“To support her?”
“Yeah.”
Nathan chuffed a laugh. “Sounds like something out of a punk version of
Les Miserables
.”
“What’s that?” Fury asked.
“A book, a show, a movie.” Nathan smiled. “We’ll watch the movie sometime. Laura has multiple versions. It’s one of her favorites.”
Fury tilted his head. “You two watch a lot of movies?”
“We had to do something with all the non-date nights,” Nathan joked, regretting that he’d ruined the moment by bringing up Laura. “Sorry.”
Fury stretched, carefully so as not to dislodge Nathan. “Don’t matter. They left us alone. That’s what I wanted.”
Nathan’s heart fluttered like a schoolboy’s. “Mmm. Yeah?”
“Mmm-hmm. And you’re smart. You’ll figure out the rest of what’s going down with her.”
“Maybe.” Nathan squeezed Fury’s shins. “I’m not sure I know this guy you talk about. Nice, smart… Really doesn’t sound a lot like me.”
“I think it does,” Fury said simply, his steady gaze never wavering.
“Well…thanks,” Nathan said. He shook himself. “Fucking relationship drama, man.”
“Rough,” Fury agreed.
Nathan attempted to keep his tone casual instead of dripping with curiosity. “You have a lot of that kind of crap in your life?”
“No.” Fury sat up, and for a second, Nathan thought he’d scared Fury off any further conversation. But Fury rested an arm on the couch and one hand on the back of Nathan’s neck. “Don’t got a lot of experience there at all.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Nathan said carefully. Fury’s gentle touch was distracting as all hell, but Fury’s faraway gaze was serious, and Nathan yelled at himself to get his head out of Fury’s gutter and to focus.
“Just one,” Fury murmured. His eyes ticked back and forth, watching something Nathan couldn’t see. “There’s just been one guy. Grew up with him. We all used to hang out, get in trouble. I think he loved my sister, at least for a while. Then the bad shit went down, and I dunno. He let me love him, and for years he was the only one I could let love me.” Fury’s face was like a weary thundercloud. “I was more interested in hurtin’ people than anythin’ else for a long time, but he…he helped.”
The image of two teenage boys in a junkyard car going at it like wild dogs haunted Nathan, stupid and inaccurate as it probably was. “What happened?”
“I cared about him more than he did about me.” Fury let go of Nathan’s neck and sank lower on the couch, his eyes closing. “I was training, and I started gettin’ good. I was in fight camp or travelin’ almost all the time. Stayed out West for a while, and when I came back, we were done. I mean, we fucked around,” Fury clarified with a smirk. “But whatever we had, it was done. He was into shit I couldn’t be into.”
“This wouldn’t be Dennis, would it?” Nathan made himself ask.
Fury opened one eye. “Nice
and
smart.”
Nathan shoulder-checked a chuckling Fury. “That explains a lot,” Nathan said. “But how’d Dennis get into everything he’s into?”
“Don’t know,” Fury said sadly. “He was always the kid figurin’ out a scheme to make quarters on the playground, so I guess it’s like that, except with drug dealers.”
“They do make better bank than the straight guys,” Nathan said.
Fury made a sound entirely too close to a growl. “Shit’ll get him in too deep and take people down with him.”
“Maybe he’ll wise up. Get out before anybody gets really hurt.”
Fury grunted. “What about your sister?” Nathan asked, changing the subject. “She watch you fight?”
“Only when she has to.”
“Really?” Nathan asked, surprised. “Why’s that?”
Fury wiped his hands on his sweats and stood up. “She says it’s ’cause she knows fightin’ ain’t what I really want to do.”
Nathan got up and followed Fury to the kitchen. “Is it? What you really want to do?”
Fury opened a cabinet full of plates and shut it. “Glasses?”
“Here.” Nathan opened the right cupboard and handed Fury a glass emblazoned with the University of Tennessee seal. “Come on,” he wheedled.
Fury filled the cup with water. “It’s dumb,” he muttered at last.
“Try me.”
Fury drained the water, pacing back and forth in front of the counter, and Nathan cut him off at the pass. “Please?” Nathan asked.
“I’m good at fighting,” Fury said, faster than usual and mostly to Nathan’s feet. “Jay says I could be great. So does Dennis, for all he knows. I like it, but I don’t have to have it the way I used to, you know?”
Sometimes talking to Fury was like speaking to an alternate-dimension version of Nathan’s own self. Similar problems, different routes of getting into them and out of them. “I know,” Nathan said.
Fury nodded. “And I can’t do it forever. My knee’s bad, my back hurts a lot.”
“So if you could do something else, what would it be?” Nathan asked. Fury scanned the room, and Nathan could almost hear the man making escape plans. “I always wanted to rebuild cars,” Nathan said.
Now Nathan had Fury’s attention. “Cars?” Fury asked.
“Corvettes, maybe an old Mercedes or two, don’t know. My dad, he worked on cars. The only good memories I’ve got of him are helping him change oil pans. Otherwise, he was drunk, and I was gay, and he liked me better beaten up.”
Fury straightened, and Nathan kept talking despite the heat coming off Fury that Nathan couldn’t identify: rage or desire or both at once. “I’d want to work with Matt,” Fury said.
“Who’s Matt?”
“Reverend Hutchinson.”
It took Nathan a second to get it. “You’d be a counselor?”
“Yeah,” Fury said, challenge lacing the words.
“Oh.” Nathan wrapped his hand around the swell of Fury’s inked bicep and rubbed a thumb over smooth skin. “You’d be good at it.”
Fury narrowed his eyes at Nathan. “I mean it,” Nathan said. “I don’t know much, but I can tell you’ve been through your fair share of shit, yet you’ve still got this Zen thing about you. I know you’re a fighter, a pro, whatever, and you’re tough, and there’s plenty of kids out there… Hell. There’s plenty of adults out there who would love to feel like somebody like you was in their corner, ready to come out swinging. Makes it easier—
would
make it easier to get their act together. For the other people, I mean.” Uncomfortable, Nathan dropped his hand, but Fury caught it and walked Nathan backward until Nathan’s ass hit the counter.
“I’ve not been with anybody else either,” Fury said.
It positively amazed Nathan how Fury’s tone could make the room swim and flip upside down. “What do you—”
“That night at the warehouse with you was the last time I did anything for Dennis,” Fury said. “And it was all business, that round. Been longer since it was personal.”
“Oh.” Nathan was sucker punched, and life was better for it.
“That…that okay?” Fury asked.
Nathan started to nod, began to turn his head to meet Fury’s mouth, but stopped and put two and two together. “You said Dennis was the only guy?” Nathan’s voice was hushed. Fury’s eyes searched Nathan’s.
“So, there’s just been Dennis, whom you knew all your life and…” Nathan’s thoughts skipped the track, lurching. “Have there been any women?” Nathan asked. Fury licked his lips, and he jerked his head to one side.
“So that means…” Nathan began, and Fury held his breath.
The night at the gym roared into Nathan’s mind. He knew every moment by heart, revisited the memories often, and he could hear Fury saying
“Don’t get this enough”
as clearly as if the man said it again while they stood almost touching each other in Nathan’s kitchen. The look, the openness… The hints of abuse that eclipsed Nathan’s, the continued therapy… The chairs under any door that led to where Fury slept, unaware and unable to defend himself… The violence, the way Fury innately understood the way Nathan used drugs or whatever means available to escape reality… And even back in the truck, which seemed like months ago, Fury had said he trusted Nathan.
“I could trust you… ’cause I want to.”
“Oh,” Nathan said stupidly. Fury wasn’t trying to get out of the closet. He was still trying to get out of whatever hell his family or his past had created and trapped him in. Fury didn’t talk, didn’t explain, didn’t share. Not easily and not freely. The man liked fists more than fucking because fists Fury understood.
“…for years, he was the only one I could let love me.”
Having met Dennis, Nathan wasn’t so sure how good the guy could have been for Fury, but years and experience and time with a person could mend a lot of bridges and strengthen even the weakest foundation. And Nathan couldn’t exactly throw stones at someone for choosing partners poorly.
Really, though, what Fury saw in Dennis didn’t matter because it was done. Fury had chosen the second man in his life to trust, and that man was Nathan. Fury was trusting Nathan now to help him and not to hurt him, to care about Fury as much as Fury cared about Nathan.
Nathan didn’t see himself as anything but a fraud, a liar, and a cheat. Fury obviously saw something else.
“Oh,” Nathan said again softer. He didn’t say it, because no way could he ever figure out how, even if he had the guts, but he met Fury’s blank, guarded expression head on and thought, Fuck the cars. If I could do anything else, I’d work to be the guy you think I could be.
Slowly, Nathan slid his fingers along Fury’s jaw and tucked his hand under the base of Fury’s braid. The hair was warm, Fury’s skin slightly damp with sweat, and Nathan actually felt Fury melt into his palm. “You know, this was my first date with a guy,” Nathan said.
The mask evaporated, and Fury’s eyes widened, and his mouth tugged into what Nathan now understood to be Fury’s shy smile. “How was it?” Fury asked.
“Tell you in the morning.” Nathan kissed Fury and for a while forgot that anything else existed.
Chapter Eight
“Mr. Moore wants to see you.”
Nathan stopped himself from cringing and smiled at Valerie while he sorted through his mail in reception. It was three in the afternoon, and Nathan had gone for a walk to the first floor so he wouldn’t fall asleep on his desk. He had to get Fury interested in sleeping at night. At some point. Soon. Really.
“Does he?” Nathan asked.
Valerie nodded, hitting buttons. “Moore Agency, please hold. Yes, right away, Mr. Hunt.” Another button pushed. “Moore Agency, how may I direct your call?”
Nathan mouthed
thanks
and headed for the elevator, avoiding the sales floor. The strategy didn’t work. After the second turn, a heavy hand landed on Nathan’s shoulder. “There you are, asshole. Been looking for you.”
“Must be contagious,” Nathan said to Paul, who matched Nathan’s hurried pace. “Just on my way up to see Greg.”
“Little alone time with the future father-in-law? Nice.”
“Guess so.” Nathan hit the button.
“Always a good time to suck ass, man.” Paul grinned, and Nathan couldn’t make himself fake one in return.
“Did you need something?” Nathan asked.
Paul laughed. “Yeah, I need to know when I stopped being your best boyfriend. You don’t call. You don’t text. What gives?” Paul studied Nathan. “I do something to piss you off?”
A pang of guilt stabbed at Nathan. Paul hadn’t done a thing but be himself, but Nathan had been avoiding him for the last few weeks. Paul was part of a life that seemed more and more distant the longer Nathan hung around Fury. Spending so much time being himself made maintaining his fake self even more exhausting than it used to be. Nathan was pretty sure Paul wouldn’t like the real Nathan, but for the life of Nathan, he hadn’t been able to figure out a way to explain any part of his pathetic logic to a guy who was the fake Nate’s best friend.
“Just busy, man. That’s all.” Nathan stepped into the elevator.
Paul stopped the doors from closing with one arm. “I hear you, I hear you. Well, got tickets to the fights this weekend if you’re interested. And I swear, no blind-date bullshit this time.”
“Thanks, but I’ve got this little party to go to…” Nathan hit the third-floor button.
“Oh, shit.” Paul’s eyes went wide. “The engagement dinner. That’s
this
Saturday?”
“So my e-mail reminders keep telling me.”
“Man, I’m sorry. Got my dates mixed up, but screw the fights. I’ll be at the Moores in the suit. Hungover, but…” Paul grinned.
Nathan gave in and rolled his eyes. “Bring some for me.”
“Will do, friend. Count on it.” Paul let the doors shut, and Nathan slumped against the elevator’s rear mirror. Paul might survive the truth, but Nathan wasn’t ready to risk it, not when honesty was just starting to feel good. He looked to his right and stared at the row of infinite Nathans. The gel wasn’t doing much to tame the blond mop, but Laura liked his hair longer, not shorter. His eyes were red at the edges from lack of sleep, but the lines on his forehead and at the corners of his mouth seemed less severe. He smiled, thinking of Fury, and didn’t recognize the man in the mirror. The guy was laid-back and often laid.
The doors parted after a faint
ding
, and Nathan nearly got run over by Angel. “Ambush alert,” Angel muttered, making signs at Nathan.
“Who’s here?” Nathan stage-whispered.
Angel dramatically checked to see if the coast was clear. “The father and the prodigal daughter. They probably want to talk napkin colors. Run!”
When the doors shut again, Nathan was alone in the hallway outside the conference room. Ahead of him was Greg Moore’s door. It was open, yellow light spilling onto the filigree carpet. It was raining outside, almost sleeting, and the heavens chose that moment to open. The downpour pounded the roof of the building, and Nathan walked into Greg’s office to the sound of the dull roar and Laura’s laughter. She and Greg were both behind the desk, Greg sitting and Laura bending to point at something on Greg’s blotter.
“Are you sure we can’t put Lydia next to Maxine?” Laura asked. “I’m sure she and the leader of the Women’s Democratic Society would have
so
much to talk about.”
Greg hummed, lips in a thin, accommodating smile that got wider when he spotted Nathan. “There he is. Look who stopped by to see her old man!”