Chapter 93

Muttering, Andy dropped the tailgate on Scooter’s truck and leaned in to drag a case of bottled water closer. The crunch of car tires on the parking lot pavement sounded behind him, but he ignored it. Water. He managed to get the case close enough to punch a hole in the plastic wrap and drag out a bottle, just as the car door slammed. Damn it, he’d had it about up to here with the tourists complaining that the place wasn’t open.

He cracked the bottle and took a swig. Maybe if he ignored them, the tourist would go away.

“You’re looking very well,” said a voice that Andy didn’t want to hear. “The air down here must agree with you.”

Andy turned around, very carefully. “Nick,” he said. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Nick’s eyes widened and his mouth drooped, hurt. He was wearing a linen shirt and a tailored sport coat that Andy didn’t recognize. Guess he’d gotten that promotion. Nick was probably awfully hot in the pounding sun. Andy couldn’t quite manage to sympathize. “I came to see you, Andy. It’s been so long—do you know how worried I was?”

Andy’s hands were shaking. He put the water bottle down on the tailgate so it wouldn’t be so obvious. “I’m fine, see? You can go away now.”

“Andy, is that any way to treat me?” Nick stepped closer, and Andy refused to back down. “I know you were mad at me,” he said, pulling his big-eyed hangdog how can you be mad at melook. It was remarkably similar to Trick’s big-eyed I didn’t meanto eat your dinner while you were getting a drinkexpression. “I probably deserved that, after everything. But you didn’t have to run away, sweetmeat. We could have worked it out. You know I never meant to hit you.”

“Actually, I do,” Andy said. Fury glared white-hot behind his eyes. “But you didmean to cut me off from my friends, and you didmean to keep me under your thumb like some kind of petor toy.”

Nick put a hand on Andy’s shoulder, and Andy refused to flinch. “Oh, Andy,” Nick said softly. “You’ve got it all backwards, you know. I’vealways belonged to you. Everything I did, it was for you.”

“Hey, Andy,” said Scooter behind him, and Andy’s knees nearly went weak with relief. “You need help bringin’ that water in?”

Andy stepped carefully out from under Nick’s hand, one step closer to Scooter. “No, I just need to take out the trash first.” He reached out behind him, trusting, and Scooter’s hand took his, easy and simple, although Scooter was shaking, almost as hard as Andy himself. He kept his eyes on Nick as Scooter came up beside him. “How did you find me, Nick?”

Scooter inhaled. “Oh, so this is Nick?” He gave Nick a long assessment, taking in everything from his sharp, little-too-pricey shoes, designer jeans, hipster glasses. “Huh.” Scooter sounded like he’d taken the measure of Nicholas Grant and found him wanting.

For that alone, that world of disdain packed into a single syllable, Andy would have loved Scooter forever. “How?”

Nick smiled, impish. Andy had thought that smile was charming once. “Saw your picture online actually,” he said. “Pure serendipity, a little AP puff piece about—”

“Surfing and the hurricane,” Andy interrupted. God, he wanted to puke. “We’re done, Nick. I thought that was pretty clear already, but since you didn’t seem to get it: we’re done. Go home and leave me alone.”

The door opened again, creaking on its hinges and a quick tattoo of smaller feet crossing the patio preceded the arrival of Kat, Jason just behind her, slower. She put on her performing-for-customers drawl and said, “S’there a problem, sugah?”

Nick’s eyes flicked sideways, registering Kat, and then Jason. Even Nick had to know a losing battle when he saw one, right?

“Well, aren’t you adorable,” he said smoothly. He turned back to Andy. “You have to know how scared I was for you, baby. I even went to see your dad, in case you’d gone home.”

Andy stiffened. “And he didn’t have you thrown off the property?” He was fronting there, and they both knew it. Jesus, if Nick was in contact with his dad, if Nick told Charles where to find him…Oh, that could be bad. That could be so very bad.

Nick’s eyes were round and so, so blue. “Even a bastard like Charles Howard worries about his son, Andy. We just want what’s best for you, even if we don’t agree on what that is.”

“Funny,” Scooter said. “Turns out I don’t agree what that is either. From you, or Andy’s dad.”

Nick blinked at Scooter, a heavy-lidded, dismissive sneer. “And you are…?”

“Winston Stahl,” Scooter said. “Owner/operator, and Andy’s boyfriend. We know who you are.”

Nick’s eyebrows lifted and he covered his mouth with his hand, somehow managing to appear both concerned and horrified, the fuckhole. “Oh, Andy, what did you do, honey? You didn’t…you didn’t have to go to those kinds of lengths. Come on home, and I promise everything will be okay.”

“You seriously did not just suggest that I prostituted myself for a job,” Andy growled.