QUARTER PAST ten, and Excelsior’s annual drunken raunch-fest was in full sway. Dante cringed every time one of the revelers approached. Mainly, people wanted to offer Lucas their concern and wish him a speedy recovery. Twice, however, Dante had been invited to dance.
Dante did not dance. Particularly when the dance floor was a writhing sea of handsy strangers, overdosed on seasonal good cheer and laced with pheromones.
A lone shark in a handmade suit circled the pool, a lock of his greased hair flopping over his forehead. His tie hung loosely about his neck, and he wielded his empty champagne flute like a harpoon. The little fishes scattered.
“Who’s that?”
“Who?” Lucas followed Dante’s nod, past the tables littered with spent crackers and empty coffee cups.
“Him. The guy with the teeth.”
“Ah. That would be Frederick Bradley-Jefferson. He’s one of the managing directors.” Lucas closed the space between them. “Also a die-hard homophobe, so don’t look at him too long.”
Dante bristled. “Has he ever said anything to you?” Because if he had….
“No. He’d be hauled over the coals. But he’s slippery. I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could spit.”
Aside from Freddie, the usual collection of corporate types populated the dance floor and its borders. Dante would never have been able to adapt to working in an office, surrounded by glass and gossip and the ever-looming pressures of next quarter’s financial targets.
Dante questioned how well it suited Lucas, really. He was liked, that much was obvious, from the steady stream of well-wishers passing by their table. Or perhaps getting shot had afforded him some celebrity status that people felt might rub off and elevate their status at the watercooler.
Lucas tapped his foot to the beat of the music. He grinned at Dante, head cocked to one side, singing along under his breath, making no move to get up and dance. Dante suspected that under different circumstances he might—were he out with some younger, livelier beau.
Dante soaked up the sight of him and marveled at his good fortune.
Lily and Lois had moved to the next table and were deep in conversation with another woman. They seemed content. Dante didn’t want to rush them home, but he was finding it increasingly difficult to endure keeping a respectable distance from Lucas when all he wanted to do was dig his fingers into his thighs with Lucas riding his cock.
Over the noise of some popular dance tune that he didn’t recognize, Dante said into Lucas’s ear, “Show me your office.”
Lucas bunched up his shoulders at the contact, and laughed. “Why?”
“Because I want to see where you spend your days.”
“And you hate this party.” Lucas sidled closer and laced his fingers through Dante’s. His eyebrows lifted, and he tilted the side of his head in the direction of the foyer.
They took the lift to the third floor and alighted into a dimly lit lobby. A bland corridor, regularly punctuated on each side with closed doors, extended to the left. To the right, a large open-plan floor space was filled with a thousand identical low-partitioned cubicles, like cells in a honeycomb—where the worker bees spent their eight hours a day.
Lucas took Dante’s hand and dragged him to the left. “I hope you weren’t planning on having your wicked way. This place has cameras in every nook and cranny. No microphones, though. We can talk.”
“Talking is good.”
Lucas put his finger to the security pad outside a door with his name on it.
“You have your own office?”
“Human Resources. People need privacy when they come to see me.”
Dante immediately went behind the desk. He swiveled on Lucas’s chair, pulled at his drawers, which were locked, and flipped the monitor out from its stand. “That’s loose.”
Lucas rolled his eyes. “Anyone would think you’d never been in a corporate office before.”
“I haven’t.”
Lucas went to a filing cabinet against the wall, pulled it open, and fingered the files, reaching in and extracting a set of keys. He came around the desk and unlocked the drawers, motioning that Dante should take a look.
There was nothing of interest: the usual stationery items, neatly arranged in an organizer tray. A lined notepad, some manila files, all empty. In the bottom drawer, a hard-backed copy of Excelsior’s code of practice, an annual review, and some brochures for what looked like team-building workshops.
Lucas perched on the edge of the desk, right arm folded across his chest over his left, staring at Dante. Amused. He waited for Dante to close the drawers before he slipped down onto Dante’s lap and circled his good arm around his neck.
“What do you think?”
Dante turned them both in the chair, skidding Lucas’s feet on the carpet, forcing him to settle his full weight on Dante’s thighs and go with the motion. “You get a nice view.”
Orange and white lights dotted the coast of Roseport Island and lit the bridge. Under an iron sky, too thick with cloud and fog to see the stars, the sea lay flat and slick. Like it might have been solid, made of polished glass.
Dante fingered the end of Lucas’s tie, contemplating the tiny wedge of pale stomach he could see through the fold at the front of his shirt. He hated it here. This room made him feel stifled and trapped.
Lucas rested his chin on top of Dante’s head. “Do you think it’s really over?”
Dante tightened his hold on Lucas’s waist, as if he could squeeze out Lucas’s last unwanted bubbles of worry. “Yes. Unless the police uncover some evidence that implicates Shaw or you. Which I don’t think will happen. Forensics were their best hope, and they’ve come back with nothing.”
Lucas hummed, his breath like summer against Dante’s scalp. “What about Denny?”
“Denny is Shaw’s closest friend, and his employee. He won’t say anything unless it’s to save Shaw’s skin.”
Lucas shifted on Dante’s lap, relaxing into the embrace. The chair wasn’t big enough and the circulation was going rapidly from Dante’s thighs, but he wouldn’t have moved for anything.
“I wanted Shaw to be sorry. To say it. But regardless of the stroke, it was never going to happen. Not from him.”
The Richard Shaws of this world didn’t apologize. The recurring thought reared its ugly head. Perhaps in that regard, Dante and Shaw weren’t all that different from each other.
“Hey. I’m fine.” Lucas drew back, his eyes narrowing into a look that Dante had begun to recognize all too well—the don’t-bullshit-me glare. He lifted Dante’s chin. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
Lucas didn’t look entirely convinced. He had a special radar for Dante’s emotional state, and he was right. Dante wasn’t completely fine. Dante and Lucas were free to do what normal people did. They could go out on dates, get to know each other better, fall in love. He was out of practice and out of touch. He cared so much for Lucas, but if anyone was going to fuck this up, it was him.
Dante couldn’t even tell Lucas he was sorry for trying to stop him from seeing Shaw. He’d only wanted to protect him and his feelings.
Lucas pulled a sad face. “Party pooper. I know something that will cheer you up.”
“Oh?”
“I have access to Fred Bradley-Jefferson’s personnel files. I can find out where he lives. And I can find out when he’s away on business, or on holiday.”
“You’re not suggesting…?”
Lucas laughed. Dante’s attempt to appear mortified had failed.
“Why not? He got a six-figure bonus last year at the same time as he laid off half his team and made the ones who were left pick up the slack. The chiefs love all that. They’re a bunch of arseholes, the lot of them.” Lucas’s grin was sly. “You could be like Robin Hood. Steal from the rich and, somehow, give it back to the poor.”
“I’m not a thief. And even if I were able to get the job done, I don’t have a fence. I don’t have any contacts in that business anymore.”
Lucas pushed off Dante’s lap and paced in front of the window. Hand on hip, lips pursed, he nodded seriously. “That’s a problem. It’s also a technicality. In theory, you could plan the theft. It’s not like you’ve ever really given it up.”
“What do you mean? Of course I have.”
“Think about it. Lois told me about the practical jokes, the bets. Then there was everything that happened with me. What you did, following me, and telling me to call the ambulance, got me out of a whole pile of shit. You did that. You’re like a… a mastermind. No, a crimesmith.”
“A crimesmith?”
“Yes. Like a pickpocket is a fingersmith. You know how to plan, but you also know how to react. You know how to craft a crime, Dante, and how to get away with it. How brilliant is that?”
“I don’t know about brilliant. It’s certainly one way of looking at things.” An interesting and dangerously appealing way of looking at things. “But you wouldn’t want me to get back into that game, surely?”
“No. It was just a thought.”
Dante didn’t believe Lucas. He saw the spark. He recognized it.
Lucas returned to Dante’s lap. From that position he could ask for anything he wanted, and Dante would oblige. Dante hoped Lucas hadn’t worked that out yet. He was running out of defenses.
“All right. Robbing Fred is ridiculous. But how about this? I’ve always wanted to see Asia. Just for a holiday. Have you been before?”
“No.” Dante had barely traveled anywhere. He hadn’t cared to for most of his life.
“You could come with me. I mean, I’d like it if you would come with me.”
“To Asia?”
“Yes. Thailand, Malaysia, Japan. All over.”
“When?”
“February or March. I’d have to ask for leave from work, or maybe I’ll quit and look for something else when we get back. I’d like to go for a month, maybe two. I know that seems like a long trip and we don’t know each other that well yet, but we don’t have to do everything together.”
Doing everything with Lucas wasn’t the part that concerned Dante. He’d never been away from home, or from Lois and Kit, for more than a week. He’d never been so far away from everything familiar. And yet, Dante warmed to the idea more with each passing second. It would be good to have time to think. To reassess. To put his mind to challenges that didn’t involve how to sell off last year’s crotchless panties.
February. Before then, there would be so many things to do. To organize. To plan. Dante wouldn’t have a minute to lose. His mind raced, recalling the books he’d read—books he stocked in Le Plaisir—documenting the sexual and cultural traditions in those far-off countries. Such as Japan, the home of kinbaku. Then there was the food and the weather. Neither he nor Lucas liked the cold.
“A trip to Asia, with you. That would be some adventure.” Dante’s pulse sped. A real adventure. “If we’re going all that way, we should go for two months.”
“You’d come with me? You’d leave the shop?”
Dante shrugged. “I have excellent staff.”
“I never thought you’d go for it.” With his one good arm, Lucas crushed Dante with his hug. “I don’t care what the requisite time is before it’s okay for me to say this, but I love you, Dante.”
With his mouth, Dante found Lucas’s jaw, then his lips. He held the back of Lucas’s head in place and kissed him with everything he felt, with everything he couldn’t yet say, with the promise that he would try harder to be the man Lucas deserved.
He said, “I don’t have a passport. Can you believe that?”
“No way.” Lucas’s mouth was kissed raw, his hair a mess, and his face alight with amusement. “I thought you were a man of the world.”
“My world has been small. Too small. It’s time to expand my horizons.”
Lucas splayed his palm over Dante’s heart and rested his head against Dante’s temple, sighing contentedly. “Me too.”
And perhaps, while Dante sat on a long-haul flight, or on a long-distance train, he might contemplate the possibility of sketching out plans for burgling Frederick Bradley-Jefferson. He could gift them to Lucas, for Valentine’s Day, or for his birthday in March.
Where would be the harm in that?