No. Okay, not that un-normal. I was thinking maybe Chinese?”

“I could do that.” After a day of coffee shop food, Michael was more than ready for some vegetables. “You want to go to the International District?” There were some great Thai and Indian places in the U District, but all the best Chinese was in the I.D. “Shit.” He remembered his car was still at the auto place down on Rainier. “My car’s in the shop.”

“Oh. Well, I could pick you up.”

“I guess.” Michael dreaded the thought of being a passenger again. “Or I could meet you. There’s a bus that goes straight from The Ave to Madison.”

“You don’t have to do that. I don’t mind coming up that way. What’s the address?”

“It’s on The Ave. The place is Speedy Coffee. Knock hard. I may be in the back office.”

“Awesome.” Michael could hear Nicky’s smile over the phone. “And by the way, thanks.”

“For what?”

“For agreeing to meet me. I know… Well, I’ve thought a lot about what you said.” Nicky let the words hang there. “I mean, about my being not straight.”

Henri had told Michael a thousand times that “I told you so” was Michael’s personal catch phrase, but hearing Nicky admit Michael was right…out loud…well, it went a long way to puffing up Michael’s pride.

“Yeah. Well, I’m starving, so hurry up.” Michael chuckled, covering up his excitement.

“I should be there in twenty minutes.”

Nicky would never find street parking. Especially not for the Lincoln, which seemed to have been built with the assumption that the owners would always be going somewhere with valet parking.

Luckily, Michael stood on the curb, in front of a café tucked between one of those lunchtime-only noodle places and a head shop. The sign in the window was lower than the rest on the street, giving it the aura of somewhere you’d only go if you were on foot.

Michael hurried to the car and hopped in. The few people lined up behind Nicky might not have been thrilled with him stopping, but at least none of them honked.

“Hey.” Nicky tried to smile.

Michael was gorgeous in a shirt that was a muted, almost pastel color of green. “Thanks for picking me up.” He tossed a messenger bag in the backseat. When he settled back, his smile was tentative but kind. “I could have taken the bus.”

“Nah. I wanted the drive.” After spending the day touring the hospice center with his mother, and then talking on the phone for hours with her doctor and their health insurance, the thrum of traffic was almost meditative.

Nicky realized he must have been staring into space when he caught a glimpse of Michael’s expression. “Oh.” He rubbed his face. “Sorry.” He felt a rush of embarrassment.

“Are you okay?” Michael’s eyes were searching, looking for something Nicky didn’t want anyone to see. Michael was like Father MacKenzie, but worse. Because Father MacKenzie saw all the ways Nicky was strong, but Michael only ever seemed to see him when he was weak.

“Yeah.” He rubbed the heel of his hand across his eyes. “It’s just we’re admitting her to a hospice center soon.” He couldn’t believe he was telling as much to Michael, but Nicky couldn’t seem to stop the words from pouring out. “And in order for her to be admitted, her doctor had to certify she had only six months left…”

He’d known it wouldn’t be much more than that. He’d prepared for it from day one. But to deal with pencil pushers over the phone debating the length of his mother’s remaining life and what they’d be willing to dole out to make her comfortable was almost more than he could bear.

Before he knew it, tears were dripping down his face—more than he’d cried since he’d first heard about her diagnosis. Hell, worse maybe than he’d cried since he was a kid.

“Pull over.” Michael gripped Nicky’s leg.

“I…” Nicky’s hands shook. Traffic streamed to his left and right, and the curb was packed with wall-to-wall cars. He couldn’t have pulled off if he wanted to.

“There.” Michael put a hand on Nicky’s arm and pointed to a giant sign that said
Parking
. “Pull in there. Now. You can’t be driving like this.”

Without answering, Nicky did as directed. The parking lot was cramped, with no way to turn around, but at least Nicky was off the road and no longer a danger to himself or other drivers.

“You okay?” Michael grabbed Nicky’s hand, rubbing his palm.

Sure, at the gym Nicky could have lifted more than Michael. But today, in life, Nicky wanted to collapse and let Michael take his weight. “Yeah.” He leaned his head back in the seat, eyes hot but no longer leaking. His heart pattered with anxiety. “I’m okay.”

“Well, get out. I’m driving.”

In truth, Nicky had been expecting a hug. The way Michael slammed out his side of the door and came around to Nicky’s side bordered on angry.

“Come on.” Michael reached inside, helping Nicky out of his seat.

Nicky wanted to tell Michael he was perfectly fine to be driving, but still shaking from his meltdown, Nicky didn’t argue. “Sorry. I—”

Michael crushed their mouths together in a fast kiss. “Listen. I know you’re upset.” He squeezed Nicky’s hand right there in the parking lot in Eastlake. The sun hadn’t set, but Nicky couldn’t be bothered to care anymore. It was hard to care about anything when he’d hadn’t slept in days and he needed to buy boxes to pack his mother’s stuff.

“Let’s get somewhere we can talk.” Michael glanced around the parking lot. They were next to a restaurant, but it was Italian, not Chinese, and looked expensive. “Or we can eat here. Assuming we can coax this monster into a parking space.”

Nicky’s laugh was watery, but he liked the feeling of Michael’s fingers laced with his. “Here’s fine. I guess.” Nicky bit his lips, staring at their joined hands.

“Is this okay?”

“Yeah.” Nicky tried to sound casual. “Yeah, it’s fine.”

Michael pulled him in for a hug—kind of like a bro hug, but different in the way Michael caressed his back.

Then Michael took the keys from Nicky’s hand and got in the front seat of the Town Car. In a few seconds, and with a feat of driving prowess Nicky never would have expected, Michael maneuvered into a spot.

He had to work to squeeze out the door, but the car was safely inside the painted white lines.

“How’d I do?” The strut in Michael’s step went a long way to helping Nicky’s mood.

“Good.” Nicky doubted he’d be able to pull off suave, but he made his best effort. “Better than I would have thought.”

Grinning, Michael shoved him in the arm. Again, more intimate than straight guys touching, but it still felt perfectly normal. “I’ve heard this restaurant is pretty good.” Michael pushed the door open but waited for Nicky to go through. Nicky couldn’t help feeling like it was another one of those male/female gestures, and Michael was signaling things about their relationship.

“You like Italian, right?” Michael asked close to his ear.

“Yeah. A lot.” Nicky wondered if he was whispering. He certainly felt out of breath.

“Cool.” Michael touched the low part of Nicky’s back. The restaurant was dark and crowded enough that Nicky was pretty sure no one noticed.

A young and very blonde hostess led them to their table. When she gave them their menus, she flashed Michael a smile, then one at Nicky, like she knew perfectly well they were together.

Some kind of opera played in the background, and candles lit the tables. With their booth enclosed from the others it felt like a real date, and to Nicky’s surprise, nothing about it seemed weird.

“So. Are you a pasta man? Or do you go more for sausage?” Michael twitched his lips to the side.

Nicky checked out the platters of spaghetti being placed in front of a man and woman at a table across from them. “I bet a plate that size is a week’s worth of carbs.” A second too late, Nicky realized he probably sounded like a freak with an eating disorder. He cleared his throat. “I mean, not like I care about that stuff.”

Under the table, Michael touched his thigh. “Well, I didn’t assume you looked so good on accident.”

Nicky couldn’t help but chuckle right along with Michael. His friends at the station always ate whatever they wanted. Sure, they worked out, but not the way Nicky did. Not because they got off on looking in the mirror when their muscles were ripped. “Well, yeah. The guys at the gym can be a little hardcore.”

Plenty of his workout buddies were way more religious than Nicky about what they ate. Nicky glanced at the menu and tried really hard not to calculate the fat and protein content of each option.

“Well, I grew up gluten-free, so a place like this is like a candy store.”

“Wow. Seriously?”

“Yup.” Michael’s leg brushed Nicky’s under the table. “I lived for eating pizza at friends’ houses.”

When the waitress came, Michael ordered a half-carafe of wine, and although Nicky usually drank beer, he went along with the vibe of Michael taking charge. They both gave their orders, and her smile as she left them took away the last of Nicky’s worry that she might judge them for being together.

Nicky couldn’t stop thinking about that warm hand on his back as he walked in the door. He wished there were some subtle way of asking about Michael’s preference in bed without being awkward.

“So. Are you from here? Or a transplant?” Michael’s foot knocked against Nicky’s again, making Nicky wish the tablecloth was longer and Michael could rub their legs together while they talked.

“My parents moved here from Rhode Island, but I was born here.” The booth was U-shaped, and Nicky scooted toward the deeper part of the U so they could speak more quietly. “How about you? Did you move here for school?”

“Nope. Larson is as Scandinavian-Northwesterner as it gets. My dad works in financials for Weyerhaeuser and my mom teaches—they’re divorced—but my grandfather and his father worked for logging companies out in Aberdeen.”

Well, the Nordic thing certainly explained Michael’s complexion, as well as his height. “O’Brian.” Nicky smiled. “Whole family is Irish. Only a few generations on this side of the Atlantic.”

Michael’s eyes crinkled at the corners, and he reached to run his fingertip across Nicky’s nose. “Well, that explains the freckles.”

That touch may have painted fire across his face, Nicky blushed so hard. Fucking pale skin. “You’re one to talk, strawberry.” He ruffled Michael’s hair, what little of it there was.

The strands were crisp with hair product, and stuck at odd angles. Michael scowled as he rearranged it. “I’m not a redhead.”

The vehemence in that statement made Nicky snicker. “Oh crap, you’re self-conscious about it? But it’s cute.”

Michael arched an eyebrow. “Say that again?”

Though his stern expression was half-teasing, it still made Nicky hot under his clothes. “You’re cute.”

Heat flared in Michael’s eyes, and if they hadn’t been at a restaurant, Nicky was certain Michael would have grabbed him and kissed him until Nicky took it back, substituting
hot
or
sexy
or
very manly indeed
for “cute”.

“You’re going to pay for that later.” Michael squeezed his side.

Their food came, so they settled into eating, chatting about their families and cars and motorcycles. Nicky learned that Michael had a much older sister who lived in Montana with a guy who did organic farming, so same as Nicky, Michael grew up as an only child. He learned that Michael’s eyes rolled back with every bite he took of pizza.

Usually Nicky thought red wine tasted like vinegar and Sunday mass, but whatever Michael had ordered complemented the food so much that most of it was gone by the time they considered ordering dessert.

“I’m not really into sweets.” Michael studied the menu.

That was okay. Nicky felt full and happy, and more than a little eager to get on to the next phase of his date. He’d been partially hard since they settled into their table. “Let’s skip it.” Nicky wondered if he had the guts to say what he was thinking. His palms felt damp, so he wiped them on his shorts.

Crap, was he seriously thinking of going back to Michael’s place? If they were in an actual apartment, they could take off all their clothes before they got off. Hell, they could really…really…