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“Fine. I owe you now.”
“Then we have a deal.” Luke held out his hand. At least he didn’t spit in it first.
They shook, Luke’s grip warm and strong, and Nico squeezed into the tremors jumping up his arm. They both let go abruptly, and Nico picked up the sponge.
Luke gently pried the wet sponge free of Nico’s grip. “I’ll do that, you cooked.” He pressed his shoulder against Nico’s and pushed gently. Not enough to force him away, but he shifted with it anyway.
“Coffee?” Nico opened the cabinet with the grinds. “Or is that your job too?”
Luke laughed. “It should be, but we’ll have it sooner if you do it.”
Nico opened the bag and stared inside. The easy way they worked together felt . . . nice. He snuck a peek at Luke. Turning to hide his frown, he scooped coffee into the filter.
Wrong guy, wrong time. But damn, this was going to make it hard to find the right guy when the time was right.
Chapter Eight
Luke
Face plastered to the window, Luke watched as the train slowly exited Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station. The inside of the station looked like something out of a movie. Hell, it had probably been used in a ton of films, it was so grand.
Too bad the train wasn’t as impressive. The cabin wasn’t awful, but he’d hoped for something like the Orient Express. The 8:16 Northeast Regional was just a train. A mostly empty train.
Nico had insisted they get up early to get to New York city sooner so he’d have more time to show Luke around. “Don’t want your conditions to go unfulfilled,” he’d said.
More like he wanted to torture Luke for haggling over the price of his participation.
He glanced at Nico, who had dressed in tight jeans and a pink button-down shirt. It was the first time since their initial run-in that Luke had seen him in stylish clothes. Nico looked good in them, too. More himself. Comfortable in his own skin.
The change of outfits on the day they left to visit Nico’s family didn’t escape Luke’s curiosity. Something was going on there.
Something he wanted to understand.
“What?” Nico asked, blinking those devastatingly gorgeous eyes.
Luke shook his head and forced himself to focus on the conductor, gesturing for their tickets.
After they were punched, Nico patted his forearm and led him to the café car.
Talk about underwhelming. By that point, Luke already had low expectations, but this was little more than a vending machine that overcharged by a factor of three. He wanted to kiss Nico for insisting they bring coffee from home, because he wasn’t brave enough to try the brown water they were selling. Finally, they settled in for the remaining hour or so to Penn Station.
If he ignored that he had to pretend he was Nico’s boyfriend, the idea of seeing New York City excited him. For a country boy from Iowa, this was a big deal. Having Nico to guide him made it so much less daunting.
“You’re just like Isaiah.” Nico’s voice broke Luke’s introspective moment.
“Huh?” He turned away from the bland New Jersey suburbs that whizzed by. “How’s that?”
“He stared out the window for most of the trip when I took him to New York.”
“Do you have a habit of making your roommates pretend to be your boyfriend when you go home?” Luke’s amusement faded quickly when his joke landed like an anvil on Nico’s head.
“My family never thought he was my boyfriend. I took him to New York for his birthday last year.” Nico gave him a weak smile. “He’d never been either.”
“Right.” Joking about it turned into a total dick move. He hadn’t meant it that way. “Sorry, I was just kidding.”
“You’re fine.” It sounded mostly sincere. “Lying to my family doesn’t make me feel good. I keep thinking I should just man up and tell them the truth. Then I remember the last time I was home and single, and I can’t do it.”
“Dare I ask what happened?”
“You can totally ask.” Nico sipped, and his eyes glazed over. “Nonna invited Tony Gambrelli to dinner and had the whole family talk me up before they disappeared so we could be alone.”
“I take it you and Tony weren’t a good match.”
“He’s a nice guy. We knew each other from around, but neither of us knew what Nonna was up to. And . . .” Nico grimaced. “We’d dated before without our families knowing and it just didn’t work.”
“Gotcha.” Luke refrained from prying. Just.
“With Elliott coming, she’d want to be sure I had a ‘plus one’ too. Evidently it’s embarrassing to be single in my family.”
“Understood. But I thought Elliott would ride with us.”
“He’s flying.” Nico opened his iPad. “Dumbass.”
“Huh? I thought you liked him.”
“I do, but he likes to show off how important he is.”
Luke shifted in the roomy seat until he half-faced Nico. “Is he? Important, I mean.”
