Too Stupid to Live(Romancelandia) (12 page)

She slowly turned red. “I really don’t care, I was just curious,” she said. “It was none of my business, I shouldn’t have asked.” She was saying the right things, but something in her face made him think that it did kind of matter somehow.

Ian ran a hand across his jaw.
Okay
. . . “So, you don’t need to talk about work.”

She ducked her head. “Sort of. I mean . . . No. I was just . . . I’m sorry.”

“Does it matter to you if I’m gay?”

She jerked upright. “No!” This time he believed her—she looked at him like he had completely missed some point.
What the fuck
?

Andy closed her eyes after a second and leaned forward to massage her forehead with her hand. “Listen,” she said. “It’s none of my business, it’s just that Tierney’s a known homophobe, and I know he’s a college buddy of yours. I thought, if you were gay and didn’t know about him . . .ˮ She shrugged stiffly.

Ian coughed. “I’m well aware Tierney’s a ’phobe.”

Andy nodded slowly, looking down at the surface of his desk. Ian stared at her, thinking hard. He hadn’t expected this to happen quite this soon. He had a planned answer for these kinds of situations, but now that he was facing it . . .

Wuss
.

Fine
. He unstuck his tongue from the roof of his mouth and took a breath. “Yeah. I’m gay.”

Andy’s eyes widened. “You seem so
straight
.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. The first time he’d ever come out to anyone outside his family, and that’s the reply he got?

“Oh, God,” Andy moaned, covering her face with her hand. “I’m so sorry, that was the lamest thing to say. Just tell me to shut up.”

“Shut up.”

“Thank you,” she said from between her fingers.

“You’re welcome.”

Another uncomfortable pause, then they both spoke at once.

“Since you and Tierney are working on that project—”

“Listen, I’ve never told anyone I work with—”

They shut up in unison.

Ian held up a hand and tried again. “Tierney doesn’t know, okay? You’re officially the only person I’ve ever worked with who knows, and I’m trusting you to keep quiet until I tell people—”

Andy overrode his hand. “Oh my God, Ian! I would never
out
you. What kind of person do you think I am?”

“The kind of person who asks her boss if he’s gay?”

She bit her lip. “Oh, crap. I guess I did do that. I won’t tell anyone, you can trust me. And at least we don’t have anyone else in this suite to worry about overhearing us yet.”

Ian jumped right on that subject as a viable escape from the current one. “Yeah, we need some help around here. Are we ready to start interviewing?” They needed to hire two coordinators to assist them and a secretary for the brand new Interagency Disaster Relief Coordination Department that Ian headed in the Health Division.

“Yeah, um, that’s another thing I wanted to talk to you about. My little brother has some secretarial experience, and—”

“Are you serious?” Ian groaned.

“He’s gay?” she offered.

“So I’m supposed to hire him because he’s
family
? Andy, c’mon.” They quickly fell into the sort of banter Ian had already become used to with her.
Thank God
. He finally agreed to interview her brother, and she agreed to do some of his paperwork in exchange.

Before Andy left, he told her, “I trust you.”

She smiled, then asked, “Did you apologize to your friend for laughing at Tierney’s comment?”

If Ian hadn’t been so surprised Andy had the balls to ask, he would have refused to answer. But he only cleared his throat and said, “Yeah.”

Andy was a wily thing.

On Friday morning during his appointment with his therapist, Janet, Ian spent the first half of the hour staring at her spider plant and talking about all the things he’d been avoiding during his previous sessions. The spider plant was the most colorful thing in the room. She had a pale yellow couch, cream walls, white shades over the windows—streaming white light into the room. Even her desk was white.

He’d only been her client a month, so he didn’t have a lot of material for avoidance, and the spider plant wasn’t much of an assist. If he were still in California with his former therapist, he’d have been able to fill the whole hour with problems he’d dodged. Besides, Ned had a really colorful oriental rug.

Finally, it was either talk about his mother’s death or talk about the other thing he’d been trying to avoid. He gave up on the plant and turned to Janet, trying to decide. She looked back at him with her customary calm.

Hell
. He slumped in his seat. “I met someone.”

Janet raised an eyebrow, somehow still looking benign. It was a ruse. “A man?”

“Yes.” Ian paused to clear the frog out of his throat. “He’s a lot younger than me.”

She smiled. “Is he of legal age?”

“Of course!”

“Then does it matter how much younger he is?”

“Don’t know,” he muttered.

“Do you want to talk about him?”

Ian crossed his arms over his chest. “No.”

She shrugged. “Okay, what do you want to talk about?”

“He’s almost ten years younger than me. That’s not so bad, right?”

“Lots of men your age feel pride when they attract someone in their early twenties.”

Ian straightened up, struck by the thought.

Janet broke the silence again. “So, you’re seeing someone?”

“No, I met someone.”

“Well, it must be significant for you to mention it.”

“Yeah, well . . . I had sex with him.”

Janet raised both eyebrows but didn’t say anything.

Ian sighed. “I know I wasn’t supposed to hop into bed with anyone until . . .”

Janet waited a few seconds for him to go on before she said, “You’re the one who decided it was better for your development to not have casual sex. I don’t disagree with your choice, and neither did Ned, but that doesn’t make it a bad thing, or equate to failure. If he means something to you . . .” That damn eyebrow went up again, and she tilted her head. He knew that trick—she was trying to make direct eye contact.

Ian looked out the window. “I don’t know if I
feel
anything. I’m supposed to be making—” he cleared his throat and
didn’t
squirm “—emotional connections with, um, people.”

“So this was a purely sexual connection?”

“No.” He rubbed his palm on his thigh. God this was uncomfortable. He paid this woman to listen to all kinds of shit he didn’t want to talk about, and this was the worst so far. “Not
purely
sexual.” Mostly, maybe.

“I didn’t think so. I don’t think you would have mentioned him to me if it was.”

Damn her damned doctorate in psychology. Ian sighed. “I guess not.”

“You want to see this man again?”

“Yes.” That surprised the hell out of him—more so than hearing himself say it wasn’t just a sexual connection. “I do.”

“Have you asked him how he feels?”

Ian lifted his head, horrified. “Am I supposed to?”

“Generally yes, that’s the way these things work. I’d recommend not just informing him he’s going to see you because you like him.” Janet failed to smother a laugh.

“Thanks,” he muttered.

“No problem. That’ll be one hundred fifty dollars.”

Ian went back to staring at her. “My insurance pays for—”

“That was a joke, Ian,” she gently interrupted.

“Are therapists allowed to crack jokes?”

“This one is, unless you’d prefer she didn’t.”

Ian rubbed his thigh more, thinking. “No. I guess I kind of like it.”

On Saturday night, Ian stood at Sam’s door, waiting for him to arrive home from work. He couldn’t explain away why he was doing something so supremely dorky, so he had another approach in mind. And here came Sam now, climbing the stairs. Waiting here for him was phase one of Ian’s master plan.

Sam reached the top—after plodding up like only the truly exhausted working stiff could—and stopped. He frowned at Ian, as if he wasn’t quite sure what he was.

Ian smiled.

Sam blinked. Blink. Blink, blink.

“Can I come in?” Ian asked after a few more blinks.

Sam heaved a sigh. “I guess,” he said, finally digging his keys out of his pocket. Ian stood behind him, not too close, while he worked the lock. Once Sam had the apartment door open, Ian followed him in, and immediately moved to phase two of the plan.

He grabbed Sam’s arm, turned him around, and backed him up against a wall, looking into his eyes the entire time he leaned toward him, right until Sam got too blurry to see. He wanted Sam to know he knew what he was doing.

A guy like him didn’t purposely kiss a guy like Sam without it meaning something. A guy like him didn’t
date
a guy like Sam without talking about it first. This kiss would make sure Sam knew what was coming.

Sort of. It made sense to him.

When he kissed Sam, nothing made sense anymore.

In spite of advancing slowly, staring into Sam’s eyes the whole time, the kid wasn’t ready for the kiss. Ian could tell by the way his jaw hung slack for those first few seconds. Then his chin tilted up as he stretched for more. He tilted his head and opened wider, rubbing his tongue against Ian’s like an affectionate cat that wanted to be petted.

Theoretically, Ian owned this kiss, but in reality he didn’t own shit. Sam was soft and malleable in his mouth and under his lips, and he responded to tiny cues from Ian, until Ian just needed
more
. More of Sam, and more of his acquiescence. He let go of Sam’s tongue and bit his lip instead, making him moan back in his throat and push his hips off the wall and into Ian’s. When Sam moaned like that—so low Ian felt the vibrations—Ian realized who was really in control here.

It’s only for this one kiss
.

When he finally did end the kiss, pulling slowly away and letting go of Sam, he couldn’t catch his breath. He stood there panting into Sam’s face, unable to make himself move more than an inch or two. He needed to keep that mouth nearby. It was some kind of national treasure only Ian knew about. He watched his thumb tracing Sam’s reddened lower lip. Had he bitten it too hard? He had to fight back the urge to test Sam’s limits for teeth.

Would he like to be bitten other places? He’d liked it when Ian had bitten his shoulder. Suddenly, Ian wanted to bite Sam’s sharp, bony hip so badly he nearly dropped to his knees. He reached for Sam’s zipper with the hand not occupied with Sam’s lips.

“Why did you kiss me?”

Oh, yeah, talking. Ian redirected his hand to Sam’s hip, resting it there. He let his fingers have some license, splaying them on Sam’s butt cheek and hooking his thumb over his iliac crest.
Right there. I wanna bite him right there
.

“Ian?” Sam’s voice was losing its breathless quality.

He cleared his throat. “I wanted to kiss you.”

“Why?”

“I want to see you.”

“You’re looking at me.”

“No, I mean I want to
see
you.”

Sam’s mouth fell open. Then snapped shut. Then fell open again. “
See
me?”

“Yeah.” Ian looked into his grayish eyes. Sam had lots of reasons to tell Ian to fuck off, and only one—great sex—to say okay. Ian had an inkling it might take him longer than an hour or two to shrug it off if Sam said no.

“Why?”

“I like you.”

“You barely know me.”

“I like what I know.”

“I’m still not attractive.”

“Yes you are. You’re cute.” Ian winced when he said it.
Hell
. What guy wanted to be called cute?

Sam, apparently. His cheeks slowly pinked, and his eyes got round. “I’m cute?”

Ian cleared his throat again. “Yeah. Cute.”

Sam laid his hand on Ian’s chest. “Okay.”

Relief flowed through him from Sam’s touch. Ian kissed him one more time, quickly. He had plans; he didn’t want to stay here making out and grinding Sam into the wall all night. Well, he did, but he wanted something else even more. “Come home with me?”

Sam’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Okay,” he said, and Ian couldn’t help but smile at him.