Some Like It Hopeless (A Temporary Engagement) (9 page)

Cassandra said, “Affairs?”

Shane said, “You know who’s having an affair–”

Christian shook his head. “No, no, no. Something else. Anything else.”

What else was there?

Cassandra took a long,
long
sip of her wine. Silently vowed that Shane and/or Christian would pay for this. And said, “So, you mean like. . .Dungeons and Dragons?”

Brady rode the elevator to the penthouse, wondering if he should have taken a longer drive. The front desk had told him that Cassandra’s guest were still in residence, although they’d left the pool. All of them whole and alive.

They’d ordered dinner and Brady only briefly wondered if they were eating it on his bed.

He had a table. But Cassandra liked to eat in bed. Off his chest, occasionally.

But surely the three of them wouldn’t be eating on his bed.

Surely.

He relaxed when he saw them sitting at the table.

Three heads turned in his direction and Cassandra smiled. She said, “Have you ever played Dungeons and Dragons?”

He stopped. “No.”

Cassandra said to Christian, “You’ll have to teach all of us how to play,” and Brady raised his eyebrows.

Shane shivered and whispered loudly, “He’s going to make you pay for even imagining he’d play a little D&D.”

Cassandra whispered back, “I know.”

Shane held a hand to his chest. “And look at me, using the lingo and everything.”

Cassandra swatted his arm and said, “I know!”

Shane grinned at her and turned back to Brady. “Come and tell me a little bit about yourself.”

“Why?”

Shane whimpered, propping his face on his fist. “Does he ever turn the menace off?”

“If I say yes, he’ll punish me. So, yes.”

Brady smiled at her, with his eyes, and headed for a shower.

When the bathroom door opened, Brady’s hair was full of shampoo and he realized he should have locked the door.

He said, “That had better be Cassandra.”

“No. But I won’t peek. Promise.”

“I’m going to guess you are Shane.”

“Good guess.”

Brady paused, remembering Cassandra saying the same thing. Remembering what it was like to be a couple. Not just together, but a couple.

Shane said, “I wanted to say hello. Meet you. These long glances across a crowded room are just not enough.”

Brady snorted and rinsed his hair. Shane wanted to mark his territory. He might be gay but he was still a man. And Brady was encroaching.

“You wanted to make sure I know my place with Cassandra. Behind you.”

Brady heard rustling, as if Shane was moving items around on the counter, and Shane said, “I do want to make sure you know that. Not to warn you off; just to warn you.”

“That’s kind of you. But I’m just using her. She’s just using me.”

“That’s okay. A little mutually beneficial using never hurt anyone. It’s just when one party forgets that it’s just for fun. Cassandra doesn’t normally move in with men she’s known for a few weeks.”

“I made her an offer she couldn’t refuse.”

“The car, I know. She also watched me come in here.”

Brady said, “So you are worried. That I mean more to her than you would like.”

Shane murmured, “She’s checking. To see how you react to me. If she didn’t care about you, she wouldn’t care what you thought.”

Brady turned off the water and pulled back the curtain. Shane’s eyes met his in the mirror and Brady said, “I’m not going to react to you. I don’t care one way or the other.”

Shane glanced down and murmured, “I can see that.”

He turned around, kept his eyes up, and crossed his arms.

Just two men, facing off. Over a woman.

Brady couldn’t see that being gay changed much about being a man. Just who you liked to cuddle up to at night.

Shane said, “I can at least tell her that she doesn’t need to worry about you being a switch-hitter.”

Brady chuckled, grabbing a towel and wrapping it around his waist. “You think she’d care about that?”

“Yes. I think she would care a lot. More than I want her to.” Shane’s eyes slid down Brady’s chest. “But really, who could blame her.”

Brady thought quite a few people could and would, including the two men facing off in this bathroom.

Shane said, “I love her and I don’t want her hurt.”

“I don’t know how I could hurt her, she loves you. I don’t know why I’d hurt her, I love someone else.”

Shane nodded. “Love.
C’est impossible
.”

“Impossible and hopeless. Including your little friend out there.”

“I know, you can’t even see his knees.” Shane held his hands up and shrugged. “Love.
C’est impossible
.”

Brady walked over to stand next to him at the counter. Shane propped his hip against the counter and watched. “And who is it that you love?”

“My wife.”

Shane blinked uncontrollably. “Married?”

“She. . .died.”

Brady grabbed for his toothbrush and thought that those were actual tears popping into Shane’s eyes.

“So you give Cassandra your body, but she will never have your heart. And she gives you her body, but you will never feel her love.” Shane closed his eyes. “Oh, that is so painfully beautiful. Oh, I love it.”

Brady grunted, and when Shane opened his eyes again, the tears were gone. “Easy love is boring. Loving your dead wife is tragic. I adore tragic.”

“Loving your gay friend is just as tragic.”

“And I adore Cassandra. I love her. If she’d been born a man, or if I’d been born straight, we would have been so happy. It would have been easy. And then, we’d be boring.”

Brady turned his head away from the mirror, to look Shane in the eyes, and saw the same look that was in Cassandra’s.

Life’s a bitch. What’s next?

And he saw also that Cassandra was Shane’s, always would be.

Brady nodded imperceptibly. He didn’t want Cassandra. Not her heart, not her love.

She was only a little distraction. A little bit of peace.

Shane pushed away from the counter and gave him a little finger wave. “Thanks for the show.”

Brady waited until Shane had pushed open the bathroom door to say, “You’re welcome.”

Brady was still grooming a few minutes later when there was a light knock on the door. He sighed, hanging his head. He hadn’t realized that when he’d moved Cassandra in, he’d moved her entire posse in.

He said loudly, “Who is it this time?”

Cassandra open the door and leaned against the jamb. “They’ve gone home. Are you done with meetings for tonight?

He nodded, even though she already seemed to know his schedule. “I’m free for a few hours.”

“Oh, good.”

“No. You’ve been very, very bad. A man’s shower time is sacred.”

He walked toward her, slowly, menacingly. He wrapped his hand around the back of her neck and walked her toward the bed.

She said, “Is it?”

“And Dungeons and Dragons?”

“He’s from Utah. Excuses must be made.”

Brady sat down, pulling her between his legs, his towel parting helpfully. “Just which one of us were you testing?”

“You. I can’t really picture myself sleeping with a guy who’s played D&D before.” She whispered, “Look at me using the lingo and everything.”

She pushed at him until he toppled backwards.

Not the question Brady had been asking but he didn’t need to ask again. Shane didn’t need to be tested.

Cassandra climbed on to the bed, climbed on to him, and said, “I didn’t send him in there.”

“You could have stopped him.”

“I don’t think you know Shane all that well yet.”

He knew Cassandra. He said, “I think we all dance to your tune.”

She smiled. “That’s nice. Now if only it was true.”

She stretched out on top of him, folded her arms across his chest and rested her chin. She said, “Did you have a nice drive?”

No. It hadn’t been nice. But it hadn’t been not nice, either.

He’d wanted to get back here.

He wanted what was next. He wanted to look in the mirror and see that same look in his eyes as he saw in theirs. The acceptance of what was, the hope of what could be.

But he didn’t want to leave his family behind.

He ignored her question. “What was Shane looking for in the bathroom?”

Cassandra pushed herself up, her brows furrowed in confusion. Then she laughed. “Probably sex toys.”

“Did you tell him we don’t need any?”

“No. I told him you were one gigantic sex toy.”

He should have guessed that. “No wonder he came in to get a peek.”

“No wonder. You didn’t have to give him one.”

He shrugged. “Seemed like the easiest way to assert my dominance. Because mine’s bigger.”

She laughed, shaking her head. “Did he give you a peek, too? Then how do you know?”

“Because mine’s bigger.”

She patted his cheek, still laughing. “I don’t think it works that way with him.” She shrugged. “But okay, if you’re happy that it’s been resolved.”

“It’s been resolved.”

She looked confused again but he didn’t clarify. He and Shane had laid down a few lines. Had decided who would get what parts of Cassandra.

All without coming right out and saying it. Because they were men.

And since Brady did know Cassandra better than a few weeks would suggest, he didn’t tell her any of that.

And since Brady did know Cassandra better than a few weeks would suggest, he wiggled beneath her until his towel came apart and she got distracted.

Until she gave him the only part of her he wanted.

Brady went down with Cassandra early Monday morning to get the car. He’d told Rodrigo that she would be driving it.

He just wasn’t sure either of them were actually going to let her do it.

His little Z was waiting in front of the hotel, Cassandra next to him tired and cranky that she had to wake up even earlier than normal to get to work on time. Brady couldn’t decide what was worse, her driving his car tired or her driving his car pumped full of caffeine, so he’d ordered her coffee half decaf.

She smiled when she slid into the driver’s side, and Brady briefly thought about Argentina. Briefly wondered if he’d see either one of them again, and then he remembered Shane. Shane and Christian.

If that ever ended, Brady would have to take his car back from Cassandra.

Rodrigo sidled up to stand next to Brady and said, “
Jefe
.”

And in that one word was all the disapproval one man could give another for letting a woman keep his balls in her pocket.

You didn’t give a woman your car. You didn’t give a woman like Cassandra your Z.

Brady nodded. “If she brings it back with dings or dents, just take care of it. I don’t want to know.”

Rodrigo said, “You give her your little Z and you won’t even talk to me about a raise?”

A smile played at Brady’s mouth until Cassandra pulled away from the curb, over-revving the engine.

“Madre de dios.” Rodrigo clutched at his heart.

Cassandra gave a little finger wave out the window, and Rodrigo and Brady watched until she was out of sight. Long gone, and they kept standing there.

They sighed, heartfelt.

And then Rodrigo thumped him on the back. “Better go make some money,
Jefe
. So you can buy another one when she crashes it.”

Brady’s heart squeezed, imagining Cassandra lying broken and bloody in his car. Another death on his shoulders.

Then he pushed it away and turned to go to work.

Rodrigo stopped him with, “
Jefe
, wait.”

Brady turned back to find him looking pained. “What’s wrong?”

“Her car. It’s right there, where everyone can see it. And, if you need to go somewhere. . .”

The horror of Brady driving Cassandra’s car nearly made him laugh out loud.

Rodrigo said, “Let me take care of it.”

Brady nodded. “Carte blanche.”

Rodrigo grinned and said, “Now that is better than a raise.”

Brady lasted until noon, and then he sent a text to Cassandra.
Make it to work alright?

He waited for her reply. And waited.

Twisted steel, mangled body.

The Z was too powerful for her. He’d driven with her up Mulholland Drive and hadn’t been sure they were going to make it.