Erik squinted at him. “You’re being unusually elusive. Spill.”
Ace sighed. “He lost points on the dismount.”
Vince cringed quietly. Ace caught it.
“Too much? I’m trying to keep things coded in deference to your delicate heterosexual sensibilities,” Ace said.
Olive looked at Vince with a face full of question.
“It was the word mount,” Vince finally said. “Brought up … images.”
Olive patted his knee. “Poor boy. Suck it up.”
“Ix-nay on the uck-say,” Ace whispered loudly.
“So,” Olive persisted. “Bad dismount?”
Ace nodded. “Escaped before I could catch my breath. Didn’t even get a last name.”
“Did you want a last name from this one?” Erik asked.
Fuck yes. “I wanted to bring him all the way home,” he admitted. “The back room was his idea.”
Olive made a face. “That sucks.”
There was a pause, then both Erik and Ace said, “Literally.”
Vince winced again.
“Well, it was Sparks,” Ace shrugged. “It was all about the itch, not wedding bells or anything.” Even if the itch still persisted.
“Want us to set you up with someone?” Olive rubbed her hands together excitedly.
“I am aware of one or two young men in my upper-level classes who lean your way,” Vince said carefully.
“Oh come on,” Ace protested. “Any college student is at least a decade younger than me. What in the world would we have in common?”
“You’re both gay?” Vince offered.
Ace slapped his hand over his eyes dramatically. “Don’t quit your day job, yenta.”
“No, not that!” Vince tried to backtrack. “I just mean he’s someone you don’t have to wonder about. Isn’t that usually an issue? The wondering?”
“No, we usually can tell. It’s the secret gay code,” Ace said solemnly.
Vince furrowed his brow. “There’s a code? Really?”
“We keep it under wraps,” Erik said. “We all have those special sunglasses like in that movie Them. You know, the ones that let you see aliens?”
“I see gay people,” Ace said in an exaggerated whisper.
Vince tried to hide an embarrassed smile with a scowl.
“Oh honey,” Olive laughed, “I just love how you try.”
“It cracks me up that this man who squirms at the word ‘dismount’ is trying to fix me up on a gay date,” Ace said.
“I’m just trying to help,” Vince said. Olive patted Vince’s knee reassuringly, and Ace knew Olive had probably pushed Vince into this matchmaking business.
Having not been around this couple for many weeks, Ace had forgotten how sickeningly happy they were with each other. People who are happily married could be incredibly annoying.
Damn, I want that.
“I do appreciate the help, guys, but I’m going to give it a go on my own for now,” Ace said. “You could always work your magic on Erik.”
Erik immediately flushed bright red. “Oh, thanks for that,” he muttered.
Olive sighed. “Yeah, tried that already.” She looked at Erik, then Ace, then shook her head. She glanced at her watch and gathered her purse. “We’d better get going.”
“Off to another exciting evening of questioning the historical validity of Shakespeare’s folios,” Vince drawled.
“You do like to provoke her colleagues,” Erik said.
“As the man himself said,” Olive sighed, “the course of true love-”
“Wait, I know this one,” Ace interrupted. “Something about kissing a lot of frogs?”
“Something like that.” Olive smiled and kissed Ace’s cheek. “Bye, sweetie.”
When the older couple had left, Erik turned to Ace with a serious look. “Ace, don’t hate me for this.”
“For what? Are you gonna try to set me up, too? Because one time with that little frat rat from your office was quite enough.”
“No, no,” Erik said quickly. “Definitely never going to set you up with anyone else.” He took a deep, fortifying breath. “You’ve got to stop fucking Cameron in bars. He is hamstringing your love life.”
Ace pulled back sharply. “He wasn’t-” he started, “he didn’t even look like-”
“My friend, every guy in that place is Cameron. Even Tanner was Cameron.”
“How the hell would you know?” Ace bristled. “You haven’t set foot in Kansas City since the end of you and Richard.”
“Ace, for almost a year, I’ve come over here every Sunday. I do three things: I help fix your house, I help you bitch about Cameron, and I have to hear about your monthly itches.”
“So this makes you an expert on me now?”
“I remember everything you’ve told me about Cameron. About how he tore you up inside. You really want more of that?”
Ace grimaced. “Well of course I’m not going to tell you about any of the good stuff. The parts that only I got to see were just about perfect.”
But after every perfect Sunday there was always a Monday morning to face, when Cameron would transform into the Good Straight Southern Boy. And the holidays Ace spent alone because there was no way in hell Cameron was going to bring him over to his parents’ house. And the times — more than once, more than a handful — when they would spot each other downtown around lunchtime and Cameron completely ignored him to save face.
“I have a theory.” Erik’s voice startled him out of his brief reverie. “I think you’ve got a magnet in your dick that pulls you to the wrong guys.”
Ace rolled his eyes. “I didn’t know a marketing degree made you an expert in the psychology of bar pickups.”
Erik slowly closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I do know something about successful strategies, and yours clearly isn’t working. Every week you moan about how you just want a nice guy you can be yourself with, and then what do you do? Another quick fuck from Sparks or Grindr.”
Well, hell, when he put it like that.
“You deserve someone you can hold hands with in public,” Erik said. “Someone who loves you and is proud to say it out loud in front of other people.”
Ace heard what Erik wasn’t saying: There is a nice guy sitting in front of you, are you blind?
He wasn’t blind. He could see that Erik would be open to more than friendship, even though Erik had never officially broached the subject. But Ace had deliberately not encouraged anything more.