“Yeah,” Nathan said, and he whispered it over and over as Fury came. Fury rasped toned sighs in fits and starts through his nose, and Nathan milked Fury until the tones turned into complaints. Nathan let go, arm hanging down and getting washed clean by the shower’s spray. Fury didn’t move, though he kissed the skin he’d no doubt marked with his teeth.
Nathan didn’t know how long they stood there propping each other upright, but when Fury drew away, Nathan was sweating and instantly missing the contact. Fury gave Nathan a small smile, bent, and kissed Nathan like they were two lovers with years behind them, not minutes, and he slicked his hair away from his face, wringing it out.
“Thanks,” Fury said, and Nathan could only nod. Fury slipped a hand around Nathan’s nape, just like he had in the truck, but Nathan couldn’t meet Fury’s eyes. There were too many things Nathan wanted to ask. Where was Fury from? Why the jungle tattoo? How did Fury get into the fighting circuit? What did Fury mean about not getting this often enough? What would he say to getting it again sooner rather than later? And could Fury please kiss Nathan again, because for some stupid reason it made Nathan feel so much better than anything else?
“See you around?” Fury asked, holding the shower curtain, ready to draw it aside.
“Sure,” Nathan muttered. He turned around and shoved his face under the water. He didn’t hear the rings clack, and his breath stuttered when Fury wrapped Nathan in a hug from behind.
“Mmm,” Fury hummed, almost sadly. “Not enough.” He kissed the shell of Nathan’s ear and let go as suddenly as he’d taken hold. Nathan blinked at the steam that filled the space where Fury had just been.
Mind like the eye of a hurricane, Nathan washed himself, taking longer than necessary with the rinse. He was lobster red when he emerged from the shower, and he grabbed his belongings off the changing area’s floor.
The locker room was deserted, and Nathan put on his clothes after retrieving his wallet and keys. He sat down on the bench to put on his sneakers and paused. In his left shoe was a piece of paper with ten numbers scrawled across it in heavy script.
Knowing that no one could see, Nathan put the piece of paper to his lips, shut his eyes, and for a moment, there was just Fury’s touch, taste, smell, and the memory of a husky voice.
“C’mere… Not enough.”
Chapter Five
For the life of Nathan, he could not figure out the feminine tradition of dragging along some sorry man on a shopping expedition. It had to be proof that women were all sadists and believed men should be punished for having penises. Getting even for that whole Garden incident with the snake.
The dressing room door opened, and Lydia, Laura’s oldest sister, stepped out into the spacious corridor, where Nathan sat on a leather sofa next to Barb, his future mother-in-law.
“I don’t think I like the color,” Lydia said, tiptoeing to stand in front of the trifold mirror. She smoothed the front of the green dress with dark brown stripes. Lydia and Leslie both took after their mother, who, for reasons that spoke to a neurosis Nathan couldn’t identify, had decided to give all her girls names beginning with “L.” They were short, top-heavy, curvy women with blonde, chemically enhanced hair and clinically detached blue eyes.
Barb pursed her lips. “Are you thinking it’s for the engagement party?”
“Maybe.” Lydia eyed her own rear view. “Or just a dinner out with Kevin,” she said, referring to her husband. “Escape from the kids for an evening and maybe get the nanny to earn her keep.”
“Well, dear, it is a winter event,” Barb commented.
“Good point,” Lydia said absently.
Another door opened, and Laura came out wearing a black suit. Laura, unlike her sisters, was tall, thin, and had wavy brunette hair that she typically kept tied back in a low tail. “You look like an Andes mint,” she said to her sister.
Lydia sniffed and spoke to Barb. “Something different for the party, then, but the price is too good to pass up.”
“Laura, you’re not thinking of wearing a suit?” Barb asked, the inflection dripping with disdain. Hell hath no fury like a Southern woman with her sense of propriety scorned.
“What’s wrong with it?” Laura asked with practiced innocence.
“Of course she’s not,” Leslie answered, appearing from behind a third door. Ever the peacekeeping middle child, Leslie put on a stellar, everyone-play-nice smile. “Nathan wouldn’t approve, would you?”
“I do like Laura in a skirt,” Nathan chimed in, enjoying the covert glare Laura sent his way.
“That’s a good man,” Barb said, patting Nathan’s knee.
“He just likes the easy access.” Laura smirked, Leslie blushed, Lydia rolled her eyes, and Barb clucked in disapproval.
“The suit will be good on the job, right?” Leslie tried.
“I wear a uniform, Leslie,” Laura replied with exhausted patience. “It’s what security officers do.”
“And most of us don’t understand how you
do
that job at all,” Lydia said.
“My favorite part’s the gun,” Laura replied.
“Oooh, mine too,” the store’s attendant said, ducking into the corridor to see how they were doing. He was shorter than Nathan, had black hair, chocolate skin, and kohl eyeliner. Barb lifted an eyebrow at the man and resolutely studied her phone.
“I bet,” Laura said to the attendant. She sighed in the general direction of the mirror. “Can you go find me something conservative, black, and in a skirt, please?”
“Black? Oh, must we?” Barb sighed.
“Yes, Mother, we must.”
“I was hoping…” Barb waved one hand. “Oh, never mind.”
“What, Mother?” Laura pressed, and the other two girls stiffened.
“Nothing, dear, it’s your party, and I know my opinion doesn’t matter.”
“It matters,” Laura disagreed. “It’s just my choices matter more. So since we agree—”
“But it would just be so nice if you wouldn’t dress for a funeral all the time,” Barb huffed, switching to the direct approach since her passive-aggressive tactics weren’t working. Nathan chewed his tongue. He’d not touched pills recreationally since Nashville; today might be the day to break that pattern.
“Maybe get those highlights in your hair that we always talk about and—”
“For the millionth time, Mother, I’m not going blonde.” Laura turned to the clerk. “What do you think?” she asked.
The attendant hummed in a nonpartisan sort of way. He stepped behind Laura, hands on his hips. “I think we have a red ensemble that would look amazing on you. If you want to go for color, love.” He glanced Nathan’s way and winked.
“I think I’ll just go change.” Leslie sneaked by the attendant and Laura as though they had something catching. “Excuse me.”
“How’s that dress, honey?” the attendant asked, following Leslie with an exaggerated sway of his hips. “It looks a little tight. You want a size up?” Nathan liked the guy for saying fuck the commission and go for messing with the homophobic customers.
“No, thank you,” Leslie squeaked and locked herself into the dressing room.
“She’s sensitive about her weight,” Laura said. “But I’ll take the red as an option along with the black.”
“Coming right up.” The man started to head out onto the floor but paused, toying with his headset volume control. “Don’t I know you?” he said to Nathan. “You look so familiar.”
Nathan opened his mouth to answer, but Barb beat him to it. “He’s a vice president at the Moore Agency.”
“Ooh, fancy,” the clerk teased.
“Not at all, actually,” Nathan said. “Hardly a reason to know me.”
Barb’s exterior went even colder. “Well, perhaps you’ve seen him on the billboards for the Coalition for Marriage or the Straight Alliance?”
Nathan squashed the temptation to add that option number three might be remembering his ass from a stall in a dance club in any number of major cities. He wanted to stand up and offer the kid a more familiar view just to wipe the smug expressions off Lydia and Barb’s faces. Even thinking of such rebellion wasn’t like Nathan, and a flock of birds fluttered in his stomach.
“Oh,” the attendant said, grinning mischievously at Nathan. “I guess that explains why you never called, huh?”
The kid’s attitude was contagious. “Sorry, baby,” Nathan said without missing a beat. He loved the way the kid’s eyes went wider, and Laura went pale. “I don’t double-dip.”
All three women stared at Nathan like he’d grown a third arm without their permission. The attendant, delighted, clucked his tongue. “Your loss, honey.”
“I’m sure,” Nathan said politely, and the kid sauntered away.
Lydia flounced into her cubicle, and Laura stalked into hers. “Honestly, dear, you shouldn’t encourage them,” Barb said. He was pretty sure she meant “the Gays” and not her daughters, but he didn’t ask for clarification.
“God save their souls,” Barb continued, sighing.
“I’m sure He will, ma’am,” Nathan said, praying that he’d be released from this punitive duty soon.
The answer to Nathan’s prayers came in the form of Lydia having to get home because of a child emergency. The women paid for their purchases, Nathan divided up the bags he was carrying for Mother Moore and the Sisters Three, and he and Laura trudged across the parking lot to the Corvette.
“Well,” Laura pronounced as she slammed the door and buckled her seat belt. “That was childish.”
“Your catfight with your mom and sisters?” Nathan asked. “Yeah, usually is.”
Laura’s features hardened. “No, you flirting with the boy toy.”
“That was not flirting. That was deflecting.” Nathan began weaving through lanes, heading to the exit. “Don’t you know that straight men are comfortable enough with their sexuality to flirt with the gay ones?”
“As if you’d know anything about straight men.”
“Says the expert,” Nathan retorted.
Laura’s scowl warmed the inside of the car by a few degrees. “What the hell is wrong with you lately?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re usually so…”
“Docile?” Nathan supplied. “Timid? Amenable? Whipped?”
“Smart,” Laura said.
Nathan barked a laugh. “Well, maybe I’m reprioritizing what I consider to be intelligent decisions in my life.”
“Oh?” Laura asked.
“For example,” Nathan carried on, and there was a huge part of him screaming to shut up, to stop this, to soothe Laura, not antagonize her, but Nathan couldn’t help himself. “I checked on the contract I have with the Straight Cult Alliance and the other assholes using my face to sell their dogma.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Turns out? The rights to use those images have to be renewed every year.” Nathan’s cheeks were hurting from his maniacal grin. “I called them to inform them I wouldn’t be renewing the agreement.”
“The agreement that my father arranged for you so you’d get the most out of the deal? Would that be the contract you’re breaking?”
“Not breaking it,” Nathan corrected. “Just not renewing.” He glanced at Laura, confused. “I thought you’d be happy to hear the news. Down with the straight asshole man and all.”
“Sure. Great. Bravo.”
Nathan’s confusion started to transform into irritation. “Forget me. What’s wrong with you lately?”
Laura shrugged. “Oh, nothing. Just trying to keep a fake life together.”
“Aren’t we all?”
“Well, some of our fake lives offer more perks than others.”
Nathan rolled his eyes. “Yes, darling wife-to-be. I know exactly who has gotten me what over the last few years. You don’t exactly let me forget.”
“If I didn’t remind you, who would?”
Nathan’s anger overruled any of the voices yelling that he was out of line. “Oh. So true. And isn’t it convenient that your father is so responsible for so many of those perks to which you refer?” Despite Laura’s granite gaze, Nathan kept going. “I mean, we all know how much I have to lose if I stop being ‘smart,’ right? My job, my apartment, my reputation, my career… When your father finds out what we’re doing, he’s going to ruin me. And if he finds out before we finish, I’ll be ruined with nothing to show for it.”
“
You’ll
be ru—”
“Forget how much I worked to get where I am,” Nathan continued. “Forget the degree I got all on my own, the internships, the scraping by, or the ideas I brought to the sales floor that really did change the way your father does business. Forget anything I may have had to do with any of it. Your father owns my ass, and what little of it he doesn’t own, you’ve claimed.”
Laura gave a cruel little laugh. “Oh, poor Nathan, the sad little gay victim. As if you didn’t choose to be exactly where you are. As if I swindled you into this somehow. I didn’t hide what I wanted to do. I didn’t fucking sugarcoat it. You, me, three years, fake marriage, and if we get through it, you get half of the cash my father ponies up for the douche bag who wins the hand of one of his precious daughters.”
“Oh, so I’m a douche? That’s just—”
Now Laura overrode Nathan. “I put the offer on the table, and you took it. You took it for the same reasons I’m still taking it, still going through with it, still putting up with my parents’ and sisters’ shit because of it.”
“Oh God, please enlighten me as to what those reasons are again?”
“The money, Nathan. You want the fucking—” Laura broke off and sank into the seat. They both fumed through red lights, and Nathan considered saying that Laura was right. They had agreed to every stop that got them here. That was the most insufferable part.
Finally, Laura sighed. “At least you’ve got the cushy job and my father’s respect. All I get is slightly better than minimum wage, and I have to wait until I’m hitched to some man and squeezing out brats before my father will look at me with even half the affection he has when he talks about you.”
Nathan kneaded the steering wheel and merged onto the interstate. “I don’t think faking the man out is going to win you any points in the respect department,” Nathan said at last.
Laura rolled her head toward Nathan, her arms folded across her chest. “This was never about that. You know it wasn’t. I gave up trying to win his approval a long time ago.”
“It’s about getting what your sisters got.” Nathan sighed. He’d lost count of how many times he’d heard Laura’s “my religious family sucks” litany, but he could probably recite it under general anesthesia.