Page 26 of Undercover
I mentally crossed my fingers. “Maybe it’d be better with some company? I mean, would they let you bring a date?”
“Oh my God,” Gabe said breathlessly, stopping and staring at me. “Really? Seriously?”
Okay, so I didn’t need to worry about coming off too eager after all. Compared to him, I sounded reluctant, even though I was already mentally composing an email to Jenna letting her know I had an in at last.
“Yeah, seriously. You don’t sound like you’re looking forward to it, and I can be moral support. Besides, free food and booze, right?”
“Really good free food and booze,” he confirmed, breaking into a wide, dizzyingly charming grin. “Only the best for investors they’re trying to hook. And of course I have a plus one. After all, I’m a Middleton scion, even if they kind of wish I wasn’t.”
Oh thank fucking God, he’d gone for it. “Then count me in,” I said with a smile I hoped didn’t come off too triumphant. “What time? And what’s the dress code?”
“Oh. Um, black tie? Do you need me to, okay, I want to be tactful, but I can’t think of a way to ask you if you need help finding clothes without just asking.”
What would he say if he knew I had a custom-tailored tux in my closet back home? Nothing good, considering what other revelations would have to go along with that one. And damn, but I wished he could see me in it. Maybe I wasn’t James Bond, but every guy looked ten times better in a custom tux.
Oh, fuck…Gabewould probably be wearing a custom tux. My mouth went dry.
“I can figure it out,” I managed. Rentals. I fucking hated rentals. But needs must. “Not a problem, Gabe. I won’t embarrass you.”
“You couldn’t if you tried,” he said simply. And I could tell he meant it.
As we turned to head up the hill to his place, he slipped his hand in mine.
Even as I started considering how to play this, who to talk to, where to snoop around if I could slip away, I wished it could be as simple as just walking home with a beautiful man.
But it wasn’t, and I’d have to leave him at his door and pretend I needed to be somewhere, because going inside with him would tempt me in ways I wasn’t sure I’d be strong enough to resist.
I squeezed his hand and savored the way his skin felt against mine. I could at least enjoy the moment.
9
Gabe
Alec picked up some kind of one-day temp job on Thursday and didn’t have time to get together, so we agreed that he’d pick me up for the party at six-thirty the next day. I could have driven us, but…I kind of loved thinking about how my brother would react if he knew I’d arrived in a cheap old car with scratches in the paint and a dented bumper.
Tying a bow tie usually took about one percent of my attention, since I’d been putting them on for one event or another since I was a toddler. Muscle memory took over.
But this time, I kept fumbling it, my hands shaking too much to make that final wrap and tug without pulling the whole thing crooked.
None of my stressors would’ve gotten to me that badly on their own, but in combination they’d kind of knocked me for a loop. Seeing my family in the context of the company always sucked so hard. I felt like more of a black sheep than usual, and that was saying something. Dad always made me go, with a combination of guilt trips and nagging and sending Dave after me until he wore me down. And then when I went, he never had anything nice to say to me, smiling for the cameras and the VIPs and then ignoring me as much as possible when they weren’t looking.
On top of all that, Dr. Wilson would be there. I’d never met him, and I hadn’t even consciously given appealing my expulsion to the board serious thought until Dave had mentioned his name. But now that I knew I might have a chance to make an impression on someone who could help me get back into school…yeah, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
And Alec. Last but not least, Alec. I hadn’t taken anyone to meet the family since the ill-fated Thanksgiving six years before, when my senior-year boyfriend had gotten wasted on my mom’s best Chardonnay—that he’d found himself by snooping in the wine cellar and opened without permission—and hit on Dave.
The vivid, Technicolor mental image of a leering Bryan grabbing my brother’s khaki-clad, one-hundred-percent heterosexual ass, and the look on Dave’s face when he turned around, held a place in my mental reel somewhere betweengreatest hitsandkill me now. Depended on how drunk I was when I thought about it, usually.
I could count on Alec not to hit on Dave, at least. And he didn’t seem like a Chardonnay kind of guy, which meant he wouldn’t steal my mom’s wine but also wouldn’t have much in common with her, either.
Knowing what I had on under my tux didn’t help. I shifted my weight, feeling the lace and silk caressing my skin. My face heated at the sensation. Alec probably wouldn’t even know they were there, those little manties I’d seen in the drawer earlier and hadn’t been able to resist. I’d know, though, and spend the whole evening wondering how he’d react if he saw them.
Disgust, probably. Most guys I knew looked down on stuff like that.
But I held out hope.
And he probably wouldn’t see them. Still.
I glanced at my watch. Six twenty-seven. Shit, I had to get the bow tie right this time. I had lace underwear but I couldn’t even tie my own tie. What a mess I was.
