Page 60 of We Could Be So Good
He doesn’t want Andy to feel like what they’re doing—like what they’re on the verge of doing—is shameful or tragic. Which is probably ridiculous, because Andy is a grown man who knows real from make-believe, and Nick can’t really go over there and snatch the book from his friend’s hand.
***
That night, they sit down to watchAlfred Hitchcock Presents, each in their usual spot on the couch, a solid two feet between them.
But when Nick rests his arm along the back of the couch, Andy slides over a bit. Nick meets him in the middle, and then he has his arm around Andy, his palm cupping Andy’s shoulder, his thumb close enough to Andy’s collar that he can’t stop thinking about it.
He’s had his arm around other people, for fuck’s sake. He’s not a total stranger to affection and he doesn’t know why every time he touches Andy today he feels raw, exposed.
By the time the show is over, Andy has his head on Nick’s shoulder and Nick’s hand is on Andy’s waist, the soft cotton of Andy’s shirt doing nothing to keep Nick’s mind from the warmth of the skin beneath. Ordinarily, this is the point in the evening when they’d turn the television off, but there’s no way he’s leaving this couch unless the building is literally on fire. Andy is apparently of the same mind, because they both decide to act very interested in the detective show that airs next.
Nick slides his hand under Andy’s shirt and hears Andy’s breath hitch. He feels the smooth skin of Andy’s waist, then spans his hand over his stomach. He keeps his movements slow, both to give Andy time to decide whether he likes it, and because he wants to enjoy the feeling of Andy pressed against him, warm and soft and a little uncertain. He doesn’t move his hand lower than the waistband of Andy’s pajama pants. Andy has one hand resting lightly on Nick’s thigh, a little too high to be accidental, and occasionally strokes a fingertip over the inseam of Nick’s trousers.
By the first commercial, Nick is hard, and Andy must be able to tell. It’s taking a lot of effort not to move, not to search out some friction. When Andy sits up and pulls away, Nick almost whimpers, but then Andy swings a leg over Nick’s lap and kisses him.
And ohGod, the weight of him, the way his kisses are almost careful, the smell of his hair—Nick tries to sear these details into his memory, tries to map out every bone and muscle under the warm expanse of Andy’s skin. He lets himself get lost in the heat of Andy’s mouth, and somewhere at the back of his mind he realizes that Andy’s taken over the kiss, that he’s pressing Nick back against the couch cushions. Nick can feel the hard length of him against his stomach and groans. Andy gasps.
“This feel okay?” Nick asks.
“Yeah. Feels good.”
“Me too. Why did you think you’d be bad at this?”
“I said I’d be bad at sex. This isn’t sex.”
“If you touched my dick, it would be in about three seconds.”
Andy laughs, but then his expression sobers. “Is that what you want me to do?”
On the one hand, yes, definitely, Nick wants that very much. On the other, Andy looks... not exactly skittish, but not confident, either. He looks exactly the way he does when he realizeshe’s forgotten his keys or lost another handkerchief. Andy has always been shy, downright prudish, when it comes to talking about sex, so Nick doesn’t think that his hesitancy has to do with Nick being a man, but rather with Andy being Andy.
“We can take it slow,” Nick says. “We have time, right? I’m not going anywhere.” He’ll just beat off in the shower four times a day, no problem.
“Yeah,” Andy says, and bends down for another kiss.
Chapter Fourteen
Nick is getting nothing done.
Nobody’s at their best on Monday mornings, but Nick has never needed to be at his best to do what needs to get done. Maybe his focus has gone to the birds because he knows that outside it’s a beautiful spring day. Or maybe it’s because he only ate half his breakfast. Or maybe it’s because Andy’s lingeringlooksfrom across the table were why he hadn’t bothered finishing his eggs in the first place.
They’d gone to sleep in their separate beds, a paper-thin wall between them. Then they’d woken up and gone through their usual morning routine in which Andy bumps into things and funnels coffee down his throat and Nick looks on and pretends not to be utterly, dementedly fond. Except—now he doesn’t have to pretend. He will anyway, because he hassomedignity, but now at least he can look his fill. When Andy came out of the shower with only a towel around his waist, Nick let himself notice the droplets of water that had collected at the center of his chest, the scattering of dark freckles over his shoulders. He could notice, and he could keep on noticing.
And now it’s all he can think about. He’s pretty sure he spendsthe half hour from ten to ten thirty sitting blankly at his desk and doing nothing but remembering how Andy bit Nick’s lip the previous night. It’s only the ringing of the phone that jolts him out of his reverie.
“Mr.Russo?” says the girl at the switchboard. “Phone call from a Mr.Hollenbeck.”
Nick frowns, unable to remember which story involves anyone called Hollenbeck. “Thanks. You can put it through.”
“Nick Russo here,” he says after hearing the click.
“Dave Hollenbeck here from theJournal-American.”
Nick sucks in a breath. Dave Hollenbeck is theJournal’s managing editor. “How can I help you, Mr.Hollenbeck?”
“I wonder if you’d meet me for lunch one day next week.”
Nick doesn’t ask why the managing editor of a rival newspaper wants to meet with him, because there’s only one explanation, and it’s that Andy hadn’t been completely full of shit when he said that other papers were going to try to poach him.
