Page 66 of We Could Be So Good
“That?” He’d been ready to hear about his shoulders or his arms, or even his ass. Those are the things that get mentioned. He’s not exactly unaware of his own charms.
“Every time you loosen your tie or unbutton your shirt, I can’t look away. I love that spot.” He reaches up and kisses it. “I couldn’t be in the same room as that spot without eventually considering whether I might be at least a little queer. And then when I moved in here, I saw it every day, because you don’t understand shirts, and now I’m committed to lewdness and homosexuality. And probably communism. We’ll find out, I guess.”
Nick likes the idea of Andy being seduced by his collarbone.Plenty of people have looked at Nick and liked what they saw; he’s pretty sure none of them thought twice about his clavicle. “You’re already pretty committed to communism if you ask theDaily News. Or the FBI, for that matter.”
“Shh,” Andy says, as if there’s anyone who might overhear, as if there’s anyone who might see the two of them naked in bed together and focus on communism.
“What about you?” Andy asks. “What made you think about me like that?” He’s a little breathless, and he’s definitely looking for a compliment. Nick will give him compliments until his throat goes hoarse, if that’s what he wants.
“It was these,” Nick bends his head to kiss the triangle of freckles at the corner of Andy’s mouth. “I love them.”
“My birthmarks? Why?”
“They’re like an arrow. Like a dare.” He doesn’t mention that he first noticed these freckles about six seconds after they were introduced and that it’s been a steady descent into helpless infatuation ever since.
Andy pulls him down into a kiss but soon gentles it. “We should eat something. It’s past six and you didn’t have lunch, unless you count bourbon, which I do not.”
“I can run out and get pizza,” Nick offers.
“You really can’t. I left a bruise under your jaw. You look obscene. I’ll go.”
“You can’t, either. There’s beard burn all over your face and neck.”
Andy brings a hand up to his face and touches it with just his fingertips, as if he’ll be able to feel the redness. “We still have some sauce.”
Jesus. A week of pasta, meatballs, meatball sandwiches, andmore pasta and they’re only half done with that jar. He lightly smacks Andy’s hip. “Come on, you can help boil the water.”
***
They fall back into bed as soon as the pasta bowls hit the sink, Nick kissing his way down Andy’s chest, Andy responding with increasingly unhinged swearing and a fist in Nick’s hair. They’ve taken the edge off, so now Nick makes it last, drawing helpless, sweet sounds from Andy. Nick loves doing this, loves that he can make Andy go from mild-mannered and lighthearted tothis, frantic and grasping and desperate.
Later, he puts his head on Andy’s thigh and catches his breath, but Andy begins trying to pull him up. “Get up here, come on, come on.” And then his mouth, sweet and hot, trailing a line of kisses downward as he attempts to return the favor. The key that dangles from Andy’s neck grazes Nick’s chest, then his hip, then his thigh.
“Are you sure?” Nick asks. Andy glares at him and then—Jesus.
What follows is the sloppiest, funniest blow job of Nick’s life. “Don’t try to take it all in,” Nick says, laughing as Andy coughs. “I swear, if I have to take you to the hospital— Holy mother of God, do that again. No, notthat, you fool.” He pushes at Andy’s head.
Andy is laughing so hard his shoulders shake, but when he manages to collect himself, he looks up at Nick, earnest and open. “Just tell me what you like.”
So Nick does, guiding him through it, step-by-step, and he’s reminded of that first day in the morgue files, when he showedAndy how to open the sticky drawer. He remembers Andy then, sweet and willing and grateful, and wonders what would have happened if he had known how inevitably his own heart would be on the line. If he had known that first day what it would be like, what that awkward stranger would come to mean to him, what would he have done? If he had known how things would play out, with his own unavoidable heartbreak, would he have kept Andy at arm’s length? He doesn’t think so. He doesn’t think hecouldhave. If heartbreak is the price, he’ll pay it for this, for Andy in his life and home and bed.
Part IV
Andy
Chapter Sixteen
It’s entirely possible that Andy is going to die, right here in the seventh-floor conference room, and when they find his body, no one will be able to tell whether it was this cold that did him in or plain old boredom from staring at the columns of numbers on the report sitting in front of him.
The numbers have something to do with circulation and ad sales, and the first number is—as far as Andy can tell—a tiny bit higher this quarter than it was last quarter, but ad sales are still in the pits. And apparently paper has gotten more expensive and wages have gone up. He’d probably have a better idea about all of this if he could pay attention to what people at this meeting were saying, instead of trying to blow his nose in a way that doesn’t draw attention to himself.
The man at the front of the room drones on. “It’s imperative that advertising efforts target the sector of consumers that—”
Andy blows his nose and loses the rest of the sentence. He sticks the used tissue in his pocket with all the rest. That morning, Nick had taken one look at him and shoved a box of Kleenex in his direction. “One handkerchief isn’t gonna cut it, pal,” he had muttered. “You really ought to stay home.”
Andy had rolled his eyes. Of course he couldn’t stay home. People get colds all the time. Besides, there’s really no point in being miserable and lonely at home when he can be miserable and not lonely at work.
He remembers being looked after by an efficient housekeeper when he got the chicken pox and his mother was overseas. He remembers getting tonsillitis while away at school and being looked after by a well-meaning nurse at the infirmary. He remembers using his best manners to ask for cups of juice and packets of crackers when all the while he had a vague sense that things might be tolerable if someone sat at the edge of his bed and stroked his hair. He didn’t even know if anyone had ever done that for him, or if he had just seen it in a movie or read about it in a book.
