Page 20 of Undercover
“Did they not like…sorry, that was going to be a really personal question.”
“That I’m gay?” Thank God he apparently had psychic powers. I nodded in relief. I knew better than to assume, either that someone was gay or that he was out. I just…really, really wanted to know. “They don’t care. But they’d be way more in my business if they didn’t have my sister and her kids to obsess over, and then I’d have to stop answering the phone for my own sanity.”
At least his parents called him. I kept that to myself. I’d probably painted myself as pathetic enough already. Poor little rich boy, with parents who didn’t like him that much…yeah, no. So not hot.
Questions, I had to ask more questions instead of whining about my own life. Everyone liked someone who took an interest. “Do you get along with your sister?”
“Most of the time.” He smiled again, and this time it looked a lot less genuine, a polite dismissal to go with his tone, which clearly said he’d finished with the topic. I tried not to let the sting of it show on my own face. “Let’s take that walk, if you’re up for it. New here, remember? You can point out Middleton yachts along the waterfront. Give me the grand tour.”
And I could take a hint, even if it hurt a little. “Sure. I’ll grab my shoes.”
Alec started to pile up the takeout containers, and I left him to it, too flustered to be a good host and tell him I’d take care of it later.
A walk. Coffee. More conversation, and no sex. I could totally handle this, even though now that we’d talked a little, it’d hit me how little of my own life was really worth telling another person about.
7
Alec
Gabe and I got some odd looks as we strolled along the waterfront, coffees in hand, Gabe chatting a mile a minute, almost feverishly, about local landmarks and restaurants and places to go on relaxed Burlington weekends.
“If you look across the water there, you can see Lone Rock Point. It’s actually owned by a church, but it’s a conservation area…” He prattled on, and I listened with one ear while I shot a ferocious scowl at a guy sitting on a bench and giving us the side-eye.
Yeah, I knew we looked a little odd together, pretty, brightly-colored Gabe and dark, scruffy me, with that paranoid law-enforcement vibe I couldn’t ever seem to shake off. In my current clothes, that probably translated more to a general air ofstay away. But what did they think, that I’d kidnapped him or something?
Or maybe that I’d taken him out on two dates under false pretenses, and I was using him for an in to his family’s company?
Probably not, but that didn’t change my feeling that my own duplicity stood out all over me, with a big blinking sign sayingAsshole.
Gabe bumped his shoulder against mine, smiling up at me. The smile looked a little forced. “Sorry,” he said. “I guess the history of Burlington’s nature conservation efforts isn’t exactly all that fascinating.”
Guilt roiled in my belly. Fuck. Gabe really, really did deserve better than this.
I’d finished my coffee, and I took a quick step to a trash can a few feet away and tossed the empty cup. When I turned back, I took Gabe’s hand and pulled him in, wrapping my fingers around his and giving him a gentle squeeze. His eyes widened, impossibly blue-gray, like they were picking up the colors of the lake.
“I like listening to you,” I said, and it wasn’t even a lie, even though I truly hadn’t been paying much attention to the history of Burlington’s nature conservation efforts. I glanced around. The path we’d been walking stretched out into the distance, with the lake on one side, and a bike path on the other. Trees. People picnicking. The distant sound of laughter, from a couple of families messing around with their kids and playing some kind of game. “Tell me about you instead, though.” I tugged on his hand and started walking again, not letting go. “You didn’t want to go into the family business. So what do you like, if it isn’t boats?”
I already knew, of course. But I hated that I knew. Googling a guy you were going to go out with seemed like good common sense, but running an FBI background check tipped more into…really, creepily invasive. I had a good reason. But that didn’t help one bit with the guilt.
Gabe’s hand felt a little damp in mine, and the tip of his ear turned pink. He wasn’t looking up at me, so I had to crane my neck to see his face. He nibbled on his lip a little before he spoke.
“I’m kind of boring,” he said airily—and not convincingly. His voice wobbled a little. “I did a master’s degree at Moo U, but I decided chemistry wasn’t the career for me after all.”
Why he’d been expelled had been a big question mark for me. While I wanted to believe he wasn’t up to anything shady…well, being kicked out of a chemistry program set off some alarm bells. He could be telling me something else to hide the shadiness. I thought it a lot more likely he was just embarrassed to have fucked up.
“Yeah? Why not?”
“It’s not that interesting.” His hand twitched a little in mine, and I ran my thumb over his knuckles and then took a firmer grip. “I mean, it really isn’t,” he went on in a rush. “I wasn’t focusing on my research. Getting a Ph.D. didn’t work out. That’s all. Hey, do you want some more coffee? I think there’s a café on the other side of the street.”
“I bet you were really good at it.” Holding hands wasn’t terribly intimate, but it seemed like it right then. His pulse throbbed against my skin, and his fingers felt vulnerable in mine. Pushing on a sensitive subject made me feel like such a prick, but I needed more than that, even if it hurt him. “If you cared enough to even think about getting a Ph.D., then I’m sure you must’ve been.”
Gabe stopped suddenly, turning to look into my face. The sun had come out at last, and it gilded his eyelashes bronzy-gold. “I wasn’t good enough,” he snapped, jerking his hand out of mine. “Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not anything special. What you see is what you get, okay?”
The blue tips of his purple hair waved in the breeze, tendrils of it curling around his temples and brushing over his forehead. And his eyes flashed with annoyance and hurt, and his lower lip had gotten a little red from where he’d been biting it, and…I leaned down, unable to resist, and kissed him.
Softly, and quickly, pulling back before he could really react.
I’d kissed him two days before, but that’d been a blur of desire and anger and suspicion.
