Ed had felt like shit before he'd gone to his PT appointment, but he felt like complete hell now. He let his mother drive him back to his apartment to watch more TV until Laurie came by to hover awkwardly again.
He tried really hard not to think about what the odds were a boyfriend like Laurie, official for one week, would be the boyfriend of a cranky, moody head case for very long.
Two weeks before Christmas, Laurie met Oliver for lunch.
The idea had popped into his head during a planning meeting with Maggie, and he'd excused himself from his noon classes and headed to downtown Minneapolis, hoping he would catch Oliver in his office. He did.
“Laurence! What a lovely surprise,” Oliver said in greeting. “You're just catching me between meetings. What can I do for you?”
“I wanted to know if I could take you to lunch,” he said, trying to look less awkward than he felt. “I need to ask your advice on something.”
“Certainly!” Oliver sounded pleased. “I'm free at twelve thirty. Can you wait that long?”
It would mean he would have to bail on the two o'clock class he taught with a junior teacher. “Sure.”
“Excellent. Have a seat out in reception and tell Bobby to get you anything you need.” He winked at Laurie. “Feel free to ask him for a tour of the storeroom too.”
Turning quickly to hide his blush, Laurie ducked out of the office and went to reception, where, after calling to arrange for someone to cover his class, he allowed the flirtatious and modelesque Bobby the assistant to get him nothing more than a cup of coffee. He checked his phone a few times for messages from Ed, debated calling him to say hello, then decided it would just be better to stop by tonight like always. But thinking of Ed made him worry, and by the time Oliver came out, he was feeling more than a little gloomy.
“What is it you wanted to talk about?” Oliver asked him as they rode down the elevator. “You look upset. Did something happen with your football boyfriend?”
“He had an injury flare-up,” Laurie said, and before he knew it Ed's entire story was tumbling out, and then he told Oliver how he'd gotten the call from Annette, how bad Ed looked, and then he told Oliver his worries about how distant Ed was getting.
“He's due to go back to work next week, so I suppose that's a good thing. But he's gone so quiet. I can't tell if I should stay or go most of the time. I feel like an idiot.” He stopped at the bumper of Oliver's sleek Mercedes and grimaced. “I feel like an idiot now. I didn't meet you to talk about all this.”
He expected Oliver to chide him and tease him about having a boyfriend or something, but Oliver didn't even smile, just stopped beside Laurie, looking grave.
“Is he talking to anyone? His mother? One of his doctors? A therapist?”
“I don't know,” Laurie confessed. “Not his mother, I know that.” He considered a minute. “I doubt he says much to anyone. I think he's angry. Not at me, I'm almost sure of it. He apologizes a lot that I have to deal with him. I never know what to say to that.”
Oliver's grim expression didn't change. “Have the two of you gone out at all, or is it just you stopping by?”
“Well...no. I mean, I bring dinner, usually, or I cook something. I clean up a little, but he gets upset if I do too much. Usually we sit and watch television.”
“Sex?”
Oh, he should have seen this coming. “Ah. Well, the doctor said he had to hold off at first.” Laurie averted his eyes. “I never heard that he got permission back. He said two weeks, but it's been longer. I don't know if that got extended or what.”
He waited for a lecture, but Oliver just sighed. “Get in. I'm hungry.”
They drove in relative silence, Oliver doing nothing more than making random commentary about handsome men he spied on the street.
“We brought home this delightful young man the other day for a third,” he said as they drove. “Very vigorous. Made me think of you and your football player.”
“I don't think Ed is up for duo, let alone a trio,” Laurie replied. But the comment made him wonder if Ed was into that sort of thing. He'd always found it distasteful before, and he wasn't sure about it now. But maybe he should reconsider?
God, he was losing his mind.
“No, likely not,” Oliver agreed. “But what I meant is that it's amazing what sex can do for you. I was all upset that night about something at the office, and the next thing I knew, Christopher was showing me Grindr profiles. I thought he was joking, but he wasn't. It ended up being delightful. We had fantastic sex, the three of us, and the next morning I was late to a meeting reminding Christopher how very, very much I adore his body. And I didn't care at all about that idiot in charge of the account.” He winked at Laurie's blush. “Sex can heal a lot of things, Laurie. That's all I'm saying.”
The conversation ended there, thankfully, as by some miracle there was a free parking spot outside of Newsroom, and Oliver gave the tricky parallel parking job his full attention. All he could talk about from the sidewalk to the door was how lucky he'd been to score the space, and by the time the hostess seated them, Laurie was relieved at what he thought was a change of subject.
“So how are things otherwise?” Oliver asked as an overture once the waitress had brought them their drinks. “I know you're driving your mother up a wall, so you must be doing something interesting.”
“Well, it could be my refusal to perform for her gala, or it could be the fact that I'm dating. Take your pick. It could be either or both.”
Oliver nudged Laurie's glass with his finger. “You should bring your boy by. Christopher and I will host a little party. We can hunt up dating sites together, if you're up for it.” When Laurie's blush became so acute he had to touch his cheeks to be sure they weren't literally flaming, Oliver laughed and eased back in his chair.
“Oliver, you're supposed to be a benevolent philanthropist, not a dirty old man,” Laurie whispered, then drained his water.
“Why can't I be both?” Oliver rested his arm on the table. “But I doubt you called me to lunch so I could tease you about your boyfriend. What's on your mind?”
Laurie dove into the explanation about the center, of what it was and what had happened to the funding and what he wanted to do to help. Oliver nodded, looking sagely at him as he digested everything, but when Laurie explained how he wanted to have some of his classes move there, he shook his head.
“You can't save the center with ballet classes, Laurence. What they need are sponsors.”
“But they're set against sponsors,” Laurie said. “They worry about outside influence.”
“They're going to have to decide if they'd rather worry or think about the center that used to be. It's the sort of place that will never make money, and it's always going to need support. If they want to keep control, they need to have the center's profile raised as public service. Help people see this is a place that helps, not drains. These nice boys and girls and little old ladies and families it services need to be highlighted and propped up on posters and pushed in front of people with money. And there, Laurie, you can help. You can give it a profile. What grants are they using currently?”
“I don't know. I think it's just the city. Or something. I don't know anything. I just thought—”
“You thought you could come in and save it. And you can. Just not the way you're thinking. Do teach. And plan for a benefit in...oh, let's say April. It's a bit fast, but it can be done. See if you can put together some sort of showcase. Local people performing. Kids would be wonderful. Having it at the center itself would be best, but I'll have to tour it to be sure. We'll want you to perform, though. That will draw people, and you'll move them to donate.” When Laurie started to protest, Oliver just smiled and spoke over him. “I'll guide you through it, Laurence. We'll discuss it, perhaps in hot-tub meeting with your boyfriend along to relax your nerves.”
The latter was meant to tease him, Laurie knew, but he wasn't in the mood for it now. “Oliver, I don't want to perform.”
Oliver sighed. “I know. But you'll need to. That will be the draw. Right now you appear to be tucking your tail between your legs, working at a suburban center, not performing. Volunteering at a center, teaching the kids how to dance, performing with them, for them—that has panache.”
“I don't have my tail between my legs,” Laurie replied hotly.
Oliver raised an eyebrow at him but said nothing more on that point. “You're right about doing less in Eden Prairie. We've all been waiting for you to move on from that little studio. Do you need the income from teaching, though?”
Laurie shook his head. “I own the studio. I could teach nothing at all and still live very comfortably. And this is to say nothing of my investments or savings.” He lowered his eyes as he added, “I haven't done much but let money pile up for years. I could make no income for a long time and still be very comfortable.”
“You should consider your mother's franchise idea, you know. And have Maggie be the director. As you said, they'd lease to use your name. You could even make the center a branch of your operation, if you wanted to teach classes from there. Though you'd almost do better to have a designated space, something you can control. We could make it nonprofit, funneling money to the center on a permanent basis.”
Laurie snorted a laugh. “Maggie would have a coronary, and they'd hospitalize her next to my mother.”
“Excellent. They'll have company.” Oliver sipped at his drink. “I'll hook you up with a friend of mine who has a great deal of property in St. Paul. Likely he has something in the same neighborhood as your center. I'll convince him to give you a deal. Could you meet him tomorrow?”
Laurie blinked. “I—tomorrow?”
“Yes. Tomorrow. No time to waste. I haven't seen you this lit up about something in years. I'd like to capitalize on it.” Oliver smiled. “Unless it's the boyfriend causing this glow? Though likely it's both.”
Laurie sighed. “Maggie will hate this.”
“Of course she will! But she's had you longer than she should. And you aren't married to her. You're business partners and nothing more.”
“My mother called me Maggie's wife,” Laurie said tartly.
Oliver's eyes danced. “Yes. Take heart there—your mother will be pleased you're moving on.”
“And furious that I'm helping urchins.”
“Yes. At first. But I suspect we can get her to come around. She does love you. She just...has her ways.”
“I know.” Laurie sank back in his chair. He felt dizzy. He'd come to Oliver hoping to hear how to inflate a bake sale, and now he was considering leaving the studio. What frightened him was, even though it was all crazy, he was eager to do it.
“Very productive lunch,” Oliver declared, “and we haven't even eaten yet. Let's skip dessert, though. After, we'll head over to LaSalle and visit Candyland. I'm in the mood for some caramel corn.”
That made Laurie laugh. “Caramel corn?”
“Yes.” Oliver winked. “You can take some home to your football player. Let him eat it off your chest.”
“Ed,” Laurie said as he blushed, realizing he hadn't before. “His name is Ed Maurer.”
“Can't wait to meet him,” Oliver said and signaled to the waitress that they were ready to order.
Chapter Thirteen
jazz split: a split executed on the floor with the back leg bent up from the knee. The knee may be held and/or head arched toward it.
Ed sat on the couch with an ice pack propped behind his neck, staring at Tim's stupid “pain goal” sheet.
If he could, he'd crumple it into a ball and toss it into the garbage like he'd done all the other sheets Tim had given him in the past twelve months. But after his last burst of temper in the therapy room, Dr. Linnet had “happened” to stop by to see how he was doing, suspiciously after Tim had ducked into his office for just about the time it would take to make a phone call over to the clinic. And after a few minutes of watching Ed's frustration, Linnet pulled him off to the side and gave Ed an ultimatum: He either turned in his pain goals sheet to Tim by the next session, or he was going to go on antidepressants. Ed could take his pick.
The declaration upset Ed. Linnet had talked about using antidepressants before, and it wasn't entirely about being depressed, he knew that. There was something about how chronic pain patients could get side effects from the drugs, taking the edge off some of the lower-level aggravation to the nerves. At the time, they'd ruled it out, and Ed had thought they were over that, but apparently not.
He knew too that this time Linnet wasn't just after the side effects. He was after the main effects too.
Ironically, the news that he was a hairsbreadth from going on antidepressants made Ed more depressed than he'd been yet. He wasn't that bad. And he wasn't in
chronic pain
either. Occasional pain. More frequent than occasional, lately, yeah, but if they'd just leave him alone, he knew it would go away.
Except this time it wasn't. He'd done jack shit for two weeks. Linnet had cleared him for work but with great reluctance. The doc himself this time had brought up going on disability.
Disability! Him!
He took out fucking three-hundred-pound guys! He could still bench one-seventy-five! Sometimes one-ninety!
Disability!
And antidepressants.
Glowering, Ed stared down at the paper in front of him.
What are your physical activity goals for one month? For one year?
Ed tapped his pencil against the paper and glanced over at the clock. It was almost six. Laurie usually stopped by about now on Fridays. Something must have come up with one of his classes. Or traffic was bad. But he usually called to let him know when he was leaving. Or that he would be late.
Had Ed been a shit to him too, like Tim said he'd been to all the staff lately? Was Laurie sick of putting up with a banged-up, cranky boyfriend? Had he found something better to do?
Someone better to do, who wasn't making up reasons not to make love to him because he was afraid his neck would give out midstroke?
Ed gripped his pencil more tightly and returned to the form.