Javier sent his former employee a bitter look, then turned and marched off along the path leading around the lake. Desmond nodded to Gordon and the rest of the crew curtly, then hurried after his lover. Leaving the house had been a bad idea after all. Real life had snuck up on them in the unlikeliest of places.
It didn’t matter. Whether they were at home or out, whether it was the weekend or Wednesday afternoon, if Javier had a problem, Desmond wanted to be part of the solution. Fantasy world be damned, it was time he and his boyfriend got real.
thirteen
. . .
The clammy heat of the worst sort of embarrassment Javier could imagine crept up his neck and down his back as he kicked his way through the muddy undergrowth around the lake to get away from Gordon and his new friends. “I don’t want to go down with the ship.” Those words, dropped so casually from Gordon’s smarmy mouth, had stabbed straight through the shield of happiness that he’d fought so hard and so carefully to maintain during his time with Desmond. They stuck to him like burrs and flew in his face like buzzing insects that he couldn’t swat away as he hurried to get as far from Gordon as he could.
Worst of all, Desmond had heard those words. He’d heard Gordon imply that he was a failure, that he wasn’t the strong and steady boyfriend he enjoyed being on the weekends, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
“I’m sorry,” Desmond called out from just behind him, making Javier stop and turn to wait for his maybe-but-maybe-not boyfriend to catch up to him.
“Baby, what are you sorry for?” Javier asked, trying to sound like his usual, playful and confident self, but probably sounding more like the spiky, sour queen he was.
Desmond was watching the ground he trod across instead of watching where he was going and nearly ran headlong into Javier. Their bodies nudged clumsily together, and Javier’s foot slipped, proving the ground under him was slicker than he’d thought it was.
Desmond took a moment to steady himself and blink up at Javier as he stabilized. “I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “It seemed like the right thing to say after that…whatever it was.”
Despite everything, a slow smile spread across Javier’s face. “You don’t need to apologize for someone else being a dick,” he said. “For a couple someone elses being dicks.” He raised a hand to brush his knuckles over Desmond’s cheek. It was probably a bit too much PDA for Kew Gardens, but Javier desperately wanted to feel like they were back in their bubble again, where real life couldn’t rear its ugly head and ruin everything.
But it was too late for that.
“What sort of rumors has Matthew been spreading about you?” Desmond asked with an all too serious face as they fell into step side by side, still walking around the lake, but staying off the path to avoid people.
Javier sighed. “Rules are rules, Desmond. I don’t really want to talk about it.”
That might have worked on any other weekend, or if they were safe behind the walls of Desmond’s house, but all bets were off in the expanse of nature.
“I’m not sure I like these rules anymore.” Desmond stopped in a slightly less muddy patch close to the footbridge. A group of ducks that had been snacking on soggy plants glanced up at them, then shuffled away as though their duckly dignity was offended.
Just what he needed, more people disapproving of his efforts to live his life and watch his dreams die in private.
“I didn’t make the rules,” Javier said with what he hoped was a casual shrug.
“Actually, you did,” Desmond said, crossing his arms defensively and standing his ground with eerie persistence.
Although Javier didn’t know why he was surprised. Desmond was a financial executive who had fired a man before his eyes. He sometimes forgot that when the two of them were snuggled on the sofa together watching quiz shows or cooking an elaborate supper together that they would eat in the sunroom. His Desmond, the one he had all to himself on weekends, was a different man entirely in his weekday life.
It suddenly occurred to him that that sucked.
He didn’t think he was going to be able to get anything past weekday Desmond, and he was afraid of what the fallout from that would be.
Javier sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “I can manage the rumors,” he lied. “It’s just the way the fashion and entertainment worlds work.”
“Matthew is involved,” Desmond countered. “Clearly, things are personal now.”
Javier winced and sighed again. He twisted toward the pond and lifted his arms as if asking the universe for help, then glanced back toward the path, where at least four families with kids were within earshot of their conversation.
He didn’t want kids to overhear some of the unsavory stuff he had to say, or the curse words that would probably accompany it all, so he gestured for Desmond to follow him over the footbridge and on to a slightly more secluded, though equally muddy and slippery, spot on the lake’s far side. Maybe he could explain enough to satisfy Desmond without saying so much that his part-time boyfriend would realize how much of a fuck-up he actually was and leave him.
A shiver of terror at that thought swept through him as he opened his mouth to say, “The rumors aren’t anything special or earth-shattering. I’ve built my brand on ethics and integrity and on treating my talent fairly.”
Desmond’s face flushed, and he glanced down at the mud under his feet. If he had that sort of a reaction to Javier’s introduction to the problem, there was no way the rest of the explanation would go well.
“Rumors got out there that I was cheating my employees and sexually harassing the talent,” Javier went on.
Desmond’s head snapped up, and a look of rage filled his beautiful face. “That’s absurd,” he said. “But it’s exactly the sort of thing Matthew would accuse others of. Every accusation is an admission in disguise.”
