Kate Sherwood - Dark Horse 2.2 - Head Shy (7 page)

"Wow, your enthusiasm is overwhelming, man." Dan can feel the shift as Chris turns towards Jeff and Evan. "It's like a whole new flavour of pissy Dan. Not a personal favorite, but probably not permanent. I think… huh… I don't actually know how Justin used to snap him out of it. Maybe just waited it out…."

"I'm still in the car, asshole. I can
hear
you."

"What was that?" Dan doesn't need to look at him to know that Chris is smirking. "Was that a bit of genuine emotion? Danny? Were you a little irritated there?"
Dan tries to put the mask back together. "I'm fine, Chris. Just

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reminding you of a simple fact."

 

"Uh huh." The smirk in Chris's voice is practically vibrating. "Hey, Danny?"

 

Dan tries to ignore him.

"Danny? Hey, do you remember that time we were at the lake, and you went swimming with your keys in your pocket, and they fell out, and you spent the next two days diving for them? And you still didn't find them, and you and Justin had to hitch a ride back into town with my mom, and she bitched at you the whole way about how irresponsible you were? And you couldn't find your spare set of keys, so you had to pay a couple hundred bucks for a new ignition? Do you remember that?"

Chris seems to actually expect Dan to answer. "Chris, that was a long time ago. It's really not going to annoy me to think about it now."

Chris leans over and playfully punches Dan's arm. "Good to hear that, man. So, it was a long time ago… so you won't be pissed to hear that I found your keys under the seat of my car a week later?" Chris waits, then continues. "Yeah, I, uh… I took your keys to move your truck—it was blocking in my cousin Will? And, uh…."

He stops, and Dan turns part way towards him. Dan can see Evan now, his face alive with gleeful apprehension. Jeff's watching, too, his eyes narrowing, his lips twitching. Dan takes a deep breath. "Are you kidding me?"

"Dude, by the time I found them, it was too late, you'd already… you know… done all that stuff." He's bracing himself now, hands up and ready to defend. But he's giggling at the same time. "I swear, when you said you'd left them in your shorts, I just assumed you'd taken them back… I didn't… you know… it didn't occur to me that I'd taken them
out
of your

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shorts already."

Dan remembers spending two days of one of his rare vacations diving down and sifting through the sandy mud at the bottom of the lake. He remembers having to tell Justin, and being afraid that Justin would think he was an idiot, and he remembers driving back with Chris's mom pretty much
saying
that he was an idiot. And the bill for getting the truck towed to the garage, and the new ignition, and… "Are you fucking kidding me?"

Chris's laugh is almost manic. "I just… you know… there didn't seem to be any point in telling you, once it was too late. And, you know… you
didn't
check your pockets, so, really, you could have lost them in the lake anyway… if you'd had them."

"You could have offered to pay the damn bills! And you could have told your mother that
you
were the irresponsible one! You asshole…." Dan wants to get revenge, but he doesn't want to actually fight Chris, not in the fancy car. "Give me your phone."

"What?"

 

Dan lets his voice get quiet and intense. "Give me your phone, Foster."

Chris looks like he's maybe going to object, but then he reaches into his pocket and fishes out his cell. He gives Jeff and Evan a questioning look before handing the phone over to Dan.

Dan takes a second to search through Chris's saved numbers, then selects the one he wants. He holds the phone up as it rings, staring at Chris the whole time. He hears a familiar voice on the other end of the line. "Mrs. Foster? It's Dan. Chris's fine, but he needs to tell you something.

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Can you just hang on for one second?" Dan holds the phone out to Chris.

Chris looks a little panicked. "No way," he whispers. "I was just trying to cheer you up! Or, you know, piss you off… whatever. I don't want to talk to my mom…."

Dan raises an eyebrow and pushes the phone further towards him. "You or me, Chris…who do you think will spin it better?"

Chris looks like he's trying to figure out some way around it, but he finally reaches out and takes the phone from Dan and lifts it to his face. "Hi, Mom…." Chris starts talking, and Dan doesn't even bother trying to keep the smug expression off his own face. Chris had cause Dan pain in the past, but Dan gets to cause him pain in the present—there's no doubting which is sweeter.

He listens for a bit, then looks over and sees Jeff and Evan watching the show. "Mrs. Foster's always… well, not hated me, but she never trusted me… thought I was a loser, or a con man or whatever… so this is double good."

Chris is done talking now, and he's just listening to his mother. She apparently has quite a bit to say, and he makes a face at Dan.

 

Evan seems like he's thinking about something. "Why did she think you were a con man?"

 

Dan raises one eyebrow. "You think it's totally natural that she thought I was a loser?"

Evan shakes his head. "No, dude, I just knew she had to be totally wrong about that. And the con man thing… I don't know, man. Before today, I'd have said that was bullshit too, but… I've never seen you like that, this afternoon." He glances over at Jeff, then back. "You seemed like

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somebody else. Like you were playing a part."

"And that's the same as running a con?" Dan can't really look Evan in the eyes as he says it, though, and after a second he shrugs and makes a face. "I didn't run anything. And it wasn't a con so much as… I don't know. Aggressive sales, kind of. But Justin's mom knew about it, and she told Chris's, and… you know. She's not a fan."

Evan looks a bit nonplussed, but Jeff doesn't seem too concerned. "Sounds like she's not a fan of Chris's right now, either."

Dan can't help grinning as he watches Chris squirm. "Sounds like not." He looks back over at Evan, who's smiling along with them, but still looks a little reserved. "I'm not a con man, Evan."

Evan startles. "No! No, I know that. You're… remember, right from the start—I wanted to hire you because you were honest. Remember?"

 

Dan looks back out the window. "Yeah. That's what you thought you were getting. I remember."

 

Chris clicks the phone shut and turns towards Dan. "Thanks a lot, asshole. She hasn't reamed me out like that for years."

"Yeah, well, that's step one. Step two is paying me back—you got your checkbook with you?" Dan's much happier to deal with this than with whatever's going on with Evan.

"Come on, man." Chris is almost whining.

 

"No way, dude. I won't charge you interest, but fuck yeah, you're paying me back. Towing fees, replacing the ignition—the whole thing. Let this be a lesson to you—when calm, reasonable Dan is around, don't fuck
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it up."

 

Chris sighs. "Yeah. Huh. Expensive lesson, man."

"Well, maybe you'll remember it, then." Dan would really like to switch back to Smooth mode and gloss over things with Evan, but he's not sure that would fly. So he takes a deep breath and charges in. "I've done lots of stupid stuff, and lots of stuff that I'm really not proud of. But… this afternoon, acting like that… it's not a big deal. It's not… it's not lying, it's just… easier. It's easier if people like me."

Jeff jumps in now. "People like the regular you, too, Dan."

Dan shrugs. "It's not like I have a split personality or something, dude. It's still the regular me, I'm just… being more careful, or something."

Chris snorts. "More careful? You were flirting with every person in the damn room. Except for Jeff and Evan." He stops. "And me. You fucker, am I not good enough for you, or something?"

"Chris, you are not even
close
to good enough for me." Dan looks over at Jeff and Evan. "But I wasn't really flirting. I was just trying to make them like me." He's feeling a little insecure about this now.

Jeff's smile is wolfish. "Oh, they liked you alright." He lets his eyes burn a little. "They liked you a lot."

 

Dan looks over at Evan. "Nah. If you'd thought I was flirting, you'd have gotten all jealous caveman, right?"

 

Evan shrugs. "I don't know… it was… yeah, it seemed like you were flirting, man. But I was… I think I was just too confused to get jealous." "Seriously?" Dan thinks back. "Yeah, okay, I was, like, friendly
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flirting. But why's that so confusing?" He looks at all three of them. "You guys don't think you're over-reacting a little? I mean, everyone acts differently around different people."

Evan frowns. "It's just… you were… you were really
good
at it, man. I mean, those are some pretty smart people, they're educated, sophisticated… and you had them eating out of your hand. Like, instantly!"

"Not all of them. And, not
instantly
."

"Dude,
Bridgette
loved you, and Bridgette makes people cry. A lot. She's tough to the point of being mean." Evan nods towards Chris. "Ask your boy. She's been totally cold to him since he showed up."

"Aw, Chrissy, did she make
you
cry?" Dan turns back to Evan. "But not liking Chris doesn't show that she's mean, it just shows that she's got good taste."

"Okay, asshole, enough. I've already done the mom-confession, and I'll pay you your penance. I can't take a whole lot more from you today." Chris looks pissed off, but Dan isn't too worried. After the key confession, the bastard owes him more than a couple bucks and a few insults.

Evan's not really listening to any of this, he's just watching Dan. He looks like he's thinking, and then he smiles. "But that's just for them, right? I mean… we get the real you, they get the…." He pauses, and frowns. "The…."

"The mask." Jeff says quietly. He smiles at Dan. "You're right, everyone's got one. We just maybe didn't realize how honest you've been being with us. We thought you were just always like that, always showing
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your emotions." He reaches out his foot and presses his ankle against Dan's. "But really, you could have been hiding all the time, and you hardly ever did." He shrugs. "You ran every now and then, but… you didn't hide." His eyes are warm, and they make Dan feel almost guilty; he's torn between basking in Jeff's appreciation and feeling that he doesn't really deserve it.

Evan looks thoughtful, then he smiles over at Dan. "Yeah. Almost always. I mean, last night…." He glances at Chris, then charges on anyway. "You maybe tried to hide a bit, but you were so obvious about it…." He shakes his head. "If I hadn't seen you today, I would have thought that was the best you could do, last night. But, damn, man!" His grin is wide. "You could have had us totally snowed, and you didn't! You did a half-assed job, let us see that there was a problem, and then, okay, maybe you didn't want to talk about it, but you let us know that you were avoiding the issue. You didn't just use your Jedi Mind Tricks to fool us."

"Dude, we've talked about your Star Wars crap." Dan tries to look serious. He's enjoying the approval, but it's a bit much. Especially with Chris there, looking from one to the other of them as if he's trying to figure them out.

Evan just smiles. "Yeah, yeah. Act tough if you want to, Wheeler. Just don't do it too well, 'cause this way we all know that you're just acting."

Chris shakes his head. "This conversation has gone to a weird place, and I don't think I want to know any details. Couldn't we just go back to calling Dan a dirty flirt? That was fun."

Dan raises his eyebrows. "I don't know, Chris, this might be an important issue for you. I mean, if you're going into the gay-threesomecontract business, you might need to have an idea of the details, the
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careful negotiations…"

 

Evan nods seriously. "It's not all favourite flavor of lube, man."

Chris raises his hands. "Okay, no! Once lube gets mentioned, that's a sign that we're going somewhere I don't want to go." He leans forward a little, looks earnestly from Evan to Jeff and then back. "You understand, it's not that I have a specific problem with this… there are just things I do not need to know about Danny's ass."

There's a bit of a pause, and then Dan snickers, and Evan grins at him. Jeff's the one who breaks, though. "Well, Chris, I think in this particular case, Dan's ass is the one thing you
don't
need to worry you'll be hearing about."

Chris's face passes rapidly from confused to alarmed and then back to confused. He turns and squints at Dan, then swivels to examine Evan and Jeff's expressions. Finally, he throws up his hands. "Nope, I've successfully avoided these thoughts so far, I'm going to keep working that approach." He makes his face exaggeratedly bright and cheerful. "So, the Cowboys! Dan's team comes through!"

The others let him change the subject, although it doesn't stay on football for long, and the rest of the drive home is fairly drama-free. But Dan remembers that he'd agreed to stay over at Jeff's another night, and from the looks on Jeff and Evan's faces, they're just biding their time; Dan thinks that the drama will probably be back before too long.

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CHAPTER THREE - Jeff

Jeff likes having people in his house. He likes living alone, too, likes having his own space, but part of that is because he likes being able to invite people in and be the host, rather than just having someone there all the time.

And he likes having
these
particular people there, too. Dan and Evan, obviously, but it's amazing how easy it is to have Chris around. More than easy. It's good. He knows things about Dan that Jeff and Evan don't, and he's braver than they are, willing to push and prod and aggravate the man until Jeff almost feels sorry for him. Almost, because it's not hard to see how much Dan thrives on the attention, even if it isn't exactly positive.

Evan comes in from signing whatever he had to for the driver, and Lou tears herself away from Dan to greet the new arrival. Jeff knows it won't be long before she's back to her favorite, though; she may be Jeff's dog, but Dan and his easy-snacking policy own her heart. Jeff almost misses her, but he thinks it's nice for Dan to have access to an animal that he's allowed to spoil, after being disciplined with the horses all the time.