Page 5 of The Awful Truth

“But this isn’t really yachting, is it? It’s a business trip,” Winslow said, looking back at his mobile phone again. He was always at work, even when he was home. It was a major source of tension in their marriage, and lately, it had gotten worse. After a second, Winslow added, “The yacht belongs to Travis Bishop.”

“The Travis Bishop?”

Miguel beamed, even though a stab of guilt made him want to wince. “That’s the one.”

Winslow smiled proudly at his husband. “My shorter half is about to get his own show on Summit Broadcasting’s Homes and Lives Channel, renovating and decorating a dilapidated townhouse.”

Byron gasped. “That’s wonderful news. Congratulations, Miguel.”

Miguel gave Byron a little bow. “Yes, well, hopefully. If everything goes well, but nothing is set in stone.”

Winslow furrowed his brow. “Of course it is. Bishop would never invite us to spend a week with him if he didn’t plan to hire you.” He glanced at Byron. “You won’t believe this. The original concept for the show would have had Miguel working on some abandoned mansion in Canada, for God’s sake.”

Byron’s eyes widened. “Canada?!”

“Yes, and not even one of the good bits. He’d have been out in the wilderness in Ontario, where it’s minus a thousand all winter.” Winslow chuckled at the idea. “Can you imagine Miguel in the Canadian wilderness?”

The two men shared a laugh, while Miguel did his best to keep his face relaxed. He ran his fingertips down a pair of linen slacks. “It’s not that ridiculous. I’m a lot tougher than you think you know. I grew up in the hood.”

“Oh please, you grew up in a poor neighborhood surrounded by a thousand Catholics, not Cripts.”

Miguel leveled his husband with a glare and let his Cuban accent grow thicker. “First of all, it’s Crip. Crip with no ‘t’ at the end. Second, if it’s not dangerous, why do all the windows have bars on them?”

Winslow’s smile vanished. “I’m sorry. I’ve offended you. Of course you grew up in a very rough neighborhood.” He paused, then added, “But you’ve never owned a parka and mittens, have you?”

“Maybe not, but London isn’t exactly the Arctic either,” Miguel answered.

“You’ve got me there, my lamb. Good thing the show fell through because neither of us are suited to a place where your skin can literally freeze in under a minute.”

“No, that can’t be true,” Byron said. “Under a minute?”

Winslow nodded. “Hard to believe, isn’t it? Sixty seconds.”

“That barely ever happens,” Miguel answered. “Only a few days each winter. And I think it would be incredibly romantic. We’d stay snuggled up by the fire all day.”

Snorting, Winslow said, “It would be romantic until you had to get up at six in the morning and go to work. Anyway, it doesn’t matter because it’s not happening.”

Winslow, who was notoriously private, would normally never talk freely about this in front of anyone, but Byron had been working with the Taggart family since he was a young man and Winslow was a teenager, and he’d proved himself to be the paragon of discretion. In fact, Byron was so good at keeping secrets, he’d been hiding the fact that he was gay from himself for his entire sixty-four years. Winslow and Miguel were certain of it, even though he often showed them photos of his darling wife, Cheryl (who had a rather strong jawline for a woman), their two children, and more recently, their grandchild, Alice, a chubby little thing with cheeks so full, they looked like you could pop them with a pin. “So will the show be filmed in London then?”

“Hopefully. Nothing’s nailed down yet.” Miguel’s gut tightened. Best to focus on happy things, like those gorgeous Peninsula linen swim shorts.

He held them up and Byron gave him a nod of approval. “The print on those shorts was inspired by some old tiles found in a church in Positano. Have you ever been?”

“To the Amalfi Coast? Absolutely. Love everything about it, and I love these,” Miguel said, tossing the trunks onto the sofa next to Winslow. “For him.”

Winslow reached over and rubbed the fabric of the shorts between his finger and his thumb. “Yes, those are nice. Anyway, my plan is to talk Travis into a house as close to this one as possible, but worst-case scenario, it’ll be some awful castle in Scotland, and Miguel will only be home on weekends.”

Byron shuddered. “I’d rather be in Canada.”

Winslow continued, “I found the perfect place that the network can get for a song—it’s a five-bedroom in Chelsea.”

“Not that run down place with the corpse in the basement?” Byron asked, placing a hand over his heart.

“Just think of the ratings,” Winslow answered, raising and lowering his eyebrows. “One of the episodes could be some horrible seance.”

Byron turned to Miguel. “Would you really be comfortable in a house where someone died?”

Shrugging, he said, “It does not scare me.”