Page 19

19

LOVE AND CUPIDITY

RUSSEL

On Sunday afternoon, I had to let Eddie go to his place. He said he wanted to get some work done in preparation for the next week and, of course, change clothes. I hated letting him out of my sight after what happened earlier that day.

The grief and pain I witnessed in him would haunt me.

“Let me drive you.”

“No. I’ll take a cab.” His tone allowed no arguments.

“When can I see you again?”

One corner of his lips lifted. “Tomorrow at work.”

“You know what I mean.”

Eddie slipped on his shoes and straightened, meeting my gaze with seriousness. “I need you to give me space at the office. We shouldn’t see each other outside work during the week. I think it would confuse me, and I need to focus.”

This would be torture, dammit. “I’ll keep my hands and mouth to myself, I swear. Monday to Friday, I’ll be strictly professional.”

He gave me a tiny smile. “Thanks.”

“Come to my place Friday night? For Saturday, I’ll book the hotel I told you about, and we could go see the exhibition.”

“Okay.”

I searched his features for any sign of excitement or anticipation. I wanted to hear him laugh again, but he looked resigned and drained.

“Eddie, I…”

“It’s okay. I’m sorry you had to witness that. But I’m fine now.”

He wasn’t. I hugged him to me, breathing him in. All too soon, he disentangled himself and moved to the door.

“See you tomorrow.”

Would it be unfair to tell him I’d miss him?

* * *

During the Monday team meeting, Eddie sat as far from me as possible. I didn’t think he even looked at me once. I was tempted to call after him and make him talk to me, but that was exactly what he had asked me not to do—not to bring up anything at work that had to do with our relationship outside of these walls.

Every day, I worked late and walked home after dark. My apartment felt even emptier after Eddie had stayed there. In the mornings, I was the first one at the office, leaving my door open so I’d know when he arrived.

I held my mouth shut and acted as detached as I could muster, day after day, even when we were alone in my office with the door closed and blinds down. I hoped Eddie appreciated my effort because I was screaming on the inside.

Despite my inner struggle, everything would have worked out just fine, had it not been for Pierce Black.

On Thursday, we had a late meeting with Helen, Pierce, and the proud father-to-be, Charles Carlsson, in preparation for their first joint public appearance after they’d disclosed their relationship.

“Eddie, how lovely to see you. But what’s this? You look tired.” Pierce shook Eddie’s hand with way too much enthusiasm for a mere business meeting and even patted his shoulder with his other hand. He glanced at me as if Eddie’s tiredness was my fault. Which was partially true, but Pierce couldn’t know that. “You should take better care of our wonder boy. We need him now more than ever.”

Eddie blushed and gestured to the sofas. “Please, take a seat.”

Helen sat in the middle while Charlie and Pierce flanked her. Charlie put a hand on her knee, and Pierce cast an arm on the backrest behind her. The presence of his wife and his lover didn’t stop Pierce from tracking Eddie’s every move as he took a seat opposite. I planted my butt on a chair between Eddie and Pierce. I told myself it had nothing to do with my possessive urges toward Eddie, but that was of course a lie.

Pierce was clearly attracted to Eddie, if not romantically, then at least as a predator to a prey, and my hackles were up. It was unprofessional as hell, and I did my best not to let anything show. It was already dark outside, and we’d be stuck in here until midnight as it was. I needed to behave and get it over with.

“How do you feel before tomorrow’s show?” Eddie asked.

Helen was the only one who admitted nervousness. Charlie looked his usual cocky self, and Pierce turned serious, oozing apprehension.

Eddie went through their main talking points, and I was supposed to observe their body language and their reactions toward each other. I would then give them feedback.

During the fake interview, Pierce’s simpering and flattery toward Eddie only got worse. Didn’t Helen and Charlie see it? Didn’t they care?

When it was my time to speak, I looked at my notes. I might as well have been doodling Eddie’s name on my notebook. The few broken sentences I jotted down were useless.

Fuck this. I would tell them what I thought. After all, it was highly relevant.

“The goal of your presence on the talk show is to reassure the public about the stability of your relationship. Pierce, you can’t flirt with the interviewer in front of your partners.”

I knew the word choice was poor as soon as I said it. Plus, the blatant annoyance in my tone must have been hard to miss.

Pierce lifted his eyebrow challengingly. “I’m paying attention to the person interviewing us. How’s that a problem?”

“You should want to see Charlie’s reaction to the questions aimed at him, and your attention should be only on him when he answers. Yet through the sequence about Charlie’s role as the biological father, you barely looked at him.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not true,” Charlie said, his eyebrows knitted together. “He was looking straight into my eyes when I spoke about my filming schedule after the baby is born.”

Eddie stepped in. “Everybody has the tendency to gravitate toward the interviewer, but you should be there for each other, first and foremost. When Helen and I were speaking, you both angled your bodies toward her. Even if you glanced at me here and there, your body language showed you were focused on her. That was perfect. It’s more difficult for you, Pierce, to show the same toward Charlie when Helen is in your line of sight.”

Eddie directed them on how to sit and change positions during the show while I pretended to go through the questions again.

An hour later, Pierce shook my hand at the door. “Don’t worry. I don’t poach,” he murmured under his breath and winked.

Luckily, his words were inaudible to human ears. The bodyguards closed the door to the hotel suite, and I turned to Eddie. Shame weighed on me. He’d been clear about what he needed from me, and I failed him after only a few days.

He had his hands on his hips and held his chin high. “What the hell was that?” he demanded.

“That was me being stupid. I apologize.”

Eddie threw his arms in the air. “What is it about Pierce that makes you act like a caveman?”

“We aren’t supposed to talk about these things at work.”

“Oh, so now you bring the rule up?”

I walked up to him and reached out to hug him, but he sidestepped my attempt.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

Eddie shook his head and sat on the sofa that the trio had vacated. He let out a heavy sigh.

“What are we even doing?”

I lowered myself to his side carefully, afraid he’d move away from me. But he didn’t. He leaned back and stared at the ceiling.

“Why, Russel?”

I pushed a strand of hair off his forehead and ran my fingers down the side of his face. “Because you mess with my head.”

He turned his face to me, and his eyebrows drew together. “I’m not doing any…”

Pressing a finger on his lips, I made him pause before he jumped to conclusions. “When you ignore me at work, a part of me wants to throw a tantrum. It’s silly, and I’m sorry.”

I traced the contour of his upper lip.

“It isn’t your fault. Nothing ever is. It’s just me being a possessive, insecure idiot. I want more than this, Eddie. It’s only been days, and I want so much more.”

He shook his head, his lips moving under my fingertip.

“Eddie, sweetheart, I’m falling…”

Swiftly, he put a hand over my mouth. “No.”

Panic squeezed my chest. Was he angry? He looked angry.

“No, Russel. Even if what we feel is real… And for all you know, maybe it’s just my blood tasting weird. You can’t say that to me. You can’t do that to me.”

Then he pushed himself up and stomped across the room.

“I’m sorry.” How many times had I said that? I didn’t understand what I’d done, what I should apologize for, but I couldn’t bear him being mad at me.

He pointed a quivering finger at me. “You promised not to hurt me.”

“Am I hurting you, Eddie? How?”

With his hands in fists, he squeezed his eyes shut. “You’re not. I’m not even mad at you.”

“Talk to me, please.”

“Don’t you see how impossible this is? Whenever I’m with you, it’s like I’m floating on clouds. Even you being jealous of Pierce, which should infuriate me, makes me dance on the inside. I can say screw work and screw my future. I can just let myself be swept up in this beautiful dream and forget about everything else. And then in a few months, maybe years if we’re lucky, we wake up from the dream. And I’ll be left with nothing.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but Eddie lifted his palm to stop me.

“This isn’t about my career, even though that’s a part of it.”

“What is it about?”

“I don’t want to depend on you. I don’t want to…” He gestured with his hands back and forth between us. “This…intensity. I crave it so much, but what if I come any closer, and it’ll eat me alive? It’s too much. It terrifies me how much I want you. It fucking terrifies me, Russel.”

With horror, I saw tears well up in his eyes. He was slipping away from me, and I had no idea how to stop it from happening.

“You said it yourself,” he continued, his voice softer. “When shit went down with my mother, my world crumbled around me. I was a clueless, nineteen-year-old kid, and everything I knew, every firm point in my existence, was taken away overnight. I had no parents, no home, nowhere to go, and no coping skills to deal with any of it. I went from the most sheltered, privileged position you could imagine to a complete wreck. People I’d known my whole life, family, friends, distant relatives, my friends from school, they all stopped answering my calls. Well, my grandfather offered for me to come live with him on Long Island if I took care of the gay thing.” He made quotation marks in the air, his mouth in a bitter sneer. “The more things came to the surface about my mother’s dealings, the more of a pariah I became. And I just thought…if I can work my way out of this, if only I can get a student loan, finish school, and get a respectable job, I’ll prove to everyone that I’m not… Ugh!”

Eddie rubbed his hands down his face, wiping the tears away. Watching him cry was like having a hot poker shoved up my ribcage.

“I’ve worked so hard not to be like her.”

“You’re not. You’re nothing like Julia Perkins.” But Eddie didn’t seem to hear me.

“I decided I wouldn’t make mistakes. Not a single one. Never. I would never do a single bad thing. And somehow, all those people who washed their hands of me, they would see that, see what I’d become, and they would regret that they didn’t support me.” He let out a broken laugh. “Like I said, I was clueless. But even after I made it, there’s still this fear in me, and it fucking cripples me. If I make a mistake, a single stupid mistake, I’ll be alone again. Left with nothing.”

“Oh, Eddie…” It was like he grabbed the hot poker and twisted it. I wished I could cry with him so the pain could go somewhere. “We’re all allowed to make mistakes. And you’ve never made any. Ever.”

“Except for this.” He gestured between us again. “This is a colossal mistake.”

That propelled me from the sofa. “No, it’s not. It can’t be.”

I hugged him, and thank heavens, he let me. He laid his head on my shoulder and exhaled, sagging against me.

“I don’t know what to do.” His whisper warmed the skin on my throat, and I held him tighter. Amid the pain I felt for him flickered a spark of happiness. Eddie said that being with me was a beautiful dream. Except we were wide awake, and what we had was real. Unique, rare, and incredible, but real.

“We’ll figure it out,” I told him with conviction, a decision already forming in my head.

He didn’t reply.

I pressed my lips to his forehead and inhaled the scent of his hair. What did I have to lose? Nothing. Nothing in my life was worth more than the boy in my arms.

“It’s late, and you need to sleep. I know we said Friday, but please come to my place tonight. It’s only a few blocks away.”

“I’ll turn up at the office in the same clothes again.”

“Is that a no-go?”

“It should be,” he grumbled into my shoulder.

“Don’t leave like this, sweetheart. Stay with me.”

To my great relief, Eddie agreed.

I returned the key card at the reception, and we left the hotel together. The streets were quiet on a weekday in the middle of the night. We walked side by side, our shoulders nearly touching.

“Eddie, what happened with your mom on Sunday?”

He moved to the left abruptly, and I feared it was my question that pushed him away. But he only stepped around a beige puddle of something spilled on the concrete and returned to my side.

“She asked about who I was dating,” he said. “I told her a little about you. Nothing too specific, don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried. I’m glad you talk about me.”

“Well, she didn’t like that I was seeing a vampire, and stupidly, I let it slip you were someone from work. That was when it got bad.”

“How bad?”

“She told me I was naive and would pay for it.”

“You’re not, and you won’t.”

Eddie’s smile was sad. “The worst thing about it is that she says these things with the intention to cause me pain. Whether she’s right or not is irrelevant. But I have only myself to blame. I know she’s like that, and yet I keep trying to be close with her. It’s like I’ve been slapped so many times, but keep coming for more.”

“It’s not your fault. You don’t deserve any of this.”

“You keep saying that.”

“It’s true. You’re amazing, Eddie, and with every day I know you, I’m more in awe of you.”

After that, he was quiet, not agreeing with me but not protesting either. I didn’t push him to tell me more or promise me anything. I wanted to tell him I loved him, but I didn’t have the right. Not yet.

We didn’t have sex, and I didn’t bite him. I was just grateful he let me hold him as he slept in my bed. It took him a long time to fall asleep, but he must have been exhausted because he didn’t stir until the alarm went off.

I closed my eyes for a couple of hours, but most of the night, I spent watching Eddie’s serene face and remembering.

Who had I even been before I caught his skittish gaze at the dinner club on Twenty-third Street?

* * *

In the morning, he acted calm and somber. We had to arrive at the office separately, so I let him go first. He gave me a small smile when we said goodbye at my door, but his eyes remained sad.

It was Friday, and he’d be back later tonight. If Eddie still wanted to come, we were supposed to drive south for our getaway tomorrow.

I knew what I had to do, and now that I’d decided, it felt so easy.

At the Fowles & Tito headquarters, I walked straight past the glass cubicles. I didn’t check if Eddie sat in his—because the next time I spoke to him, he wouldn’t have to hide anymore.

When I found Anthony Fowles in his office, he looked preoccupied and asked me to meet him after lunch instead. I didn’t want to wait, though.

“If you have a few minutes, I’d rather do this now,” I said.

He paused, scanning my face. “It’s urgent, then?”

“Yes. I need to resign.”

His face remained impassive. He sat in his chair and folded his arms over his chest, looking me up and down.

“Reason?”

“I behaved unprofessionally. I have developed powerful romantic feelings toward one of my subordinates, which will sooner or later affect my judgment and leadership performance.”

Anthony sighed. He looked disappointed but not in the least surprised. Had he suspected something? Or, after decades in this business, nothing could surprise him anymore. “I assume we’re talking about Eddie,” he deadpanned.

Not like there were many options. “That’s beside the point.”

“Do you want me to move him?”

“No, Anthony. This is on me. I won’t under any circumstances have Eddie’s career in the least disrupted.”

A few seconds passed, during which he sat still as a statue, watching me. “That’s not for you to decide, is it?”

“It’s not his fault.”

He grabbed a pen, tapped it onto his desk, and twirled it between his fingers. His bushy brows nearly touched each other, he was scowling so darkly. Some frustration finally made it through his stony facade.

“Dammit, Greenwood. Couldn’t you keep it in your pants?”

I couldn’t help but chuckle. With my hands on my hips, I shook my head. If he only knew how much I tried to do just that. I’d starved myself for weeks, trying to keep my hands off Eddie, only to cave at the slightest temptation. “Had it been about sex, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, and I think you know that. You know Eddie. You sang his praises when I first started, remember? And you were right about him. He’s brilliant in every aspect.”

Anthony grimaced. “I didn’t think I was matchmaking.”

“Eddie’s my absolute priority. Everything else is negotiable, but he has to come out of this unscathed.”

Anthony dissected me with his cold gray eyes. He dropped his pen onto the desk with a clatter and rubbed his forehead.

“See, my problem is, I don’t want to lose either of you.”

“Firing Eddie would be much worse for the team and for the company.”

“Is your judgment affected when you say that?”

I smiled. “Possibly. But you yourself told me how talented he is, and you were right. I’m resigning, and he’s staying because it’s the best solution for everyone involved. You know just as well as I do how sharp Eddie is. In five years, he’ll be the best crisis manager in the city. You need to hold on to him.”

“And there’s no way I could convince you to switch teams.” It wasn’t a question. He knew where this was headed.

“I’ve been toying with the idea of freelancing for a while. I’m tired, Anthony. I want weekends and vacations. I might even write a book.”

He squinted at me. “Then I can call you in when we need you.”

“I’d be happy to help on a project basis.”

“Those weekends and vacations… You don’t plan to spend them all with Eddie, do you? Because you’ve just made him irreplaceable.”

“I hope to find a compromise.”

Anthony shook his head, and I was given the gift of one of his very rare smiles.

“I’m not happy about this,” he said, contrary to his expression.

“I’m sorry.” I smiled back.

“Submit the paperwork with HR and announce it to the team when you want. You will finish the ongoing projects, though.”

“Thank you, Anthony.”

He waved me off.