“Even to see you?” Teddy asked dryly. He turned around and gave Nate an arch look, his eyebrow raised. Max had been trying to master that look for years, with no success. “His, what are we calling it, boyfriend?”
Nate took a second to swallow his first response. The tone pissed him off, but he wanted to have misunderstood it, misheard it.
“I’ve been calling him my date so far.” Nate crossed his arms. “I don’t want to scare him off by jumping the gun.”
The tone was sharper than it had been in Nate’s head. From the flush of irritated color in Teddy’s face—two stripes of red across his cheekbones, as though he’d been slapped—it was even more edged by the time it got to his ears.
“He’s not welcome here,” Teddy said flatly. “Not even as your guest.”
Nate took a deep breath of salt-fresh air. “I guess I’ll have to do my drinking in town, then,” he said.
“You’re always welcome. Always,” Teddy said firmly. “Just not with him. He’s bad news. He’s trouble. Always has been. Even Mike Delaney saw that.”
“Maybe fathers aren’t always the best judges of their sons.”
Apparently Teddy wasn’t the only one who could get inappropriately personal. The tension hummed between them like a plucked string, the thrum of it hard in Nate’s chest. He wanted to apologize. It wasn’t worth fighting with Teddy, who was his friend as well as his boss, over his dislike of a man who wasn’t even Nate’s boyfriend—or his date. But the words just couldn’t quite squeeze past his clenched jaw.
“Well, I always thought you were a sensible boy,” Teddy said. “But then I’m not your father. So it’s not my business if you aren’t. The Granshire is, though, and I don’t want Delaney associated with it. Now I’m sure you have work to do, Mr. Moffatt.”
Teddy left and closed the glass doors precisely behind him. Nate watched him disappear down the corridor and then slouched back against the wall. It had been a polite, if curt, exchange of words, but the aftermath felt like a fight. Nate’s heart was going too fast, he was sweaty, and his head hurt.
He wanted to punch something, and his knuckles ached as though he already had. He wanted a smoke. He wanted to tell Teddy he was wrong about Flynn. Even though, for all Nate knew, he might not be. So he leaned back against the pitted stone wall. He guessed that was what it was like dating the most unpopular man on the island. Not as much fun as you might think.
Fuck.
