“Where is he?” he asked, trying to keep his voice gentle because she didn’t need more heaped on her right now.
“His office.” The tremble in her voice pissed him off even more.
“Stay here,” he said to Owen and, without looking back, headed to confront Ander.
Finding Victor sitting on the sofa with Ander didn’t surprise him at all; Ander’s crumpled face and slumped shoulders banked some of Daniel’s anger.
But not all of it.
“Hey, Victor, they need you out front,” Daniel said, faux cheerful.
Victor didn’t move. “For…?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care. Go away, please.” He stepped inside, gesturing to the open door.
“Young man, I don’t work for you,” Victor said. When he put his arm around Ander’s shoulders, Daniel considered picking up the nearby photo of Vera Wang and Ander to nail the smarmy bastard with it.
“No, but neither does he.” Ander’s voice was hoarse; he rubbed his eyes and moved out of Victor’s space. “Can you give us a few minutes?”
Victor made a sympathetic noise to Ander, but as he walked out of the office, he fixed Daniel with a nasty stare. Daniel gave it right back, even as his knees knocked a little bit.
Slamming the door behind him was incredibly satisfying.
“Okay, Ander, ‘what the fuck’ should cover it.” Daniel leaned against the door, arms folded over his chest. “Rebecca looks like she wants to throw up, and you were a total dick to me over the phone.”
Ander regarded him with wet and weary eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“What’s. Wrong?”
“Rafe is in San Francisco, again,” Ander murmured. “Again. You know how many times I’ve seen him in the past three weeks? Two. Two days.” He rubbed his hands over his face. “He knows this is important to me. Today especially. My designs,
my original designs
being filmed, and he calls me an hour ago to say he has to stay another day. This is a show about our fucking wedding and I might as well be marrying myself.”
Daniel felt the pull to walk over, to comfort Ander, but he hesitated. “I’m sorry, Ander, I know how much you want this to work.”
“And Sven—Sven keeps reducing the number of hours I can use the studio and increasing the shit projects thrown on my desk.” Ander gestured toward the opposite side of the room, and for the first time, Daniel realized just how discombobulated everything was. Not creatively messy but torn apart. “I can’t do this by myself, Daniel. I cannot.”
Guilt surged through Daniel, his face heating.
“Victor changed the schedule…,” he started, but Ander’s expression hardened in response. “I’ve been doing everything that needs to be done.”
“I need you here.”
In his head, the images of the past few days, of being with Owen, of being so damn peacefully happy, warred with Ander’s despair; he fought his legs from moving, but he couldn’t resist the instinct.
Daniel sat down next to Ander and put his arms around him.
OWEN WAITED
for Daniel, sitting on the leather sofa and fiddling with his phone. Victor stalked by and they purposely ignored each other. Rebecca came and went with water, like she couldn’t sit still.
He was about to get up and find Daniel when the phone in his hand buzzed. “Hello?”
“Owen!” Naomi’s breathless voice was all the prompting he needed to get up and head for the exit.
Naomi was nine days early. She’d been staying with a friend in Brooklyn for the remainder of her pregnancy, which was how Owen found himself pacing the floors of New York Hospital, alerting her brother Kent and their mother to get there as soon as they could.
Owen took a moment to text Daniel the news as well and received a
Give her a kiss for me
response. Nothing that indicated he’d be coming, nothing that indicated what had happened with Ander.
Although Owen had a very good idea.
IT WAS
a boy, Lincoln, dark and adorable, with kinky curls like his mother. Owen stayed with Naomi the rest of the day and through the night, repeatedly explaining his role—
not the father, just a friend, thank you
—and drinking coffee after coffee from the nurses’ station. His antacids ran out in the middle of the night.
Everything okay?
he texted Daniel first thing in the morning.
Sorry busy. Send pic of baby.
Kent and his mother came straight from the airport. Owen stayed a bit longer to catch up, to exchange hugs and news. He said his good-byes, though, after it became too much. Too many people, too much noise, not his family. Too long a silence from Daniel.
At his apartment, he didn’t stop until he had reached the bathroom, shedding his clothes—all he wanted was a shower and then ten hours of sleep. For so long Owen had lived a solitary life, content to work, sleep, and hit the gym without any regrets. The complication of relationships—the potential for people to be stunningly selfish and horrible—made loneliness his preferred state of mind.
But the past few weeks with Daniel….
WHEN HE
woke up the next day, Owen registered the quiet emptiness of the apartment. He checked his phone for messages and found only a text from Victor.
Not needed today.
It felt prophetic.
IT WAS
two more days before he saw Daniel. Owen was supervising their trek through the various locations they’d already visited for pick-up shots and exteriors. Noah drove the van, Owen on the passenger side, head against the glass. His phone buzzed.
Owen fished out his phone.
“Hey,” he said, clearing his throat and trying to sound casual. “How are you?”
“I’m a shitty human being and I miss you,” Daniel said quietly. “But I have to go with Ander to taste appetizers and then look at ribbons. Because Rafe decided to be out of town again.” He sounded exhausted. “Victor needs to be thrown in a dungeon, by the way.”
“Come over tonight, please,” Owen murmured. “Whatever time, just come home.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
AT TWO
in the morning, a tentative knock at Owen’s door pulled him off the couch. On the other side of the doorway stood Daniel, an overnight bag on his shoulder.
“Let’s go to bed. I can’t handle fucking on the floor tonight.”
UNDER THE
covers, Daniel poured out the frustrations of filming the past few days. Ander’s mood swings were out of control; every time he got him calmed down, there was a new kink in Daniel’s plan and Ander exploded.
“I’ve never seen him like this, and that’s saying something,” Daniel sighed. They were slotted together in the center of the bed. “And Victor just….” His anger spilled over. “Why the fuck do you work with someone like that?”
Owen took a breath, tucked his hand against the back of Daniel’s head, and said, “My father took his money.”
Daniel twisted in his arms. “What?”
“They were partners for years and years. My father was the silent partner, the one who funded Victor’s projects. I had no idea.” Owen let Daniel sit up. Their eyes met in the moonlight, and Owen smiled. “He didn’t much approve of my lifestyle—modeling or being a fairy. We didn’t speak, but my mother and I got along, kept in touch when I was traveling. He, uh—decided he’d had enough.”
“Did he… hurt himself?” Daniel asked tentatively.
Owen laughed, because it was kind of funny if he thought about it. His father hurt everyone but himself, in the end. “No. He drained the company and disappeared. Brazil, we think. No extradition treaties, and Mother suspected a girlfriend or two. Victor threatened to go to the authorities, which would have meant our assets getting frozen.” He ran his hand up Daniel’s arm. “My money, my mother’s house. Victor and I came to an agreement—my partnership in his company, and no one would be the wiser.”
“That’s….” Daniel pressed his hand against Owen’s chest. “That’s fucking insane.”
“I know.”
“So—you have to stay partners with him for what? The rest of your life, because your father was an asshole?” Daniel rolled up on his knees, buzzing with anger. “No wonder you suck down antacids like crazy. My stomach would fucking explode if I had to deal with him for that long!”
“It’s not really that bad.” Owen sat up, trying not to laugh at the fiercely angry face Daniel was pulling. “I met you because of that fucking asshole, so—seven years was worth it.”
Daniel’s mouth worked. He was trying not to smile, Owen could tell, but it was a losing battle. “Shut up.”
“I’ll take seven more years if I get to keep you,” Owen whispered, twining his arms around Daniel’s shoulders.
In the morning, Owen woke up to an empty bed. For a moment he felt panic, but a little slip of paper fluttered on the pillow next to him, and even before he brought it up to read, a sense of calm settled over him.
You are ridiculously decent.
You are selfless and kind.
You are gorgeous.
I am enamored of your cock and your mouth.
I respect your decisions.
You make me crazy. And happy.
I’d like to keep you too.
BY THE
time they headed up to Westlake Estates for the wedding four weeks later, Daniel was sleep-deprived and Owen-deprived, which left him feeling very thin indeed.
He held himself together. He held Ander together.
Seventy-two hours. They could do this.
Ander appeared twenty minutes before they were to begin the rehearsal, clad in a white seersucker suit and a pale blue short-sleeved button-down. He looked dashing—and unhappy. Something his smile and cheerful patter couldn’t hide from Daniel.
Daniel waited, though, up by the bar on the patio, drinking mango margaritas under the awning. The setting sun seemed determined to wring every drop of sweat from their bodies before disappearing, and Daniel didn’t want to look damp on the dailies.
The pink suit was a conscious choice on his part, and it had everything to do with seeing if Owen’s eyes lit up as hot as the day had been. He paired it with a black V-neck T-shirt and black oxfords, his hair styled just the faintest bit—bless Lucias and FaceTime.
“You want come-hither or come bang me?” Lucias had asked.
Daniel chose the former. Reluctantly. He needed to get some sleep that night.
Victor—who still couldn’t seem to find a shirt that buttoned all the way—latched on to Ander as soon as he arrived. Heads bent together, they murmured at each other, only looking up when a waiter offered them champagne. Daniel wanted to know what the hell they were talking about.
“They’re thick as thieves.” Rafe’s voice pulled Daniel out of his studied gaze. Rafe joined him under the awning, a tumbler of scotch in hand.
“Hmmm. Show stuff, I’m sure,” Daniel said lightly. “I like your suit.”
“Oh, thank you.” Rafe looked down at his tea-colored linen suit and then an untucked silk shirt in a slightly darker shade. With a red rose pinned to his lapel, he looked handsome and relaxed—or would have, if his face weren’t so tight. “Ander made it. I think it’s wonderful.”
His eyes were trained on Ander and Victor, who’d moved off to a clump of trees near the water.
“Rafe, I know it’s not my place, but, uh—you know Victor is straight. There’s nothing to be worried about there. And if he wasn’t, Ander wouldn’t do anything like that,” Daniel said, steeling himself for Rafe’s reaction.
“Oh.” Rafe shook his head. “I’m not worried about that, not really. He’s just—very charming, and he’s like Ander, you know? They can talk about fashion and the arts, things I don’t know much about.”
Daniel squeezed Rafe’s arm, trying to draw his attention away from the little tête-à-tête down by the lake. “I don’t much know what Ander is talking about half the time and we’ve been friends for most of our lives.” Daniel took a sip of his melting margarita. “He isn’t looking for another Ander—he was always looking for someone who made him feel like he mattered.”
Rafe looked down at his glass. “He matters to me, very much. I’m afraid I haven’t been good at showing that lately.”
“This show has been… it’s been a lot,” Daniel offered.
“So much.” Rafe chuckled. He gave Daniel a wry smile. “I’ve been hiding most of the time, telling myself it didn’t matter. This was for Ander, for his career, for his dream wedding. I think we both forgot it was supposed to be for
us
.”
Daniel’s heart sank a little. More than anything, he wanted Rafe and Ander to come through this mess with their feelings intact, but the melancholy on Rafe’s face concerned him in a way he couldn’t shake. “Hey, Sunday at this time, you guys are on a plane to the next phase of your lives. You can do this.” He gave Rafe a manly punch in the upper arm. “Two more days.”
Rafe nodded, then took a sip of his scotch. He swallowed, gaze tracking to Ander and Victor once again. “Two more days.”
Fortified by the bottom of his margarita glass, Daniel headed down to join the others at the lake. On the dock, Brittany and Mickey were setting up the cameras and lights, while Noah checked the sound, nodding every so often, headset bobbing. Lois joined them to stand in for the reverend—and to get a little extra publicity and camera time—and nearby, Rafe’s friend Eduardo, the other best man, practiced his all-important handing-over-the-ring in pantomime.
Only Owen was missing.
“Ander, you about ready to get practice hitched?” Daniel called out, breaking the huddle of Ander and Victor.
Victor shot him an unfriendly smile, then sidled away with a pat to Ander’s hand.
I hate you
, Daniel thought, watching the man saunter over to Lois like a mosquito flying from victim to victim.
“God, that suit. Isn’t it the one Owen fucked off you at one point?” Ander said, sharp and weary at once.
“No, that was the time he just jacked me off.” Daniel looped his arm through Ander’s, pulling him in the opposite direction of the others. “You okay?”
“I’m fabulous, haven’t you met me?” Ander pressed against Daniel, not even protesting they were going the wrong way.