“You’re still in therapy?”
Fury rubbed the back of his neck. “Corvette, huh?” Fury stepped away from the car and made an appreciative noise. “Always liked those.”
Nathan knew the question-and-answer round about Fury’s personal life was over. He snorted. “Know my car and my name. How long have you been stalking me exactly?”
Nathan immediately regretted what he said, unreasonably terror-stricken that Fury would take offense, but Fury just shrugged one shoulder. “Dunno. Took me a while to get the balls to talk to you. Don’t really do that a lot.”
“Ask men to spot you?” Nathan asked.
Fury shook his head. “No. Talk.”
“Oh.” Nathan nodded, his head wobbling long enough that his neck complained. “I’m engaged.” Nathan went still and stared at Fury with wide eyes. He’d meant to say he understood how hard it was to take chances with truth. He was pretty sure he’d been on the verge of asking Fury to dinner. He absolutely had not planned on confessing, but after everything Fury had told him, Nathan’s pretenses were crumbling like a house of cards.
Nathan couldn’t interpret Fury’s expression, and he inched closer, relieved when Fury let him. “It’s not real.”
“Which part?” Fury asked.
“Any of it. I wanted to get ahead in the company, and she’s the boss’s daughter. He wanted to hook us up, but that wouldn’t work for obvious reasons, and she hates the man. So she tells me about this plan to get back at him, said she’d need a partner and that we could split some cash, and I went along with it. And now if I try to get out of it, I might lose my job, and I don’t even know what else. But I… It’s just… I think…” Nathan dug the heel of his palm into his forehead. “I don’t know if I can do it, and she’s acting weird, and I met you, and if I thought shit was complicated before, it’s fucking impossible now.”
Nathan waited, nausea rising, while Fury absorbed the deluge of too much information. Nathan couldn’t look at Fury, but he heard the slow breath.
“She know about you?”
“Oh yeah.” Nathan hadn’t allowed himself to sound so bitter out loud in a long time. “All the bad shit and the two percent of good.”
“You care about her?” Fury asked, voice gentler than it had been a second ago.
Nathan nodded, miserably. “Yeah. I think so. I don’t want to leave her hanging.”
The bottom of Fury’s boot dragged across a rock on the pavement. “What do you wanna do, then?”
Nathan laughed and gulped around hysteria. Fury put his free hand on the roof of the car, and his fingers brushed Nathan’s, who gazed at the minute contact until honesty broke free. “Drink,” Nathan said. “I want to drink.”
“Wanna meet up later?”
Daring to look directly at Fury, Nathan had to fight the urge to kiss the man in broad, public daylight. He kept himself in check, but the whole saying what he really meant thing was going so well, he did it again. “Want to meet up now.”
Fury huffed a low little laugh that might be Fury’s version of a belly laugh. “Got somewhere to be or I would. Your place, later?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll bring you beer,” Fury offered.
“I got tequila.”
“How’s ten?”
“For the time or number of shots?”
Fury grinned. “Both?”
“Ten’s good.” Nathan remembered to breathe. “I’ll text you the address?”
“Okay.”
Now Nathan smiled. “What? You don’t know that about me too?”
Fury shook his head, backing away from Nathan and hugging his sack of food. “You think what you wanna think.”
“Then I
think
I’ll see you later.”
Fury lifted two fingers in a farewell and headed for his truck. Nathan waited until Fury had climbed into the cab before getting into the Corvette and racing for home.
Chapter Six
By eight forty-five, Nathan had cleaned all five rooms of his apartment, showered, shaved, dressed and redressed, and told himself a hundred times he was being an idiot. Just because this was technically the first date he’d ever had with a man was no reason to panic. Surely the times he’d invited friends over in school and fucked around or the year he’d spent blowing Cal in their dorm room counted for something. Might not have done a damn thing to prepare him for encounters that involved conversation before the clothes flew off, but they were still hours logged in private with men, for God’s sake.
Nathan had brushed his hair and angrily applied gel until his tingling scalp banished some of his nerves. He’d ordered Chinese, eaten while standing over the trashcan, and saved the leftovers just in case Fury was hungry. He’d set out the liquor on the kitchen counter. He’d double checked the supplies in the nightstand, and after sniffing the towels in the bathroom, had put out fresh ones. When he caught himself straightening pillows, he made himself sit and watch TV, else Fury arrive to find Nathan dusting the shelves in an apron while humming show tunes.
At nine forty-eight, Nathan opened his laptop and checked his e-mail. Work was being quiet for once, and he ended up playing Hearts. The mental version of himself kept running around gathering up all the pieces of information he’d received about Fury over the last few weeks, but no matter how many times he considered them, all Nathan felt was longing. The conversation that afternoon hadn’t put a damper on Nathan’s obsession. It had made it worse. Hale Fury hinted at an abusive childhood, had experience with breaking the law, hung out with dangerous people in dangerous places, had a sincere hard-on and talent for violence, had found faith or Jesus or both, and was in therapy hosted by an ex-military man of God. And he liked lasagna.
If floppy noodles didn’t scare Nathan off, he wasn’t sure anything would.
A knock came at ten-oh-one, and Nathan added punctuality to Fury’s profile. Nathan undid the dead bolt, opened the door, and the bubble of his alternate reality burst.
“Hi, honey,” Laura slurred from where she hung with one arm draped across the shoulders of a heavyset woman with short dark hair. They smelled like an upended liquor store.
“Laura?” Nathan glanced left and right along the landing to check for Fury, but there was no sign of him. Or of anyone else, thank the Lord.
“Mmm,” Laura hummed, a self-satisfied purr. She lurched forward, and Nathan backpedaled into the apartment. Laura slid her fingers over Nathan’s chest and locked her hands around Nathan’s neck and her lips on Nathan’s mouth. She leaned heavily into Nathan, and Nathan stumbled, checking his balance to make sure they didn’t fall.
“Laura, what the hell?” Nathan gasped and tried to twist, but Laura threaded fingers painfully into his hair. He suffered through another kiss with his eyes open and on the other woman, whose sneer set Nathan’s teeth on edge.
“This must be the fiancé,” the friend said, pushing the door shut and stalking after them in what Nathan supposed was an attempt at sexy predator but reminded him more of seasick penguin.
Nathan disentangled himself from Laura’s whiskey-strong grip. “Yeah, I’m Nathan. And you would be?”
“I’m Mel,” said the friend, who paused for a mouthful of Laura’s eager, domineering kiss. When Laura drew away, they held one another, and Mel checked Nathan out, much to Nathan’s chagrin.
“Hmm,” Mel mused. “Yeah, you were right. He is hot. I could do this.”
“Told you,” Laura said smugly, and she nibbled on Mel’s lower lip, watching Nathan.
Nathan tried to remain calm. “I don’t know what she told you, Mel, but I’m not—”
“And look, he even cleaned up for us!” Laura said over Nathan’s protests. She stepped away from Mel and toward the bedroom. She giggled over her shoulder. Laura never giggled.
“I didn’t clean for…” Nathan knew it was a pointless argument, so he let it go. “Laura, I’m really not in the mood. You need to—”
“We’ll get you there.” Mel swatted Nathan on the ass, and Nathan somehow didn’t punch her in the face, but his expression was enough to make her step away from him, her smirk faltering.
“Damn right!” Laura agreed. “Ooh, look, tequila! My favorite.” Laura flung herself through the small living room, into the kitchen area, and grabbed the bottle of 1800 off the counter.
Nathan stormed after Laura and made a grab for the liquor. “Give me that.” Laura jerked away, and Nathan chased her. “The hell’s wrong with you?” Nathan spun with his partner in crime, cleverly disguised as the drunken idiot.
“Wrong with me? What’s wrong with you? I just want a goddamned drink!”
Nathan made another grab and wrestled the bottle away from Laura on the fourth try. “The fuck is going on?”
“The fuck’s it look like?” Laura sneered. She stabbed a finger at Mel. “She’s my girlfriend for the night. You’re my fiancé until the divorce. Everybody’s horny and out of control, so we’re gonna fuck. C’mon.” Laura reached down, ripped her shirt up and over her head, and dropped it on the ground. It might have passed for seductive if Nathan wasn’t seeing red and if Laura hadn’t rolled an ankle and almost tripped into the wall.
Any other night, and Laura would have probably gotten her way, with Nathan or with anyone else, but over Nathan’s dead body would she and her bitch stay when Fury was supposed to arrive any second. “We are not going to fuck, Laura.” She ignored him and started undoing her pants. “Laura, for God’s sake, quit it!” He turned to Mel. “How much did she have?”
Mel shrugged. “I’m her date, not her keeper.”
“Awesome.”
“Why not?” Laura bellowed, giving up on her fly for the moment. “Why can’t we fuck? You’ve fucked everybody
but
me, and I know you used to love it when I fucked
you
.” She smiled a chilly little smile.
“Nice,” Mel commented, edging her way back in the game but staying closer to Laura than to Nathan.
“We can’t because I said no.” Nathan picked up Laura’s shirt. “Here. Take this and just get out before you make this any worse.”
“Me? Make it
worse?
Oh please.” Laura made an unladylike sound of derision and headed once again for the bedroom. “C’mon, Nate. Stop with the hard-to-get shit, get in there, and get on your knees.”
Rage rattled its cage, and its screech of protest echoed in Nathan’s head. He was next to Laura and slinging an arm around her waist to haul her away from the bedroom’s threshold before he could even think.
“Get off me!” Laura tried to sink an elbow into Nathan’s ribs. He made it to the couch before he had to spin and throw her on the floor, else she land a punch to his kidney. Laura hit the carpet, rolled, and gaped up at Nathan, spluttering incoherent obscenities.
“Hey!” Mel belatedly shouted. “Don’t treat her like that!”
Nathan didn’t bother to acknowledge Mel. “Get out of here, Laura.”
Laura’s mouth opened and closed, eyes shining in dimly dawning awareness, and Nathan felt a pang of sympathy. He tossed Laura her shirt. “Mel? Take her home.”
Mel frowned. “I thought this was her home?”
Laura cackled like a hag. “Oh God, no. Nathan and I just fuck. Don’t we, sugarplum?”
Nathan was shaking. “We do not—”
“Or we used to, didn’t we,
sweetheart
?” Laura spat the term of endearment, and Nathan wanted to lock them in the living room and crawl into bed and not deal with this shit.
Laura, sensing weakness in Nathan’s resolve, crossed her legs, one foot bobbing coyly. “Bet you still have all the fun toys in the bottom drawer, huh?”
Nathan made fists and dug his blunt nails into his palms, but no amount of anger could stop the heat that stirred low and molten in his body. Old habits were like hydras. Cut off one head, and two more rose up to test the blade. “Just shut up, Laura.”
Laura made a noise like an angry cat, and Nathan wanted to smack her.
“You didn’t tell me he was into that kinky stuff,” Mel said, her eyes alight.
“I’m not into it with you,” Nathan said grimly.
“Why not with me?”
Nathan asked the ceiling for patience and took a deep breath. “No kink. No fucking. No drinking.”
“When’d you stop bein’ fun?” Laura whined.
“I am plenty fucking fun!” Nathan snapped. “I am just not fun with you and your bitch of the week!”
“Asshole!” Mel bellowed.
“Oh, fuck you both.” Laura found her balance, got to her feet, and squared her shoulders at Nathan. “If you get to drive off and fuck whatever club boy you want to fuck and do whatever the hell it is that you fucking do, then you can give me one night that I fucking want.”
Nathan snorted. “I don’t have to give you one more goddamned thing.”
“Wait, he’s gay?” Mel interjected. “You said bi, not
all
gay.”
“Shut up!” Nathan and Laura yelled at Mel.
“And bonus points for creative uses of the word ‘fuck,’ but what would Daddy think?” Nathan shot at Laura, whose eyes went impossibly wide.
“Daddy won’t think a damned thing he shouldn’t if somebody keeps his dick in his pants.”
“Really?” Nathan leaned against the counter with a pounding heart and so much adrenaline in his system that he thought he might be dying. “I could have sworn you were interested in it out of my pants and balls-deep in you two.”
Mel cussed at Nathan, Laura’s eyes narrowed to slits, and just as Nathan braced for Laura’s right hook, the front door slammed hard enough that the walls shook.
Everyone spun to see Fury looming next to the bookshelves by the door. He eyed the room warily, a six-pack dangling from two fingers and a bottle under his arm. He had changed T-shirts, and this one was solid black and fit like a second skin over a chest that was rising and falling a little too fast.
“Who the hell are you?” Laura asked.
“Fury,” he said roughly but levelly while staring at Laura like she was a wasp he was going to soak with Raid. “Who are
you
?”
“Your name is fucking Fury?” Laura scoffed.
“Yeah.”
“I don’t care what his name is. He is
not
going to be in on this,” Mel declared.
“In on what?” Fury asked.
Mel continued as though she hadn’t heard Fury. “No way is he getting anywhere near—”
“He’s not doing anything with either of you,” Nathan said, cheeks on fire and vision pulsing red and gray. Anger and embarrassment were arm wrestling, and anger was winning. He couldn’t believe Laura was acting like this. He couldn’t fathom Fury witnessing it. And he shuddered to think that a mere few weeks ago, he’d probably have been in bed with Laura and the dyke by now, just to avoid confrontation and argument and find a little release involving someone who at least knew his name.