Darwin's Natural Selection (13 page)

*

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah.” Darwin didn’t sound that convincing though. There was an odd note in his voice. “Sorry to leave you hanging like that.”

“It’s okay,” Tom said, holding back a grin. “I just gave the neighbor a yell and he came over and finished me off.”

“Very funny.” Darwin paused. “You
are joking, right?”

“Of course.”

“Good.” He was quiet for a few seconds.

“You didn’t call that fucker Andy, did you?”

“Are you serious?” He frowned.

Whatever it’d been about, that call had put Darwin into a strange mood. Usually it was Tom who didn’t get the jokes.

“No,” Darwin sighed. After a moment, he amended that. “A little, maybe. Sorry.

Don’t mind me—I was just talking to one of my more paranoid friends. I think it rubbed off on me.”

“It’s okay.” Tom bit the inside of his lip.

“Would you… I mean, do you not want to do this tonight? If you’re too tired or not in the mood or whatever, I’ll understand.”

“It’s not that,” Darwin said. “Talking with Cal just made me feel like a selfish asshole, that’s all.”

That sounded too personal for Tom’s comfort. “He your ex?”

“No, he’s straight.”

This information cheered Tom. “If it helps, I think you’re as far from being a selfish asshole as you can get. If a selfish asshole is Wisconsin, then you’d be, like, New Zealand or something.”

Darwin laughed. “Thanks.”

“You in bed?”

“No. Pacing the living room. You?”

“Yeah. In bed.” Despite their previous bouts of phone sex, Tom felt oddly shy.

“Naked.” That last word came out a little shaky. The next few seconds of silence didn’t help his nerve any either.

“How about I come over?” Darwin finally asked, and Tom, not expecting the question, flinched. Heavy dread filled his stomach and he swallowed hard.

“I-I…uh…I don’t…” Just like that, the conversation had turned from sexy to scary.

“Forget it.” Darwin interrupted his panicked stuttering. “Sorry. I don’t know why I said that. Just wanted to see you, I guess. Talking on the phone just doesn’t seem like enough tonight.”

“I’m…actually I’m sort of tired.” Even as he said the words, Tom was pissed at himself for being such a chicken. “Mind if we…well, do this another time?”

“Sure.” Darwin’s tone was unreadable and Tom’s stomach churned. “Later then.”

“Sure,” Tom echoed numbly. What are you doing?! his brain screamed. You’re fucking everything up! “Later.”

Tom stared at the phone where it read “Call Ended” and then flopped back into the pillows. “Dumbass,” he muttered to himself.

“You’re hopeless.”

*

Clenching his fist around his phone, Darwin resisted the urge to hurl the cell against the wall and paced the length of his living room, back and forth, back and forth, until he started breathing normally again.

“This is for the best,” he told himself, tossing his phone onto the couch so he didn’t give in to the urge to call Tom back and tell him he didn’t mean it. Talking on the phone was great—amazing even—and the only reason he’d asked to come over was because Calvin’s words were rattling around in his brain, pushing all sorts of guilt buttons. “Better for him to have a little hurt now than to be caught up in my shit-storm of a life.”

His justifications weren’t helping.

Blowing out an impatient breath, he flopped down in a chair across from the couch and stared at his cell phone, sitting so innocently and temptingly on the cushions. To help him resist temptation, he imagined all the different ways it could play out if he got involved—more involved—with Tom.

At best, Darwin would leave without a word when the lab guys caught up with him. And considering the lab had the best intelligence and tracking resources money could buy, Darwin knew it was only a matter of time before his hiding spot was discovered. At worst, Tom would…

Darwin closed his eyes, not even able to think of Tom being used as bait, taken and frightened and possibly hurt.

He forced himself to focus on the image of Tom—sweet, funny, traumatized Tom Cooper—held captive at the lab. The mental picture actually hurt Darwin, a slicing pain through his chest.

“This is the right thing,” he muttered, absently rubbing his sternum where the ache beneath it throbbed the worst. “Better I get hurt than Tom. He deserves more than to be caught up in my shitty, fugitive life.”

It didn’t matter how noble and just and right and self-sacrificing Darwin was being.

It still sucked and his chest still hurt at the thought of never seeing Tom again.

Tom felt incredibly stupid.

It didn’t help that it was snowing—big, fat flakes that caught in his hair and eyelashes and burned where they touched his bare hands. Hands that were clutching a small bakery box as if it were the Holy Grail or something.

It’d been four days since he’d acted like a dysfunctional baby and freaked out at the mention of Darwin coming over, and his phone had been painfully silent ever since.

Deciding he wasn’t going to look any less stupid just standing there in the falling snow, he shifted the bakery box to one hand and reached in his truck cab for his hard hat.

Jamming it on his head, he closed the truck door and forced his feet to cross the frozen ruts of mud that separated him from the unfinished building.

Plastic sheeting blanketed the skeletal structure, turning all the construction workers inside into unrecognizable, blurry blobs.

Taking a deep breath, Tom ducked through an opening in the plastic. A couple workers eyed him curiously and he moved past before they could ask him why he was there. As he made his way through the open-walled rooms smelling of freshly cut lumber, Tom hoped he didn’t run into MacDougal. Considering the fact that no ductwork had been installed yet, Tom didn’t really have a good excuse for wandering around the building, clutching a bakery box in numb fingers.

“Tom?”

Darwin’s voice made him jump and almost drop the box. Tom stepped into the small, unfinished area where Darwin was working. The waste piping protruding from the floor indicated it was destined to be a bathroom in the near future. “Hi.”

“What are you doing here?” The words weren’t accusatory but Tom still flushed, searching the other man’s expression for some kind of welcome. Darwin’s face was smooth, unreadable and, as always, nerve-rackingly gorgeous.

“I, er…” Tom glanced down at the bakery box, as if his reasons for stopping by the site were written on the shiny white cardboard.

“Here.” He thrust the box toward Darwin.

Eyebrows up, Darwin accepted the box, flipping open the top to look inside. “A cupcake.”

“Sorry.” Tom’s face felt as hot as fire. “It was a stupid idea. I just…” He turned to leave but Darwin caught him by the wrist, giving him a gentle tug. Already off balance by the whole embarrassing experience, the light pull was enough to make Tom stumble forward a step.

Before he even realized what happened, Darwin leaned in to press a soft kiss on Tom’s mouth. Their lips clung for an endless moment and then Tom pulled back, staring at Darwin. “What’s going on?”

Still holding his wrist, Darwin swept his thumb across Tom’s skin, warming it to prickling life. “I tried to do the right thing but how can I resist you when you bring me a cupcake?”

“The right thing?” Tom repeated, confused. “What are you talking about?”

“I shouldn’t be dragging you into my fucked-up life,” Darwin explained, leaving Tom more bewildered than ever. “I thought I’d rip the Band-Aid off quickly, get it over with.”

“Rip off the…what? Darwin, you’re making zero sense.”

“I know. Sorry.” Leaning in, Darwin brushed his lips against Tom’s again, stealing his breath. “I’m really sorry.”

“For what?” Tom shook his head. He felt as if he was in a movie and no one had bothered giving him a script.

“Everything—past and future.” That didn’t clear anything up, but Darwin was kissing his neck now and Tom was having a hard time caring if the words actually made sense. “Just everything.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t ask you to come over the other night,” Tom said breathlessly as the other man nipped at his throat. “I’m sorry I’m such a scaredy-cat freak around you.”

“You’re not a freak,” Darwin said between kisses. “I was being an asshole on purpose, so don’t apologize. That wasn’t your fault.” Cupping Tom’s face with his non-cupcake-holding hand, he met Tom’s mouth with his own for a real kiss.

When Darwin finally raised his head, Tom had to grab a two-by-four in the wall to steady his wobbly legs.

“Who the hell is that?” MacDougal’s bellow carried easily through the unfinished walls as he stomped toward them. “Cooper, that you? Why are you here? Is something already fucking wrong with the mechanical design? It’s not even fucking installed yet!”

Pushing away from the board supporting his weight, Tom tried to look casual. “Uh, no.”

“What?”

Clearing his throat, Tom tried again, louder this time. “Everything’s fine, as far as I know,” he said. “I just needed to, ah…bring something for Bloom. I’ll take off now.”

As he stepped out of the doorframe, his foot caught on the edge and he stumbled, almost falling on his face before catching his balance. “I’m good!” he reassured the other two men as he backed away a few steps before turning and almost bolting out of the building.

As he walked toward his truck, the snowflakes melting on his skin, Tom realized he was smiling—grinning, even. He still had no idea what Darwin had been rambling about, but he knew the two of them were good again and that was all that mattered.

“What the fuck was that about?” MacDougal demanded after Tom disappeared from sight.

“What?” Darwin asked innocently, blinking his eyes.

“Don’t give me that shit,” his boss growled, reaching out a hand to smack the side of Darwin’s head, which he easily dodged. “Is that what he brought you?”

MacDougal jerked his head at the bakery box, leaning in to see what was inside.

Darwin made a noncommittal sound and pulled it against his chest to hide the contents from his boss. It didn’t work.

“What is that? A cupcake?” MacDougal demanded. “A fucking cupcake?”

“Yeah,” Darwin admitted, not able to hold back a fond smile at the thought of Tom bringing the dessert to the site for him.

How could he break it off now, even knowing it would most likely end badly?

Tom—sweet, Bambi-eyed, sexy-as-hell Tom—had brought him
chocolate
!

“Bloom.”

“Yes sir?” MacDougal sounded eerily calm. Darwin braced himself.

“Did you see that it’s snowing?”

“Yes sir.”

“Did you see the fucking snowflakes falling from the fucking sky and landing on my fucking building site and this fucking building, which isn’t even
close
to being done because the fucking mechanical engineer is bringing fucking cupcakes to my fastest framer, which means now you’re going to be mooning the fuck around, dropping fucking nail guns and staring off into fucking space because you’re in fucking goddamn love!” At that point, MacDougal was in full-on bellow mode. “And it’s fucking snowing motherfucking snowflakes and you’re staring at some fucking lovey-dovey
cupcake
!”

“
Tom
brought it, boss,” Darwin said, still marveling over that fact himself. “Plus it’s chocolate.”

MacDougal

stared

at

him,

mouth

opening and closing soundlessly for a few seconds. “You’re going to fucking kill me, Bloom,” he finally groaned. “Make my heart fucking explode out of my fucking chest, right fucking here.”

“Just don’t get any gore on my cupcake,”

Darwin said, trying not to laugh as he cupped the box protectively. His boss’s face turned an even more impressive shade of purple.

“I…you…that…
argh
!” With a final roar of frustration, MacDougal stormed away, leaving Darwin to moon in peace over his perfect cupcake from his perfect boyfriend.

*

Tom smiled at his computer screen.

“You look happy.” Darwin’s voice from the doorway brought his head up. “Surfing porn or something?”

“Hey!” Tom didn’t care that his greeting sounded over-the-top happy, even to him.

He
was
over-the-top happy. He stood up and hurried around his desk. Once within touching distance of Darwin, he stopped a little awkwardly, unsure if he should hug the other man. Instead, he just asked, “What are you doing here?”

“Thought you might be hungry.” The raspy edge Darwin added to those normally innocuous words made Tom swallow as his heart sped up.

The night before, they’d had phone sex again, the most amazing, toe-curling, brain-frying phone sex Tom had ever experienced.

H e
was
hungry—for Darwin. The more time they spent together, either in person or on the phone, the hungrier Tom got. It was as if he were insatiable when it came to Darwin.

“Yeah,” Tom croaked when Darwin raised an eyebrow, obviously waiting for an answer to his implied question. “Starving.”

Darwin’s eyes darkened and he leaned closer, but Tom turned away, reaching to grab his coat from where it hung on a hook.

He told himself it was because any of his coworkers could be watching but he knew that wasn’t it—at least not completely. In the flesh, Darwin—big, beefy, gorgeous, oozing with testosterone—still made Tom a little jumpy.

“Ready to go?” Tom asked, not quite meeting the other man’s eyes.

“Sure.” His voice was easy, not accusatory at all, and Tom finally brought his gaze to Darwin’s face. There was only good humor and heat there—no angry frustration or anything else scary. A wave of gratitude and affection flowed through him and Tom caught Darwin’s hand for a few moments before releasing it with a squeeze.

“Mind if we take the stairs?” Tom asked as they walked down the main hallway. “It’s only three flights down and the elevator’s so slow that the stairs are actually quicker.”

“’Course not,” Darwin said, his palm brushing over the back of Tom’s coat. The touch disappeared before he was able to get nervous.