“I’ll keep that in mind for my yenta duties,” she said.
“Looking into a new career?”
“You’re my first test subject,” she said. “If it goes as well as I expect, I’ll go pro and leave the precious little fifth-graders behind. Help all the gay men I meet find their soul mates.”
If only it were that easy.
“More power to you, sister,” Ace said.
“So, you should come over for the open house next Sunday,” she said, as if the decision were already made. “See the final transformation and then tell me all about your dream guy.”
“I don’t know, sweetie,” he said. “You guys are going to be awfully busy getting ready for the open house, and my love life is hardly a priority on your to-do list.”
“Oh please, it’s my new favorite priority,” she said. “All my friends are already married, so there’s nobody else to play with like this.”
“I’m so glad I could provide yet another service to the McDonnell-Shipley household,” Ace drawled. “How is it that you aren’t already somebody’s fag hag?”
“I was just waiting for one who was worthy.”
“I’m flattered.”
“You should be. I have great plans for your love life,” she announced.
This could get sticky. He was already in too deep with Holly’s future brother-in-law, and now she wanted to fix him up on dates. As if things could get more awkward.
“Oh, and don’t forget, you didn’t take all the awesome after photos you needed yesterday,” Holly said after Ace’s long pause.
Ace winced. A real reason to go. He did want to show off the transformation in Steven’s house. And it would remove a reason for Tanner to keep calling him.
“You’re absolutely right. I need to do that.” Ace took a deep breath, preparing to re-enter the ring. “Okay. I’ll stop by.”
“Excellent. You know what, why don’t you come over tonight, too?” she said. “We’re going to burn that yard waste from yesterday and do s’mores and hotdogs and stuff. An old-fashioned campfire cookout.”
Ace’s sense of self-preservation kicked in just in time. He could not handle another minute having to pretend he wasn’t hopelessly into Paul, who would most definitely be present.
“I’d better get some work done here, actually,” he said. “But you guys have fun with your weenie roast.”
Holly sighed into the phone. “Well, it won’t be nearly so entertaining without you here.”
“Baby doll, if Steven already bores you like that, I would rethink your upcoming housing arrangement.”
Holly laughed. “Oh, but he’s good for sooo many other fun things.”
If he’s anything like his brother… “I have no doubt. You’ll have to tell me all about them next Sunday.”
“That’s a promise. The open house starts at one, so Steven and I were thinking of doing lunch about that time and just monopolizing a table at a restaurant for the afternoon.”
“Sounds wonderful, actually.” And it did. As long as he didn’t have to play pretend all afternoon and hold himself back from going down on Paul under the table. If he was there. Which he hoped didn’t happen. Or possibly not.
“So it’s Steven’s house just before one, then on to the Gaf,” she confirmed. “We’ll get your love life straightened out.”
They both paused, then said in unison, “So to speak.”
Ah, he liked her. But could he really be friends with her without losing himself in Paul?
And did he even want to?
He returned to the table where Erik was, he was relieved to see, alone.
“Looks like we’ll have to interrupt our regular Sunday programming next week,” Ace said as he sat down. “Work calls.”
Erik frowned. “I thought you don’t work on Sunday. I thought it was your thing.”
“I was presented with a compelling reason.”
The frown remained. “Does this have anything to do with your escape artist?”
Ace started. “How did ” he stopped himself. “With luck, he won’t be there anyway,” he said dismissively.
“Mm-hmm.” Erik was unconvinced. He fixed Ace with a steady look.
Ace stopped with his fork halfway to his mouth. “What?”
“So, you don’t want him to show up.”
“I’m still incredibly pissed with him,” Ace protested. “My anger has barely begun to cook.”
“Mm-hmmm.”
Ace took a defiant bite of waffles.
Erik sighed and dug into his meal. “Well, for those of us keeping a tally, you now have two hot guys after you.”
“Oh yes,” Ace drawled. “Envy me. It is to envy. I’m not in three kinds of hell here or anything.”
“At the very least, you should tell Tanner where you stand,” Erik said. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were keeping him on the hook in case you need an emergency fuck buddy.”
“No!” Ace squeaked, a little too quickly. “Well,” he hedged, “would that be so very awful?”
Erik shook his head. “Greedy, greedy, greedy.”
Chapter 9
Sunday evening, Paul made the trip to Kansas City once again to help dispose of the yard waste he helped to create the day before at Steven’s house.
Technically, his presence wasn’t required for this activity. In fact, it might be a more romantic night for Steven and Holly without him there. But after spending the long afternoon pacing around his condo until he was ready to crawl out of his skin, Paul needed to get out of there.
What a mess he had made of things with Ace. He had wanted to extricate himself carefully, leaving the door cracked open for future encounters. Instead, he had exploded through that door, leaving it in tatters. And he couldn’t stop seeing Ace’s fallen, disappointed face.
It all came down to cowardice, the enemy of his life since he first realized that girls didn’t hold the expected kind of interest for him.
And, worse, he felt all alone in this struggle that he was fighting against himself. Alone by his own design, of course, but that didn’t negate the empty feeling of not being able to talk to anyone about this.
Maybe if Ace would ever speak to him again, they could talk about these things. That is, if Paul was able to keep his hands to himself once they were in the same room.
Not a likely scenario.