“I’m game for going out, too.” He kissed me lightly. “Beats the hell out of getting back into the dating scene.”
“Anything beats that.”
“So what did you have in mind?” He smirked. “I don’t imagine movies are your thing on a date.”
“Not really,” I laughed. “Actually I always thought they were kind of pointless on dates anyway.”
“How so?”
I shrugged. “I can think of a few better ways to get to know someone than sitting in a dark room and not talking.”
“Well, I thought we did just fine getting to know each other that way.”
“I guess I can’t argue with that, now, can I?”
He kissed me. “No, you can’t.” A grin tugged the corner of his mouth upward, and I couldn’t resist the urge to touch his face. With the side of my thumb, I traced the outline of his goatee, running it along the edge where the soft hair was lined with coarse stubble.
“Anyway,” I said. “No, I’m not big on movies for dates. Especially since I spend every fucking day in a theatre.”
“How about drinks, then?” he said. “Or dinner?”
I smirked. “You know, I’m told that in some cultures, it’s permissible to have dinner and drinks at the same time.”
“Really? I had no idea.” He tried to look surprised, but the devilish sparkle in his eyes gave him away. We both laughed, then he said, “Okay, smartass. So dinner and drinks?”
“Sounds good to me.” I paused. “Though, fair warning, I occasionally have to work late on a moment’s notice, so…” I gave an apologetic shrug.
“I know the feeling,” he said. “Well, assuming you don’t get stuck at work, are you busy tomorrow night?”
I smiled. “I am now.”
Chapter Thirteen
The next day was one of those days. The kind that made me wonder what had ever possessed me to own a business in the first place. Everything that could go wrong did, and everyone that could get on my last nerve did. I was surprised the cursed projector didn’t set itself on fire or something.
Days like that usually had me collapsing onto the nearest piece of furniture when I got home and praying for just enough energy to drag myself into the bedroom.
Not tonight, though. Exhaustion would just have to wait, because I was meeting Nathan for dinner.
I took the stairs up to my apartment two at a time and almost dropped my keys while trying to unlock the door. Inside, I threw my jacket on the couch and kicked my shoes off, narrowly missing one of the cats.
It was just after six, and I was supposed to meet him at seven thirty. My heart raced; just like the last time we saw each other, it was entirely too long to wait, entirely too soon to be that close to him again.
At least I had more than enough time for a shower. In the bedroom, I was so restless my hands shook when I unbuttoned my shirt. Even when I got out of the shower, my hands were still unsteady.
Why the hell am I so nervous? It’s not like I haven’t slept with him twice already. I questioned the wisdom of shaving, but when I thought of having Nathan’s hands on my face again, I reached for my razor. His touch alone was well worth the risk of cutting myself a few dozen times.
By the grace of God, I finished shaving with my face intact. Then I got dressed, fed the cats, took one last look in the mirror to make sure I hadn’t missed a spot while shaving, and left.
When I walked into the restaurant, I didn’t have to look to know he was already there. I had to look around to figure out exactly where he was, but I knew from the second I walked in that he was in the room.
Our eyes met and his lit up as I dodged kids and waiters on the way to the table he’d snagged by one of the windows.
“Long time no see,” he said, smiling as I took a seat across from him.
“Hasn’t been that long,” I said with a wink. Way too fucking long.
We fell into a comfortable exchange of small talk and pleasantries, relaxed with each other like a pair of old friends even though we were somewhere between lovers and strangers. It was a peculiar dichotomy. I felt like I’d known him my whole life, but knew next to nothing about him.
Well, now’s as good a time as any to get to know you, Nathan. “So,” I said. “I know you’re an attorney-”
“What?” He pretended to be stunned. “Who told you?”
“You did, when you gave me your business card,” I said with a smirk. That business card that may as well have said “please fuck me tonight”.
“Oh. Right.” He laughed and gestured for me to continue. “Anyway, go on.”
I picked up my glass, pausing before taking a drink. “So what kind of attorney are you?”
Without missing a beat, he said, “The sarcastic gay kind.” I choked on my drink and he chuckled. “Sorry,” he said, sounding anything but.
“Bastard,” I said, trying to clear my throat.
“You okay?” He pretended to be concerned, but he couldn’t quite mask his amusement.
I coughed and gave him a good-natured glare. “Yes, thank you for sounding so concerned.”
“Okay, okay, seriously,” he said. “To answer your question, the firm deals with mostly corporate law. I’m usually involved in corporate bankruptcies. Things like that.”
“Sounds exciting.”
“Terribly,” he said, raising his glass in a parody of a toast. “So thrilling, it’ll put you into a coma if you’re not careful.”
“I can imagine,” I said.
“Wasn’t exactly what I planned to do when I went to law school,” he said, shrugging. “But it pays the bills.” He seemed to lose focus for a second as his glass paused just shy of his lips. Then he added, “And sometimes you meet interesting people.”
“Oh?”
He set his glass down and watched his finger draw a line in the condensation on the side. Then he looked at me. “That’s how I met Jake.”
Fortunately, I wasn’t in the middle of eating or drinking anything, because I would have choked at the mention of our ex’s name. It shouldn’t have startled me, really, but it did. Or rather, it startled me that I hadn’t thought of him at all until then. All night long, sitting across from me, he should have been a constant reminder of Jake, but he wasn’t. Our ex hadn’t crossed my mind once tonight until Nathan mentioned his name just then.
Maybe that meant the three of us weren’t so inextricably bound to each other. Nathan’s existence wasn’t dependent upon Jake’s memory. Jake may have been the reason Nathan and I met, but he’d done his part as catalyst and exited stage left, never to be seen again.
Maybe Jake’s irrelevance meant that Nathan and I could make this work.
“Zach?”
I shook my head to bring myself back into the present. “Sorry, sorry.” I cleared my throat. “Go on.”
“I was just saying that’s how I met Jake,” he said. “He actually started out as a client of mine.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, the company he was with before.” He paused, furrowing his brow as if trying to remember some detail. Then he shook his head. “Anyway, it was some startup or another. I don’t remember exactly what kind of company, but they went bankrupt. My firm handled all the legal crap.”
“Interesting way to meet someone,” I said.
He grinned. “I’ve been known to meet men in strange ways.”
“Touché.”
“Anyway, when it was all settled, he kept calling and coming by the office.” Nathan rolled his eyes. “Making excuses to talk to me, meet with me, that sort of thing until I reminded him he was racking up a hell of a bill. He finally admitted he was coming by to see me, and…” He shrugged, his slightly nostalgic smile belying the bitterness in his tone. “I guess the rest is history.”
“So I’m not the only one who occasionally dates customers.”