Love for the Cold-Blooded (13 page)

“You’re interested in architecture?” Nick ghosted an careful hand over the cover of
Principles
, as though afraid opening it would constitute an invasion of privacy.

“Duh.” Pat joined Nick by the window, flipping open the book to the table of contents. “I’m gonna be an urban planner, it’d be pretty sad if I thought architecture was a bore.”

Nick froze for a barely noticeable instant, flicking Pat a glance from the very corner of his eye. He said nothing, though, preferring to page through the book with evident interest. Pat pointed out several cool bits, like Maurat’s analysis of historical principles of urban planning (complete with the underlying norms, philosophies, requirements and functional priorities) — and, even better, her awesome essay on how designed urban space impacted the human mind and influenced thought and behavior. That shit was sheer brilliance.

Thing was, Nick seemed genuinely interested. He didn’t say anything, but he inspected the book and then Pat with an intensity of focus that suggested he was trying to burn the details out of them by sheer strength of concentration.

Anyone who’d known Pat for longer than an hour or so could have told Nick it was dangerous to pay that much attention to him. It encouraged him. “Okay, imagine you have a time machine — and all the money and power in the world, obviously, which you’d be able to acquire without much trouble if you had a time machine. So you have this time machine and you’re going back to the past to change the configuration of public space.” It was one of Pat’s favorite things to imagine, pretty much the pinnacle of extreme coolness. “You start out with really basic things, like, I don’t know, go from a simple rectangular grid based on the burgage system to a centered, structured plan with a more sophisticated curvilinear, axial base. And then you jump forward a couple years at a time and check how people live and think, and what the philosophers and mathematicians and politicians and stuff are doing. And there will be all these differences, see? And then you go back again and keep the rectangular grid but change smaller things instead. And you check on how those changes impact people’s lives, and you keep doing it until you figure out exactly how and why —”

At which point Pat gestured a little too expansively, and hit Nick on the nose with a flannel shirt. Nick recoiled blindingly quickly, half-raising one hand as though about to deflect further shirt attacks with a quickly projected force field.

“Oh, hey, sorry.” Though really, the man needed to get out more if he reacted like this to every unexpected bop on the nose. “Anyway. Didn’t mean to talk your ear off. It’s just really fascinating, you know?”

After a moment, Nick relaxed and nodded, lips quirking slightly. “Should I ever happen across a time machine, I will get back to you.”

A joke! He’d made an actual, bona fide joke! Wow, that was one for the books. Pat grinned delightedly; he felt weirdly proud of himself, and also as though he should be congratulating Nick for being such a functional human being. “Cool, I’m holding you to that. And now strip, this shirt isn’t going to wear itself.”

Usually when Pat got talking a mile a minute, people’s faces froze like they were wondering what planet Pat was from, and how they could escape his freaky alien clutches most quickly. Just went to show, freaks were way more fun to hang out with. Especially hot freaks like the one taking off his jacket and tie in front of Pat this very instant.

Nick had really nice shoulders. This was old news — Pat had seen them before; had touched them, too. Even so, he found himself staring at the way creamy white fabric drew tight against the broadness of muscle and bone when Nick unbuttoned his shirt, as fascinated as though the man had been doing the kind of striptease that came with pole, lascivious come-hither gaze and optional lap dance.

Nick slid his arms free of the sleeves with a smooth shrug. The way the sculpted planes of his chest and stomach flexed as he carefully folded his shirt made Pat’s mouth go dry. The curve where his neck met his shoulder called out to Pat as the perfect place to put his lips. And the man’s arms were gorgeous, all the way down to the strong wrists and surprisingly long, elegant fingers.

Pat looked up — straight into Nick’s too-intense gaze. He was watching Pat again. Maybe he’d never stopped. And… no way. Was that a gleam of satisfaction in his eye?

“Dude, you suck,” Pat said, delightedly. “I should get a commendation for corrupting you. Put on my damn shirt, you show-off.”

Nick looked horribly smug as he put on the damn shirt with a notable lack of hurry. Paying the dude for his time had done wonders in terms of relaxing him. Pat would have to remember this technique; he could think of so many other possible applications.

Once the shirt was on, Pat jammed the baseball cap on Nick’s head and adjusted it carefully. Nick fidgeted a bit as Pat tugged at it to find the perfect look, so Pat stepped all over his toes with socked feet as a reminder to hold still and let Pat do his thing.

“Patrick, I don’t think —”

“Excellent, keep that up. Also, shut it, I’m a genius. Aha! There we go, that’s perfect.”

The shirt fit Nick better than it ever had Pat, and the hat was great with the brim pulled down low in the back. Without the rest of the fancy outfit, Nick’s suit pants were pretty unremarkable. The shoes would do, too, once Pat scuffed them up a bit so they didn’t look so ridiculously shiny. No sooner said than done: A little bit of potting soil from Pat’s spider fern…

(“Hey!” Nick protested, but Pat gave him a look and he shut up.)

…and it was done.

Pat stepped back to admire his work and gave out a low whistle. He was a genius, no joke. He’d expected Nick would look uncomfortable or out of place, but no — he actually seemed more at ease than before, for whatever reason. He was even slouching a little, head ducked with one corner of his mouth quirked up into a shy smile as he peered at Pat. A lighter version of the earlier blush was warming his cheekbones, not as splotchy and vaguely attractive.

He could totally pass as an ordinary student — or, okay, a more than ordinarily attractive one, and definitely a jock, with that kind of definition to his chest and arms. An ordinary attractive jock with a definite resemblance to Nicholas Andersen. Whatever, it wasn’t like anyone would be looking for a reclusive billionaire genius at a frat party. Or a hoagie, either. Besides which, as far as Silver Paladin went, the costume with its mirrored visor, the dramatic posing and the heroic jawline made up about 90% of that dude’s looks. And that wasn’t even counting the fact that on film, the obscuring haze of the force fields was even stronger than live.

“I’m brilliant. Simple fact.” Pat nodded admiringly. “We are going to rock the club so hard tonight.”

“The club? Are we — where are we going?”

“That’s for me to know and you to find out, babe.” Pat had always wanted to use that line, so maybe the mysterious smile that went with it turned out a little more gleeful than it ought to have been. How often did you get to say something so cool, though? This was the autumn of amazing firsts.

Of course Nick did not seem impressed, but it was Nick. What could you expect? Might as well try to get poison from a stone.

~~~~~

“H
ey there, stranger,” said the douche by the door (otherwise known as Mark the Moderately Good Soccer Forward). “Your lips look lonely. Bet they’d like to meet mine!”

Nick was stiff as a plank when Pat slung an arm around his waist. “Might wanna dust off some new lines, bro. That one was old when your team won their last championship. Like a really long time ago, get it?”

That got him a squint, and a belated glint of recognition. “Patsy! Whoa, man, this guy is so out of your league.” Great — now Mark was laughing, turning to Nick with a grin. “How’d you run into little Patsy? Well, your luck’s changed now! Come on, I’m getting you a drink.”

Pat bared his teeth at the douche in something that was definitely not a smile. “Fuck off.”

Even if Mark had been inclined to oblige Pat, he never got the chance. Nick moved with the speed of a striking snake, giving no warning whatsoever. One moment he was just standing there, all awkward and wooden; the next, he was slamming the heels of both hands into Mark’s chest and the douche was stumbling back, barely managing to catch himself before smacking into the wall.

There was a second or two there where Pat was pretty sure his own expression was no more intelligent than Mark the Douche’s.

“No, thank you,” Nick said politely, and grabbed Pat’s arm to pull him on.

Pat was laughing in sheer delight when they reached the common room. “Dude! That was so —” Words were inadequate for the greatness of the moment, so Pat spun to walk backwards in front of Nick, holding up one hand. “Gimme five, come on.”

Nick frowned at Pat’s raised palm for a moment, but then reached out to slap it gently. It was the most pitiful effort ever, and Pat stopped in his tracks. “No way, man, that’s just sad. Put your body into it! And look, you spread your fingers and move your hand like this.” He demonstrated the correct movement twice before holding out his hand again. Nick’s mouth quirked, but he reacted gamely enough; he even ducked down a little, gathering himself. When he uncoiled into the movement, it was like a star athlete lunging at the goal, ball at the tips of his fingers.

Their palms smacked together with a loud slap, the force of it knocking Pat’s entire arm back. He was grinning pretty much uncontrollably, and several bystanders broke into a short round of spontaneous applause.

Pat suspected the smile on Nick’s face was his equivalent of a face-splitting grin. Somehow, even the smug way he raised his eyebrows was charming, in context. “What’s his problem, anyway?”

“Oh, you know.” Pat shrugged as casually as possible, indicating that the subject was completely uninteresting and should be closed soonest. “He doesn’t like me. Whatever, I don’t like him either, no loss there.”

Truth was, he’d struck out kinda badly with Mark early on in their acquaintance, when all Pat had known about the guy was that he had long legs and a nice jawline, but not that he was a giant douche. But that was neither here nor there, and certainly not relevant to the current situation.

Nick shook his head, visibly dismissing both the subject and the guy. “He’s an idiot.”

When Pat gave him a sharp look, no smile or teasing glint were in evidence anywhere. Nick had sounded utterly matter-of-fact, too… not like he was teasing at all.

Fortunately they ran into a horde of Pat’s swim team buddies then, sparing Pat the attempt of coming up with a response. Pat spent a few happy minutes slapping backs and bumping fists; Nick hung back, but shy was a good look on him, so they were golden.

“Pat, who’s your friend?” Andrea grinned a little bit too widely, a speculative gleam coming into her eye.

“This is Nick,” Pat said proudly. “Hands off, he’s with me. Find your own smart and athletic, adorably awkward hot dude.”

“Uhm,” said Nick. He sounded slightly strangled. Must have been the hot woman unabashedly ogling him. Pat could relate. Not that the ogling happened to Pat a lot… but in the light of recent events, that circumstance had lost a lot of its sting. Nick was way hotter than nine tenths of the people Pat had previously not been ogled by.

“Feel free to ogle me anytime,” Pat told Nick. Nick greeted this announcement with an unreadable stare and a disappointing lack of ogling. Oh well, the night was young.

“Don’t I know you from somewhere?”

That was Lars, who always had to be up in everyone’s business. But no biggie, Pat had it covered.

“Hah! I’ve been saying it all along, guys.” He grinned triumphantly, clicking his tongue the way that one TV detective always did when he was making a big discovery. “He totally looks like that dude. You know, the guy with the mansion up Lakeside — Silver Paladin guy. My sisters say I’m crazy, but…” He tugged Nick closer and turned him into the light a bit, which involved wrestling him into position with main force. The man actually had the nerve to shoot Pat a betrayed look, all wide wounded doe eyes and hard vengeful mouth. Have a little faith, gods. “See, see? It’s the brow area, around the eyes. They could be twins, right?”

Lars raised a sardonic eyebrow at Pat. “Yeah, right. You go to the liberal arts library down on Walnut Street, don’t you, Nick?”

Another minute and Lars had drifted off to hit on a girl in the corner, the rest of the team scattering in search of snacks, drinks, toilets and various other desirable things. Pat decided it was high time for a beer — they’d been at this party for at least twenty minutes already — and quickly located the nearest source near the staircase.

Beer sense… now that would be a cool superpower to have. Find your way to the nearest beer instinctively, even blindfolded and in the dark. Pat would definitely take it.

When Pat handed Nick a glass, the man was frowning at him thoughtfully. “That was a good idea. Taking control of the resemblance narrative like that, I mean.”

He didn’t have to sound so surprised. “I am full of good ideas, bro. I’m a regular fount of good ideas.” Pat might be the black sheep of the family in some ways, but he was still a West.

Nick made a non-committal sound, but didn’t try to deny that Pat was awesome. Good enough… particularly since it turned out the man was charmingly unselfconscious about chugging back his beer. Pat found himself more than a little distracted by the way he threw back his head, displaying the long lines of his throat as he swallowed.

Staring was perfectly okay here, of course. The guy was his date, right? Pat was allowed to stare. Practically obligated, in fact. It’d be rude not to appreciate the hotness.

It was oddly heartening that when the chips were down, hoagies could chug down a good brew just as well as the next guy. One hoagie, at any rate. Pat’s experimental pool was rather limited as of yet.

“This is fun, right? I mean, you’re having fun. Right?” He felt good at Pat’s side, solid and calm and… right, somehow. Pat didn’t have a lot of experience dating, but he thought he was doing pretty well, all things considered. Or he would be, if —