Nash shakes his head. “They’ll have all gone home anyway.”
Except, when we open the door, we’re greeted by a set of wide eyes behind thick glasses.
“Oh.” Patrick pushes his specs farther up his nose. I can only sort of see him over Nash’s shoulder. “I thought you must have left.”
“Cell phone problems,” Nash says. “You’re here late.”
“Yeah.” Patrick shrugs. “I’m meeting someone downtown in a little bit. Didn’t make sense to ride transit all the way back out to my apartment.”
“Where do you live?” I ask, clinging to thekeep it casualmantra echoing in my head.
“North Etobicoke? Near the airport.”
Makes sense. He’s glancing nervously between us, but every time I’ve met Patrick, he always seems nervous, so his expression now doesn’t mean he heard anything untoward coming from Nash’s office.
But we weren’t exactly quiet. Not at the end anyway. Not the way I would have been if I’d known the intern was still out here listening to us. At least we got off the chair before we wrecked the place completely.
“Well,” Nash says, “make sure you turn the lights out when you go.”
“Oh, yeah. Yeah, of course.” Patrick gives us a smile and a goofy thumbs-up.
We don’t exactly hurry out of the festival office, but I’m not sure we manage to be convincingly low-key as we go.
“I’ll see you later?” Nash says as we step out onto the street.
“Yeah. Yeah, sure,” I say, sounding about as confident as Patrick did. For a second, I almost rise up on my toes to kiss him goodbye, but I catch myself before I can give us away.
I can’t tell him I’m in love with him in the middle of rush hour on Sherbourne Street, can I?
Whether he knows it or not, Nash answers my question as he turns and walks away.
18
Nash
Something’s changed, and I don’t know what.
On the one hand, suddenly everything at work becomes a whole lot easier. I let Harpreet and Doug run things, leaving me to handle only the highest level administration. I have time to review mentorship applications and still get to leave most days by five or five thirty.
Or maybe I’m making sure to leave early because I’m worried about Brady.
Don’t get me wrong. On the face of it, everything is still good. He meets me at his apartment door with hungry anticipation on his face and desperate hands that pull at my shirt. He uses me and cares for me at the same time, leaving me simultaneously fucked out and already counting down until we can go all over again.
But he’s different. I’m not an idiot. I notice the moments he goes to say something and changes his mind. Or the look he gets when we’re face-to-face and he’s deep inside me and moving with the confidence and control that has pulled me toward him for what feels like forever. The look says he’s not really there, that he’s already thinking about something else. Every time, I try to bring him back, remind him that I’m here and I want him.
“Brady. Come on. Please.”
And every time, he comes back to me, gathering himself to drive us both over the edge, his mouth and body and great big brain knowing exactly what we need.
Inside, though, I’m afraid, because Dominic must have gotten that look—already planning his speech that we were over and I needed to leave— and I didn’t notice, not until it was too late.
We tried, of course. We went to counselling for a year. I tried to shorten my work week, but he’d literally caught me at the worst moment, just as we announced the festival lineup and everyone went into hyperdrive for two months. By the time it was over, I was at such a deficit I never got it back.
How many signs did I miss with Dominic?
I won’t miss them with Brady. Whatever is going on, whether it’s us or something at work, we’re going to deal with it before he tells me he doesn’t want me anymore.
Except, of course, I have the kids this weekend, and so any and all discussions need to be postponed until they’re gone. I feel guilty, anticipating their departure, but finding the balance point between work and family has always been my weakness, and adding Brady to that mix has only complicated things. I don’t mind leaving work early to see him, but my kids deserve my attention too.
