Chapter Five
“Do you think there’s something wrong with him? His age? And doesn’t have anyone? Seems a bit odd, doesn’t it?”
NATE BIThis tongue against the first retort that came to mind. The whole idea was supposed to cut down on the people criticizing his bad habits, not to add one more. He resisted the urge to light up again. Technically he was trying to quit.
“After your call this morning, I drew up a plan.” He absently rubbed his earlobe—an old tell. “Despite what it must look like, I don’t want to lie to anyone. Not more than I have to. If my plan goes to schedule, we’ll just have to stage a few scenes to make the impression we want, and then we let people make their own assumptions. Even the breakup can be—”
Flynn leaned into his space and put a big, scar-knuckled hand on Nate’s shoulder. Heat scalded Nate’s cheekbones. It wasn’t just the hand on his shoulder. Flynn scrubbed up nice. He’d been hot the night before in ratty jeans and a baggy old T-shirt. Dressed up in a fitted wool sweater and skinny black jeans, with a scruff of salt-and-pepper stubble on his jaw?
Oh my God.
If it had been a real date, Nate would have forgiven him for being late. Forgiven him hard, a snickering part of his brain added, and maybe twice. Not helpful.
“Or we could just wing it.” Flynn tightened his fingers on Nate’s shoulder, and a jolt of awareness went straight down his spine and… elsewhere. That wasn’t particularly helpful either, Nate thought dryly. A slow, cocky smirk lifted one side of Flynn’s mouth and created a fan of sun-caused wrinkles around his pale eyes. “Trust me. I’m good at that.”
Flynn smelled of woody cologne and orangey soap over salt and oil, and his breath was warm against Nate’s jaw. That definitely wasn’t part of Nate’s plan—not for another few weeks, once he and Flynn had a better working relationship—but what the hell.
He hooked his hand in the waistband of Flynn’s jeans, the denim and metal rough against his skin, and tugged him forward an inch to close the gap. It should have been a shit kiss, one of those “Okay, we’ll write this one off and try again without the pressure later” kisses. Awkward, uncertain, with Nate’s breath smoky and Flynn’s lips chapped with salt.
Instead it felt like something Nate didn’t know he’d been waiting for.
In the back of his mind, Nate could hear the murmur and chat of the party in the bar, and the laughter sounded sharp on the cool night air. He could also feel the smooth heat of Flynn’s skin against his fingers and the soft prickle of his body hair. That kind of distracted him.
“Fuck me, Nate, you won’t believe who fucking turned—”As Nate pulled back from Flynn’s kiss, Max’s voice cracked with disbelief. “What thefuckare you doing, Nate?Are you drunk?”
Flynn winked at Nate. “See?” he mouthed.
Oh. So that was what winging it looked like. Nate wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about that, other than impressed with Flynn’s ability to improvise, so he put a pin in it for later. He had a fake relationship to sell to his best friend.
He turned to face Max and felt a pinch of guilt when he saw the mixture of confusion and betrayal on his friend’s open, tanned face. Max had always been there for Nate. They’d gotten drunk together over shit boyfriends and spent their rent money on designer shirts together—although that last was more of a problem for Nate than Max. And even if his grudge against Flynn was ridiculous, it was real. Maybe Nate was going too far. Or would be. He could still call it off.
“I know you told me you had a date, but I assumed you were just lying to look less of a sad sack,” Max spluttered. He jabbed a finger at Flynn. “Not that you’d lost your mind. You do know who this is?”
Nate clenched his jaw so tightly that it ached. Okay. So he wasn’t calling it off.
“Of course I know who he is.”
“Of course you do,” Max said. “He wears overalls with his name on them, after all.”
Flynn snorted and gave Max’s clothes a long look. “As opposed to a polo shirt with my dad’s name on it?” Flynn leaned in and brushed a stubble-rough kiss over Nate’s cheek. “I’m going to go get a drink. Come find me when you two work it out.”
He stood up, smirked down at Max, and sauntered back toward the bar. Somehow even his shoulders looked smug as he left.
“Arrogant prick,” Max muttered.
“You didn’t exactly make him welcome.”
“Because he’s not?” The upward slide of Max’s voice turned the statement into a question. A sarcastic one. “I mean, you remember what that asshole did? He humiliated me, made me look like a complete tit in front of the whole island.”
Yes, he had. Or that was Max’s story. It wasn’t a lie—exactly—but it wasn’t the truth—exactly—either. Nate had always just gone along with Max’s interpretation because it was easier than having an argument.
Nate had enough self-awareness to identify the similarity between that and his current situation. He didn’t need the memory of Flynn raising one dark eyebrow, although his brain apparently felt he did. He didn’t care. His brain could raise all the judgy eyebrows it wanted, it wasn’t worth poking that nest of hornets. Max was still his best friend, and in a couple of months, Nate would only see Flynn if he needed his car tuned up.
“That was twenty years ago,” Nate said. “We’ve all grown up a bit since then.”
“Speak for yourself.”
Max dropped down onto the wall next to Nate and glared at the glass door to the bar as though he could pick Flynn’s back out from all the other bodies in there. After a second he sighed and took a swig of beer. He shook his head in bewilderment.
