It was his own fault for violating his core principle: Success invariably leads to diminished returns. He’d done one job well because it was interesting, and now everyone in the building wanted the Korean IT Guy With the Hair to be the one who showed up when they yelled for help.
He sank down against the wall until he sat folded, head on his knees. He’d hide out in the server room, at least until the afternoon sleepies hit around two and they all started playing their Facebook games. In fact, as long as they could get online to Facebook, probably no one would notice if everything else on the servers went dark.
This room had a consistently cool temperature, perfect humidity control, and top-of-the-line filters. His nose and eyes never itched when he was in here. The constant rush of the fans blotted out any outside noise.
The phone buzzed again, a steady rhythm. He should have put it on silent.
Just audible over the white noise of the fans, keys jangled outside, then scraped against the door. Not a lot of people had keys to the server room, but most of the ones who did could fire him. He rolled onto his knees and slid across the floor, pulled out a screwdriver, and prepared to look busy.
A voice came to him now—Shanara, the office manager. As bosses went, she wasn’t a bad one, but Kieran still figured hiding and ignoring his phone would probably get him reported to the head of IT, who was a total dick.
“Someone said they saw him headed this way.”
“Thank you for all your help, Shanara.”
Kieran dropped the screwdriver. What the hell was Theo doing here, thirty blocks away from where Kieran thought he was? His brain raced through multiple possibilities. Theo had met Kieran’s family, but why would Theo have been the one to come if something had happened to one of them?
“My pleasure, Mr. Medina.”
“Theo, please.”
The door opened. Kieran straightened from picking up his screwdriver and caught Theo’s wink square in the chest.
There it was again. That funny jolt that Kieran was sure his sister, the epidemiologist, could explain resulted through neurotransmitters, conditioned responses, and hormone dumps. But since Siobhan had been in Sierra Leone for the past eight months working to contain the latest Ebola outbreak, she was a little busy for stupid questions about why Kieran’s heart jumped when his boyfriend looked at him like that.
As cheerful as Theo usually was, Kieran was pretty sure Theo wouldn’t wink if something bad had happened. It didn’t explain why he was suddenly next to Shanara in the door to the server room.
Hi
seemed like a safer bet than
What the fuck are you doing here?
so he went with that.
“Hey, I wanted to take you to lunch.” Theo’s smile didn’t affect Kieran’s nervous system like that look could, but it was definitely an autonomous response that made Kieran smile back. “I planned to do it tomorrow, but it’s the understudy’s first matinee and I need to be there.”
“You’re so lucky, Kieran.” Shanara had a smile a bit brighter than her usual professional one. Theo had the same effect on other people. “My boyfriend probably won’t even remember.”
Kieran was already in the same boat with Shanara’s boyfriend. Then he saw the rose Theo produced from behind his back, and Kieran’s brain latched on to the significance. Valentine’s Day was this weekend.
Theo turned and offered the rose to Shanara. “If you can spare him.”
She held the paper-wrapped stem in the space between them. “I thought this was for Kieran.”
Theo sighed. “He’s allergic to flowers. And romance. But I’m working on him.”
Kieran shoved his glasses up on his nose and glared, only to get smacked with another Theo wink, which induced a helpless shake of his head.
“It might take some time….” Theo trailed off and glanced at Shanara.
Her smile was broad, sharpening her cheeks. “You have personal leave banked, right, Kieran?” Barely pausing for his agreement, she said, “I’ll write you as out for the afternoon, let Todd know.”
Kieran nodded. The less he had to deal with the asshole director of IT, the better. Especially now that Kieran was in high demand.
“Thank you so much, Shanara.” Theo handed her a business card. “Just present that at the Will Call window any time and they’ll take care of you.”
“Thank you, Theo. Be sure to lock up the server room, Kieran.”
Shanara shut the door, which had an auto lock, so Kieran was puzzling over her order when Theo put his hands behind Kieran’s neck and kissed him.
A typical Theo kiss, warm, open, inviting Kieran to decide if it was going deeper.
Kieran put his hands on Theo’s back, under his coat, touched the velvety fleece, and breathed in the rich leather scent from his shoulder. The heavy wool coat Theo had been wearing when they met vanished immediately when Kieran confessed his allergy to it.
When Kieran drew back, Theo released him with a leer. “Cozy in your little den, here.”
Kieran shook his head. “The servers are sensitive to humidity. I’m pretty sure that includes jizz.”
“I’m insulted. I never spill a drop.”
Theo said it mockingly, but the reminder of how incredible Theo was at sucking dick stirred a tingle in Kieran’s balls.
“Yeah.” Theo leaned to brush his forehead against Kieran’s. “You’re thinking about it now.”
He was right. Because Theo was damned good at reading Kieran. The first person ever who bothered to pay enough attention to figure out—and offer—what Kieran wanted.
A nooner sounded interesting, but they certainly weren’t doing it in the server room.
“Thought you said we were going to lunch?”
“I did. Are you hungry?”
Kieran shrugged. He could eat, but he didn’t want Theo to think Kieran expected a lobster dinner just because he was peckish. Theo liked making people happy. He wasn’t a pushover or anything. Kieran had heard him get pissed enough to snap at people on the phone. Once when he met Theo at the theater, Kieran had heard him go off in a rage about a delivery of light bulbs. So scratch that. Theo was nice to most people, but he liked trying to make Kieran happy. And that didn’t suck at all.
The look in Theo’s eyes did that thing to Kieran’s circulatory system again as Theo tugged him toward the door. “Come on, then.”
BY THE
time the cab turned east on Forty-Sixth Street, Theo had almost gone through a tube of lip balm. Every time nerves made his tongue slide forward to lick his lips, he popped the cap and rubbed them smooth instead.
Kieran reached over and grabbed the little cylinder. “Are you eating that or what?”
“Don’t worry. I saved lots of room for lunch.” Or for the champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries in the fridge at home.
Kieran shook his head as the cab stopped in front of the Lunt-Fontanne Theater.
Theo handed over the fare and nodded at the doorman, whose smile was broad enough to give everything away. “I’m, uh… just going to run in and check the box.”
“Okay.” Kieran’s answer held no trace of impatience or frustration. He never complained about Theo’s work. Never made Theo feel like he’d stolen hours from their relationship to put into his career. If he’d needed another reason why Kieran was The One, it was right there. But Theo had already made up his mind their first morning together.
He’d barely gotten through the door when Alex, the assistant stage manager, started to shoo Theo back out.
“We’re all set. Just give Geoff the cue when you want to start.” Theo had almost let himself be backed out the door when he remembered the most important part of the whole damned thing. “The ring. It’s in the office safe.”
Theo’s fingers shook—actually shook—when he tried to tap in the code, so Alex took over, handing him the box holding the gleaming platinum band with the half-bezel-set diamond. Theo closed his hand around the brushed velvet and tucked it into his coat pocket.
Alex squeezed Theo’s shoulder. “Everything will be perfect, Theo. Don’t worry.” After studying Theo’s face for a moment, Alex opened a drawer and took out a flask. “Here. Best cure for stage fright. Two quick swallows.”
The liquor scorched his throat and singed the inside of his nose, but Theo felt his chest loosen as it burned its way down. He took a deep breath, coughed, and then nodded. “Okay. Warn curtain.”
As he pushed open the door, Theo found Kieran shifting as he tried to catch his reflection on the glass door. Theo warmed from the inside out. He hadn’t needed the whiskey. Seeing Kieran was all Theo needed to know everything would be perfect.
“Your hair is fine.” Theo slung an arm around Kieran’s neck and kissed his cheek.
“It’s never fine.”
Theo thought the untamable tufts springing up from the center of Kieran’s hairline to the crown—as fluffy as the feathers on a baby bird—were adorable. But saying that aloud tended to lead to a bad mood and a distinct disinterest in letting Theo play with the silky thickness while Kieran sucked him off.
“It looks better now that it’s grown out.” An attempt at managing it by shaving him almost bald had led to six weeks of Kieran looking like he’d escaped from a prison camp and Theo breaking up with his stylist for crimes against cuteness.
Kieran let Theo lead him into Times Square. As always, the sight of it, day or night, made Theo’s breath and pulse come faster. Kieran, as usual, seemed unaffected, though he knew that over the year they’d been together more than a few show tunes had migrated over to Kieran’s playlists. Theo took Kieran’s hand as they walked across Broadway to the plaza. Geoff, easily spotted in his bright red baseball cap, watched Theo for the cue.
Hand tight around the box in his pocket, Theo took a deep breath, met Geoff’s eyes, and nodded. As the first notes of “Get In Trouble With Me” poured across the plaza, Theo squeezed Kieran’s hand and whispered, “I love you,” then let go and slipped into the crowd forming around the singers.
KIERAN SHOULD
have known the trip downtown was more business than lunch. If Theo ever really took a break from work, Kieran had never seen it. Not that he minded. It was part of why things worked between them. Theo having this huge other thing in his life kept him from being like Kieran’s college boyfriend, who had spent every other minute asking Kieran what he was thinking and what he wanted to do and where he thought things were going. That had been the longest six weeks of his life. But Kieran had been living with Theo for six months, and never once was he called on to create a detailed report on what he was thinking.
When the music started and Theo disappeared, Kieran knew this had to be a promotional thing for Theo’s new show, a musical version of the eighties movie,
Desperately Seeking Susan
, though Kieran knew the show was sold out for at least the next two months. Theo hadn’t pushed when Kieran didn’t want to go to opening night, but he’d been twice—okay, four times—since, and he liked it. He’d have to ask Theo when they planned to record the soundtrack. This was his favorite song, a good one to get audience attention, “Get In Trouble With Me.”
It had an old-school punk beat, the lyrics full of witty exchanges as Jim tries to convince his wild girlfriend, Susan, to come with him and his band on their gig. As the flash mob grew in size, enough of the backup singers and dancers peeled away from the crowd near Kieran that he had a front row view. The actor playing Jim had been so close, he picked up his cue right in Kieran’s ear.
As he watched, Kieran’s toes moved inside his boots and he sang along inside his head. Theo didn’t write the music, but he polished and tweaked until the songs in his shows were a magic combination of storytelling and catchy tunes. Kieran had heard him lots of times, reworking one phrase over and over on the piano in the condo. When it got to be too much, Kieran just stuffed in earbuds.
He looked around for Theo now but couldn’t find him. Kieran wanted to catch Theo’s eye—give a thumbs-up to let him know from the crowd’s point of view, this little show was going great. The tourists around him were smiling and laughing and recording on their smartphones, creating the kind of viral word-of-mouth marketing no ad agency could buy.
Kieran liked the fast pace of the song, but to him, what made it work was the interlude where the other female lead sings about how she would give everything she’s got to have someone love her as desperately as Jim loves Susan. The rest of the play zipped along on a mix of amnesia, mistaken identity, and stolen earrings, but for Kieran, those few lines were what made him want to keep going back. Thirty seconds of exposed need that drilled into Kieran’s chest and unlocked a wave of uneasy empathy. He could tell himself it was part of the illusion that put people in the seats and money in Theo’s pocket, but it always seemed like Roberta was singing right at Kieran.
Jim sings the next verse, asking Susan if she’ll ever settle down, promising her all the excitement she can handle if she marries him. Except it wasn’t Jim’s voice. It was Theo’s.
Kieran’s brain sputtered in quick jumps, like a video stuck in endless buffering. He knew what was happening, could see straight through to the end of this, like a nightmare when you’re inside and outside of your body at the same time.
God, he wished it was a nightmare. Because that he could wake up from.
Trying to track a way out of inevitable, his thoughts darted down dead ends. The whole cast was there, not just the characters for this scene, and they all had roses now. Great. An epic amount of eye watering and sneezing would cap this off perfectly.
The worst thing was, it would have been funny if Theo had done this when they were all alone. If Kieran had time to think about it. If there weren’t all these people staring.
The background singers stopped, and it was only Theo now, dropping to one knee, holding out a box. Instead of the lyric “Come with me, please,” he sang, “Kieran, marry me, please.”
Times Square was never quiet. Not even Theo could stage a silent backdrop, but Kieran’s pulse was all he could hear as it throbbed in his ears. He tried to make his throat work. He didn’t want to say no.
Get up. Are you out of your fucking mind?
would do instead. But he couldn’t say that either.