“That sounds expensive.”
“That’s what I said.”
He glanced around. “Are you here alone?”
“No, I’m here with my…” I looked toward the bar, but guys were standing two and three deep, and I couldn’t spot Wills. “…my boyfriend. He’s getting our drinks.”
“You’ve got a boyfriend, Theo?” John didn’t seem to notice that abruptly Bradford was much more relaxed.
“Yes. We’ve been together since last spring.”
“That’s marvelous! I’m so happy for you!”
“John and I have been together for almost five years now.” Bradford slid an arm around his lover’s waist, and a smile brightened John’s face.
“Good for you. Would you like to join us?”
“Thank you for asking—”
“—but we were just on our way home. I have an open house tomorrow.” John sighed. “Although I don’t know why I’m bothering. That Dashwood bitch will only steal the sale from under me anyway.”
“But that doesn’t mean you have to make it easy for her, Johnny.” Bradford stroked his arm. “Sooner or later she’ll do something that will guarantee her license is pulled.”
“I live in hopes. She’s already been barred from one community in Alexandria.”
Wills arrived just then. His eyebrow rose when he saw I wasn’t alone. “Friends, babe?” He handed me my drink.
“John is an old acquaintance of mine. He’s the one who found the house for us. And this is Bradford, his partner.”
“John.” Wills offered his hand. “Bradford. I’m William.”
“It’s so nice to meet you.” John looked from me to Wills. “Theo says you’ve been together since last spring.”
“Yes. The best eleven months of my life.”
“What a sweet thing to say. And you’re celebrating Valentine’s Day on the town.”
“Any excuse I can get to show him off,” I murmured. Wills blushed and took my hand.
“We’d better go, John. You’ll need to be fresh for tomorrow.”
“Well, it was nice meeting you, William. Theo, it was a pleasure seeing you again.”
We shook hands all around, and with promises to stay in touch—which I had a strong feeling wouldn’t be kept—they left.
I followed Wills to the table, which, miraculously, no one had taken, and sat down heavily. “Phew.”
Wills removed his suit jacket and hung it on the back of his chair. The vest he wore contrasted nicely with his white shirt and emphasized his narrow waist, and eyes were drawn to him. He didn’t seem to notice though. He just stood there, looking serious.
“Okay.” I sighed. “Ask me.”
He sat down across from me and took a sip of his White Russian. “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, he had to turn up here?”
“Kind of. I know it was against the odds, never running into anyone I’d…you know…”
“I know.” The drink left a moustache of cream on his upper lip. He licked it off, and I lost my train of thought. “I thought things looked a little tense for a time.”
“Huh?” I blinked. “You mean you could see that from the bar?”
“I’ve got excellent vision.”
I sighed again. “The last time I saw John, which was about five years ago, he told me Bradford didn’t approve of paying for sex.”
“Ah. So you’re that little smile John will occasionally have on his face that Bradford will always wonder about.”
It was my turn to blush, but I shrugged. “Are you…are you upset, babe?”
“Did he ever ask you to leave the business?”
“Keep me, you mean? He wanted to set me up in an apartment.”
“But what about the house?”
“It was before then.”
“Ah. So he was a long-term client. Did you take him up on his offer?”
“No. He wasn’t out at the time…”
“If he had been?”
“You were never interested in my past before. What’s up?”
“Just because I didn’t ask, doesn’t mean I wasn’t interested.”
“Why now then?” Although I was afraid I knew. It was one thing for him to know intellectually that I’d been a rent boy, but it was another to have the evidence of a past client shoved in his face.
“It just occurred to me…” Okay, here it came. I braced myself. “We missed out on meeting in Florida. We could have missed out meeting last spring. If you’d moved in with him, you wouldn’t have bought the house. If you hadn’t bought the house, Mr. Vincent wouldn’t have moved into the attic apartment. If he hadn’t moved into the apartment, become your friend, gone to the hospital when Paul was beaten…I never would have met you.”
“Oh, babe.” I reached across the table and squeezed his hand. “John was a good man. He never hurt me emotionally or physically, and I liked him, but…”
“But you didn’t love him.”
“No.”