“Damn right it is. I’m not blonde, pretty, or content with the idea of high society, but you better believe I’m getting what’s mine.”
“You’re beautiful,” Nathan said softly.
“Says the gay man.” Laura’s voice was steady, but she hastily wiped at her eyes, and her hand shook.
“We’re notoriously difficult to please when it comes to creatures with breasts.”
“Mmm.” Laura sat taller in the seat, crossing her legs so they matched her arms. “It’s not just my looks that will get me kicked off the Moore Island, Nate, and you know it.”
“And you still won’t try to…” Nathan began, stopping when he realized the futility of his logic.
“Talk to him?” Laura asked drily. “This again? Really?”
“Well? Why not? Sometimes he lets people get a word in, here and there. And I just don’t think he’s—”
“You don’t know him,” Laura said stiffly.
“Yeah, so you’ve said all along and keep saying,” Nathan said without the usual dose of sarcasm. “But I do know what he’s done for me.”
“First you bitch that it wasn’t all Daddy’s work that got you where you are and then you say he’s been good to you?”
“That’s the thing, Laura. He has actually been good to me.”
Laura sighed. “Your mother, you mean.”
Nathan wiped a sweaty palm on his jeans. “The bonuses he gave me paid for the hospital bills and for the funeral.” Nathan’s mother had died of breast cancer the year he’d been introduced to Laura. He didn’t think it was a coincidence that his promotion, his last major bonus, and meeting his fiancée had all happened around the same time. Greg was a shrewd businessman, and he didn’t get there by playing underhanded or covert games.
Unlike his daughter and future son-in-law.
Laura wheezed a damp laugh. “Your mother was a God-fearing Baptist woman dedicated to staying married to her abusive asshole husband. Of course Daddy ponied up the cash to put her to rest.”
Laura always spoiled for a fight when she was nervous, tense, or outright scared, and if she was all of the above, she wanted to go to war. Nathan counted to ten and tried to steer them back onto topic. “Look, the situation’s bound to get rougher as we get closer to the wedding date. Means shit’s getting real.”
“Felt pretty real since the beginning,” Laura mumbled.
“And we both tend to forget it was our own choices that landed us in this mess. We’re both idiots. I’m even the bigger one, which means you’re smarter, so you should see the merit in talking to your father.”
Laura shook her head and played with her ponytail. “Wouldn’t even know where to begin that conversation, and it wouldn’t have done or do any good.” Her swallow was audible, the click in her throat barely holding in emotion. Nathan recognized the effort. And sympathized too, damn it all. He wished he didn’t. It’d be easier to walk away from her and her schemes.
“Besides, it’s too late now, isn’t it?” Laura asked.
“Maybe not,” Nathan said, because he didn’t want it to be too late. He wanted there to be an easier way out, a solution that didn’t land them all in a pile of pain.
“Oh yeah? You going to go have a little one-on-one with Dad?” Laura asked. “See if you can be the second guy Daddy fires for liking cock-in-ass action?”
Nathan put an elbow on the narrow window ledge. He ran a hand over his face. “No.”
“You want out?” Laura asked.
“Of the closet?”
“Of the deal, Nathan.”
Laura’s face was expressionless, and it reminded Nathan of Fury. Everything had for the last week. Nathan spent lunch breaks browsing images on his phone of Fury fighting. He’d memorized Fury’s phone number, and the piece of paper with Fury’s handwriting on it lived in Nathan’s wallet. Nathan jerked off remembering Fury’s sounds, Fury’s kiss, Fury’s touch, Fury’s everything. He dreamed of red-and-black braids, and instead of fucking, the dreams were usually of him and Fury wrapped around each other in bed, sleeping or holding or planning to open a Dairy Queen or invade Cuba or doing things that could only make sense to the subconscious. Nathan’s attraction had long since crossed the line into obsession, and Nathan didn’t know if that was because he liked Fury or if he liked what Fury meant. Recklessness, daring… Reality. Truth. Desire.
“Nathan?” Laura asked again, waiting for Nathan to answer. Did he want out of the deal? Could he walk away from the money? He, who had grown up poor, fought through poorer times, and had only started to find some sort of security? What about his promise to Laura, who was, despite it all, a friend and a person who had helped him out during rougher patches? Nathan didn’t have the answers. He didn’t know what he owed to whom, least of all himself.
“I…” Nathan began, and he got off the freeway, going through the motions to take Laura home. If he ended the engagement to Laura, every piece of the illusion would crumble. If he got lucky and Greg treated him with kindness instead of vindictiveness, then maybe Nathan had a shot of finding another job in town. If Greg made it his business to make life difficult for Nathan, then Nathan would have to move. The economy wasn’t great, and leaving town would mean not seeing Fury again.
Vertigo whacked Nathan upside the head, and he was glad they were on a straight stretch of road. He didn’t know when he had gotten so desperate or outright stupid to think that a random blowjob meant anything more than sex to a man like Fury. Or forget Fury, Nathan didn’t know when it had started to mean anything more to
him
. What the hell was it with this guy? Did Nathan really think—
“Nathan!” Laura shouted, and Nathan slammed on the brakes in time to stop them from rear-ending a minivan.
“Jesus,” Laura cursed, holding the oh-shit bar and center console.
“Sorry,” Nathan apologized.
“The hell are you thinking?”
He was thinking about Fury’s smile and embrace, but instead he lied and said, “That I’m not ready to walk on you. I don’t want to do that. I promised you I’d play my part.”
Laura tried to hide her relief but failed. “It’s not that much longer. The party, the ceremony, and then you get half the dowry.”
They turned onto Laura’s street, and Nathan paused at the guard’s booth set in the center of two landscaped lanes trying to soften the twelve-foot metal fence that enclosed the Dale Springs Community. Laura had a condo in the gated residential development. A condo that Daddy helped pay for, but Nathan was smart enough not to mention that fact. Laura got furious any time someone mentioned Greg being generous to his youngest daughter.
“Hey, Carl,” Nathan said, and Laura leaned over to smile at the guard.
“Hey, you two.” Carl ducked down to speak to Laura. “You working tonight?”
“Not tonight,” Laura said. “Got the late shift the rest of the week, though.”
“Good. I’ll have company.” Carl saluted Laura, and Nathan drove through the gate. Laura was not only a resident of Dale Springs, she worked there too, as a security officer. She patrolled the cobblestone streets and sometimes sat in the front booth, checking names of residents and guests off a list.
“You realize we fight like an old married couple, and we’re not even fake married yet?” Laura asked.
“I know.” Nathan concentrated on sticking to the ridiculous fifteen-mile-an-hour speed limit.
“It’s one of the reasons I’ve not been calling or checking in as much,” Laura admitted.
“The fighting?”
Laura shrugged, staring out the window at the rows of trees denuded of leaves. “Yeah. Seems like that’s all we do. Was wondering if that’s one of the reasons you’ve been…different.”
“Which reason?” Nathan asked. “Our bickering or you avoiding me?”
“Either.” Laura turned to him, and she looked as bone weary as Nathan felt.
Nathan parked the car in front of Laura’s building. He dropped his hands into his lap. “I told you. I don’t know why I’m anything, really, anymore. I don’t think I’ve understood myself for a long time.”
Laura considered. “You take risks.”
“You’re just now noticing this?”
“Even that shit at the store.” Laura shook her head as though she’d forgotten Nathan was in the car. She was distant, and Nathan’s neck hair stood on end. “Mother could make life just as impossible for us as Father.”
“I know,” Nathan acknowledged. “I’m sorry.”
“They hate everyone who’s not like them.” Laura laughed, and when it cracked, Nathan gave in to the urge to take Laura’s hand.
“It is the WASP philosophy,” Nathan said, aiming for neutral territory.
“And you know what?” Laura met Nathan’s eyes. Laura could start wars or inspire world peace with a single glance, if she ever believed enough in herself to realize it. Now Laura’s eyes leveled Nathan with their hopelessness. “I think I hate you for being able to act out. Go off. Run ‘errands.’ Take chances. Not everybody gets to do that, not even the ones who need it the most.” Laura’s eyebrows rose. “I think I’m jealous.”
Nathan thought of Paul’s wedding ring and about how strange it was to be angry at Paul for the same reasons Laura was pissed at Nathan. “I get it,” Nathan said. “But you’re in bad shape if you’ve got nothing better to be jealous of than the likes of me.”
Laura blew a breath out her nose, still holding Nathan’s hand. They sat there together in silence, and a series of facts added up and nagged at Nathan. They banged around his brain until he managed to drag them out of the back rooms. “Laura, is there something else you’re not telling me?”
Laura’s panic was spelled out in gleaming neon. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t really know,” Nathan said, carefully. “The plan, all this orchestration… The way you came to me after we’d played and discovered that wasn’t the greatest idea…”
“I still hold that it’s a fine idea. You just want both sides of the kink coin.”
“Yeah, I know, greedy me, but seriously.” Nathan frowned at Laura. “You could still rejoin the navy. And even if you don’t want that anymore, you’ve got a job. You have what your sisters don’t—independence. If this isn’t all about getting your father’s attention or respect or whatever, then…” Nathan tipped his free hand, turning it palm up in an imploring gesture. “Why get married at all?”
Laura yanked her hand out of Nathan’s and started gathering her things. “The money, like I said in the beginning. I want what my sisters got when they got married.”
“Well, sure, I get that, but why not just ask your father to—”
“Because he wouldn’t.”
“You don’t know—”
“Yes, I do, Nathan.” If looks could remove heads, Laura’s would have been one hell of a scythe. “Why are you asking all this shit now?”
“Because I—”
“It’s a little late in the damned game, don’t you think? I get having second thoughts, especially from you, but—”
“Hey, I was just trying to—”
“What the hell do you care, Nathan?” Laura bellowed. “You’ll get yours, so what the hell?”
Nathan rubbed his chest like he could massage the wounds hidden beneath bone and muscle. “I’ve always cared. I might be a cash-grubbing asshole, but I had to care about you to agree to this in the first place.” Every word Nathan spoke wound Laura tighter and tighter. Nathan leaned closer. “Lately I’ve been seeing things differently, and it just occurred to me that maybe there’s more to what you’re doing than you’ve—”
“Look, not all of us can do what you did, okay?”
“What is it I fuckin’ did that you can’t do?” Nathan asked, exasperated.
Laura shoved the door open, scrambling outside. “Laura!” Nathan called. “C’mon! What did I—”
“You got away from your past by giving up on being yourself,” Laura said, all stone and steel and like she’d been dying to shove the words down his throat for ages. “And if you’re never yourself, you can never be with anyone. I can’t do that.” Laura’s eyes filled with tears. “Even if I wanted to.”
Laura slammed the car door and strode away, leaving Nathan in dust clouds of complete confusion. He watched her heels striking the sidewalk until she vanished from view, and he sat alone in the car with the engine running.
Nathan had no idea what the hell that’d been all about. Laura didn’t harbor secret love for him. They’d worked those details out a long time ago. He was gay; he wasn’t her type. Laura was the exact opposite of the kind of person who kept torches blazing for people she could never have. Laura was direct. She’d put a bullet in somebody first and ask questions later.
The first time they’d met, she had laid it on the line for him. Greg’s secretary had set up the date, and Nathan had shown up half an hour early. There he’d been, the sweating, nervous employee of the month in a brand-new suit, doing a favor for his boss who’d just bailed him out of medical bills via a bonus with more zeroes than he’d ever seen in a single line. He thought he’d have dinner, play nice, and make up some story about an ex-girlfriend he’d never had to extricate himself from the situation with some measure of grace.
Nathan had walked to the table, and gay or not, he’d taken a breath when he saw Laura in a low-cut black dress that showed off a slim figure and a lot of leg. She’d smiled—it’d been beyond perfection—but as soon as the hostess left, it’d vanished.
“I don’t date Daddy’s lackeys,” Laura had said. No hello, no how are you, and no handshake. “I’m here because he’s a persistent old cunt who won’t leave me alone about his new pet.” She looked him over. “There. I’ve met you.”
“Nice dress,” Nathan had said.
“Go fuck yourself.” Laura had started to slide out of the booth.
“I’m gay.”
To this day, Nathan had no idea what had made him see beyond her hostility, trust her, or say it, but she’d stopped, and some of the ice had chipped off her shoulders.
“Excuse me?”
“Gay.” Nathan had choked the confession out a second time and contemplated eating the tablecloth to get himself to shut up.
“You like men?”
“It’s the other white meat?”
“But you work for my father.”
“I’m a good liar?”
“Except when you’re on a date.”
“So it would seem.”
“With a woman.”
“I’m trying something new?”
Laura had blinked and laughed. “Okay, you just got interesting.”
They’d ordered too many drinks, and by the end of the night, they had another “date” set for the following weekend. In the beginning, they’d called themselves friends. When Nathan revealed a passion for a certain type of masochism, Laura had confided in Nathan that she had a thing for bondage, and they’d given it a try and had called themselves “complicated.” It’d taken six months for Laura to reveal her scheme to claim the cash Gregory Moore endowed upon his children upon engagement, marriage, and when kids came along, and after Nathan had agreed to the plan, they’d called themselves “together.”