“Oh.” Noah’s gaze flicked up to Allan, who had taken his spot at the first stopping location. “He’s hot.”
I glared at him. “Not the point. We were supposed to avoid a situation like this by coming here.”
He studied me and gave a partial smile. “We’ll be fine. And this is why you wanted to take off the wig. Make it real. It isn’t going to get much more real than this. Plus if we were going to avoid all your old clients, we’d probably have to leave town.”
That earned him another glare. Especially since he was right.
At nearly every stop along the nearly hour-and-a-half tour, Allan’s gaze met mine and darted away quickly. It wasn’t enough anyone else would notice. But it was there. I tried to read his thoughts, why he was nervous. Was he afraid I was going to burst out and make an announcement to the crowd that he fucked me and left me a bigger tip than one would normally leave for a massage? Maybe he thought I was guilty of the things Stewart implied all over the place.
Surely not.
We were only together three or four times, but the idea Allan might think me capable of such evil was horrid.
The one time it became obvious something was amiss with him was around the halfway point. He had us gathered around another bar, this one plain and simple compared to the one aboveground. Windows that once looked outside now revealed walkways surrounded by stone and mortar walls. One of them even showed a sunken toilet. It was here, as he pointed to a huge bird’s-eye view picture of an early Seattle downtown, that Allan nearly turned red enough to light up the dim space as he spoke about all the seamstresses the town used to have. Despite the town nearly being fully comprised of men, the most successful businesses belonged to the seamstresses. He then revealed the few women there used their sewing as a cover for their prostitution ring.
Allan’s flitting glance didn’t waver, and his terrified eyes stared right at me.
A snicker beside me drew my attention away from Allan. I looked over to see Noah covering his mouth with his hands, his cheeks turning bright red.
“What?”
He lowered his fingers and gaped at me. “Oh, come on. You’ve got to admit that is pretty funny, all things considered.”
I might never stop glaring at him.
Noah clamped his hand over his mouth once more to cut off the fresh wave of giggles.
To my horror, after the tour was finished, Allan came up to us in the gift shop. “Hey.”
I stared at him. Surely he had more to say than that after providing me with one of the more embarrassing hours of my life. Okay, so that might be an exaggeration, but still. Hey? “Um, hi.”
Allan looked between Noah and me, clearly waiting for an introduction. Or explanation. Who the hell knew?
Noah stuck out his hand. “Hi. I’m Noah. You’ll have to pardon my rude boyfriend. I believe your name is Allan?”
Reminding myself that forty wasn’t too far around the corner, I refrained from childishly kicking him.
Allan shook Noah’s hand. “Yeah. Allan. It’s nice to meet you, Noah. I feel like I’ve seen you before.”
“I work for the Seattle Humane Society. You probably have seen me on some of their commercials or something.”
“Oh!” Allan’s eyes widened. “Right, of course. Cool. Well, you look even hotter in person.” He flicked his gaze toward me, and his cheeks reddened again. “Um, sorry.”
One of the perks of growing up wealthy in a family of socialites was I knew how to lie without batting an eye. “Well, it’s great to see you, Allan. We have to get going.”
“Wait a sec.” He reached toward me but stopped before he made contact. “I um, well….”
I decided to save him from himself. Or really to save us and get Noah and me the hell out of there quicker. “Allan, it’s okay. I know there’s been lots of stuff about me in the news and all over the place lately. You aren’t going to come up. I’m not going to start naming names or anything.”
He glanced at Noah. “Oh. You know.”
Noah just nodded.
Allan turned back to me, nerves forgotten. “Sorry, I didn’t want to make things awkward between the two of you, but if he already knows, then that’s okay. I wanted to say that I know that what they’re saying about you, or trying to say about you, isn’t true. You would never do anything like that to a… well, you’d never take pictures of a….”
And his nerves were back. I softened at his words. They felt like clean air. “Thank you, Allan. I truly can’t say how much that means to me. Really.”
He nodded but looked like there was something else he wanted to say.
