Acrobat (9 page)

“And”—he squinted at me—“I don’t think I like that doctor, Nate.”

“Why?”

“He’s kissing some guy in there.”

“That’s because it’s a date,” I assured him.

“There’s, like, a lot of people with them. I think they’re celebrating something.”

“Well—”

“Nate!”

We all turned, and there, across the street, standing on the opposite curb, was Sean Cooper. He looked both ways before he bolted across and ran up the street to reach us.

“Oh, hey,” I greeted. “I’m sorry, I can ex—”

“I thought you were going to the opera?”

“We were. We did,” I told him. “We’re done already. I brought them down here for dessert, and then we’re headed home.”

He nodded, smiling, and I heard Danielle sigh. Simple to understand—the man was very easy on the eyes.

“Well, I saw your minion here and knew you had to be somewhere close.” He smiled, taking hold of my elbow and drawing me away from the kids. “Hold up one second, okay, guys?”

I looked at his face, at his perfect profile and chiseled lips, as he walked me a little way down the street. The man was just gorgeous.

“So what you said last night, about wishing me good luck for not just me but my patient too… that really made me think,” he said, rounding on me, staring into my eyes. “Because all I was doing was obsessing about me and what I wanted, not about what the surgery would mean for the girl and her family, so I wanted to tell you that and thank you.”

“Oh, well, I… you didn’t have to.”

“No, I know, but it was important, and I really wanted to see you and tell you that, and we’re out celebrating, and I wanted to invite you, but you said you already had plans and—”

“It’s fine.” I smiled and nodded. “You’re allowed to go on a date, especially to celebrate something wonderful. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

His eyes were all over my face before he reached out and took hold of my trench coat. “Are you going home now?”

“After I get them dessert, like I said.”

“Could I come along?”

“You’re celebrating with your friends,” I reminded him. “And aren’t you with someone?”

“I am,” he admitted, his hand fisting tighter. “But I really wanted to take you out tonight, and I’m afraid I’m using both my friends and my date as poor substitutes.”

“That’s very flattering.” But it was also a little disconcerting. The idea that he would just ditch someone and abandon his friends didn’t speak that well of him. And yes, we all ditched our pals for dates, but that was normally bailing on them beforehand, not when we were already out with a hot guy and our friends.

“I wanted to ask if I could come and see you after the opera, but I thought you might think that was weird or—”

“No games, Sean. I wouldn’t have thought it was weird as long as you weren’t on a date.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t matter.” He dismissed my concern.

Maybe I was overthinking it, which I did sometimes.

He took a breath. “Okay, so how ’bout this. How about I say goodnight to my date and my friends, grab a bottle of wine, and come over in an hour and sit with you and tell you all about the kid I saved so you can look at me like I’m a god, and then we can make out on your couch. How would that be?”

“And what would we do tomorrow?” I teased him because it was
so
not going to happen. I would not be the cause of someone else getting dumped when it had been me so often in the past. Once, when I told a guy laughingly that I didn’t put out on the first date, he had simply got up and left me at the restaurant he had driven me to.

“Tomorrow I’ll feed you, take you home to my house, and we can make out some more and then maybe you can fuck my brains out in my bed.”

“Maybe you can fuck my brains out,” I said, fishing, because even though I could do both, being on the bottom was what got me off most, best, every time. I didn’t mind topping, but I had a definite preference.

He let out a huff of air. “I have this headboard on my bed—” He swallowed hard. “—that I would really, really like to hold onto while you fill my ass.”

“Been thinking about that, have you?”

“Since I saw you at the store that first day.” He nodded, his eyes clouded. “Yeah.”

I looked at him, and all I saw was heat and desire and a forced stillness, like he was ready to grab me but was holding himself in check. “I think you should stay here and have a good time and be on time tomorrow to pick me up.”

He whimpered in the back of his throat. “I really don’t want to do that, and for the record, the date is insignificant. Only the celebration and my friends are important.”

“But you’re still going to take that guy back to your place,” I said knowingly.

“If you tell me I can come and see you instead, just to talk to, just to sit with… I won’t.”

He would pass up getting laid to come and sit on my couch with me. It was nice, but again, almost irritating at the same time. I was made differently. If I was interested in someone, no one else would do until I had exhausted every possibility with my crush. Obviously, he was more of an opportunist than I was, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

“Nate?”

But it was very judgmental of me and probably why I had not been laid in a while. There had been a couple of guys after Duncan that I had not told Melissa about, some one-night stands that I was not proud of, but on the whole, my friends were right: I was much too serious when it came to actual dating and potential partners. I talked too much, I wanted to know things—I didn’t want to waste my time if there was no future. I didn’t want to just sleep around. I wanted to find a man I cared for who would want to be a part of my life. I wanted that committed monogamous relationship, but no one else seemed to want to be in one with me. My friends said I should lighten up and just enjoy dating, but if dating equaled sleeping around…. As always I was right back to square one.

“Nate?” Softer the second time.

“Sorry.” I shook my head. “You should get back.”

“I’d rather—God, do you have any clue how hot you are, or is it just completely lost on you?”

But I wasn’t. I was very average, and the compliment, the timing of it, was out of place. It felt like he got caught and was trying to make amends. And he didn’t have to. He liked what he saw because he knew me, and that was all. “I grow on people.”

“Jesus, Nate, for a smart guy, you have no idea what you’re talking about.”

But I did. I was not the
GQ
model; I was the other guy, the English professor you liked and waved to at Starbucks and, if I was straight, introduced to your newly divorced mother. “So, tomorrow, then?”

“I guess,” he grumbled.

“I’ll be looking forward to it.”

“I hope so,” he said softly, leaning forward but stopping himself. There were teenagers present, after all. “I’ll see you at seven.”

“Seven,” I agreed.

He left without another word, and when I turned back to Michael and Danielle, she was making the
oh
face and biting her bottom lip and Michael looked like he was ready to hurl.

“Well?”

“Awww,” she cooed. “He totally leaned right then. He wanted to kiss you so bad.”

Michael gagged.

I
TOOK
them to a great place where the owner made baklava and tiramisu and crème brûlée and many other desserts from scratch. I had bread pudding and coffee and watched the kids share strawberry shortcake with each other. When Michael fed Danielle, I gagged for him.

“Nate!” She squealed, leaning forward to smack my arm.

Michael chuckled, knowing that I was doing it on purpose, smiling in appreciation of that. “Girls are icky, right?”

“That’s right.” I shivered. “Girl cooties.”

Danielle got to pretend to be scandalized as I sipped my coffee with chicory in it. I liked the taste, but a lot of people didn’t.

As we were walking back to where I had parked my car, Danielle slipped one arm in mine and the other in Michael’s.

“Aren’t I the lucky one.” She sighed. “I get taken out by two gorgeous men.”

“He’s too old for you,” Michael muttered, but I could hear the sheepish happiness in his voice.

“Too gay too,” she agreed, tightening her grip on both of us. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel good struttin’ my stuff between the two of you.”

I patted her hand. “Just make sure you tell your father how much of a gentleman Michael was. He won’t let you go to the Winter Ball with him if he wasn’t.”

She sucked in her breath and turned to him. “You want to take me to the Winter Ball?”

“I—I would,” he stammered, recovering his bravado in seconds. “If you want,” he finished with a shrug, like it was no big deal either way. Like he wouldn’t die just a little right then and there if she said no.

“I’d love to.” She sighed and let go of me to wrap both arms around his one.

They were so adorable together. Really, they should have gone on postcards for young love. I felt like Cupid.

They sat in the back of my Honda Accord, and when we stopped at her house, Danielle leaned forward and kissed my cheek before getting out of the car. Michael followed right behind her, patting my shoulder as he got out.

“Wait for me, driver,” he couldn’t help adding.

“You know what you can do with your—”

“Quiet or you won’t get a tip.”

I growled as he got out, scrambling after the girl, slamming the door before following her to the porch. There was talking, and then the light went on, so he leaned and kissed her, which would have been fast, but she grabbed hold of the lapels of his topcoat and held on as she kissed the hell out of the boy.

That was how her father found them, lip-locked on the porch. I was amused, Mr. Tulia was amused, Danielle was in floaty-happy heaven, and Michael was terrified. When he got back to the car, this time sliding into the passenger seat, I asked if he saw his life flash before his eyes.

“I did, yeah.”

I chuckled. “Hey, where’s my thank you?”

“I know, right?” He turned and beamed. “Shit, Nate, you’re fuckin’ brilliant. I’m taking Danielle Tulia to the Winter Ball. How can I ever repay you?”

“I want to see what you’re going to write about
La Bohème
for Mrs. Chang.”

“Oh crap, that’s right.”

It was fun to listen to him grouse about it all the way home.

We parted at his door, and I walked to my apartment more tired than I realized. I wanted to just pull the suit off and fall into bed, but there was still Ashton’s book to finish reading, and it was already Wednesday night. I’d promised it to him by Saturday, and I was not about to let the snippy little man down. And a book about Keats was right up my alley.

The pounding on my door once I was settled in bed with a cup of oolong tea and my laptop was surprising. But I padded across my wooden floor in heavy wool socks that my sister had knit for me, sweats, and a long-sleeved cotton T-shirt to open the door. Michael was there looking terrified, and I reached for him without thinking.

He stepped out of my reach. “No, you gotta come look at Dreo.”

I closed my door and followed him, feeling like a little kid just out in socks in the tiled hallway. It was dark inside their apartment, and in it, Dreo was standing, fully dressed, beside the fireplace, hand on the mantel, still as a statue.

I turned to Michael. “I made a pot of tea. Go back to my place and pour a cup for Dreo and bring it back.”

He looked from his uncle to me and back again before he left. I moved around, turning on low lights, finally making my way back to him.

“What happened?”

His head snapped up to me, and his eyes, which were normally so alive, were dead.

“Tell me.”

When he turned, I understood. He was wearing some kind of orange jumpsuit under his trench coat, but that was not the giveaway. The blood—in his hair, small smears on his face, on his neck—that was what told me that something terrible had happened.

“Dreo.”

He trembled slightly. “Men came into the club this afternoon; I’ve been with the cops all this time. Just me and Tony and Sal… and Joey…. No one else made it out.”

So his friends that I had just met, they were all gone except Sal. “Mr. Romelli?”

“Dead. They’re all dead.”

“And they took your clothes, your suit—” I looked down at the strange black sort of slippers on his feet. “—your shoes.”

“Had to compare the blood and the tread on my shoes, and they did one of those tests on my hands where they check for gunpowder, but of course there’s gonna be residue, since I was shooting back. I had to give them my gun too.”

He was rambling because he was in shock, probably had been all day, and nobody had cared one bit since he was supposed to be a big tough scary guy.

“Some fuckin’ bodyguard I turned out to be.” He laughed, and it sounded bad, too high, unhinged and fractured.

“Dreo—”

“I was supposed to be moving up and—do you have a job if your employer just got blown away with a shotgun?”

“Dreo—”

“Not that I care about the job, about being more. I really don’t, I mean, I was getting out anyway… and he knew, Mr. Romelli did, ’cause I told him, but still… what should I have done?”

“Okay.” I took a breath. “Here’s what we’re going to do. First we’re gonna get these clothes off you and throw them away, and then we’re going to get you into the shower.”

He trembled hard. “There was nothing I could do. It happened so fast.”

“When’s the funeral?”

“Saturday,” he said, and I didn’t move, didn’t comment, just let him reach out and put a hand on the side of my face and then slide it up into my hair. “I need you to come with me and Michael and stand there at the grave.”

The reason didn’t matter. He wanted me there, and I’d be there. “Of course,” I agreed as his strong, big-knuckled hand cradled my head.

“Nate,” he barely got out, his voice fractured and full of aching.

“You will be okay,” I said, smiling up into his face. “Can I—is it all right?”

“I’m gross, there’s blood in my hair and—”

“I think you need it.”

His eyes fluttered closed, and I took that as a yes and moved, sliding my arms beneath the trench coat and over the ugly orange polyester jumpsuit and stepping into him. I felt the shudder tear through him, felt him lean, give me his weight, and then both arms wrapped around me tight, and he breathed for the first time since I got there.