Put a Ring on It (10 page)

“Did you plan to be?” Gideon asked, arching a brow.

Dane shrugged, grinning. “Where’s Theo?”

“You didn’t read his texts?”

Dane patted through all the pockets of his shorts and came up empty. “Don’t have my phone.”

Gideon’s lips thinned.

Jax filled Dane in. “He’s not coming, because—get this—he’s taking his boyfriend to some comic convention for his birthday.”

“I thought he and Jason broke up?”

“New boyfriend. Keep up.” Gideon’s voice was dry, mocking.

“Have we met this one?”

Sometimes Jax wondered if Dane really did forget stuff or just liked playing it that way.

“No.” Gideon’s voice was now as crisp as the wind off the ocean.

Jax tried to store the sound of it, the way it conveyed frustration, disgust, and a trace of affection all in that one syllable. Maybe it only worked if you were familiar with Gideon, but he was going to try that intonation later. There was that one bit in the play he was rehearsing where it would fit perfectly.

Dane shifted, as if to get out of the cold coming off Gideon. “Doesn’t he have a matinee to produce or direct or something?”

“It’s already produced.” Jax hadn’t bothered to audition for that one, but he kept track. “You know Theo gets bored once it’s all planned to perfection. He doesn’t stick much past the reviews. I, on the other hand, do have a rehearsal.”

“And what are you dressed for, a funeral?” Dane turned to Gideon.

“Meeting.”

“Billable hours, all day, every day.” Dane gave a tight nod.

It didn’t take a body language expert to see that Dane and Gideon would not be slipping off for one of their random hookups. They’d gotten more subtle over the years, but Jax and Theo could still usually spot the signs. Damn, he missed Theo.

“Are we doing this or not?” Gideon asked.

“I’m in.” Dane started off toward the ticket booth.

The empty space next to Jax seemed huge. He’d never have believed Theo would be the first of them to break away. But this would be it. Theo was the glue that held them together. Theo and his impossible-to-refuse puppy eyes.

Dane slipped his hand into Jax’s. “I’ll sit with you.”

Jax gently took his hand back.
Family Daze
still had a big online fan group. He doubted there were paparazzi lurking on the windswept boardwalk, but he’d been carefully dodging the question his whole career. He didn’t see any point to stirring shit up now. “I’ll be fine. How’s Spencer doing?”

“Great.” Dane’s expression brightened under his curls. “He’s in Brazil, shooting something for the Undiscovered Places issue
Nat Geo
’s putting out.”

“And you guys are still… good?”

Dane laughed. “It’s an open relationship, not a disease you have to whisper about. Yes, we’re good. Great, actually. Happy.”

“Good.” Too late, Jax realized he’d opened himself to Dane throwing the kind of personal questions Jax made a habit of avoiding right back.

“How was pilot season in Vancouver?”

A relationship question would have been easier. “Like two scoops of pilot season in LA with extra humiliation sprinkles.”

They got in line behind Gideon as he bought his ticket. Jax glanced over his shoulder, expecting to see Theo striding toward them, apologies and a great story bursting out from behind his smile. The wind shifted, lifting a thin blast of sand that caught Jax in his teeth, and he turned his back on it. Dane caught the look and passed back a sad smile.

“Yeah. I keep thinking there’s no way he’s really going to miss it.”

Did Dane get what Theo’s absence meant, or would it be something else he conveniently ignored, like how to be on time or return e-mails?

Gideon tucked his wallet away and started to step away from the booth. After one glance at them, he shook his head. “Pussies.”

Dane shrugged. “It feels wrong without him.”

Gideon threw his suit coat over an arm. “Thanks. I just wasted nine dollars and cab fare on this bullshit.”

Jax had gotten his best mileage and biggest laughs out of his sheepish expression on
Family Daze
. He hauled it out now.

Gideon rolled his eyes. “Buy the damned tickets.”

It was easier with the decision out of Jax’s hands.

“Enough for one ride on the Cyclone.” Jax reached into his pocket, and Dane nudged him. Typical. “Make that two,” he amended and handed over his credit card.

As soon as he stepped away, Gideon reached over Jax’s shoulder and snatched the ride card from his hand.

Jax started his protest with a “What the hell?” but Gideon ignored him.

After striding over to a family with two preteen boys who stood staring at the posted ride prices, Gideon handed the tickets to the parents.

The wind sprayed more sand in Jax’s face. “I don’t get him sometimes,” Jax muttered to no one, since Dane was already jogging away, back toward the subway. This early in the season, the boardwalk wasn’t crowded, but it wasn’t empty either, though the sudden hollowness in Jax’s chest made him feel like the last person on earth.

There was one last line in the script, but Theo wasn’t there on cue.

“Same time next year?”

When Theo said it, it was a promise, not the hesitant question that sputtered from Jax’s wind-dry lips.

Gideon stared hard at him, lips twisted in a parody of a smile. “What do you think?”

FORGET BEER.
Coffee was the real rental beverage.

In the cafe’s bathroom, Kieran washed his hands and shook them dry under the blower. Brett had been far more sympathetic about blue balls than Kieran’s wedding freak-out and had kept him full of caffeine at the special ex-employee, ex-roommate discount of 100 percent.

Now he was pretty sure he wouldn’t sleep for the next three days.

He opened the men’s room door and stepped into the hall, only to hear Theo’s reach-all-thousand-seats-in-the-theater voice.

“What the hell is this supposed to be? An intervention?”

Kieran froze. Theo couldn’t be talking to him.

“For fuck’s sake, stop being so dramatic and sit down,” an unfamiliar voice with a Bronx accent answered.

No, Theo wasn’t talking to him. What the hell was he doing here? Okay, logically, Theo had been getting his coffee here for long before Kieran had met him. There was no reason why Theo wouldn’t meet a friend here. A quick check of Kieran’s phone showed a missed text from Theo.
Sorry I missed you. Catch you after the matinee.

Kieran started forward. Theo didn’t sound happy to be there. Assuming it wasn’t business, Kieran could rescue him. He sure as hell could suggest a sweet reward for the effort.

“What did you tell your chorus boy?” That was a different voice, polished, like a newscaster’s.

“Kieran isn’t a chorus boy,” Theo snapped back. “He doesn’t have anything to do with the theater.”

“First time for everything.” That was the Bronx again.

The responsible, adult thing to do was to keep walking and let things roll from there. Every embarrassing bit of it. Theo’s friends would know Kieran had heard them, and Theo would know Kieran had heard them, and there would be staring and judging and—

Kieran crossed his arms over his chest. No. Not happening.

He could go through the Employees Only door and hope the back was unlocked. There was a chance Brett wouldn’t see him, yell his name, and create the previous scene with the embarrassment factor upped by the power of ten.

From the sound of their voices, they were in the half booth against the partition that created part of this hall. If he moved fast, he could duck into the one on the other side, the one by the emergency exit. As long as none of them got up to throw shit out, they wouldn’t see him.

The head and neck of a guy with blond curls sticking out from under a ski hat appeared over the partition.

“Dane, late as always,” the guy with the newscaster’s voice said in greeting.

Kieran seized that moment to duck into his booth.

“I like giving you something to complain about.” The blond, Dane, had a cheerful voice. There were faint kissing sounds, too faint to be landing on cheeks.

“Right. I caught the red-eye from Vancouver, just so you could show up when you felt like it.” The newscaster definitely didn’t have a Canadian accent.

“He’s barely ten minutes late. For Dane, that’s practically on time.” That was Theo, always smoothing things over.

After a deep sigh, Bronx said, “Enough bullshit. Theo, what the fuck was that? Some publicity stunt for a show or have you lost your goddamned mind?”

Despite the fact that the question was exactly what had run through Kieran’s mind more than once since Theo started singing with the
Susan
cast, he was afraid to hear the unguarded answer.

Theo’s answer was quiet but emphatic. “My heart.”

Bronx made a disgusted sound.

“Poetry aside, marriage is an archaic property contract. And weddings are a multibillion-dollar industry. Neither have anything to do with loving someone. Leave that bullshit to the hets.” Dane sounded a lot like Kieran’s brother’s girlfriend. Finn and Lia had been together for seven years, and everyone knew better than to mention marriage in her presence.

“So romantic.” Theo’s sarcasm had Kieran picturing his boyfriend’s simpering expression. “No wonder I was the only one who wouldn’t fuck you in college.”

“That’s your loss, honey. Look, humans aren’t wired for monogamy, and two guys have even less of a shot at it.” Dane must be a social worker or something.

“Like what happened with Jason,” Newscaster put in.

Kieran’s phone vibrated, and he clamped a hand over it. He didn’t want to miss this. Theo hadn’t talked much about the other guys he’d dated. Just barely enough for Kieran to know he’d dated a couple of different actors and things hadn’t gone well.

“Nobody cheated,” Theo said firmly. “I was always working and he was traveling and we grew apart.”

“That grew-apart shit is exactly what people say when they’re bored and wish they could fuck around.”

Dane was a one-note concert. Maybe he’d been through a bad breakup, though he sounded concerned rather than bitter.

“There’s more to a relationship than sex.” The newscaster sounded like he was reading from a report.
This just in….

“Exactly,” Dane said, like the newscaster had made his point for him. “Which is why it shouldn’t matter if you have sex with other people. You eat with other people.”

“Not the point here.” Bronx sounded pissed.

Kieran decided he liked him. He didn’t talk too much.

“It kind of is,” Dane argued. “Theo, seriously, his is the only dick you want to suck for the rest of your life?”

Kieran’s ears burned, and Theo’s “Absolutely” only made them hotter. Glancing down at his phone, he saw that Brett had texted.
Where the fuck are you? Theo is here with a bunch of guys talking about you.

As Bronx said, “And you know this after what, a year?” Kieran sent back
Right next to them. Listening. Don’t fuck it up.

“Thirteen months,” Theo snapped.

Ok, but you are so screwed if you get busted.

“I have to say it.” Dane again. “Am I the only one who thought he looked like a shorter Gideon from back then? In the video, I mean.”

There was a pause. Was Gideon one of the guys in the booth?

“Right. Because we both have dark straight hair and dark eyes. We’re practically twins.”

So Bronx was Gideon, then. Was he Korean? Asian?

“Hi, gentlemen. Can I get you anything else?”

Fuck. What the hell is Brett doing?

“No, thanks.”

“Not even my phone number?”

Kieran resisted the urge to smash his head into the tabletop. But somehow Brett and his dimples could get away with it. They laughed.

“Hi, Brett. Have you seen Kieran?”

Theo didn’t sound like he was suspicious, but sweat still prickled on the back of Kieran’s neck.

“Yeah, he was in earlier.” Brett’s shrug was just visible.

Kieran hunched down in his booth.

“Here, let me take that for you.” Brett came into view with some trash and tossed it into the bin. He shot Kieran a quick look and gave a tiny shake of his head.

What did Brett’s headshake mean?
You’re screwed? He doesn’t look like you?

“God, Theo.” Gideon sounded disgusted. “How old
is
he? Was he even alive when the planes hit?”

“Very funny. He was in school. Just like we were.”

“High school?” Newscaster asked.

He’d been eleven. School had closed. He may not have been in Manhattan like Theo, but Brooklyn was closer. Close enough to see the smoke, to smell it. His grandparents had picked him up at school, Bubbe covering his face with a scarf that reeked of perfume, muttering about poisons.

“No. What the fuck difference does his age make?” Theo was getting pissed.

“Theo, remember what happened with Pascal? And Eric? I don’t want to see you get hurt like that again.”

Something about the newscaster’s voice sounded too concerned, like he was faking it for an unseen camera.

“I told you. He doesn’t care about my job. He hadn’t been to anything but
The Nutcracker
as a kid until he met me.”

“And when you couldn’t ‘help’ Eric?” At least the newscaster’s sarcasm sounded heartfelt.

“Kieran isn’t going to try to blackmail me with some picture of me in a blindfold and my hands tied.”

The gasp almost made it past Kieran’s lips. Only a hand clamped over his mouth stopped it. His brain skipped right over the fact that Theo had undersold that whole relationships-not-ending-well thing and landed on Theo wanting to be tied up. Since when? Why hadn’t he ever said anything?

“Kieran has never asked me for anything. Not so much as a damned pair of mittens.”

“He doesn’t have to when you’re ready to give away the store every time you think you’re in love.”

“And what about that trip where you couldn’t meet us at the Cyclone?” Newscaster was letting some of his feelings out now. “I suppose that was because of your sudden nerd-love for comics?”