“Well, I took Jeanette to our suite, and tucked her in, and she had a good cry about wanting a real boyfriend, and I gave her some advice. She wasn’t going back down, so I locked myself in my room and there was chocolate everywhere.”
“Where, everywhere?”
Jared settled back on the pillows, ignoring his damp post-shower hair and imagined Nate doing the same in the bedroom that Jared had grown to love. It was all pale blues and dark wood, and so Nate, and the memory of what they’d done in that bed just made him harder.
“It soaked through gaps in my shirt, all over my chest, my nipples.” How was it that such an innocent word, said in a darkened room, with a lover at the other end of the phone, could sound so erotic? Jared heard Nate moan low in his throat, and lust flooded him until he had his hand curved around his cock and in an embarrassingly short amount of time, to the sounds of Nate getting himself off, Jared’s orgasm hit him like a freight train, leaving him panting and breathless.
“I’m ordering us chocolate body paint,” Nate muttered. “Just as soon as I can move.”
“Nate?”
“Hmmm?” Nate sounded as if he was settling in for the night, and Jared imagined him pulling the covers over himself, rolling onto his side just the same as Jared was.
I love you. I wish I was there with you so I could kiss you goodnight, because you’re all I can think of, and I know you’re not looking for another dad for Luka, but I love him as well, and I’m just consumed by it all.
“Goodnight,” Jared said, letting instead everything bubble up inside him. What he wanted to say needed to be said face to face, with added kissing. It wasn’t something he should be offering up after phone sex.
Getting to tell Nate that he loved him was taking Jared far too long. At first it was exams that stole his time, then when they did meet up they had Luka with them. He loved being with Nate and Luka, and today’s visit to The American Museum of Natural History was one of the best days he’d ever had. Only, there hadn’t been a single chance to tell Nate what he felt, at least not in the way he wanted to do it, which was going to be something romantic. Over dinner maybe. Or in bed.
For sure it shouldn’t be something they talked about under the ass end of a woolly mammoth.
“I bet the poos they did were huuuuge,” Luka commented as he stared up at the enormous skeleton.
“Big enough to bury you,” Jared teased, and then ruffled Luka’s hair in an approximation of a quantity of mammoth poo landing on his head. Luka ducked away and darted over to the T-Rex, Nate and Jared following at a slower pace.
“Thank you for suggesting this,” Nate said as they reached the information board for the dinosaur. He’d grown more relaxed as the day went on, as if just being out with Luka had lifted a weight from his shoulders. “I needed today.”
Jared brushed his hand against Nate’s but there was no expectation of holding hands—after all not everyone was as fond of PDAs as Jared was. Only, Nate curled his hand into Jared’s and laced their fingers, and they read the board.
“Sometimes I wonder if it’s all worth it,” Nate blurted.
Jared realized Nate wasn’t looking at the board at all, but up at the skeleton. Jared was good at making connections but the evidence at hand, Nate staring up at a T-Rex and making a sweeping statement, wasn’t making sense. “What?” Us? Are you thinking because now we held hands, that we’re not worth it?
“The bar, working so hard for so little, when I could be…” He pressed fingers to his temple.
“What else would you like to do?”
“It isn’t that.” He turned a little to face Jared. “Nothing else. I love the bar, I just don’t want the rest of it, and that’s not right is it? Nothing worth having is easy, but when I think…” he lowered his voice, but Luka was a long way from them in the fossil display. “… losing Rhea, and not being there for Luka, and I’m so happy with you, and I think of all the things that I want to do, and then there’s this big weight.”
Jared tugged him over to the bench, and sat them down, right where they could keep an eye on Luka.
“Maybe you need to make a change,” he offered after a short pause.
Nate side-eyed him. “I won’t sell the bar.”
“I didn’t mean you should, but you have Pops in covering shifts, so what if you give Gregg more responsibility, maybe even let him buy into the place?”
“No, it’s our place. Anyway, Rhea’s dad would…”
“What? You think he’d be disappointed, angry, sad? You should talk to him. But first of all, Nate?”
“Yeah?” He was distracted by Luka calling them, but he did turn back to Jared with a soft smile.
This was the moment, in the quiet corner of the museum, right in the middle of the best day. “I love you.”
Surprise stole Nate’s smile, and then his eyes widened. “I love you, too.”
“Dad! They have a snail and it’s bigger than a car!”
They didn’t get the chance to talk any more about life decisions, or love, but they held hands the entire museum visit, and Nate couldn’t stop smiling.
Jared called that a win.
Chapter Sixteen
“Well, this feels kinda awkward.” Gregg sat in the chair beside Nate’s and scratched the back of his neck. He wore a crooked smile. “I’m half-expecting a scolding.” He eyed Nate. “So, what is it? Calling me in before opening, must be serious.”
“You’ve worked here, at Rhea’s, for what? Six years.”
“Nearly seven,” Gregg said with a nod.
“And you’re thirty?”
“Nearly thirty-one.” Gregg grinned.
Nate sat forward. “I wanted to talk to you about this place and maybe making a few changes to running it.” Jared had
